"It's Marise's business, if it doesn't mean what I thought."
"Then let her attend to it. She's quite capable of doing that," said Garth. "And now, unless you can produce a million dollars at sight, or still better, two million, don't you think you'd be wise to blow back to your hotel? It'll soon be too dark to walk."
Severance turned furiously to the pale girl. "Marise—can you stand by and see me ordered away like this?"
She looked at him with a strange look which he could not read at all. "This is his house, Tony," she answered, in an odd, dull voice. "Not mine."
"I think you'd best go, for your own sake," said Garth. "But come back, of course, when you've got the money. If we're here then, we'll be glad to see you."
Severance turned without another word, even to Marise, and walked away as he had come, passing through the drawing-room. Garth started to follow, but Marise ran to him and stopped him with a small, ice-cold hand on his arm. "Why are you going after Lord Severance?" she whispered, her lips dry.
"Only to see that he doesn't lose himself somewhere in the house and hide under a table or sofa," Garth explained.
Her hand dropped. She let him go.
There was no fear of anything melodramatic, she saw. Yet she was not relieved. She felt as if she had some black, hollow, worn-out thing in her breast instead of a heart. It was heavy and useless, and hardly beat.
"That horrid girl!" she said half aloud when Garth had gone. "I always knew, really, she would be here. I believe he did give her the jewels, and Mothereen wangled them away from her somehow. He's pretending to follow Tony, and see him out. But he doesn't mean to come back here to me."