“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.”