Shadows of Flames: A Novel

XIII

"I wouldn't if I were you, mother," he said gravely.

"No. There are many things that you leave undone, which would be done if you were I," she said in a harsh voice, turning away. "I shall write to Surtees this afternoon."

But Lady Wychcote did not find her interview with Mr. Surtees very consoling. He replied to her most pressing questions by quoting from that Guardianship of Infants Act, which seemed to her to have been passed chiefly for her annoyance. The meticulous legal phraseology of the quoted sentences so got on her nerves that it was all she could do to refrain from being rude to the solicitor. Mr. Surtees read from slips that he had brought with him in reply to her urgent letter, asking whether in such an instance as this the Court might not be willing to appoint her as co-guardian with her grandson's mother. ".... When no guardian has been appointed by the father, or if the guardian or guardians appointed by the father is or are dead, or refuses or refuse to act, the Court may, if it shall think fit, from time to time appoint a guardian or guardians to act jointly with the mother."

"Well ... and in such a case as this?... where my grandson will grow up with an American step-father?" she had asked eagerly.

"But your ladyship told me that Mrs. Chesney agreed to have her son educated in England?"

"Yes," she admitted impatiently; "but suppose that she should change her mind?"

"I think that we should have to await that event."

"But my...." (Lady Wychcote had almost said "my good man" in her extreme irritation.) "But my dear Mr. Surtees, who can tell what influence this ... this American step-father may have on the child—even in a year?"

"I venture to suggest that your ladyship is over-apprehensive," said Mr. Surtees. "From my personal acquaintance with Mrs. Chesney, I feel assured that she will allow no one to influence her son in any way that could be harmful. But," he continued, "if by any unfortunate chance ... er ... difficulties of ... of this kind should occur—the Court will generally act in the way that it considers most beneficial for the interest and welfare of the infant."

"Then, in case the mother's guardianship proved to be unsatisfactory, the Court would interfere?"

"I think there is no doubt about that."

With this, for the present, Lady Wychcote had to be content.

In the meantime Sophy's second wedding-day was drawing near. Mrs. Loring was to come to Sweet-Waters for the marriage, but there were to be no other guests. She arrived two days before. Every one liked her. And Bobby approved of her. "I like Mr. Loring's muvvah...." he told Sophy. His tone implied deep reticences on the subject of Mrs. Loring's son.

That evening, as Sophy bent over his crib to kiss him good-night, he held her face down to his and said:

"Muvvah, do you love Mr. Loring more than me?"

Sophy dropped to her knees and caught him in her arms.

"No, darling! No, no! I love you both—not one better than the other."

Bobby clung fast to her. Then he whispered:

"S'posin' you had to choose 'right hand—lef' hand'?"

"My precious! People don't choose other people that way. You know, Bobby darling, it's with hearts like the sky and the stars. There's room for all the stars in the sky—there's room for all sorts of different loves in one heart."

Bobby reflected a moment. Then he sighed.

"I reckon my heart ain't very big," he murmured. "It couldn't hold all that. I reckon my heart's just fulled up with you, muvvah. I reckon it's only got one star in it."

Sophy crushed him to her. She kissed him in a passion of remorse for his pathetic jealousy. Tears choked her. She held him until she thought that he had fallen asleep. As she was stealing from the room, a clear little voice called after her:

"If it was 'right hand—lef' hand' with anybody an' you—I'd choose you, muvvah!"

She rushed back again, and this time she stayed with him long after he was really asleep.

They were married and gone. Charlotte stood blowing her little nose fiercely—sustained in her apprehensive grief only by Mammy Nan. The Judge had driven to the station with Mrs. Loring.

"What do you think really, Mammy?" she got out at last. "Do you think Miss Sophy will be happy?"

Mammy Nan, who was already taking off her gala apron and folding it neatly for some future occasion, grunted noncommittally. Then she snuffled sharply. She had been crying, too, but she scorned to blow her nose openly like "Miss Cha'lt." Finally she said in a colourless voice:

"What Miss Sophy mought call happy, I moughtn't call happy."

"How do you mean, Mammy?"

"Well'um, Miss Chalt," replied the old negress dryly, "I is alluz ben hev my 'pinion 'bout dat Sary in dee Bible a-honin' a'ter a baby at her age. Hit sho' wuz a darin' thing tuh do. But hit 'pears like gittin' hit made her happy. T'ouldn't 'a' made me happy—no, ma'am!"

She pinned the folded apron firmly together with her "Sunday" brooch, taking both it and the unaccustomed collar off at once with a sigh of relief.

"Now seein' as a young huzbun' is wuss trouble dan a young baby, how I gwine prophesy 'bout Miss Sophy's happ'ness?" she concluded.

The magic spell held beautifully all through those bridal wanderings. There was a real awe at the base of Loring's love for Sophy. Her creative gift and the fact of her initiation into life's darker mysteries, had a strange and subduing charm for him. His bridegroom mood was still Endymion's. This reverence, as for a being familiar with worlds unknown to him, lent his passion for her a certain, subtle restraint which seemed to reveal Eros as the most exquisitely considerate of all the gods.

On her return Sophy went to Sweet-Waters instead of going direct to Newport. She could scarcely sleep that night on the train, for thinking how soon she would hold her boy in her arms again. But Loring was more keenly jealous of Bobby than ever. Marriage had brought this feeling to a head.

The first thing Sophy saw as the train slowed down at Sweet-Waters station was his little face, very pale, upturned to the car windows. When she sprang off and caught him in her arms, he trembled so that he could not speak for some moments.

Then he said earnestly, in a faint, beseeching voice:

"Muvvah—please don't leave me any more, for Jesus' sake. Amen."

Sophy, trembling herself, said:

"Never again, my darling. Never, never, as long as we both live."

