MARY THINKS THINGS OUT
Mary awoke with a start to certain practical and immediate dangers of
her situation. Mr. Morton knew she was here at the Grantham, and so
did Peter Loveman; whatever she might do in the end, she had a desire
to avoid both of these men for the present--at least until she had
determined upon her course. There was but one way to escape them, and
that was to disappear from the Grantham before either of the pair had
time to return upon their different enterprises.
Within an hour she and her baggage were at another hotel. Within a
second hour she was being shown about by a representative of a renting
agency. That same evening she was installed in a little furnished
apartment in the Nineties just west of Central Park. The better to
protect her privacy she decided she would do her own housework and
would go out rarely except in the evening.
Here her mind began once more to review her situation--as it was
to keep on doing for many a long day to come. She had won, by an
unbelievable twist of human nature. Yet she had not won; she was, as
she now perceived, only at the beginning of an enterprise that was
hourly becoming more complex and difficult--and that was also leading
into what for her were undiscovered and uncomfortable areas of the
human soul.
To be sure, for the immediate present at least, she had apparently
averted the danger of the discovery of her secret marriage to Jack
Morton. But the danger of that discovery would keep on recurring--at
least until she had finally won out. And there was the ever-present
danger that her husband, and her husband’s father, might somehow learn
who Mary Regan was and had been. And there was the elder Morton, eager
in his amorous suit. And there was Peter Loveman, who might any time,
to serve his own ends, proceed swiftly upon some course that would mean
disaster for her.
And then, there were those queer feelings which had been stirring
in her since Maisie Jones, a choke in her voice, had called her
fine!--wonderful!--and since Maisie, loving Jack, had declared Mary had
proved that she would make far the better wife for Jack. Mary did not
understand these strange emotions. She did not like them, and she tried
to force them out of her being. But despite this effort there were
fear-stricken moments when, with all her dangers, she felt that she
could not even count upon herself.
The next morning she called up Jack, telling him where she was. He
could telephone her as often as he liked, she told him, if he would be
careful to speak only when he was alone. But she forbade him coming to
see her; that would be unsafe, as he might be followed. Jack protested
against this order, but she was firm, and at length he gave his promise.
As the days passed, days when she had no company except her own
thoughts and Jack’s telephone messages, she reasoned herself out of the
influence of those strange feelings begotten by the behavior and the
words of Maisie Jones (at least she believed she did), and she reached
a clearer conception of herself (or believed she did) and of what must
be her future procedure. And the way she saw herself, her plans, her
motives, was anything but unfavorable. She was just like most other
women. She wanted position, yes--she wanted money, yes; and she was
getting them in exactly the same way that the most proper and honored
women were winning them, by playing her cards as a woman. As for what
she was hiding--well, wasn’t all the world hiding something? She was
merely doing what all were doing.
She came to see herself--despite the methods by which she would attain
her end--as making a figure as a wife that Jack would be proud of
before the world. As Jack’s wife she was going to give him her best.
No man’s wife was going to be better-gowned or of more distinguished
appearance, and no wife could do more than she, with the will and the
brains which she knew she had, to hold her husband up to the standards
expected of a man of large affairs. Later, after she had made Jack into
a real man, and through that service had somehow managed to get Jack’s
father reconciled, and after she had thoroughly established herself
with them and as a noteworthy figure in their circle--later she would
tell them just who she was and what she had been, and by that time Mr.
Morton would recognize that she was the one woman in the world who
could have brought, and could still hold, Jack to such a position of
worldly success.
Thus she thought, as the lonely days went by. But as more and more she
saw Jack as the foundation of her plan, so more and more did she see
him in another possible aspect. This second possibility grew to be her
chief concern.
All this while her mind had been reverting again and again to Clifford.
After a time Clifford and her dominating concern began to be linked
together. At length there came a day when, obeying an impulse, she
called Clifford up.
Within an hour she was opening her door to him. Silently she led the
way across the dingy, chintz-furnished sitting-room, and with a rather
stiff formality the pair seated themselves.
“You sent for me,” Clifford began, quietly enough.
“Yes. I want you to help me.”
“Would you mind explaining?”
Already she had taken on that cool, defiant, challenging manner which
seemed instinctive with her in all her dealings with him. “You helped
get me into my marriage with Jack Morton. You said that experience was
the only thing which could make me over--and that this marriage might
prove to be the best possible experience by which Life could change me.
Remember that?”
“I did say something to that effect,” he replied quietly, watching her
and still wondering.
“Well, I am not going to be changed; I have told you that. But I have
accepted your challenge, and I’ll play the thing through to the finish.
But you are partly responsible for my position. That’s why I have the
right to ask you to help me.”
He stared. Only one so essentially defiant in spirit, so audaciously
self-confident, could be saying such things so quietly.
“You want me to lose out,” she went on, “but even so, I know you’ll
help me if you promise to do so. I’ll admit that there is no other
person I can call on who can really help me.”
“Help you? How?”
“With Jack.”
He was accustomed to her calm audacity. But none the less he was for
the moment taken aback by her request--that he, a rejected suitor,
should be so coolly called in to assist with the husband.
He recovered his speech. “Before I answer that, perhaps you will tell
me something.”
“What?”
