Shadows of Flames: A Novel

XL

They ran together towards the house. But now the rain ceased, and again the wind came—vicious, blatant. The big hedge of box just in front of them was a dark fury of tossing boughs.

"Oh, the trees!... I'm so afraid some of the trees will go down!..." said Sophy.

They ran on under the dark tunnel of box, and out upon the lawn. As they did so, Sophy gave a cry and halted.

"Look!" she gasped. "The big locust ... oh!... It's going ... it's going...."

She ran towards the middle of the lawn. Loring followed—caught her firmly by the arm.

"Wait...." he said. "Don't go any nearer...."

They stood dumbly watching the giant tree. It was fully a hundred feet high—a monarch shaft crowned with massive branches—wrapped python-like by a huge trumpet-vine. It was the last of its splendid generation—a royal tree. Now it rocked heavily—to and fro—farther and farther each way, each time—a groaning sound came from it. This sound splintered suddenly. It was like the bursting of a human groan into a shriek. The noble crown swept forward—majestically—as it were, deliberately at first—then faster, faster, in a sort of suicidal frenzy. The huge tree toppled, split at its middle fork—went crashing down, ripping loose the snaky folds of vine, shattering the trees next it. Their splintered tops shone suddenly raw and yellow against the grey sky. The remaining half of the fallen locust had a great "blaze" all down one side, as though it had been stripped by lightning. The inner wood, thus disclosed, all torn and riven, had something ghastly, like the revelation of a wound in living flesh.

For a second longer Sophy stood quite still. Then she ran forward again. She was pale as at an accident to a dear friend.

The locust stretched across the gravel driveway. Its crown lay among the crushed branches of a huge box-shrub. The poor box-shrub had a piteous, feminine look, as though it had tried in vain to support the stricken giant on its soft breast. The boughs and leaves of the prone tree still quivered slightly as in a death-throe. The big vine swung its loose, snaky folds over the ruin. The grass was strewn with leaves and broken limbs. Sophy went up and put her hand on the rough trunk in silence. Her lips quivered.

"What an infernal shame!" said Loring.

He stared all about, then at the wrecked tree again.

"Isn't this where the hammocks used to hang?" he asked.

"Yes," said Sophy.

They stood silent again. Both were thinking of how they had swung day after day in those hammocks in their love-time. Then the scarlet bells of the trumpet-vine had hung above them. It had been like their flowering passion swinging scarlet bells above them. Both felt something sad and ominous in the fall of the great tree just as Loring had arrived.

"I'll send the gardener to see about it," Sophy said at last, turning away. They went together to the house.

"When can I see you ... for a long talk?" asked Loring, as they reached the door.

"As soon as I've changed. You'll want to change, too. Is your luggage here?"

"Yes. A darkey drove me up from Sweet-Waters."

"Has Mammy Nan seen to your room?"

"Thanks. Yes. Everything's quite right."

"Then ... in half an hour ... in my study."

Loring told himself that he'd forgotten how beautiful she was. And that black bow on her hair!... He had not seen her wear that black bow since.... Oh, what a fool he'd been! ... what a superlative ass!... That black bow had a queer magic for him. It made the past seem only yesterday. Oddly it set her back where she had been when he first saw her wear it. It shook his lordly sense of possession. She had not belonged to him then. Somehow she did not seem to belong to him now. He felt doubtful ... apprehensive. What if...? Yes. What if...?

He changed hurriedly and went down to her study. A clear fire of apple-boughs and cedar burned on the hearth. The warmth drew their sweetest scent from the rose-geraniums. There were no fuchsias on the green steps now. It irritated Charlotte that Sophy would not have her splendid fuchsias in this room. But Sophy could not endure the fantastic flowers near her. They were too potent with wild memories.

Before the fire Dhu was lying. He eyed Loring from golden, white-rimmed eyes without moving at first. Then he rose and wagged a languidly polite tail. He had never quite approved of the young man.

Loring sat down and tried to beguile the dog into friendship. Dhu was civil but distant. Sophy came in, and he rushed and reared upon her, putting a paw on either shoulder.

She looked very tall in her black satin tea-gown. The collie was beautifully golden against the black, shining stuff. And this gown Loring recognised as he had recognised the black bow. It was a gown of old days. It had some yellow lace at the throat, and queer, carved silver buttons. How that lace smelt sweet of her! How often he had kissed it in kissing her throat! And those silver buttons ... how cold and hard they had felt to his cheek upon the warmth of her breast!

She came up and sat down in her own low chair on the other side of the hearth.

"Quite Darby and Joan we look...." said Loring, with a nervous laugh. Sophy smiled, but this smile was enigmatic.

"Why didn't you write to me? Why didn't you tell me you were coming, Morris?" she asked gently.

"Oh ... well...." said Loring.

