As the girl hovered at the door, undecided, Celine 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.
Celine flitted by, and shut the door of the dressing-room behind her.
"What are _you_ doing 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 there _isn"t_ a 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 think _I"m_ the 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, I _have_ married 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. "You _did_ propose, 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 ent.i.tled 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.
CHAPTER XX
THE BRIDAL SUITE
It was, as Severance told himself, the d.a.m.nedest sc.r.a.pe! 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 OEnone 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. _Bright_ spots 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 a.s.serted 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 t.i.tle, 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 a.s.sured 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?"