Larry came down the stairway from Hunt's studio in a mood of high elation. Through Hunt's promise of cooperation he had at least made a start in his unformed plan regarding Maggie. Somehow, he'd work out and put across the rest of it.
Then Hunt's prediction of the trouble that might rise through his silence recurred to Larry. Indeed, that was a delicate situation!--containing all kinds of possible disasters for himself as well as for Hunt. He would have to be most watchful, most careful, or he would find himself entangled in worse circumstances than at present.
As he came down into the little back room, his grandmother was sitting over her interminable accounts, each of which represented a little profit to herself, some a little relief to many, some a tragedy to a few; and many of which were in code, for these represented transactions of a character which no pawnshop, particularly one reputed to be a fence, wishes ever to have understood by those presumptive busy-bodies, the police. When Larry had first entered, she had merely given him an unsurprised "good-evening" and permitted him to pass on. But now, as he told her good-night and turned to leave, she said in her thin, monotonous voice:
"Sit down for a minute, Larry. I want to talk to you."
Larry obeyed. "Yes, grandmother."
But the Duchess did not at once speak. She held her red-rimmed, unblinking eyes on him steadily. Larry waited patiently. Though she was so composed, so self-contained, Larry knew her well enough to know that what was passing in her mind was something of deep importance, at least to her.
At length she spoke. "You saw Maggie that night you hurried away from here?"
"Yes, grandmother. Have you heard from her since the?--or from Barney or Old Jimmie?"
The Duchess shook her head. "Do you mind telling me what happened that night--and what Maggie's doing?"
Larry told her of the scene in Maggie's suite at the Grantham, told of the plan in which Maggie was involved and of his own added predicament. This last the Duchess seemingly ignored.
"Just about what I supposed she was doing," she said. "And you tried again to get her to give it up?"
"Yes."
"And she refused?"
"Yes." And he added: "Refused more emphatically than before."
The Duchess studied him a long moment. Then: "You're not trying to make her give that up just because you think she's worth saving. You like her a lot, Larry?"
"I love her," Larry admitted.
"I'm sorry about that, Larry." There was real emotion in the old voice now. "I've told you that you're all I've got left. And now that you've at last started right, I want everything to go right with you.
Everything! And Maggie will never help things go right with you. Your love for her can only mean misery and misfortune. You can't change her."
Larry came out with the questions he had asked himself so frequently these last days. "But why did her manner change so when she heard Barney and the others? Why did she help me escape?"
"That was because, deep down, she really loves you. That's the worst part of it: you both love each other." The Duchess slowly nodded her head. "You both love each other. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't care what you tried to do. But I tell you again you can't change her. She's too sure of herself. She'll always try to make you go _her way_--and if you don't, you'll never get a smile from her. And because you love each other, I'm afraid you'll give in and go her way. That's what I'm afraid of. Won't you just cut her out of your life, Larry?"
It had been a prodigiously long speech for the Duchess. And Larry realized that the emotion behind it was a thousand times what showed in the thin voice of the bent, gestureless figure.
"For your sake I'm sorry, grandmother. But I can't."
"Then it's only fair to tell you, Larry," she said in a more composed tone which expressed a finality of decision, "that if there's ever anything I can do to stop this, I'll do it. For she's bad for you--what with her stiff spirit--and the ideas Old Jimmie has put into her--and the way Old Jimmie has brought her up. I'll stop things if I can."
Larry made no reply. The Duchess continued looking at him steadily for a long space. He knew she was thinking; and he was wondering what was passing through that shrewd old brain, when she remarked:
"By the way, Larry, I just remembered what you told me of that old Sing Sing friend--Joe Ellison. Have you heard from him recently?"
"He's out, and he's working where I am."
"Yes? What's he doing?"
"He's working there as a gardener."
Again she was silent a space, her sunken eyes steady With thought.
Then she said:
"From the time he was twenty till he was thirty I knew Joe Ellison well--better than I've ever told you. He knew your mother when she was a girl, Larry. I wish you'd ask him to come in to see me. As soon as he can manage it."
Larry promised. His grandmother said no more about Maggie, and presently Larry bade her good-night and made his cautious way, ever on the lookout for danger, to where he had left his roadster, and thence safely out to Cedar Crest. But the Duchess sat for hours exactly as he had left her, her accounts unheeded, thinking, thinking, thinking over an utterly impossible possibility that had first presented itself faintly to her several days before. She did not see how the thing could be; and yet somehow it might be, for many a strange thing did happen in this border world where for so long she had lived. When finally she went to bed she slept little; her busy conjectures would not permit sleep. And though the next day she went about her shop seemingly as usual, she was still thinking.
That night Joe Ellison came. They met as though they had last seen each other but yesterday.
"Good-evening, Joe."
"Glad to see you, Duchess."
