But when Barney's latch-key slid into the door and Barney, in a smart dinner jacket, came in, Maggie was herself again. Indeed she was better than herself, for there rushed to her support that added power which she had just been despairing of, which carries some people through an hour of crisis, and which may occasionally lift an actor above himself when fortune gives him a difficult yet splendid part which is the great chance of his career.

And Maggie showed to the eye that she was better than her best, for Barney exclaimed the instant he was beside her: “Gee, Maggie, you look like the Queen of Sheba, whoever that dame was! Any guy would fall for you to-night—and fall so hard that he'd break, or go broke!”

But Barney was too eager to await any response. “What's behind the hurry-up call you sent in? Anything broken yet?”

“Something big! But sit down. There's a lot to tell. And I must tell it quick—before my”—she could not force herself to say “father”—“before Old Jimmie comes, and Dick.”

“Then Dick's coming?”

“Yes. Things have taken a twist so that everything breaks to-night. But sit down, and I'll tell you everything.”

She had noted that the door behind which Larry stood, and to which he had captured the key, was open a bare half-inch. It looked no more suspicious than any closet door that by accident had swung free of its latch, but by deft maneuvering Maggie managed so that Barney sat at the table with his back toward both closets.

“Go to it, Maggie,” he urged.

The plan which had swiftly developed from Dick Sherwood's idea required that she should tell much that was the truth and much that was not truth, and required that she should play with every faculty and every attraction she possessed upon Barney's tremendous vanity and upon his jealous admiration of her. She had to make him believe more in her as a pal than ever before; she had to make him want her more as a woman than ever before. And at this moment she felt herself thrillingly equal to this vampire role her over-stimulated sense of justice had commanded her to undertake.

“Things have gone great,” she began, speaking concisely, yet trying not in this eager brevity to lose the convincing effect that she would be the complete mistress of any enterprise to which she yielded her interest. “Dick Sherwood proposed to me again, and this time I said `yes.' I saw that he was ready for anything, so I took some things into my hands. I had to, for I saw we had to act quick even at the risk of losing a bit of the maximum figure we had counted on. You see I realized the danger to us in Larry Brainard suddenly showing up, and his knowing, as he told us he did, who the sucker is that we've been stringing along. Anything might happen, any minute, from Larry Brainard that would upset everything. So I reasoned that we had to collect quick or run the risk of never getting a nickel.”

“Some bean you've got, Maggie,” he said admiringly. “Keep your foot on the gas pedal.”

“What I did was only, the carrying-out of the plan you had decided on—of course carrying it out quicker, and with a few little changes that the urgent situation demanded. After he proposed I broke down, as per schedule, and confessed that I had deceived him to the extent that I was already married. Married to a man I didn't love, and who didn't love me, but who was a tight-wad and who wouldn't let me go unless he saw a lot of money in it for him. And I gave Dick all the rest of the story, just as we had doped it out.”

“Great work, Maggie! How did he take it?”

“Exactly as we figured he would. He was sorry for me; it didn't make any difference at all in his feelings for me. He'd buy my husband off—give him any price he wanted—and just so I wouldn't have to feel myself bound to such a man a minute longer than necessary he'd make a bargain with him at once and pay him part of the money right down. To-night, if he could get in touch with my husband. And so, Barney, since we had to act quick and there was no time to bring in another man that I could pass off as my husband, I confessed to him that I was married to you.”

“To me!” exclaimed Barney.

“And he's coming here in less than an hour, with real money in his pockets, to see if he can't fix a deal with you.”

“Me!” exclaimed the startled Barney again. His beady eyes glowed at her ardently. “Gee, you know I wish I really was married to you, Maggie! If I was, you bet money couldn't ever pry you loose from me!”

“Well, there's the whole lay-out, Barney. It's up to you to be my grasping, bargaining, unloving husband for about an hour.”

“I hadn't thought of myself in that part,” he objected. “I'd figured that we'd bring in a new man to be the husband. It's pretty dangerous for me, my stringing Dick along all this while and then suddenly to enter the act as your husband—and to take the money.”

“Dangerous!” There was sudden contempt in her voice and in her eyes. “So you're that kind of man, Barney—afraid! And afraid after my telling Dick you were my husband, and his swallowing the thing without a suspicion! Well, right this minute is when we call this deal off—and every other deal!”

“Oh, don't be so quick with that temper of yours, Maggie! I merely said it was dangerous. Of course I'll do it.”

