Céline was a fervent admirer of Lord Severance. Half Greek, she had heard him called. To her he was wholly Greek: a Greek god. Indeed, he was miles handsomer than "cet Apollon en marbre" adorning a pedestal in the salon, which statue she tried to drape tastefully with climbing flowers each morning. His lordship's nose was much the same as Apollo's; so was his proud air of owning the world and not caring particularly about it: and to Céline's idea he had more to be proud of than a mere god who went naked.
Gods had no pockets, and Lord Severance had many, beautifully flat yet containing banknotes with which he was generous when nobody looked. Since she could not marry him, Céline wanted Mademoiselle to do so, for Mademoiselle was heralter ego. She shared Mademoiselle's glory and her dresses. She wished to be maid to a countess—achiccountess, as the wife of Milord Severance would be. It was desolating that Mademoiselle should throw everything over because of a silly quarrel (it must be a quarrel!) and fling herself away on a gawky giant whose clothes might have been made by a butcher!
Yes, it was easy to see that there had been an upheaval of some sort. Mademoiselle was not the same since Sunday afternoon, when this huge personage had arrived by appointment, and Céline had recalled seeing him on shipboard. To be sure, Milord had come in later, and outstayed the Monsieur. But it was then the quarrel must have occurred, for Mademoiselle had been in a state unequalled even after the most trying dress rehearsals. Oh, it was a mystery—a mystery of the deepest blackness!
Céline moaned aloud, with a bleating noise, and gabbledargotas she tidied the belongings which Mademoiselle had flung everywhere.
"If I should call up Milord, how would that be?" she asked herself, and rushed to the 'phone.
Severance, as it happened, had been on the point of telephoning Mrs. Sorel, not daring to attempt direct communication with Marise. He had bad news and good news to give. The bad was that he must sail for England sooner than expected, in fact, on the following day, or perhaps not get a cabin for weeks.
The good news was that a friend had offered to lend him a wonderful house near Los Angeles for the next few months. He had spoken to a certain Lady Fytche (néeAdêla Moyle, of California) about his marriage, and bringing Œnone across for her health. Whereupon Adêla (who was at his hotel, and sailing on his ship) said, "I'd love to lend you Bell Towers. The house is standing empty, and you know it's rather nice."
Severance did know, for Bell Towers was a famous place, illustrated in magazines; and if Adêla Moyle had been prettier, it might have become his own before she fell back—figuratively speaking—upon a baronet.
If Marise would give up the stage (he couldn't bear to leave her behind the footlights in New York, admired, interviewed, gossipped about by Tom, Dick and Harry!), he'd lend Bell Towers to Mrs. Sorel, and the girl could vanish from public view till time for her farcical marriage and his own return. If his uncle could be told by himself and the newspapers that Miss Sorel wasengagedto Major Garth, it would be enough to cool the old boy's suspicions.
Then, as Tony's hand was stretched out for the receiver, came a ring at the telephone.
"The dentist!" he thought. For he had had to ask for a second appointment because of that loosened tooth, and was to be called up. It came as a surprise, therefore, to hear Céline's voice.
He could hardly believe the news which the French maid gave him. Marise wouldn't do such a thing! There must be a mistake, he told Céline. Or it was a clumsy joke.
"Milord, c'est la verité," came the answer. "Milord need not take my word. Let him go to the church. Milord may yet be in time. But he must make haste. It is a long way. I heard Madame telephone and talk."
"I will go—I'll do my best," Severance answered, to put the woman off. But—whatcouldhe do? What was his "best"?
Céline knew nothing of the secret pact. She judged from what she had overheard, and he could not explain that he didn't see his way to stop the marriage.
The more he thought, the more clear it became that this sudden move by Marise was a caprice to spite him—to "hoist him from his own petard." Severance could almost hear the girl defend herself. "You ought to be pleased that I took you at your word, before you went away. Otherwise I might have changed my mind about the whole thing!"
She was sure to say this, and even if he reached the church in time he wouldn't dare stop the business when it had gone so far. That devil Garth had a beast of a temper; and a fellow can't at the same moment see red, and which side his bread is buttered!
Severance hated Garth venomously since the episode at the Belmore. But the brute was a hero in the States, and would pass in the public eye as a reasonable husband for Marise Sorel.
Nobody who didn't know the ugly truth would say, "Howcouldthat beautiful girl throw herself away on thatworm?"
Whatever Garth was, he wasn't a worm. Though he had apparently made no bones of accepting a million-dollar bribe, deep within his subconscious self Severance didn't believe that the million was the lure. Garth was in love with the girl, in his loutish way. Perhaps, even, he might hope to win some affection from her in return. Tony felt that he need wish the fool no worse than an attempt to "try it on"!
Force, Severance did not fear. Marise was no flapper. She had her eyes open. She'd know how to handle a man in Garth's position. Besides, Mums would be at her side, a pillar of strength. Tony even felt that in some ways Garth was ideal for the part he had to play. Marise would always contrast him unfavourably with the man she loved. And hating Garth, he—Severance—could enjoy the tortures which the paid dummy was doomed to suffer.
Severance could not keep away from the church. To go was undignified, yet he knew that he would go.... Five minutes after his talk with Céline, Tony was in the lift, descending ten storeys of his hotel to the gilding and marble of the ground floor. As in a dream, he ordered a taxi. It came; and—self-conscious, as if he were being married himself—he directed the chauffeur where to drive. Then, still as in a dream, he stared at his reflection in a small mirror, which bobbed as the taxi bounced. It was a consolation to see how handsome and superlatively smart he looked!
He had abandoned his uniform in New York for every-day life; but he was sure that no man in America had clothes to compare in cut with his, which had been built at just the right place in Savile Row. His silk hat was a masterpiece. His tie, his socks, and the orchid in his buttonhole were all of the same shade, and his opal pin repeated the lights and shades of colour.
Well, there was one good thing hecouldaccomplish by turning up at the church. Silently he would show Marise the contrast between a man who was everything he ought to be, and a man who was everything no man should be and live!
The chauffeur slowed at last before a church which looked more English than American, and was perhaps a relic of colonial days. "You can wait," said Severance, getting out. "I may ..." But he forgot the rest. In the porch stood two men, who had evidently just arrived and were talking. It was more like a dream than ever to see a familiar uniform which at a glance took Severance home. Both men wore it. The fighting khaki of his own regiment of the Guards!
The shorter of the two tall officers turned and saw him. It was his own Colonel; and the other was Garth. Then a second taxi drove up, containing Marise Sorel and her mother.
Severance would have stepped to the door of their cab, but Garth was before him.
And so it was, with sunshine striking a line of decorations on the V.C.'s breast, that Marise got the contrast between the men. An orchid is beautiful; but the Victoria Cross, even expressed in ribbon, is better.
"Let me introduce my Colonel, Lord Pobblebrook," said Garth. "He has brought his wife, who is American, home to this country; and when we ran across each other this morning he offered to—to see me through here."
"Pobbles"—of whom Marise had heard from Tony—took her hand. "We're proud of Garth in the regiment," he said, and found time to nod to Severance. But he looked puzzled. Why was Severance here? To the best of Pobbles's recollection, Tony had been the ringleader in a set who wanted to snub Garth out of the Brigade. The Colonel's curiosity woke up.