Afterwards, when they were alone, Loring said to her:

"Don't you think you were mistaken to make the boy such a promise as that?"

He did not look at her as he said this, but at his tie which he was fastening before the glass.

"What promise?" said Sophy, not remembering for a moment.

"That you'd never leave him again. Things might happen to make it necessary."

"Nothing could happen to make it necessary. I promised truly. I wouldn't leave him again for anything on earth—not for anything...."

"Not even for me?" asked Loring. He was still looking at his tie, which refused to slip into the right knot.

"That couldn't happen, dear. We shall always be together I hope."

"You can't tell...." said Loring. His voice was stiff.

Sophy came over beside him. She stood watching the reflection of his nervous fingers in the glass for some minutes. She loved his hands. They were long and slight, the fine bone-work showing clearly—sensitive, self-willed hands. She thought how strange it was, that all the men she had ever cared for had had fine hands. Even Cecil's, huge as they were, had been well-moulded. Cecil ... how strange to think of Cecil's hands while she watched these others.... Life was like that. The tangle of memory made one thread pull another endlessly. She felt very sad all of a sudden.

Loring did not say anything more. Presently he jerked the tie from about his neck and threw it on the floor.

"Hell!" he said heartily.

Sophy laughed, then grew grave. His white face looked so disproportionately furious to the cause of wrath. He snatched up another tie and set to work again.

After a while Sophy said in a low voice:

"Morris ... don't you like Bobby?"

"Like him?... Of course I like him.... Damn this tie!"

Sophy waited a moment.

"Morris...."

"Well?"

"What is it, dear? What has vexed you?"

"I should think you could see that for yourself," he said impatiently, raging with the second tie.

He had never been downright cross with her before. But Sophy understood. She felt almost as tenderly to him as she had to Bobby on a like occasion. But the sad feeling grew in her heart. They were jealous of each other. Jealousy was a hideous guest at life's table. She sighed unconsciously. He darted a swift glance at her. The droop of her head touched him suddenly. He turned, catching her to him.

"Oh, Selene!" he groaned. "Don't you see? I'm just a low, mortal wretch and I'm disgustingly, damnably jealous—that's all. Beautiful— I swear it.... I quake in my very vitals when I think that you may love that boy more than me.... The child of another man—more than me." He held her fiercely.

She put up her hand to his neck as she leaned against him.

"You needn't be afraid," she said softly. "I couldn't love any one more than I love you, dear."

He had to be satisfied with this. He was afraid to ask if she loved him more than she loved her son. But this was what he wanted. This was the only thing that would satisfy him. And he was not only jealous of Bobby. As he had said once before, he was jealous of the dead man—of Bobby's father. This is perhaps the bitterest jealousy of all—the jealousy of the dead who has once been dearest to what is now our dearest.

XIV

It seemed very strange to Sophy, as unreal as this new love in another way, to find herself once more in the noisy glitter of the world after her three years of hermitage. "The crackling of thorns under a pot" it seemed to her—of big gilded thorns under a big gilded pot. The pot bubbled merrily, boiling over with iridescent froth; its steam was heady, causing those who tended it to dance blithely like self-hypnotised Arabs about a brazier. Sophy enjoyed gorgeous foolery as much as any other, when she was in the mood. But now she was far from the mood. It was as if Endymion had insisted on presenting Selene at the court of Elis with "excursions and alarums," and gaudy pageants—as if he could not feel his goddess wholly his until the curious eyes of the courtiers approved his choice. For she had found out that it was by his desire that his mother had so insisted on this visit. Mrs. Loring had been quite unconscious of betraying motives when she said: "I wouldn't urge you, my dear, but Morry so wishes it. He thinks you've been too long in this dear, dreamy old place. Besides," she had added, smiling, "he naturally wishes the world to see his Faery Queen...."

Sophy had mentioned this to Loring.

"Don't let's go, dear.... I'm sure your mother will understand. And I really hate the idea," she had said to him.

But Loring had replied:

"You don't know my mother yet, Beautiful. She would feel awfully cut up if we didn't go to her after we came back. Don't you see?— It would look queer to others, too...."

Sophy had yielded in the end. Yet she smiled to herself, a little wistfully, reflecting on the meaning of the name Endymion, "a being that gently comes over one." Here she was—to her mind the most pitiable of trophy-ikons—a bride displayed in new attire, new jewels and new love, to the eyes of the appraising world.

In all the conviviality poured over him as bridegroom by laughing friends, Morris was very careful not to go too far that summer. The friends grinned slyly—"Morry's on the water-wagon of love," the word went round. Some wag said that the fire-water of matrimony went flat in the second year—and "Mrs. Morry" might find her consort drinking from other stills. This would prove a shock.

"Oh, she won't mind," a woman had said easily. "Morry's so perfectly delightful when he's taken a bit too much. He's so amusing."

But on the first occasion of this kind Sophy had minded very much indeed. It did not happen until towards the middle of their first winter in New York. They had given a dinner and some people had stayed on afterwards until one o'clock. One of the guests, a young Bavarian, had played rousingly on the piano. The keys seemed to smoke under his long, vigorous hands. He ended with some frenzied Polish dances. Everybody was drinking and smoking—Loring drank more than he smoked. A pretty gypsy looking woman jumped up and began an impromptu dance to the wild music. Loring began to dance with her. The game of drawing-room romps became breathless.

Sophy sat amused like the rest. His head looked so oddly Greek with its short, tossing locks above the ugly cylinders of his modern dress. He should have had on a leopard's skin. As this thought came to her, some one cried: "Oh, Morry!—Do give us the 'Reformed Alcibiades'. Do! do!—I haven't seen you do it for a whole year...."

A chorus rose at once about him. He hesitated a moment—glanced at Sophy. She was smiling. "Shall I?" he said doubtfully.

