“Which do you like best, Barney?” Old Jimmie asked.

“The second is safer.  But then it’s slower; and there would be lawyers’ fees which would eat into our profits; and then because of the publicity we might have to wait some time before it would be safe to use Maggie again.  The first plan isn’t so complicated, it’s quick, and at once we’ve got Maggie free to use in other operations.  The first looks the best bet to me—­but, as I said, we don’t have to decide yet.  We can let developments help make the actual decision for us.”

Barney did not add that a further reason for his objecting to the second plan was that he didn’t want Maggie actually tied in marriage to any man.  That was a relationship his hopes were reserving for himself.

Barney’s inborn desire for acknowledged chieftainship again craved assertion and pressed him on to say: 

“You see, Maggie, how much depends on you.  You’ve got a whale of a chance for a beginner.  I hope you take a big brace over to-night and play up to the possibilities of your part.”

“You take care of your end, and I’ll take care of mine!” was her sharp retort.

Barney was flustered for a moment by his second failure to dominate Maggie.  “Oh, well, we’ll not row,” he tried to say easily.  “We understand each other, and we’re each trying to help the other fellow’s game—­that’s the main point.”

The two men left, Jimmie without kissing his daughter good-night.  This caused Maggie no surprise.  A kiss, not the lack of it, would have been the thing that would have excited wonder in Maggie.

Barney went away well satisfied on the whole with the manner in which the affair was progressing, and with his management of it and of Maggie.  Maggie was obstinate, to be sure; but he’d soon work that out of her.  He was now fully convinced of the soundness of his explanation of Maggie’s poor performance of that night:  she had just had an off day.

As for Maggie, after they had gone she sat up long, thinking—­and her thoughts reverted irresistibly to Larry.  His visit had been most distracting.  But she was not going to let it affect her purpose.  If anything, she was more determined than ever to be what she had told him she was going to be, to prove to him that he could not influence her.

She tried to keep her mind off Larry, but she could not.  He was for her so many questions.  How had he escaped?—­thrown off both police and old friends?  Where was he now?  What was he doing?  And when and how was he going to reappear and interfere?—­for Maggie had no doubt, now that she knew him to be in New York, that he would come again; and again try to check her.

And there was a matter which she no more understood than Larry, and this was another of her questions:  Why had she gone into a panic and aided his escape?

Of course, she now and then thought of Dick Sherwood.  She rather liked Dick.  But thus far she regarded him exactly as her scheme of life had presented him to her:  as a pleasant dupe who, in an exciting play in which she had the thrilling lead, was to be parted from his money.  She was rather sorry for him; but this was business, and her sorrow was not going to interfere with what she was going to do.