Vision House Part 17

"No-o. Only sincere. Why did you want to wear black to be married--to me?"

"I--don't know." She stammered a little.

"Well then, if you don't know, change to another colour."

"Oh, I'm quite willing to do that if you make a point of it!"

The man's manner was so different from the other day, that Marise was less sure of his motives in taking her at the price. He spoke shortly and sharply now, like a military martinet, she decided. But he _wasn't_ exactly "common." He wasn't even ordinary.

Her last words were at the door of her own room, and she whisked through, to find her mother. She thought how she should break the news.

And she thought, also, what she should wear in place of the black dress.

Should she put on grey--or heliotrope--"second mourning"? She would have liked to try this trick upon Garth. But the man was capable of making her take off one thing after the other, on pain of not being married to-day--which meant, not spiting Severance.

Mrs. Sorel was flabbergasted.

She would not have used such a vulgar expression herself; but that is what she was.

She argued, she warned, she scolded, she besought. Severance would be furious. It would be a blow which his love might not survive. Tony had not dreamed of this marriage taking place with such--indecent haste!

"If you say much more it won't take place at all!" shrilled Marise, on the verge of hysterics, which (Mums knew from bitter experience) her twentieth-century child was not at all above having when thwarted, just like an early Edwardian.

While Marise was away, Garth opened the folded sc.r.a.p of paper that Zelie Marks had slipped into his hand, and read the line she had pencilled.

"For _goodness'_ sake don't be married in those awful best clothes of yours that you wore Sunday. Put on the uniform of the _Guards_, and look a regular man."

He was in no mood for laughing, yet he grinned. "And look a regular man!" ... Girls were queer. As if it would matter to Marise what _he_ wore! But--well, hang it, why shouldn't he make her notice him? She would do that if he turned up in uniform. And wasn't that what he wished to look in her eyes, "A regular man"?

He'd made up his mind to take Zelie's tip, when suddenly he remembered that Marise and he would not be married in church. They'd walk into some parson's parlour, and the knot would be tied there. He couldn't get into his uniform for a home-made affair like that.

Garth had gone no further than this when Marise came back, chaperoned by Mums.

"My mother makes one stipulation," the girl announced. "That the wedding shall be in a church. She's picked up English ideas, and thinks anything else 'hardly respectable.' Though I should have thought for that reason it would be more appropriate! However, _I_ don't care. Do you?"

"Not a da--not a red cent," said Garth.

Two minutes later he had gone to buy a marriage license, engage the services of a clergyman--and a _church_.

Marise changed her dress. She would not wear white, like a _real_ bride.

That would be sacrilege, she said; and compromised by putting on her favourite blue. But it was the oldest dress she owned; and she had intended giving it to Celine.

The girl wished she were pale. But that could be arranged. And she was arranging it with powder when the bell of the telephone rang.

Mums flew to the instrument, tearfully drawing on her gloves.

Garth had called up, to give the name of the church and the hour fixed for the wedding. They must start at once.

CHAPTER XV

THE CHURCH DOOR

Celine was a fervent admirer of Lord Severance. Half Greek, she had heard him called. To her he was wholly Greek: a Greek G.o.d. Indeed, he was miles handsomer than "_cet Apollon en marbre_" adorning a pedestal in the salon, which statue she tried to drape tastefully with climbing flowers each morning. His lords.h.i.+p's nose was much the same as Apollo's; so was his proud air of owning the world and not caring particularly about it: and to Celine's idea he had more to be proud of than a mere G.o.d who went naked.

G.o.ds had no pockets, and Lord Severance had many, beautifully flat yet containing banknotes with which he was generous when n.o.body looked.

Since she could not marry him, Celine wanted Mademoiselle to do so, for Mademoiselle was her _alter ego_. She shared Mademoiselle's glory and her dresses. She wished to be maid to a countess--a _chic_ countess, as the wife of Milord Severance would be. It was desolating that Mademoiselle should throw everything over because of a silly quarrel (it must be a quarrel!) and fling herself away on a gawky giant whose clothes might have been made by a butcher!

Yes, it was easy to see that there had been an upheaval of some sort.

Mademoiselle was not the same since Sunday afternoon, when this huge personage had arrived by appointment, and Celine had recalled seeing him on s.h.i.+pboard. To be sure, Milord had come in later, and outstayed the Monsieur. But it was then the quarrel must have occurred, for Mademoiselle had been in a state unequalled even after the most trying dress rehearsals. Oh, it was a mystery--a mystery of the deepest blackness!

Celine moaned aloud, with a bleating noise, and gabbled _argot_ as she tidied the belongings which Mademoiselle had flung everywhere.

"If I should call up Milord, how would that be?" she asked herself, and rushed to the 'phone.

Severance, as it happened, had been on the point of telephoning Mrs.

Sorel, not daring to attempt direct communication with Marise. He had bad news and good news to give. The bad was that he must sail for England sooner than expected, in fact, on the following day, or perhaps not get a cabin for weeks.

The good news was that a friend had offered to lend him a wonderful house near Los Angeles for the next few months. He had spoken to a certain Lady Fytche (_nee_ Adela Moyle, of California) about his marriage, and bringing OEnone across for her health. Whereupon Adela (who was at his hotel, and sailing on his s.h.i.+p) said, "I'd love to lend you Bell Towers. The house is standing empty, and you know it's rather nice."

Severance did know, for Bell Towers was a famous place, ill.u.s.trated in magazines; and if Adela Moyle had been prettier, it might have become his own before she fell back--figuratively speaking--upon a baronet.

If Marise would give up the stage (he couldn't bear to leave her behind the footlights in New York, admired, interviewed, gossipped about by Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry!), he'd lend Bell Towers to Mrs. Sorel, and the girl could vanish from public view till time for her farcical marriage and his own return. If his uncle could be told by himself and the newspapers that Miss Sorel was _engaged_ to Major Garth, it would be enough to cool the old boy's suspicions.

Then, as Tony's hand was stretched out for the receiver, came a ring at the telephone.

"The dentist!" he thought. For he had had to ask for a second appointment because of that loosened tooth, and was to be called up. It came as a surprise, therefore, to hear Celine's voice.

He could hardly believe the news which the French maid gave him. Marise wouldn't do such a thing! There must be a mistake, he told Celine. Or it was a clumsy joke.

"_Milord, c'est la verite_," came the answer. "Milord need not take my word. Let him go to the church. Milord may yet be in time. But he must make haste. It is a long way. I heard Madame telephone and talk."

"I will go--I'll do my best," Severance answered, to put the woman off.

But--what _could_ he do? What was his "best"?

Celine knew nothing of the secret pact. She judged from what she had overheard, and he could not explain that he didn't see his way to stop the marriage.

The more he thought, the more clear it became that this sudden move by Marise was a caprice to spite him--to "hoist him from his own petard."

Severance could almost hear the girl defend herself. "You ought to be pleased that I took you at your word, before you went away. Otherwise I might have changed my mind about the whole thing!"

She was sure to say this, and even if he reached the church in time he wouldn't dare stop the business when it had gone so far. That devil Garth had a beast of a temper; and a fellow can't at the same moment see red, and which side his bread is b.u.t.tered!

Severance hated Garth venomously since the episode at the Belmore. But the brute was a hero in the States, and would pa.s.s in the public eye as a reasonable husband for Marise Sorel.

n.o.body who didn't know the ugly truth would say, "How _could_ that beautiful girl throw herself away on that _worm_?"