Mary had scarcely received from Aggie an account of Cassidy's
threatening invasion, when the maid announced that Mr. Irwin had called.
“Show him in, in just two minutes,” Mary directed.
“Who's the gink?” Aggie demanded, with that slangy diction which was her
habit.
“You ought to know,” Mary returned, smiling a little. “He's the
lawyer retained by General Hastings in the matter of a certain
breach-of-promise suit.”
“Oh, you mean yours truly,” Aggie exclaimed, not in the least abashed by
her forgetfulness in an affair that concerned herself so closely. “Hope
he's brought the money. What about it?”
“Leave the room now,” Mary ordered, crisply. “When I call to you, come
in, but be sure and leave everything to me. Merely follow my lead. And,
Agnes--be very ingenue.”
“Oh, I'm wise--I'm wise,” Aggie nodded, as she hurried out toward her
bedroom. “I'll be a squab--surest thing you know!”
Next moment, Mary gave a formal greeting to the lawyer who represented
the man she planned to mulct effectively, and invited him to a chair
near her, while she herself retained her place at the desk, within a
drawer of which she had just locked the formidable-appearing document
received from Harris.
Irwin lost no time in coming to the point.
“I called in reference to this suit, which Miss Agnes Lynch threatens to
bring against my client, General Hastings.”
Mary regarded the attorney with a level glance, serenely expressionless
as far as could be achieved by eyes so clear and shining, and her voice
was cold as she replied with significant brusqueness.
“It's not a threat, Mr. Irwin. The suit will be brought.”
The lawyer frowned, and there was a strident note in his voice when he
answered, meeting her glance with an uncompromising stare of hostility.
“You realize, of course,” he said finally, “that this is merely plain
blackmail.”
There was not the change of a feature in the face of the woman who
listened to the accusation. Her eyes steadfastly retained their clear
gaze into his; her voice was still coldly formal, as before.
“If it's blackmail, Mr. Irwin, why don't you consult the police?”
she inquired, with manifest disdain. Mary turned to the maid, who now
entered in response to the bell she had sounded a minute before. “Fanny,
will you ask Miss Lynch to come in, please?” Then she faced the lawyer
again, with an aloofness of manner that was contemptuous. “Really, Mr.
Irwin,” she drawled, “why don't you take this matter to the police?”
The reply was uttered with conspicuous exasperation.
“You know perfectly well,” the lawyer said bitterly, “that General
Hastings cannot afford such publicity. His position would be
jeopardized.”
“Oh, as for that,” Mary suggested evenly, and now there was a trace of
flippancy in her fashion of speaking, “I'm sure the police would keep
your complaint a secret. Really, you know, Mr. Irwin, I think you had
better take your troubles to the police, rather than to me. You will get
much more sympathy from them.”
The lawyer sprang up, with an air of sudden determination.
“Very well, I will then,” he declared, sternly. “I will!”
Mary, from her vantage point at the desk across from him, smiled a
smile that would have been very engaging to any man under more favorable
circumstances, and she pushed in his direction the telephone that stood
there.
“3100, Spring,” she remarked, encouragingly, “will bring an officer
almost immediately.” She leaned back in her chair, and surveyed the
baffled man amusedly.
The lawyer was furious over the failure of his effort to intimidate this
extraordinarily self-possessed young woman, who made a mock of his every
thrust. But he was by no means at the end of his resources.
“Nevertheless,” he rejoined, “you know perfectly well that General
Hastings never promised to marry this girl. You know----” He broke off
as Aggie entered the drawing-room,
Now, the girl was demure in seeming almost beyond belief, a childish
creature, very fair and dainty, guileless surely, with those untroubled
eyes of blue, those softly curving lips of warmest red and the more
delicate bloom in the rounded cheeks. There were the charms of innocence
and simplicity in the manner of her as she stopped just within the
doorway, whence she regarded Mary with a timid, pleading gaze, her
slender little form poised lightly as if for flight
“Did you want me, dear?” she asked. There was something half-plaintive
in the modulated cadences of the query.
“Agnes,” Mary answered affectionately, “this is Mr. Irwin, who has come
to see you in behalf of General Hastings.”
“Oh!” the girl murmured, her voice quivering a little, as the lawyer,
after a short nod, dropped again into his seat; “oh, I'm so frightened!”
She hurried, fluttering, to a low stool behind the desk, beside Mary's
chair, and there she sank down, drooping slightly, and catching hold of
one of Mary's hands as if in mute pleading for protection against the
fear that beset her chaste soul.