He went red, and fussed with a piece of cedar that had fallen on the hearth. The fragrant smoke got into his eyes—and made them smart.

"You see...." he went on with more assurance, as he hammered the log into place again, "I knew this was the sort of thing that would have to be talked out...."

"Well, then...?" said Sophy.

He glanced at her rather sheepishly.

"Oh, hang it all, Sophy!" he said. "Don't make it too hard. What do you want?... Probation?... Kow-towing? What?"

"No. I don't want anything like that, Morris. What I want is for us both to act like good, sensible friends, and...."

"Friends!" he exclaimed.

"Yes ... friends," said she firmly.

"Now look here, Sophy," he protested, red again. "You surely aren't nursing that grievance still? After all these weeks?"

"What 'grievance' do you allude to, Morris?"

He grew redder and redder.

"Why ... you know," he muttered shamefacedly.

"No, Morris. I don't. I really haven't any 'grievance.' You did a thing that seems to me final. It isn't a grievance ... it's just an end."

"Now, Sophy! If you think my ... my ... a ... my idiocy with that girl...."

"Morris ... don't! But while that is one reason of my feeling as I do ... it isn't the thing I mean."

"Then in God's name ... what is?"

He was standing now, looking excited and angry. He came over in front of her.

"What is?" he repeated.

Sophy looked up at him and her nostrils spread a little.

"Have you really forgotten?" she said, in a clear voice. "You accused me of having a lover...."

"Oh, for God's sake!" cried Loring. His chest laboured with his strong excitement. "Haven't I told you I was damned sorry! Haven't I apologised—humbly? Haven't I explained I was out of my wits? Haven't I? Haven't I?"

He stood waiting for her to answer. All up in arms—white now—quite outraged by her unkind obstinacy.

She answered without apparent emotion:

"All that doesn't change what you said then. Of course you apologise—of course you say you were out of your wits. What else could you say? But—— Well, you see, Morris—it happens to be one of those facts that can't be wiped out by apologies and regrets. Some words can't be wiped out by other words," she ended, with a flash of bitterness.

He gazed at her sullenly.

"Can't you make allowances for a man's being mad with jealousy?" he said.

"No. Jealousy—of that kind—is always an insult."

He stood silent for a while. Then suddenly he dropped to his knees beside her. He felt inspired.

"Sophy...." he said very low, a sort of wheedling cunning in his voice. "I wonder ... if you aren't ... just a bit ... jealous, yourself?"

"I?"

"Yes. You. Of ... oh, you know who I mean! But, Sophy ... listen ... I swear to you a man can be ... like that ... about another woman—and yet love his wife ... really love only her ... I swear it to you."

Sophy smiled again.

"Yes. So I've heard," she said.

He was eager in a moment.

"Well, then ... don't you see?... It was only a ... a flash in the pan—as one might say.... Really, you know, it's true. That one can fancy a woman for a bit like that, yet never dream of loving her as one loves one's wife...."

"Morris...." said Sophy seriously. She leaned her chin on her hand, and looked gravely at him.

"Well?" he said expectantly.

"What would you think of an American who had himself naturalised a German, or a Russian, or a Spaniard ... yet declared that he really loved America best of all!"

"I don't see...." stammered Loring.

"Yes, you do see," smiled Sophy. "And I want to take this opportunity of assuring you that I'm not jealous of Belinda. Only—please don't try to make your love for her a proof of your still greater love for me."

"Sophy...!"

"I'm not one of those people who cut up love into sections—vivisect it ... for it dies, I can tell you, when it's hacked to bits like that!... This part ignoble—that part noble. Love is a whole—a whole—or it is nothing. What you gave to Belinda you could not have given her if you'd loved me really. I don't say would not ... I say could not...."

"But I swear to you...."

".... Could not!" repeated Sophy inflexibly.

He had got to his feet again, and was looking at her with a disturbed, baffled look.

"I do love you, Sophy," he said at last. "Don't you believe I love you?"

"In a way ... yes," said Sophy.

"What do you mean by 'in a way'?".

"Well—in a way that doesn't allow me to interfere with greater pleasures."

He went crimson.

"Oh, I say!" he said. "How unkind ... how awfully hard and unkind of you!"

"There mustn't be anything but truth in this talk between us, Morris. I'm sorry to seem unkind. I only said what I feel and believe."

"God! I didn't know you could be so cruel...." he muttered, staring at the fire.

"It isn't I that am cruel; it's the truth that's cruel," she said.

"You call that 'the truth'? ... God!" he said again.

"Then tell me...." she said. "What pleasure have you ever put second to me?"

"What ... pleasure?" he stammered.

She looked at him steadily.

"Yes ... what pleasure?" she repeated.

"I.... I...."

