Severance had intended to bathe, change into fresh clothes, and have a long, cool drink--the drink of his life--before starting out to call at Vision House. He could thus have been at his best, and have felt sure of doing himself justice in any ordeal he might be destined to go through.
But with the certain knowledge that Garth was out of the way--perhaps only for a short time--it would have been tempting Providence to delay for one unnecessary second.
He inquired just how to go, and vetoed the suggestion that he should first look at his room.
"If you"ll register, I"ll ring for a chap to show you where you start from," said the clerk, pushing a big book forward and handing the guest a pen.
"Earl of Severance," Tony wrote, expecting to see the man look impressed, but no such emotion was visible. Instead, he turned back a few pages to show the signature of an Indian rajah and a Scottish duke.
A mere earl looked small fry compared with them!
On the same page with the duke, Severance happened to catch sight of a name which was vaguely familiar to him, and he kept the book open to refresh his memory.
"Miss Zelie Marks," he repeated to himself. "Now where have I heard...."
Then, suddenly, he knew.
Zelie Marks"s face rose before his mind, and he recalled where he had seen it last--recalled also a look he had caught in a pair of handsome eyes fixed upon Garth the day of the first visit.
Mrs. Sorel had tried to send the two off together, and Severance had said to himself, "That couple know each other pretty well. The girl"s in love with the fellow!"
So she was out West, at this hotel, close to Garth"s house! Why? What did it mean? It must mean _something_.... Did Marise know?... Had Miss Marks been brought here purposely to give the wished-for--the arranged-for--excuse for a divorce? Or was the reason for her presence more subtle and more complicated?
Severance felt excited, as if he had picked up something of unexpected value.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV
THE TERRACE
Marise stood on the high terrace which looked towards the rose-and-gold gulf of the Canyon. Gazing out, between the dark slim trunks of pines, she saw the sunlight moving slowly from rock to rock. "It"s like stray sheep of the golden fleece," she thought, "being herded by an invisible shepherd to join the flock."
Yes, the moving gleams were all ma.s.sed together now. But they were travelling on. Suddenly they had ceased to be a flock of sheep. They were shining bricks, built into a citadel.
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately palace dome decree," Marise quoted to herself.
How astonishing that so marvellous a place had existed for thousands upon thousands of years, and she had hardly heard of it, until John Garth had brought her to this house of his!
"Vision House" was the right name for it. Garth hadn"t meant it like that--or if he had, he"d not told her so!--but one _had_ visions here.
One couldn"t think little ordinary, foolish thoughts. Life seemed to be upon its highest plane, and whether one wished to do so or not, one had to try and reach that plane. One wanted to be at one"s best, to be "in the picture"--and the best must be very good. It must even be n.o.ble.
Whoever had designed Vision House and chosen its furnishings had felt that. There were great windows bowed out in generous eagerness towards the Canyon. There were wide loggias, upheld by clear-cut, pale stone pillars. In the rooms were no brilliant colours to jar with the rainbow glory just beyond the delicate green veil of pines. The curtains of grey or cream fell in soft, straight lines that framed a glowing picture--rocks of every fantastic form and flaming colour, under the blue of heaven: rocks like castles carved of coral and studded with lapis lazuli: statue rocks of transparent amethyst, or emerald, glittering where the sun touched them or fading to the smoky blue of star-sapphires as the shadows crept up from the bottom of the vast bowl.
There was an organ in one of the rooms. Garth had thought that the finest piano in the world would be too tinkling a thing so near the thrilling silence of the Canyon. He could play the great instrument himself. She wouldn"t have believed it, if she had not heard the music as she walked alone on the terrace by moonlight, and had gone to peep in at the long, open window. _How_ he could play!--though he said casually, when she asked him, "Oh, I wanted to do it, so I taught myself. I hear things in my head. I like to make them come out." A queer fellow!
In the library there were only books which Garth thought "worthy of the Canyon." But in her room there were a few French novels. It was the one place in the house, too, where there were pretty, frivolous decorations such as a Parisian beauty of the seventeenth, or an American of the twentieth, century would love. _That_ was what he thought of her! _She_ would crave such surroundings at the Grand Canyon, as well as in New York or London! She, and no one else whom he had ever planned to bring here!
When Marise thought of that room, and the difference between it and all the others, she felt--not angry, for one _couldn"t_ feel angry for small reasons, close to the greatness of the Canyon,--no, not angry, but pained, and--wistful.
