Aggie a.s.sumed her formal society manner, exaggerated to the point of extravagance.

"Do come again, little one," she chirruped, caressingly. "I've enjoyed your visit so much!"

But Ca.s.sidy paid no apparent attention to her frivolousness; only turned and went noisily out of the drawing-room, offering no return to her daintily inflected good-afternoon.

For her own part, as she heard the outer door close behind the detective, Aggie's expression grew vicious, and the heavy brows drew very low, until the level line almost made her prettiness vanish.

"The truck-horse detective!" she sneered. "An eighteen collar, and a six-and-a-half hat! He sure had his nerve, trying to bluff us!"

But it was plain that Garson was of another mood. There was anxiety in his face, as he stood staring vaguely out of the window.

"Perhaps it wasn't a bluff, Aggie," he suggested.

"Well, what have we done, I'd like to know?" the girl demanded, confidently. She took a cigarette and a match from the tabouret beside her, and stretched her feet comfortably, if very inelegantly, on a chair opposite.

Garson answered with a note of weariness that was unlike him.

"It ain't what you have done," he said, quietly. "It's what they can make a jury think you've done. And, once they set out to get you--G.o.d, how they can frame things! If they ever start out after Mary----" He did not finish the sentence, but sank down into his chair with a groan that was almost of despair.

The girl replied with a burst of careless laughter.

"Joe," she said gaily, "you're one grand little forger, all right, all right. But Mary's got the brains. Pooh, I'll string along with her as far as she wants to go. She's educated, she is. She ain't like you and me, Joe. She talks like a lady, and, what's a d.a.m.ned sight harder, she acts like a lady. I guess I know. Wake me up any old night and ask me--just ask me, that's all. She's been tryin' to make a lady out of me!"

The vivaciousness of the girl distracted the man for the moment from the gloom of his thoughts, and he turned to survey the speaker with a cynical amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Swell chance!" he commented, drily.

"Oh, I'm not so worse! Just you watch out." The lively girl sprang up, discarded the cigarette, adjusted an imaginary train, and spoke lispingly in a society manner much more moderate and convincing than that with which she had favored the retiring Ca.s.sidy. Voice, pose and gesture proclaimed at least the excellent mimic.

"How do you do, Mrs. Jones! So good of you to call!... My dear Miss Smith, this is indeed a pleasure." She seated herself again, quite primly now, and moved her hands over the tabouret appropriately to her words. "One lump, or two?... Yes, I just love bridge. No, I don't play,"

she continued, simpering; "but, just the same, I love it." With this absurd ending, Aggie again arranged her feet according to her liking on the opposite chair. "That's the kind of stuff she's had me doing," she rattled on in her coa.r.s.er voice, "and believe me, Joe, it's d.a.m.ned near killing me. But all the same," she hurried on, with a swift revulsion of mood to the former serious topic, "I'm for Mary strong! You stick to her, Joe, and you'll wear diamon's.... And that reminds me! I wish she'd let me wear mine, but she won't. She says they're vulgar for an innocent country girl like her cousin, Agnes Lynch. Ain't that fierce?... How can anything be vulgar that's worth a hundred and fifty a carat?"

CHAPTER IX. A LEGAL DOc.u.mENT.

Mary Turner spent less than an hour in that mysteriously important engagement with d.i.c.k Gilder, of which she had spoken to Aggie. After separating from the young man, she went alone down Broadway, walking the few blocks of distance to Sigismund Harris's office. On a corner, her attention was caught by the forlorn face of a girl crossing into the side street. A closer glance showed that the privation of the gaunt features was emphasized by the scant garments, almost in tatters.

Instantly, Mary's quick sympathies were aroused, the more particularly since the wretched child seemed of about the age she herself had been when her great suffering had befallen. So, turning aside, she soon caught up with the girl and spoke an inquiry.