He was frankly at a loss. She had such a queer, upsetting way of putting things. He stood ruffled, resentful, aggrieved, helpless. Not a pleasure could he think of that he had not put before her. His head buzzed with the effort to recall some small sacrifice that he had made in her behalf. She was speaking in a different voice now—softer, more feeling.

"Ah, Morris," she said, "it is all so sad ... so horribly sad! Though I may seem unkind—my heart aches with it. But this has not come suddenly. A long, long time it's been coming. It began ... yes ... that night ... do you remember?—that night over two years ago ... when you came to my room...."—she hesitated, caught her lip hard for a second, went on in a lower voice—"when you came to me—not yourself ... for drink...."

He had put up one hand over his eyes as he leaned with his elbow on the mantelpiece. He said in a choked voice:

"I've been a beast ... sometimes ... I admit."

She hesitated again; then said, whispering:

"That was a pleasure you always put before me."

"Don't!" he said.

"I won't, then," she answered pityingly.

Her eyes scalded with tears. Her hands, locked hard together, were trembling.

There was a long pause.

"Sophy," he said presently, very low, his hand still over his eyes, "how if I take an oath to you never to drink again?"

She looked with a tender, wise look at his hidden face.

"You would come to hate me for it in the end, dear."

"Oh ... Sophy...."

"Yes, dear. You would."

"I know.... You think I couldn't keep it," he said miserably.

"No. But if you kept it, you would be hating me all the time."

A gush of bitterness rose in him.

"So that's what you think of me?" he said.

"It's what I think your nature would make you feel—bound by such an oath."

There came another pause.

He broke out rather vehemently again:

"At least do me the justice to admit that I was dead set against having Linda visit us...."

"Yes. I remember. But it would have come sooner or later. You would have been thrown with her in other ways."

"You really think I ... a ... care for her?"

Sophy didn't answer for a second or two; then she said:

"Morris ... that morning at Newport ... when you said those words to me ... you told me afterwards—that it was Belinda who had made you ... suspect me."

"Ah ... don't put it that way!..."

"What other way can I put it? You did tell me it was Belinda, didn't you?"

"Yes. And a more...."

"Wait, Morris. I want to ask you something. Whether you answer it or not, I must ask it. It's this: You had been with Belinda—before you came to me. Had you been together—like lovers?"

He dropped his face into his two hands. She could see the hot flush on it between his fingers.

"Oh ... but you're hard ..." he groaned.

Now Sophy had her moment of bitterness.

"I know," she said, "that the perfect wife is supposed to be motherly when her husband's fancy strays—and lover-like when it turns home again. But I am not perfect in any way. And I don't think I'm hard when I ask for truth between us."

Loring dropped his hands and uncovered eyes ablaze with a helpless fury of regret and vindictiveness.

"I wish to God the girl had never been born!" he cried.

"You haven't answered me yet," said Sophy.

He gazed at her with a sort of braggadocio of defiance for an instant, then dropped his face into his hands again.

"Oh ... it's no use!..." he lamented. "We are low brutes ... men are low brutes.... Passion is a low thing...."

"No—real passion is not low," Sophy broke in on him.

"You know what I mean...." he muttered.

"Yes. I do. But don't call mere sensuality passion. Real passion is like a great, flowering tree. Its roots strike deep into the earth ... its crown is among the stars. Do you call a red rose 'low' because it springs from the earth?"

"How you catch one up!" protested Loring moodily.

She rushed on:

"I do hate so to hear that word misused—abused! Sensual fancies are low because they have no soul ... no flowering. They are like truffles ... all of the earth earthy. Yes ... there are truffle-loves," she ended bitterly.

"And men, you think, are like swine rooting for truffles!" he muttered.

"Sometimes ... when Circe is about...." she admitted.

Morris got up and leaned again upon the mantelpiece. He heaved a disconsolate sigh.

"Oh, Lord!... What a talk for a man to have with his wife!" he said heavily.

XLI

Sophy sat watching him, and her heart yearned over him. In spite of her flash of bitterness, she did feel truly mother-like towards him. He seemed to her so young—so very, touchingly young as he leaned there against the old, smoke-toned ivory of the carved mantelpiece, grasping the ledge, his forehead on the back of his hand. She knew how crushingly he was realising that he had "made a mess of things." But then—he had made a mess of things. She was powerless to comfort him there. If she could only show him how much better it would be not to try to rearrange this tangle—but to step free of it, and begin over ... that there was no real adjustment of their two lives—their two utterly different natures, possible.... Could she show him? Well ... she could at least try....

"Morris," she said softly. "Suppose we try to look at it all from another angle? Suppose we try to see it all as though we weren't concerned in it—as if some one had asked our impartial advice? Don't you think that would be a good way to get at it?"

"But what is it you want to 'get at,' Sophy? What is it you want me to do? God knows I'm ready to do anything...."

