Vision House

"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 assuring 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 Œnone 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 disassociated 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 circumstances 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.

"Hello, 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, pricking 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.'"

Mrs. Sorel was stricken dumb for once. Not that she intended to let things fall to pieces in any such way; but she was sure Marise wouldn't pronounce what sounded like her own doom without reason. Mums would have it out with Marise and the Terrible Garth when everyone else had safely faded away.

The best she could do was to go herself to the vestibule door when the reporters left in a body and breathe a few words to them. "I wouldn't take all this as being definitely decided, if I were you. There may be a quick change. Better say that nothing's settled." And again, when Belloc and Sheridan gloomily departed, "Don't give up. I'll 'phone you later. There's sure to be better news!"

Returning, Mary Sorel the dauntless was surprised and disgusted to find herself vaguely afraid of the man she had despised. She had the same fear of him that one has of an impersonal force like electricity, which cannot be counted on, and of which little is known except that it may strike without considering one's feelings in the least. She tried to shake off the sensation, however, for the man had evidently hypnotised Marise in some secret, deadly way, perhaps by threats of violence. All was lost if she – Mary – did not keep her head.

She entered the salon, therefore, with a bustling air. "Now, Major Garth," she began, "I hope to hear the meaning of this – this ridiculous talk of my daughter throwing over her engagement and going West with you."

"She's thrown over one engagement in favour of another, hasn't she?" Garth inquired with his habitual quiet insolence. "If you asked the Reverend Mr. Jones, I think he'd say she had."

"I wish to ask no one anything about my daughter," Mrs. Sorel crushed the upstart. "I merely assert that it's time this nonsense ceased. It's gone disastrously far already."

"It's up to you and Marise to say how much further it shall go."

"'Marise'! Who gave you permission to call her Marise?"

Garth laughed. Even the girl uttered a faint hysterical giggle. It was rather funny to hear poor Mums ask that! But then Mums prided herself on having no vulgar sense of humour to interfere with justice.

"What would you like me to call her?" the man wanted to know. "'Miss Sorel' would be hardly proper now. And for a husband to call his wife 'Mrs. Garth' would be more suited, wouldn't it, to the lower circles I sprang from, than the high ones where she moves?"

Mary Sorel was reduced to heaving silence. As she bit her lip, Garth turned to Marise. "Would you prefer me to make things clear to your mother, or would you rather I'd go, and leave it to you?"

Marise snatched at the chance he gave. "Go, please," she answered quickly. "I'll – tell Mums what you – said in the taxi. She and I will talk things over, and – and I'll see you again to-morrow or sometime."

"Or sometime," he echoed.

The girl expected him to remind her rudely of the bridal suite he had engaged in the hotel, but he did not. He took up his smart Guards cap, laid the handsome lavender-grey overcoat on his arm, and went to the door. "Au revoir," he said, pronouncing his French remarkably well for a man of the lower stratum. Then, without a word as to the next meeting, in spite of all his threats, he was gone.

What did it mean? Marise asked herself. Had he been bluffing? Or had he seen the monstrous folly of terrorising her? She would have given much to know. Perhaps he guessed that!

Ostentatiously Mums flew to lock the door. She locked it loudly, and running back took Marise into her arms. "My poor child!" she wailed. "What has he done to you? You are like a dove with a snake!"

Strange, that in a turmoil of anger and dread as she was, Marise was continually wanting to laugh! The thought of herself as a fluttering dove and the big, brutal Garth as a sinuous snake was comic! But there was, alas, nothing else comic in the situation, and she explained it as she saw it, while Mums punctuated each sentence with moans.

"It's awful!" sighed Mary at last. "But there's nothing really to be feared, so we must cheer up. Our protection is that this fellow's poor as a church rat (I can't call him a mouse!). When it comes to the point he will have to toe the mark, and keep to his bargain – "

"Ah, that's it!" cried Marise. "He says through my action the bargain is off. He wouldn't explain what he meant: said I'd see for myself sooner or later. But I don't see yet. Do you?"

"I do not, indeed. I believe it's only more wicked bluff on his part. He talks of taking you West with him. What does he expect you to live on? Your own money? He hasn't got his million dollars yet, and he'll lose the lot unless he behaves himself," Mums laid down the law. "For goodness' sake, though, don't complain to Tony of the creature's threats! Tony would fight him – kill him, perhaps. What a sickening scandal! No, you've made an appalling mistake by marrying Garth before you needed to do so, and giving him a hold over you just as Tony is going so far away. But you can take care of yourself – or if you can't I can take care of you. As for this suite the man boasts about, I'll 'phone down now to the manager and question him. If it adjoins this, as it probably does – that would have been arranged if possible, no doubt – why, everything will be simple enough."

