Shadows of Flames: A Novel

XIX

It was after dinner one evening during the next winter. As usual, he had been drinking freely. This always made him either amorous or irritable. As she would not endure the amorousness, irritability invariably resulted. Sophy was by this time frankly unhappy. But no one guessed it—not even Loring. She had come to feel the full weight of that family remark: "Morry has such a strong will!" She had found that this will of his was far stronger than his love for her. Yet he loved her still. At times even the old feeling of worship gave him pause for an instant. But the steady drinking—cocktails before meals, whiskey-and-soda in between meals—dulled the edge of finer sentiment. And he resented passionately the disapproval that her very silence on the subject evinced.

At first she had spoken out to him about it—with affection, honestly, as one good friend might speak to another—but when she found how useless it was, she did not "nag." And she was never "superior" in her manner towards him.

However, no one, living in the close intimacy of marriage with another, can loathe a thing as Sophy loathed this constant tippling of her husband, without the offender being aware of that unexpressed detestation.

He grew quite callous about it as time went by, but during this second winter of their marriage it made him very ugly with her at times.

And Sophy had a bitter, ironic feeling when she faced the fact of this sordid, reduced replica of the tragedy of her first marriage. That had had the dignity of real peril, at least, but this brought her only the ignominy of acute discomfort and at times humiliation.

She suffered intensely. That he could not have understood this suffering, even had she explained it, made her sometimes a little over-proud and cold. He had his full share of the discomfort. In less exacting hands, he would have made a rather easy-going if utterly selfish husband. The climate of Olympus did not at all agree with his constitution. In the legend, it is said that Endymion, after his marriage with Selene, was cast out of Olympus by the wrathful Zeus, for making love to Hera. This lapse was probably caused by the too exacting standard that Selene held up to her earthly spouse.

But they clashed also in other ways. There was a certain strain of unconventionality in Sophy, that often outraged Loring's extreme conventionality of outlook. He had found it "swagger" and amusing that she should choose to embellish an old house in Washington Square, rather than follow the social bell-wether "up to the Park." That had been a "swell" attitude in its way. But there were certain unwritten laws of "smart" propriety, which to break, he felt, was to risk being ridiculous. He would have chosen death cheerfully at any time, rather than seem ridiculous. Sophy felt otherwise. As long as she herself did not consider what she did ridiculous, she did not think at all of the opinion of "society."

XX

But when the final realisation came, Sophy felt as if life were over for her. Love had seemed the only real life; now love was over. She sat alone in her bedroom one night, thinking: "Love is over ... love is over...." She felt such anguish at this thought as drove her to her feet. She went and stood at her window, looking out at the bare trees in the Square and the cross of electric lights against the sky, made dark purple by contrast with the orange glow. She felt as if it were too much to bear—this second terrible mistake. And yet, what escape was there? It seemed to her that there was no escape. Her misery was all the more terrible because life had given her a second chance, as it were—and for a second time she had built her House of Love upon the sands. Vain regret stole over her like lava. It spread barrenness. Once more her creative gift lay strangled under the ashes of her own mistake.

She thought: "This is age—this devastated feeling. I am really old now. I am only thirty-two, but I could not feel older in spirit if I were eighty."

Her affection for him only made this death of deeper love more terrible. As in a pale shadow-play, she saw her shadow-self, repeating the rôle that she had once enacted in a more vivid drama—the rôle of wife to a man whom she had ceased to love, but towards whom she felt a compassionate affection. There is no part in the tragi-comedy of life that requires such terrific powers of acting.

And to this exigent demand was added the pang of self-ridicule. Life had given her the talisman of experience to guard her—and this was what she had done with it. She blushed hot, remembering suddenly the love-songs that she had written when he was in Florida. It was anguish to think that what she had believed with all her being was only a love-sick fancy.

She stood thinking, her eyes on the cross of electric lights. She stared at it so long that when she looked away it shone green on the purple dusk—a cross of glow-worms.

She thought of Richard Garnett's words: "Then is Love blessed, when from the cup of the body he drinks the wine of the soul." This had been her dream of love—twice over. But from the cup of the body she had drunk only the gall of the senses. And, again and again, she went back in wondering memory to that time of beglamourment. The words of the first sonnet she had ever sent him, painted it clearly. Line by line, the sonnet came back to her:

"After long years of slowly starved desire,
Within this shell of me myself lay sped:
My life was wrought of birthdays of the dead;
I slept on graves. You came. My spirit's fire
Leapt into light and showed Despair a liar:
You came—and all Death's ashen wine blushed red.
Your eyes drank mine: I trembled—not with dread,
But like a lute-string sharply tuned higher.

"—And I am mocked by wistful dreams of old,
As winter by a bright mirage of flowers.
My vanished Spring lives in your eyes' dear blue.
My maiden faith is by your lips retold—
Long, long ago drained out my purple hours—
Lo! in your hand Love's hour-glass brimmed anew!"

Despite all her idealism, however, Sophy had that sort of dogged courage which sets its teeth and digs in the bed-rock of life for hid lessons. She did not intend to go dolefully inert like the poor wights in the Hall of Eblis, with her hand always over the flame of pain in her heart. "Very well," she addressed Life in her thought. "You have done this to me. Now what is your meaning? I am not one of those who think your doings like the 'tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' I believe your grimmest practical jokes have an inner meaning. Why did you cheat me with love a second time? Why, when I had given up all thought of love, and won a tranquil, clear content of spirit, did you send love to trample my secret garden like a dark angel in a whirlwind?"

She came to the conclusion that life means something vaster and more splendid than a restored Eden, where one man and one woman walk together guarded in their blissful isolation by the flaming sword of selfishness. "Come forth of that!" thunders the Voice that is not one love but All Love. And so Life hales us by the hair, out of our little palaces of dreams. And we are driven naked into the desert of reality. And when we have read aright what is written in the desert sands—behold! the desert blossoms like the rose.