And then Barney asked, with a cunning he tried to hide: “But why did you ask me to have Old Jimmie show up here right after me? We don't need him.”

“Just what's behind your saying that, Barney?” she demanded sharply.

He squirmed a little, then spoke the truth. “You don't love your father any too much, and he doesn't love you any too much—I know that. He needn't really know how much we take off Sherwood; if he wasn't here, he'd have to take our word for what we got and we'd tell him we got mighty little. Then the real money would be divided fifty-fifty between just you and me.”

“I may not love my father, but he's in this on the same basis as you are, or I'm out of it,” she declared. “I thought you might suggest something like this; that's one reason I asked you to have him come. Another reason—and this is something I forgot to tell you awhile ago—when I broke down and confessed everything to Dick Sherwood, I told Dick that Old Jimmie was really my guardian; and we both agreed that he should be present as a witness to any agreement, and to protect my interests. Still another reason is that since we had to work so fast, the thing to do was to split the money on the spot in three ways, and then each of us shoot off in a different direction to-night before any bad luck had a chance to break. In fact, Barney, this present minute is when you and I say our good-byes.”

He forgot his scheme to defraud Old Jimmie in the far greater concern aroused by her last words. He leaned across the table and tried to take her hand, an attempt she deftly thwarted.

“But listen, Maggie,” he asked with husky eagerness, “you and I are going to have an understanding to join up with each other soon, aren't we? You know what I mean—belong to each other. You know how I feel about: you!”

This was the principal point Maggie had been maneuvering toward. Before her was the most difficult scene of the many which she had planned, on her successful management of which the success of everything seemed to depend. Within she was palpitant with the strain and suspense of it all; but on Barney she held cool, appraising eyes. In this splendid composure, her momentary withdrawal from him, she seemed to Barney more beautiful, more desirable, more indispensable, than at any time since he had discovered back at the Duchess's that Maggie was a find.

“Of course I know exactly what you mean, Barney,” she responded with deliberation, bewitchingly alluring in her air of superiority. “I've known for a long time you and I would have to have a real talk. Are you ready for a straight talk now?”

“As straight as you can talk it!”

“I'll probably fall for some man and marry him. Every woman does. But if I marry him, it'll be because I love him. But my marrying a man doesn't mean I'm going to go into business with him. I'm not going to mix love with business—not unless the man is the right sort of man. Of course it would be better if the man I marry and the man I take on as a business partner were the same man—but I'm not going to take any risks. You understand me so far.”

“Surest thing you know. And every word you've said proves that your head isn't just something to look pretty with. Let me slip this over to you right at the start—I'm the right sort of man!”

“That's exactly what I want to find out,” she continued, with her deliberation, with the air of sitting secure upon the highest level. “I know now what I can do. I've proved it. Now I'm going right ahead putting over big things. You once told me I had it in me to be the best ever—and I now know I can be. I know I've got to tie up with a man, and the man has got to be just as good in his way as I am in mine. Right there's where I'm in doubt about you. I said I was going to talk straight—and I'm handing it to you straight. I don't know how good you are.”

“You mean you think I'm not big enough to work with you?”

“I mean exactly what I said. I said that I didn't really know how good you are, and that I wasn't going to tie up with any man except the best in the business. You've hinted now and then at a lot of big things you've put across and how strong you were in certain quarters where it paid to be strong—but I really know mighty little about you, Barney. This present job hasn't required you to do anything special, and all the really hard work I've done myself. Of course I know you are a good dancer, and clever with the ladies, and know how to pick up a sucker and string him along. But that's everything I do know. And, there are hundreds of men who are good at these things. The man I tie up with has got to be good at a lot of other things—and I've got to know he's good!”

“Good at what other things, Maggie?” he asked with suppressed eagerness.

“He's got to be good at putting over all kinds of situations. I don't care how he does it. So clever at putting things over that no one ever guesses he's the man who did it. And he's got to be able to give me protection. You know what I mean. A woman in the game I'm going in for is absolutely through, as far as doing anything big is concerned, the minute she gets a police record. I've got to have a man who's able to stand between me and the police. And I've got to know from past performances that the man can do these things. Just large words about what he can do, or hints about what he has done, don't count for a nickel with me. This is plain, hard business I'm talking, Barney, and I don't mean to hurt your feelings when I tell you that you don't measure up in any way to the man I need.”

It had been difficult for Barney to hold himself until she had finished. To start with, he had the vain man's constant itch to tell of his exploits, his di............