STRAIGHT TALK
If Garth had appeared two minutes earlier, he need have suffered no
uncertainty about Marise. But unfortunately she was not in these days
the romantic heroine of a stage play. Characters did not come on or go
off at just the right instant to work up her scenes in life. Therefore
this unrehearsed effect ended with an anti-climax. Whether Severance
were cast for hero or villain remained doubtful: and whether she had
acted the noble wife or the weak lover was left vague: or at least, it
was vague to the mind of Garth. He had no idea what Marise had done. He
was sure only that Severance had done as much as she would let him do.
By and by he expected to learn a great deal more: through the process of
deduction.
"Good gracious, if I _had_ called out, he would have heard me!" thought
Marise; and was thankful that she hadn't. To yell for John Garth to
rescue her from Tony Severance! That would have been too inane, too
ridiculous. Nevertheless, a picture flashed vividly across her brain:
Garth as he had looked that night at Mothereen's house when hearing her
shriek he had bounded to her bedside from behind the screen. His collar
had been off, his strong throat bare, his hair rumpled. It had occurred
to Marise as she peeped from between her lashes that he'd make a fine
model for a young Samson, newly sheared by Delilah.
The man's quiet voice and his drawled "Good afternoon, Severance,"
frightened her a little. She had seen him angry, but never violent. She
felt convinced, somehow, that the angrier he was, the more quiet he
would be--deadly quiet. Just why she felt that, she couldn't have
explained, for she did not know him well--indeed, she knew him hardly at
all. Yet she _was_ sure--very sure. And she was sure also that his "good
afternoon" didn't express Garth's real emotion at sight of Severance
with her on the terrace of Vision House.
"What had I better do?" she wondered. "Go--or stay?"
She decided to stay, and keep peace between the two men if need be.
Besides, she _must_ hear what they would say to each other!
Severance had no conventional answer for Garth's "Good afternoon." He
stood silent, staring and frowning, fingering his small black moustache.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?" asked his host.
Severance had never been able to forget the scene between himself and
Garth at the latter's hotel in New York. He was at heart more Greek than
British; and the days are long past since Greeks were aggressive
fighters. He shrank from any repetition of his experience at the
Belmore, and had come to Vision House meaning not to rouse Garth to
violent issues. That cool question was too much, however, for his
prudence. Anyhow, even Garth wouldn't be brute enough to attack him
before Marise!
"I have come to bring Miss Sorel a message from her mother, who wants
her at Los Angeles," he said sharply.
"That might do if she were Miss Sorel," returned Garth. "But she isn't."
"She is professionally," said Severance.
"She's ceased to be a professional."
"Temporarily."
"Oh! Your point is that she's the temporary wife of a temporary
gentleman, and that as such her time with the T.G. is up. Is that it?"
"Precisely."
"I see. You've come to wind up the arrangement?"
"I have. You must have been expecting me."
"I didn't let my mind dwell on you. How are you going to pay me my
million--in banknotes, bonds or a cheque? Because I may as well inform
you, I shall refuse to accept a cheque."
"I don't mean to offer you one."
"Very well. Have you got the million on you?"
"I have not! I haven't got it anywhere--that is, all of it. I shall pay
you by instalments."
"I can't agree to accept the money like that."
"You'll have to!" exploded Severance. "There's nothing else you can do."
"You think so? We shall see. But it occurs to me that one instalment
deserves another. You pay me by instalments: I allow my wife to go to
her mother by instalments. Some of her trunks can go first."
"For God's sake don't joke about this thing!" broke out Severance. "It's
too coarse--even for you."
"Strikes me that it would be coarser to take it seriously," said Garth.
"And there's no need of doing that any more."
"What do you mean?" the other asked sharply.
"As I pointed out before, the 'bargain's' smashed to bits."
"Nothing of the sort!" Severance flung at him. "There wasn't a word
spoken about handing you the whole million in a bunch."
"There was something said about handing it over in advance. It wasn't
handed over."
"That was Marise's fault, not mine. She rushed on the marriage out of
childish pique against me, never stopping to dream of the consequences."
"Which, however, haven't been very disastrous for her," said Garth.
"Have they, Marise?"
"No--o," she murmured. "But oh, please, both of you--don't lose your
heads!"