"Well— I confess I'm curious to see how a 'reformed Alcibiades' would dance...." she said, still smiling.

Von Hoff, the young man at the piano, began a most enticing, fiery measure. It went to Loring's head. He tossed off a whiskey and soda, cried, "Here goes, then!" and ran from the room.

"Haven't you really ever seen him do it, Mrs. Loring?" said the woman who had asked for the dance.

"No— I didn't even know he could dance so cleverly——"

"You've a treat before you, then. It's the most delicious thing you ever saw...."

"Strike up, slave!" came Loring's voice from the next room. Von Hoff "struck up." Loring had whispered him what to play as he ran out. It was a voluptuous, half Spanish, half Oriental measure. To its rhythm Loring danced back into the room. He had set a huge wreath of artificial roses with flying ribbons on his head. His evening trousers were rolled up, leaving his legs bare from the knee down. A pair of elaborate sandals—relics of Harvard days—encased his feet. He had taken off his coat and collar and rolled back his shirt-sleeves. A wide, white silken scarf of Sophy's formed his peplum. Under one arm was tucked a big, stuffed pheasant to represent the pet quail of Alcibiades. In his hand he held a wine-cup, inverted.

The dance began charmingly. Alcibiades was evidently refusing all invitations to drink from many invisible comrades.... The first shock of thus seeing him comically "dressed up"—in a costume which was only saved from low absurdity by the perfect beauty of his classic head and slight figure—this first startled recoil having passed, Sophy watched his amazingly graceful poses with a tolerable pleasure. She could not really enjoy it—that her husband should prance about so attired for the amusement of their guests—but she remembered, soberly enough, that he was very young, and that her distaste was probably the result of maturer years.

Then came the real shock. The dance grew frankly ludicrous. With dextrous sleight of hand, Alcibiades made it appear as though his "quail" were angrily demanding a drink from the inverted goblet. The fowl finally conquers. The goblet is filled for him again and again. Alcibiades can no longer resist temptation, thus seeing a mere fowl take its fill. He, too, begins to drink.... The dance ends in a mad, drunken whirl, in which Alcibiades crowns the pheasant with his wreath, and they collapse together upon the floor in a maudlin heap.

The thing was really wonderfully well done. The guests were in ecstasies of laughter. But Sophy felt cold and sick. It seemed to her that he could not love her as she had thought. Else how could he turn the body that she loved into a travesty for others to laugh at? She felt as though the dignity of their mutual love were lying there on the floor, sprawled and ruffled and lifeless like the stuffed pheasant....

This feeling was not apparent in her face. Her training had been too thorough and bitter for her to let the world have even a glimpse of her chagrin. But though no one else guessed it, Loring was aware instantly of something wrong. As soon as he had changed back to ordinary dress, and returned to the drawing-room, where people were now saying good-night—he felt this. And he, too, was chagrined. He had taken just enough liquor to make this chagrin of his savour of anger. For the first time he felt her "superiority" not as that of a goddess, but of a wife. She "disapproved" of him. To be "disapproved" of had always roused the ugly side of his nature.

"And she told me herself to go ahead," he thought irefully. "Now she's got it in for me.... I'll be curtain-lectured I suppose—get a glimpse of the seamy side of matrimony...."

He reinforced himself with another high-ball.

When the last guest had gone he went up to Sophy. She had turned to get her fan from a sofa where she had left it. It was the fan of white peacock feathers that Amaldi had once admired. She thought of him suddenly as she took it in her hand. How would he have looked had he seen that dance?— She reddened. Why did such thoughts come to one? Life was quite difficult enough without these unbidden, scathing fancies. She tried to put on a natural, easy expression. As is always the case, this gave her face a strained look—the look of one "sitting" for a photograph.

On his side, Loring's had an expression that Sophy was only too familiar with—but until now, she had never seen it on his face. It was the pale, black-eyed, fixed expression of a man who has taken too much to drink, without being in the least "drunk." Sophy could not tell what it was she felt at that moment. It was like the pang of a strange sickness. And again it was like a blow on an old wound. The old and new wound seemed bleeding together in her breast. She tried to pass him with a smile.

"It's all hours of the night.... I'm simply dropping with sleep...." she said, her voice, at least, natural enough.

He planted himself in her way. His hands were deep in his pockets. His white, fixed young face was dropped a little. He looked up at her stilly from under the beautiful arch of his brows that she so loved.... They always reminded her of Marlowe's lovely expression "airy brows." Now they lowered like clouds over the bold, still eyes.

"I say, Selene," he blurted, enunciating his words very clearly. "Let's have it ... and get done with it...."

"What, Morris?"

"The wigging you've got in pickle for me.... Mixing my metaphors, too, ain't I?... There's another grievance for you.... Poetess as well as goddess will take umbrage now...."

Sophy hated being called "poetess." That Morris should call her "poetess" seemed the last touch of irony. She stood looking at him gently.

"I haven't got a 'wigging' in store for you," she said. "Why are you angry?"

"Why are you angry?... But, there, that's poppycock—my asking that. I know devilish well why you're angry. It's because I danced that Alcibiades thing.... Well—you told me to, didn't you?"

Sophy hesitated. Then she said frankly:

"It's true I didn't like it, Morris. But that oughtn't to vex you." Her voice trembled suddenly. "When a woman loves a man as I love you—she can't bear to ... to see him ... like that."

"Make a fool of himself, you mean?"

Sophy went close and put her hand on his breast.

"Morris...." she said, "are you trying to quarrel ... with me, dear?"

Her tone was lovely as she said this. "He's so young ... so young...." she was telling herself.

But Loring's overstrung mood sensed this maternal indulgence, and it infuriated him still further.

"You've got me mixed with your dear Bobby, haven't you?" he asked sneeringly.

