"
"At once?"
"As soon as telling him will do any good. And now you better hurry
back to your hotel, if you don't want Barney and Old Jimmie to suspect
what you've been up to. Though why you still want to hang on to that
pair, knowing what they are, is more than I can guess."
She stood up. "Wait a minute," she said as Maggie started for the
door. Maggie turned back, and for another moment the Duchess silently
peered deep into Maggie's eyes. Then she said shortly, almost sharply:
"At your age I was twice as pretty as you are--and twice as clever--
and I played much the same game. Look what I got out of life! . . .
Good-night." And abruptly the Duchess wheeled about and mounted the
stairway.
Twenty minutes later Maggie was back at the Grantham, her absence
unobserved. Though palpitant over Larry's fate, she had the
satisfaction of having achieved with Larry's grandmother what she had
set forth to achieve. She did not know, could not know, that what she
had accepted as her achievement was inconsequential compared to what
had actually been achieved by her spontaneous appearance before the
troubled Duchess.
CHAPTER XXIX
As the Duchess had gazed into Maggie's excited, imploring eyes, it had
been borne in upon her carefully judging and painfully hesitant mind
that there was better than a fifty per cent chance that Larry was
right in his estimate of Maggie; that Maggie's inclination toward
criminal adventure, her supreme self-confidence, all her bravado, were
but the superficial though strong tendencies developed by her
unfortunate environment; that within that cynical, worldly shell there
were the vital and plastic makings of a real woman.
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