For once, Marise was all girl, not actress. She lost her savoir faire at sight of Severance, and could not speak.

She saw him before she saw Garth and "Pobbles," and her eyes took in his perfection of tailorhood. Then Garth came forward, and she was struck with surprise by the uniform of the smartest soldiers in the world.

"What an inspiration!" she thought, never guessing whence that inspiration had come.

Mrs. Sorel, luckily, could always speak, even chatter. She chattered now.

"How nice of you to come, Lord Severance," she chirped, keeping up appearances before Lord Pobblebrook. "And how clever!" she added, camouflaging for "Pobbles's" benefit her surprise that Tony should have learned Marise's secret. How he had done that, she would wring out of someone by and by. But at present duty bade her be pleasant to "Pobbles."

Trying to recall mutual friends (titled) with whose Christian names she could impress the noble soldier, Mums had to keep a watchful eye and ear for her girl and the two young men: but it was not for long. The clergyman was waiting.

"Strange, how many things you can think of at one time—especially the wrong time!" Marise reflected, as she stood before the figure in a surplice.

She had often dreamed of being married, and what kind of a wedding she would have, at St. George's, Hanover Square, or the Guards' Chapel. She had chosen her music, and knew what sort of dress and veil she wanted. Orchids were Tony's flowers. There was a white variety, streaked with silver. Her train should be silver, too. She'd be leaving the stage; and as the Countess of Severance, she could be presented. The silver train would do for Court.

Now, here she was, thousands of miles from Hanover Square and the Guards' Chapel. She had on a street dress. There was no music, unless you could count the far-off strains of a hand-organ playing an old tune, "You made me love you, I didn't want to do it!" The one orchid was in Tony's buttonhole; and he was in a pew looking on while she promised to love, honour and obey another man.

Marise saw the two pictures—the dream and the reality; and the difference made her sick. All the sense of wild adventure was gone. There was no adventure! There was just blank ruin.

What a fool she had been! Was there no way out, even now? Surely there was one. She could still say "No," instead of "Yes," and there'd be an end, where Garth was concerned.

Perhaps on the spur of the moment Marise would have followed her impulse, if—Lord Pobblebrook hadn't been present. Somehow, before him she couldn't make a scene!

The girl felt as if two unseen influences had her by the arm, one on the right, one on the left, like the white and black angels of the Mohammedan. They pulled both ways at once, and trembling as she never had trembled on a first night at the theatre, she looked up at Garth.

There was an odd expression in his yellow-grey eyes, which she had likened to the eyes of a lion in a Zoo who sees nothing save his far-off desert. This lion was not now thinking of the desert. He was thinking of her. But how? As a piece of meat which he would soon be free to devour? Or—as a new keeper who, though young and a woman, would have to be reckoned with?

As this question flashed through her mind, Marise remembered that she knew nothing of Garth's past, nor of his character, except that he had fought and won the V.C., therefore he must be brave. But why worry, since in a few months they'd part, and she would forget him, as she'd forgotten several leading men who played "opposite" her when she first went on the stage?

But that look in the yellow-grey eyes; what was its language? What was in the soul or brain behind the eyes? Was Garth deciding how to treat her during the short time that would be his?

Marise recalled the sound of his voice when he had asked her what would come after the marriage. She'd answered that she "hadn't thought yet." And he had said, "You had better think. Think now."

"Well, I'm not alone in the world, and I'm not afraid of him," she encouraged herself. "Cave Man business is old stuff. And anyhow—what price a Cave Girl?"

The vision of a Cave Girl downing a surprised Cave Man almost made Marise laugh; and then it was time for the ring. Good gracious, the ring! Of course, no one had thought of it!

There was an instant's stage-wait. Marise's eyes turned to her mother and saw Mums tearing off a glove to supply the necessary object. Far more dramatic, Severance had jumped up and was pulling from the least finger of his left hand a gold snake-ring which had been made for his mother in Athens. Yes, he would love to have Marise married to Garth with that! But, after all, the bridegroom had brought the ring. It was only that for a few seconds he had forgotten. Perhaps the look he had exchanged with his bride had made him forget!

He remembered, however, before Mums or Severance could step into the breach. In fact, he gave them no breach to step into.

