“Then listen, Jack,—here’s just what we’ve got to do,” she said rapidly, dominantly. “No matter what you think, or feel, we’ve got to keep our affair quiet for the present, and go ahead just as we originally planned, except that you’re to stay with your father. I’ll not consent to any other arrangement, so it’s no use arguing. You go every day to your office just as you’ve been doing; I’ll call you up there when I want you. And don’t be surprised at anything you see.”
“But what are you going to do, Mary?” he insisted.
“I don’t just know yet; I’ll let you know when I do. If we keep our nerve it will all come out all right. Here are the claim checks to your trunks: I have ordered all the baggage sent to the Grand Central Station. You must go now, Jack,—you really must!”
She fairly pressed the bewildered, unwilling Jack from the apartment; and then for a few moments she stood in the hall, now cleared of her luggage, rapidly planning. Then she shot down the elevator and hurried out of the Mordona to a taxi,—fortunately just missing Loveman, who she knew was coming here to see her,—and some twenty minutes later, again registered at the Grantham as “Mrs. Gardner.” She was the occupant of a suite on the same corridor as Miss Maisie Jones, and had ordered her trunks brought from the Grand Central Station.
Settled here, she continued her planning. There seemed no end to the plans that had to be thought out, to the dangers that must be eluded and averted. And yet she felt confident—very confident.
But mixed with her confidence was an intermittent apprehension. She believed she had avoided the others. But Clifford—if Clifford would only not interfere.
CHAPTER XV
LOVEMAN SHOWS HIS CLAWS
But the next morning came, and as yet there had been no signs of Clifford.
At half-past ten Mary rang at the door of Maisie Jones. Her plan for beginning their acquaintance was very simple, merely the adaptation of an ancient device belonging to her past with her father and her Uncle Joe Russell—the preparation of two letters addressed to Miss Maisie Jones, which were in fact nothing more than modistes’ engraved invitations to inspect new spring styles.
Miss Jones herself answered Mary’s ring. “My name’s Mrs. Gardner—these letters somehow got mixed in my mail,” Mary began, smiling with the engaging frankness she knew how to assume. “I could have returned them to you by the maid; but the maid—it seems you and I have the same maid—told me that your aunt was ill, and I thought I’d bring them myself and make it an excuse to do such an un-New-Yorkish thing as to ask how a sick neighbor is.”