A minute or more passed, all three of them motionless and silent—a space Mary was never to forget. Then the tableau was sharply broken by a soft knocking at the door of the suite. The three turned about, just as the unlatched door swung cautiously open and into the room stepped the elder Morton, his masterful face bouqueted with a smile. He stopped short and the smile was plucked away.
No one of the four moved or spoke; then followed tense silence which, though but a moment long, seemed an epoch to three of the group—each of whom sensed a different charge of human dynamite, its fuse sputtering, in this scene.... The elder Morton, here on such other business, looked penetratingly at the unexpected trio: did the presence of the three mean that Maisie had learned the truth about Jack and Mrs. Gardner?—which would disrupt one of his dearest and most patient plans. And also did they suspect why he was here?... As for Jack, he was merely stricken dumb and powerless with a sense of unavertable disaster—the axe was already falling.... And Mary, her will nullified for the moment by a sense of futility, breathlessly watched the grayish face of Maisie Jones, who, in the hand that now held the crumpled marriage certificate, also held the swift finale to all her planning; each second she expected the outraged, jealous, and vindictive girl to speak, or hand the crumpled paper to the gray-templed man beside the door.
It was the elder Morton, trained by his worldly experience to keep on playing his part whatever the circumstances, who ended this hour-long moment.
“I just started to call on you, Maisie,” he explained evenly, pleasantly, “and at your door I learned from a maid that you were with Mrs. Gardner. I pressed the bell-button, then knocked, but as there was no answer, and as the door was open, I ventured in—and here I find the three of you.”
Mary felt the uselessness of further effort, since the other girl held her fate in her tightly clenched hand; but her inborn quality of keeping on mechanically forced words from her lips—though as she spoke them she recognized her words as a lame explanation. “Miss Jones was going out with your son, and as she was passing she stopped in for a moment.”
Mr. Morton looked keenly at Maisie, and waited; and Mary looked at her, in suspense yet sure of the end, and waited.
Then the gray-faced girl spoke for the first time—and her fingers twitched about the document she held.
“Yes, Jack and I were passing, and just dropped in.”
Mary maintained her outward composure, but inwardly she started. So!—Maisie Jones was holding back her weapon, waiting her chosen time to strike.
Morton seemed to accept Maisie’s words; but before another word could be spoken, while all the dangerous human elements of the situation were in suspense, Mary saw a new figure press open the unlatched door—Peter Loveman. In a flash she understood the little lawyer’s presence: that dread which had caused him to be forever hovering about her and Mr. Morton had made him follow Morton here—that he might be beforehand and save himself, in case of mishap to her impossible plans.