Besides, you've got a gun. Please
go in quick; I'm expecting the people here any minute. And don't make
a sound that might arouse their suspicions and queer everything."
He entered, and she closed the door. So carefully that he did not hear
it, she locked the door; no more than in Hannigan's case did she want
Barlow to come bungling into a scene before it had reached its climax.
All was now ready for the curtain to rise. Quivering all through she
waited for Barney Palmer, whose entrance was to open her drama. She
glanced at her wrist-watch which she had left upon the little
lacquered writing-table. Ten minutes of nine. Ten more minutes to
wait. She felt far more of sickening suspense than ever did any young
playwright on the opening night of his first play. For she was more
than merely playwright. In her desperate, overwrought determination
Maggie had assumed for herself the super-mortal role of dea ex
machina. And in those moments of tense waiting Maggie, who so
feverishly loathed all she had been, was not at all sure whether she
was going to succeed in her part of goddess from the machine.
At five minutes to nine there was a ring. She gave a little jump at
the sound. That was Barney. Though generally when Barney came he used
the latch-key which his assumed dear cousinship, and the argued
possibility of their being out and thus causing him to wait around in
discomfort, Miss Grierson's sense of propriety had unbent far enough
to permit him to possess.
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