WHY THE BARGAIN WAS OFF
Marise started late for the theatre, because she felt unequal to coping
with her fellow actors' and actresses' well-meaning good wishes. She
went alone with Celine, for Mums had developed a nervous sick headache,
and the girl, like a dutiful daughter, had begged her to rest at home.
"You'll be more able to help me out with--any complications that may
come afterwards," she said.
The star's wonderfully decorated dressing-room was entered through a
still more wonderfully decorated reception or ante-room; and almost
running in, Marise stopped short with a gasp of surprise. Not only was
the place crammed with flowers--all white, bridal flowers (that in
itself was not strange), but in the midst of them sat Garth, still in
uniform. As his wife appeared he rose, grave and silent, as if awaiting
a cue.
"Take these things into the dressing-room, Celine," ordered Marise,
tossing her gold bag and furs to the maid. "I'll be there in a minute."
When Celine had obeyed, the girl looked the man up and down.
"Visitors don't intrude here, except by invitation," she informed him.
"Have you invited Lord Severance to intrude?" Garth asked.
"No-o, I haven't invited him."
"But he's coming, isn't he?"
"Possibly he may come. You know quite well, that's different."
"I do know. Just because it _is_ different, I don't mean him to come
unless I'm here too. But I've no wish to interfere with you otherwise.
And if you tell me on your honour that you won't receive Severance alone
(I don't count your maid as a chaperon), I'll go now. By the way, don't
blame anyone for admitting me. The news is in all the late editions of
the evening papers, I suppose you know, and naturally the bridegroom was
expected to pay a call upon the bride."
Marise gazed at the formidable figure in khaki for a minute, and then
without a word went into her dressing-room.
Mums, very likely, would have told the man a fib, getting rid of him by
a promise not to see Severance alone. But the girl--though she, too,
told fibs sometimes if driven into a corner--couldn't bring herself to
utter one now. There was no time for a "scene," even if she were not in
danger of coming out second best, so the dignified course was to retire.
Tony wouldn't show up till the end of the first act at earliest; and if
then she stood talking to someone or other outside her dressing-room as
long as she dared, there might be time for a whisper with him while the
watch-dog lay vainly in wait on the wrong side of the door!
Helped by Celine she dressed quickly, hearing no sound from the
ante-room until the call-boy bounded in to shout her name. Instantly she
ran through, half hoping that Garth had gone, though determined not to
glance in his direction if he were still on the spot. He was; and
somehow, without looking, Marise knew that he was quietly reading a book
as if the place belonged to him.
Wild applause greeted the entrance of "Dolores," applause even more
ardent than usual, and the play had to stop for the bride reluctantly to
bow her acknowledgments. Marise had passed such an "upsetting" day that
she came near having an attack of stage-fright, fearful of not taking
her cue, or "drying up" in her words. But to her surprise and relief,
she felt herself stronger in the part than she had ever been before. "I
believe I really _am_ a great actress!" she thought; and choked at the
pity of it--the pity that--whatever happened now--she was bound to leave
the stage. "Is Tony worth it all?" she wondered. But the Other Man's
figure loomed so tall in the foreground, that she could not concentrate
on Tony long enough to answer her own question.
Never had "Dolores" been impatient of too many curtain calls until now:
but to-night they were irritating. They wasted such a lot of time, and
any moment Tony might come!
There was little time to linger outside her dressing-room, but she did
linger for a few minutes, talking with the reproachful Belloc. No card
or message was brought to her, however, and she knew that Severance
would not have been sent into her room without her permission. Garth sat
stolid as a Buddha when she passed through, and she went by him as if he
were a piece of furniture. She received a telepathic impression that he
did not lift his eyes from his book!
The leading man had a scene with the villain of the piece at the
beginning of the second act, and this gave the star a chance to rest, or
chat with friends. It was the time when Severance generally dropped in,
and she "felt in her bones" that his name would now be announced. Nor
were her vertebrae deceived. Prompt to the usual moment a knock, answered
by Celine, brought news that "the Earl of Severance asked to see Miss
Sorel."
"Tell him I'll come outside and talk with him!" she said on an impulse:
but in the ante-room Garth stopped her.
"Don't you think," he said, "that you'd better have Severance shown in
here? He won't be pleased if I come out with you as if from your
dressing-room, _en famille_, so to speak. And I _shall_ go out if you
go, as in the circumstances I don't care for you to speak with him
alone."
"Alone, do you call it, with stage hands and creatures of all sorts
tearing about?" Marise rebelled.
"You can build up a wall with a whisper," said Garth.
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 entitled 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.