第24章 WITHIN THE LAW(1)

In the time that followed, Mary lived in the flat which Aggie Lynch occupied along with her brother, Jim, a pickpocket much esteemed among his fellow craftsmen.The period wrought transformations of radical and bewildering sort in both the appearance and the character of the girl.Joe Garson, the forger, had long been acquainted with Aggie and her brother, though he considered them far beneath him in the social scale, since their criminal work was not of that high kind on which he prided himself.But, as he cast about for some woman to whom he might take the hapless girl he had rescued, his thoughts fell on Aggie, and forthwith his determination was made, since he knew that she was respectable, viewed according to his own peculiar lights.He was relieved rather than otherwise to learn that there was already an acquaintance between the two women, and the fact that his charge had served time in prison did not influence him one jot against her.On the contrary, it increased in some measure his respect for her as one of his own kind.By the time he had learned as well of her innocence, he had grown so interested that even her folly, as he was inclined to deem it, did not cause any wavering in his regard.

Now, at last, Mary Turner let herself drift.It seemed to her that she had abandoned herself to fate in that hour when she threw herself into the river.Afterward, without any volition on her part, she had been restored to life, and set within an environment new and strange to her, in which soon, to her surprise, she discovered a vivid pleasure.So, she fought no more, but left destiny to work its will unhampered by her futile strivings.For the first time in her life, thanks to the hospitality of Aggie Lynch, secretly reinforced from the funds of Joe Garson, Mary found herself living in luxurious idleness, while her every wish could be gratified by the merest mention of it.She was fed on the daintiest of fare, for Aggie was a sybarite in all sensuous pleasures that were apart from sex.She was clothed with the most delicate richness for the first time as to those more mysterious garments which women love, and she soon had a variety of frocks as charming as her graceful form demanded.In addition, there were as many of books and magazines as she could wish.Her mind, long starved like her body, seized avidly on the nourishment thus afforded.In this interest, Aggie had no share--was perhaps a little envious over Mary's absorption in printed pages.But for her consolation were the matters of food and dress, and of countless junketings.In such directions, Aggie was the leader, an eager, joyous one always.She took a vast pride in her guest, with the unmistakable air of elegance, and she dared to dream of great triumphs to come, though as yet she carefully avoided any suggestion to Mary of wrong-doing.

In the end, the suggestion came from Mary Turner herself, to the great surprise of Aggie, and, truth to tell, of herself.

There were two factors that chiefly influenced her decision.The first was due to the feeling that, since the world had rejected her, she need no longer concern herself with the world's opinion, or retain any scruples over it.Back of this lay her bitter sentiment toward the man who had been the direct cause of her imprisonment, Edward Gilder.It seemed to her that the general warfare against the world might well be made an initial step in the warfare she meant to wage, somehow, some time, against that man personally, in accordance with the hysterical threat she had uttered to his face.

The factor that was the immediate cause of her decision on an irregular mode of life was an editorial in one of the daily newspapers.This was a scathing arraignment of a master in high finance.The point of the writer's attack was the grim sarcasm for such methods of thievery as are kept within the law.That phrase held the girl's fancy, and she read the article again with a quickened interest.Then, she began to meditate.She herself was in a curious, indeterminate attitude as far as concerned the law.It was the law that had worked the ruin of her life, which she had striven to make wholesome.In consequence, she felt for the law no genuine respect, only detestation as for the epitome of injustice.Yet, she gave it a superficial respect, born of those three years of suffering which had been the result of the penalty inflicted on her.It was as an effect of this latter feeling that she was determined on one thing of vital importance:

that never would she be guilty of anything to pit her against the law's decrees.She had known too many hours of anguish in the doom set on her life because she had been deemed a violator of the law.No, never would she let herself take any position in which the law could accuse her....But there remained the fact that the actual cause of her long misery was this same law, manipulated by the man she hated.It had punished her, though she had been without fault.For that reason, she must always regard it as her enemy, must, indeed, hate it with an intensity beyond words--with an intensity equal to that she bore the man, Gilder.Now, in the paragraph she had just read she found a clue to suggestive thought, a hint as to a means by which she might satisfy her rancor against the law that had outraged her--and this in safety since she would attempt nought save that within the law.

Mary's heart leaped at the possibility back of those three words, "within the law." She might do anything, seek any revenge, work any evil, enjoy any mastery, as long as she should keep within the law.There could be no punishment then.That was the lesson taught by the captain in high finance.He was at pains always in his stupendous robberies to keep within the law.To that end, he employed lawyers of mighty cunning and learning to guide his steps aright in such tortuous paths.

There, then, was the secret.Why should she not use the like means? Why, indeed? She had brains enough to devise, surely.