"Then you're doubly a fool!" shrilled Zélie. "A damned fool not to know how Jack feels for you, and a damneder one not to know enough to feel right towards him. Jack's the salt of the earth. There's more courage and good faith and everything noble and big in his little finger than in your whole lovely body. So now you can go home. And put _that_ in your pocket!" Marise went. She shut the door softly, so softly and considerately that it hurt worse than a loud slam. "I did get even with her!" Zélie thought. And plumped down on the sofa with a sob. CHAPTER XXXVIII WHEN SEVERANCE THREW DOWN THE KEY Not far from the door of Zélie Marks's room another door stood open. Marise would have whirled past it without noticing, had not her name been called. She turned her head, with a slight start, and saw Severance. "Come here a moment, my dear one," he said. "I have to speak to you." Marise hesitated. Her brain was not clear. She felt dazed, as if Zélie had boxed her ears, as she had boxed Tony's earlier. She longed for sympathy. No one--not even Garth himself!--had ever been so horrid to her before, as Zélie had. Severance took her hand and drew her gently over the threshold into a private sitting-room much like Miss Marks's. Then, when she was safely inside the room, he shut the door, locked it, and jerked out the key. "Tony!" cried Marise. She felt as if some scene in one of her plays had come true. Except that--Tony wasn't the villain who locked the heroine in. _Surely_ he wasn't the villain! "This isn't the right time for a joke," she said. "And this isn't a joke," said Severance. "Well, unlock the door at once, please, and let me out," she insisted. "I must go----" "Where must you go?" he asked. "Where! Ho--back, of course." "To Garth--after what happened between us three at his house this evening? It's impossible for you to go back to him, Marise. He can't expect it himself. When you came away to-night--if he knew you came--he must have known the whole thing was finished, the farce played out." The girl felt as if a chilly breeze blew over her. She did not answer for a moment. She was wondering in an awed way if Tony were right. Was that the reason Garth had let her go so easily, to answer Zélie's note in person? But no. He had only just reminded her the moment before how he'd never intended giving her up to Severance. Still--when she thought of it--what _was_ there to go back for, unless she intended to stay married to Garth--to be married to him as other women were married to their husbands? She had never contemplated that, even at the times--and there had been times--when she'd admired Garth, admired him with a secret thrill. Besides, no matter how much Garth had wanted her, in the first throes of his infatuation, he didn't want her now--for good. Oh, such an end to the play wasn't to be dreamed of, from whichever side you looked at it! "If I go away anywhere from Vision House, it will be to my mother," she said at last.