But this writing was not yet clear to Sophy. She toiled through the hot, clogging sands, and what was traced upon them seemed to her only the wanton hieroglyphics of the wind ... the wild wind that blew men and women hither and thither like rootless stalks. Yet she believed in this vaster and more splendid meaning that Life kept hidden, under all its dark pranks and sardonic jesting. She imagined Life, in those days, as a huge, Afrit clown, under whose motley is secreted the Seal of Solomon. If one could but survive the horrid rough-and-tumble of his sinister game, one would be able, in the end, to snatch away the magic seal at whose touch all mysteries open.

That spring brought a new difficulty. Lady Wychcote's letters on the subject of seeing her grandson had become very pressing of late. In February she had been quite ill. Now in her convalescence she wrote more urgently than ever, saying that she felt she had a right to ask that her only grandchild should not be kept away from her any longer. She asked (her request was almost in the form of a demand) that Sophy would bring Cecil's son to England some time during that spring or summer. Sophy felt the justice of this request. She felt that she owed its fulfilment to Cecil's mother—that she really had no right to keep Bobby apart from her indefinitely.

And yet, when she thought of a visit to England and all that it involved, she winced from it in her most secret fibres.

XXI

But what filled her with the keenest dread of all, when facing the possibility of Morris's going with her, was the fact of his constant drinking. Here in America it was the custom of his class and set. But there—no. Some Englishmen were "hard drinkers," certainly—but it was the exception and not the rule.

But then again—perhaps all this anxiety on her part was quite useless. Most probably Morris would dislike the idea of spending a month in England, just when polo on Long Island was at its best. She determined to put it to him that evening. She did so as they drove home from the opera.

He lowered at first, then suddenly became amiable. Sophy's heart sank.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, laughing. "Now that I think of it, I rather like the idea. It will be bully fun showing you off to those highbrow Britishers as Mrs. Morris Loring of New York!— I've had it rubbed in on the raw often enough, that you were formerly 'the Honourable Mrs. Cecil Chesney.'"

They sailed for England on the last day of April. Loring was in his best mood. Sophy felt as if in a queer spiritual catalepsy. It was as if Destiny had clutched her in a numbing grasp and bundled her hither and thither against her will.

Lady Wychcote was settled in her house in Carlton Gardens for the Season, and the morning after Sophy's arrival she took Bobby to see his grandmother. Her ladyship's face had aged somewhat, but her figure was as young as ever. She came forward with hand extended, and said "How d'ye do?" as though she and Sophy had parted only yesterday. Then she sat down and drew Bobby to her knees.

"So you are Robert Chesney, eh?" she asked.

The boy looked up into her face.

"Yes, grandmother," he said gravely.

"And of what are you thinking when you stare at me with such solemn eyes?" she went on, trying to smile and speak naturally. There was something in the boy's whole air and appearance so like his father that she was much shaken by it.

Bobby had one of those direct impulses of childhood that resemble inspiration.

"I was thinking that you're a quite young lady to be a grandmother," he replied politely.

This was the beginning of a real friendship between the two, for Lady Wychcote also had an inspiration. She rose abruptly, went to her escritoire, and unlocking a little drawer, took out a small parcel wrapped in silver paper.

"Robert," she said, "I think that what I'm going to give you will please you very much." And now a very human, kindly smile flickered over her thin lips as she added: "At least, it would please me if I were a little boy. It's dangerous, it's real, and it's something a real man has used."

Bobby took it from her. His face went pale with excitement. His fingers fumbled over the wrapping in his eagerness.

"Is it ... is it ... a spear?" he managed.

"A good guess," said his grandmother; "but not quite right...."

Then the last layer of paper came away, and in his hands was a little Arab dagger, in a sheath crusted with coral and turquoise. He went red now—and when he drew out the blade, and saw that it was indeed real and dangerous, he had a breathless moment of utter stillness, then turned and threw himself into Lady Wychcote's arms.

"Oh, thank you ... thank you!" he cried. "I think you must be the most splendid grandmother in the world!"

"It was your father's, when he was a lad ... like you," she murmured rather indistinctly. As so often happens in life, the recrudescence of maternal feeling for this grandson was stronger than what she had originally felt for her own sons.

Sophy was relieved and glad over the turn that things had taken. She had feared that the two strong wills might clash in some unfortunate way, even at first.

When, later, Lady Wychcote suggested that the boy had "rather an American accent," and that an English tutor would, in her opinion, be "advisable," Sophy acquiesced at once and said that she intended going to Oxford to consult Cecil's old tutor, Mr. Greyson, on the subject.

That same afternoon, Gerald called at Claridge's to see Sophy and his nephew. Bobby approved of his Uncle Gerald. Not so Loring, who came in a few minutes before Lord Wychcote left.

"Great Scott! What a 'lemon'!" he exclaimed, as the door closed. "I guess Bobby will be a lord some day all right-o."

"Ah, please don't, Morris!" Sophy said. "Gerald is one of the best friends I've ever had."

"'Friend'!" cried Loring, going into peals of laughter. "'Friend' is good. Why, he's so gone on you that a blind man could see it. Lemon-Squash—that's what he is. He's so sweet on you he isn't just plain lemon."

And from that hour, Loring never alluded to Gerald Wychcote as anything but "Lemon-Squash."

As soon as she knew that Sophy was in England, Olive Arundel rushed to see her. She was really fond of Sophy. It made not the slightest difference that they had exchanged only four or five letters in six years. The old friendship was taken up exactly where it had been dropped through force of circumstance. So it was with all of Sophy's other friendships. English people are like this. It is one of their most delightful traits.

But Olive was frankly curious about Loring. She was dying to see him, she said. She was so keen to see the man that had made Sophy forget her "twagic life with poor, dear Cecil."

Sophy flushed and laughed a little too. And she felt also like weeping. Olive brought the past to her more vividly than anything had done as yet—even her meeting with Lady Wychcote. She had changed very little. Her figure and face were both fuller, but still very lovely. She used as many gestures, as much perfume, as ever—yet she was every inch a lady—even a great lady.

Sophy asked about John Arundel and his "career."

