ying to
press out of her mind what he had said about loving her. Truly this was,
indeed, different from their previous meetings. Before, there had almost
invariably been a defiant attitude, a dispute, a quarrel. Now she had no
desire to quarrel.

Finally she said with an effort to be that self-controlled person which
she had established as her model:

"You seem to have your chance here to put over what you boasted to me
about. You remember making good in a straight way."

"Yes. And I shall make good--if only they will let me alone." He paused
an instant. "But I have no illusions about the present," he went on
quietly. "I'm in quiet water for a time; I've got a period of safety;
and I'm using this chance to put in some hard work. But presently the
police and Barney and the others will learn where I am. Then I'll have
all that fight over again--only the next time it'll be harder."

She was startled into a show of interest. "You think that's really going
to happen?"

"It's bound to. There's no escaping it. If for no other reason, I myself
won't be able to stand being penned up indefinitely. Something will
happen, I don't know what, which will pull me out into the open
world--and then for me the deluge!"

He made this prediction grimly. He was not a fatalist, but it had been
borne in upon him recently that this thing was inescapable. As for him,
when that time came, he was going to put up the best fight that was in
him.

He caught the strained look which had come into Maggie's face, and it
prompted him suddenly to lean toward her and say:

"Maggie, do you still think I'm a stool and a squealer?"

"I--"

She broke off. She had a surging impulse to go on and say something to
Larry. A great deal. She was not conscious of what that great deal was.
She was conscious only of the impulse. There was too great a turmoil
within her, begotten by the strain of her visit on Miss Sherwood and
these unexpected meetings, for any motive, impulse, or decision to
emerge to even a brief supremacy. And so, during this period when her
brain would not operate, she let herself be swept on by the momentum of
the forces which had previously determined her direction--her pride, her
self-confidence, her ambition, the alliance of fortune between her and
Barney and Old Jimmie.

They were sitting in this silence when footsteps again sounded on the
gravel, and a shadow blotted the arbor floor.

"Excuse me, Larry," said a man's voice.

"S