MARY SHOWS HER HAND
Mary Regan stood in the dusk of her sitting-room, holding apart the
velvet hangings of a window, and gazing far down at the quadruple line
of motorcars which at this twilight winter hour moves in slow lockstep
between Thirty-third and Fifty-ninth Streets; and as she vacantly gazed
upon the world’s greatest parade of pleasure vehicles, part of her
mind was wondering about her approaching interview with Clifford--and
part of her mind, in subconscious preparation for this meeting, was
automatically reviewing, and checking-up, and reswearing allegiance
to some of the decisions she had reached concerning herself and the
course she had chosen. She was somewhat excited; but she felt sure of
herself--very sure!
During the six months she had been away, she had studied, or believed
she had, her own nature most carefully, and also her immediate
interests, and also the bolder reachings of her ambition. She had
considered these matters, not sentimentally,--she hated sentiment,
she told herself,--but with cool brain, and with no fear to admit the
truth. To be sure there had been a swift seizure and possession of her
by emotion when she and Clifford had kissed that summer dawn long ago
in Washington Square; and now and again this emotional element had
arisen in her with appealing energy, but her cool intelligence had
always controlled such impulses. What did life offer with a police
official who was on the square? Nothing! At least nothing that she
cared for or dreamed of. Honest police officials never got anywhere.
And as for Clifford, marriage with him would ruin such career for him
as might be possible. It would never do--not for either of them.
What she wanted was altogether different. She _knew_, for she had
analyzed herself with the apartness of a scientist. Her former attitude
toward crime, acquired through a girlhood spent with those cynical
gentlemen of the world, her father and her Uncle Joe,--that attitude
to be sure was now changed; at least such intentions as formerly she
had had she now knew to be quiescent; Clifford had influenced her
to this extent. But though the criminal impulses given her by her
training were gone, the worldly attitude and instincts begotten by that
training still remained. She believed herself a worldling; and more,
she believed herself a competent worldling. She believed she had no
illusions about herself. The things in life that were worth while--so
in her confident youthfulness she decided--were luxury, admiration, the
pleasures that money could buy. And these things she believed she could
win.
This much, in her retreat, she had already decided before Jack Morton
had appeared in the quiet countryside. The coming of Jack, with the
opportunities represented by his amiable person, had made her even more
decided.
And so, as she now gazed down through the winter dusk upon the shifting
motor-tops, she was very certain of herself despite her palpitant
expectation over Clifford’s coming--very confident of herself, and what
she was, and what she was going to do, and what she was going to be:
just as many another young woman, of a perhaps more careful rearing,
was preeningly confident of herself, in those limousines far below her.
For this was the time of all times, and the place of all places, that
young women were trained to dream of themselves; and here, also, often
the dreams came gorgeously true--for a time!...
The ring of her apartment bell brought Mary sharply from her thoughts.
Switching on the lights, she opened the door and admitted Clifford into
her sitting-room. She spoke first, with a formality that held him at a
distance.
“I consented to see you because an hour or two ago you discovered a
private matter of mine, and I neglected to ask you to keep it silent.”
“You refer to your engagement to Jack Morton?”
“I do. Of course you will say nothing about it.”
“That you must leave to my discretion.”
“You mean you are going to tell?” she demanded.
He tried to keep his business here to the front of his mind, but now,
as he sat face to face with her, the old question recurred for which
he seemed able to reach no final answer: what was she really like
beneath this exterior she showed him?--what might she be beneath and
within the self she supposed herself to be?
“I mean that I am reserving the right to do exactly what I please,”
he replied, looking at her squarely. “This business of your secret
engagement is also what made me want to see you--but it is only one of
many things. I have done a lot of thinking since I left you two hours
ago. Also I have just seen Police Commissioner Thorne.”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Thorne honored me by offering me the position of Chief of the
Detective Bureau. I accepted the position--”
“Then I suppose I should address you as-- By the way, just how should
one address you?”
“But I immediately withdrew my acceptance,” he continued, ignoring the
cool irony which seemed to come automatically into her voice whenever
they met. “I refused because of certain things I learned from Thorne
about you.”