For once, Marise was all girl, not actress. She lost hersavoir faireat sight of Severance, and could not speak.
She saw him before she saw Garth and "Pobbles," and her eyes took in his perfection of tailorhood. Then Garth came forward, and she was struck with surprise by the uniform of the smartest soldiers in the world.
"What an inspiration!" she thought, never guessing whence that inspiration had come.
Mrs. Sorel, luckily, could always speak, even chatter. She chattered now.
"How nice of you to come, Lord Severance," she chirped, keeping up appearances before Lord Pobblebrook. "And howclever!" she added, camouflaging for "Pobbles's" benefit her surprise that Tony should have learned Marise's secret. How he had done that, she would wring out of someone by and by. But at present duty bade her be pleasant to "Pobbles."
Trying to recall mutual friends (titled) with whose Christian names she could impress the noble soldier, Mums had to keep a watchful eye and ear for her girl and the two young men: but it was not for long. The clergyman was waiting.
"Strange, how many things you can think of at one time—especially the wrong time!" Marise reflected, as she stood before the figure in a surplice.
She had often dreamed of being married, and what kind of a wedding she would have, at St. George's, Hanover Square, or the Guards' Chapel. She had chosen her music, and knew what sort of dress and veil she wanted. Orchids were Tony's flowers. There was a white variety, streaked with silver. Her train should be silver, too. She'd be leaving the stage; and as the Countess of Severance, she could be presented. The silver train would do for Court.
Now, here she was, thousands of miles from Hanover Square and the Guards' Chapel. She had on a street dress. There was no music, unless you could count the far-off strains of a hand-organ playing an old tune, "You made me love you, I didn't want to do it!" The one orchid was in Tony's buttonhole; and he was in a pew looking on while she promised to love, honour and obey another man.
Marise saw the two pictures—the dream and the reality; and the difference made her sick. All the sense of wild adventure was gone. There wasnoadventure! There was just blank ruin.
What a fool she had been! Was there no way out, even now? Surely there was one. She could still say "No," instead of "Yes," and there'd be an end, where Garth was concerned.
Perhaps on the spur of the moment Marise would have followed her impulse, if—Lord Pobblebrook hadn't been present. Somehow, before him she couldn't make a scene!
The girl felt as if two unseen influences had her by the arm, one on the right, one on the left, like the white and black angels of the Mohammedan. They pulled both ways at once, and trembling as she never had trembled on a first night at the theatre, she looked up at Garth.
There was an odd expression in his yellow-grey eyes, which she had likened to the eyes of a lion in a Zoo who sees nothing save his far-off desert. This lion was not now thinking of the desert. He was thinking of her. But how? As a piece of meat which he would soon be free to devour? Or—as a new keeper who, though young and a woman, would have to be reckoned with?
As this question flashed through her mind, Marise remembered that she knew nothing of Garth's past, nor of his character, except that he had fought and won the V.C., therefore he must be brave. But why worry, since in a few months they'd part, and she would forget him, as she'd forgotten several leading men who played "opposite" her when she first went on the stage?
But that look in the yellow-grey eyes; what was its language? What was in the soul or brain behind the eyes? Was Garth deciding how to treat her during the short time that would be his?
Marise recalled the sound of his voice when he had asked her what would come after the marriage. She'd answered that she "hadn't thought yet." And he had said, "You had better think. Think now."
"Well, I'm not alone in the world, and I'm not afraid of him," she encouraged herself. "Cave Man business is old stuff. And anyhow—what price a CaveGirl?"
The vision of a Cave Girl downing a surprised Cave Man almost made Marise laugh; and then it was time for the ring. Good gracious, thering! Of course, no one had thought of it!
There was an instant's stage-wait. Marise's eyes turned to her mother and saw Mums tearing off a glove to supply the necessary object. Far more dramatic, Severance had jumped up and was pulling from the least finger of his left hand a gold snake-ring which had been made for his mother in Athens. Yes, he wouldloveto have Marise married to Garth with that! But, after all, the bridegroom had brought the ring. It was only that for a few seconds he had forgotten. Perhaps the look he had exchanged with his bride had made him forget!
He remembered, however, before Mums or Severance could step into the breach. In fact, he gave them no breach to step into.
"With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow," Marise heard him repeat, as he slipped over the third finger of her left hand the circlet retrieved in haste from his khaki tunic. She glanced at the ring as it slid loosely on, and was amazed to see what such an outsider had chosen.
The "smart thing" in London and New York was, not to have the "stodgy old curtain-ring" which had been woman's badge of subjection for centuries. Instead, the idea was a band of platinum set round with diamonds; and this was what Garth had hit upon!
While Marise was on her knees—shamefaced because there was nothing she dared pray about—she thought of the ring, and wondered who on earth had put Garth up to getting it?
When all was over, and the words which should be momentous were spoken, "I pronounce you man and wife," the girl lifted her face with the hardest expression it had ever worn. Eyes and lips said, "This is where the bridegroom kisses the bride. But that's not inourprogramme. Don't dare to take advantage of your Colonel being here."
Whether Garth read the signal, or whether he'd no intention of keeping the time-honoured custom, he refrained. Instead of a kiss, he gave the bride a slight smile, gone so quickly she wondered if she'd imagined it.
In another moment, after she'd been pressed in her mother's arms, Lord Pobblebrook was shaking hands; and then came Severance.
It was a good minute for him, because Garth was kept busy by a kind Colonel and a not very kind mother-in-law.
"Let no man put them asunder!" the Reverend David Jones had just said, but there already was the man who intended, in the devil's good time, to disobey that command.
"This has been the worst half-hour of my life," Tony groaned. "My God, how I've suffered! I all but sprang up and yelled 'Stop!' when the fool looked round for someone to say why the marriage shouldn't take place——"
"'Or elsefor ever afterhold his peace,'" quoted Marise.
"Dash it all, don't rub things in," Severance begged. "I didn't know how bad it would be——"
"I half thought youmightspring up!" the girl confessed.
"If I had, what would you have done?"
"I—don't know."
"It would have made matters worse for the future—more difficult all round," Tony said. "That thought held me back. But, Marise, it was cruel to spring this surprise on me."
"It doesn't seem to have been a surprise," she reminded him. "Howdidyou know about it—the church, and everything?"
"A little bird told me. Why did you want to hurt me so?"
Marise shrugged her shoulders. "You had hurt me—almost to death. Ihadto strike back! But let's not talk of it any more. The thing's done—and can't be undone."
"It can, and will be, before long, please Heaven!"
The girl laughed. "PleaseHeaven?" And she was glad when Pobbles broke in, Mums at his side.