"Oh, Morris!"

She drew back, flushing even over her neck and arms. Anger as well as pain drove her blood.

"Well—you used just the tone you'd use to a youngster who'd been stealing jam," he said sulkily.

Sophy stood playing with the fan of white feathers. Life seemed a nightmare to her just then. This rude, sullen boy who was yet her husband made her feel as if all the gods of Malice were watching her. She could almost hear the Olympian titter go round the room. She tried to think of some way of lifting their life out of this horrid, commonplace quagmire into which it had slipped so suddenly—and it was as if their life were some huge, smooth, handleless vessel upon which she could not get a grip.

"He isn't himself—this isn't the real Morris——" her thought sanely reminded her. "This is Whiskey...."

She lifted her slight figure with a sudden movement of determination.

"Morris, dear," she said, "I'm not going to let you quarrel with me.... Good-night."

She went swiftly by him into her bedroom. He longed to catch her arms and stop her as she went by, but he did not dare. He turned on his heel and went back into the drawing-room. The butler was clearing away the tray of liqueurs and whiskey.

"Hold on a moment, Jennings," said Loring. He took another stiff drink. As often happens, this lost dram of whiskey wrought a totally different mood in him. Within five minutes his anger had merged into a wild impulse of desire. He wondered now that he could have been so curt with his Selene. He understood as in a flash of revelation why she had objected to that "rotten dance." He wanted to tell her so with devouring kisses. He waited until the servants had withdrawn, then went to her bedroom door.

"Who is it?" came her voice.

"I ... Endymion," he murmured.

He was ablaze with love and repentance and—whiskey, but he was still not in the least what could be called "drunk."

"Come in," said Sophy. Her heart failed her. Was he coming to have his quarrel out? She felt quite numb—lifeless—as though made of wood. Her maid had undressed her and plaited her long hair for the night. She was sitting before the fire in her white dressing-gown. Her eyes looked very sad to him in her quiet face. He came and threw himself on his knees beside her.

"Forgive me ... forgive me, Selene ... forgive me...." he murmured, unconsciously metrical. At any other time Sophy would have teased him for it. Now she did not even notice it. She had been thinking: "George Eliot says somewhere that 'we can endure our worst sorrows but once'.... I am enduring mine twice...."

She put her hand on the bowed head.

"Never mind, dear," she said.

He seized her bare arm in both hot hands, and his lips, still hotter, ran over it. She shivered, trying to draw it away from him. He thought that she shivered with love. He sprang to his feet, and, tall woman as she was, so great was the feverish strength of his desire, he drew her easily up from the low chair into his arms. His breath reeking of spirit poured over her half averted face. She could not bear to struggle with him. That would seem the last degradation.

"I'm tired, dear...." she whispered. "I'm deadly tired...."

And he laughed. And this low exultant laugh, that had once made such music in her ears, seemed like that silent tittering of malicious gods grown audible.

"No ... Morris ... no...." she said, bracing herself against him by her strong, slight arms. He laughed on. He began to whisper incoherently in her averted ear....

"Oh, moon-woman ... oh, virgin-goddess.... Don't I know all your sweet reluctances by heart?... Isn't that what made me mad to conquer you?... You tempted me yourself.... Listen.... I never confessed it.... Now I'll confess for penance.... Do you know what made me first swear I'd marry you?... Your own words, Selene!... Your own words!... It was a verse of yours I read.... Oh, such a cock-sure ... Olympian verse!... Listen: Do you remember?... Here's how it went...."

He muttered her own words of passionate freedom into her averted, shrinking ear:

"I am the Wind's, and the Wind is mine!
No mortal lover shall me discover;
Freedom clear is our bridal-wine—
Oh, lordly Wind! Oh, perfect lover!..."

"There!—That's what made me set my will like steel to conquer you.... I'll be her 'mortal lover' I said.... And see!— You are in my arms...."

He stopped aghast. In his arms, heavily drooping, her face thrust from him against her own shoulder, she was weeping like one broken-hearted.

XV

The situation had solved itself after that. Dismayed and thunderstruck, Loring had been glad to loose his weeping goddess from his arms. It had never occurred to him that his Selene could cry frankly, with choking sobs and great tears like any other woman. It was a most discomfortable revelation. Like all men he hated tears—but these especial tears in addition to disconcerting him made him feel a blunderer, a sorry fool. They set him in a darkness of confused wonder, where he felt like a chastised child in a cupboard.

But Sophy stopped crying almost at once.

"Morris, dear," she said, "you know I told you I was deadly tired.... I really am too tired to talk to-night— I feel almost ill, I'm so weary. But to-morrow I'll say everything that's in my heart.... Go to bed now, will you, like a kind darling? I ... I'm better alone when ... when I feel like this."

Loring looked at her, then down at the hearth-rug. His lips pursed.

"You'll clear this up for me to-morrow?" he asked in a sullen voice.

"Yes, dear— I promise."

"All right, then. Sorry you feel so seedy."

He went towards the door. Before he reached it his gorge rose with wounded pride and bewildered indignation. He turned his head as he went out.

"Sorry I've been guilty of blasphemy...." he said. "Loving a goddess is rather steep work at times...."

He went out, his eyes hard and resentful.

Sophy sank into her chair again. She sat looking into the fire. She remembered how they had sat hand in hand, after their first kiss, looking into another fire only a few months ago.

But this was whiskey, she reminded herself—only whiskey. She must prove to him and herself that she was stronger than a mere appetite. But as she sat there staring at the fire, it was Cecil that she thought of, more than Loring. How terrible and fatal it seemed that, twice over, she should be the rival of such things with those she loved. For her sake Cecil had set himself to conquer. Then death had taken him. But before he had died he had killed her highest love for him....

