Uncle George paused a moment, then added: “Excuse my seeing it, dear--I’ve got the habit of seeing things and can’t break it. But did you notice that he put something in your bag?” “No.” “Then if you don’t believe my old eyes, you might take a look for yourself.” She opened her bag. There was the envelope Mr. Morton had slipped into it, unsealed and fat. Surprised, she drew from the envelope a folded packet of bills and rapidly fingered them. “Ten one-thousand-dollar bills!” she breathed. Uncle George nodded. “Just so. That’s how he sings a little love song. But he can sing a lot of different sorts of songs, and he’s a swell performer at a lot of other acts besides singing. That’s all, Mary--except here’s hoping you beat him in the end. But, though you’re clever, I’m not placing any bets on you. Good-bye, dear.” Up in her apartment Mary considered the matter of this money. Mr. Morton, she perceived, was playing the game as he saw it; and for the present, she decided, she must seemingly play the game in the same way. She returned the notes into the envelope, and slipped the packet into a drawer of her desk. She thought over her situation as a whole for a few minutes. Her original plan involving Maisie Jones would have been difficult enough had she been permitted the few days on which she had counted in which to work it out uninterrupted, but this prompt injection of Loveman, and then of Morton, into her scheme, doubled the number of human objects which she must juggle without a slip. The situation was difficult, yes,--it would require the sharpest alertness of all her wits,--but she could do it! Mary composed herself and went in again to see Maisie Jones, on whom she had promised to call after she had lunched. While they chatted Mary studied the girl with new intentness, dropping in adroit questions which would bring out revealing remarks. Instinctively she despised this daughter of plutocracy: a fluffy blonde, who had had every good thing in life served to her, unasked for, upon a golden platter, who had never once had to think for herself. She deserved just what was being planned for her! But despite Mary’s scorn--which was, perhaps, composed in part of that hate which human nature feels toward its contemplated victim--Mary perceived that beneath the girl’s fluffy worldliness, she was fundamentally the sort of girl who develops into a woman whose life is centered upon her domestic affairs and domestic happiness--who demands and subsists upon loyalty. And Mary now knew enough of Jack to know what Jack, with his instability of purpose and affection, would in the years to come bring into the life of this girl.