"My dear young lady, Garth confided in me (am I not his Colonel, which is much the same as a father confessor?) that this—er—this little show had been got up in a hurry for one reason or other. I'm pleased and honoured to be in at the dea—I mean the birth—er—youknowwhat I mean! And I'd be still more pleased if—er—couldn't we—I—invite you all to some sort of blow-out? My wife——"
"Sweet of you, Lord Pobblebrook!" cut in Mrs. Sorel. "But if there'd been time for any sort of rejoicing, any little feast, I should be giving it and asking Lady Pobblebrook and yourself to join us. But I suppose Major Garth can't quite have made it clear to you that he is called away suddenly—on a sort ofmission. That's why the marriage was so rushed. He has to go at once, so he wanted to be married first, and——"
"Take my wife with me," explained Garth.
His mother-in-law of ten minutes stared at him with the eyes of a cold, boiled fish.
"Of course—yes—that's what hewanted," she smiled to Pobbles. "What a pity it can't be! My daughter, Lord Pobblebrook, is a servant of the public, you know. She has to obey them, marriage or no marriage. And they want her in New York."
"Not as much as I want her out West," said Garth. He smiled again—that same queer smile with the same unreadable look in his eyes, though this time both were for Mums.
The indignant lady turned to Marise, in case there were some plot against her; but the girl gave a very slight shake of her head. Light came back to Mrs. Sorel's eyes. She ought to be able to trust her own daughter!
"I took the liberty of ordering lunch for four at the Ritz after I met my Colonel in the hall of the Belmore," said Garth. "I stopped on the way there, to buy the ring. But"—and he eyed Severance coolly—"there will be room to have a fifth plate laid, if—er——"
"Oh!" thought Marise. "Not so much Cave Man, after all, as the Strong, Silent Man! All right! I knowthatkind from A to Z. And I dare say it's just as easy to be a Strong, Silent Girl as to be a Cave Girl, if once you begin properly."
Her sense of adventure woke again as she waited to hear Tony's answer.
Severance accepted the invitation to the Ritz. His principal reason for doing so was because he knew it would enrage Garth.
It was a strange and strained luncheon, for those present (with the exception of "Pobbles") talked very little and thought so much that it seemed to each one as if his or her thoughts shrieked aloud or shot from the head in streaks of blue lightning.
Marise thought, "What comes next? What doesHemean to do?" And "He," with a capital "H," was no longer Severance, but this stranger, Garth.
Mrs. Sorel thought, "Howarewe going to get rid of the man? I'm sure he means mischief. Shall I appeal to Lord Severance, or would that make matters worse?"
Severance thought, "How am I to get some time alone with Marise, and come to an understanding before I sail to-morrow morning? How are we to arrange about ourletters and cables?"
And Garth thought, "What will She say when she finds out what I've arranged at the Plaza?"
As for Lord Pobblebrook, he had only vague, pleasant thoughts such as men of his type do have at a wedding luncheon with plenty of champagne. It was a very good luncheon, for they do things well at the Ritz, and the champagne was a last song of glory before America went "dry."
At last, when Severance had to give up hope of a whispered word with Marise, he was obliged to declare his hand. "I'll call at the theatre to-night to say good-bye if you don't mind," he announced aloud, with a casual air. "I suppose you won't hand things over to your understudy, in spite of what's happened to-day?"
"I shall play to-night, of course," said Marise.
"And every night," added Mums.
Silence followed her words.
"Won't you come back to the Plaza with us, Lord Pobblebrook?" asked Mrs. Sorel. "If you have never been there, I'd like you to see what a charming hotel it is. Next time you run over from dear England, you might like to try it for yourself. Major Garth, I'm sorry to say, is obliged to attend to business this afternoon—business concerned with hismission, so unfortunately—unless you'll go with us—my daughter and I will be obliged to taxi back alone."
"Of course I'll come, with pleasure!" heartily consented Pobbles.
"My business doesn't begin quite so early," said Garth. "If you'll drive with Mrs. Sorel, sir, I'll take my wife as far as the Plaza."
If Mums could have stabbed her son-in-law, not fatally but painfully, with a stiletto-flash from her eyes, it would have given her infinite satisfaction to do so. As she could not, she had to confess herself worsted for the moment; for Lord Pobblebrook was the Colonel of Lord Severance as well as of Major Garth; and it was for such as he that the conventional farce of this wedding had taken place. He must not be allowed to suspect that anything was wrong, or Tony's whole elaborate scheme might be wrecked. It was most probable that Lord Pobblebrook and Mr. Ionides belonged to some of the same London clubs and met now and then.
Marise was oddly dazed at finding herself alone in a taxi with Garth, bound for the Plaza Hotel, which she thought of as "home." She had expected that Tony or Mums would succeed in rescuing her, but neither had risen to the occasion: and the girl realised that this lack of initiative on their part was due to the presence of Pobbles. She hardly knew whether to be more vexed or amused at Garth's triumph (she supposed that he considered it such); but her lips twitched with that fatal sense of humour which Mums so disapproved.
"It is rather funny, isn't it?" said her companion.
Marise stiffened. This was a critical moment. Much depended upon the start she made on stepping over the threshold of this strange situation. She must be careful to keep the whip hand.
"What I was laughing at is funny, in a way," she grudged. "It occurred to me that it was smart of you to bring your Colonel to—to—the—er——"
"Show," suggested Garth.
"If you like to call it that."
"I thought the word pretty well described it from your point of view," explained Garth.
Marise looked straight at him.
"What was it from yours? It can't have been much more."
"I don't feel bound to tell you what it was from mine."
"Oh, well, you needn't!" Her chin went up. "I'm not really curious."
"Why should you be? You'll find out in time."
A spark lit the blue eyes under the blue hat.
"I do hope you're not planning to spring any surprises on me, Major Garth," she said, in an acid tone that was a youthful copy of Mums, "because, if you are, it will only lead to unpleasantness. Whereas, if you keep to the spirit of the bargain, we——"
"Allow me to point out," Garth cut in, with an impersonal air of detachment which puzzled her, "that you yourself have 'queered' the 'bargain.'"
"I don't know what you mean," exclaimed Marise.
"That's another instance of your not thinking things out beforehand," he said. "If you'd stopped to reflect a minute before you proposed to marry me this morning you'd have seen what you were up against."
Marise felt the blood rush to her cheeks, as if the man had slapped them with the flat of his big hand.
"What a way of putting it!" she flashed at him. "You may be a hero and all that—no doubt you are, as you're a V.C. But as a man—agentleman—I'm afraid you've got quite a lot to learn."
"Of course I have," said Garth. "You knew I was only a temporary gentleman. I heard Severance state the fact to you on shipboard when he was telling you some of my other disadvantages. Scratch a temporary gentleman, and under the surface you find——"
"What?" Marise threw into a pause.
"The things you'll find in me, when you know me better."
"Oh!" she breathed. And on second thoughts added, "I don't intend to 'scratch' you, and find things under the surface. I don't suppose I shall ever know you much better."
"Call it worse, then," he suggested.
"Neither better, nor worse!"
"Yet you've just promised to take me for both."
"That meant nothing, as you know very well."
"I do not know anything of the sort."
"Then youarea 'temporary gentleman' indeed! We spoke just now of that bargain——"
"Which, through your own actions, doesn't exist."
"Of course it exists. You talk in riddles!"
