"But you're in evening dress," Marise reminded him. "You can't come back like that in the morning. Besides, what would the people think?"
"Hang the people!" Garth replied.
"One can't—unfortunately."
"Well, here's a better plan. I'll sit outside in the garden court. I can come in—if you'll let me—before there's any chance of being seen."
Marise shivered. "It would be cold!"
"Pooh!" said Garth. "It's never really cold here. Don't forget it wasn't exactly a picnic, those years in France. I don't think I shall ever mind cold again."
"Anyhow, I should feel a brute1 sleeping calmly here, with you sitting on a hard bench out of doors. I may not be a very nice person," Marise criticised herself, "but I'm not a thorough-paced pig. We must think of some other possible arrangement."
"There's only one other possible arrangement. And you'd not consider that possible."
"What is it?" rather breathlessly.
"For you to make yourself comfortable behind a barricade2 of those two useful screens in your bedroom, while I sit up in an armchair—or spread myself out on this sofa."
"I do consider that possible," said Marise, "now I know what kind of a man you are. That's what we'll do! I'll slip on a dressing-gown and curl up on top of the bed under an eiderdown. And early in the morning the one that's awake will call the other. It's quite simple—and you see I'm not so disagreeable as you thought."
"Have I ever given you cause to believe I thought you disagreeable?"
"Dear me, yes! Whole heaps of times! Not that it matters."
"I suppose it wouldn't matter to you. But it does matter to me, 'what kind of a man' you 'now know' me to be. Have you been studying me? I hadn't noticed it. But if you have, I'd be interested to hear what conclusions you've come to. Do you mind telling me?"
"Oh, my conclusions mostly concern your state of mind regarding me!" said Marise.
"What, according to you, is it?"
"Dislike," she replied promptly3.
"That's a strong word!" Garth blurted4 out. They were standing5 in the middle of the room, eyeing each other as might a pair of duellists obliged to fight over some technical dispute. "Have I been so brutal6 to you as all that?"
"You haven't been brutal lately. You were—dreadfully—at first."
"H'm! You weren't exactly angelic to me."
"There's nothing very angelic in the—in the affair."
"What, precisely7, do you mean by 'the affair'?"
"The—er—bargain."
"I thought I'd convinced you that the 'bargain' had collapsed8."
"Well, our—marriage, then, if you like that better. I've wondered every minute what you did marry me for, if it wasn't money. And sometimes I think it couldn't have been, because you seem to have plenty of your own. Still——"
"Some men with plenty could do with more. Is that what you'd say?"
"I'm not sure what I'd say—about you."
"I suppose you think that a million dollars would always be worth having. I'm sure your mother would think that."
"The question is, not what we'd think, but what you thought—when you married me."
Garth looked at her for a moment in silence, as if weighing his answer, wondering whether to stick to his fixed9 plan of remoteness, or risk "giving himself away."
"Do you remember any of the things I said to you the first day we met?" he asked at last.
"Yes, I remember you thought—then—you lo—you admired me a good deal. But you were a different man that day from what you were afterwards."
"You're right! I was. A different man. The word you broke off just now was the one word for what I felt. Only it didn't express half. I loved you with all there was of me. I adored and worshipped you. But—I don't believe you've ever been in love yourself except on the surface, or I'd ask you how much you think love can stand, and live?"
Marise felt the blood pour up to her cheeks and tingle10 in the tips of her ears. So it was true that he didn't love her now! The thought hurt her vanity. She hated to believe that a man who'd loved her once could unlove her in a few days or weeks. But it annoyed her very much to flush. She wished to look entirely11 unmoved. Instead, she wanted to cry.
"Please do tell me once for all why you married me if it wasn't either for love or money!" she said crossly, with a quiver in her voice.
"When one makes a bold move on the chessboard—the chessboard of life—there are often several motives," Garth replied. "Sometimes it's to save the queen from being taken by an enemy piece. Perhaps that was my principal motive12, who can tell?—I don't know just what piece to compare with Severance13, though with a card it would be easy. He's not a knight14. Nor yet a bishop15. We might call him a castle. I hear he's got one—which needs a bit of doing up before it would suit a queen."
"You married me only to keep Tony Severance from getting me?"
"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 shrugged16 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 draught17, 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, contrived18 with great difficulty to unfasten a complicated family of tiny hooks, wriggled19 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.
From Garth's part of the room she heard no sound, except when several electric lights were switched off, and Marise imagined him uncomfortably folded up on the sofa which was far too small for what she called "an out-size" of man.
It was dark in the room save for her bedside lamp, the shade of which drank most of the light. So dim was it, so still was it, that after a while Marise grew drowsy20.
She hadn't meant to sleep at all, but she realised that Nature was too strong for her. Besides, what did it matter? Garth was probably asleep too—and there were hours before dawn.
The girl ceased to resist the soft pressure as of fingers on her eyelids21. They drooped22, closed, and—she slept. By and by she dreamed. She dreamed most vividly23 of Zélie Marks, as she had dreamed once or twice before.
She—Marise—was in this house of Mothereen's; in this very room, though Garth was not with her. He existed, but he had gone out—or away. Marise had taken off the jewels he had given her, and was laying them on a table. They were beautiful! It was a pity not to keep them for her own! Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and without waiting for permission Zélie Marks burst in.