"Oh, my dear Sophy!" cried his wife. "Don't mention the word 'Caweer' to me.... You American women are so fortunate in not having to sit up night and day with your husbands' 'Caweers.' Why, even on our honeymoon Jack carried along those howid red-boxes! For hours he'd shut himself up alone with them.... But thanks, dear—he's getting along nicely—he and his 'Caweer.' Ouf! what a dull year this has been in Parliament! The only interesting things have taken place in foreign parts, and the House of Commons never takes much interest in foreign and colonial affairs, you know. It loves to get wrought up over home questions—party rows, and that sort of thing. Fancy what it's been like when all they've had to debate over—poor dears!—was Vaccination and Calf-lymph and the Benefices Bill!"

Oh, how strange it seemed to Sophy, thus to be sitting and listening to Olive's political "patter"! Before she knew it, a whole world of thought had risen about her, as at the rubbing of a magic lamp. Olive rose at last, saying:

"It's really too bad of your Pwince Charming not to come in while I'm here. But I'll see him at dinner to-morrow. I'm so glad, my Sweet, that you're happy at last!"

She embraced Sophy twice, kissed her impulsively, and was gone.

"Happy at last!"

Sophy stood where Olive had left her—moving her slim shoe slightly from side to side. She gazed at the hotel carpet which was strewn with little grey roses. She counted those that lay near her feet. First from left to right, then from right to left. As long as she counted carefully, she could not think clearly. She did not want to think clearly. She felt as though buried alive under a glittering wreck. It was the palace of her own life that had crumbled about her. She was cramped in a tiny space. Air came to her through chinks in the shattered fabric. Food was passed to her through these interstices. But she must crouch very still in one position till she died....

XXII

The first part of her stay in England was more endurable, however, than she had thought possible. Loring was rather subdued by the "highbrows," though he carried it off in private to her with an air of indulgent toleration for the "fool ceremoniousness" of an "effete" civilisation. The greater number of her friends and acquaintances he characterised as "lemons." He said there was not a "shred of snap or go in the whole bunch of them," that they made him long to "yowl" and fire off pistols in Piccadilly. One exception he made, however, in favour of the Premier. "Fine old boy," he said. "Can't exactly call him a lemon ... but he leans that way. I guess I'll have to class him as a citron—a rarer product of the lemon variety, you know."

It is not only the husband who feels a sense of responsibility in marriage. This feeling of being responsible for Loring as the man whom she had chosen for her mate out of all the world, after such a dire first marriage, kept Sophy taut with apprehension. Every time that they went out together she was in nervous dread lest he should "bust loose," as he sometimes threatened, and take some undue liberty of speech with one of the "highbrows" that so oppressed him. One thing, however, gave her great comfort: It was that he was careful not to drink too freely. The "pomp and circumstance" that bored him to extinction had at least the good effect of restraining him in this respect, and his male-pride could not but glow pleasantly at the way in which he found his wife considered. And he was immensely gratified—until one day it occurred to him that he was being assigned the rôle of "Mrs. Loring's husband." Then in a burst of inner resentment he determined to shake himself free of the singular spell which great names and personages had cast over his usual spirits, and "be himself." His mood became aggressively American. "Old Glory" seemed to fill his blood with stars. He had had enough of doing in Britain as the Britons did. He began to take whiskey-and-soda between meals, just as in New York. When they dined out, he had a cocktail at the hotel before leaving. But though Sophy saw this with a quailing heart, he did not go beyond bounds, as at home, only the return to customary uses made his spirits soar and rendered him rather garrulous at times. Still, Loring was no fool. The fount of talk thus loosened had a certain crude and pungent novelty that diverted the soberer English very much. He found his new rôle vastly diverting himself. He thought it "bully fun" to "poke up the highbrows." But Sophy writhed, for she saw clearly what did not even glimmer on his consciousness—the fact that the "highbrows" oftener laughed at than with him. She tried on one occasion to make him realise this without offending him. But she need not have troubled as to how he would regard her suggestion. He took it with lordly superiority.

"Bless you, Goddess! ... you don't know your own little old British world a bit! 'Laugh at me'? Why not? I mean 'em to. I bust panes in their old window-sash of conventions and let in God's outer air! I'm the cyclone-blast from Columbia's fresh and verdant shore! They like it, you squeamish dear—they like it! I beard the British lion in his den and he purrs!"

Sophy had said, laughing helplessly:

"I'm afraid that when a lion 'purrs' it's really a sort of growling."

"Never you fear! Just you leave it to me, Old Thing!" Loring had replied easily.

This bit of slang endearment which he had picked up of late grated on Sophy, until it was almost impossible for her to keep from flashing out at him when he used it. She said nothing, however, reflecting that the reason she so detested it was probably because she was too "old" to enjoy being called "old" in fun.

It was during Ascot week which they spent with the Arundels at their place on the River that Loring surpassed himself in his game of "poking up the highbrows." It was at luncheon. There were about twenty people present—some very important Personages among them. Loring was feeling especially "full of beans." A famous beauty had coaxed him into making "American drinks" for the whole party before luncheon. She thought them "ripping"! She was a very sporting beauty, and Loring was enjoying himself, what with the races and one thing and another, more than he had believed it possible to enjoy one's self in England away from the 'Shires in the hunting season. The American cocktails had a succès de curiosité. Loring, himself, took two. At luncheon he was in high feather. The beauty egged him on. He began to give thumb-nail sketches of the characters of those present. Sophy's sensations were indescribable. Not a "highbrow" did her husband spare. In pithy, American slang he set forth, amid the laughter even of the victims themselves, what he considered their chief characteristics. Nimbly piling Ossa on Pelion, he capped the whole with Vesuvius, by pointing a finger at a stern, iron-clad, reserved and venerable member of the Opposition, and announcing: "You do the benevolent patriarch act to a T; but deep down—gad!—you're foxy!"

The "benevolent patriarch" himself, after a gleam of surprise such as might have stirred the countenance of Moses, had a gentile youth suddenly made a pied de nez at him, gazed inscrutably. The table rocked with suppressed and somewhat scared laughter. Sophy felt bathed in flame. She knew that Majesty itself would not have adopted a jesting tone with the Being whom Loring had just called "foxy." That this Superior Being in all probability was "foxy" did not at all mend matters.

