Vision House Part 34

"And not because you wanted me yourself?"

"I don't get much good from having you, do I?"

"Then it was like the dog in the manger."

Garth shrugged his shoulders. "Let it go at that for to-night, anyhow.

We must talk more softly if we don't wish to keep Bill and Cath awake in the next room."

This warning was a dash of cold water!

"We won't talk at all," half whispered Marise. "If you'll arrange the screens for me, I'll rest on the bed."

There were two large, four-leaved screens in the room, one in a corner behind a sofa, keeping off a window draught, one in front of the door.

Placed as Garth placed them, they formed a room within a room, hiding the bed from view. Marise stepped behind this "barricade," as Garth had called it, contrived with great difficulty to unfasten a complicated family of tiny hooks, wriggled out of her sparkling dress and into a _robe de chambre_, turned off the light of an electric candelabrum, turned on that of a green-shaded bedside lamp, and lay down under a silk quilt.

From Garth's part of the room she heard no sound, except when several electric lights were switched off, and Marise imagined him uncomfortably folded up on the sofa which was far too small for what she called "an out-size" of man.

It was dark in the room save for her bedside lamp, the shade of which drank most of the light. So dim was it, so still was it, that after a while Marise grew drowsy.

She hadn't meant to sleep at all, but she realised that Nature was too strong for her. Besides, what did it matter? Garth was probably asleep too--and there were hours before dawn.

The girl ceased to resist the soft pressure as of fingers on her eyelids. They drooped, closed, and--she slept. By and by she dreamed.

She dreamed most vividly of Zelie Marks, as she had dreamed once or twice before.

She--Marise--was in this house of Mothereen's; in this very room, though Garth was not with her. He existed, but he had gone out--or away. Marise had taken off the jewels he had given her, and was laying them on a table. They were beautiful! It was a pity not to keep them for her own!

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and without waiting for permission Zelie Marks burst in.

"I've come for the jewels," she announced, in a hateful voice, looking at Marise with angry, wicked eyes.

"They're not yours, and you're not to have them," said Marise in the dream. She spoke with courage; but suddenly she was afraid of Zelie. She knew that the girl meant to do her harm. Some dreadful thing was going to happen. But her voice was gone. She could not cry out. She couldn't even speak. It was impossible to move. She felt like a bird fascinated by a snake. The dream had become a nightmare.

Zelie saw her helplessness. The big black eyes became more and more evil. The girl advanced slowly, yet with set purpose. Without removing her stare from Marise's face, she picked up the rope of pearls.

"As you won't give these to me, though Jack wants me to have everything of his, I'm going to make you swallow them," she said in a low voice, cold as the tinkle of ice.

Marise strove with all her might to cry out, "No--no!" but could not.

She tried to turn and dart away before Zelie could touch her, but she was immovable as the pillar of salt that had been Lot's wife.

Zelie took a handful of pearls and began stuffing them into Marise's mouth. It was suffocation! Marise wrenched herself free of the frozen spell and uttered a shriek.

It waked her; and at the same time she was conscious of another sound--a sound which brought back to her brain a whirling vision of things as they really were.

She remembered the screens, and why they were there.

Garth had bounded up from some resting-place and had knocked over a chair. He must think, either that she was _in extremis_, or else that she had cried out as an excuse to bring him to her. She saw one of the two screens sway, as if Garth had struck against it inadvertently. Then, hastily she closed her eyes. He must be made to realise that she had truly screamed in her sleep, and that there was no horrid coquettish trick.

Marise lay quite still, so that she hardly breathed; and Garth's steps made scarce a sound; yet she knew that he had come round the screens and was looking at her.

After the things he had said, she was wild to know _what that look was like_. If she could see his face at that moment, when she'd just given him a fright, she would know without any possible doubt whether he'd spoken the plain truth in hinting (he hadn't exactly _said_!) that he didn't love her because she had tried him too far. But she couldn't see his face without opening her eyes; and if she opened her eyes he'd know she was awake. He'd suspect that she had screamed on purpose.

The girl tried to breathe with long, gentle sighs, hardly moving her breast, as she did when she played the part of a sleeper on the stage.