"When you put your mind to this one, it will cease to be a riddle. You'll guess it in a moment. You'll see what you've done. Probably Severance would have told you before this if he'd had the chance. The explanation, if there has to be one, will come better from him than from me. But I may as well break one small detail to you before we get to the hotel; I've no intention of leaving him alone with you for a minute, or any part of a minute, before he sails."
"How dare you hope to lay down the law for me?" Marise almost gasped, over a wildly-throbbing heart. "I shall see Lord Severance alone as much as I choose—and as he chooses."
"You can try," said Garth. "So can he."
"Youwon't have any chance to prevent it! You shan't even come into my mother's suite at the Plaza Hotel if you attempt to put on these ridiculous airs of being my master. I wonder who you think youare, Major Garth?"
"The important thing—to you and your mother and to Severance—is not so much what I think I am, as what other people will think I am. They will think I'm your husband. I understand that this marriage idea was entirely for appearance' sake?"
"Exactly!" cried Marise.
"Then it's up to you and me to look after the appearances. I warned you this morning that you hadn't thought the thing out enough, and that you'd better think hard, then and there. Perhaps you did. If so, you——"
"I didn't. How could I? There was no time."
"That's what you said. Consequently I had to do the thinking for you. And the arranging of your future. I never was a slow chap. My life was always more or less of a hustle since I was a very small kid, and I had to keep my thinking machine on the jump. The war has speeded it up a bit. This morning, when you announced that you'd be ready to be married in an hour or less, I'll tell you just what I had to do. I had to inform the manager of your hotel that I was marrying Miss Sorel, and that we couldn't get away from New York for a few days——"
"You—dared to do that!"
"I got my V.C. for doing something almost as dangerous. I told him he must give us a suite——"
"You—youdevil!"
"Thank you. I guess even that sounds more natural from a wife to a husband than 'Major Garth.'"
"You don't dream I'm going to occupy a suite with you, I suppose?"
"I don't dream. I know you are going to occupy that suite, unless you want me openly to leave you on our wedding day. This comes of your not thinking what would happen next. You'd better choose now, because we'll soon be at the Plaza. Is it to be my hotel or not?"
"You said—when my mother explained to Lord Pobblebrook that you had a mission—you said you were going West."
"And that I intended to take you with me. But that won't be for a few days, till you've had time to settle your affairs. I don't want to rush you. What I ask you to decide now is for meanwhile, before we start."
"I shall never start anywhere with you—or live anywhere meanwhile with you."
"Very well then, that's that. Now I know where I am." He seized the speaking-tube, but Marise caught his hand.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"Stop the taxi and get out. The snap's off."
The girl was about to exclaim, "But you can't leave me like this!" when it occurred to her that, desperado as he was turning out, it would be well to take him at his word; at all events, to a certain extent.
"Very well," she said. "I shall tell everyone that you've gone West on an important mission. V.C.'s are always expected to have missions."
"And I shall tell everyone that I've done nothing of the sort. I'll go back to the Belmore, 'phone to the Plaza and countermand the suite I took, and allow myself to be interviewed by all the reporters, who'll swarm round me like flies round a honeypot. There'll be plenty of flies left for you. You can give them honey or vinegar, I don't care which. It's your concern, not mine. I don't even care what they make of the combination: my story and yours. It'll besomestory, though. That's the one thing sure."
"You're an absolute brute!" cried Marise.
"What did you expect? You heard from Severance that I was a bounder. I'm a fighting man. That's about all, for the moment."
"You mean, you're fighting me?"
"Not in the least. I'm fighting the battle of appearances, which means I'm fightingforyou."
"What makes you think there'll be reporters waiting?" Marise changed the subject. "Did you tell anyone?"
"The manager of your hotel and mine. I didn't tell him in confidence. There was no idea of keeping the marriage a secret, was there?"
"No-o."
"Well, then! Am I or am I not to stop the taxi and get out?"
"Wait," Marise temporised. "You must please understand that I'm not going to live with you as your wife."
"I haven't asked you to do so, although you did ask me to become your husband. After last Sunday, I would never have started the subject, or even have tried to meet you again. Please, on your part, understand that."
The girl's breath was caught away for the dozenth time. She spoke more quietly. "I know you haven't asked me, in so many words," she admitted. "But you spoke of asuite."
"Certainly I spoke of a suite. I thought you and your mother were anxious to keep up conventions. Though I'm not Severance's sort of gentleman—perhapsbecauseI'm not—you can trust me not to behave like a brute, even though you're thinking that I speak like one. Or, if you can't trust me as far as that, you ought never to have run the risk you have run."
"But can I trust you—to keep to the bargain?"
"I've told you that owing to your own act, thereisno bargain. Haven't you solved that 'puzzle' yet?"
"I have not."
"You will soon. Do I stop here?"
"Bargain or no bargain then,canI trust you?"
"Look me in the face and judge."
She looked him in the face.
In spite of the war tan, not faded yet, he was pale; and his pupils seemed to have flowed like ink over the yellow-grey iris. His eyes were black as they blazed into hers. He might, she thought, commit murder in that mood, but—he could do nothing mean, nothing sly, nothing vile.
"I must trust you, and I do."
Garth let the speaking-tube fall.
When Marise and Garth arrived together in Mrs. Sorel's salon, it was to find a "bunch" of reporters interviewing the bride's mother.
Marise guessed that Mums had had the young men up in order to tell them what she chose about Major Garth's future movements before Garth had time to arrive and speak for himself. But by these tactics she had lost the supporting presence of Lord Severance. Fearing his uncle, and perhaps even detectives set to spy upon him by Constantine Ionides, the last thing he could afford was to have his name appear in print in connection with this surprise wedding. Fearing reporters, he had not even come to the hotel door with Mrs. Sorel, but had gone with his Colonel to pay respects due to lady Pobblebrook; and this was well, for some sharp eye and stylo would have spotted him even in the background of a taxi.
Mums had not only approved, she had advised this prudence. Everything depended upon it, in fact; and she had soothed Tony by assuring him that she and Marise—or she alone—could deal with Garth if Garth were uppish and needed keeping in his place. It was arranged between Mrs. Sorel and Lord Severance that the latter should come to "Dolores's" dressing-room at the theatre to say good-bye, and Mums would see that he got a few minutes at least alone with Marise. Then, in a few weeks he would be back and they would meet again. Mrs. Sorel had provisionally accepted the loan of Bell Towers until he and Œnone should want the house for themselves, whereupon the Sorels could gracefully retire to some charming place they would hope to find in the neighbourhood.
Of course, this acceptance of Bell Towers must depend upon Marise leaving the stage: but Mums said that, if Tony were indeed shortly to be left a widower, the sooner Marise could be disassociated from the theatre, the better it would be for all concerned.
Thus it happened that when "Major and Mrs. Garth" walked into the room a few minutes after Mums' arrival, they found her as busy with a crowd of reporters as a conjurer who keeps a dozen oranges in the air at once.
Mary Sorel was chagrined at sight of her son-in-law.