It was the familiar story, a father out of work, a sick mother, a brood of hungry children. Some confused words of distress revealed the fact that the wobegone girl was even then fighting the final battle of purity against starvation. That she still fought on in such case proved enough as to her decency of nature, wholesome despite squalid surroundings.

Mary's heart was deeply moved, and her words of comfort came with a simple sincerity that was like new life to the sorely beset waif. She promised to interest herself in securing employment for the father, such care as the mother and children might need, along with a proper situation for the girl herself. In evidence of her purpose, she took her engagement-book from her bag, and set down the street and number of the East Side tenement where the family possessed the one room that mocked the word home, and she gave a banknote to the girl to serve the immediate needs.

When she went back to resume her progress down Broadway, Mary felt herself vastly cheered by the warm glow within, which is the reward of a kindly act, gratefully received. And, on this particular morning, she craved such a.s.suagement of her spirit, for the conscience that, in spite of all her misdeeds, still lived was struggling within her. In her revolt against a world that had wantonly inflicted on her the worst torments, Mary Turner had thought that she might safely disregard those principles in which she had been so carefully reared. She had believed that by the deliberate adoption of a life of guile within limits allowed by the law, she would find solace for her wants, while feeling that thus she avenged herself in some slight measure for the indignities she had undergone unjustly. Yet, as the days pa.s.sed, days of success as far as her scheming was concerned, this brilliant woman, who had tried to deem herself unscrupulous, found that lawlessness within the law failed to satisfy something deep within her soul. The righteousness that was her instinct was offended by the triumphs achieved through so devious devices, though she resolutely set her will to suppress any spiritual rebellion.

There was, as well, another grievance of her nature, yet more subtle, infinitely more painful. This lay in her craving for tenderness. She was wholly woman, notwithstanding the virility of her intelligence, its audacity, its aggressiveness. She had a heart yearning for the mult.i.tudinous affections that are the prerogative of the feminine; she had a heart longing for love, to receive and to give in full measure....

And her life was barren. Since the death of her father, there had been none on whom she could lavish the great gifts of her tenderness. Through the days of her working in the store, circ.u.mstances had shut her out from all a.s.sociation with others congenial. No need to rehea.r.s.e the impossibilities of companionship in the prison life. Since then, the situation had not vitally improved, in spite of her better worldly condition. For Garson, who had saved her from death, she felt a strong and lasting grat.i.tude--nothing that relieved the longing for n.o.bler affections. There was none other with whom she had any intimacy except that, of a sort, with Aggie Lynch, and by no possibility could the adventuress serve as an object of deep regard. The girl was amusing enough, and, indeed, a most likable person at her best. But she was, after all, a shallow-pated individual, without a shred of principle of any sort whatsoever, save the single merit of unswerving loyalty to her "pals." Mary cherished a certain warm kindliness for the first woman who had befriended her in any way, but beyond this there was no finer feeling.

Nevertheless, it is not quite accurate to say that Mary Turner had had no intimacy in which her heart might have been seriously engaged. In one instance, of recent happening, she had been much in a.s.sociation with a young man who was of excellent standing in the world, who was of good birth, good education, of delightful manners, and, too, wholesome and agreeable beyond the most of his cla.s.s. This was d.i.c.k Gilder, and, since her companionship with him, Mary had undergone a revulsion greater than ever before against the fate thrust on her, which now at last she had chosen to welcome and nourish by acquiescence as best she might.

Of course, she could not waste tenderness on this man, for she had deliberately set out to make him the instrument of her vengeance against his father. For that very reason, she suffered much from a conscience newly clamorous. Never for an instant did she hesitate in her long-cherished plan of revenge against the one who had brought ruin on her life, yet, through all her satisfaction before the prospect of final victory after continued delay, there ran the secret, inescapable sorrow over the fact that she must employ this means to attain her end. She had no thought of weakening, but the better spirit within her warred against the l.u.s.t to repay an eye for an eye. It was the new Gospel against the old Law, and the fierceness of the struggle rent her. Just now, the doing of the kindly act seemed somehow to gratify not only her maternal instinct toward service of love, but, too, to m.u.f.fle for a little the rebuking voice of her inmost soul.

