"I—don't know." She stammered a little.
"Well then, if you don't know, change to another colour."
"Oh, I'm quite willing to do that if you make a point of it!"
The man's manner was so different from the other day, that Marise was less sure of his motives in taking her at the price. He spoke shortly and sharply now, like a military martinet, she decided. But he wasn't exactly "common." He wasn't even ordinary.
Her last words were at the door of her own room, and she whisked through, to find her mother. She thought how she should break the news. And she thought, also, what she should wear in place of the black dress. Should she put on grey—or heliotrope—"second mourning"? She would have liked to try this trick upon Garth. But the man was capable of making her take off one thing after the other, on pain of not being married to-day—which meant, not spiting Severance.
Mrs. Sorel was flabbergasted.
She would not have used such a vulgar expression herself; but that is what she was.
She argued, she warned, she scolded, she besought. Severance would be furious. It would be a blow which his love might not survive. Tony had not dreamed of this marriage taking place with such—indecent haste!
"If you say much more it won't take place at all!" shrilled Marise, on the verge of hysterics, which (Mums knew from bitter experience) her twentieth-century child was not at all above having when thwarted, just like an early Edwardian.