She had stayed on for Ascot week because Loring had wished it. She now determined to return to America as soon as possible. She had never suffered in just this way before. She found it almost as excruciating as the death of love had been. She marvelled at the endless variety of pain.

That night Olive came to her bedroom for a private chat. She had slipped on a dressing-gown and brought her cigarette-case with her, so Sophy knew that she had "things on her mind" which she meant to unburden.

She lounged in an armchair and smoked while Sophy's maid finished brushing her hair. When the girl had left the room, Olive looked at her with affectionate but keen curiosity, and said abruptly:

"Sophy, you must forgive me, because I'm so vewy fond of you—but ... are you weally as happy as I want you to be?"

Sophy returned her look quietly.

"Who is really happy?" she said.

"Well ... I am ... at times," replied Olive.

Sophy couldn't help smiling. She knew that this "at times" meant when Olive was deep in some love-affair.

"Is this one of the times, dear?" she asked lightly, hoping to change the subject.

Olive nodded, making little rings of smoke with the lips that were still so smooth and fresh—though she had a big girl of sixteen.

"It's because I'm so happy myself that I want you to be happy, too, darling," she murmured.

"It takes such different things to make different people happy, Olive, dear."

"Oh, love makes evwybody happy—while it lasts!"

"Yes—while it lasts."

Olive crushed out her cigarette thoughtfully. Then she said in a musing voice:

"Isn't it atwocious of it not to last?"

Sophy had to laugh out for all her sore heart.

"Very atrocious," she admitted.

"Just suppose one could contwol love," Olive continued, still in that musing voice. "What a divine place the world would be! Evwybody would be happy all the time, then. Nobody would be bored—nobody would divorce—nobody would be disagweeable."

"Nobody would need a God or a philosophy," supplemented Sophy.

"But as it is, they are most necessary," said Olive seriously. "Which is it with you, Sophy?"

"Both," replied Sophy. She was not smiling now.

"With me," said Olive, "it's first one and then the other. I'm afraid I've a very fwivolous nature, Sophy. I can't seem to keep to one thing, all the time. But you, now...."

She gazed again at Sophy with that affectionate, meditative curiosity.

"You seem made for a gwande passion, Sophy. And yet...." She hesitated; then went on quickly: "Now do forgive me ... but, somehow, I don't feel as if you'd found it ... even now."

This "even now" sent the blood to Sophy's face. She sat very still, looking at the monogram on one of the brushes with which she had been playing as Olive talked.

"Are you vexed, darling? You mustn't be vexed. It's only because I'm so twuly fond of you. Now Mr. Loring is awfully nice, and immensely good-looking, and ... and all that. But...." She hesitated again, then went on as before: "The twuth is, Sophy—that he's much more the sort of man I might fancy, than your sort. He's ... he's ... you see, he stwikes me as too fwivolous for you, you sewious darling!"

Sophy said, in a flat, tired voice:

"Don't you mean he's too—young for me, Olive?"

"Oh, no! No, darling! Fancy! How widiculous!" Her tone was the acme of sincerity. "I never had such an absurd thought for one moment! I only meant that he's ... well ... a bit larky for any one like you. And ... and ... he's so ... so twemendously Amewican ... and you aren't, you know...."

"Yes," said Sophy wearily. She wished with all her might that Olive would go away. She was very fond of her, but she didn't like even those kindly little fingers fumbling at the latch of her heart. She wanted to be alone—in the dark.

"Were you desperwately in love with him, Sophy?"

This "were you" hurt almost as much as the "even now" had done. Was her state of mind so apparent, then, that even affectionate but flighty Olive had divined it?

She got up, and went round the room as though in search of something. As she moved about, she said casually:

"Dear Olive, do you think I would have married again if I hadn't been very much in love?"

"No. Of course not," replied the other absently. She had not at all said what she had come to say. Suddenly she too rose, and went over to Sophy. She flipped an arm about her shoulders.

"Darling," she said. "You are so wowwied.... I can't bear it!... I know perfectly well what's wowwying you.... The fact is Jack and I talked it over before I came in here just now.... I'm going to be perfectly fwank.... May I?"

"Yes ... do ... please," said Sophy. She was pale now. She had felt something of what was coming as soon as Olive mentioned John Arundel. "Go on, Olive ... please do. I beg you to," she urged, as the other still hesitated.

"Well, then, my sweet—would you like Jack to speak to Mr. Loring—oh, vewy tactfully, of course! ... but just make him understand, you know, that one doesn't ... that it isn't ... customawy ... for people to joke ... er ... in that way ... with ... er ... personages like Mr...."

But Sophy broke in on her. She felt that she could not bear the sound of the overwhelming name whose owner Loring had called "foxy" to his august countenance.

"Yes, yes ... do!" she said hurriedly. "I'll take it as an act of the greatest kindness and friendship on Jack's part. Tell him so from me. You see, Morris is so young and so ... so 'American,' as you said." She forced a smile. "The bump of reverence isn't much cultivated in my native land, you know...."

"I know," said Olive soothingly. "But we weally make allowances for that, you know. It isn't at all as if an Englishman had called that old gwandeur 'foxy.' You see, Amewicans think so vewy differently from what we do." She was rattling on in her affectionate desire to mitigate Sophy's mortification by showing her a comprehending sympathy. "Why, I knew the most charming young Amewican girl once ... and she told me, as a gweat joke, that when she was pwesented to the Pwincess Louise, she said: 'Hello!'... Now, you see, she weally thought that was funny—and what Amewicans call 'smart.' You see, it's just the different point of view, darling. And we all understand that. I'm sure that Mr...."

"Never mind, Olive," Sophy broke in again. "If Jack will make Morris understand ... that such things aren't done ... I'll be very grateful. More grateful than I can say."

Olive was more thoughtful than ever as she returned to her own room. She stood in a brown study for some moments when she reached it, then went and tapped on the door of her husband's dressing-room.

It was nearly one o'clock, and, attired in his pyjamas, he was swinging a light pair of Indian clubs before going to bed. He put them down as his wife entered and said:

"How did it come off? Awkward thing to do—eh? Was she huffy?"

