her to answer.
Therefore he could not know that any attempt to get Maggie by telephone
just then was futile.

When he came out of the booth, the impersonal voice having informed
him that Miss Cameron was not in, it was with the intention of calling
Maggie up between eight and nine when she probably would have returned
from dinner where he judged her now to be. He knew that Dick Sherwood
had no engagement with her, for Dick was to be out at Cedar Crest that
evening, so he judged it almost certain Maggie would be at home and
alone later on.

Having nothing else to do for an hour and a half, he thought of a note
he had received from the Duchess in that morning's mail asking him to
come down to see her when he was next in town. Thirty minutes later he
was in the familiar room behind the pawnshop. The Duchess asked him
if he had eaten, and on his reply that he had not and did not care
to, instead of proceeding to the business of her letter she mumbled
something and went into the pawnshop.

She left Larry for the very simple reason that now that she had him
here she was uncertain what she should say, and how far she should go.
Unknown to either, one thread of the drama of Larry and Maggie was being
spun in the brain and heart of the Duchess; and being spun with pain
to her, and in very great doubt. True, she had definitely decided, for
Larry's welfare, that the facts about Maggie's parentage should never be
known from her--and since the only other person who could tell the truth
was Jimmie Carlisle, and his interests were all apparently in favor of
silence, then it followed that the truth would never be known from any
one. But having so decided, and decided definitely and finally, the
Duchess had proceeded to wonder if she had decided wisely.

Day and night this had been the main subject of her thought. Could she
be wrong in her estimate of Maggie's character, and what she might turn
out to be? Could she be wrong in her belief that, given enough time,
Larry would outgrow his infatuation for Maggie? And since she was in
such doubt about these two points, had she any right, and was it for the
best, to suppress a fact that might so gravely influence both matters?
She did not know. What she wanted was whatever was best for Larry--and
so in her doubt she had determined to talk again to Larry, hoping that
the interview might in some way replace her uncertainty with stability
of purpose.

Presently she returned to the inner ro