"You said at the theatre, if I trusted you enough to come here with you," Marise began as Céline left, "you would tell me a plan you thought I'd approve. Well, I did trust you! I had to, just as I had to this afternoon when you said the same thing in the taxi. Here I am. But so far, I don't see anything that reassures me much. All the flowers and jewel-cases and gold things are beautiful bribes. The only trouble about them is, that I don't take bribes—even if you can afford to offer them!"

"I understand that emphasis," said Garth. "You don't take bribes. I do. And you think, in making this collection I've 'gambled in futures.'"

Marise was silent.

"That's what you do think, isn't it?" he insisted.

"Something of the sort may have flitted through my head."

"Well, if I'm not above bribery and corruption—and the rest of it—that's on my own conscience. In other words, it's my own business. Your business is—to keep up appearances, and at the same time keep up the proprieties."

"That's one way of expressing it!"

"Yes, again my beastly vulgar way! But I won't stop to apologise because I know you're in a hurry to settle this question between us once for all. Because, when it is settled, it will be once for all, so far as I'm concerned."

"I see. Go on, please!"

He looked at her, a long look. "You and I are here alone together," he said. "Husband and wife! For we are married, you know. Does that make you shiver—or shudder?"

"I don't think we feel very married—either of us," Marise answered in a small, ingratiating voice, like a child's.

"You don't know how I feel," said Garth. "But I'm not anxious to punish you by torture for anything you've done, no matter what you may deserve, so I won't keep you in suspense. You admit that if—we did 'feel married,' and if—we cared about each other as ordinary new-married couples do, this 'bridal suite'—as they call it—would be the proper dodge?"

"Oh yes," agreed Marise, wondering what he was working up to. Her heart was beating too fast for her wits to be at their nimblest, but she hadn't missed those words of his which had either slipped out, or been spoken with subtle purpose: "If we cared about each other." Only a few days ago—apparently with his soul in his eyes—he had said that he'd give that soul to get her for his own. Well, the incredible had happened, and she was his own—in a way. Was he so disgusted with her behaviour and motives that he'd suddenly ceased to care? Or was he silly enough to think it would hurt her if he pretended not to care? Certainly she had done nothing worse than he had! Whatever he might think, she had married him largely from pique, to spite Tony Severance; though, of course, that wasn't to say she wouldn't carry out Tony's scheme when the time came. Whereas he, John Garth, had accepted a bribe. She was worth a million dollars to Tony: and the million dollars were worth a basely caddish act to Garth.

"You want your friends and the public in general to believe we are the ordinary loving couple, don't you?" he was asking.

"Of course. I may have earned them, but I don't want horrid things said. Especially——"

"Especially on Severance's account, and because of the arrangements he proposes to make for your future, I suppose you were going to say. Why stop?"

"Because you suppose wrong. I wasn't going to say anything of the kind. 'Especially on account of poor Mums,' were the words on the tip of my tongue. I stopped—well, I thought it sounded sentimental. Besides, you'd probably not believe me."

"I think I would believe you," said Garth. "I don't know you very well yet, but things that have happened have shown me a bit of what you're like, inside yourself. You've got plenty of faults. I should say you're as selfish as they make 'em. You don't really take much interest in a............