"With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow," Marise heard him repeat, as he slipped over the third finger of her left hand the circlet retrieved in haste from his khaki tunic. She glanced at the ring as it slid loosely on, and was amazed to see what such an outsider had chosen.

The "smart thing" in London and New York was, not to have the "stodgy old curtain-ring" which had been woman's badge of subjection for centuries. Instead, the idea was a band of platinum set round with diamonds; and this was what Garth had hit upon!

While Marise was on her knees—shamefaced because there was nothing she dared pray about—she thought of the ring, and wondered who on earth had put Garth up to getting it?

When all was over, and the words which should be momentous were spoken, "I pronounce you man and wife," the girl lifted her face with the hardest expression it had ever worn. Eyes and lips said, "This is where the bridegroom kisses the bride. But that's not in our programme. Don't dare to take advantage of your Colonel being here."

Whether Garth read the signal, or whether he'd no intention of keeping the time-honoured custom, he refrained. Instead of a kiss, he gave the bride a slight smile, gone so quickly she wondered if she'd imagined it.

In another moment, after she'd been pressed in her mother's arms, Lord Pobblebrook was shaking hands; and then came Severance.

It was a good minute for him, because Garth was kept busy by a kind Colonel and a not very kind mother-in-law.

"Let no man put them asunder!" the Reverend David Jones had just said, but there already was the man who intended, in the devil's good time, to disobey that command.

"This has been the worst half-hour of my life," Tony groaned. "My God, how I've suffered! I all but sprang up and yelled 'Stop!' when the fool looked round for someone to say why the marriage shouldn't take place——"

"'Or else for ever after hold his peace,'" quoted Marise.

"Dash it all, don't rub things in," Severance begged. "I didn't know how bad it would be——"

"I half thought you might spring up!" the girl confessed.

"If I had, what would you have done?"

"I—don't know."

"It would have made matters worse for the future—more difficult all round," Tony said. "That thought held me back. But, Marise, it was cruel to spring this surprise on me."

"It doesn't seem to have been a surprise," she reminded him. "How did you know about it—the church, and everything?"

"A little bird told me. Why did you want to hurt me so?"

Marise shrugged her shoulders. "You had hurt me—almost to death. I had to strike back! But let's not talk of it any more. The thing's done—and can't be undone."

"It can, and will be, before long, please Heaven!"

The girl laughed. "Please Heaven?" And she was glad when Pobbles broke in, Mums at his side.

"My dear young lady, Garth confided in me (am I not his Colonel, which is much the same as a father confessor?) that this—er—this little show had been got up in a hurry for one reason or other. I'm pleased and honoured to be in at the dea—I mean the birth—er—you know what I mean! And I'd be still more pleased if—er—couldn't we—I—invite you all to some sort of blow-out? My wife——"

"Sweet of you, Lord Pobblebrook!" cut in Mrs. Sorel. "But if there'd been time for any sort of rejoicing, any little feast, I should be giving it and asking Lady Pobblebrook and yourself to join us. But I suppose Major Garth can't quite have made it clear to you that he is called away suddenly—on a sort of mission. That's why the marriage was so rushed. He has to go at once, so he wanted to be married first, and——"

"Take my wife with me," explained Garth.

His mother-in-law of ten minutes stared at him with the eyes of a cold, boiled fish.

"Of course—yes—that's what he wanted," she smiled to Pobbles. "What a pity it can't be! My daughter, Lord Pobblebrook, is a servant of the public, you know. She has to obey them, marriage or no marriage. And they want her in New York."

"Not as much as I want her out West," said Garth. He smiled again—that same queer smile with the same unreadable look in his eyes, though this time both were for Mums.

The indignant lady turned to Marise, in case there were some plot against her; but the girl gave a very slight shake of her head. Light came back to Mrs. Sorel's eyes. She ought to be able to trust her own daughter!

"I took the liberty of ordering lunch for four at the Ritz after I met my Colonel in the hall of the Belmore," said Garth. "I stopped on the way there, to buy the ring. But"—and he eyed Severance coolly—"there will be room to have a fifth plate laid, if—er——"

"Oh!" thought Marise. "Not so much Cave Man, after all, as the Strong, Silent Man! All right! I know that kind from A to Z. And I dare say it's just as easy to be a Strong, Silent Girl as to be a Cave Girl, if once you begin properly."

Her sense of adventure woke again as she waited to hear Tony's answer.