The next day they had a full talk together. He was in a very gentle, penitent humour. He said that he understood just how she had felt.

He was on his knees by her chair, in his favourite attitude, holding her waist with both arms.

She bent towards him. Her heart was very glad within her. She took his face between her hands and kissed him on the eyes.

"You see, dearest," she said, "I'm a very faithful wife. I'm Morris Loring's wife and I won't be made love to by"—she looked straight into the eyes that she had just kissed—"by John Barleycorn," she ended, smiling, to ease the tense moment for them both.

Loring dropped down his face into her lap. Then he looked up again. A dance came into his eyes, that had been ashamed for a moment.

"I'll.... I'll kill the adulterous beggar!" he murmured.

Sophy felt a sharp twinge at her heart. Were all men more or less alike, she wondered? Cecil Chesney himself might have made that remark and in just that way.

Things went well after that for some months. Loring's friends even wagged wise heads of grave foreboding over it. "Mrs. Morry's got him too rankly bitted," they agreed unanimously. "He'll rear and come over backwards if she don't look out...."

But Sophy was very moderate. She had no prudish objection to his drinking in reason. She didn't enjoy seeing him in the false high spirits engendered sometimes by extra "cocktails," but she only positively objected to the amorousness occasioned by them. He had had his lesson, however.

And as the winter wore on, and Sophy became more familiar with the social life of New York, she understood better and better this side of Loring's character. She found that there were very few young men of his "set" who did not drink as a matter of course. Very often, nearly always at balls and dances, many of them would be genially "tight" by the end of the evening. This only made them extremely noisy and "larky" as a rule. She found that the women took this state of affairs with indulgent philosophy. Often they were amused by it.

As a whole the social life of New York, quite apart from this feature, did not appeal to her. Its mad speed and ostentation resulted in a sort of golden glare of monotony. Yet there were charming people, both men and women, caught protesting in the maelstrom. They protested bitterly as they went whirling round and round. Yet, when the maelstrom spewed them forth in the spring tide—for the most part, they allowed themselves to be sucked in by other whirlpools, such as Paris and London and Newport. Sophy wondered at the nervous constitutions which could stand such fevered repetition endlessly renewed. She reflected that Americans were said to be the most nervous people on earth. Yet she thought their nerves must be of thrice tempered steel to support the life that they protestingly led from year's end to year's end.

She determined that, since her lot was now cast here, she would temper her surroundings as much to her own taste as possible. For she had found out, among other somewhat astonishing things, that Loring was socially ambitious for her. He was resolved to build an elaborate and sumptuous house in New York—what American journals call a "mansion." Sophy pleaded for ample time in which to decide on the architecture and type of this house. In the meantime they spent their spare hours in hunting for a temporary abode where they might live during the next three or four years.

The house of Loring's mother was the usual mass of gilding and marble that characterised the last quarter of the nineteenth century in New York. It was Italian. The lower floor looked like an ancient Roman Bath. On the second floor was a Renaissance fountain. The library chimney-piece was formed of an entire doorway taken from some tomb in Italy, and still bearing the Italian family's coat-of-arms.

Sophy found what she wanted at last in a delightful old corner-house in Washington Square. Every one remonstrated. The tide of fashion was rushing like an eagre "up to the Park." Sophy did not care for Central Park. She said that she was sure its Dryads were all made of cast-iron and went bumping up and down every night between the horrific bronze colossi in the main avenue. This did not seem a sufficient reason to Loring's friends for selecting such an out-of-date, deserted spot as Washington Square in which to live for the next four years.

However, when Sophy had finished furnishing and decorating the old house, Loring was charmed, and very proud of her. But the house was not completed until the following autumn.

In the meantime, Loring, without saying anything to Sophy, had leased one of the Newport "palaces" from an absent owner for five years.

Sophy saw that the world had claimed her again. Now her mind bent itself to the task of redeeming some months of the year for her own use. She began to feel afraid. How was such a delicate visitant as Poetry to be entertained amid all this confusion of tongues and glittering paraphernalia?

"I must go to Sweet-Waters for May," she told Loring. "I'll open the house in Newport on the first of June."

"But I'm booked for those polo matches on Long Island in May," said Loring.

"I'm sorry, dear.... However, you won't miss me when you're playing polo you know.... And I do long for a May in Virginia."

"Damn Virginia!" said Loring.

Sophy laughed at him.

"You'll love me all the more when I come back to you," she coaxed. "Don't 'damn' poor Virginia."

"I do damn it.... I'm jealous of it."

"You needn't be."

She was still smiling at his sulky face.

"Yes, I do need ... you put it before me."

"Now, Morris...."

"Yes, 'Now, Morris'.... 'Now, Morris'...." (He mimicked her reproachful tone.) "It's always 'Now, Morris' when I want what belongs to me...."

"Oh! So I 'belong' to you, do I?" she teased affectionately.

"Yes! By gad, you do! You married me.... You're my wife. A wife should stay with her husband. You do belong to me."

He had his "Marmion" tone very pronouncedly.

Sophy said prettily:

"I think it would be truer to say we both 'belong.'"

"Well.... I'm not leaving you, am I?"

She reached out and took the sulky, cleft chin between her finger and thumb.

"Poor sing! Did dey 'buse it?" she said, as she addressed Dhu when he had one of his fits of collie-melancholy. But Loring jerked away his chin.

"Please don't treat me like a baby," he said stiffly. "I'm very far from feeling like one."

Sophy pondered a moment. Then she said:

"I hate to remind people of promises ... but you'll remember that you promised me I should have some time, every year, to myself——"

"You're tired of me already—is that it?"

"Now, dear—how am I to keep from treating you like a baby, when you act so exactly like one?"

"It's babyish for a man to want his wife with him, is it?"