Not that she thought of him as such, or as the husband of her daughter. She was a woman whom circumstances had forced to become unscrupulous. Ever since Marise had begun, as a flapper, to show signs of unusual beauty and talent, Mums had buckled on a steely armour in which to fight the world for her girl. Naturally conventional, she had adjusted a nice balance between ambition and conscience. When she was obliged to do a thing in itself objectionable, she hastily gilded it for her own benefit as well as that of Marise, seeing it as she wished it to be. Garth in her eyes, therefore, was no more important than one of the leading men with whom Marise played her star parts; and as—like a leading man—he was to be well paid, he would have no right to obtrude upon the star's private life.
She intended that, no matter how he protested, he should immediately be "called away"; and she had hoped to get just what she wanted scribbled into the notebooks of these reporters before Garth could interfere. Without feeling in the least guilty, therefore, she was upset when he had the bad taste to stalk in with Marise.
"Hello, boys!" he breezily greeted the newspaper men, some of whom he had met before.
They were delighted to see him, as well as Marise, and Mrs. Sorel's painstaking work went by the board in a minute. With rage and anguish she heard Garth say that when he "went West" (no longer in the sad vernacular of soldiers) his wife would go with him.
"She'll be leaving the stage, you know, as soon as she can manage to get free," he explained. "And then I'm going to take her out to my adopted state, Arizona."
His mother-in-law's interpolations that "it must be a long time first" were scarcely heard; and all her "exclusive information" was hurriedly blue-pencilled by the newspaper men. In the midst of this (to her) extremely painful scene, Sheridan and Belloc, author and manager, burst in like a couple of bombs. They had heard the news, and dashed to the Plaza in search of the truth.
"Well, I suppose we ought to congratulate you and all that," grumbled Belloc, when his worst fears had been confirmed by the sight of Garth, well known from journalistic snapshots. "We might have suspected something was in the wind, the way you've been an every-nighter for the 'Spring Song,' Major. But safety first!—and we can't be polite till we're out of the woods. You're not going to tear Miss Sorel away from us, of course, in the midst of the run?"
"Miss Sorel has ceased to exist, hasn't she?" asked Garth, with a rather glum smile.
"Not ceased to exist professionally." Belloc explained his meaning to the lay mind. "And I hope she won't cease for many years."
"If I can answer for her, she'll do no more acting after she's handed in her notice to you—two weeks, I suppose, like most contracts," Garth returned. "It's hard on you, in the middle of a run. But didn't I see in some Sunday supplement a photo of a beautiful young lady, labelled 'Miss Sorel's Understudy'? And as you say 'safety first!'—naturally I put my own safety before yours."
"As if anyone would go to the 'Spring Song' to see Marise's understudy!" broke out Mrs. Sorel.
"Well, inmy'Spring Song' there's no understudy to take her part. She has to play it herself," retorted Garth. "But I leave the decision to her."
As he spoke he looked straight at Marise—a warning look, as she read it. The thought of his threat was sharp as the point of a knife, pricking a painful reminder into her breast.
The girl could hear every word he had said to her in the taxi between church and hotel—hear the whole conversation as though it were being repeated by a gramophone. If she ventured to promise Belloc and Sheridan now that she would stay on in spite of her marriage, this big, uncompromising fellow would turn his back on her, giving to the public some garbled story of the desertion, a story which would shame her and ruin Tony's plans. She could have stamped her foot and burst into tears, as the emotional Spanish "Dolores" had to do in one scene of the play: but the reporters were all eyes and ears, and would simply "eat" an exhibition of the star's fury with her brand-new bridegroom. Oh, she was at the beast's mercy in this first round of their fight—and well he must know it, or he'd not dare give her such a lead!
"Of course Marise wouldn't leave two old friends in the lurch at a fortnight's notice," Mrs. Sorel gave her ultimatum. "This is only a joke of Major Garth's."
"No, Mums, I'm afraid it isn't," said the girl, her cheeks hot, her eyes filling with tears. "We—we were talking things over in the taxi just now, and—and—well anyhow there's a fortnight to get Susanne Neville into shape as Dolores before I have to—go. She's so clever and pretty, I shall probably be jealous as a cat of the hit she makes in 'Dolores.'"
Mrs. Sorel was stricken dumb for once. Not that she intended to let things fall to pieces in any such way; but she was sure Marise wouldn't pronounce what sounded like her own doom without reason. Mums would have it out with Marise and the Terrible Garth when everyone else had safely faded away.
The best she could do was to go herself to the vestibule door when the reporters left in a body and breathe a few words to them. "I wouldn't take all this as being definitely decided, if I were you. There may be a quick change. Better say that nothing's settled." And again, when Belloc and Sheridan gloomily departed, "Don't give up. I'll 'phone you later. There's sure to be better news!"
Returning, Mary Sorel the dauntless was surprised and disgusted to find herself vaguely afraid of the man she had despised. She had the same fear of him that one has of an impersonal force like electricity, which cannot be counted on, and of which little is known except that it may strike without considering one's feelings in the least. She tried to shake off the sensation, however, for the man had evidently hypnotised Marise in some secret, deadly way, perhaps by threats of violence. All was lost if she—Mary—did not keep her head.
She entered the salon, therefore, with a bustling air. "Now, Major Garth," she began, "I hope to hear the meaning of this—thisridiculoustalk of my daughter throwing over her engagement and going West with you."
"She's thrown over one engagement in favour of another, hasn't she?" Garth inquired with his habitual quiet insolence. "If you asked the Reverend Mr. Jones, I think he'd say she had."
"I wish to ask no one anything about my daughter," Mrs. Sorel crushed the upstart. "I merely assert that it's time this nonsense ceased. It's gone disastrously far already."
"It's up to you and Marise to say how much further it shall go."
"'Marise'! Who gave you permission to call her Marise?"
Garth laughed. Even the girl uttered a faint hysterical giggle. It was rather funny to hear poor Mums ask that! But then Mums prided herself on having no vulgar sense of humour to interfere with justice.
"What would you like me to call her?" the man wanted to know. "'Miss Sorel' would be hardly proper now. And for a husband to call his wife 'Mrs. Garth' would be more suited, wouldn't it, to the lower circles I sprang from, than the high ones where she moves?"
Mary Sorel was reduced to heaving silence. As she bit her lip, Garth turned to Marise. "Would you prefer me to make things clear to your mother, or would you rather I'd go, and leave it to you?"
Marise snatched at the chance he gave. "Go, please," she answered quickly. "I'll—tell Mums what you—said in the taxi. She and I will talk things over, and—and I'll see you again to-morrow or sometime."
"Or sometime," he echoed.
The girl expected him to remind her rudely of the bridal suite he had engaged in the hotel, but he did not. He took up his smart Guards cap, laid the handsome lavender-grey overcoat on his arm, and went to the door. "Au revoir," he said, pronouncing his French remarkably well for a man of the lower stratum. Then, without a word as to the next meeting, in spite of all his threats, he was gone.
Whatdidit mean? Marise asked herself. Had he been bluffing? Or had he seen the monstrous folly of terrorising her? She would have given much to know. Perhaps he guessed that!
Ostentatiously Mums flew to lock the door. She locked it loudly, and running back took Marise into her arms. "My poor child!" she wailed. "What has hedoneto you? You are like a dove with a snake!"