So she went her way more at ease, more nearly content again with herself and with her system of living. Indeed, as she was shown into the private office of the ingenious interpreter of the law, there was not a hint of any trouble beneath the bright mask of her beauty, radiantly smiling.

Harris regarded his client with an appreciative eye, as he bowed in greeting, and invited her to a seat. The lawyer was a man of fine physique, with a splendid face of the best Semitic type, in which were large, dark, sparkling eyes--eyes a Lombroso perhaps might have judged rather too closely set. As a matter of fact, Harris had suffered a flagrant injustice in his own life from a suspicion of wrong-doing which he had not merited by any act. This had caused him a loss of prestige in his profession. He presently adopted the wily suggestion of the adage, that it is well to have the game if you have the name, and he resolutely set himself to the task of making as much money as possible by any means convenient. Mary Turner as a client delighted his heart, both because of the novelty of her ideas and for the munificence of the fees which she ungrudgingly paid with never a protest. So, as he beamed on her now, and spoke a compliment, it was rather the lawyer than the man that was moved to admiration.

"Why, Miss Turner, how charming!" he declared, smiling. "Really, my dear young lady, you look positively bridal."

"Oh, do you think so?" Mary rejoined, with a whimsical pout, as she seated herself. For the moment her air became distrait, but she quickly regained her poise, as the lawyer, who had dropped back into his chair behind the desk, went on speaking. His tone now was crisply business-like.

"I sent your cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch, the release which she is to sign," he explained, "when she gets that money from General Hastings.

I wish you'd look it over, when you have time to spare. It's all right, I'm sure, but I confess that I appreciate your opinion of things, Miss Turner, even of legal doc.u.ments--yes, indeed, I do!--perhaps particularly of legal doc.u.ments."

"Thank you," Mary said, evidently a little gratified by the frank praise of the learned gentleman for her abilities. "And have you heard from them yet?" she inquired.

"No," the lawyer replied. "I gave them until to-morrow. If I don't hear then, I shall start suit at once." Then the lawyer's manner became unusually bland and self-satisfied as he opened a drawer of the desk and brought forth a rather formidable-appearing doc.u.ment, bearing a most impressive seal. "You will be glad to know," he went on unctuously, "that I was entirely successful in carrying out that idea of yours as to the injunction. My dear Miss Turner," he went on with florid compliment, "Portia was a squawking baby, compared with you."

"Thank you again," Mary answered, as she took the legal paper which he held outstretched toward her. Her scarlet lips were curved happily, and the clear oval of her cheeks blossomed to a deeper rose. For a moment, her glance ran over the words of the page. Then she looked up at the lawyer, and there were new l.u.s.ters in the violet eyes.

"It's splendid," she declared. "Did you have much trouble in getting it?"

Harris permitted himself the indulgence of an unprofessional chuckle of keenest amus.e.m.e.nt before he answered.

"Why, no!" he declared, with reminiscent enjoyment in his manner. "That is, not really!" There was an enormous complacency in his air over the event. "But, at the outset, when I made the request, the judge just naturally nearly fell off the bench. Then, I showed him that Detroit case, to which you had drawn my attention, and the upshot of it all was that he gave me what I wanted without a whimper. He couldn't help himself, you know. That's the long and the short of it."

That mysterious doc.u.ment with the imposing seal, the request for which had nearly caused a judge to fall off the bench, reposed safely in Mary's bag when she, returned to the apartment after the visit to the lawyer's office.

CHAPTER X. MARKED MONEY.

Mary had scarcely received from Aggie an account of Ca.s.sidy'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 doc.u.ment received from Harris.

Irwin lost no time in coming to the point.