“Nonsense!” Mary exclaimed, soothingly. “There's really nothing at all
to be frightened about, my dear child.” Her voice was that with which
one seeks to cajole a terrified infant. “You mustn't be afraid, Agnes.
Mr. Irwin says that General Hastings did not promise to marry you. Of
course, you understand, my dear, that under no circumstances must you
say anything that isn't strictly true, and that, if he did not promise
to marry you, you have no case--none at all. Now, Agnes, tell me: did
General Hastings promise to marry you?”
“Oh, yes--oh, yes, indeed!” Aggie cried, falteringly. “And I wish he
would. He's such a delightful old gentleman!” As she spoke, the girl let
go Mary's hand and clasped her own together ecstatically.
The legal representative of the delightful old gentleman scowled
disgustedly at this outburst. His voice was portentous, as he put a
question.
“Was that promise made in writing?”
“No,” Aggie answered, gushingly. “But all his letters were in writing,
you know. Such wonderful letters!” She raised her blue eyes toward
the ceiling in a naive rapture. “So tender, and so--er--interesting!”
Somehow, the inflection on the last word did not altogether suggest the
ingenuous.
“Yes, yes, I dare say,” Irwin agreed, hastily, with some evidences of
chagrin. He had no intention of dwelling on that feature of the letters,
concerning which he had no doubt whatsoever, since he knew the amorous
General very well indeed. They would be interesting, beyond shadow of
questioning, horribly interesting. Such was the confessed opinion of the
swain himself who had written them in his folly--horribly interesting
to all the reading public of the country, since the General was a
conspicuous figure.
Mary intervened with a suavity that infuriated the lawyer almost beyond
endurance.
“But you're quite sure, Agnes,” she questioned gently, “that General
Hastings did promise to marry you?” The candor of her manner was
perfect.
And the answer of Aggie was given with a like convincing emphasis.
“Oh, yes!” she declared, tensely. “Why, I would swear to it.” The limpid
eyes, so appealing in their soft lusters, went first to Mary, then gazed
trustingly into those of the routed attorney.
“You see, Mr. Irwin, she would swear to that,” emphasized Mary.
“We're beaten,” he confessed, dejectedly, turning his glance toward
Mary, whom, plainly, he regarded as his real adversary in the combat on
his client's behalf. “I'm going to be quite frank with you, Miss
Turner, quite frank,” he stated with more geniality, though with a very
crestfallen air. Somehow, indeed, there was just a shade too much of
the crestfallen in the fashion of his utterance, and the woman whom he
addressed watched warily as he continued. “We can't afford any scandal,
so we're going to settle at your own terms.” He paused expectantly, but
Mary offered no comment; only maintained her alert scrutiny of the
man. The lawyer, therefore, leaned forward with a semblance of frank
eagerness. Instantly, Aggie had become agog with greedily blissful
anticipations, and she uttered a slight ejaculation of joy; but Irwin
paid no heed to her. He was occupied in taking from his pocket a thick
bill-case, and from this presently a sheaf of banknotes, which he laid
on the desk before Mary, with a little laugh of discomfiture over having
been beaten in the contest.
As he did so, Aggie thrust forth an avaricious hand, but it was caught
and held by Mary before it reached above the top of the desk, and the
avaricious gesture passed unobserved by the attorney.
“We can't fight where ladies are concerned,” he went on, assuming, as
best he might contrive, a chivalrous tone. “So, if you will just hand
over General Hastings' letters, why, here's your money.”
Much to the speaker's surprise, there followed an interval of silence,
and his puzzlement showed in the knitting of his brows. “You have the
letters, haven't you?” he demanded, abruptly.
Aggie coyly took a thick bundle from its resting place on her rounded
bosom.
“They never leave me,” she murmured, with dulcet passion. There was
in her voice a suggestion of desolation--a desolation that was the
blighting effect of letting the cherished missives go from her.
“Well, they can leave you now, all right,” the lawyer remarked
unsympathetically, but with returning cheerfulness, since he saw the end
of his quest in visible form before him. He reached quickly forward for
the packet, which Aggie extended willingly enough. But it was Mary who,
with a swift movement, caught and held it.
“Not quite yet, Mr. Irwin, I'm afraid,” she said, calmly.
The lawyer barely suppressed a violent ejaculation of annoyance.
“But there's the money waiting for you,” he protested, indignantly.
The rejoinder from Mary was spoken with great deliberation, yet with
a note of determination that caused a quick and acute anxiety to the
General's representative.
