"Miss Sorel!" bawled the call-boy at the door.
CHAPTER XX
THE BRIDAL SUITE
It was, as Severance told himself, the damnedest scrape! And he could see no present way out of it. Turn as he would, he was merely running round and round in a "vicious circle."
He couldn't murder Garth, or otherwise eliminate him, without setting fire to his dearest hopes, and seeing his fortune go up in a blaze. Garth mustn't be allowed to walk away from Marise, leaving her in the position of a deserted bride, after a sensational wedding. Nor could Severance bear to think of the man's remaining near her, now that he proclaimed the bargain "off," and himself free and independent.
If only the fellow might be knocked over by a taxi and killed, there would be the perfect solution! But even that ought not to happen just yet. It wouldn't do for Marise to be known as a widow before he, Severance, could bring Œnone to America as a bride. The celebrated Miss Sorel might as well never have been married at all, so far as old Constantine Ionides was concerned.
There were two faintly glimmering spots in the general blackness of things. Bright spots they hardly deserved to be called! Such as they were, one was the fact that Garth—despite his bluff—was unlikely to sacrifice all hope of the million by making forbidden love to Marise. The other gleam was: even if Garth did play the fool as well as the cad, Marise had asserted up to the last moment that she could take care of herself.
Severance had reason to believe that she could. If she'd not had a cool little head, and a high opinion of her own value, the favourite actress would not have attained the position she held. "Lots of chaps had been after her," including Tony Severance: men of title, men with money, men of genius, men of charm, and she had held her own with them all, forcing their respect. Well, there wasn't much chance for a bullying brute of Garth's stamp, to get the best of a girl like that!
So Severance consoled himself, after his decision at the theatre that nothing would be gained by attempting to "rescue" Marise from Garth. After leaving her—bidding her good-bye for long and anxious weeks—he could not resist 'phoning Mrs. Sorel at the Plaza, though Marise had told him that Mums was bowled over by a sick headache. He rang the poor lady up—literally up!—and discussed the situation with her, not daring to call for fear of detectives set upon him by cable from London. The poor lady, dragged out of bed, was sympathetic and soothing. Everything was "perfectly all right," she assured him. She would watch over Marise for his sake as well as her own. Marise would watch over herself, too! And she—Mary Sorel—would write or cable Tony to his club twice or three times a week.