"Anything?"

"Yes ... anything in reason," he hedged nervously.

"Would you call it reasonable for us both to be free?"

He started—eyed her suspiciously.

"How 'free'? Free in what way?"

"Quite, quite free, Morris."

He paled.

"Divorce...?" he said.

"Yes."

"You want to divorce me?"

"I want us both to have our own lives wholly in our own hands again—that is the only way."

He stared at her, whiter and whiter.

"Didn't you ever ... love me ... at all?" he managed, at last.

"Ah!—you know whether I loved you...."

"You ... you mean ... I ... I've killed it?"

"Yes, dear."

"Oh, you are cruel ... you are cruel!..." he burst out. He stared at her, his face working. "You're the crudest woman God ever made!" he said huskily.

Sophy was white too. She, too, stammered a little.

"I ... I think ... that truth ... is nearly always cruel," she said. "But it's only truth that will make us free——"

His hands were gripping the sides of the chair into which he had sunk again, so that his arms trembled.

"Damn the truth, then...!" he said slowly and thickly.

"You'd want to keep a wife who doesn't love you as a wife should?"

"Yes, I want to keep you.... I want to keep you if you hate me!... Yes. Yes."

"That is cruelty...."

"Is it? Then I'm cruel, too."

Sophy sat with her eyes on his suffused, lowering face. Her hand went to and fro over the collie's head. She sat so long thus, without speaking, that he said gruffly:

"Well? What now? Why do you stare so?"

"I'm trying to imagine how it would be to feel like that. I'm trying to get your point of view."

"How ... my point of view?"

"The wanting to hold a woman against her will. But I can't understand it. I never understood how a man or woman could want to hold another when love had gone ... the love that is the only reason for marriage."

"You rub it in, don't you?"

She said sadly:

"Why do you speak so roughly and bitterly to me—as if it were my love only that had failed? Do you think I didn't know when first your love began to wane?"

He tried to brave it out.

"And why did it 'wane,' as you call it? Can a man be snubbed day in, day out, and yet keep at concert pitch forever?"

"You mean that I would not respond to you when you had been drinking?"

"Well—put it that way."

Sophy gave a tired sigh.

"Why must we go over it and over it?" she asked. "It is not me that you want, Morris—it is your own way. You never want what is yours—only what is out of reach. You have turned on Belinda now, only because she came to you too easily. If I came back to you—you would not want me any longer."

He sneered.

"It's easy to say what I would or wouldn't do. It's easy to arraign me. But what of yourself? I thought you were so great on unselfishness! Where's the unselfishness in all this, I'd like to know?"

"I'm not trying to be unselfish, Morris. I've been unselfish so long that I've nearly lost my best self. I find it's better to keep one's best self than to be selfless."

He looked startled at this heresy against the great Credo of Man's-Ideal-Woman.

"Good Lord!... You have changed!" he said, in blank dismay. "It doesn't seem to be you talking...."

"It's a 'me' that you don't know, perhaps...."

"I certainly don't know this side of you."

"It isn't a side of me—it's the core of me."

They were both silent again. Loring was the first to take it up.

"Look here ... have you spoken to Judge Macon and your sister about all this?"

"Yes."

He reddened angrily.

"A pleasant position for me, isn't it?"

"It's odious for both of us, Morris," she said, with feeling.

"Did you tell them about ... about...?"

He couldn't bring it out.

"I told them about you and Belinda. I didn't tell them ... that other thing. I couldn't tell any one that...."

"Oh ... thanks!" he sneered.

Sophy flashed out:

"It wasn't for your sake I didn't tell them—it was for my own!"

He looked staggered. He was so used to her forbearance and gentleness that he could almost have believed in the old tales of "possession." It was as though Sophy's body had become "possessed" by a strange, heretic spirit that denied all her former religion of abnegation in one strange speech after the other. He was humiliatingly at a loss in dealing with this new, essential Sophy. He felt something as the Miltonian Adam might have felt if his docile Eve had announced her intention of leaving him and Eden in the companionship of the serpent. Indeed, these new ideas of hers hissed like a whole nestful of serpents. And all the time, just because—in spite of his angry denials—she seemed slipping farther and farther from him—he desired her as he had never desired her. Not beautifully, as of old—but desperately, bitterly, blindly!

He sprang up suddenly, and took a few turns about the room. He went and stood at the window, gazing out into the twilight. The fire reflected in the window-panes seemed flickering among the dark leaves of the magnolia.

Joycie came in with the tea things. He sat sullenly nursing one leg upon the other while Sophy made tea. He wouldn't have any.

They could hear Charlotte's voice here and there about the house. The Judge rode past the window on Silvernose. But no one interrupted them. Only Joycie came in after a little, to clear away the tea things. She went out with the tray, Dhu following her, and they were alone, once more. Sophy rose as Joycie went out, and herself lighted the lamp on her writing-table.