“I think,” Mary explained tranquilly, “that you had better see our
lawyer, Mr. Harris, in reference to this. We women know nothing of such
details of business settlement.”
“Oh, there's no need for all that formality,” Irwin urged, with a great
appearance of bland friendliness.
“Just the same,” Mary persisted, unimpressed, “I'm quite sure you would
better see Mr. Harris first.” There was a cadence of insistence in her
voice that assured the lawyer as to the futility of further pretense on
his part.
“Oh, I see,” he said disagreeably, with a frown to indicate his complete
sagacity in the premises.
“I thought you would, Mr. Irwin,” Mary returned, and now she smiled in
a kindly manner, which, nevertheless, gave no pleasure to the chagrined
man before her. As he rose, she went on crisply: “If you'll take the
money to Mr. Harris, Miss Lynch will meet you in his office at four
o'clock this afternoon, and, when her suit for damages for breach
of promise has been legally settled out of court, you will get the
letters.... Good-afternoon, Mr. Irwin.”
The lawyer made a hurried bow which took in both of the women, and
walked quickly toward the door. But he was arrested before he reached
it by the voice of Mary, speaking again, still in that imperturbable
evenness which so rasped his nerves, for all its mellow resonance. But
this time there was a sting, of the sharpest, in the words themselves.
“Oh, you forgot your marked money, Mr. Irwin,” Mary said.
The lawyer wheeled, and stood staring at the speaker with a certain
sheepishness of expression that bore witness to the completeness of his
discomfiture. Without a word, after a long moment in which he perceived
intently the delicate, yet subtly energetic, loveliness of this slender
woman, he walked back to the desk, picked up the money, and restored it
to the bill-case. This done, at last he spoke, with a new respect in his
voice, a quizzical smile on his rather thin lips.
“Young woman,” he said emphatically, “you ought to have been a lawyer.”
And with that laudatory confession of her skill, he finally took
his departure, while Mary smiled in a triumph she was at no pains to
conceal, and Aggie sat gaping astonishment over the surprising turn of
events.
It was the latter volatile person who ended the silence that followed on
the lawyer's going.
“You've darn near broke my heart,” she cried, bouncing up violently,
“letting all that money go out of the house.... Say, how did you know it
was marked?”
“I didn't,” Mary replied, blandly; “but it was a pretty good guess,
wasn't it? Couldn't you see that all he wanted was to get the letters,
and have us take the marked money? Then, my simple young friend, we
would have been arrested very neatly indeed--for blackmail.”
Aggie's innocent eyes rounded in an amazed consternation, which was not
at all assumed.
“Gee!” she cried. “That would have been fierce! And now?” she
questioned, apprehensively.
Mary's answer repudiated any possibility of fear.
“And now,” she explained contentedly, “he really will go to our lawyer.
There, he will pay over that same marked money. Then, he will get the
letters he wants so much. And, just because it's a strictly business
transaction between two lawyers, with everything done according to legal
ethics----”
“What's legal ethics?” Aggie demanded, impetuously. “They sound some
tasty!” With the comment, she dropped weakly into a chair.
Mary laughed in care-free enjoyment, as well she might after winning the
victory in such a battle of wits.
“Oh,” she said, happily, “you just get it legally, and you get twice as
much!”
“And it's actually the same old game!” Aggie mused. She was doing her
best to get a clear understanding of the matter, though to her it was
all a mystery most esoteric.
Mary reviewed the case succinctly for the other's enlightenment.
“Yes, it's the same game precisely,” she affirmed. “A shameless old roue
makes love to you, and he writes you a stack of silly letters.”
The pouting lips of the listener took on a pathetic droop, and her voice
quivered as she spoke with an effective semblance of virginal terror.
“He might have ruined my life!”
Mary continued without giving much attention to these histrionics.
“If you had asked him for all this money for the return of his letters,
it would have been blackmail, and we'd have gone to jail in all human
probability. But we did no such thing--no, indeed! What we did wasn't
anything like that in the eyes of the law. What we did was merely to
have your lawyer take steps toward a suit for damages for breach of
promise of marriage for the sum of ten thousand dollars. Then, his
lawyer appears in behalf of General Hastings, and there follow a
number of conferences between the legal representatives of the opposing
parties. By means of these conferences, the two legal gentlemen run up
very respectable bills of expenses. In the end, we get our ten thousand
dollars, and the flighty old General gets back his letters.... My dear,”
Mary concluded vaingloriously, “we're inside the law, and so we're
perfectly safe. And there you are!”