"'Huffy'!... She was a Sewaph!... Oh, Jack"—she dropped limply upon a chair-arm—"it's twagic!"

"I felt tragic enough at luncheon, that's certain," replied he grimly. "But what's tragic now?... If Sophy wasn't offended by your suggestion? You really made it, I suppose?"

"Yes. I did," said Olive curtly. "But I'm not thinking of that any longer—I'm thinking of Sophy. I'd so hoped she was happy this time!... But she isn't ... she isn't...."

"How could she be ... married to a young bounder like that?" asked Arundel.

Olive shook her head.

"No, Jack. He's not a bounder ... that's what's so puzzling. There's something w'ong with him—but he's weally not a bounder...."

"Well, no ... perhaps not," admitted he grudgingly.

"But there's certainly something damned 'wrong' with him."

"Yes. And Sophy knows it as well as we do ... only she has to pwetend not to. Now isn't that twagic?"

"Yes. Hard lines ... poor girl!..." said Arundel. He had always been very fond of Sophy. "First she gets a Bedlamite like Chesney—then this ... this lurid Yankee."

Olive began giggling in spite of her genuine concern. "Lurid Yankee" seemed to her so exquisitely fitting an epithet. But she stopped as suddenly as she had begun.

"What is w'ong with him, Jack?" she took it up, deeply pondering once more. "You're a man ... you ought to be able to say at once."

Arundel pondered also.

"Perhaps it's a form of National swagger," he ventured at last. "That sort of way they have of implying 'I'm as good as a king, and better, damn your eyes!' It's odd to me that an American of this type will condescend to bend his knees in prayer. They'd call up the Lord over a telephone wire if they could."

"Maybe it's the way they're brought up, Jack."

"Oh, they aren't 'brought up'!"

"Well, then ... maybe it's that."

Olive's heart was sore for her friend. She was as loyal in her friendships as she was fickle in her loves. She lay long awake as she had predicted, thinking it all over.

"Sophy ought to have made a gweat match, with her gifts and charm and beauty," she reflected sadly. "And she goes and mawwies that howidly handsome boy."

Just as she was drowsing off, however, a consoling thought occurred to her:

"But he must have made divine love!" she reflected, smiling. And this smile lay prettily on her lips as she slept. To be "made divine love to" was, in Olive's creed, compensation for most of the ills of life.

XXIII

John Arundel was quite as "tactful" in speaking to Loring as he had assured his wife that he would be. He merely took advantage of the first opening and said in a by-the-way-my-dear-chap tone that a certain guest then at Everstone was accustomed to a rather exaggerated homage, and might, he feared, take umbrage if too often jested with. He said that lions, especially aged lions, were not noted for their sense of humour. He alluded to the fact that no less an one than Huxley had once ventured to be playful in replying to the Personage in question, and had received only a thunderous roar in return. That, in fact, the Personage had never pardoned the Scientist for venturing to use irony in this discussion. It was all said in the most casual way, and interspersed with amusing examples of the Personage's unyielding sense of his own not-to-be-trifled-with dignity. But Loring was very quick at taking veiled meanings. He himself had feared that he had gone just a bit too far on that occasion. Now he was sure of it. He gave no sign, but a mortified resentment smouldered in him. He detested John Arundel. He would have liked to blurt some rudeness and leave his house on the instant. This civil, middle-aged Englishman reading him a lesson on behaviour in the guise of anecdotes that characterised the peculiarities of the celebrity whom he, Loring, had made too free with, filled him with fierce indignation. His helpless wrath was trebled by the fact that John Arundel was in the right, and managing a difficult thing with consummate good-breeding. He had not been so angry in just such a way since, when a boy of ten, his youngest uncle had boxed his ears for speaking impertinently to his grandmother.

Pride kept him from mentioning the matter to Sophy, however. He only said the next time that he saw her alone that he "guessed he'd had about enough of the Lemon-groves of England, and would she please get a move on for 'Home, sweet home.'"

Sophy knew from this speech that John Arundel had uttered the "word" suggested by Olive. She also knew, from the harsh slang in which Loring addressed her, that he was deeply incensed. He always used this sort of language when irritated. But she gave no more sign of her real feeling to him than he had given of his to Arundel. What was the use? She was only too glad, too relieved, to be returning to America at short notice. England seemed strange and distorted to her, viewed through the mental atmosphere in which she now moved, like a familiar landscape changed by the alchemy of an evil dream.

Sophy found a letter from Mrs. Loring awaiting her in New York. The poor lady was at Nahant suffering from an acute attack of arthritis, with a trained nurse in attendance.

As always, Loring was very restless and ill-at-ease in the presence of sickness. He darted gingerly in and out of the sick-room twice a day, like a nervous terrier investigating a thorny hedge-row. Mrs. Loring was sweetly grateful for these flitting visits.

"Morry is always so dear and unselfish about telling me good morning and good night when I am ill!" she said to Sophy. "He has always had a horror of illness since his earliest childhood."

Sophy looked at her with wonder, and with a pitying regret. She recalled Spencer's chapter on "Egoism versus Altruism." She thought how well it would have been for Mrs. Loring and Morris, had his mother marked, learned, and inwardly digested that chapter.

Mrs. Loring said that her chief regret at being ill just at present, however, was that Eleanor and Belinda were arriving from France to-morrow. "You see, this was to be Belinda's 'coming-out' season at Newport, and I'm afraid Eleanor won't go to open the house without me. She is very much attached to me," the poor lady ended, with restrained pride. "I'm afraid she won't consent to leave me until I'm well again."

"I should think not!" exclaimed Sophy warmly. "And I shan't leave you, either, until you're far better than you are now."

"Thanks, my dear. That is very, very sweet of you. But," she added anxiously, "don't let Morry get an idea that I think I've any claim on you. You know what was said: 'Forsaking father and mother'—I wouldn't have my boy think that I would take his wife away from him, even for a day, for my selfish pleasure."

