Mary sat on the bed in the bedroom of her suite, trying to moderate Jack, who had furtively stolen up five minutes before in response to her telephone summons. The stage was set for the last act of her carefully planned version of the eternal triangle,—the time for the curtain to rise was near at hand,—and as she talked to Jack she kept her ears alert for any sound that might come through the open door connecting with her sitting-room. This would denote the entrance of Maisie, and was to be the cue for the action to begin on which she had staked everything. To prevent any misadventure to her plan through the automatic habit of ringing bells, Mary had disconnected the wire.
She had not told Jack of the rôle that he was to play, for she had not dared to trust him with the knowledge that he was playing a rôle—he might balk; so she had the added difficulty of so managing him that he would play a part without even guessing that he was play-acting.
“I can’t stand this situation any longer, Mary,” Jack fumed. “I want to come out with it all! Think of me having to sneak up here to see my own wife! And think of the other angle of my damned situation—being fairly shoved to the brink of the altar with another woman. I can’t stall that thing off for more than a day or so longer. Then I’ll simply have to come out with the truth—our being married.”
“Jack,” she said sharply, for there had been dynamite in his temperish speech, “you must remember what you just agreed upon—that even when we’re alone you are not to refer to my being your wife, or to our marriage. You are not to speak of those things again until I give my consent.”
“All right, Mary,” he groaned.
“For the present we’ve got to keep up the pretense that our relationship is what we admitted before your father. You promise that, too?”
“All right—I promise. But this is certainly hell!” And he looked his misery; for his habit of life had accustomed Jack Morton neither to suffering nor self-restraint. “But say, I don’t see that you’re working out anything with Maisie Jones—at least I’ve felt no relief.”
“You will if you keep your promises.”
She looked at the little gold clock—Jack’s gift—on her dressing-table; the hour was exactly four. She must now, with her utmost carefulness, steer the dialogue without Jack’s guessing that it was being steered.
“What we’re doing is for the best, Jack,—you must trust me as to that,” she said. “But, of course, things were a lot more comfortable when we were at the Mordona.”