"Isn't it rather babyish of him not to want her to take one little month to rest in and see her own people?"

"I thought my people were to be your people like the woman in the Bible?"

"So they are ... but I've seen them all winter."

"Tired of us all, eh?"

Sophy said nothing in reply to this.

"Oh, well!" he exclaimed angrily, flouncing to the door. "If the new salt has lost its savour—go to your old salt-lick——"

He bounced out, clapping the door. It was the first coarse thing he had ever said to her. She felt indignant as well as hurt. But when she reflected that his ill temper came from jealousy she was sorry for him, too.

"But I must go all the same," she reflected. "If I give in this time, I can never call my soul my own again."

She left for Virginia two days later, taking Bobby with her. She and Loring had not quite "made up" before she left. They were very polite to each other. Sophy's heart felt sore. This attitude of his was spoiling her visit home. She thought that he would surely soften before the train drew out. But he did not.

He lifted his hat as the engine began its hoarse starting cough.

"Well—so long," he said. "A happy May to you!"

Sophy felt a proud impulse to reply in kind. Then the sad influence of parting, even for so short a time, melted her. She put her head from the window.

"You'll come down to Virginia to fetch me back, won't you, dear?" she asked.

"Don't know. Depends on how the games go," he answered curtly. "I'll——"

The chuff-chuff of the moving engine drowned the rest of the sentence.

XVI

"'Cause...." He hesitated—then said in a rush, very low:

"'Cause I don't like him 'nuff to do it."

"Oh, Bobby—that hurts mother."

"I'm sorry," he said gravely.

"Then, won't you try to feel differently—for mother's sake?"

Bobby twisted a lock of her loosened hair round and round his finger. He said presently:

"Tain't any use tryin' to like people, mother."

He thought another moment, then added:

"Mr. Loring don't like me an' I don't like Mr. Loring. I 'spec God fixed it that way—'cause it's fixed so tight it won't come loose."

Loring, on his side, was determined to discipline Sophy a bit. She shouldn't think that she could desert him for a whim, and he take it like a good little husband, by Jove!

He went quite wild at times with longing for her, because this absence only whetted his desire. All his desires throve for being thwarted sharply. It was only continuous, prolonged denial that wore his very thin fibred patience to the snapping point. In that case he turned to new desires. He had never in his life been really patient over but one thing, and that was his wooing of Sophy. Or no, he had been patient when stalking deer, or waiting for wild duck. It was the sporting spirit in him that made him so admirably patient on these like occasions. But there was no sporting spirit to sustain him in the rôle of husband. A wife was not game to be stalked. She was a possession to be enjoyed. Sophy must learn that as Selene she was goddess to his Endymion—but as Mrs. Morris Loring, she was, well, wife to her husband.

Loring had an astonishing power of sustaining ill temper. He could keep a grievance alive for months by merely muttering over the heads of the offense against him—as a lover can thrill himself by murmuring the beloved's name.

Not since he was a child of three, afraid to go to sleep in the dark, and obstreperously demanding that both nurse and mother should sit holding each a hand until oblivion claimed him, had he demanded not to be forsaken without being obeyed.

Sophy returned to New York, as she had promised, on the twenty-seventh of May. He was not at the station to meet her. She wondered whether a match had detained him, or whether she would find him at the house.

She felt very helpless against this unyielding wall of sullen, consistent anger.

The butler told her that Mr. Loring had been spending the week-end with some friends on Long Island but had 'phoned that morning to say that he would return in time for dinner. He had not yet come in.

She went upstairs feeling sad and discouraged. It was very warm and oppressive in town after the open country. The scent of the hot asphalt came in through the open windows. The house looked queer and bleak, all dressed in brown holland for the summer.

The butler had filled the rooms with American Beauty roses. She disliked these roses. They always suggested to her the idea that they had been mulched with bank notes. She sat listlessly in the big, ornate room of the rented house, surrounded by yards of brown holland and acres of the artificial looking roses.

At a quarter past eight Loring came in. She heard him speak to the butler. Then he went to his own room. He came down in half an hour. Her heart swelled when she saw him.

He came over, took her hand loosely, and left a glancing kiss upon her cheek.

"You look fit.... Had a pleasant time?" he asked politely. Then in the same breath he added: "Jove! I'm hungry.... There's nothing like a good go at polo for making a chap keen on his tuck."

"Who won?" asked Sophy politely. She was dreadfully hurt; but she was proud also.

"Oh, our side.... We've been winning pretty steadily. Nipped the three last goals from under their noses."

They maintained a laboured conversation in the drawing-room until ten. Then she rose, saying that she thought as they were to leave for Newport next day, she would go to bed early. There was so much packing to see about. He rose, too, and held the door ceremoniously, while she passed out.

She went to her room with her heart aching and heavy.

Drawing aside one of the light muslin curtains, she stood at the window in her thin night-dress trying to refresh herself with a breath of outer air, even though it reeked of asphalt.

The door of her room opened and shut. She turned with a start. Morris was striding towards her, white of face and black of eyes. He wrapped her in a fierce hug. She was crushed against him so that it hurt her. His eyes were eating her face. They were hard, angry, yet burning with desire. It was almost the glare of hatred.

"I want you ... you're mine! How dare you keep me wanting you like this ... all these damnable weeks?"

Sophy stood rigid in his locked arms. That look in his eyes was awful to her.

"You hurt me, Morris ... let me go...." she said.

"No, I'll not let you go.... I'm master in this room...."

"Morris!"

"You'll take the consequences of making me hate you and love you at the same time! By God! you'll take the consequences...."

She felt very strong and cold—very fiercely cold all at once. Their eyes blazed on each other. They were like two enemies at grips rather than two lovers. Then his arms dropped. He laughed. He put up one hand over his face and went on laughing.

