"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!