Children of the Whirlwind [90]
And so she let him go away without telling him. And wishing to shape things for the best for him, she was troubled by the same doubts as before.
His visit with his grandmother had had no meaning to Larry, since he had no guess of the struggle going on within that ancient, inscrutable figure. The visit had for him merely served to fill in a nervous, useless hour. His rage against Barney had all the while possessed him too thoroughly for him to give more than the mere surface of his mind to what had passed between his grandmother and himself. And when he had left her, his rage at Barney's treachery and his impetuous desire to snatch Maggie away from her present influences, so stormed within him that his usually cautious judgment was blown away and recklessness swept like a gale into control of him.
When he called up the Grantham a second time, at nine o'clock, Maggie's voice came to him:
"Hello. Who this, please?"
"Mr. Brandon."
He heard a stilted "Oh!" at the other end of the line "I'm coming right up to see you," he said.
"I--I don't think you--"
"I'll be there in then minutes," Larry interrupted the startled voice and hung up.
He counted that Maggie, after his sparing her at Cedar Crest, would receive him and treat him at least no worse than an enemy with whom there was a half hour's truce. Sure enough, when he rang the bell of her suite, Maggie herself admitted him to her sitting-room. She was taut and pale, her look neither friendly nor unfriendly.
"Don't you know the risk you're running," she whispered when the door was closed--"coming here like this, in the open?"
"The time has come for risks, Maggie," he announced.
"But you were safe enough where you were. Why take such risks?"
"For your sake."
"My sake?"
"To take you away from these people you're tied up with. Take you away now."
At an earlier time this would have been a fuse to a detonation of defiance from her. But now she said nothing at all, and that was something.
"Since I've come out into the open, everything's going to be in the open. Listen, Maggie!" The impulse had suddenly come upon him, since his plan to awaken Maggie by her psychological reactions had apparently failed, to tell her everything. "Listen, Maggie! I'm going to lay all my cards on the table, and show you every card I've played. You were invited to come out to Cedar Crest because I schemed to have you come. And the reason I schemed to have you invited was, I reasoned that being received in such a frank, generous, unsuspecting way, by a woman like Miss Sherwood, would make you sick of what you were doing and you would drop it of your own accord. But it seems I reasoned wrong."
"So--you were behind that!" she breathed.
"I was. Though I couldn't have done it if Dick Sherwood hadn't been honestly infatuated with you. But now I'm through with working under cover, through with indirect methods. From now on every play's in the open, and it's straight to the point with everything. So get ready. I'm going to take you away from Barney and Old Jimmie."
The mention of these two names had a swift and magical effect upon her. But instead of arousing belligerency, they aroused an almost frantic agitation.
"You must leave at once, Larry. Barney and my father were here before dinner, and they've just telephoned they were coming back!"
"Coming back! That's the best argument you could make for my staying!"
"But, Larry--they both have keys, and Barney always carries a gun!"
"I stay here, unless you leave with me. Listen to some more, Maggie. I laid all the cards on the table. Do you know the kind of people you're tied up with? I'll not say anything about your father, for I guess you know all there is to know. But Barney Palmer! He's the lowest kind of crook that breathes. There's been a lot of talk about squealers and police stools. Well, the big squealer, the big stool, is Barney Palmer!"
"I don't believe it!" she cried involuntarily.
"It's true! I've got it straight. Barney wanted to smash me, because I'd made up my mind to quit the