It was easy enough _there_; but she couldn't be a good actress after all, because she was unable to control her breath now. Her heart was beating fast, and her bosom rose and fell in jerks.

A long time seemed to pa.s.s. Was Garth standing there gazing down at her still, or had he tiptoed away? Marise simply _had_ to know! Surely she could just peep from under those celebrated eyelashes of hers for half a second, without his catching her in the act, if he were there?

The lashes flickered, and were still again. But Marise had seen. Garth _was_ there. He was looking down at her. Yet all her subtleties had been vain. She couldn't read his face. It was as inscrutable as that of the Sphinx, which she knew only from photographs. Presently she heard a slight, almost indefinable sound, and peeping again, saw Garth in the act of disappearing behind a leaf of the taller screen. Had he caught that tell-tale flicker, or not?

Garth went back to his darkened corner of the room, but his brain felt as it had been brilliantly lit up, with a hundred electric candles suddenly turned on in it. They dazzled him. But he composed himself outwardly and lay down again on the crampingly short sofa.

He had taken off collar, tie, coat and waistcoat, slipping on instead a futurist dressing-gown which a haughty salesman in a smart shop had forced upon him as "_the_ thing." Zelie would probably have approved it.

In any case, it would have graced a Russian ballet.

Minutes, hours perhaps, pa.s.sed before he felt even somnolent. But the ring of light on the ceiling above Marise's concealed lamp, resembling a faint, round moon in a twilight sky, hypnotised him. At last sleep caught him like a wrestler, and downed him for a moment. In a flash came a dream. He thought that Marise had cried out again. Then he waked, in another flash, and knew that it was not true. Vividly he saw her face, as it had been in that last glimpse he had stolen; sweet as a rose; lips apart, long lashes shadowing the cheeks; then--a flicker; and he saw the bosom that had been shaken all through the silent scene with heart-beats too quick for those of a sleeper.

With this photograph upon his retina, he deliberately rolled off the sofa, and fell with a b.u.mp on the floor.

Crash! went a screen.

Marise was beside him.

"Are you _dead_?" she gasped.

"No. Only asleep," he answered with a yawn.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE ALb.u.m

The next day Garth received a telegram urging him to come at once to the Grand Canyon. He was needed because of some work at Vision House which had been stopped for his decision.

Marise believed that he had had the message sent to himself, and was grateful, for his departure relieved the situation. Later, she thought differently; but at the time she was pleased with the man. She even gave him a little appreciative squeeze of the hand when they said good-bye.

Garth was to be gone two days. He would then return, travelling at night, and after a few hours with Mothereen would take his wife and her maid away. Considering the circ.u.mstances, this was as good an arrangement as could have been hoped for by Marise. His absence, however, did leave the house very dull! Whether one liked Jack Garth or not, even if one hated him, his was a personality that made itself missed.

Of course, it was very unpleasant that she had to go and live in his house. In his rough-hewn fashion, he'd been rather decent in some ways, not abusing the man's power he had over her as a woman; still, Marise told herself that she thanked Heaven to be rid of him. She must not appear too joyous, however, or Mothereen would be shocked. So realistic was the girl's air of sadness (helped by a prospect of heavy boredom), that the dear woman attempted the task of cheering her up.

"Would ye like me to show ye an alb.u.m of photos I have of himself as a boy and a growin' lad?" Mothereen wanted to know. "He was never much on bein' took, after he grew up. But I've kept all his letters he wrote me from the Front. They're great, and ye can have the run of 'em, me pet.

But first we'll go through the alb.u.m together, don't ye think?"

Marise said that she would be delighted. And she must have had a more angelic nature than she'd supposed, because the thought of the ordeal left her unruffled.

Mothereen brought the volume in question--bound in purple morocco--and a ribbon-tied bundle of letters to the girl's sitting-room. Then, with a beaming countenance, she settled herself on the sofa and opened the alb.u.m on her lap. She had evidently no suspicion that she was being patronised good-naturedly by "Johnny's" wife. Indeed, she fully believed that the girl was impatiently waiting a treat.

"Come and sit down beside me, Mavourneen," she said. "That's right! Now we're cosy. See, this cute little photo at the beginnin' was Johnny when I had him first. Ye know the story, don't ye?"