Later on, Garson, learning from the maid that Dick Gilder had left, returned, just as Mary was glancing over the release, with which General Hastings was to be compensated, along with the return of his letters, for his payment of ten thousand dollars to Miss Agnes Lynch.
“Hello, Joe,” Mary said graciously as the forger entered. Then she spoke crisply to Agnes. “And now you must get ready. You are to be at Harris's office with this document at four o'clock, and remember that you are to let the lawyer manage everything.”
Aggie twisted her doll-like face into a grimace.
“It gets my angora that I'll have to miss Pa Gilder's being led like a lamb to the slaughter-house.” And that was the nearest the little adventuress ever came to making a Biblical quotation.
“Anyhow,” she protested, “I don't see the use of all this monkey business here. All I want is the coin.” But she hurried obediently, nevertheless, to get ready for the start.
Garson regarded Mary quizzically.
“It's lucky for her that she met you,” he said. “She's got no more brains than a gnat.”
“And brains are mighty useful things, even in our business,” Mary replied seriously; “particularly in our business.”
“I should say they were,” Garson agreed. “You have proved that.”
Aggie came back, putting on her gloves, and cocking her small head very primly under the enormous hat that was garnished with costliest plumes. It was thus that she consoled herself in a measure for the business of the occasion—in lieu of cracked ice from Tiffany's at one hundred and fifty a carat. Mary gave over the release, and Aggie, still grumbling, deposited it in her handbag.