She was wistful because she could not help seeing that the things Garth must hastily have ordered for her pleasure were actually suited to her type, her personality, and she had growing pains of the spirit which made her long to climb high and higher, out of herself. Somehow that room seemed to represent herself: soft and vaguely sweet; pretty, perfumed, charming, fantastic and--forgetable. How should Garth have known that she would suddenly become a different self, irradiated by the sublime glory of this place? Why, even she hadn"t known it, until she had begun to feel the change! And it had started at sight of the difference between those other, n.o.bly simple rooms, which somehow matched the Canyon, and hers which childishly laughed in its face.
Or--had Garth expected her to change, under the influence, which was like the influence of all the G.o.ds, and _wanted_ her to feel the difference as she was feeling it now?
As she asked herself this question a pretty, half-breed Mexican maid flitted out upon the terrace and announced "Ze Earl of Sev"rance."
Marise started. She need not have been surprised. She ought to have known (having heard of OEnone"s death) that any day might bring Tony to her. But the truth was that, for the time--quite a long time--she had forgotten all about him.
He didn"t belong to the Grand Canyon! But suddenly she felt a desire to see what he would be like, confronting it.
"Show Lord Severance out here," she directed the maid. And then, between the moment when the girl turned her back, and the moment when Tony stepped through an open window-door of the drawing-room, Marise had to realise that she faced a crisis--had to prepare for it.
The red-gold light that always came from the Canyon like flame made Severance seem to have deep mauve rings under his eyes, an appearance which gave him a dissipated look. She began by not thinking him as deadly handsome as she had always thought him in London and sometimes in New York. No, certainly he didn"t go well with Canyons and things like that! But, of course, he was tired. He had travelled fast, and a very long way--to meet _her_. She must remember this in his favour.
He didn"t glance through the trees at the dazzling glory. He"d had enough and too much of the old Canyon! He looked straight at Marise. And he walked straight to her, seizing both her hands, which resisted a little, then thought better of it and welcomed him.
"Poor Tony!" she breathed.
"Not "poor Tony," now I see you again," he said. "Marise, you"re more beautiful than ever. You"re the most beautiful thing on this globe.
Where can we go, where a lot of huge windows won"t be glaring at us like bulging eyes?"
"There"s n.o.body to glare through them," answered Marise.
"My--_he_--isn"t at home."
"I know," said Severance. "That"s why I hurried to you without stopping even to bathe and change. I wanted a talk with you before thrashing things out with Garth. "Wanted"? That isn"t the word! I thirsted, I burned for it. He"s not in the house, but servants are. Marise, I"ve travelled six thousand miles, hardly resting--just for this moment--and others to follow--better moments. Give me one of the better ones now. I deserve a reward. And I can"t take it here on this beastly terrace."
Marise suddenly realised that nothing in the world would move her from the terrace. She was glad of the window-eyes. They were her protectors against--against--the man she had loved.
The words spoke themselves in her head. She heard them. She was surprised at them. _Had_ loved! Didn"t she love Tony Severance now? If not, why had she done all that she had done--so many wild, reckless things? It seemed that she was asking the question not of herself, but of the Canyon. The Canyon was like G.o.d. In the glittering, flaming, blue-shadowed depths of it was knowledge of Everything.
"I think we must stay here," she said. "There is no other place where we can very well go. Would you--like to sit down on that seat by the wall?"
"What I would like is to kneel at your feet with my arms round your waist and my head on your breast--your dear, divine breast," answered Severance.
"Well--you can"t!" she panted. "Tony, be sensible!" She sat down hastily, and Severance dropped beside her on the velvet-cushioned stone seat. He sat very close to the girl, and she edged slightly away.
As she did so, he followed until she was pressed into the corner of the bench. He laid his arm along the back of the seat, and pressed her thinly-covered shoulder.
"Please don"t!" she whispered.
Severance laughed out--a bitter laugh. "This is the way you greet me after all I"ve gone through to get to you--and to get you!" he said.
"You know, I _am_ going to get you."
Marise did not answer. She knew nothing of the kind. All she knew was, quite suddenly, that there was no longer any doubt in her mind on one subject. She did _not_ love Tony! She was sorry for him, and sorry for herself, and sorry for everything in the world. But she did not love him. She disliked having him touch her.
"You _do_ know it, don"t you?" he insisted.
"No, I don"t," she stammered. "There--there"s nothing to know."