"That"s it. Pretty, good-smelling apples, with pink cheeks and satin skin. But at heart--r-o-t-t-e-n!"
"Thanks!" choked Marise, and got up. "Thank you for _all_ your frankness. I could return some of it, but you"ve been ill, and _I_ don"t like being rude. I must just say one thing, however, before I go. You"ve given yourself away dreadfully."
Zelie stumbled to her feet. "How?"
"By showing me exactly what your feeling is for Major Garth."
"I"m his pal from the beginning to the end."
Marise ignored the evasion. "You needn"t be afraid that I"ll be cad enough to go and tell him what I think about you. He probably knows your feelings and returns them, but----"
"He doesn"t. Are you a _d.a.m.n_ fool, or are you only pretending?"
"I daresay I"m a d.a.m.n fool," repeated Marise sweetly. "In any case, I"m not pretending."
"Then you"re doubly a fool!" shrilled Zelie. "A d.a.m.ned fool not to know how Jack feels for you, and a d.a.m.neder one not to know enough to feel right towards him. Jack"s the salt of the earth. There"s more courage and good faith and everything n.o.ble and big in his little finger than in your whole lovely body. So now you can go home. And put _that_ in your pocket!"
Marise went. She shut the door softly, so softly and considerately that it hurt worse than a loud slam.
"I did get even with her!" Zelie thought. And plumped down on the sofa with a sob.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
WHEN SEVERANCE THREW DOWN THE KEY
Not far from the door of Zelie Marks"s room another door stood open.
Marise would have whirled past it without noticing, had not her name been called.
She turned her head, with a slight start, and saw Severance.
"Come here a moment, my dear one," he said. "I have to speak to you."
Marise hesitated. Her brain was not clear. She felt dazed, as if Zelie had boxed her ears, as she had boxed Tony"s earlier. She longed for sympathy. No one--not even Garth himself!--had ever been so horrid to her before, as Zelie had.
Severance took her hand and drew her gently over the threshold into a private sitting-room much like Miss Marks"s. Then, when she was safely inside the room, he shut the door, locked it, and jerked out the key.
"Tony!" cried Marise. She felt as if some scene in one of her plays had come true. Except that--Tony wasn"t the villain who locked the heroine in. _Surely_ he wasn"t the villain!
"This isn"t the right time for a joke," she said.
"And this isn"t a joke," said Severance.
"Well, unlock the door at once, please, and let me out," she insisted.
"I must go----"
"Where must you go?" he asked.
"Where! Ho--back, of course."
"To Garth--after what happened between us three at his house this evening? It"s impossible for you to go back to him, Marise. He can"t expect it himself. When you came away to-night--if he knew you came--he must have known the whole thing was finished, the farce played out."
The girl felt as if a chilly breeze blew over her. She did not answer for a moment. She was wondering in an awed way if Tony were right. Was that the reason Garth had let her go so easily, to answer Zelie"s note in person? But no. He had only just reminded her the moment before how he"d never intended giving her up to Severance. Still--when she thought of it--what _was_ there to go back for, unless she intended to stay married to Garth--to be married to him as other women were married to their husbands?
She had never contemplated that, even at the times--and there had been times--when she"d admired Garth, admired him with a secret thrill.
Besides, no matter how much Garth had wanted her, in the first throes of his infatuation, he didn"t want her now--for good. Oh, such an end to the play wasn"t to be dreamed of, from whichever side you looked at it!
"If I go away anywhere from Vision House, it will be to my mother," she said at last.
"Yes, of course. That"s where I"m going to take you. We"ll go to-night.
There"s a train we----"
"I can"t possibly go with you!" she cried. "Don"t you see, to do that would cause the very scandal we"ve all sacrificed so much to prevent?"
"I do see," said Tony. "But you said yourself to-day that "everything had changed." We don"t need to be afraid of scandal any more. It can"t hurt us now. It will do us good. Marise, I"ve been thinking things over, and I believe that the only way we can get that brute to free you is by deliberately making a scandal. All the trouble comes from your throwing yourself at the fellow"s head in such a hurry. If you"d waited, OEnone dying when she did would have made your marriage useless. You and I would both have been free----"
"We were both free before you decided you"d have to marry OEnone,"
broke in Marise.
"That was different. I was in debt and hadn"t a penny to play with. I couldn"t live on you. Now my debts are paid, and though they"ve not left me a very rich man, I"ve got something to go on with----"
"You have, because Jack Garth won"t take your money."
"Oh, wouldn"t he, if he could get it?"
"No!"
"Well, again, there"d be no question of money at present between him and me if you"d waited, and hadn"t tangled yourself up in this beastly knot to spite me. Now I"ll have to get you out of the tangle as best I can.
You can"t do it yourself, and Garth will hang on to you for the same motive you had--spite, if nothing more. Go with me to-night. Be brave.
_Make_ a scandal. Then for the sake of that mother of his--and for his pride if he has any, if not, for the appearance of it--he"ll free you."
Marise was very pale. "A little while ago," she said, "you spoke of Zelie Marks being here to give--an excuse for divorce."
"Yes. That seems the likely thing. Garth probably arranged it when he expected money from me, to make divorce worth his while. Now we"ve had a row, more or less, and he knows that at best he can"t get much. His cry is "all or nothing." He won"t use Miss Marks as a pretext."
"I tell you he never intended to accept money!" insisted Marise.
"That"s a new opinion of yours, isn"t it?"
"I never _felt_ he would touch it. But I didn"t know surely. Now I do."
"I wonder how?"
"I do--that"s all."
"Well, by Jove; I never expected to hear you taking Garth"s part against me!" Tony exploded.