"I shall have to bring up the subject somehow, the next time we meet—whenever that may be!" she thought ruefully.
When Mrs. Garth arrived in the maternal suite, it was about the hour when Miss Sorel had been in the habit of slipping, half-dressed, from bedroom to salon. It was the time, also, when Miss Zélie Marks was accustomed to present herself, and begin her morning tasks: sharpening pencils, sorting letters, etc. But to-day the salon was unoccupied. The letters lay in a fat, indiscriminate heap, just as Céline had received them from one of the floor-waiters.
Mrs. Sorel was still in bed, and still suffering from last night's headache, which had increased, rather than diminished. She burst into tears at sight of Marise, but was slowly pacified on hearing the story of the night.
"He was afraid to——" she began; but the girl broke in with the queerest sensation of anger. "He wasn't afraid—of anything! Whatever else he may have been, he wasn't afraid. I don't believe the creature knows how to be afraid."
Mrs. Sorel did not insist. She didn't wish to waste time discussing Garth. She wanted to talk of Tony. There was a letter from him. It had come by hand, early—sent as he was starting. Of course he hadn't dared write to Marise direct, but there was an enclosure for her.
"You had better read it now," advised Mums. "At any moment that man may turn up, asking for you, and trying to make some scene."
Marise took the crested envelope that had come inside her mother's note from Tony; but somehow or other she felt an odd repulsion against it. She didn't care to read what Tony had to say to Mrs. John Garth at parting; and she had an excuse to procrastinate because, just then, the telephone sounded in the salon adjoining.
"Will you go, dearest? Or shall I ring for Céline?" Mums asked.
Marise answered by walking into the salon and picking up the receiver. Her heart was beating a little with the expectation of Garth's voice from—somewhere. Their own suite, perhaps? But a woman was speaking.
"Is it you, Mrs. Sorel?" was the question that came. And the heart-beats were not calmed, for Marise recognised the contralto tones of Miss Marks, the villainess of her dream.