Vision House Part 21

"You mean, you're fighting me?"

"Not in the least. I'm fighting the battle of appearances, which means I'm fighting _for_ you."

"What makes you think there'll be reporters waiting?" Marise changed the subject. "Did you tell anyone?"

"The manager of your hotel and mine. I didn't tell him in confidence.

There was no idea of keeping the marriage a secret, was there?"

"No-o."

"Well, then! Am I or am I not to stop the taxi and get out?"

"Wait," Marise temporised. "You must please understand that I'm not going to live with you as your wife."

"I haven't asked you to do so, although you did ask me to become your husband. After last Sunday, I would never have started the subject, or even have tried to meet you again. Please, on your part, understand that."

The girl's breath was caught away for the dozenth time. She spoke more quietly. "I know you haven't asked me, in so many words," she admitted.

"But you spoke of a _suite_."

"Certainly I spoke of a suite. I thought you and your mother were anxious to keep up conventions. Though I'm not Severance's sort of gentleman--perhaps _because_ I'm not--you can trust me not to behave like a brute, even though you're thinking that I speak like one. Or, if you can't trust me as far as that, you ought never to have run the risk you have run."

"But can I trust you--to keep to the bargain?"

"I've told you that owing to your own act, there _is_ no bargain.

Haven't you solved that 'puzzle' yet?"

"I have not."

"You will soon. Do I stop here?"

"Bargain or no bargain then, _can_ I trust you?"

"Look me in the face and judge."

She looked him in the face.

In spite of the war tan, not faded yet, he was pale; and his pupils seemed to have flowed like ink over the yellow-grey iris. His eyes were black as they blazed into hers. He might, she thought, commit murder in that mood, but--he could do nothing mean, nothing sly, nothing vile.

"I must trust you, and I do."

Garth let the speaking-tube fall.

CHAPTER XVIII

AU REVOIR--TILL SOMETIME!

When Marise and Garth arrived together in Mrs. Sorel's salon, it was to find a "bunch" of reporters interviewing the bride's mother.

Marise guessed that Mums had had the young men up in order to tell them what she chose about Major Garth's future movements before Garth had time to arrive and speak for himself. But by these tactics she had lost the supporting presence of Lord Severance. Fearing his uncle, and perhaps even detectives set to spy upon him by Constantine Ionides, the last thing he could afford was to have his name appear in print in connection with this surprise wedding. Fearing reporters, he had not even come to the hotel door with Mrs. Sorel, but had gone with his Colonel to pay respects due to lady Pobblebrook; and this was well, for some sharp eye and stylo would have spotted him even in the background of a taxi.

Mums had not only approved, she had advised this prudence. Everything depended upon it, in fact; and she had soothed Tony by a.s.suring him that she and Marise--or she alone--could deal with Garth if Garth were uppish and needed keeping in his place. It was arranged between Mrs. Sorel and Lord Severance that the latter should come to "Dolores's" dressing-room at the theatre to say good-bye, and Mums would see that he got a few minutes at least alone with Marise. Then, in a few weeks he would be back and they would meet again. Mrs. Sorel had provisionally accepted the loan of Bell Towers until he and OEnone should want the house for themselves, whereupon the Sorels could gracefully retire to some charming place they would hope to find in the neighbourhood.

Of course, this acceptance of Bell Towers must depend upon Marise leaving the stage: but Mums said that, if Tony were indeed shortly to be left a widower, the sooner Marise could be disa.s.sociated from the theatre, the better it would be for all concerned.

Thus it happened that when "Major and Mrs. Garth" walked into the room a few minutes after Mums' arrival, they found her as busy with a crowd of reporters as a conjurer who keeps a dozen oranges in the air at once.

Mary Sorel was chagrined at sight of her son-in-law.

Not that she thought of him as such, or as the husband of her daughter.

She was a woman whom circ.u.mstances had forced to become unscrupulous.