"Oh, dear Mrs. Loring!" cried Sophy. Both affection and exasperation were in her voice. She put her cheek down against the long, feverish hands. She wanted to shake and to "cuddle" the suffering lady at one and the same time.

"You're a very sweet woman, my dear," said Grace Loring faintly. "I assure you, I appreciate it that Morry has such a wife as you. He was always so difficult. If only Eleanor would be sensible and take Belinda to Newport. The child will be so disappointed! I confess this worries me very much."

"But, dear Mrs. Loring, why should you worry? Even if Mrs. Horton won't be a selfish pig and leave you here to suffer all by yourself? It's so perfectly simple. Belinda can come to us."

"Would you?... Really?..."

Mrs. Loring had ventured to hope for this solution once—but the fear that "Morry" might find it annoying had made her repress it. She now added quickly:

"But you would have to find out—tactfully, my dear—indirectly, as it were—whether Morry would object in any way."

"Why should Morris object, if I don't?" asked Sophy, a little brusquely.

"Ah, my dear ... men are very peculiar!" sighed Mrs. Loring, in reply to this question. This phrase summed up her entire view of sexual questions. Men were "very peculiar." All her married life had been spent in adapting herself to the "peculiarities," first of her husband, then of her son.

Sophy felt that all argument would be quite useless.

"I don't think Morris will mind at all," she said, in another voice. "It's always gay and pleasant having a beautiful débutante in one's house. It will make me really feel the 'young matron' that our journals call me. Have you any photos of Belinda since last year? She was very handsome then. She must be still prettier now."

"Eleanor sent me one taken of them together, about two weeks ago. It's there—in my writing-table. The left-hand upper drawer...."

Sophy found the photograph, and took it to the window. Mrs. Horton was seated, with Belinda standing just behind her. The photo showed how tall the girl was—as tall as herself, Sophy thought she must be. And it gave also the buoyant pose of her head, and fine athletic shoulders. But no photograph could even indicate Belinda's extraordinary colouring or the vivid mobility of her expression—and her beauty was largely a matter of colouring and expression. Still, Sophy thought her very handsome indeed.

When she told Morris that evening about her idea of having Belinda stop with them in Newport, he looked startled at first, then glum. The fact was, the memory of that kiss of two years ago "upset" him (as he would have expressed it) whenever it was recalled to his mind. He had always thought Belinda "a bit cracked." One never knew what she was going to say or do next. The prospect of Belinda established upon his hearthstone did not at all appeal to him.

"Oh, Lord! Why the devil did my mother have to choose the Newport season for a spell of rheumatics?" he said crossly.

Sophy looked at him with real curiosity in her eyes. Then a desire which she had long felt and often repressed got the better of her.

"Morris," she said, "has it ever occurred to you that you are very selfish to your mother?"

"I?.... Selfish ... to my mother?"

"Yes."

"'Selfish'?"

"Yes, really."

Loring exhaled a long breath.

"Well, I like that!" he remarked at last. "You do have the queerest notions, Goddess. It seems to me I've done nothing for years but hike down here to this rotten old place, just when I wanted to be doing something else ... merely to please my mother—and now you calmly suggest that I'm selfish to her!"

"And how long do you stay?"

"Why, you know as well as I do. A fortnight. A great deal longer than I like staying, I can assure you!"

"Two weeks out of every year...." said Sophy musingly. "It is a good deal of time to spare a mother...."

Her eyes were dancing. She could not help it. He looked such a picture of injured innocence.

Loring was utterly unabashed.

"It's really rather a shame of you, Sophy, to say I'm selfish to my mother. You'd better not let her hear you say it— I'll give you that tip!"

"Don't worry. She'll never, never hear me say it. She'd be just as astounded and outraged as you are, I'm sure—even more so."

Loring had to let it go at that. He contented himself with growling sulkily:

"What all this has got to do with that little half-tamed leopardess being quartered on us at Newport, I'm blessed if I can see...."

"Only that it would please your mother immensely and take a great load off her mind."

"Suppose you don't like the girl when you see her? She's as wild as a hawk—or was two years ago."

"A leopardess and a hawk—that sounds interesting. I don't mind anything but bad-temper."

"Oh, she's good-tempered enough when she's not riled. But a girl like Belinda's a devilish responsibility. I don't take kindly to the notion, I'm free to confess."

"Don't you like her?"

"Ye-es," he admitted grudgingly. "It's only that she's such a handful."

"Well—we can but try it," said Sophy thoughtfully. She gave him one of her warm, friendly smiles. "There's really nothing else for us to do, Morris," she said. "Mrs. Horton can always be sent for if we can't manage her. But perhaps she'll like me. Perhaps she won't be wilful and wrong-headed at all. You see, eighteen is very different from sixteen."

Morris made a remark that was psychologically profounder than he knew.

"The Belinda sort never get 'different'; they only get more so...." he said. "But I see your mind's made up.... Go ahead.... I only hope we shan't both regret it."

XXIV

Belinda and her mother arrived at Nahant late in the afternoon of next day. Sophy had tea waiting for them. When she had greeted Mrs. Horton, and that lady moved aside to make way for her step-daughter, Sophy flinched a little just as one does when sunlight is flashed suddenly in one's eyes from a mirror. There was really a glare of beauty from Belinda. Her skin and eyes seemed to give out light rather than to reflect it.

She was dressed in silky, red-brown linen. Under the wide, turnover collar of her white blouse was a loosely-knotted tie of purple. A purple toque pressed her autumn-tinted hair against her jet-black eyebrows. Her skin was like nacre, her lips like petunia petals.

Looking at her, Sophy felt sure that if souls could have colour, Belinda's soul was a brilliant purple, like stained glass—like the tie that rose and fell with her splendid young breast as a moth sways with a flower.

Belinda gave her hand to Sophy in silence. Her eyes were as busy with Sophy as Sophy's with her. Belinda had peculiar eyes. They could be as dense and impenetrable under her thick, white lids, as glossy red-brown nuts shining from between the white lining of their hulls. Again, they could throw out garnet sparkles and become limpid as wine. They had their dense, horse-chestnut gloss as they regarded Sophy.

"What an extraordinary-looking girl!" Sophy thought.

