“But you’ll fall down flat! You can’t possibly keep this thing going for more than a day or two!”
“I’m going to try,” she repeated.
“If you do, you’ll not only ruin yourself, but you’ll ruin some more of us, too,” he said in consternation. “Why, yesterday, when Mr. Morton found me in your apartment at the Mordona, I had the closest sort of shave. And now, if you try to keep on with your plan, and the certain explosion comes, don’t you see that Morton will learn that while retained by him I’ve also been sitting in the game with you? Don’t you see you’ll ruin me?”
“So that’s why you’ve come to me with these new propositions?” she said keenly—“to save your own skin?”
“Yes,” he said defiantly, “though those new propositions, the last one at least, were always part of the plan I’d had for you.”
They were now standing face to face, she almost half a head the taller. “Peter Loveman,” she said slowly, distinctly, “despite your skin, and my skin, I’m going straight ahead.”
“What!” he exclaimed, astounded; and then: “You can’t! There’s that explosion, due in a day or so—and after that you’ll be nothing but smoke and dam’ thin smoke!”
“I have my own idea of how to do it, and I believe I can succeed. Anyhow, I’m going straight ahead.”
“No, you’re not!” he said sharply. In a moment the usually amiable face had become grim with menace—and few faces could be more truly menacing. “If you won’t play this game with me, Mary Regan, then this minute I cut you out of it and play the game alone.”
“Just what does that mean?”