Ever since Marise had begun, as a flapper, to show signs of unusual beauty and talent, Mums had buckled on a steely armour in which to fight the world for her girl. Naturally conventional, she had adjusted a nice balance between ambition and conscience. When she was obliged to do a thing in itself objectionable, she hastily gilded it for her own benefit as well as that of Marise, seeing it as she wished it to be. Garth in her eyes, therefore, was no more important than one of the leading men with whom Marise played her star parts; and as--like a leading man--he was to be well paid, he would have no right to obtrude upon the star's private life.

She intended that, no matter how he protested, he should immediately be "called away"; and she had hoped to get just what she wanted scribbled into the notebooks of these reporters before Garth could interfere.

Without feeling in the least guilty, therefore, she was upset when he had the bad taste to stalk in with Marise.

"h.e.l.lo, boys!" he breezily greeted the newspaper men, some of whom he had met before.

They were delighted to see him, as well as Marise, and Mrs. Sorel's painstaking work went by the board in a minute. With rage and anguish she heard Garth say that when he "went West" (no longer in the sad vernacular of soldiers) his wife would go with him.

"She'll be leaving the stage, you know, as soon as she can manage to get free," he explained. "And then I'm going to take her out to my adopted state, Arizona."

His mother-in-law's interpolations that "it must be a long time first"

were scarcely heard; and all her "exclusive information" was hurriedly blue-pencilled by the newspaper men. In the midst of this (to her) extremely painful scene, Sheridan and Belloc, author and manager, burst in like a couple of bombs. They had heard the news, and dashed to the Plaza in search of the truth.

"Well, I suppose we ought to congratulate you and all that," grumbled Belloc, when his worst fears had been confirmed by the sight of Garth, well known from journalistic snapshots. "We might have suspected something was in the wind, the way you've been an every-nighter for the 'Spring Song,' Major. But safety first!--and we can't be polite till we're out of the woods. You're not going to tear Miss Sorel away from us, of course, in the midst of the run?"

"Miss Sorel has ceased to exist, hasn't she?" asked Garth, with a rather glum smile.

"Not ceased to exist professionally." Belloc explained his meaning to the lay mind. "And I hope she won't cease for many years."

"If I can answer for her, she'll do no more acting after she's handed in her notice to you--two weeks, I suppose, like most contracts," Garth returned. "It's hard on you, in the middle of a run. But didn't I see in some Sunday supplement a photo of a beautiful young lady, labelled 'Miss Sorel's Understudy'? And as you say 'safety first!'--naturally I put my own safety before yours."

"As if anyone would go to the 'Spring Song' to see Marise's understudy!"

broke out Mrs. Sorel.

"Well, in _my_ 'Spring Song' there's no understudy to take her part. She has to play it herself," retorted Garth. "But I leave the decision to her."

As he spoke he looked straight at Marise--a warning look, as she read it. The thought of his threat was sharp as the point of a knife, p.r.i.c.king a painful reminder into her breast.

The girl could hear every word he had said to her in the taxi between church and hotel--hear the whole conversation as though it were being repeated by a gramophone. If she ventured to promise Belloc and Sheridan now that she would stay on in spite of her marriage, this big, uncompromising fellow would turn his back on her, giving to the public some garbled story of the desertion, a story which would shame her and ruin Tony's plans. She could have stamped her foot and burst into tears, as the emotional Spanish "Dolores" had to do in one scene of the play: but the reporters were all eyes and ears, and would simply "eat" an exhibition of the star's fury with her brand-new bridegroom. Oh, she was at the beast's mercy in this first round of their fight--and well he must know it, or he'd not dare give her such a lead!

"Of course Marise wouldn't leave two old friends in the lurch at a fortnight's notice," Mrs. Sorel gave her ultimatum. "This is only a joke of Major Garth's."

"No, Mums, I'm afraid it isn't," said the girl, her cheeks hot, her eyes filling with tears. "We--we were talking things over in the taxi just now, and--and--well anyhow there's a fortnight to get Susanne Neville into shape as Dolores before I have to--go. She's so clever and pretty, I shall probably be jealous as a cat of the hit she makes in 'Dolores.'"