“Of course not. Oh, I don’t mind so much what he might learn about me,” she added, a bit defiantly. “You police have nothing on me--not in the way of a conviction, anyhow. But it would not help particularly if he learned who my father had been, and that Joe Russell is my uncle, and that my brother is Slant-Face Regan.” “But he’ll be sure to learn some day.” “By that time he’ll have become so attached to me that it’ll not make much difference.” “But there’s his father. What about what’ll happen when he finds out? All Jack’s money comes through his father.” “Oh, his father will come around in the end. You see he’s not to know till we get ready.” Clifford looked at her for a long moment of silence. “I know what you’re thinking; you’re thinking I’m just another adventuress,” she said with a shrug. “But what of that? Every woman is an adventuress who is trying to better her position and who is using her head to do it. And that’s just what every woman is doing!” “I was not thinking chiefly of that; I was thinking of Peter Loveman. Did he suggest that you go into hiding?” “When Jack told him of our engagement, he said he didn’t want to know anything about it, he wanted to keep out of any such affair. But when he learned Jack’s father was in town, he telephoned me to keep out of the way.” “You’ve known Loveman some time?” “Since I came back to America. He’s been Uncle Joe’s lawyer; and naturally they’re friends.” “And he could have known you were in Pine Mountain Lodge?” “Of course Uncle Joe might have told him.” Clifford considered a moment. “Tell me, just what has Mr. Loveman had to do with this affair?” “I have already told you everything I know.” Clifford was convinced that in this she was telling him the truth. But all his senses informed him that somewhere, working in some manner, behind this affair was Peter Loveman, playing with his master’s subtlety upon human frailties, passions, and ambitions. Undoubtedly Mary Regan was being used. Undoubtedly also Commissioner Thorne had been right when he had declared that Mary Regan had no suspicion that she was being used, that she believed that whatever she was doing she was doing of her own free will. He had put to her all the questions he had intended; and as for a moment he sat gazing at her--so composed, so worldly-looking, and so very young to be saying such things as she had just said--the more personal questions, which had shaken him so often, throbbed through him like so many gigantic and fiery pulse-beats: Was she through and through and unchangeably this worldly, calculating Mary Regan that she had so carefully depicted for him--or was it all just a pose? Or might she believe herself sincere in this sophistication--and yet deep down in her might there be the living essence of a very different Mary Regan that she tried to deny and ignore? He could not forget that moment in Washington Square when her soul had seemed unlocked; he could not forget her kiss....