"That might have had something to do with it."
"Not for the million?"
"I leave you to guess that, from what you say you know of me."
"And not because you wanted me yourself?"
"I don't get much good from having you, do I?"
"Then it was like the dog in the manger."
Garth shrugged his shoulders. "Let it go at that for to-night, anyhow. We must talk more softly if we don't wish to keep Bill and Cath awake in the next room."
This warning was a dash of cold water!
"We won't talk at all," half whispered Marise. "If you'll arrange the screens for me, I'll rest on the bed."
There were two large, four-leaved screens in the room, one in a corner behind a sofa, keeping off a window draught, one in front of the door. Placed as Garth placed them, they formed a room within a room, hiding the bed from view. Marise stepped behind this "barricade," as Garth had called it, contrived with great difficulty to unfasten a complicated family of tiny hooks, wriggled out of her sparkling dress and into a robe de chambre, turned off the light of an electric candelabrum, turned on that of a green-shaded bedside lamp, and lay down under a silk quilt.