As soon as he released her, Sophy drew one or two long breaths. It really hurt her to breathe at first, so savagely had he crushed her to him. Then she stood watching him as he laughed. And he laughed and laughed.

Suddenly she went up to him, stole her two arms tenderly about him, drew his face with his hand still over it down to her shoulder.

"Oh, Morris ... Morris ... Morris...." she said.

He stopped laughing and began to shake.

"Endymion...." she whispered close to his ear.

He slid to his knees before her, burying his face in her gown.

They forgave each other before they slept. But deep down in Loring's heart there was resentment, albeit unrealised.

XVII

The routine was much as she remembered it as a girl—luncheons, dinner parties with dancing to follow at the hostess's house or some other—balls, fancy-balls, theatricals at the Casino—the usual fantastic, highly-coloured, sparkling Masque of Pleasure. It was agreeable enough for a week or two—but her heart failed when she thought of the whole summer—and many summers to follow—spent in this fashion. She was glad when August drew to its close, and nearly all the women had taken the pose of being tired or even ill, and not going out any more. Then she had some delightful, real country rides again with Morris. The Island was charming to explore. The golden-rod was beginning to blow in the fields. It made her long for Sweet-Waters. But she would not vex him with such an allusion.

"It's nice to have these quiet days together, isn't it?" she said, as he tied a great bunch of golden-rod to the dees of her saddle, and another to his own.

These quiet days at Newport did not last long, however. The Kron Prinz of Blauethürme arrived suddenly one day, practically unheralded. And presto!—all the weary and ailing became restored as by magic. The descent of His Royal Highness into the stagnant social waters was like the descent of the angel into the pool of Bethesda. He did but trouble the waters with his princely foot, and straightway all sufferers were restored to abounding and healthful vigour. The erstwhile exhausted ladies went scampering about like chipmunks. And the "society" journals, that had been mournfully pecking here and there for stray grains of interest, now fluttered triumphant with whole sheaves of "snapshots" and thrilling items.

Sophy winced to see a photograph of herself as frontispiece of a "smart" weekly. It had been taken as she crossed the lawn of the Casino with the Crown Prince. It was headed, "A Famous Beauty and a Foreign Prince." Underneath was written, "Mrs. Morris Loring walking with H. R. H. the Crown Prince of Blauethürme. Mrs. Loring is one of our most distinguished and chic young matrons. She entertains lavishly and brilliantly both at her unique town house in New York (said to be decorated by her own fair hands) and at her sumptuous summer palace in Newport. Mrs. Loring was formerly the wife of the Hon. Cecil Chesney, younger brother of Viscount Wychcote."

She tossed the paper to Morris with a grimace. "Look at that snobbish abomination!" she said. "How good Americans would love a King and Court all their own! It's a pity Washington didn't accept that crown they offered him...."

But she broke off, rather dismayed at Loring's extreme fury over the picture. She did not realise that what so enraged him was the allusion to her as "formerly the wife of the Hon. Cecil Chesney."

"Damn it!" he fumed. "How dare they take liberties with your name! You are my wife— I'll teach them to accept that fact for good and all!"

The thing rankled in him for days. Indeed Sophy had cause to remember the visit of the Crown Prince of Blauethürme in more ways than one; for there was a "stag dinner" given him towards the end of his stay at Newport, and Loring was one of the hosts. It is hard to leave a "stag dinner" in perfect equipoise of mind and body, especially when its chief guest is a Royalty who chooses to remain until dawn, and shows a truly regal prowess with the wine-cup. Loring returned at five o'clock and demanded to enter Sophy's room. She had locked the door. She came to it when she heard his voice, but refused to open it.

"Damn it! Do you turn me from your door like a beggar?" he called angrily, rattling the knob.

"Don't talk so loud, Morris.... You'll be dreadfully sorry for losing your temper like this to-morrow.... You'll be glad I wouldn't let you in...."

He was quite frantic.

"Some fine day you'll shut me out too often, my lady!" he raged at her.

"Morris! The servants will hear you. Do go!"

"All right. But you won't always be able to whistle me to heel when you want to.... I give you that straight."

He laughed coarsely. His state showed more in his laughter than in his speaking voice.

She had never known him as bad as this. Her very soul felt sick and faint under it. She heard him muttering as he went off along the corridor to his own room. She went back to bed trembling. She thought there must be some way to stop it. She sat there in the chill August dawn, thinking, thinking.

XVIII

Loring's ill humour lasted into the next day. He could not remember clearly what had caused it, but he knew that he was aggrieved with Sophy for something. It came to him while he was dressing. He did not get up until two o'clock that afternoon. His man served him some black coffee in his bedroom. As he gulped it between phases of his toilet, he remembered suddenly: "Locked me out of her room, by gad!"

His face burnt. He knew perfectly well that he had deserved to be locked out, but that did not make the crime any less heinous in his eyes.

He went downstairs in a still, molten frame of mind. The feeling of physical malaise only added to his mental irritation.

As he reached the hall, Bobby was just coming in from his afternoon walk with Rosa. He loved this walk with Rosa. She allowed him to do so many more delightful, interesting things than his French governess. For instance, Mademoiselle would never in the world have permitted him to pick up the dear, dirty, lame puppy that he was now squeezing to the breast of his white coat.

Loring looked down at the clean little boy and the dirty little dog with a displeased frown. Bobby met this frown with calm defiance, but his heart began to throb with apprehension for his "sick doggie."

"Where on earth did you get that filthy beast?" asked Loring.

"I found him," said Bobby.

"Well, you can't bring him into the house. In fact, you can't keep him at all," his step-father remarked grimly. "Put him down. I'll have one of the men clear him away."

"No," said Bobby.

"Put him down at once! What do you mean by saying 'No' when I tell you to do a thing?"

"I mean 'no,'" said Bobby.

