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 (titled) with whose Christian names she
could impress the noble 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 buttonhole; 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 pronounce 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 God,
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.
"Dash it all, don't rub things in," Severance begged. "I didn't know how
bad it would be----"
"I half thought you _might_ spring up!" the girl confessed.
"If I had, what would you have done?"
"I--don't know."
"It would have made matters worse for the future--more difficult all
round," Tony said. "That thought held me back. But, Marise, it was cruel
to spring this surprise on me."
"It doesn't seem to have been a surprise," she reminded him. "How _did_
you know about it--the church, and everything?"
"A little bird told me. Why did you want to hurt me so?"
Marise shrugged her shoulders. "You had hurt me--almost to death. I
_had_ to strike back! But let's not talk of it any more. The thing's
done--and can't be undone."
"It can, and will be, before long, please Heaven!"
The girl laughed. "Please _Heaven_?" And she was glad when Pobbles broke
in, Mums at his side.
"My dear young lady, Garth confided in me (am I not his Colonel, which
is much the same as a father confessor?) that this--er--this little show
had been got up in a hurry for one reason or other. I'm pleased and
honoured to be in at the dea--I mean the birth--er--you _know_ what I
mean! And I'd be still more pleased if--er--couldn't we--I--invite you
all to some sort of blow-out? My wife----"
"Sweet of you, Lord Pobblebrook!" cut in Mrs. Sorel. "But if there'd
been time for any sort of rejoicing, any little feast, I should be
giving it and asking Lady Pobblebrook and yourself to join us. But I
suppose Major Garth can't quite have made it clear to you that he is
called away suddenly--on a sort of _mission_. That's why the marriage
was so rushed. He has to go at once, so he wanted to be married first,
and----"
"Take my wife with me," explained Garth.
His mother-in-law of ten minutes stared at him with the eyes of a cold,
boiled fish.
"Of course--yes--that's what he _wanted_," she smiled to Pobbles. "What
a pity it can't be! My daughter, Lord Pobblebrook, is a servant of the
public, you know. She has to obey them, marriage or no marriage. And
they want her in New York."
"Not as much as I want her out West," said Garth. He smiled again--that
same queer smile with the same unreadable look in his eyes, though this
time both were for Mums.
The indignant lady turned to Marise, in case there were some plot
against her; but the girl gave a very slight shake of her head. Light
came back to Mrs. Sorel's eyes. She ought to be able to trust her own
daughter!
"I took the liberty of ordering lunch for four at the Ritz after I met
my Colonel in the hall of the Belmore," said Garth. "I stopped on the
way there, to buy the ring. But"--and he eyed Severance coolly--"there
will be room to have a fifth plate laid, if--er----"
"Oh!" thought Marise. "Not so much Cave Man, after all, as the Strong,
Silent Man! All right! I know _that_ kind from A to Z. And I dare say
it's just as easy to be a Strong, Silent Girl as to be a Cave Girl, if
once you begin properly."
Her sense of adventure woke again as she waited to hear Tony's answer.