Suddenly she remembered the things Hunt had given her, or had loaned her, the evening four months earlier when he had taken her to an artists’ masquerade ball—­though to her it had been a bitter disappointment when Hunt had carried her away before the unmasking at twelve o’clock.  She tore off the offending waist and skirt, pulled from beneath the bed the pasteboard box containing her costume; and in five minutes of flying hands the transformation was completed.  Her thick hair of burnished black was piled on top of her head in gracious disorder, and from it swayed a scarlet paper flower.  About her lithe body, over a black satin skirt, swathing her in its graceful folds, clung a Spanish shawl of saffron-colored background with long brown silken fringe, and flowered all over with brown and red and peacock blue, and held in place by three huge barbaric pins jeweled with colored glass, one at either hip and upon her right shoulder, leaving her smooth shoulders bare and free.  With no more than a glance to get the hasty effect, she hurried up to the studio.

Hunt whistled at sight of her, but made no remark.  Flushed, she looked back at him defiantly.  The Duchess gave no sign whatever of being aware of the transformation.

Maggie with excited touches tried to improve her setting of the table, aquiver with expectancy and suspense at the nearness of the meeting—­ every nerve of audition strained to catch the first footfall upon the stairs.  Hunt, watching her, could but wonder, in case Larry was the clever, dashing person that had been described, what would be the outcome when these two natures met and perhaps joined forces.

CHAPTER IV

While the preparations for dinner were going on in the studio, down below Larry turned a corner and swung up the narrow street toward the pawnshop.  He halted and peered in before entering; in doing this he was obeying the caution that was his by instinct and training.

Leaning over the counter within, and chatting with his grandmother’s assistant was Casey, one of the two plain-clothesmen who had arrested him.  Larry drew back.  He was not afraid of Casey, or of Gavegan, Casey’s partner, or of the whole police force, or of the State of New York; they had nothing on him, he had settled accounts by having done his bit.  All the same, he preferred not to meet Casey just then.  So he went down the street, crossed the cobbled plaza along the water-front, and slipped through the darkness among the trucks out to the end of the pier.  Under his feet the East River splashed sluggishly against the piles, but out near the river’s center he could see the tide swirling out to sea at six miles an hour, toward the great shadowy Manhattan Bridge crested with its splendid tiara of lights.