"Are you acting a part with me?" Severance flung at her. "Or what has come over you, Marise? One would think you in reality the virtuous married woman, keeping the _tertium quid_ at arm's length----" "Well, I _am_ a married woman. And--and I'm not _un_virtuous!" she defied him, through her heart-beats. "Things have changed, Tony----" "Why--because I've got a million dollars less than you expected me to have?" The girl sprang to her feet, tingling and trembling. Severance jumped up also, and belted her slim waist with his hot hands. He thought that this was the way to regain her--that by grasping her body he might seize her elusive spirit. It was all that Marise could do not to scream, "Help! Help!" like an early-Victorian heroine. She bit back the cry of primitive womanhood, but to her intense surprise, and even horror, she found herself landing a rousing box on Tony's ear. "You vixen!" he blurted. "Cad!" she retorted. With that, his hands dropped from her waist. His face had been pale with fatigue. Now it was paler with pain. "You don't--mean that, Marise?" he stammered. And, of course, she didn't. Things had happened in the past which had encouraged him to this. He had thought she loved him. She was to blame as much as he was--more, perhaps--the Canyon would say. "I'm sorry I boxed your ear, Tony," she apologised. "But--but--if you go on like this, I'm awfully afraid I shall lose my head and box it again." "I don't understand you," he said, more quietly. "I don't understand myself," she confessed. "Then"--and fire from the Canyon lit Severance's Greek eyes--"it's my plan to make you understand. You love me. You _daren't_ go back from it all, after what's passed. I love you, and you belong to me." "Good afternoon, Severance," said Garth, at the window. "I heard you'd arrived." CHAPTER XXXV STRAIGHT TALK If Garth had appeared two minutes earlier, he need have suffered no uncertainty about Marise. But unfortunately she was not in these days the romantic heroine of a stage play. Characters did not come on or go off at just the right instant to work up her scenes in life. Therefore this unrehearsed effect ended with an anti-climax. Whether Severance were cast for hero or villain remained doubtful: and whether she had acted the noble wife or the weak lover was left vague: or at least, it was vague to the mind of Garth. He had no idea what Marise had done. He was sure only that Severance had done as much as she would let him do. By and by he expected to learn a great deal more: through the process of deduction.