Marise did not answer. She was beginning to think that nothing was quite simple where Garth was concerned.

CHAPTER XIX

WHY THE BARGAIN WAS OFF

Marise started late for the theatre, because she felt unequal to coping with her fellow actors' and actresses' well-meaning good wishes. She went alone with Céline, for Mums had developed a nervous sick headache, and the girl, like a dutiful daughter, had begged her to rest at home.

"You'll be more able to help me out with – any complications that may come afterwards," she said.

The star's wonderfully decorated dressing-room was entered through a still more wonderfully decorated reception or ante-room; and almost running in, Marise stopped short with a gasp of surprise. Not only was the place crammed with flowers – all white, bridal flowers (that in itself was not strange), but in the midst of them sat Garth, still in uniform. As his wife appeared he rose, grave and silent, as if awaiting a cue.

"Take these things into the dressing-room, Céline," ordered Marise, tossing her gold bag and furs to the maid. "I'll be there in a minute."

When Céline had obeyed, the girl looked the man up and down.

"Visitors don't intrude here, except by invitation," she informed him.

"Have you invited Lord Severance to intrude?" Garth asked.

"No-o, I haven't invited him."

"But he's coming, isn't he?"

"Possibly he may come. You know quite well, that's different."

"I do know. Just because it is different, I don't mean him to come unless I'm here too. But I've no wish to interfere with you otherwise. And if you tell me on your honour that you won't receive Severance alone (I don't count your maid as a chaperon), I'll go now. By the way, don't blame anyone for admitting me. The news is in all the late editions of the evening papers, I suppose you know, and naturally the bridegroom was expected to pay a call upon the bride."

Marise gazed at the formidable figure in khaki for a minute, and then without a word went into her dressing-room.

Mums, very likely, would have told the man a fib, getting rid of him by a promise not to see Severance alone. But the girl – though she, too, told fibs sometimes if driven into a corner – couldn't bring herself to utter one now. There was no time for a "scene," even if she were not in danger of coming out second best, so the dignified course was to retire. Tony wouldn't show up till the end of the first act at earliest; and if then she stood talking to someone or other outside her dressing-room as long as she dared, there might be time for a whisper with him while the watch-dog lay vainly in wait on the wrong side of the door!

Helped by Céline she dressed quickly, hearing no sound from the ante-room until the call-boy bounded in to shout her name. Instantly she ran through, half hoping that Garth had gone, though determined not to glance in his direction if he were still on the spot. He was; and somehow, without looking, Marise knew that he was quietly reading a book as if the place belonged to him.

Wild applause greeted the entrance of "Dolores," applause even more ardent than usual, and the play had to stop for the bride reluctantly to bow her acknowledgments. Marise had passed such an "upsetting" day that she came near having an attack of stage-fright, fearful of not taking her cue, or "drying up" in her words. But to her surprise and relief, she felt herself stronger in the part than she had ever been before. "I believe I really am a great actress!" she thought; and choked at the pity of it – the pity that – whatever happened now – she was bound to leave the stage. "Is Tony worth it all?" she wondered. But the Other Man's figure loomed so tall in the foreground, that she could not concentrate on Tony long enough to answer her own question.

Never had "Dolores" been impatient of too many curtain calls until now: but to-night they were irritating. They wasted such a lot of time, and any moment Tony might come!

There was little time to linger outside her dressing-room, but she did linger for a few minutes, talking with the reproachful Belloc. No card or message was brought to her, however, and she knew that Severance would not have been sent into her room without her permission. Garth sat stolid as a Buddha when she passed through, and she went by him as if he were a piece of furniture. She received a telepathic impression that he did not lift his eyes from his book!

The leading man had a scene with the villain of the piece at the beginning of the second act, and this gave the star a chance to rest, or chat with friends. It was the time when Severance generally dropped in, and she "felt in her bones" that his name would now be announced. Nor were her vertebræ deceived. Prompt to the usual moment a knock, answered by Céline, brought news that "the Earl of Severance asked to see Miss Sorel."

"Tell him I'll come outside and talk with him!" she said on an impulse: but in the ante-room Garth stopped her.

"Don't you think," he said, "that you'd better have Severance shown in here? He won't be pleased if I come out with you as if from your dressing-room, en famille, so to speak. And I shall go out if you go, as in the circumstances I don't care for you to speak with him alone."

"Alone, do you call it, with stage hands and creatures of all sorts tearing about?" Marise rebelled.

"You can build up a wall with a whisper," said Garth.

As the girl hovered at the door, undecided, Céline returned. "Milord is waiting outside, Mademoiselle – I mean, Madame," she announced.

"Go back," ordered Marise, "and ask Lord Severance after all to come in."

