Now, here she was on the way back to dear New York to revive the play, which Belloc, as manager, and Sheridan, as author, expected to surpass its first success. At present Miss Sorel had the valued cachet of a London triumph added to her charms. She was more _chic_, she could act and sing better, than before. Isadora Duncan had coached her for the dance in the last scene, as an act of generous friendship, and this had given "The Song" a new fillip in London. It would be the same in New York.
As if this were not enough to satisfy an older "star" than she, there was the wonderful way in which the affair of Tony Severance had developed. He had strained every nerve to sail with her on the _Britannia_. Heaven alone knew how he'd obtained or invented the "mission" which had made his plan possible. It was entirely for her sake, and everyone was coupling their names--in a nice, proper way, of course. She was that kind of girl. And Mums was that kind of mother. Even before Severance had come into the title, he had been splendidly worth while on account of his looks, his position, and his "set," but now it seemed to Marise that every unmarried woman in England and America must be envying her.
As she sipped the honey of these thoughts, the girl felt that Severance was staring at her eyelashes, and willing her to lift them. But she would not, just yet. She went on with her thinking. She asked herself if her feeling for him were love? Of course, it wasn't the "Dolores" sort of love for "David Hardcastle," but love like that was safer on the stage than off. Marise admired Tony, and was very proud of her conquest, though she would admit that to no one except Mums. She had been horribly afraid, humiliatingly afraid for a few days, that he might change his mind if not his heart, when the earldom fell into his hands like a prize-package. If she'd not been sure before that Tony was the one man for her, she was frantically sure after the great surprise, when he was safely on board the _Britannia_. How pleased the cats would have been if she'd lost him--the cats who pretended to think, in the days before he was Lord Severance, that the honesty of his intentions depended upon her money.