"When you have settled with Garth, he will have no further excuse to assert himself. I shall find a house near Bell Towers, and Marise will come to me. The time of waiting for happiness will pass in the consolation of warm platonic friendship and lovely surroundings. An excuse can be found for Marise's divorce; and Garth will pass out of our lives for ever!
"Now I have explained everything as well as I can, and I shall add items of interest each day until time comes for posting my letter. Au revoir, dear Tony! Yours, M. S.—the initials you love!"
CHAPTER XXV
"SOME DAY—SOME WAY—SOMEHOW!"
If Zélie Marks had been a malicious girl she could, with a few words through the telephone or on paper, have spoiled at a stroke such few chances of happiness as remained to Garth.
The man was completely, almost ludicrously in her power; and Zélie didn't flatter herself that what he had done was done entirely because of trust in her. He did trust her, of course. But as the girl set forth to carry out his wishes, she realised that he had turned to her as much through a man's blindness as through perfect faith in her unfailing friendship.
Friendship! She laughed a little at the word, travelling westward in the luxurious stateroom for which Garth had paid. What a dear fool he was! But all men were like that. When they fell head over heels in love with one woman, they never bothered to analyse the feelings of any other female thing on earth!
Yes, that was about all she was in his eyes—a female thing! He had been in desperate need of help, and she happened to be the one creature who could give the kind he wanted.
Some girls would have refused, she thought. Others would have accepted, and then—behaved like cats. Even she had longed to behave like a cat when she talked to his "wife" through the telephone. "If Marise Sorel dreamed of what he's asked me to do, not one of the things he hopes for could ever by any possibility come to pass," Zélie reminded herself, as she gazed without seeing it at the flying landscape. "Not that they ever will come to pass anyhow. But it shan't be my fault that he's disappointed."