Severance accepted the invitation to the Ritz. His principal reason for doing so was because he knew it would enrage Garth.

It was a strange and strained luncheon, for those present (with the exception of "Pobbles") talked very little and thought so much that it seemed to each one as if his or her thoughts shrieked aloud or shot from the head in streaks of blue lightning.

Marise thought, "What comes next? What does He mean to do?" And "He," with a capital "H," was no longer Severance, but this stranger, Garth.

Mrs. Sorel thought, "How are we going to get rid of the man? I'm sure he means mischief. Shall I appeal to Lord Severance, or would that make matters worse?"

Severance thought, "How am I to get some time alone with Marise, and come to an understanding before I sail to-morrow morning? How are we to arrange about our letters and cables?"

And Garth thought, "What will She say when she finds out what I've arranged at the Plaza?"

As for Lord Pobblebrook, he had only vague, pleasant thoughts such as men of his type do have at a wedding luncheon with plenty of champagne. It was a very good luncheon, for they do things well at the Ritz, and the champagne was a last song of glory before America went "dry."

At last, when Severance had to give up hope of a whispered word with Marise, he was obliged to declare his hand. "I'll call at the theatre to-night to say good-bye if you don't mind," he announced aloud, with a casual air. "I suppose you won't hand things over to your understudy, in spite of what's happened to-day?"

"I shall play to-night, of course," said Marise.

"And every night," added Mums.

Silence followed her words.

"Won't you come back to the Plaza with us, Lord Pobblebrook?" asked Mrs. Sorel. "If you have never been there, I'd like you to see what a charming hotel it is. Next time you run over from dear England, you might like to try it for yourself. Major Garth, I'm sorry to say, is obliged to attend to business this afternoon—business concerned with his mission, so unfortunately—unless you'll go with us—my daughter and I will be obliged to taxi back alone."

"Of course I'll come, with pleasure!" heartily consented Pobbles.

"My business doesn't begin quite so early," said Garth. "If you'll drive with Mrs. Sorel, sir, I'll take my wife as far as the Plaza."

If Mums could have stabbed her son-in-law, not fatally but painfully, with a stiletto-flash from her eyes, it would have given her infinite satisfaction to do so. As she could not, she had to confess herself worsted for the moment; for Lord Pobblebrook was the Colonel of Lord Severance as well as of Major Garth; and it was for such as he that the conventional farce of this wedding had taken place. He must not be allowed to suspect that anything was wrong, or Tony's whole elaborate scheme might be wrecked. It was most probable that Lord Pobblebrook and Mr. Ionides belonged to some of the same London clubs and met now and then.

Marise was oddly dazed at finding herself alone in a taxi with Garth, bound for the Plaza Hotel, which she thought of as "home." She had expected that Tony or Mums would succeed in rescuing her, but neither had risen to the occasion: and the girl realised that this lack of initiative on their part was due to the presence of Pobbles. She hardly knew whether to be more vexed or amused at Garth's triumph (she supposed that he considered it such); but her lips twitched with that fatal sense of humour which Mums so disapproved.

"It is rather funny, isn't it?" said her companion.

Marise stiffened. This was a critical moment. Much depended upon the start she made on stepping over the threshold of this strange situation. She must be careful to keep the whip hand.

"What I was laughing at is funny, in a way," she grudged. "It occurred to me that it was smart of you to bring your Colonel to—to—the—er——"

"Show," suggested Garth.

"If you like to call it that."

"I thought the word pretty well described it from your point of view," explained Garth.

Marise looked straight at him.

"What was it from yours? It can't have been much more."

"I don't feel bound to tell you what it was from mine."

"Oh, well, you needn't!" Her chin went up. "I'm not really curious."

"Why should you be? You'll find out in time."

A spark lit the blue eyes under the blue hat.

"I do hope you're not planning to spring any surprises on me, Major Garth," she said, in an acid tone that was a youthful copy of Mums, "because, if you are, it will only lead to unpleasantness. Whereas, if you keep to the spirit of the bargain, we——"

"Allow me to point out," Garth cut in, with an impersonal air of detachment which puzzled her, "that you yourself have 'queered' the 'bargain.'"

"I don't know what you mean," exclaimed Marise.

"That's another instance of your not thinking things out beforehand," he said. "If you'd stopped to reflect a minute before you proposed to marry me this morning you'd have seen what you were up against."

Marise felt the blood rush to her cheeks, as if the man had slapped them with the flat of his big hand.

"What a way of putting it!" she flashed at him. "You may be a hero and all that—no doubt you are, as you're a V.C. But as a man—a gentleman—I'm afraid you've got quite a lot to learn."

"Of course I have," said Garth. "You knew I was only a temporary gentleman. I heard Severance state the fact to you on shipboard when he was telling you some of my other disadvantages. Scratch a temporary gentleman, and under the surface you find——"

"What?" Marise threw into a pause.

"The things you'll find in me, when you know me better."

"Oh!" she breathed. And on second thoughts added, "I don't intend to 'scratch' you, and find things under the surface. I don't suppose I shall ever know you much better."

"Call it worse, then," he suggested.

"Neither better, nor worse!"

"Yet you've just promised to take me for both."

"That meant nothing, as you know very well."

"I do not know anything of the sort."