“Something that has a bearing upon your plan with Jack. Excuse my
curiosity--but perhaps you will tell me just what was the outcome of
your affair with Maisie Jones?”
She was no less curious than he in regard to one point in that
experience--why he had refrained from action at the Grantham. She had
been wondering about this, over and over, all these days.
“You know about that?” Her words were as much an affirmation as a
question.
“I have had to know about it,” he said. “I knew of Jack’s engagement
and its pressing character, and when you went to the Grantham and took
the suite next to Miss Jones, I surmised, with the help of a few facts,
the general nature of your purpose there.”
“Then if you knew, why didn’t you interfere?”
“When I surmised what your plan was, I felt it was no affair of mine. I
was close at hand, but I kept myself in the background. I felt that it
was your game, for you to play out alone.”
She drew a deep breath. So that was his reason!--he had given her her
leash, he was letting her run free. Though watching her, he was, as he
had said before, leaving it to experience to make of her what it would.
She recalled his initial inquiry. “The affair ended,” she said briefly,
“by my being forced to tell Maisie Jones, in confidence, that I was
secretly married to Jack.”
“And Maisie Jones? I know she loved Jack.”
“She promised not to tell, or interfere.”
“Is that all? And if so, why?”
“She seemed to think--I did not try to deceive her; she deceived
herself--she seemed to think I would make Jack a better wife than she
would. And she said that, so Jack wouldn’t get into trouble with his
father about the engagement, she would have a letter written to Mr.
Morton breaking the engagement off because she did not love Jack.”
“Is that all?”
She met his gaze with composure, showing nothing of the strange and
persisting emotion Maisie Jones had awakened in her. “That is all.”
“Thank you.” He did not pursue his inquiry, though his eyes regarded
her keenly. “To come back to your request that I help you with Jack.
Whether I help you depends upon what you intend doing. First, how do
you happen to be here?”
Her answer was prompt and direct. “After all that has happened, it
seemed safest and wisest for me to disappear. Too many persons were
becoming mixed up in my affairs--I wanted to be free from them.”
“How about Jack? Is he also in the dark as to where you are?”
“Jack knows. But I do not dare see him.”
“And these are the only reasons you disappeared so suddenly from the
Grantham?”
“The only reasons,” she returned steadily. But consciously or
unconsciously Mary here withheld part of the truth. There was something
else: the unadmitted influence which the action of Maisie Jones had had
upon her.
“Next, if I am to help you,” continued Clifford, “what are your general
plans for the future? You don’t mind telling?”
“I don’t mind telling you everything.” And she went on to tell
him these things which she had thought out more definitely during
her solitary days. “My general plans are what they have been
since I married. My main purpose at present is to keep Jack going
straight--until through my influence he shall have become established
as a responsible business man; this I expect to be an achievement for
which I shall secure acknowledgment and which will win Mr. Morton’s
favor. And then, a little later, after I have established myself with
them, and have been openly before the public as Jack’s wife, I shall
tell them just who I am and what I have done.”
“And having done that, what do you think will happen?”
“I shall have proved to them that I am the one person who can hold
Jack to the job of being a man; and I shall have proved to them that,
despite my being Mary Regan, I can make a figure as a woman that Jack
and his father will be proud of before the world. That is my plan.”
The calculating worldliness of her frank scheme was amazing. Here was
the strangest part of their recent relationship--she had made it a
point always to show him her most worldly side.
“I see,” said Clifford. “But there are a few difficulties. How
about the older Morton and his urgent invitation to a cruise for two
passengers among the West Indies?”
“So long as I can keep in hiding, that’s not a pressing problem. And if
somehow he learns where I am, I shall be evasive; I can manage that.”
“And Peter Loveman, if he finds you are here?”
“I can handle Peter Loveman,” she replied confidently; and then added:
“Not long ago he wanted me to give up my plan concerning Jack. In fact
he threatened me.”
“Why?” Clifford asked quickly.
“He said I could not possibly succeed. Also there was something else he
wanted me to do.”
“And you replied to him?”
“I told him I was going straight ahead. And I showed him that I was
stronger than he was. He then suddenly became pleasant again, said his
threat had been only a joke. If I called the turn on him once, I guess
I can call it again if necessary.”
Clifford made mental note of this threat. “Let’s come back to Jack.
Would you mind being more explicit why, and in what way, you want me to
help?”
“All my chances of success are based upon making a man of Jack. As
matters now stand, it would ruin everything if I were to see him often.
Jack is very susceptible to the influence of the people immediately
around him--and if I dare not see him, how can I influence him? That is
my supreme difficulty.”
“I see,” said Clifford.
“Just there is where I want you to help me. Jack likes you. I want you
to see a lot of him--help keep him working--help keep him straight.”
Clifford stared at her. Her calm audacity was almost unbelievable--and
yet it was just like Mary Regan.
“I’ll help you,” he said after a moment. “Is there any special source
of danger you fear?”
“Only the general situation. Everything depends on Jack’s being a man.
Just now I can’t help him much; and Jack--you understand--is likely to
go in the direction of the person who is nearest him.”
“I’ll do what I can,” said Clifford.
Then, for the first time since his entrance, she showed emotion.
Impulsively she thrust out her hand and clasped his.
“Thank you!” she said.