Vision House Part 12

"Would you want to marry me if I didn't love you one bit, and if we--didn't live together, except as friends? You and mother and I, all in the same house?"

He did not answer for a moment. Then he rapped out, "Do you need a husband to protect you--against some danger?"

Marise shook her head. "It isn't so romantic as that. No one is persecuting me. I--cared a little for somebody. I thought maybe he and I might be married. But things have altered with him. He has to marry a very rich girl. I haven't got money enough, it seems--although he loves me."

"The d.a.m.ned brute!" burst from Garth. (He knew who the "brute" was, well enough.)

"Don't call him that," Marise pleaded. "I understand how things are with him. But----"

"I suppose people have coupled your names. Good G.o.d, I'm thankful you sent for me! No one shall ever say he jilted you. It shall be the other way round. When will you marry me, girl?"

It was a new and piercing thought to Marise that, if Severance went home immediately and married his cousin, people would suppose she had been jilted. She, so sensitive to every breeze which blew praise or blame, ought to have realised that this would be the case.

Strange that it needed a blundering fellow like John Garth to point out the peril. The girl saw at once that it was a real one. She shrank from the prospect as from a lash. She could hear the "cats" who had already been "horrid" in England, and the cats awaiting their chance to be horrid in New York, mewing with joy over this creamy dish of scandal.

"I told you how it would be! As soon as he got the t.i.tle, and a little money with it, he threw her over!"

In a flash she saw a second motive for her marriage with Garth, if Severance were to marry OEnone Ionides. She must marry someone, and she hadn't the heart just now to pick and choose as, of course, she could do, given a little time. p.r.i.c.kling with shame over the explanation which she tried stumblingly to make, her impulse was to catch at the one Garth offered. Why not, since now that she thought of it, his point of view was hers? Pain would be saved for both. And she realised that she could not blurt out the naked truth in words. It seemed to her that, if she attempted to do so, this rude giant, this primitive man in New York "ready-mades," would kill her, as he had already suggested killing Severance.

"Then you consent?" she took him up.

"Consent? What do you think of me? Yes, I consent."

"Only to be friends? You understand that part?"

"I agree to that, to begin with. Because I'm so mad about you. I'd take you at any price."

"To 'begin with'?"

"Till I can make you care. I'm a man and you're a woman. And the rest may come. I'll chance it."

"No. You mustn't hope for that. It won't come. I don't want it to come."

"Hope isn't easy to kill. If it was, I guess the war wouldn't have ended the way it has. You don't know how I love you. Why, the thought even of calling you 'my wife' is--is a kind of glorious sh.e.l.l-shock."

He laughed out, shyly yet violently, like a boy: and of a sudden Marise felt sick with guilt. "I mustn't let you be happy!" she cried.

"Why not? You needn't grudge me that. But you haven't named the day yet--Marise. Lord! The thrill it gives me to say 'Marise' to your face--the way I've been saying it behind your back."

"You make me feel--a little beast!" The words spoke themselves, straight out of her conscience. "I can't fix a time yet, because--if I'd explained to you properly you mightn't have decided as you have. And it's no use trying any more. I can't do it. Oh!" (as she saw his face flush again, and pale to a sickly brown) "perhaps I see what was in your head at first--what's come back there now. But I'm not so much of a beast as that. My wishing to marry someone has nothing to do with the past. No, the reason's all mixed up with the future. You could never guess. I could never explain. And I couldn't let you marry me unless everything had been explained. I thought for a minute I could--and I wanted to--but I find I'm not like that. Tony--Lord Severance--must explain. Yes, of course. When I've telephoned--no, written to him--he will do it. I haven't really spoken to him of you yet. He doesn't even know that--you care about me. If I make an appointment, will you call at the Waldorf, where he is staying?"

"No!" Garth exploded. "That I will not do. I'll see Severance, if you insist. I'll keep an appointment at any time. But it must be at my hotel. I'm d.a.m.ned if I'll call on him!"

CHAPTER XI

EVERY MAN HAS HIS PRICE

The note Marise meant to write was not written; for, as the door of the suite shut behind John Garth, Mrs. Sorel came to the girl with news.

"Dear child, I promised you shouldn't be disturbed, whatever happened, but Tony has been telephoning for the sixth time to-day. Poor boy! He's very anxious about you. Don't look so cynical! If your face should ever settle into lines like that, your beauty would be gone! This time he wanted to know if you're better for your long sleep, and if you can see him."

"No, I can't, mother! Not till something's decided. I simply can't act to-night if I have to go through another scene with him."

"Oh, I'm not suggesting it, pet! I merely wanted to know what I should say to poor Tony. I told him that I'd call him up and give him his answer when you were free."

Marise started. "Did you say who was here with me?"

"Ye-es, I thought it would be best. I imagined you must be very sure the man was--the one we're in search of."

The girl shivered. "Marise in Search of a Husband! We never expected it would come to that with me, did we, Mums? But anyhow, I hadn't to search far. That's one consolation! I was snapped up the minute I appeared in the show window."

"Well, Tony was wrong about that Garth man, then!"

"Yes, he was wrong. I must write and let him know why Garth came--unless you told him why?"

"I said only what I dared say through the telephone. You know how careful I am of anything that concerns you. What I told him was, 'Major G----' (not even Garth!) 'has come to talk over that proposition you thought he wouldn't accept. His staying so long makes me fancy he may be accepting after all.' That is every word."

"Good! I shan't need to write! Please 'phone again, Mums, and explain that I don't feel as if I could see Tony till after the theatre. He may come to my dressing-room a few minutes then, if he likes. You can bring him in. I won't be alone with him for an instant! Tell him that I talked with Garth, who's inclined to accept. But I left it to him--Tony--to make matters clear, and he must telephone Garth for an appointment at the Belmore--not the Waldorf."

"Severance to go to Garth! He'll refuse----"

"Then the whole thing is off!" Marise threw out her arms in a gesture of exasperation. "He can take the offer or leave it."

Mary said no more, but flew to the 'phone in her own room, with the door shut between. Presently she came back. "Tony has consented," she announced. "Another proof of his great love!"

Never had Lord Severance felt that he appeared to less advantage than when he was shown into the Bounder's sitting-room at the Belmore Hotel.

He held himself very straight, however, and was every inch an Ancient Greek, if not an English earl.

Garth had been engaged in writing a letter and puffing smoke over it from a meerschaum pipe some shades browner than his face.

At sight of Severance, and the sound of his name deformed by a page-boy, the big man rose, topping his tall guest in height and erectness.

"Well?" was his only greeting, as the door closed. He pushed a box of cigarettes across the table. "Those are the smokes you prefer, I believe."

"Thanks. I have my own. And my own matches."

"All right." Garth continued to puff at his pipe.

"You have seen Miss Sorel, I understand."

"That is so."

"She--or rather Mrs. Sorel--'phoned me that--er--though you'd had some conversation, the--affair hadn't been entirely explained to you. That's as it should be. It's my business, and my place, to explain it."