"It was taken for granted, of course!" said Severance. "There was no other meaning possible. We trusted to your honour."
"We?"
"Miss Sorel and I—and her mother."
"That's news to me. Perhaps I shall appreciate it as a compliment when I'm old—ninety or so. I don't now. I simply don't believe it."
"You think we lie?"
"First person singular, please! Marise hasn't spoken."
"Damn you!" broke out Severance, at the end of his tether, and for once reckless of consequences. "You refuse to let her go—you refuse equally to leave her."
"That's so," said Garth, with an exaggerated nasal twang which made Severance want to kill him for his insolence. He started forward, itching to strike; but something he saw in Garth's eyes brought him to a standstill. That confounded tooth episode was always "throwing itself up at him," so to speak! Fortunately, however, he remembered something at that instant—a weapon which he had almost overlooked, though it was within his grasp. He calmed himself with a kind of mental and physical stiffening.
"If you don't intend to carry out your agreement—I insist, your agreement—! why have you brought that secretary girl, Miss Marks, all the way from New York to El Toyar Hotel?" he hurled at Garth. "When I heard she was there and that you were constantly riding over from your place to see her, I supposed it was done on purpose to give Marise an easy chance to get her divorce. As it is——"
"As it is," Garth cut him short, "the affair is not your business."