room
and gazed at the portrait of Maggie that Hunt had given him the night
before: Maggie, self-confident, willful, a beautiful nobody who was
staring the world out of countenance; a Maggie that was a thousand
possible Maggies. And as he gazed he thought of the wager he had made
with Hunt, and of his own rather scatter-brained plannings concerning
it. He removed Maggie's portrait from the fellowship of the picture of
the Italian mother, and hid it in his chiffonier. Whatever he might do
in his endeavor to make good his boast to Hunt, for the present he would
regard Maggie's portrait as his private property. To use the painting as
he had vaguely planned, before he had been surprised to find it Maggie's
portrait, would be to pass it on into other possession where it
might become public--where, through some chance, the Maggie of the
working-girl's cheap shirt-waist might be identified with the rich Miss
Cameron of the Grantham, to Maggie's great discomfiture, and possibly to
her entanglement with the police.

When Miss Sherwood came into the library a little later, Larry tried to
put Maggie and all matters pertaining to his previous night's adventure
out of his mind. He had enough other affairs which he was trying
adroitly to handle--for instance, Miss Sherwood and Hunt; and when his
business talk with her was ended, he remarked:

"I saw Mr. Hunt last evening."

He watched her closely, but he could detect no flash of interest at
Hunt's name.

"You went down to your grandmother's?"

"Yes."

"That was a very great risk for you to take," she reproved him. "I'm
glad you got back safely."

Despite the disturbance Maggie had been to his thoughts, part of his
brain had been trying to make plans to forward this other aim; so he
now told Miss Sherwood of his wager with Hunt and his bringing away
a picture--he said "one picture." He wanted to awaken the suppressed
interest each had in the other; to help bridge or close the chasm which
he sensed had opened between them. So he brought the picture of the
Italian mother from his room. She regarded it critically, but with no
sign of approval or disapproval.

"What do you think of it?" she asked.

"It's a most remarkable piece of work!" he said emphatically--wishing he
could bring in that picture of Maggie as additional evidence supporting
his opinion.

She made no further comment, and it was up to Larry to keep the
conversation alive. "What is the most Mr. Hunt ever was pai