Clifford could see that Mary, gazing across at the little lawyer, had turned very white. For all her confident exterior, he guessed she now feared that Jack had done just what Loveman had said. “Well?” she challenged. “If Jack has,--and I’m sure he has,--isn’t it perfectly plain that you can never make a responsible man of him? And if you can’t make a man of him, it’s perfectly plain that you can never put your plan across.” “Well?” repeated Mary. Loveman leaned farther over the table and spoke in a low voice--though Clifford got his every word. “Drop the game, Mary. It’s a dead one. There’s not one penny for you, or any one else, in trying to play it further. Drop it, and come in on the basis I spoke of a week or so ago.” Mary’s face gave no sign of what she might be thinking. “Just what was that--if you don’t mind outlining it again?” “First item: I don’t need to remind you that I’m retained by Mr. Morton to look after Jack; say in a week I bring in a report that Jack has contracted a secret marriage--which means a bill for ten thousand for detective services, which I’ll split with you. Second item: he’ll want a divorce; I’ll handle the case and get a big fee--that’s where I come in. You’ll not fight, if he’ll pay high enough; that’s where you clean up between a hundred thousand and half a million--and being on the inside I’ll be in a position to tell you the top figure that Morton will pay. And third item: freed of this mess, and with Mrs. Jack Morton as your legal name, there’s no end to the big propositions I could put across for and with you--you with your looks and brains, and I with my inside knowledge of New York domestic life. Big stuff--big, I tell you! I could land you close to the top!” His enthusiasm, which had mounted as he spoke, now abated to a tone of solid, unanswerable argument. “That’s why I say to you to drop your present impossible game, and come into these new propositions.” She did not answer at once; so that he was led to prompt her: “That’s plain enough, isn’t it, Mary?--that the thing to do is to stop thinking about Jack and come in on these other lines?” “Perhaps,” she answered steadily. “But first, I’ve got to find out about Jack. I don’t believe what you believe.” “Well, I’m disappointed--though perhaps I don’t blame you. But the proposition stands open.”