"Is that your voice, Lord Severance--Tony? Why, I wasn't sure at first," she answered an indistinct murmur at the other end. "You sound different, somehow! What? You've had a fall? Loosened a front tooth? Oh, my poor dear boy--your beautiful white teeth! Marise will shed tears. Of course, you mustn't leave your rooms to-night.... Indeed, you must be sure he's the best dentist in New York. He'll fix you up in no time.... Why, yes, I suppose I can run in, without Marise, just for a minute ... if it would comfort you at all.... The man Gar--said 'yes'? Well, that's a consolation! You settled the whole thing before your accident? But you'll tell me the story when I come." * * * * * For the first time, Garth did not go to the theatre that night. Never had he felt more physically fit, but he did not wish to see Marise. He felt that he would not be master of himself, through her "great scene" in the last act. He would want to spring on the stage and choke her. As he thought this, he looked at his knuckles. They were cracked and bruised, but the sight did not displease him. He stretched out his arms wide in a sweeping gesture, his hands spread palm upwards. "God!" he said. "I've got my chance. To punish him. To punish her, too. Why not? The devil knows how well she deserves it. And yet--I don't know. We shall see!" CHAPTER XII "HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT, TOO!" While two men thought violently of Marise Sorel, she lay in bed as night wore on, intent upon thinking of one of them, and inadvertently thinking of both. Severance hadn't shown himself at the theatre because, thanks to Garth, he was not looking his best. Neither was Garth, who, on the contrary, looked and felt his worst. Unlike Severance, however, he had very little personal vanity; and a black eye or so would not have prevented him from going as usual to gaze at "Dolores." He did not go because he didn't wish to go. Smoking pipe after pipe, he prowled up and down his own sitting-room far into the night, much to the annoyance of a lady on the floor below. He mapped out a future full of revenges; and if "thoughts were things," his must have hurled themselves like Mills bombs into Marise's room, to burst at the foot of her bed. He did not flatter himself that they would reach so far; yet possibly it was some disturbing telepathic influence which forced Marise to think of Garth as often as of Severance, almost as often as she thought of herself. She thought with fury of Severance, with extraordinary curiosity of Garth, and with pitying forgiveness of herself.