Vision House Part 38

"Are you acting a part with me?" Severance flung at her. "Or what has come over you, Marise? One would think you in reality the virtuous married woman, keeping the _tertium quid_ at arm's length----"

"Well, I _am_ a married woman. And--and I'm not _un_virtuous!" she defied him, through her heart-beats. "Things have changed, Tony----"

"Why--because I've got a million dollars less than you expected me to have?"

The girl sprang to her feet, tingling and trembling. Severance jumped up also, and belted her slim waist with his hot hands. He thought that this was the way to regain her--that by grasping her body he might seize her elusive spirit. It was all that Marise could do not to scream, "Help!

Help!" like an early-Victorian heroine. She bit back the cry of primitive womanhood, but to her intense surprise, and even horror, she found herself landing a rousing box on Tony's ear.

"You vixen!" he blurted.

"Cad!" she retorted.

With that, his hands dropped from her waist. His face had been pale with fatigue. Now it was paler with pain. "You don't--mean that, Marise?" he stammered.

And, of course, she didn't. Things had happened in the past which had encouraged him to this. He had thought she loved him. She was to blame as much as he was--more, perhaps--the Canyon would say.

"I'm sorry I boxed your ear, Tony," she apologised. "But--but--if you go on like this, I'm awfully afraid I shall lose my head and box it again."

"I don't understand you," he said, more quietly.

"I don't understand myself," she confessed.

"Then"--and fire from the Canyon lit Severance's Greek eyes--"it's my plan to make you understand. You love me. You _daren't_ go back from it all, after what's pa.s.sed. I love you, and you belong to me."

"Good afternoon, Severance," said Garth, at the window. "I heard you'd arrived."

CHAPTER x.x.xV

STRAIGHT TALK

If Garth had appeared two minutes earlier, he need have suffered no uncertainty about Marise. But unfortunately she was not in these days the romantic heroine of a stage play. Characters did not come on or go off at just the right instant to work up her scenes in life. Therefore this unrehea.r.s.ed effect ended with an anti-climax. Whether Severance were cast for hero or villain remained doubtful: and whether she had acted the n.o.ble wife or the weak lover was left vague: or at least, it was vague to the mind of Garth. He had no idea what Marise had done. He was sure only that Severance had done as much as she would let him do.

By and by he expected to learn a great deal more: through the process of deduction.

"Good gracious, if I _had_ called out, he would have heard me!" thought Marise; and was thankful that she hadn't. To yell for John Garth to rescue her from Tony Severance! That would have been too inane, too ridiculous. Nevertheless, a picture flashed vividly across her brain: Garth as he had looked that night at Mothereen's house when hearing her shriek he had bounded to her bedside from behind the screen. His collar had been off, his strong throat bare, his hair rumpled. It had occurred to Marise as she peeped from between her lashes that he'd make a fine model for a young Samson, newly sheared by Delilah.

The man's quiet voice and his drawled "Good afternoon, Severance,"

frightened her a little. She had seen him angry, but never violent. She felt convinced, somehow, that the angrier he was, the more quiet he would be--deadly quiet. Just why she felt that, she couldn't have explained, for she did not know him well--indeed, she knew him hardly at all. Yet she _was_ sure--very sure. And she was sure also that his "good afternoon" didn't express Garth's real emotion at sight of Severance with her on the terrace of Vision House.

"What had I better do?" she wondered. "Go--or stay?"

She decided to stay, and keep peace between the two men if need be.

Besides, she _must_ hear what they would say to each other!

Severance had no conventional answer for Garth's "Good afternoon." He stood silent, staring and frowning, fingering his small black moustache.

"To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?" asked his host.

Severance had never been able to forget the scene between himself and Garth at the latter's hotel in New York. He was at heart more Greek than British; and the days are long past since Greeks were aggressive fighters. He shrank from any repet.i.tion of his experience at the Belmore, and had come to Vision House meaning not to rouse Garth to violent issues. That cool question was too much, however, for his prudence. Anyhow, even Garth wouldn't be brute enough to attack him before Marise!

"I have come to bring Miss Sorel a message from her mother, who wants her at Los Angeles," he said sharply.

"That might do if she were Miss Sorel," returned Garth. "But she isn't."

"She is professionally," said Severance.

"She's ceased to be a professional."

"Temporarily."

"Oh! Your point is that she's the temporary wife of a temporary gentleman, and that as such her time with the T.G. is up. Is that it?"

"Precisely."

"I see. You've come to wind up the arrangement?"

"I have. You must have been expecting me."

"I didn't let my mind dwell on you. How are you going to pay me my million--in banknotes, bonds or a cheque? Because I may as well inform you, I shall refuse to accept a cheque."

"I don't mean to offer you one."

"Very well. Have you got the million on you?"

"I have not! I haven't got it anywhere--that is, all of it. I shall pay you by instalments."

"I can't agree to accept the money like that."

"You'll have to!" exploded Severance. "There's nothing else you can do."

"You think so? We shall see. But it occurs to me that one instalment deserves another. You pay me by instalments: I allow my wife to go to her mother by instalments. Some of her trunks can go first."

"For G.o.d's sake don't joke about this thing!" broke out Severance. "It's too coa.r.s.e--even for you."

"Strikes me that it would be coa.r.s.er to take it seriously," said Garth.

"And there's no need of doing that any more."

"What do you mean?" the other asked sharply.

"As I pointed out before, the 'bargain's' smashed to bits."

"Nothing of the sort!" Severance flung at him. "There wasn't a word spoken about handing you the whole million in a bunch."

"There was something said about handing it over in advance. It wasn't handed over."

"That was Marise's fault, not mine. She rushed on the marriage out of childish pique against me, never stopping to dream of the consequences."