"Why didn't you ask me to do that?" he said irritably.

"I didn't think," she answered.

Now in the lamplight he could see how very white and tired she looked. His heart softened. He went over impulsively and stood close to her.

"Sophy," he said, "what is it you really want?"

Her answer gushed quick and hot like heart's blood:

"My freedom, Morris!... My freedom ... my freedom!" It was like the breaking of the waters. It poured in a cataract of passionate, breathless words. "Oh, be kind ... be generous, let me go, without haggling ... without bitterness.... We owe it to the past to part as friends. We should be big in this big thing ... get above littleness of every sort. Just because we have made a heart-rending mistake ... why should we be like enemies?... Give me this one memory of you ... clear, great. Something I can remember all beautiful. You owe it to our love, Morris. You owe it to that wonderful dream we dreamt together...."

"Stop ... stop!..." he gasped. "It's like death.... It's worse than death...."

"Oh, my dear!..." she said. "I know.... It's horrible! To me, too, it's horrible.... But let me go ... ah, let me go, and I'll love you with a new love!... It will last ... it will bless you all your life.... Let me go, dear, let me go!..."

He stood shaking. His breath came quick and hard. He was dreadfully near to tears.

"I can't," he got out at last.

"Yes. Yes. You can ... you will...."

"No," he stuttered, "no ... no...."

She turned away, sank down again, her face in her hands. For a second or two he stood watching her. Then he went and flung himself on his knees before her as he had done that wild, windy night, three years ago. He grasped either side of her chair as he had done then, prisoning yet not touching her with his arms.

"Beautiful...." he whispered. "Beautiful...."

She cowered back as though he had struck her, her face still hidden.

"Don't you remember...." the husky voice went on. "That night ... the wind ... the wild moon!... Oh, Selene! Selene!... I've blasphemed ... but I still worship.... I still worship...."

She began to sob, desperately, helplessly, like a child.

"Forgive me ... take me back, Selene.... Only try me once more.... This one time.... You'll see.... You'll see you can trust me ... give me your love again ... this once ... this once...."

She struggled to speak. The big sobs choked her. At last, between them, the words came. "It's ... all ... emptiness," she said, "here...." She put one hand to her breast. "There's nothing...." The sobs broke in again. ".... To give...." she ended.

He knelt staring at the slight hand that still hid her face from him. Suddenly he noticed, as Amaldi had done, that her wedding ring was not on it. He dropped his head upon her knees. That broke his manhood to see that she had put aside even the symbol of their union. He felt her hand upon his hair. He wept and wept, wishing, as he had wished about Belinda—that he had never been born.

And over Sophy came the old feeling of nightmare—the sensation of having lived twice over her fatal marriage with Chesney. Just so Cecil had once clung weeping to her knees. But then she still had some hope—some love to give. Now she was beggared of all but pity. And even this pity was not strong enough to make her return once more to the unspeakable sacrifice of loveless marriage.

A sudden rattling at the door sent him to his feet, apprehensive, shamefaced. Then an impatient whine told him that it was only the collie asking to be let in again. He crossed over and opened the door with a vexed jerk. The dog always irritated him. Now he would have liked to kick it. The collie rushed over to Sophy, and pressed against her anxiously, as if he knew something were wrong with her. He whined again, nuzzling his head against her breast. Loring pulled out his watch.

"I suppose I'd better get ready for dinner," he said.

"Yes," she said, rising.

He held open the door for her, and she went out, her swollen eyelids lowered. His heart gave a great gulp as she passed him—half love, half anger. His vanity ached with resentment that she should hold out against him like this. What was left of love ached also with the dread of losing her. He was beginning to take it in that he really might lose her.

As he changed for dinner, he bruised his brain trying to recall exactly the words that he had used to her in that mad outbreak of jealousy. He could not remember half. But what he did remember made him scorch with shame. No wonder she had revolted!... No wonder!... No wonder!... He had this spasmodic burst of inward honesty. But then again she was too hard ... too self-righteous. Yes, damn it all ... that was what she was—"self-righteous"!

A reaction of mood began to set in. The dinner was constrained and painful to a degree. Every one was glad to go to bed early and break up the oppressive evening.

That night Belinda haunted Loring's dreams. He would wake up aflame—resentful ... then plunge back into the maze of lurid dreams again. Towards morning he had a long, hateful illusion of being married to both Sophy and Belinda. He was going up an endless church-aisle all sickly with flowers—and on either arm was a bride in veil and orange-blossoms. And one of these brides was Sophy, and one Belinda.

