d not admit to herself that her
real motive for suddenly deciding to go to Cedar Crest on the morrow was
the chance of seeing him.

CHAPTER XXVI

During all these days Larry waited for news of the result of the
experiment in psychology which meant so much to his life. He had not
expected to hear directly from Maggie; but he had counted upon learning
at once from Dick, if not by words, then either from eloquent dejection
which would proclaim Dick's refusal (and Larry's success) or from an
ebullient joy which would proclaim that Maggie had accepted him. But
Dick's sober but not unhappy behavior announced neither of these two
to Larry; and the matter was too personal, altogether too delicate, to
permit Larry to ask Dick the result, however subtly he might ask it.

So Larry could only wait--and wonder. The truth did not occur to Larry;
he did not see that there might be another alternative to the two
possible reactions he had calculated upon. He did not bear in mind that
Maggie's youthful obstinacy, her belief in herself and her ways, were
too solid a structure to yield at once to one moral shock, however
wisely planned and however strong. He did not at this time hold in mind
that any real change in so decided a character as Maggie, if change
there was to be, would be preceded and accompanied by a turbulent period
in which she would hardly know who she was, or where she was, or what
she was going to do--and that at the end of such a period there might be
no change at all.

Inasmuch as just then Maggie was his major interest, it seemed to Larry
in his safe seclusion that he was merely marking time, and marking time
with feet that were frantically impatient. He felt he could not stand
much longer his own inactivity and his ignorance of what Maggie was
doing and what was happening to her. He could not remain in this
sanctuary pulling strings, and very long and fragile strings, and
strings which might be the mistaken ones, for any much greater period.
He felt that he simply had to walk out of this splendid safety, back
into the dangers from which he had fled, where he might at least have
the possible advantage of being in the very midst of Maggie's affairs
and fight for her more openly and have a more direct influence upon her.

He knew that, sooner or later, he was going to throw caution aside
and appear suddenly among his enemies, unless something of a definite
character developed. But for these slow, irritating