CHAPTER XXI

Larry came down the stairway from Hunt’s studio in a mood of high elation.  Through Hunt’s promise of cooperation he had at least made a start in his unformed plan regarding Maggie.  Somehow, he’d work out and put across the rest of it.

Then Hunt’s prediction of the trouble that might rise through his silence recurred to Larry.  Indeed, that was a delicate situation!—­ containing all kinds of possible disasters for himself as well as for Hunt.  He would have to be most watchful, most careful, or he would find himself entangled in worse circumstances than at present.

As he came down into the little back room, his grandmother was sitting over her interminable accounts, each of which represented a little profit to herself, some a little relief to many, some a tragedy to a few; and many of which were in code, for these represented transactions of a character which no pawnshop, particularly one reputed to be a fence, wishes ever to have understood by those presumptive busy-bodies, the police.  When Larry had first entered, she had merely given him an unsurprised “good-evening” and permitted him to pass on.  But now, as he told her good-night and turned to leave, she said in her thin, monotonous voice: 

“Sit down for a minute, Larry.  I want to talk to you.”

Larry obeyed.  “Yes, grandmother.”

But the Duchess did not at once speak.  She held her red-rimmed, unblinking eyes on him steadily.  Larry waited patiently.  Though she was so composed, so self-contained, Larry knew her well enough to know that what was passing in her mind was something of deep importance, at least to her.

At length she spoke.  “You saw Maggie that night you hurried away from here?”

“Yes, grandmother.  Have you heard from her since the?—­or from Barney or Old Jimmie?”

The Duchess shook her head.  “Do you mind telling me what happened that night—­and what Maggie’s doing?”

Larry told her of the scene in Maggie’s suite at the Grantham, told of the plan in which Maggie was involved and of his own added predicament.  This last the Duchess seemingly ignored.

“Just about what I supposed she was doing,” she said.  “And you tried again to get her to give it up?”

“Yes.”

“And she refused?”

“Yes.”  And he added:  “Refused more emphatically than before.”

The Duchess studied him a long moment.  Then:  “You’re not trying to make her give that up just because you think she’s worth saving.  You like her a lot, Larry?”

“I love her,” Larry admitted.

“I’m sorry about that, Larry.”  There was real emotion in the old voice now.  “I’ve told you that you’re all I’ve got left.  And now that you’ve at last started right, I want everything to go right with you.  Everything!  And Maggie will never help things go right with you.  Your love for her can only mean misery and misfortune.  You can’t change her.”