“Wasn’t that just so much more evidence to show you that your big dream can never, never come true?” he argued, quietly, but with the driving force of the great lawyer that he was. “So I say again, for God’s sake, drop it all! And, Mary,—you’d never have been happy even if you had worked that game with the Mortons. You’re too much the daughter of ‘Gentleman Jim’ Regan for that sort of life—your father’s blood would have sent you back to the old ways.
“Listen, Mary,—the sensible thing to do is for us all to cash in on this Morton affair, before it breaks. I’ve said most of this before, but I’ve got to say it again. Let me discover the secret marriage between you and Jack; I’ll soak Mr. Morton hard for a detective bill, and give you a half of what he pays. And by playing the thing this way, I’ll keep solid with Mr. Morton and will be in a position where I can milk him for a long time to come. And then, of course, you’ll make him pay big for a divorce— Morton will want to hush the matter up as far as he can, and he’ll want to keep details out of court. And since I’ll be representing Mr. Morton, I can put you wise to the very limit he’ll pay. What you get there will be all your own; I’ll get mine out of handling Mr. Morton’s end. And that business all settled, and you with the name of Mrs. Jack Morton—why, there’s nothing big we couldn’t put across as team-mates! And everything safe—and everything big! And a little later, if you wanted it, I could, by watching chances and playing the cards right, help you make a marriage that would be a headliner in regard to wealth and respectability and position. Don’t you see it all!”
She saw it, and it was a dazzling vision of its own kind. Moreover, she knew this shrewd little lawyer could bring it all to pass. And among other things his plan offered was the definite and immediate chance to strike vengefully at Mr. Morton, who an hour before had so coolly rebuffed her when, swayed by unaccustomed emotion, she had made him the proposal to devote herself to Jack.
At length she spoke. “That was another good speech, Peter,” she said quietly, “but you didn’t come here merely to deliver that speech either. Just what is the big thing that’s in your mind?”
“Why, that you should drop your present game, instanter, and switch to something worth while.”
“That’s not what brought you here between two and three o’clock in the morning,” she insisted steadily.
He shifted slightly. “It’s like this, Mary,” he said abruptly, changing from his persuasive tone—“you and I went into this thing together, and I hope we’re going to stick it out together along the lines I’ve just suggested. But matters took such a twist with to-night’s events that I had to know definitely, at once, whether you were going to work along with me.”
“And that’s the question you really want answered?”
“It is. And I’m hoping your answer is going to be ‘yes.’”
“I do not know what I am going to do,” she said quietly, her dark eyes fixed upon his large blue ones. “But whatever I do, I shall do alone and exactly as I please.”