To that question, "Are you going West?" Zélie had hesitatingly responded, "Ye-es." What did it mean? CHAPTER XXIV ACCORDING TO MUMS That same afternoon, Mary Sorel began a letter to Severance, a letter embroidered with points of admiration, dashes, underlinings, and parentheses. "Dear Tony," she wrote, for she felt the warm affection of an Egeria, mingled with that of a mother-in-law elect, for him: and it pleased all that was snobbish in her soul to have this intimate feeling for an earl. "Dear Tony, I shall be cabling you about the time you land, according to promise. But I promised as well to write a sort of _diary_ letter, giving you all the developments day by day, and posting the document at the end of the week. Well, this is the first instalment, written--as you'll see by the date--on the day of your sailing. "How I wish I had better news to give you! But don't be alarmed. Things are _not_ going as we hoped, yet they might be worse. And now you are prepared by that preface, I'll try to tell you exactly the state of affairs! "At least, I shall be able to explain a mystery that puzzled and worried us both yesterday, after the--I suppose in lieu of a better word I'm bound to call it 'marriage'! Neither you nor I could understand precisely how _That Man_ had got my poor child so under his thumb, when by rights _he_ should have been under _her foot_! "What he does is this: he simply threatens at every turn to go away and tell everyone, _including newspaper men_, the whole story from beginning to end. You might think with an ordinary person that this was all _bluff_. Because, if the story hurt you and Marise, and even _me_, it would hurt him as much. But whatever he may be (and he might be almost _anything_!) he is _not_ an ordinary person. He appears perfectly reckless of his own reputation. Apparently he cares not enough to lift his finger, or let it fall, for the opinion of others, no matter _who_. If he said he would do some dreadful thing it wouldn't be safe to hope he was merely making an idle threat. He would _do_ it, I'm sure he would! "That's the secret of his power over our poor little Marise, and I must admit, to a certain extent over _me_. "I have been having a long talk with him about the future--the _immediate_ future, I mean, of course, for the more distant future I hope and believe will be controlled by _you_!