"Mine's on my shoulders," returned Garth calmly. "And I see an
excrescence of some sort protruding from Severance's. You need have no
fear for either of us. Still, if you prefer to wait indoors, we can get
on without you for awhile."
"No, I'd rather stop where I am." Marise chose.
"To go back then," said Garth; "the fault, if it was a fault, anyhow
wasn't mine. I obeyed the lady's commands and married her without
haggling for money down. As there was no 'bargain' to stick to, I stuck
to my post, the post of dummy husband, to oblige her, not for any
mercenary reason. I shall go on sticking to it, if not to please her, or
myself, just because I've got into the habit. I can't break that even
for Mrs. Sorel; certainly not for you."
"I'm not talking of myself now," barked Severance. "I'm talking of
Marise. She wants to be free. Surely you won't hold her against her
will."
"Surely she can speak for herself!" said Garth.
Marise did not speak. Her senses began to whirl. She did not know what
was to become of her. She couldn't tell what she wished would become of
her! She felt as if a wave had swept over her head. She was drowning.
"No!" snapped Garth, when she remained silent, looking at neither, but
gazing anxiously out towards the Canyon. "No, I agreed to play the dummy
hand during your absence for the sum of a million dollars. I haven't got
the million. But even if I had got it, I should have demanded a second
million to clear out. There was nothing specified on that score in New
York."
"It was taken for granted, of course!" said Severance. "There was no
other meaning possible. We trusted to your honour."
"We?"
"Miss Sorel and I--and her mother."
"That's news to me. Perhaps I shall appreciate it as a compliment when
I'm old--ninety or so. I don't now. I simply don't believe it."
"You think we lie?"
"First person singular, please! Marise hasn't spoken."
"Damn you!" broke out Severance, at the end of his tether, and for once
reckless of consequences. "You refuse to let her go--you refuse equally
to leave her."
"That's so," said Garth, with an exaggerated nasal twang which made
Severance want to kill him for his insolence. He started forward,
itching to strike; but something he saw in Garth's eyes brought him to a
standstill. That confounded tooth episode was always "throwing itself up
at him," so to speak! Fortunately, however, he remembered something at
that instant--a weapon which he had almost overlooked, though it was
within his grasp. He calmed himself with a kind of mental and physical
stiffening.
"If you don't intend to carry out your agreement--I insist, _your
agreement_--! why have you brought that secretary girl, Miss Marks, all
the way from New York to El Toyar Hotel?" he hurled at Garth. "When I
heard she was there and that you were constantly riding over from your
place to see her, I supposed it was done on purpose to give Marise an
easy chance to get her divorce. As it is----"
"As it is," Garth cut him short, "the affair is not your business."
"It's Marise's business, if it _doesn't_ mean what I thought."
"Then let her attend to it. She's quite capable of doing that," said
Garth. "And now, unless you can produce a million dollars at sight, or
still better, two million, don't you think you'd be wise to blow back to
your hotel? It'll soon be too dark to walk."
Severance turned furiously to the pale girl. "Marise--can you stand by
and see me ordered away like this?"
She looked at him with a strange look which he could not read at all.
"This is his house, Tony," she answered, in an odd, dull voice. "Not
mine."
"I think you'd best go, for your own sake," said Garth. "But come back,
of course, when you've got the money. If we're here then, we'll be glad
to see you."
Severance turned without another word, even to Marise, and walked away
as he had come, passing through the drawing-room. Garth started to
follow, but Marise ran to him and stopped him with a small, ice-cold
hand on his arm. "Why are you going after Lord Severance?" she
whispered, her lips dry.
"Only to see that he doesn't lose himself somewhere in the house and
hide under a table or sofa," Garth explained.
Her hand dropped. She let him go.
There was no fear of anything melodramatic, she saw. Yet she was not
relieved. She felt as if she had some black, hollow, worn-out thing in
her breast instead of a heart. It was heavy and useless, and hardly
beat.
"That horrid girl!" she said half aloud when Garth had gone. "I always
knew, really, she would be here. I believe he _did_ give her the jewels,
and Mothereen wangled them away from her somehow. He's pretending to
follow Tony, and see him out. But he doesn't mean to come back here to
me."
As she thought this, Garth came back.