She was young, proud, willful, had been trained to regard such adventures as colorful and legitimate; and had not lived long enough for experience to teach her otherwise.

No, Maggie was not to blame.

But Old Jimmie! He would like to twist Old Jimmie's neck! But then Old Jimmie was Maggie's father; and the mere fact of Old Jimmie being Maggie's father would, he knew, safeguard the old man from his wrath even were he at liberty to go forth and act.
He cursed his enforced seclusion.

If only he were free to go out and do his best in the open! But then, even if he were, his best endeavors would have little influence upon Maggie--with her despising and distrusting him as she did, and with her so determined to go ahead in her own way.
Once during the morning, he slipped from the library into his room and gazed at the portrait of Maggie that Hunt had given him the night before: Maggie, self-confident, willful, a beautiful nobody who was staring the world out of countenance; a Maggie that was a thousand possible Maggies.

And as he gazed he thought of the wager he had made with Hunt, and of his own rather scatter-brained plannings concerning it.