“Why, my dear, it will be handled so that you’ll come out of the proceedings with a pretty fair reputation and holding tight to the name of Mrs. Jack Morton. With such a handsome woman as you are, and such a start, there’s nothing I couldn’t do with you if you privately put yourself under my direction! Nothing!”
He rubbed his soft, finely manicured hands in excited anticipation, and let his speech run free. “Honest, Mary, this is the big thing I’ve seen in this business from the beginning. I never thought anything really big or permanent would develop from that marriage. Compared to other prospects, that was only pin-money—only the starter—only the prologue. The curtain really goes up when we’re through with this. Mary, my dear, if I were to tell you what I’ve done for some women in this town—you’d certainly sit up! I don’t know now just what I’ll do with you; I’m an opportunist—I always play for the biggest chance that comes along at a given time, or for the biggest chance that I can develop. But what I’ll do for you will be strictly within the law—it may even be most thoroughly respectable. I tell you, Mary,” he enthused, “with me handling you, with my knowledge of New York life and of the strings to pull, there is nothing I can’t do for you!— I tell you nothing!”
His large eyes were shining on her brilliantly. Rarely had this master of domestic intrigue, this marvelously keen student of human nature and subtle manipulator of human weakness and ambitions, been stirred by his own excited imagination to such a frank, if incomplete, statement of the methods of his art. For a moment, despite herself, Mary felt half carried away by the power of the little man; saw herself for a moment as perhaps at some future time being fitted into one of his amazing plans.
“And for all this what would you expect?” she asked.
“Naturally a manager would expect a manager’s share.” And as she did not respond, he prompted her briskly: “Well, now, let’s get back to the first proposition—though that’s mighty small peanuts. I suppose to-morrow will suit you all right for me to give Mr. Morton my detectives’ report that his son is married?”
“No.”
“No! Why not? It won’t be safe to put it off any longer.”
“Mr. Loveman,” she said quietly, looking at him very steadily, “I’m going straight ahead with the original plan.”
He sprang from his chair, fairly sputtering surprise. “Why, you’re crazy! You can’t do it!”
“I’m going to try.”