The dream was ridiculous and horrible as well as hateful. The clergyman was a huge negro, all in red. He wore an Oxford cap and married them out of a little box covered with red velvet, instead of out of a prayer-book. This box was a music-box. The clergyman explained. He said: "When I grind the first tune, you will be married to this woman." He pointed at Sophy. "When I grind the second tune, you will be married to this woman." He indicated Belinda. Then he ground away at the little red velvet box. The tunes were rag-time. The big negro patted with his foot as he ground them out.... Then he gave Sophy a ring, and Belinda a pointed knife. He said:

"This is the black knife of Lur; it cuts through all things."

And at these words, Loring broke out in the horrible cold sweat of fear that only a dream can give.

Then everything changed. He lay in the midst of a frightful, black, catafalque-like bed. On one side lay Sophy, on one side Belinda. He could see Belinda; but try as he might he could not see Sophy, though he knew that she was lying at his other side. Belinda was leaning across him and pressing down his face with her hand. She was laughing. He could see the tip of her tongue between her white teeth as in mischief. She looked very beautiful, but wicked. Her white breast showed through little petals of red flowers. He struggled to lift his head.

"Where is the black knife of Lur?" he cried; and as he cried it, again he broke into a sweat of fear. Belinda laughed more, and said:

"It is there. Look!"

She took away her hand from his face, and he rose on his elbow, and turned to see Sophy lying, white and still, with the handle of the knife protruding from her breast. Belinda was saying:

"Didn't I do it well? Not a drop of blood!"

He gave a choked scream, and woke sweating and trembling like a panic-stricken horse.

XLII

The day was so triumphantly clear after the great wind of yesterday that it seemed to emphasize their inner gloom.

After luncheon they went for a walk together, and again they had "great argument about it, and about." They were frightfully unhappy, and one as determined as the other. Yet Belinda would keep stealing upon Loring's thought—the Belinda of that ridiculous, odious dream, with her white breasts peeping through red petals and the tip of her pretty feline tongue between her teeth. He could hear her saying: "Didn't I do it well? Not a drop of blood!" Damn dreams, anyway!... As if a man hadn't enough to contend with by day!...

About tea-time the camping-party returned in great spirits. Bobby came whooping in to his mother's study waving a big branch of scarlet berries. He stopped short at sight of Loring. A sort of stiffening went through him. Loring, too, stiffened. Then Bobby came forward. They shook hands coldly, more like two men than a man and a little boy. When Bobby went out again, Loring, looking after him, said bitterly:

"There goes one of the chief causes of division between us."

"Never, never have I put him before you!" cried Sophy, with a painful flush. "Be just to me, Morris; at least be just to me."

He said sullenly:

"You didn't need to 'put him' ... he was always there."

Sophy parted her lips to deny passionately, then closed them again. What was the use? They must not come to recriminating each other.

"Oh, Morris," she pleaded, a moment later, "let's be kind to each other! Let's have kindness to remember..."

He gave that short, ugly laugh of his.

"You think you're being kind, eh?"

Chesney's tone—almost his words again! Sophy, too, had her haunting nightmare.

The third day Loring decided to speak with Judge Macon "man to man." He asked for a private interview. The Judge gravely ushered him into his sanctum. As during that first "serious talk" with Sophy, he established himself in the revolving-chair before his desk. Loring sat to one side. He was pale and felt abominably nervous. The Judge looked calm and noncommittal. He waited for Loring to begin.

The young man began rather unfortunately:

"Sophy tells me she's confided in you about this teapot tempest of ours," he said. "I find it's devilish hard to get a woman to look sensibly at such things. But you're a man, Judge ..."

"Yes," admitted the Judge imperturbably, as the other paused.

".... You're a man," Loring continued. "You know that these ... a ... little lapses will occur 'in the best-regulated households'...."

The Judge's face took on suddenly the expression of a Rhadamanthus.

"May I ask what you refer to?" he said starkly.

Loring's smile became a rather foolish grin.

"Why ... a ... this ... a ... this—this.... Oh, hang it all, Judge! You've surely kissed some pretty woman besides your wife in twenty years of marriage!"

He was rather startled by the effect of this jocose insinuation. The Judge suddenly stood up. Wrath and disgust transformed his kindly face.

"I allow no liberties from any man," he said, in his deepest bass.

Loring, also, leaped to his feet. He looked genuinely dismayed and confounded.

"But ... but ... I meant no liberty...." he stammered.

"Then," said the Judge, in no wise placated, "your idea of what constitutes a liberty differs fundamentally from mine."

He remained standing.

"Do you mean to say...?" fumbled Loring.

"I mean this," retorted the Judge: "That to the best of my poor ability I strive to conduct myself according to the teaching of the Christian faith." (The Judge, like Charlotte, always became Johnsonian when righteously wrathful.) "The Founder of that Faith pronounced once for all upon the question that you refer to as a 'little lapse.' He said: 'He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.'"

