Marise started late for the theatre, because she felt unequal to coping with her fellow actors' and actresses' well-meaning good wishes. She went alone with Céline, for Mums had developed a nervous sick headache, and the girl, like a dutiful daughter, had begged her to rest at home.

"You'll be more able to help me out with—any complications that may come afterwards," she said.

The star's wonderfully decorated dressing-room was entered through a still more wonderfully decorated reception or ante-room; and almost running in, Marise stopped short with a gasp of surprise. Not only was the place crammed with flowers—all white, bridal flowers (that in itself was not strange), but in the midst of them sat Garth, still in uniform. As his wife appeared he rose, grave and silent, as if awaiting a cue.

"Take these things into the dressing-room, Céline," ordered Marise, tossing her gold bag and furs to the maid. "I'll be there in a minute."

When Céline had obeyed, the girl looked the man up and down.

"Visitors don't intrude here, except by invitation," she informed him.

"Have you invited Lord Severance to intrude?" Garth asked.

"No-o, I haven't invited him."

"But he's coming, isn't he?"

"Possibly he may come. You know quite well, that's different."

"I do know. Just because it is different, I don't mean him to come unless I'm here too. But I've no wish to interfere with you otherwise. And if you tell me on your honour that you won't receive Severance alone (I don't count your maid as a chaperon), I'll go now. By the way, don't blame anyone for admitting me. The news is in all the late editions of the evening papers, I suppose you know, and naturally the bridegroom was expected to pay a call upon the bride."

Marise gazed at the formidable figure in khaki for a minute, and then without a word went into her dressing-room.

Mums, very likely, would have told the man a fib, getting rid of him by a promise not to see Severance alone. But the girl—though she, too, told fibs sometimes if driven into a corner—couldn't bring herself to utter one now. There was no time for a "scene," even if she were not in danger of coming out second best, so the dignified course was to retire. Tony wouldn't show up till the end of the first act at earliest; and if then she stood talking to someone or other outside her dressing-room as long as she dared, there might be time for a whisper with him while the watch-dog lay vainly in wait on the wrong side of the door!

Helped by Céline she dressed quickly, hearing no sound from the ante-room until the call-boy bounded in to shout her name. Instantly she ran through, half hoping that Garth had gone, though determined not to glance in his direction if he were still on the spot. He was; and somehow, without looking, Marise knew that he was quietly reading a book as if the place belonged to him.

Wild applause greeted the entrance of "Dolores," applause even more ardent than usual, and the play had to stop for the bride reluctantly to bow her acknowledgments. Marise had passed such an "upsetting" day that she came near having an attack of stage-fright, fearful of not taking her cue, or "drying up" in her words. But to her surprise and relief, she felt herself stronger in the part than she had ever been before. "I believe I really am a great actress!" she thought; and choked at the pity of it—the pity that—whatever happened now—she was bound to leave the stage. "Is Tony worth it all?" she wondered. But the Other Man's figure loomed so tall in the foreground, that she could not concentrate on Tony long enough to answer her own question.

Never had "Dolores" been impatient of too many curtain calls until now: but to-night they were irritating. They wasted such a lot of time, and any moment Tony might come!

There was little time to linger outside her dressing-room, but she did linger for a few minutes, talking with the reproachful Belloc. No card or message was brought to her, however, and she knew that Severance would not have been sent into her room without her permission. Garth sat stolid as a Buddha when she passed through, and she went by him as if he were a piece of furniture. She received a telepathic impression that he did not lift his eyes from his book!

The leading man had a scene with the villain of the piece at the beginning of the second act, and this gave the star a chance to rest, or chat with friends. It was the time when Severance generally dropped in, and she "felt in her bones" that his name would now be announced. Nor were her vertebr? deceived. Prompt to the usual moment a knock, answered by Céline, brought news that "the Earl of Severance asked to see Miss Sorel."

"Tell him I'll come outside and talk with him!" she said on an impulse: but in the ante-room Garth stopped her.

"Don't you think," he said, "that you'd better have Severance shown in here? He won't be pleased if I come out with you as if from your dressing-room, en famille, so to speak. And I shall go out if you go, as in the circumstances I don't care for you to speak with him alone."

"Alone, do you call it, with stage hands and creatures of all sorts tearing about?" Marise rebelled.

"You can build up a wall with a whisper," said Garth.

As the girl hovered at the door, undecided, Céline returned. "Milord is waiting outside, Mademoiselle—I mean, Madame," she announced.

"Go back," ordered Marise, "and ask Lord Severance after all to come in."

The fat was in the fire now, indeed! Poor Mums' counsels concerning Tony were vain. He would see for himself how Garth repudiated the bargain. But it couldn't be helped. Better to have a "row" in her own quarters than outside!

Severance walked into the reception room, at his handsomest in evening dress. He came with his hands out to the lovely ............