Belinda was thinking:

"Yes ... she's beautiful ... but I bet she's an icicle when Morry's blazing...."

Why she thought this, she could not have said. But she felt sure of it. And it comforted her. She was so convinced of her "right" to Morris that she regarded Sophy, not exactly as a wilful thief, but as a receiver of stolen goods. Morris had stolen himself from her (Belinda), in a manner of speaking, and Sophy had accepted this gift which he had no right to make. Belinda was fair-minded. It was not Sophy's fault, because though she had received stolen goods she had received them unwittingly. Morris was the culprit. Belinda had long solaced herself with the thought of how delightful would be the task of meting him his just punishment. Now she looked at Sophy and wondered. She was wondering how this strain of coldness that she felt in her rival affected Morry. And she clenched herself against Sophy's beauty; for she did not belittle it, though she thought it cold. But she had no real fear of it. Was she not eighteen and this woman thirty-two—or nearly thirty-two? Belinda felt youth to her hand like a bright sword. For two years she had been muttering as she fell asleep, and as she waked: "Morry shall divorce her and marry me." That kiss had sealed her his, and made him hers. She was unusual in that she was lawless in method, but worked to law-abiding ends.

She had not the least idea of throwing her cap over the windmill for Morry. She meant to keep house with him in the windmill and pay all proper taxes on the grist it ground for them. It would be hard to find a more determined character than Belinda. She had the sort of will that decides to accomplish an object without bothering in the least about ways and means. She had, as it were, the religion of the Will. She would be inspired, she felt sure, in just the right way at just the right moment. She had the faith that not only counts on removing mountains into the sea, but depends on the sea's extinguishing them if they chance to be volcanoes and their peaks left unsubmerged.

She thought of her own passionate love for Morris as a sea into which many mountains might be cast and overwhelmed. There would come the destined moment—the tidal wave would rush gloriously inland. All would be swept clear—a bare, clean space whereon she would build their palace of delights.

Belinda was one of the women-children who are born knowing things. She came of Lilith rather than of Eve. She had no low curiosities, because from the beginning she seemed to have been aware of everything. A wise Brahman looking on her would have seen the latest incarnation of some fearless Courtesan, destined in this particular existence to aspire to the domestication of her lawlessness. For some past deed of mercy on her part, the Lords of Karma had decreed that in this life respectability should be the modest guiding-star of her wayward feet. For though Belinda would always be in spirit her lover's mistress, she had no faintest idea of being other than his wife in the eyes of the world.

So she looked at Sophy, and wondered how much she really loved Morry. She was sorry for her, in a way, but this emotion of indulgent compassion did not render her a whit less implacable.

And Sophy, observing her closely, tried to analyse the strange effect that the girl had upon her. She felt a powerful force emanating from the whole scintillant young figure—yet she felt as strongly that, for her at least, Belinda had not "charm."

But then Belinda did not have charm for other women. She was essentially, from her cradle, the type of "man's woman" in one of its completest forms. Not the Griselda type, but the type that led Antony to set sail after the fleet of Egypt.

Loring had been right when he called Belinda a "kitten Cleopatra."

She was one of nature's perfectly amoral and shameless triumphs—la femme courtisane flung out as rounded and complete as a golden bubble on the wind of destiny.

The three women sat down together, and Sophy poured tea. Loring was out motoring, but Sophy said that she expected him any minute. He had meant to be back by the time they should arrive.

Belinda was quite composed at the idea of meeting Morris again. She had schooled herself for this meeting. An admirable phlegm was hers, as she sat stirring in the six lumps of sugar that she always put in her tea or coffee; she loved sweets like a harem woman. Wisdom had come to her with her eighteen years. She knew now that her "wisdom was to sit still"—that this is the highest wisdom of a woman in love with a man who is not in love with her. She was sure that she had subtler means of "touching" Morris than by any outward show of feeling. That forceful emanation which flowed like a thrice-rarefied scent from the girl's personality, and which even Sophy had been aware of, was like the infinitely volatilised aroma by which the female of the Emperor Moth calls the males to her. Belinda thought it was her will. But it was the will of Nature working through her.

Mrs. Horton and Sophy talked about the crossing and Grace's arthritis. Belinda sat silent. She could be both silent and still at times with beautiful completeness. Bobby came in. Harold Grey, his English tutor, came with him. Sophy saw him blink as his eyes caught the shine of Belinda. "I hope there won't be any nonsense there," Sophy reflected, her mind already bent to the chaperon's habit. She thought she saw now why Morris was so apprehensive about having the care of Belinda during her first season. Bobby made polite bows to the ladies, and shook hands with them. Then he went and stood at his mother's knee. Harold Grey was introduced and subsided modestly into the middle distance, but upon a chair from whence he could observe Belinda's shining profile in a mirror.

Bobby, meantime, gazed so earnestly at the girl that she spoke to him about it. She did not care for children. But Bobby had a certain strong masculinity even at seven that caught her attention.

"Well, young man," said she. "What's wrong with me—eh?"

"Nothing,", said Bobby succinctly.

"Then, why are you staring at me with such round eyes?"

"'Cause, if you don't mind, I like to."

Belinda gave her lovely grin which disclosed both rows of teeth. She had "grown up to her teeth," as Mrs. Horton put it. And she knew how to smile as well as grin. She had practised every variety of smile before her mirror. But on Bobby she turned the full brightness of her old hoyden grin. He grinned back, delighted.

"I say, youngster, you're beginning young, ain't you?" she asked. "Come here and tell me why you 'like it.'"

Bobby went, nothing loath. He was not at all a shy child, though he was very reserved as a rule.

Sophy could not have said why she was surprised and rather disappointed at the evident fancy which he had taken to Belinda Horton. She did not divine that even the seven-year-old man vibrated to the spell of Belinda's surcharged femininity.

Bobby lounged against the girl's knee and stared up into her face out of sober, dark-grey eyes.

"Well?" said Belinda, taking his chin in her strong fingers and shaking it slightly. "Why do you like it?"

"'Cause you're beautiful," said he boldly.

