Vision House Part 26

"No, leave everything here," directed Marise.

She had made up her mind not to keep the gifts. They were beautiful, and she wouldn't have been a woman if she'd not wanted them. But she wanted still more the stern splendour of handing the spoil back to Garth, advising him to return the jewels whence they came, since _only millionaires_ should buy such expensive objects. But she would not of course take a servant, even Celine--who knew everything and a little more than everything--into her confidence.

She gave the Frenchwoman a key (which had been handed her by Garth) to use in the morning, when the time came for early tea, a bath, and being dressed. Then, when the maid had departed with a click of the outer door, an idea sprang into the mind of Marise. At first she thought it would not do. Then she thought it would. And the more she thought in both directions, the more she was enmeshed by the idea itself.

Only half an hour had elapsed since Garth went to his room. The man wouldn't be human, after what they'd pa.s.sed through, if he had gone to bed. Marise was sure he had done no such thing: and she fancied that she caught a faint whiff of tobacco stealing through the keyhole of that stout locked door between their rooms.

At last she could no longer resist the call of the blood--or whatever it was. She switched on the light again, jumped up, and looked for a dressing-gown. Bother! Celine hadn't brought one--had taken it for granted she would use that wonderful thing which Garth's taste--or the taste of some hidden guide of his--had provided.

Well, what did it matter, anyhow? She would slip it on--and the sparkling gold and silver _mules_, too. She glanced in the long Psyche mirror. She _did_ look divine! Even a rock-carved statue couldn't deny that! Gathering up the jewels, she unlocked the door which led into the hall, and tapped at the door of Garth's room, adjoining her own.

"If you're not in bed," she called, "come out a minute, will you? I've something important to say."

All that was minx in Marise was revelling in the thought that presently Garth would suffer a disappointment. He would imagine that she wished to plead for grace from him. Then, before he could snub her, she'd give _him_ the snub of his life--just as he had given her, Marise Sorel, the shock of hers!

Garth did not answer at once. The girl was hesitating whether to call him again, when his voice made her start. It sounded _sleepy_! "I _am_ in bed," he said. "What do you want? Is it too important to wait till morning?"

"It's merely that I wished to put the jewels which were left in the salon into your charge," Marise replied with freezing dignity. "I do not think they are safe there."

"Wouldn't they be safe enough with you?" came grumpily--yes, grumpily!--through the closed door.

"No doubt. But I don't wish to have the responsibility, as I don't care to accept them...."

"Oh, I see! Well, if that's your decision, it doesn't matter whether they're safe or not. Leave the things in the corridor if your room's too sacred for them. If that's all you want, I shall not get out of bed."

What a man!

"One would think you were a multi-millionaire!" Marise couldn't resist that one last, sarcastic dig. "So I may be for all you know. Do what you like with the silly old jewels."

Marise threw the cases on the floor as loudly as she could. She knew that the outer door was locked, and that Celine would be the first person in, when morning came, so the act wasn't as reckless as it seemed. But it was a relief to her nerves at the moment.

The filmy dressing-gown, the sparkling _mules_, the hair down, the general heartbreaking divineness, were _wasted_.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DREAM

Marise slept little, in what was left of that strange wedding night.

She tried to think of Tony Severance, who must be suffering tortures through his love and fears for her. But somehow he had lost importance.

He had become a figure in the background. Her thoughts would turn their "spot light" upon the man in the adjoining room.

Was he asleep? Was he awake? Was he thinking about her, and if so, what?

Why had he married her? If it was for love, as she had fancied at first, could he have treated her as he had? That was hard to believe! Yet it was harder to believe his motives wholly mercenary.

"Perhaps that's because I'm vain," the girl told herself. And she remembered, her cheeks hot, how Garth had accused her of vanity and selfishness. He'd said that she took no interest in anything which didn't concern Marise Sorel. She had been angry then, and thought him unjust and hard. But in her heart she knew that he had touched the truth. She _was_ vain and selfish. And she was hard, too, just as hard to him as he to her.

"_He_ has made me so!" she excused herself. "I was never hard to anyone else before, in all my life."

But she could not rest on this special pleading. What right had she to be hard to this man? She had _asked_ him to marry her. His crime was that he had granted her wish and consented to play this dummy hand; and now the deed was done he was not grovelling to her or to Tony Severance.

How much more _British_ he seemed, by the by, than dark, Greek Tony, of subtle ways!

At luncheon, talking with Pobbles, he had spoken of Yorkshire as _his_ county. Marise wondered what he had meant. But, of course, she would not ask. John Garth's past was no affair of hers. Still, she couldn't stop puzzling about him. She puzzled nearly all night. He was turning out such a different man from the man she had vaguely imagined! In fact, he was different from any man she had ever met, off the stage or on.