“About me? What are they?”
“That’s what I want to learn more about--and from you.”
“Ah--then you still are a detective?”
“I suppose I am,” still ignoring the irony of her tone. “But just now I
primarily am a person who is interested in his own affairs as a man.”
“Your affairs?” she questioned.
“Just now your affairs have become my affairs. And I’m hoping that
you’ll help me by frankly answering my questions.”
“Questions about what?”
“About yourself.”
“Such as?”
“Instead of leaving it for me to discover by accident, why did you not
frankly tell me of your intention to marry some one else?--when you
knew what for six months I had been hoping for. How much do you care
for Jack Morton?”
His determined face, and the flashing memories of what he had tried
to do for her, checked the sharp replies that instinctively started
for her lips. The steady gaze of his intense eyes sent a warm
tremor through her, gave her a swift, tingling pleasure. But that
very pleasure was a warning to her: such feeling in her was only
aberration--the life signs of some of her less important elements,
which she had adjudged to be a menace to her success and which she
must therefore suppress. The next moment she had full control of
herself--and she had decided on what should be her course with him.
“You seem to regard me as a mystery,” she remarked with tantalizing
coolness.
“You are one--in a degree. And I want it solved.”
“There is nothing in the least mysterious about me,” she said in her
even tone. “I’ll tell you all you need to know. You may be seated if
you like.” And after they were both in chairs: “First about Mr. Morton.
He is a pleasant, agreeable gentleman. He has money and position.”
“You love him?”
“I like him.”
“You are marrying him, then, because it is a good business
proposition--to put it brutally.”
She met his flushed face calmly. “That is not putting it brutally.
Rather, it is merely putting it honestly.” This she had decided
must be made the final interview between them. “I told you, when
you were here two hours ago, that I had discovered that I am not at
all the woman you believed lay undeveloped in me. You may call me
worldly--selfish--ambitious. And you will be tremendously right.”
He looked at her hard, and was silent a moment. “But that isn’t
answering my first question and all it implied: why didn’t you write me
before you returned to New York? Why didn’t you frankly tell me of your
intended marriage?”
She lifted her shoulders ever so slightly. “It must have been because I
never thought of it.”
He flushed, but she met his look with unabashed composure. She
had lied, but she had lied easily, for the lie had been carefully
premeditated. When, during her absence, her mind’s decision had gone
against Clifford, she had considered what would be the most effective
method of giving undebatable conclusion to the affair; and had decided
upon this course that she had followed. No need for letters--no chance
for sentimental pleading to alter her mind; it would be all over, and
ended, before he knew a thing. Further, since the break had to come, it
appealed to her pride to seem superior and indifferent.
Clifford was angry, but he contained himself. “To go on: was your
meeting with Mr. Morton in that out-of-the-way spot, Pine Mountain
Lodge, pure coincidence as he said?--or did cunning brains bring it
about?”
“You mean, my cunning brains?” Two spots of conscious color appeared in
her cheeks.
“I do not mean you. Did some one else, perhaps without your knowledge
at the time, plan that you should meet?”
“What are you driving at?” she demanded sharply.
“I don’t know myself yet--exactly.”
“Who could have planned our meeting? As you know, I went to Pine
Mountain Lodge to be alone. Mr. Morton, not knowing of my presence
there or even of my existence, came to Pine Mountain to rest up. We
couldn’t help meeting, since the lodge is the only place at which one
can stay. That’s all there is to this amazing mystery.”
“Undoubtedly all you see. But the coincidence explanation doesn’t
explain everything. Some one may have been behind Jack Morton’s going.”
“Who? In what way? And for what reason?”
“Those are things to be found out.” He looked at her steadily for a
moment. “I asked you this before, but I am going to ask it again: why
are you here in hiding?”
“After all, I guess I don’t mind telling you in the least,” she
returned coolly, with a sudden perverse gratification in revealing
what she knew he could not like in her. Also she felt that here was
another detail by which she could make Clifford feel the utter finality
of the break between them. “Jack and I came to New York intending to
be married the next day. But the very evening of the day we arrived,
Jack’s father unexpectedly came to town and appeared at the Biltmore
where Jack is staying.”
