"We must—must face things!" Mary let herself sob. "I'm afraid we are awake—wider awake than we've ever been in our happy life these last three years. We took the pleasant side of things for granted. As they say over here, we're 'up against' the grim side now. If you love Tony only half as much as he loves you, why, it seems to me you ought—indeed it's your duty to your future—to think twice before sending him out into darkness, with no light of hope."
"Things like my plan often happen to people, just by accident," said Tony. "A man who loves one girl has to marry another. His wife dies. Meanwhile, the first girl has taken a husband—perhaps out of pique. He's a rotter. She divorces him. Then the pair who've loved each other are free to be happy ever after. If they're rich, too, so much the better for them! They don't feel guilty. Why should they? They've nothing to feel guilty about. Why should it be so appalling if a man, to save his soul and his love, plans out something of this sort, instead of blundering into it? I can't see any reason. Aren't you being a Pharisee—or a hypocrite, Marise?"
"Aren't you being a Joseph Surface?" she flung back. "Perhaps I never told you that I played 'Lady Teazle,' and got a prize at my dramatic school. So I know all about the 'consciousness of innocence.'"
The girl spoke stormily. Her eyes blazed at the man through tears. Yet he and Mary both knew from her words—her tone—that in spite of herself she had begun to "think."
"Joseph Surface was a cold snake," said Tony. "At worst I'm not that, or I wouldn't be ready to wade through fire and water to win you at last."
"No, you're not a cold snake," Marise agreed. And the eyes of Severance and Mrs. Sorel met, as the girl dashed a handkerchief across hers. Mary's glance telegraphed Tony, "This sad business may come right, after all!" "You had better leave us, my friend," she said aloud. "Marise and I will at least talk this over—thrash it out, and——"
"A thrashing is just what it deserves," the girl snapped. "A thorough thrashing!"
"It shall have it," Mums soothed her patiently. "But we may think——"
"Even if we did think," Marise broke out, with a sudden flash at Severance, "what good would it do? Even if I were willing—though I can't conceive it! What use would that be? You can't kindle a fire without a match. There isn't a man living who'd be the match. A dummy match!"
"You forget the million dollars," Severance said.