Strange, that in a turmoil of anger and dread as she was, Marise was continually wanting to laugh! The thought of herself as a fluttering dove and the big, brutal Garth as a sinuous snake was comic! But there was, alas, nothing else comic in the situation, and she explained it as she saw it, while Mums punctuated each sentence with moans.
"It's awful!" sighed Mary at last. "But there's nothing really to befeared, so we must cheer up. Our protection is that this fellow's poor as a church rat (Ican'tcall him a mouse!). When it comes to the point he will have to toe the mark, and keep to his bargain——"
"Ah, that's it!" cried Marise. "He says throughmyaction the bargain is off. He wouldn't explain what he meant: said I'd see for myself sooner or later. But I don't see yet. Do you?"
"I do not, indeed. I believe it's only more wicked bluff on his part. He talks of taking you West with him. What does he expect you to live on? Your own money? He hasn't got his million dollars yet, and he'll lose the lot unless he behaves himself," Mums laid down the law. "For goodness' sake, though, don't complain to Tony of the creature's threats! Tony would fight him—kill him, perhaps. What a sickening scandal! No, you've made an appalling mistake by marrying Garth before you needed to do so, and giving him a hold over you just as Tony is going so far away. But you can take care of yourself—or if you can't I can take care of you. As for this suite the man boasts about, I'll 'phone down now to the manager and question him. If it adjoins this, as it probably does—that would have been arranged if possible, no doubt—why, everything will be simple enough."
Marise did not answer. She was beginning to think that nothing was quite simple where Garth was concerned.
Marise started late for the theatre, because she felt unequal to coping with her fellow actors' and actresses' well-meaning good wishes. She went alone with Céline, for Mums had developed a nervous sick headache, and the girl, like a dutiful daughter, had begged her to rest at home.
"You'll be more able to help me out with—any complications that may come afterwards," she said.
The star's wonderfully decorated dressing-room was entered through a still more wonderfully decorated reception or ante-room; and almost running in, Marise stopped short with a gasp of surprise. Not only was the place crammed with flowers—all white, bridal flowers (that in itself was not strange), but in the midst of them sat Garth, still in uniform. As his wife appeared he rose, grave and silent, as if awaiting a cue.
"Take these things into the dressing-room, Céline," ordered Marise, tossing her gold bag and furs to the maid. "I'll be there in a minute."
When Céline had obeyed, the girl looked the man up and down.
"Visitors don't intrude here, except by invitation," she informed him.
"Have you invited Lord Severance to intrude?" Garth asked.
"No-o, I haven't invited him."
"But he's coming, isn't he?"
"Possibly he may come. You know quite well, that's different."
"I do know. Just because itisdifferent, I don't mean him to come unless I'm here too. But I've no wish to interfere with you otherwise. And if you tell me on your honour that you won't receive Severance alone (I don't count your maid as a chaperon), I'll go now. By the way, don't blame anyone for admitting me. The news is in all the late editions of the evening papers, I suppose you know, and naturally the bridegroom was expected to pay a call upon the bride."
Marise gazed at the formidable figure in khaki for a minute, and then without a word went into her dressing-room.
Mums, very likely, would have told the man a fib, getting rid of him by a promise not to see Severance alone. But the girl—though she, too, told fibs sometimes if driven into a corner—couldn't bring herself to utter one now. There was no time for a "scene," even if she were not in danger of coming out second best, so the dignified course was to retire. Tony wouldn't show up till the end of the first act at earliest; and if then she stood talking to someone or other outside her dressing-room as long as she dared, there might be time for a whisper with him while the watch-dog lay vainly in wait on the wrong side of the door!
Helped by Céline she dressed quickly, hearing no sound from the ante-room until the call-boy bounded in to shout her name. Instantly she ran through, half hoping that Garth had gone, though determined not to glance in his direction if he were still on the spot. He was; and somehow, without looking, Marise knew that he was quietly reading a book as if the place belonged to him.
Wild applause greeted the entrance of "Dolores," applause even more ardent than usual, and the play had to stop for the bride reluctantly to bow her acknowledgments. Marise had passed such an "upsetting" day that she came near having an attack of stage-fright, fearful of not taking her cue, or "drying up" in her words. But to her surprise and relief, she felt herself stronger in the part than she had ever been before. "I believe I reallyama great actress!" she thought; and choked at the pity of it—the pity that—whatever happened now—she was bound to leave the stage. "Is Tony worth it all?" she wondered. But the Other Man's figure loomed so tall in the foreground, that she could not concentrate on Tony long enough to answer her own question.
Never had "Dolores" been impatient of too many curtain calls until now: but to-night they were irritating. They wasted such a lot of time, and any moment Tony might come!
There was little time to linger outside her dressing-room, but she did linger for a few minutes, talking with the reproachful Belloc. No card or message was brought to her, however, and she knew that Severance would not have been sent into her room without her permission. Garth sat stolid as a Buddha when she passed through, and she went by him as if he were a piece of furniture. She received a telepathic impression that he did not lift his eyes from his book!
The leading man had a scene with the villain of the piece at the beginning of the second act, and this gave the star a chance to rest, or chat with friends. It was the time when Severance generally dropped in, and she "felt in her bones" that his name would now be announced. Nor were her vertebræ deceived. Prompt to the usual moment a knock, answered by Céline, brought news that "the Earl of Severance asked to see Miss Sorel."
"Tell him I'll come outside and talk with him!" she said on an impulse: but in the ante-room Garth stopped her.
"Don't you think," he said, "that you'd better have Severance shown in here? He won't be pleased if I come out with you as if from your dressing-room,en famille, so to speak. And Ishallgo out if you go, as in the circumstances I don't care for you to speak with him alone."
"Alone, do you call it, with stage hands and creatures of all sorts tearing about?" Marise rebelled.
"You can build up a wall with a whisper," said Garth.
As the girl hovered at the door, undecided, Céline returned. "Milord is waiting outside, Mademoiselle—I mean, Madame," she announced.
"Go back," ordered Marise, "and ask Lord Severance after all to come in."
The fat was in the fire now, indeed! Poor Mums' counsels concerning Tony were vain. He would see for himself how Garth repudiated the bargain. But it couldn't be helped. Better to have a "row" in her own quarters than outside!
Severance walked into the reception room, at his handsomest in evening dress. He came with his hands out to the lovely "Dolores," but let them fall at sight of Garth, and stopped just over the threshold, with a scowl bringing his black brows together.
Céline flitted by, and shut the door of the dressing-room behind her.
"What areyoudoing here?" Tony flung out the words; yet he had an odd air of keeping his own truculence under control. Marise did not quite understand his manner, in which prudent hesitation fought with anger. But perhaps Garth understood. He knew why Severance's tooth was loose.
"I'm here," he said, "because I don't choose to have my wife talking with you alone."
Severance turned to the girl. "Marise, do you permit this man to be in your room, pretending to control your actions?"
"I have to," retorted Marise. "Since he won't leave us alone, we must just say what we have to say before him, whether he enjoys it or not. He isn't behaving at all according to—to contract. I would have said 'bargain,' only, whenever I mention that, he tells me thereisn'ta bargain. According to him, I've somehow destroyed it."
