THE TERRACE
Marise stood on the high terrace which looked towards the rose-and-gold
gulf of the Canyon. Gazing out, between the dark slim trunks of pines,
she saw the sunlight moving slowly from rock to rock. "It's like stray
sheep of the golden fleece," she thought, "being herded by an invisible
shepherd to join the flock."
Yes, the moving gleams were all massed together now. But they were
travelling on. Suddenly they had ceased to be a flock of sheep. They
were shining bricks, built into a citadel.
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately palace dome decree," Marise quoted
to herself.
How astonishing that so marvellous a place had existed for thousands
upon thousands of years, and she had hardly heard of it, until John
Garth had brought her to this house of his!
"Vision House" was the right name for it. Garth hadn't meant it like
that--or if he had, he'd not told her so!--but one _had_ visions here.
One couldn't think little ordinary, foolish thoughts. Life seemed to be
upon its highest plane, and whether one wished to do so or not, one had
to try and reach that plane. One wanted to be at one's best, to be "in
the picture"--and the best must be very good. It must even be noble.
Whoever had designed Vision House and chosen its furnishings had felt
that. There were great windows bowed out in generous eagerness towards
the Canyon. There were wide loggias, upheld by clear-cut, pale stone
pillars. In the rooms were no brilliant colours to jar with the rainbow
glory just beyond the delicate green veil of pines. The curtains of grey
or cream fell in soft, straight lines that framed a glowing
picture--rocks of every fantastic form and flaming colour, under the
blue of heaven: rocks like castles carved of coral and studded with
lapis lazuli: statue rocks of transparent amethyst, or emerald,
glittering where the sun touched them or fading to the smoky blue of
star-sapphires as the shadows crept up from the bottom of the vast bowl.
There was an organ in one of the rooms. Garth had thought that the
finest piano in the world would be too tinkling a thing so near the
thrilling silence of the Canyon. He could play the great instrument
himself. She wouldn't have believed it, if she had not heard the music
as she walked alone on the terrace by moonlight, and had gone to peep in
at the long, open window. _How_ he could play!--though he said casually,
when she asked him, "Oh, I wanted to do it, so I taught myself. I hear
things in my head. I like to make them come out." A queer fellow!
In the library there were only books which Garth thought "worthy of the
Canyon." But in her room there were a few French novels. It was the one
place in the house, too, where there were pretty, frivolous decorations
such as a Parisian beauty of the seventeenth, or an American of the
twentieth, century would love. _That_ was what he thought of her! _She_
would crave such surroundings at the Grand Canyon, as well as in New
York or London! She, and no one else whom he had ever planned to bring
here!
When Marise thought of that room, and the difference between it and all
the others, she felt--not angry, for one _couldn't_ feel angry for small
reasons, close to the greatness of the Canyon,--no, not angry, but
pained, and--wistful.
She was wistful because she could not help seeing that the things Garth
must hastily have ordered for her pleasure were actually suited to her
type, her personality, and she had growing pains of the spirit which
made her long to climb high and higher, out of herself. Somehow that
room seemed to represent herself: soft and vaguely sweet; pretty,
perfumed, charming, fantastic and--forgetable. How should Garth have
known that she would suddenly become a different self, irradiated by the
sublime glory of this place? Why, even she hadn't known it, until she
had begun to feel the change! And it had started at sight of the
difference between those other, nobly simple rooms, which somehow
matched the Canyon, and hers which childishly laughed in its face.
Or--had Garth expected her to change, under the influence, which was
like the influence of all the gods, and _wanted_ her to feel the
difference as she was feeling it now?
As she asked herself this question a pretty, half-breed Mexican maid
flitted out upon the terrace and announced "Ze Earl of Sev'rance."
Marise started. She need not have been surprised. She ought to have
known (having heard of OEnone's death) that any day might bring Tony
to her. But the truth was that, for the time--quite a long time--she had
forgotten all about him.
He didn't belong to the Grand Canyon! But suddenly she felt a desire to
see what he would be like, confronting it.
"Show Lord Severance out here," she directed the maid. And then, between
the moment when the girl turned her back, and the moment when Tony
stepped through an open window-door of the drawing-room, Marise had to
realise that she faced a crisis--had to prepare for it.
The red-gold light that always came from the Canyon like flame made
Severance seem to have deep mauve rings under his eyes, an appearance
which gave him a dissipated look. She began by not thinking him as
deadly handsome as she had always thought him in London and sometimes in
New York. No, certainly he didn't go well with Canyons and things like
that! But, of course, he was tired. He had travelled fast, and a very
long way--to meet _her_. She must remember this in his favour.