“Was that before or after the evening I saw you at the Grand Alcazar
with Mr. Loveman?”
“You saw me there the evening of the day of my return. Jack was to have
had dinner with me that night,” she added, “and had reserved the table
and had asked his friend, Mr. Loveman, and then he got tangled up with
a friend and could not come. It was that same evening that his father
arrived in town. I believe this is simple and clear.”
“As far as it goes. But why did you go into hiding?”
“Isn’t that rather obvious?” she returned with her cool frankness.
“Jack and I were going to keep our marriage secret--perhaps for a long
time. The appearance of his father, with the announcement that he was
going to stay with Jack, naturally delayed our marriage. I insisted
that it be postponed until his father was away and there was no danger
of immediate discovery.”
“And Jack?”
“Jack was reckless. He was all for getting married right away. But I
refused to take the risk. Also, under the circumstances, it didn’t seem
particularly wise to give the father a chance to find out about me by
our appearing openly together.”
“But you yourself could have gone out openly alone, or with friends.”
“Oh, of course,” she said dryly--“and have run the risk of Jack and
his father seeing me in public, and learning all about me. No, thank
you--the only way for me has been to keep under cover for the present.”
Clifford had felt a great start, but he had suppressed it; and he
managed to say quite casually: “Of course Jack Morton doesn’t know who
you really are?”
“Of course not. Oh, I don’t mind so much what he might learn about me,”
she added, a bit defiantly. “You police have nothing on me--not in the
way of a conviction, anyhow. But it would not help particularly if he
learned who my father had been, and that Joe Russell is my uncle, and
that my brother is Slant-Face Regan.”
“But he’ll be sure to learn some day.”
“By that time he’ll have become so attached to me that it’ll not make
much difference.”
“But there’s his father. What about what’ll happen when he finds out?
All Jack’s money comes through his father.”
“Oh, his father will come around in the end. You see he’s not to know
till we get ready.”
Clifford looked at her for a long moment of silence.
“I know what you’re thinking; you’re thinking I’m just another
adventuress,” she said with a shrug. “But what of that? Every woman is
an adventuress who is trying to better her position and who is using
her head to do it. And that’s just what every woman is doing!”
“I was not thinking chiefly of that; I was thinking of Peter Loveman.
Did he suggest that you go into hiding?”
“When Jack told him of our engagement, he said he didn’t want to know
anything about it, he wanted to keep out of any such affair. But when
he learned Jack’s father was in town, he telephoned me to keep out of
the way.”
“You’ve known Loveman some time?”
“Since I came back to America. He’s been Uncle Joe’s lawyer; and
naturally they’re friends.”
“And he could have known you were in Pine Mountain Lodge?”
“Of course Uncle Joe might have told him.”
Clifford considered a moment. “Tell me, just what has Mr. Loveman had
to do with this affair?”
“I have already told you everything I know.”
Clifford was convinced that in this she was telling him the truth. But
all his senses informed him that somewhere, working in some manner,
behind this affair was Peter Loveman, playing with his master’s
subtlety upon human frailties, passions, and ambitions. Undoubtedly
Mary Regan was being used. Undoubtedly also Commissioner Thorne had
been right when he had declared that Mary Regan had no suspicion that
she was being used, that she believed that whatever she was doing she
was doing of her own free will.
He had put to her all the questions he had intended; and as for a
moment he sat gazing at her--so composed, so worldly-looking, and so
very young to be saying such things as she had just said--the more
personal questions, which had shaken him so often, throbbed through
him like so many gigantic and fiery pulse-beats: Was she through and
through and unchangeably this worldly, calculating Mary Regan that she
had so carefully depicted for him--or was it all just a pose? Or might
she believe herself sincere in this sophistication--and yet deep down
in her might there be the living essence of a very different Mary Regan
that she tried to deny and ignore? He could not forget that moment
in Washington Square when her soul had seemed unlocked; he could not
forget her kiss....
Clifford stood up as though his intention was to leave. She also rose.
