He could hardly believe the news which the French maid gave him. Marise wouldn't do such a thing! There must be a mistake, he told Céline. Or it was a clumsy joke.
"_Milord, c'est la verité_," came the answer. "Milord need not take my word. Let him go to the church. Milord may yet be in time. But he must make haste. It is a long way. I heard Madame telephone and talk."
"I will go--I'll do my best," Severance answered, to put the woman off. But--what _could_ he do? What was his "best"?
Céline knew nothing of the secret pact. She judged from what she had overheard, and he could not explain that he didn't see his way to stop the marriage.
The more he thought, the more clear it became that this sudden move by Marise was a caprice to spite him--to "hoist him from his own petard." Severance could almost hear the girl defend herself. "You ought to be pleased that I took you at your word, before you went away. Otherwise I might have changed my mind about the whole thing!"
She was sure to say this, and even if he reached the church in time he wouldn't dare stop the business when it had gone so far. That devil Garth had a beast of a temper; and a fellow can't at the same moment see red, and which side his bread is buttered!
Severance hated Garth venomously since the episode at the Belmore. But the brute was a hero in the States, and would pass in the public eye as a reasonable husband for Marise Sorel.
Nobody who didn't know the ugly truth would say, "How _could_ that beautiful girl throw herself away on that _worm_?"
Whatever Garth was, he wasn't a worm. Though he had apparently made no bones of accepting a million-dollar bribe, deep within his subconscious self Severance didn't believe that the million was the lure. Garth was in love with the girl, in his loutish way. Perhaps, even, he might hope to win some affection from her in return. Tony felt that he need wish the fool no worse than an attempt to "try it on"!
Force, Severance did not fear. Marise was no flapper. She had her eyes open. She'd know how to handle a man in Garth's position. Besides, Mums would be at her side, a pillar of strength. Tony even felt that in some ways Garth was ideal for the part he had to play. Marise would always contrast him unfavourably with the man she loved. And hating Garth, he--Severance--could enjoy the tortures which the paid dummy was doomed to suffer.