"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--a _gentleman_--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 you _are_ a "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."
"_You_ won"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 you _are_, 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--you _devil_!"
"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 be _some_ story, 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."