A girl in love with one man, flinging herself at the head of another out of pique or something worse, should have been utterly careless how she appeared to the eyes of the latter. But for some reason—she hardly knew what—Marise had been anxious to look her most desirable. She was dressed in black velvet with shimmering fringes, and a drooping black velvet hat which made her fairness dazzling, her yellowish-brown hair bright gold.

With a faint smile, and in silence, she held out her hand. Garth took it, and this time didn't crush it unduly.

Zélie, who had risen as Garth rose, began pinning on her toque, but Marise turned to her. "Don't go, Miss Marks," she said. "I've told you the secret, and maybe we shall need your help about something. I don't want my mother here till everything's arranged. It doesn't matter about you."

Zélie slowly took out a hatpin. Oh no, it didn't matter about her! She laid the toque down again, but drew a chair to the typewriter table, her back turned to the man and the girl. She could, if she glanced up from her papers, however, see them both in a mirror. She tried not to glance up, but she succeeded about half as often as she failed. The look on Garth's face hurt a great deal worse than the hatpin had done when just now she had jammed the point of it into her head. Oh, it was ridiculous—or heartbreaking—the way some men loved the wrong girls!

"I've been thinking in the night," said Marise in a brisk, cheerful tone, "what fun for us—since we are to be married—to get married at once and give everyone we know the surprise of their young lives!... What do you say?"

Garth had not expected this at all. In fact, when he'd been sent for at a very early hour, he expected to hear that Marise had "changed her mind." It was easy for her to ask "what he said," knowing that he could say only commonplaces before Zélie Marks; and he believed that Zélie had been invited to remain in the room for precisely this reason.

"I say, 'Great!'" He rose to the occasion, with the memory of Zélie's words and his own drumming through his head. "They despise you. Cad: bounder: lout!" "That's nice of you!—very!" cooed Marise, noticing how his jaw squared, and feeling the tide of her curiosity rise. (Was it love? Or was it the million?) "Well then, we'll just do the deed! How long does it take to get licenses and things?"

Garth kept himself firmly in hand. "Only as long as it takes to buy the license and notify a parson."

"That's what I hoped," said Marise. "I felt sure it was different here from England."

"Shall we—that is, would you care"—(Garth's mouth was dry)—"would you care to be married to-day?"

"Yes," the girl flashed back, "I would care to, if that suits you. Because, you see, I want it to be done and over before—anybody knows. Except my mother, of course. She won't like the idea one bit. But I'll make her come round."

"I see," said Garth. And he did see. He saw very clearly. But he could not understand, all in a moment like this, why she wanted to marry him without letting Severance know beforehand. It didn't seem, just on the face of it, a good sign for Severance. Still, he couldn't be sure. Women were supposed to be very subtle, and he'd never had much time even to try and analyse the strange creatures. Except Mothereen (he'd named her that because she was Irish), the little old woman who'd given him the only mothering he remembered, Garth had never got very near any woman's mentality. He braced himself, and asked, "How soon can you be ready?"

"In an hour—in less than an hour. As soon as I've told Mums," Marise spoke quickly and thickly, over a beating heart. Each moment excited her more and more. She felt herself the heroine of a thrilling drama—a drama where she had to play the star part without any rehearsals, and without ever having read further than the first scene of the first act. It might be a drama of "stunts," too—as the movie people said: dangerous stunts, where she might have to walk a tightrope with a deep drop underneath. But she wasn't afraid. She would not have thrown over the part now if some other easier one with the same ending had offered. She didn't recognise herself as she was to-day. But she did not care. It was all Tony's fault. Or perhaps a little Mums' fault too.

"And afterwards?" she heard Garth quietly asking.

"Oh!... Well, the first thing is the fun of surprising everyone. After that—well, I haven't exactly thought yet."

"You had better think," he said. "Much better."

Marise glanced at the back of Zélie's head, then met Miss Marks's eyes in the mirror.

"We'll talk it over presently with Mums. She's so wise—and always knows how to do the right thing." The "correct thing" would have been more apt an expression, but Marise wasn't thinking of the fine shades. She was thinking just then more of Zélie; and the thought of Zélie made her blush, she didn't quite see why!

"Miss Marks," she said, "I may want you by and by to take down several notes for me, letters to some of my most intimate friends, to be sent after—after the wed............