“Nothing, my dear,—only we both know that fine little idea has had a great fall, and all the king’s horses and all of God’s angels can’t ever put that idea together again.”
“What are you thinking of?” she repeated.
He did not reply at once, but smiled affably and softly rubbed his hairless crown. The shrewdest brain of its kind in New York had done a lot of thinking in the last sixteen hours. Certainly the first stages of the plan, the plan as he had planned it for himself, had fallen down calamitously. And he had seen the further stages of the plan (as the plan, unknown to Mary, concerned him) menaced with sudden danger—and had seen even himself, personally, on the brink of uncalculated misfortune.
“Isn’t it plain what I’m thinking of, Mary?” he said after a moment. “After what happened yesterday, it doesn’t count for much that for the time you made Mr. Morton believe you were only Jack’s mistress. He’s certain to learn the facts very shortly; your whole plan is the same as exploded. You may stave off the end for a day, two days—but hardly longer.”
She refrained from speaking of her present enterprise. “What do you think we ought to do?”
“This has always been a business proposition for you,” he replied in his amiable, reasoning manner, “and the way things have turned, it naturally is going to be a business proposition for me—Mr. Morton being my client, you know. So let’s consider how we can make the most out of it. Now, first item, Mr. Morton is bound to find out the truth in a few days. If he finds it out for himself, nobody’s going to profit. We simply lose, say, ten thousand dollars. My first proposition—this is small money, of course—is that we arrange to beat Mr. Morton to this discovery. You know, for some time I have been under directions from Mr. Morton to follow up Jack’s doings. Now, let’s say that to-morrow I turn in a report that the detectives I’ve employed have just discovered that Jack is married—which will mean a bill for detective service of at least ten thousand. Right there is ten thousand saved out of the ruin. Of course I’ll split it with you.”
Mary managed to control her expression; she saw a few things regarding Loveman she had not suspected. “And after that?”
“Of course Mr. Morton will want to institute proceedings for a divorce, and naturally I’ll be retained as his attorney. You’ll make him pay big for the separation; and I being on the inside can tell you the limit that you can make him pay over.”
He smiled at her genially as though it were a settled matter which Mary’s good sense would applaud. Now that the time had come to do business, and since he considered that Mary was in this with him, he had not hesitated to reveal a fragment of his method as a specialist in domestic affairs—which was to play both ends and every point between. Smiling, he expectantly awaited Mary’s approval.
“And after that’s done, then what becomes of me?” she asked.