The blood beat into Loring's face. He looked away from the other's contemptuous eyes. He was too dumfounded to feel resentful at the moment. Somehow it never occurred to him to doubt the Judge's perfect sincerity. He was dumfounded just because he believed in it. Here was actually a man who looked upon strict faithfulness in marriage as onerous on both sexes.

There is no one so fiercely chaste as the Southerner who believes in the sanctity of marriage. "Philandering" is not admitted in his code. He would call it by a plainer and a coarser name.

When Loring had recovered his wits, he apologised profusely and meekly. But the interview was not a success. The Judge was now too frankly on Sophy's side in the matter. He thought the whole situation deeply to be deplored, but he gave, as his judicial opinion, that in such cases the process of "patching up" was never successful.

Loring left the study, humiliated and downcast. He realised that he had not only lost Sophy's love but the friendship of a man whom he really valued. Somehow, though he tried to jeer at the Judge for a narrow-minded old fossil who had never known the true fire of manhood, he could not actually do so. Something in him knew that the old Virginian was every inch a man. The strength of his passions was apparent in his dark, powerful face. But these passions had been curbed by a principle—an ideal. And, drearily enough, Loring began to wonder less at Sophy's present attitude. It was from the loins of men like this that she had sprung. She came of a race that required chastity in husbands as well as in wives. What made it all so overwhelming was that Loring knew well that he "had committed adultery already in his heart." It was as though his spirit were being arraigned by these people. That he had only kissed a woman made no difference to them. To them it was adultery in the heart....

When he had been at Sweet-Waters a week, something happened that absolutely staggered him. He felt, when he read a certain item in a letter from his mother, as though he had received a violent blow in the midriff. He had ridden down to the station at mail-time, and opened this letter on his way back. The portion of its contents that so undid him ran as follows:

"What I am going to tell you now, my dear boy, is a family secret as yet. Eleanor is delighted. I reserve my opinion. I wish to hear what you think on the subject. Of course, from a worldly standpoint the match is a very brilliant one for Belinda...." For Belinda?... Loring held the letter nearer his eyes. He thought that he must have read the name wrong. His mother's writing was not always easy to read. No. It was plain enough this time. The word was "Belinda." His eyes gulped the following pages. "She seems in high spirits—but then her spirits are always high. But I must explain. She is engaged to Lewis Cuthbridge. He was in your set at Harvard, he tells me. He is certainly what people would call very handsome, and, as you know, the Cuthbridges are extremely rich. But I don't care for that kind of good looks myself. He is too red and white and black for a man in your old mother's opinion. I like a more distinguished type...."

"God! Get on ... get on ... get on!..." Loring was raging in his mind. His eyes glanced avidly ahead. He read: "They certainly seem very much in love with each other. Belinda, I think, shows all her feelings far too openly. They make a very striking couple. But haven't I heard that Lewis Cuthbridge was rather 'wild'? I surely have that impression. I should have preferred a more settled character for Belinda. Some one of mature opinions—a professional man, steady in his habits...."

"Get on ... get on ... can't you?..." Loring's thought was urging angrily again. He skipped ahead.

"What gives me the greatest concern, though, is that the whole affair is to be so hurried. They are to be married at Christmas, and go straight to India. It seems that Belinda is very anxious to see the East. But the engagement will not be announced until the last part of November. I am most anxious to talk with you about this young man," et cetera, et cetera.

Loring crammed the letter into his pocket. The glare of the sunlight on the sheet of white paper had set reddish spots dancing before his eyes. He rode on in a wild flare of outraged protest for half a mile, the horse going as it willed, at a lazy walk. Suddenly it snorted and leaped forward, feeling the jab of spurs in its sides. It ran away indignantly for quite a mile. Then Loring pulled it in, and again they subsided to a dawdling foot pace.

The spurs had been jabbed into Poor Aleck because Loring had suddenly thought of Cuthbridge's too red mouth under its too black moustache.... Of this mouth and of Belinda's....

"Engaged"!... The little devil!... So this was her way of paying him off!... The callous, revengeful little devil!... But then it couldn't be allowed.... He knew too much about Lewis Cuthbridge to think for a moment of allowing him to marry one of the women of his family.... Belinda might not be a blood-relation, but that made no difference. It must be put a stop to—at once—at once! He would write his mother. His head spun. He felt as though some one had his brain in a sling and were whirling it round and round.

When he reached the house, he went up to his own room, locked the door, and, dropping into a chair, pulled out the crushed letter and read it over. Then he jumped up and began striding to and fro in a blind fury. The crash of a chair that he flung out of his way startled him into self-realisation. He recalled Griffeth's warning after that last outbreak in Newport, and sat down again, battling for self-control. And boiling up in him with his wild rage came the old, mad passion for the girl. Those lips—those lips that he had made his own at such cost!—given to that low blackguard!... Pah! The things he knew of the brute!... And now ... now.... Perhaps at this very minute.... Oh, he understood how men could beat women!... He could have dragged Belinda out of that hound's arms by the hair of her head—and beaten her with his fists!... He remembered Griffeth's words again, and again got some sort of hold upon himself....