Belinda laughed, ran her hand the "wrong way" over his face, and picking up a lump of sugar, pressed it between his willing lips.

"There!" she said. "If you were older, 'twould be a kiss—but I believe little boys don't think kisses as sweet as sugar."

"I think yours would be," he returned promptly, having tucked away the lump of sugar in his cheek.

"Bobby!" called his mother. "Don't be forward...."

"Oh, don't snub him ... please," Belinda said. "He's not 'forward'—but he's going to be a dreadful flirt. My! young man, but you're going to lead the girls a dance when you know how—ain't you?"

"I know how to dance now," said Bobby.

"You do, hey? Well, you shall dance with me some time. Would you like that?"

"Ra-ther!"

Sophy, however, didn't at all like this unusual, bold-eyed Bobby who was lolling against a stranger's knee as though they had been intimate for years, and "giving her as good as she sent." She cast a meaning glance at young Grey, who had just finished his cup of tea. He rose obediently, though he felt the deepest sympathy with Bobby.

"Time for your boxing lesson, Bobby," he said.

Bobby pressed closer to Belinda. He looked at his mother.

"Couldn't I stay a little longer, mother?" he pleaded. "'Cause Cousin Belinda's just come?"

Sophy didn't want to appear a prig. She glanced again at Harold Grey.

"You must ask Mr. Grey," she said.

"Mr. Grey" was between two fires. He said somewhat lamely:

"I'm sure Miss Horton will excuse you, Bobby. He has his boxing lesson and his history to prepare for to-morrow," he added, in explanation.

Belinda smiled this time—it was a discreet smile, but disclosed a dimple in the cheek next "Mr. Grey."

"Hard lines, Bobby!" she murmured. "I think I must be nicer than boxing and history!"

"I should think so!" he cried with fervour. "Mr. Grey knows it, too...."

Harold Grey blushed. Belinda laughed delightedly. Sophy rose and took Bobby by the hand. She was laughing, too, but quite firm.

"Come, Bobby," she said. "You can see your Cousin Belinda as much as you like to-morrow."

Bobby, thus admonished, resisted no longer. He made his most formal bow to the company and marched off with his tutor. Belinda rather resented being thus deprived of her youthful admirer.

She looked smilingly at Sophy.

"My! but you've got him in good training, haven't you?" she said lazily. "Have you got Morry trained like that, too?"

Mrs. Horton made a nervous movement.

Sophy took it tranquilly.

"You must judge for yourself," she replied, also smiling. To herself she said: "This girl has a vulgar mind ... and I'm afraid she's taken a dislike to me."

Loring entered a moment later. He, too, blinked when he saw Belinda. It was not so much her beauty that made him blink as her full-fledged "young-ladyhood." He had not realised that the tucking up of her brilliant mane and the letting down of her skirts would produce so complete a transformation.

He came forward rather consciously, kissed his aunt perfunctorily, and said:

"Hello, Linda!"

"Hello, Morry!" she returned, lying back in her armchair and looking serenely up at him. But into her lazy eyes there had come a glint of garnet. The talk was general for a few moments. Then Loring said that he wanted a cup of tea. He rang, and Biggs brought fresh tea-things.

"I'll make it for you," said Belinda. She glanced at Sophy. "If you don't mind?" she said.

"Of course not. Thanks!" said Sophy.

Belinda busied herself with the tea service. She had well-shaped, very white, very deft hands. The White Cat in the fairy tale must have had hands like Belinda's—just so velvety and agile.

Morris watched them curiously. It was odd—but Belinda's hands had "grown up," too. He remembered them tanned and scratched—regular "paws." Now they were white-cat paws, soft as velvet even to look at.

"How funny!" he said suddenly.

Belinda lifted an eyebrow.

"What's 'funny'?"

"Your sitting there so demurely making tea for me."

"Why shouldn't I sit demurely and make tea for you?"

"Oh, I don't know! You see ... I remember you shinning up trees and ... and that sort of thing."

This speech rather halted at the end.

Belinda thought correctly that the memory of that kiss had interfered with the memory of her tree-climbing. Her spirit purred within her.

"I daresay I could 'shin up' a tree quite well nowadays," she remarked. "It doesn't at all prevent one from making good tea."

As she spoke, she nipped a lump of sugar in two between her strong little fingers, and dropped one half into the cup she was preparing for him.

"I say!" exclaimed Morris. "How you do remember things!"

Then he flushed.

"Oh, yes ... I remember things," said Belinda easily.

She poured cream into the cup and pushed it towards him.

"There...." she said. "If you haven't changed ... entirely ... that's the way you like it."

Sophy and Mrs. Horton were deeply absorbed. Sophy had just told Belinda's mother about the plan of having Belinda stop with her at Newport. Mrs. Horton was delighted. They were now discussing the question of dates. Sophy thought that perhaps she had better arrange a coming-out ball for Belinda before the girl appeared in society. In that case, she had better go first to Newport, and Belinda could join her in, say, ten days. Mrs. Horton called over to her daughter, happily excited: "Linda, you are certainly the luckiest girl! Just listen to what Sophy's going to do for you...."

And she explained with enthusiasm.

For some reason, Belinda, who did not colour easily, grew suddenly red. Then she tossed back her head and looked at Sophy.

"It's awfully good of you...." she said. "I think it's most awfully kind of you...." she repeated. Her voice had real feeling in it, and yet, queerly enough, Sophy sensed that this feeling included resentment also. The girl was certainly a very peculiar character. Was it that she did not like receiving favours which she could not return? She looked a haughty creature. Yes—doubtless that was it.

"It will be a great pleasure for me to have you," Sophy said. "I shall love bringing out the beauty of the season."

She said it nicely without a hint of patronage. But now this odd girl grew quite pale.

"Thanks! That's awfully kind of you," she murmured again. What had turned her pale was the thought that Sophy should take pleasure in her own undoing. She was quite relentless, but she had the sort of qualm that might have stirred a very young Nemesis, when precipitating the first tragedy on her appointed path.

After this, the talk again became general for a few moments; then Sophy took Mrs. Horton to see her sister, and the others went to dress for dinner.