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 Celine, 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 b.u.t.tonhole were all of the same shade, and his opal pin repeated the lights and shades of colour.
Well, there was one good thing he _could_ accomplish 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.
CHAPTER XVI
FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE
For once, Marise was all girl, not actress. She lost her _savoir faire_ at 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 how _clever_!" 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 (t.i.tled) with whose Christian names she could impress the n.o.ble 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 b.u.t.tonhole; 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 was _no_ adventure! 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 Cave _Girl_?"
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, the _ring_! 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 would _love_ to 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 p.r.o.nounce 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 in _our_ programme.
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 G.o.d, 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 else _for ever after_ hold his peace,"" quoted Marise.