She was not deceived by this swift change of front. She knew that she had shown the higher card.
“Is what you say to be interpreted as meaning that you will not interfere with my plans?”
“Go right on!” he said heartily.
“All right.” She hung the receiver on its hook and set down the telephone. “But if ever there is any interference which seems to come from you, I’ll do exactly what I said.”
“Oh, come, Mary, forget my bit of gun-play. You ought to know that I was only fooling.” He was now thoroughly amiable again, as far as smile and manner went. “Just how are you going to do it, Mary?”
“I’m going to do it—that’s all I can definitely say as yet. And now, I have a lot to think about—”
“And you’d like to have me go. All right, I’ll go. But say, Mary,—you sure have nerve!” he exclaimed, with a sincerity that was sincere. “Nerve, and a lot of other things. And remember this: I’m counting on putting you across, a little later, in the way I just told you about. You’re just the woman I could do it with—big! Big—you understand! Good-bye.”
As the little lawyer went out, Mary took a deep breath. That was one danger, and an unexpected danger, that she had narrowly averted.... Her quick, eager mind flashed ahead to a picture which his words had suggested: “Put you across—big!” Perhaps later, if her present plans went awry, she might want to be put across in some magnificent way—who knew?—and Loveman was the one man to do it.
But for the present, Peter Loveman was to be trusted just so far as he could be trusted.