"You impudent monkey!" said Loring, as peculiarly angry as only a child can make one. "Here—give me the brute this instant."

He grasped the dog by its nape—Bobby held it tightly about the stomach. The dog naturally howled.

"Let go, you little imp!" said Loring.

He gave another tug at the dog. It yelped again.

"Leggo my doggie! Leggo—man!" cried Bobby furiously.

For reply, Loring wrenched the puppy from him and held it yowling out of his reach. In a second the boy had thrown himself upon Loring's free hand, and silently, like a little bull-terrier himself, had set his small, crimped teeth in it.

Loring gave a savage cry of pain and anger, and dropping the puppy, which fled under a hall-chair, grabbed the boy. He prized open the furious little jaws. The child was white and red in patches with the extremity of his wrath. Loring pinioned him, and started towards the stairs. He was met by Sophy running down them. She was very pale.

"What's the matter? What are you doing with Bobby?" she asked. She held out her arms. "Give him to me," she said.

"Excuse me," said Loring. "This is our affair ... between Bobby and me. I'm going to teach him not to bite like a little cur!"

"Give him to me, Morris," she said, almost breathless. The child was restraining himself manfully. There was a smear of blood on his mouth from Loring's bitten hand. This smear turned Sophy's heart to water. She gasped out: "Oh!... You've hurt him ... his mouth's bleeding!"

"That's not his blood—little devil! It's my blood.... Your son must resemble his sainted father very closely," he added, with sudden savagery. "Let me by. It's time he had a lesson—and I'm going to give it to him, by God!"

But Sophy had her arms round Bobby. He was held fast by the four determined arms. His little smeared mouth was pressed tight. He was as white as Sophy now.

"Morris," she was saying in a low, quick voice, "I know how to deal with him. Let him come to me...."

"No. It's time a man took him in hand. Don't make a scene here in the hall."

"Give me my son...."

"Don't make a scene, I tell you. I'm not going to let a British brat stick his teeth in me with impunity. Take your hands off. Let me go!"

"You shall never strike him—never!"

"All this is so good for the boy, ain't it?"

"Do you want me to despise you?"

"I don't care what you do, so long as I give this little beggar a trouncing."

All this time the boy neither struggled nor uttered a sound. Suddenly he spoke. The tone was as if Cecil spoke out of the grave. It startled Sophy with reminiscence. It startled Loring by its sheer, concentrated maturity of scorn and hatred.

"Mother," came the low voice, "let him beat me. Then maybe you'll hate him, too...."

Loring stood a second, dumfounded, then he withdrew his arms sharply.

"Well I'm damned!" exclaimed the man, staring at the child who had spoken with all the condensed feeling of a man. Then he laughed suddenly—the bitter, sneering laugh that Sophy had come to dread. He turned on his heel.

"Take your little Chesney brute," he said as he turned away. "I guess he'll prove about as much a comfort as your big Chesney did!"

He sauntered out upon the sea-lawn, whistling.

But Bobby was both punished and brought to reason by his mother. It was easy to punish him far more effectively and severely than by a whipping. Bobby had sustained spankings from his earliest infancy with true British stoicism. What his mother did was to make him give the lame puppy to the gardener's little girl and provide her with five cents weekly out of his allowance of ten cents, for the puppy's maintenance. To induce him to apologise properly to his step-father was another matter. When Sophy told him that he must go to Loring and say that he was sorry for the dreadful thing that he had done, Bobby became mutinous.

"But I am not sorry," he protested. "I 'joyed biting him."

"It hurts mother to hear you say that—but that's not the question. What I hope my little boy is sorry for is for not having been a gentleman—for having behaved like a wild animal. Even the poor puppy behaved better than you did. He didn't bite like a little tiger...."

"I'd a bit bigger if I'd been a tagger," said Bobby thoughtfully. "I'd a bit his han' off, I reckon."

"That's not the question either. Aren't you sorry that you weren't a gentleman?"

Bobby pondered this. Finally he said:

"I'm very tangled inside of me, mother. I am sorry I didn't be a gentleman, but I am not sorry I bited him."

Sophy took a deep breath. She put a hand on either of her son's shoulders, and held him fixed in front of her.

"Now listen, Bobby," she said. "I won't have any more arguments. You are to go to Morris, at once, and say this: 'I am sorry I was so naughty and ungentlemanly. I beg your pardon.' Now go. Morris is out there on the lawn reading a paper. Go there and say those words straight out like a man."

Bobby gazed earnestly into her eyes, found something in their grey depths that always conquered him in the end, and turned soberly away.

He went and stood before Loring, his hands behind his back. His face was very red. His heart filled up his chest and scorched it so that he could scarcely speak.

"Hullo, little mad-dog," said Loring, looking at him over his paper. "Haven't they muzzled you yet? Keep your distance, please."

The boy looked stolidly at him.

"I've come to pollygise," he said.

"Oh, you have, have you? Suppose I don't accept your 'pollygy'?"

"Then I'll jus' have to leave it with you," said the boy haughtily. "This is it: 'I am sorry I didn't be a gentleman. I beg your pardon'—but mother made me do it," he added all in the same breath. Then he turned and walked swiftly away. His red curls were getting a beautiful copper-beech colour as he grew older. Loring, watching his retreat, wondered if Chesney had had that colour hair. The firm little nape with its "duck-tails" of purplish-red curls filled him with detestation. Bobby was going to be a huge man, like his father. He was as tall at six as most boys of eight.

"And he gets off with an apology!" thought Loring angrily. He was as severe in his ideas of the training of children as are most men who have been badly spoilt themselves. His hands fairly ached to whip Cecil Chesney's son.

But he was mollified when he found that the boy had been punished, in what Sophy assured him was a far more painful way than any mere whipping would have been.