The fat was in the fire now, indeed! Poor Mums' counsels concerning Tony were vain. He would see for himself how Garth repudiated the bargain. But it couldn't be helped. Better to have a "row" in her own quarters than outside!

Severance walked into the reception room, at his handsomest in evening dress. He came with his hands out to the lovely "Dolores," but let them fall at sight of Garth, and stopped just over the threshold, with a scowl bringing his black brows together.

Céline flitted by, and shut the door of the dressing-room behind her.

"What are you doing here?" Tony flung out the words; yet he had an odd air of keeping his own truculence under control. Marise did not quite understand his manner, in which prudent hesitation fought with anger. But perhaps Garth understood. He knew why Severance's tooth was loose.

"I'm here," he said, "because I don't choose to have my wife talking with you alone."

Severance turned to the girl. "Marise, do you permit this man to be in your room, pretending to control your actions?"

"I have to," retorted Marise. "Since he won't leave us alone, we must just say what we have to say before him, whether he enjoys it or not. He isn't behaving at all according to – to contract. I would have said 'bargain,' only, whenever I mention that, he tells me there isn't a bargain. According to him, I've somehow destroyed it."

Severance looked stricken. "Wha – what does he mean by that?"

"I don't know. Ask him. We've got about fifteen minutes to have this out, before I'm called."

"That's what I'm anxious to do, 'have it out,'" said Garth. "But don't be alarmed, my wife; there'll be no violence started by me. If there is any it will come from the other side, whereupon I shall put the disturber of the peace out of your room. I'm stronger than he is physically, as he knows: and I hope to prove stronger in other ways."

"Don't talk like the villain of a Melville melodrama!" blurted Severance.

"I don't think I'm the villain of the piece," said Garth calmly. "Anyhow, we won't have more words about this than we need. My wife and you both want me to explain why I say she has made the so-called 'bargain,' nil. I believe, Lord Severance – to put the thing as it is – to face the facts – you proposed hiring me for the sum of a million dollars, to marry Miss Sorel, treat her as a stranger when we were alone, and as a kind husband in company, so there should be no ugly gossip about the marriage. Then, when you were free from the invalid wife you're financially compelled to take, I was supposed to step out of your way by letting this lady quietly divorce me."

It was useless to protest against so bald a way of putting the matter, which sounded disgusting to Severance, and could have been thus put, he considered, only by a very temporary gentleman. Therefore he did not protest. He replied with stifled fury that, willingly, even eagerly, Major Garth had consented to play a dummy's part in order to earn an easy million.

"Exactly," said Garth. "Well, I have married Miss Sorel. Where's the million?"

"You know as well as I do I haven't got the money yet, and can't get it till it's given me, as promised, by my uncle Constantine Ionides, after my wedding."

"So you explained the other day. You admit you can't carry out your half of the bargain. Yet I've carried out mine."

"That's on your own head!" barked Severance. "If you were so keen on money down, you shouldn't have married Miss Sorel till you could get it."

"What – you, an officer in the Guards, would advise a brother officer of the Brigade to refuse to marry a lady if she proposed to him?"

"Oh!" cried Marise; and Garth smiled at her with the yellow-grey eyes which were more than ever like the eyes of a lion. "You did propose, didn't you?"

"I – said I wanted to be married – to-day," the girl hedged. "If you call that – "

"I do. Any man would. You were in a hurry. You hoped, you said, that things might be fixed up for the wedding in an hour – or less. I fixed things up. We were married. Now I don't get my money. Consequently I consider myself free of any obligations concerned with the bargain. Though I'm willing to take legal opinion on the point, if you like?"

"A nice figure you'd cut if you did!" exploded Severance.

"I should say, 'the woman – or the earl – tempted me, and I did eat.' I ate by request. And I'm entitled to a core to my apple. There isn't any core. So I have the right either to chuck the peel away and let it fall in the mud, or else to hang on to it, and make up the best way I can for what lacks."

"I should like to kill you, Garth," said Severance.

"Well, when we're both safely out of my wife's dressing-room and this theatre, I'll give you a chance to try."

The lids over the dark, Greek eyes flickered slightly. Between the two men was a memory, a picture: a room at the Belmore Hotel, with a table and some chairs overturned: a few spots of blood on a lavender tie: not the tie of Garth.

"Being out of her theatre wouldn't save Miss Sorel from scandal if we made fools of ourselves," Tony said.

"That's the sensible view," agreed Garth. "I'm at your service for war or peace. But the fact remains that I am Marise Sorel's husband, and as I'm not paid for taking on the job, you, Severance, have no concern with my conduct to her. The rest is between my wife and myself. If she wishes me to leave her I will do so now, at this moment – on my own terms. If she wishes me to stay by her side for appearance' sake, I'll stay – also on my own terms."