Severance looked stricken. "Wha—what does he mean by that?"
"I don't know. Ask him. We've got about fifteen minutes to have this out, before I'm called."
"That's what I'm anxious to do, 'have it out,'" said Garth. "But don't be alarmed, my wife; there'll be no violence started by me. If there is any it will come from the other side, whereupon I shall put the disturber of the peace out of your room. I'm stronger than he is physically, as he knows: and I hope to prove stronger in other ways."
"Don't talk like the villain of a Melville melodrama!" blurted Severance.
"I don't thinkI'mthe villain of the piece," said Garth calmly. "Anyhow, we won't have more words about this than we need. My wife and you both want me to explain why I say she has made the so-called 'bargain,' nil. I believe, Lord Severance—to put the thing as it is—to face the facts—you proposed hiring me for the sum of a million dollars, to marry Miss Sorel, treat her as a stranger when we were alone, and as a kind husband in company, so there should be no ugly gossip about the marriage. Then, when you were free from the invalid wife you're financially compelled to take, I was supposed to step out of your way by letting this lady quietly divorce me."
It was useless to protest against so bald a way of putting the matter, which sounded disgusting to Severance, and could have been thus put, he considered, only by a very temporary gentleman. Therefore he did not protest. He replied with stifled fury that, willingly, even eagerly, Major Garth had consented to play a dummy's part in order to earn an easy million.
"Exactly," said Garth. "Well, Ihavemarried Miss Sorel. Where's the million?"
"You know as well as I do I haven't got the money yet, and can't get it till it's given me, as promised, by my uncle Constantine Ionides, after my wedding."
"So you explained the other day. You admit you can't carry out your half of the bargain. Yet I've carried out mine."
"That's on your own head!" barked Severance. "If you were so keen on money down, you shouldn't have married Miss Sorel till you could get it."
"What—you, an officer in the Guards, would advise a brother officer of the Brigade to refuse to marry a lady if she proposed to him?"
"Oh!" cried Marise; and Garth smiled at her with the yellow-grey eyes which were more than ever like the eyes of a lion. "Youdidpropose, didn't you?"
"I—said I wanted to be married—to-day," the girl hedged. "If you call that——"
"I do. Any man would. You were in a hurry. You hoped, you said, that things might be fixed up for the wedding in an hour—or less. I fixed things up. We were married. Now I don't get my money. Consequently I consider myself free of any obligations concerned with the bargain. Though I'm willing to take legal opinion on the point, if you like?"
"A nice figure you'd cut if you did!" exploded Severance.
"I should say, 'the woman—or the earl—tempted me, and I did eat.' I ate by request. And I'm entitled to a core to my apple. There isn't any core. So I have the right either to chuck the peel away and let it fall in the mud, or else to hang on to it, and make up the best way I can for what lacks."
"I should like to kill you, Garth," said Severance.
"Well, when we're both safely out of my wife's dressing-room and this theatre, I'll give you a chance to try."
The lids over the dark, Greek eyes flickered slightly. Between the two men was a memory, a picture: a room at the Belmore Hotel, with a table and some chairs overturned: a few spots of blood on a lavender tie: not the tie of Garth.
"Being out of her theatre wouldn't save Miss Sorel from scandal if we made fools of ourselves," Tony said.
"That's the sensible view," agreed Garth. "I'm at your service for war or peace. But the fact remains that I am Marise Sorel's husband, and as I'm not paid for taking on the job, you, Severance, have no concern with my conduct to her. The rest is between my wife and myself. If she wishes me to leave her I will do so now, at this moment—on my own terms. If she wishes me to stay by her side for appearance' sake, I'll stay—also on my own terms."
"What are your terms?" Tony's dry lips formed the words almost without sound.
"They'll be settled to-night between my wife and me. You have nothing whatever to do with them."
"If—if you fail in respect for her, you never get your million dollars when the time comes!" Severance almost sobbed.
"When the time comes—the time can decide," said Garth.
"Miss Sorel!" bawled the call-boy at the door.
It was, as Severance told himself, the damnedest scrape! And he could see no present way out of it. Turn as he would, he was merely running round and round in a "vicious circle."
He couldn't murder Garth, or otherwise eliminate him, without setting fire to his dearest hopes, and seeing his fortune go up in a blaze. Garth mustn't be allowed to walk away from Marise, leaving her in the position of a deserted bride, after a sensational wedding. Nor could Severance bear to think of the man's remaining near her, now that he proclaimed the bargain "off," and himself free and independent.
If only the fellow might be knocked over by a taxi and killed, there would be the perfect solution! But even that ought not to happen just yet. It wouldn't do for Marise to be known as a widow before he, Severance, could bring Œnone to America as a bride. The celebrated Miss Sorel might as well never have been married at all, so far as old Constantine Ionides was concerned.
There were two faintly glimmering spots in the general blackness of things.Brightspots they hardly deserved to be called! Such as they were, one was the fact that Garth—despite his bluff—was unlikely to sacrifice all hope of the million by making forbidden love to Marise. The other gleam was: even if Garth did play the fool as well as the cad, Marise had asserted up to the last moment that she could take care of herself.
Severance had reason to believe that she could. If she'd not had a cool little head, and a high opinion of her own value, the favourite actress would not have attained the position she held. "Lots of chaps had been after her," including Tony Severance: men of title, men with money, men of genius, men of charm, and she had held her own with them all, forcing their respect. Well, there wasn't much chance for a bullying brute of Garth's stamp, to get the best of a girl like that!
So Severance consoled himself, after his decision at the theatre that nothing would be gained by attempting to "rescue" Marise from Garth. After leaving her—bidding her good-bye for long and anxious weeks—he could not resist 'phoning Mrs. Sorel at the Plaza, though Marise had told him that Mums was bowled over by a sick headache. He rang the poor lady up—literally up!—and discussed the situation with her, not daring to call for fear of detectives set upon him by cable from London. The poor lady, dragged out of bed, was sympathetic and soothing. Everything was "perfectly all right," she assured him. She would watch over Marise for his sake as well as her own. Marise would watch over herself, too! And she—Mary Sorel—would write or cable Tony to his club twice or three times a week.
"I'd go down to the docks and see you off to-morrow morning, dear boy, no matter at what ghastly hour you sail," Mums said, "only I don't think it would be wise, do you?"
No, Tony didn't. But she might send him a note by messenger to the ship, with all the latest news.
She would do that without fail, Mary promised; and so at last hung up the receiver with a sigh which would have frightened Severance had it reached him on the wire. Mums was not as calm about the future as she had tried to make her "dear boy" think!
Though she had been lying down, she crawled off the bed again, and put on a smart tea-gown before it was time for her daughter to come home. She had little doubt that the Beast would be with Marise; and her own attempt at "frightfulness" having failed against his armour of brutality, she intended to try diplomacy in the next encounter.
Already she had learned that the suite engaged by Major Garth for himself and his bride did not adjoin the one occupied by herself and Marise since their arrival in New York. It appeared that the manager had offered a suite of two rooms and a bath next to the Sorel suite, but Major Garth had refused this as being too small. Nothing "large enough for his requirements" had been available near Mrs. Sorel; but fortunately it was on the same floor.