He didn't glance through the trees at the dazzling glory. He'd had
enough and too much of the old Canyon! He looked straight at Marise. And
he walked straight to her, seizing both her hands, which resisted a
little, then thought better of it and welcomed him.
"Poor Tony!" she breathed.
"Not 'poor Tony,' now I see you again," he said. "Marise, you're more
beautiful than ever. You're the most beautiful thing on this globe.
Where can we go, where a lot of huge windows won't be glaring at us like
bulging eyes?"
"There's nobody to glare through them," answered Marise.
"My--_he_--isn't at home."
"I know," said Severance. "That's why I hurried to you without stopping
even to bathe and change. I wanted a talk with you before thrashing
things out with Garth. 'Wanted'? That isn't the word! I thirsted, I
burned for it. He's not in the house, but servants are. Marise, I've
travelled six thousand miles, hardly resting--just for this moment--and
others to follow--better moments. Give me one of the better ones now. I
deserve a reward. And I can't take it here on this beastly terrace."
Marise suddenly realised that nothing in the world would move her from
the terrace. She was glad of the window-eyes. They were her protectors
against--against--the man she had loved.
The words spoke themselves in her head. She heard them. She was
surprised at them. _Had_ loved! Didn't she love Tony Severance now? If
not, why had she done all that she had done--so many wild, reckless
things? It seemed that she was asking the question not of herself, but
of the Canyon. The Canyon was like God. In the glittering, flaming,
blue-shadowed depths of it was knowledge of Everything.
"I think we must stay here," she said. "There is no other place where we
can very well go. Would you--like to sit down on that seat by the wall?"
"What I would like is to kneel at your feet with my arms round your
waist and my head on your breast--your dear, divine breast," answered
Severance.
"Well--you can't!" she panted. "Tony, be sensible!" She sat down
hastily, and Severance dropped beside her on the velvet-cushioned stone
seat. He sat very close to the girl, and she edged slightly away.
As she did so, he followed until she was pressed into the corner of the
bench. He laid his arm along the back of the seat, and pressed her
thinly-covered shoulder.
"Please don't!" she whispered.
Severance laughed out--a bitter laugh. "This is the way you greet me
after all I've gone through to get to you--and to get you!" he said.
"You know, I _am_ going to get you."
Marise did not answer. She knew nothing of the kind. All she knew was,
quite suddenly, that there was no longer any doubt in her mind on one
subject. She did _not_ love Tony! She was sorry for him, and sorry for
herself, and sorry for everything in the world. But she did not love
him. She disliked having him touch her.
"You _do_ know it, don't you?" he insisted.
"No, I don't," she stammered. "There--there's nothing to know."
"Are you acting a part with me?" Severance flung at her. "Or what has
come over you, Marise? One would think you in reality the virtuous
married woman, keeping the _tertium quid_ at arm's length----"
"Well, I _am_ a married woman. And--and I'm not _un_virtuous!" she
defied him, through her heart-beats. "Things have changed, Tony----"
"Why--because I've got a million dollars less than you expected me to
have?"
The girl sprang to her feet, tingling and trembling. Severance jumped up
also, and belted her slim waist with his hot hands. He thought that this
was the way to regain her--that by grasping her body he might seize her
elusive spirit. It was all that Marise could do not to scream, "Help!
Help!" like an early-Victorian heroine. She bit back the cry of
primitive womanhood, but to her intense surprise, and even horror, she
found herself landing a rousing box on Tony's ear.
"You vixen!" he blurted.
"Cad!" she retorted.
With that, his hands dropped from her waist. His face had been pale with
fatigue. Now it was paler with pain. "You don't--mean that, Marise?" he
stammered.
And, of course, she didn't. Things had happened in the past which had
encouraged him to this. He had thought she loved him. She was to blame
as much as he was--more, perhaps--the Canyon would say.
"I'm sorry I boxed your ear, Tony," she apologised. "But--but--if you go
on like this, I'm awfully afraid I shall lose my head and box it again."
"I don't understand you," he said, more quietly.
"I don't understand myself," she confessed.
"Then"--and fire from the Canyon lit Severance's Greek eyes--"it's my
plan to make you understand. You love me. You _daren't_ go back from it
all, after what's passed. I love you, and you belong to me."
"Good afternoon, Severance," said Garth, at the window. "I heard you'd
arrived."