"Then you are a 'temporary gentleman' indeed! We spoke just now of that bargain——"

"Which, through your own actions, doesn't exist."

"Of course it exists. You talk in riddles!"

"When you put your mind to this one, it will cease to be a riddle. You'll guess it in a moment. You'll see what you've done. Probably Severance would have told you before this if he'd had the chance. The explanation, if there has to be one, will come better from him than from me. But I may as well break one small detail to you before we get to the hotel; I've no intention of leaving him alone with you for a minute, or any part of a minute, before he sails."

"How dare you hope to lay down the law for me?" Marise almost gasped, over a wildly-throbbing heart. "I shall see Lord Severance alone as much as I choose—and as he chooses."

"You can try," said Garth. "So can he."

"You won't have any chance to prevent it! You shan't even come into my mother's suite at the Plaza Hotel if you attempt to put on these ridiculous airs of being my master. I wonder who you think you are, Major Garth?"

"The important thing—to you and your mother and to Severance—is not so much what I think I am, as what other people will think I am. They will think I'm your husband. I understand that this marriage idea was entirely for appearance' sake?"

"Exactly!" cried Marise.

"Then it's up to you and me to look after the appearances. I warned you this morning that you hadn't thought the thing out enough, and that you'd better think hard, then and there. Perhaps you did. If so, you——"

"I didn't. How could I? There was no time."

"That's what you said. Consequently I had to do the thinking for you. And the arranging of your future. I never was a slow chap. My life was always more or less of a hustle since I was a very small kid, and I had to keep my thinking machine on the jump. The war has speeded it up a bit. This morning, when you announced that you'd be ready to be married in an hour or less, I'll tell you just what I had to do. I had to inform the manager of your hotel that I was marrying Miss Sorel, and that we couldn't get away from New York for a few days——"

"You—dared to do that!"

"I got my V.C. for doing something almost as dangerous. I told him he must give us a suite——"

"You—you devil!"

"Thank you. I guess even that sounds more natural from a wife to a husband than 'Major Garth.'"

"You don't dream I'm going to occupy a suite with you, I suppose?"

"I don't dream. I know you are going to occupy that suite, unless you want me openly to leave you on our wedding day. This comes of your not thinking what would happen next. You'd better choose now, because we'll soon be at the Plaza. Is it to be my hotel or not?"

"You said—when my mother explained to Lord Pobblebrook that you had a mission—you said you were going West."

"And that I intended to take you with me. But that won't be for a few days, till you've had time to settle your affairs. I don't want to rush you. What I ask you to decide now is for meanwhile, before we start."

"I shall never start anywhere with you—or live anywhere meanwhile with you."

"Very well then, that's that. Now I know where I am." He seized the speaking-tube, but Marise caught his hand.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Stop the taxi and get out. The snap's off."

The girl was about to exclaim, "But you can't leave me like this!" when it occurred to her that, desperado as he was turning out, it would be well to take him at his word; at all events, to a certain extent.

"Very well," she said. "I shall tell everyone that you've gone West on an important mission. V.C.'s are always expected to have missions."

"And I shall tell everyone that I've done nothing of the sort. I'll go back to the Belmore, 'phone to the Plaza and countermand the suite I took, and allow myself to be interviewed by all the reporters, who'll swarm round me like flies round a honeypot. There'll be plenty of flies left for you. You can give them honey or vinegar, I don't care which. It's your concern, not mine. I don't even care what they make of the combination: my story and yours. It'll be some story, though. That's the one thing sure."

"You're an absolute brute!" cried Marise.

"What did you expect? You heard from Severance that I was a bounder. I'm a fighting man. That's about all, for the moment."

"You mean, you're fighting me?"

"Not in the least. I'm fighting the battle of appearances, which means I'm fighting for you."

"What makes you think there'll be reporters waiting?" Marise changed the subject. "Did you tell anyone?"

"The manager of your hotel and mine. I didn't tell him in confidence. There was no idea of keeping the marriage a secret, was there?"

"No-o."

"Well, then! Am I or am I not to stop the taxi and get out?"

"Wait," Marise temporised. "You must please understand that I'm not going to live with you as your wife."

"I haven't asked you to do so, although you did ask me to become your husband. After last Sunday, I would never have started the subject, or even have tried to meet you again. Please, on your part, understand that."

The girl's breath was caught away for the dozenth time. She spoke more quietly. "I know you haven't asked me, in so many words," she admitted. "But you spoke of a suite."

"Certainly I spoke of a suite. I thought you and your mother were anxious to keep up conventions. Though I'm not Severance's sort of gentleman—perhaps because I'm not—you can trust me not to behave like a brute, even though you're thinking that I speak like one. Or, if you can't trust me as far as that, you ought never to have run the risk you have run."

"But can I trust you—to keep to the bargain?"

"I've told you that owing to your own act, there is no bargain. Haven't you solved that 'puzzle' yet?"

"I have not."

"You will soon. Do I stop here?"

"Bargain or no bargain then, can I trust you?"

"Look me in the face and judge."

She looked him in the face.

In spite of the war tan, not faded yet, he was pale; and his pupils seemed to have flowed like ink over the yellow-grey iris. His eyes were black as they blazed into hers. He might, she thought, commit murder in that mood, but—he could do nothing mean, nothing sly, nothing vile.

"I must trust you, and I do."

Garth let the speaking-tube fall.