This, the manager seemed to think, ought to content the lady; and indeed, she was obliged to pretend satisfaction. She would like to see the suite, she had said; but to her dismay the privilege was refused with regret. Major Garth, the manager explained, had given a "rush order" for some special decorations to surprise Mrs. Garth; and he had requested that no one—no one at allexcept the decorators—should be allowed to enter until the bridal pair arrived.
"But," Mrs. Sorel had argued, "he couldn't have meantme. Besides, if no one goes in, my daughter won't have any of her toilet things ready. There will be a scramble and confusion when she comes home tired from the theatre."
The manager, however, was reluctantly firm. He "mustn't tell tales out of school," but he thought hemightjust relieve Mrs. Sorel's fears by saying that there would be no trouble at all of that sort. The Major's "surprise" would—he hoped—be as pleasing to her as to the bride. And whatever had to be done in addition could be accomplished in a few minutes by Mrs. Garth's maid.
Naturally, Mrs. Sorel was on tenterhooks after this information, which she had obtained by telephone, lying on her bed, soon after Marise and Céline left for the theatre. It determined her to be prepared for battle, no matter how ill she might feel: for it was impossible that Marise should ever cross the threshold of that mysteriously decorated suite. Therefore the neat coiffure of the aching head, and the dignified tea-gown of satin and jet.
On the few occasions when Mums had been unable to go with Marise to the theatre, the girl had either returned early, or telephoned that she would be late in reaching home. Mrs. Sorel expected her to start for the hotel to-night the instant she was dressed and had her make-up off. She would doubtless be thankful to escape questions, and get back to her mother—which really meant, ridding herself of Garth.
But time crept on. Marise was half an hour late: then three-quarters. What could have happened? Had that monster kidnapped the poor child?
At the thought, Mums experienced the sensation of cold water slowly trickling through her spine. "What shall I do?" she wondered. And her mind turned to the thought—the terrible thought—of applying to the police. If she took this extreme step, what would be the result? Could a man be arrested for abducting his own wife?
As she writhed and sighed helplessly on a sofa in sight of the mantel clock, Céline's familiar tap sounded at the door, and the Frenchwoman came in. Mrs. Sorel's anguished eyes saw that she looked pale and excited. Her own heart seemed to rise and shrug itself in her breast, then collapse sickeningly upon other organs.
"For Heaven's sake, where is Mademoiselle?" she panted.
"Ah, Madame," sighed Céline, "we must speak of Mademoiselle no more."
"Why—why?" broke in the distracted mother.
"But, because she is now indeed 'Madame'! She is with—herhusband."
"Where?" gasped Mrs. Sorel.
"In their suite. A suite of great magnificence."
The unhappy Mums staggered to her feet, among falling cushions.
"Good gracious!" she groaned. "He has dragged her there——"
"No, no, Madame, it is not so bad as that," Céline soothed her. "Madame la Jeune Mariéeappeared to go with Monsieur of her own will. She showed no fear. She was only a little quiet—a little strange. It must have been arranged at the theatre, what was to happen, for I was with them in a car—but yes, a car, no taxi!—which Monsieur had ordered to wait at the stage door. I sat, not with the chauffeur, but inside on one of the little fold-up seats. The two did not speak at all, Madame, not once, till we had arrived here, at the hotel. Then Mademoiselle—I mean Madame Garth—said, 'I should like Céline to come with me.' 'Very well, let her come,' Monsieur answered. That was all. I went with them. Monsieur asked for his key. It was given him. We were taken up in theascenseurto this floor. But instead of turning to the right, we turned left. Monsieur unlocked the door, switched on lights, and stood aside for Madame his wife to pass. Even me, he let go in before him. Then he followed and shut the door."
"What then?" breathed Mrs. Sorel.
"Mon Dieu, Madame, the suite was of a magnificence! It must be the best in the house. The suite in which they put royalties who come visiting from Europe. And not only that, the whole place has been made a garden of flowers—wonderful flowers. This Monsieur le Majeur must be, after all, though he does not look it, a millionaire!"
"He is far from being a millionaire," sneered Mums. "He hasn't a sou, so far as I've heard. He'll probably charge all this wild extravagance to us. He's capable of it—capable ofanything! But go on."
"Well, Madame, the suite has an entrance hall of its own, not a tiny vestibule like this one. The hall has many pots of gorgeous azaleas, of colours like a sunrise in paradise.Madame la Jeune Mariéewalked into the salon. The husband went also. But, me, I stood outside waiting. I could see into the room, however. I chose my place for that purpose, to see! A lovely salon of pearl grey and soft rose. And the flowers there were all roses, different shades of pink. There were many, some growing in pots, very tall; some cut ones in crystal vases and jars: and on a table, a marvellous bowl, illuminated, with flowers floating on the surface of bright water. Also, Madame, there were presents, jewels in cases. If these, as Madame says, are to be charged to her, Mon Dieu, it will be a disaster!"
"What were the presents?" The question asked itself, out of the turmoil that was Mums' mind. But behind the turmoil a voice seemed crying, "Why do you stop here talking of trifles, instead of rushing to save your wretched child?"
But Céline was replying. After all, what use to go, since the door of the suite would be closed, and one could not shriek and beat upon the panels for the whole world to hear!
"There was a large case with a double row of pearls. It must be, I think, not a string, but a rope. There was also a lovely thing for the hair, a wreath of laurel leaves made of green stones, doubtless emeralds. And there was a pendant, a star of diamonds with a great cabochon sapphire—Mademoiselle's beloved jewel!—in the centre. There may have been other things, but those were all I remarked. I saw them from the doorway. Yet, if Madame will believe me,la Jeune Mariéedid not regard them. Neither did Monsieur draw her attention to his gifts—no, not by gesture nor word."
"She must have saidsomething!" cried Mary.
"She murmured that the flowers were charming. You would have thought she had not seen the jewels, though she must have seen them, Madame, if I saw from my distance. Monsieur asked if she would like to view the rest of the suite. She answered, 'Oh yes, please!' Then, out into the entrance hall they came. Monsieur threw open the door of a room next the salon, and as he did so put on the lights. But—with that, he stepped back. My young lady called me, 'Céline!' I ran to her, and he stopped there in the hall. Ah, another surprise! Not the beauty of this great bedroom. That one would expect in such a suite—awhiteroom, Madame, and white flowers, roses not too heavily perfumed! But the surprise was on the toilet-table. Brushes, bottles, everything, oh, so delicious a set!—in gold. A queen could have no better. On the bed, Madame, lay arobe de chambremore beautiful than any that Mademoiselle has ever possessed—which Madame knows, is to say much!—and on the floor—like blossoms fallen on the white fur rug—lay a little pair ofmules, made of gold embroidery on cloth of silver, and having buckles of old paste fit for the slippers of Cinderella! When she had looked round for a few moments, quite silent, Madame, the bride turned to me. 'Now you have seen what is here, Céline,' she said, 'you can go to my room and bring me just the things you think I shall need.'"