Staring into darkness as the hours pa.s.sed, Marise felt that she could not wait for Celine. She'd get up at dawn, dress, and flit to her own room in Mums' suite. But no! She couldn't do that. She hadn't a key to that suite. She would have to pound on the door, and other people beside Mums and Celine would hear. There would be gossip--which she'd sacrificed much already to avoid.

Dreading the long night of wakefulness, the girl suddenly dropped fast asleep, and began at once to dream of Garth. Zelie Marks was in the dream, too, and--dreams are so ridiculous!--Marise was jealous. What had happened between the two she didn't know; but she would have known in another instant, for Zelie was going to confess, if a rap had not sounded at the door and made her sit up in a fright. Marise was just about to cry, "You can't come in!" when she realised that it was the peculiar double knock of Celine.

The Frenchwoman was prompt, though the night had seemed so long. Her mistress sipped hot, fragrant Orange Pekoe from an eggsh.e.l.l cup, and in a whisper bade Celine move quietly, not to rouse Monsieur Garth in the next room.

"Oh, Mademoiselle--Madame!" said the maid.

"Monsieur has gone out, early as it is. His door is wide open."

Marise must have slept more soundly than she knew. She hadn't heard a sound.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Celine about the jewel-cases--if they were lying in the corridor. But she couldn't put such a question!

The maid would be too curious--she would fancy there had been some vulgar quarrel instead of--instead of--well, Marise hardly knew how to qualify her own conduct.

"I'm afraid I _was_ vulgar," she thought, like a child repenting last night's misdeeds. "It was horrid of me to throw those lovely things on the floor. Poor fellow, he must have spent a fortune--_somebody's_ fortune (whose, I wonder?)--on those pearls, and diamonds and emeralds, and all the rest. Yet I never said one word of grat.i.tude. I was never such a brute before!... I'm sure it _must_ be his fault. Still--I don't like myself one bit better than I like him."

As Garth had gone out, there was no great need for haste. Celine had brought all that was needed, and Marise might dress--as well as repent--at leisure. But she was wild with impatience to know whether the jewels were lying where she had thrown them. While Celine was letting the bath-water run, the girl peeped out into the flower-scented corridor. The jewel-cases had gone!

This discovery gave her a slight shock. She had more than half expected to see them on the floor, and had wondered what she would do if they were there--whether she would pick them up and decide to accept the gifts after all, with a stiff, yet decent little speech of grat.i.tude.

"I'm sure you meant to do what I would like, and I don't wish to hurt your feelings," or something of that sort.

_Now_, what should she do? The probability was that Garth himself had retrieved his rejected treasures. But there was just a chance--such horrors happened in hotels!--that a thief had p.u.s.s.y-footed into the suite to search for wedding presents, and had found them easily in an unexpected place. That would be _too_ dreadful! Because, if she--Marise--held her tongue, Garth would always believe that _she_ had annexed the things, and had chosen to be sulkily silent.

"I shall have to bring up the subject somehow, the next time we meet--whenever that may be!" she thought ruefully.

When Mrs. Garth arrived in the maternal suite, it was about the hour when Miss Sorel had been in the habit of slipping, half-dressed, from bedroom to salon. It was the time, also, when Miss Zelie Marks was accustomed to present herself, and begin her morning tasks: sharpening pencils, sorting letters, etc. But to-day the salon was unoccupied. The letters lay in a fat, indiscriminate heap, just as Celine had received them from one of the floor-waiters.

Mrs. Sorel was still in bed, and still suffering from last night's headache, which had increased, rather than diminished. She burst into tears at sight of Marise, but was slowly pacified on hearing the story of the night.

"He was afraid to----" she began; but the girl broke in with the queerest sensation of anger. "He _wasn't_ afraid--of _anything_!

Whatever else he may have been, he wasn't afraid. I don't believe the creature knows how to be afraid."

Mrs. Sorel did not insist. She didn't wish to waste time discussing Garth. She wanted to talk of Tony. There was a letter from him. It had come by hand, early--sent as he was starting. Of course he hadn't dared write to Marise direct, but there was an enclosure for her.

"You had better read it now," advised Mums. "At any moment that man may turn up, asking for you, and trying to make some scene."

Marise took the crested envelope that had come inside her mother's note from Tony; but somehow or other she felt an odd repulsion against it.

She didn't care to read what Tony had to say to Mrs. John Garth at parting; and she had an excuse to procrastinate because, just then, the telephone sounded in the salon adjoining.