inner-gown, and when at length she stepped into her sitting-room she
was to Barney's eye the same cool Maggie as always.

Barney rose as she entered. He was in smart dinner jacket; these days
Barney was wearing the smartest of everything that money could secure.
There was a shadow of impatience on his face, but it was instantly
dissipated by Maggie's self-composed, direct-eyed beauty.

"How'd you come out with Miss Sherwood?" he whispered eagerly.

"Well enough for her to kiss me good-bye, and beg me to come again."

"I've got to hand it to you, Maggie! You're sure some swell
actress--you've sure got class!" His dark eyes gleamed on her with half
a dozen pleasures: admiration of what she was in herself--admiration
of what she had just achieved--anticipation of results, many
results--anticipation of what she was later to mean to him in a personal
way. "If you can put it over on a swell like Miss Sherwood, you can put
it over on any one!" He exulted. "As soon as we clean up this job in
hand, we'll move on to one big thing after another!"

And then out came the question Maggie had been bracing herself for: "How
about Dick Sherwood? Did he finally come across with that proposal?"

"No," Maggie answered steadily.

"No? Why not?" exclaimed Barney sharply. "I thought that was all that
was holding him back--waiting for his sister to look you over and give
you her O.K.?"

Maggie had decided that her air of cool, indifferent certainty was the
best manner to use in this situation with Barney. So she shrugged her
white shoulders.

"How can I tell what makes a man do something, and what makes him not do
it?"

"But did he seem any less interested in you than before?" Barney
pursued.

"No," replied Maggie.

"Then maybe he's just waiting to get up his nerve. He'll ask you, all
right; nothing there for us to worry about. Come on, let's have dinner.
I'm starved."

On the roof of the Grantham they were excellently served; for Barney
knew how to order a dinner, and he knew the art, which is an alchemistic
mixture of suave diplomacy and the insinuated power and purpose of
murder, of handling head-waiters and their sub-autocrats. Having no
other business in hand, Barney devoted himself to that business which
ran like a core through all his businesses--paying court to Maggie. And
when Barney wished to be a courtier, there were few of his class who
could give a better superficial interpretation of the role; and in this
particu