"I've come for the jewels," she announced, in a hateful voice, looking at Marise with angry, wicked eyes.
"They're not yours, and you're not to have them," said Marise in the dream. She spoke24 with courage; but suddenly she was afraid of Zélie. She knew that the girl meant to do her harm. Some dreadful thing was going to happen. But her voice was gone. She could not cry out. She couldn't even speak. It was impossible to move. She felt like a bird fascinated by a snake. The dream had become a nightmare.
Zélie saw her helplessness. The big black eyes became more and more evil. The girl advanced slowly, yet with set purpose. Without removing her stare from Marise's face, she picked up the rope of pearls.
"As you won't give these to me, though Jack25 wants me to have everything of his, I'm going to make you swallow them," she said in a low voice, cold as the tinkle26 of ice.
Marise strove with all her might to cry out, "No—no!" but could not. She tried to turn and dart27 away before Zélie could touch her, but she was immovable as the pillar of salt that had been Lot's wife.
Zélie took a handful of pearls and began stuffing them into Marise's mouth. It was suffocation28! Marise wrenched29 herself free of the frozen spell and uttered a shriek30.
It waked her; and at the same time she was conscious of another sound—a sound which brought back to her brain a whirling vision of things as they really were.
She remembered the screens, and why they were there.
Garth had bounded up from some resting-place and had knocked over a chair. He must think, either that she was in extremis, or else that she had cried out as an excuse to bring him to her. She saw one of the two screens sway, as if Garth had struck against it inadvertently. Then, hastily she closed her eyes. He must be made to realise that she had truly screamed in her sleep, and that there was no horrid31 coquettish trick.
Marise lay quite still, so that she hardly breathed; and Garth's steps made scarce a sound; yet she knew that he had come round the screens and was looking at her.
After the things he had said, she was wild to know what that look was like. If she could see his face at that moment, when she'd just given him a fright, she would know without any possible doubt whether he'd spoken the plain truth in hinting (he hadn't exactly said!) that he didn't love her because she had tried him too far. But she couldn't see his face without opening her eyes; and if she opened her eyes he'd know she was awake. He'd suspect that she had screamed on purpose.
The girl tried to breathe with long, gentle sighs, hardly moving her breast, as she did when she played the part of a sleeper32 on the stage. It was easy enough there; but she couldn't be a good actress after all, because she was unable to control her breath now. Her heart was beating fast, and her bosom33 rose and fell in jerks.
A long time seemed to pass. Was Garth standing there gazing down at her still, or had he tiptoed away? Marise simply had to know! Surely she could just peep from under those celebrated34 eyelashes of hers for half a second, without his catching36 her in the act, if he were there?
The lashes35 flickered37, and were still again. But Marise had seen. Garth was there. He was looking down at her. Yet all her subtleties39 had been vain. She couldn't read his face. It was as inscrutable as that of the Sphinx, which she knew only from photographs. Presently she heard a slight, almost indefinable sound, and peeping again, saw Garth in the act of disappearing behind a leaf of the taller screen. Had he caught that tell-tale flicker38, or not?
Garth went back to his darkened corner of the room, but his brain felt as it had been brilliantly lit up, with a hundred electric candles suddenly turned on in it. They dazzled him. But he composed himself outwardly and lay down again on the crampingly short sofa.
He had taken off collar, tie, coat and waistcoat, slipping on instead a futurist dressing-gown which a haughty40 salesman in a smart shop had forced upon him as "the thing." Zélie would probably have approved it. In any case, it would have graced a Russian ballet.
Minutes, hours perhaps, passed before he felt even somnolent41. But the ring of light on the ceiling above Marise's concealed42 lamp, resembling a faint, round moon in a twilight43 sky, hypnotised him. At last sleep caught him like a wrestler44, and downed him for a moment. In a flash came a dream. He thought that Marise had cried out again. Then he waked, in another flash, and knew that it was not true. Vividly he saw her face, as it had been in that last glimpse he had stolen; sweet as a rose; lips apart, long lashes shadowing the cheeks; then—a flicker; and he saw the bosom that had been shaken all through the silent scene with heart-beats too quick for those of a sleeper.
With this photograph upon his retina, he deliberately45 rolled off the sofa, and fell with a bump on the floor.
Crash! went a screen.
Marise was beside him.
"Are you dead?" she gasped46.
"No. Only asleep," he answered with a yawn.
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1
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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barricade
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| n.路障，栅栏，障碍；vt.设路障挡住 | |
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3
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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blurted
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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6
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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7
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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8
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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9
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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10
tingle
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| vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动 | |
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11
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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12
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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13
severance
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| n.离职金；切断 | |
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14
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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15
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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16
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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17
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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18
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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19
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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20
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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21
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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22
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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24
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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25
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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26
tinkle
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| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
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27
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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suffocation
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| n.窒息 | |
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29
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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30
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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31
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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32
sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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33
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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34
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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35
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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36
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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37
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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39
subtleties
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| 细微( subtlety的名词复数 )； 精细； 巧妙； 细微的差别等 | |
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40
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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41
somnolent
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| adj.想睡的，催眠的；adv.瞌睡地；昏昏欲睡地；使人瞌睡地 | |
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42
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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43
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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44
wrestler
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| n.摔角选手，扭 | |
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45
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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46
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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