His trifling strategy achieved its end--physical proximity and the
chance which sitting at formal distance in chairs did not permit.
Suddenly he gripped her two shoulder; and the energy and purpose and
feeling which he had kept in restraint during the past minutes now
burst forth.
“Listen to me, Mary Regan,” he declared tensely. “You are not going to
marry Jack Morton! You hear me!”
She was so startled at the change in him that she was hardly aware of
the hands clutching her shoulders. “Why not?”
His words rushed out. “I’m not going to say anything about it’s not
being square. He’s not good enough for you! Oh, I don’t mean to run
down a man I’ve called my friend. Jack Morton is pleasant enough in
his way. And you’ve seen him at his best--away from the lights and Big
Pleasure, when he was on his good behavior--and there are few men who
can be more agreeable than Jack Morton. But Broadway is likely to get
hold of him again! And girls!--no girl is pretty to him for more than
six months, and every pretty girl is prettier than the last pretty
girl! It’s just the way Jack is made--or the way this town has made
him. I tell you it’s an awful mistake!”
“It’s my own mistake I’m making!” Her dark eyes flashed at him. “Take
off your hands!”
Instead he clutched her all the tighter. “There’s a bigger reason than
the mistake. Mary, you love me!”
“Love you!” she ejaculated.
“Yes, you love me, and you know you love me!” he declared masterfully.
The impulse was upon him to sweep her from her announced determination
by dominating her with a swift power comprised of his own longing for
her and her reawakened liking for him. “You know you love me, or why
did you see Commissioner Thorne about me six months ago, and why did
you to-day suggest to him that he again offer me the place of Chief of
the Detective Bureau? You love me, and you thought your marriage to me
might injure my public career. You don’t care how much marriage to Jack
Morton may injure him. Don’t you think I see through you? Don’t you
think I understand? You’re not going to marry Jack Morton! You’re going
to marry me!”
She had paled--and her dark eyes, of a brown that was almost a
black, were fixed upon him widely, in what might have been fear, or
bewilderment, or fascination, or all of these--and he felt a trembling
go through her body. For a long moment they stood tensely thus: he
hoping that he had carried the day--and at the same time poignantly
wondering what she was about to say or do.
“You are going to marry me! You are going to marry me!” he repeated
after the manner of those who seek to work miracles by the power of a
forcefully iterated idea.
He felt her body grow taut; and the startled look of her face gave
place to composed decision. That moment he knew that he had lost--for
this day at least.
“Please remove your hands!” she commanded in a quiet, edged voice.
He did not at once obey; his faculties were still so engaged with his
struggle to turn her aside, and with his failure, that he scarcely
heard her.
“Please remove your hands!” she repeated, her voice not going up by so
much as a semi-tone.
His hands fell to his sides.
“Despite what you say, Mr. Clifford,” she continued in the same even
voice of calm decision, “I am not going to marry you, and I am going to
marry Mr. Morton.”
He was composed again. “Perhaps you may never marry me,” he returned
grimly. “But you certainly will never marry Jack Morton.”
“And why not?”
“Because I shall prevent it.”
“How?”
“By any and whatever means seem most effective.”
Her gaze sharpened. Then the red of anger faintly tinted the tawny
satin of her cheek.
“You mean to say you would be low enough to tell Jack or his father
about me and my family?”
He looked her straight in the face. “You have admitted that that
procedure might be effective.”
“You wouldn’t dare do that!” And she seized his arm with a grasp no
less intense than his of a minute before, and glared at him.
“I’ll do exactly what may be necessary, Miss Regan.”
“You--you--” she gasped. “You have no right to interfere in my affairs!”
“There is far more to this affair than just _You_, Miss Regan.” With an
almost impersonal movement he removed her hand from his arm and let it
fall. “I must be going. But do not forget for a moment that I am going
to prevent your marriage, and prevent it in whatever way will be most
effective.”
He bowed slightly. Standing just where he had left her, she watched
him go out, within her a dazed commotion of surprise, consternation,
suspense--and, strangely, not quite so high an anger toward Clifford as
she had felt two moments before.