Morals are more a matter of geography than we like to admit. Loring, an indifferent member of Christianised society, would have made a very respectable Mohammedan.

He withstood for two days the gnawing, racking desire to go and see for himself just "how things were." Then he gave in. He told Sophy that he had decided to go away and think over this crisis between them by himself. Sophy, who had also heard from Mrs. Loring of Belinda's engagement, understood quite well why he was leaving so suddenly. Something in her was glad and sad both at this knowledge. "It is the end," she thought. And endings are always sad. It is said that prisoners of many years leave their cells with a certain regret. Convalescents often have this queer nostalgia on quitting the sick-room. Sophy had known far more sorrow than joy in her marriage with Loring, and yet it was with a mysterious, indescribable, contradictory pain that she held up her cheek for his farewell kiss. He said that he would see her again in two or three weeks. But she felt utterly sure that this was their final parting. Very pale, she held his hand in both hers.

"I wish you all good ... all good, Morris," she whispered. "Whatever comes ... you know that, don't you?"

"I think so ... yes. I know it," he said unsteadily.

The carriage was waiting for him. There was no one else about. She went down the old stone steps of the portico, and stood there while he got in. She was not going to drive to the station with him. Neither of them wanted to say good-by in public. As he took his seat, she put out her hand and tucked in the rug which had slipped. He caught this kind hand and his face broke into a shamed wretchedness. One of the horses plunged impatiently. Their hands were torn apart.

As he drove off and Sophy was left standing alone in the autumn sunlight, they both felt as those in old times must have felt when the sword was pulled from a wound and death came as a relief with the gush of blood. It was like death in many ways, this parting; but it was also an unspeakable relief.

XLIII

He arrived there late the next day, and learned that Lewis Cuthbridge was stopping in the neighbourhood and was expected to dinner. He did not see Belinda until she came down to the drawing-room. He was already there alone when Cuthbridge was announced. They had never liked each other. Now, instinct turned dislike to loathing. It was hard for them to be ordinarily civil. But while Loring's detestation amounted to fury, Cuthbridge only thought Loring "a sour, ill-bred cub." He was by several years the elder of the two, and showed it. As Mrs. Loring had said, he was good-looking, but too exuberantly so. He looked almost "made up," with his white forehead, red lips, shoe-black hair, and eyes of a dense, swimming blue. And he was also slightly fat. As he sat there with crossed legs, talking to Mrs. Horton, Loring thought the way that his full, pleasure-loving thigh filled tight the sleek black cloth of his trousers was one of the most obnoxious things he had ever seen. He hated that plump, self-assured thigh and the glossy black stripe that curved along it.

Belinda came down all in light yellow, with a scarf of pale green about her shoulders. She wore the knot of topazes over one ear, as at that first dance in Newport. When she saw Loring, she said "Hullo, Morry!" in her coolest voice.

Cuthbridge regarded her with an air of ownership for which Loring itched to smash him. He quoted, waving a thick, white hand with too-polished nails:

"'Daffy-down-dilly has come up to town
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown.'"

Belinda went and stood before him, shaking out her yellow petals.

"D'you really like it, Lewis? Is this the shade of green you meant?"

She held up an end of her scarf. She was very charming with this new air of almost docile appeal. Her eyes said that it mattered oh, so much to her! whether Lewis found her scarf the right shade of green or not. He came closer—took the thin stuff over his own hand—held it up against her face.

"Yes. That's it," he said finally. "It's just that foliage effect I wanted to get; throws out your hair and skin stunningly."

When Cuthbridge alluded to Belinda's "skin," Loring could scarcely keep his hands off him. He was sick with pent rage. He sat near the fire pretending to look at the evening paper. He could see them quite plainly—every gesture—without raising his eyelids.

Now Belinda had her hand in Cuthbridge's bulging, black-sleeved arm. She was cooing to him as she used to coo to Loring:

"And where's the prize I was promised for getting myself up all green-and-yellow, like a bruise?"

"Oh ... you mercenary child!" reproached Cuthbridge. "Isn't my homage reward enough?"

"Not by a long shot!" said Belinda ringingly. "You've spoiled me, you know, Santa...." She broke off, and addressed Loring over her shoulder: "I call him 'Santa Claus,' Morry, because he's always bringing me such bully presents."

Loring thought of the lines in the classic rhyme on Santa Claus:

"... A little round belly,
That shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly."

He longed to quote them. But he held on to himself. He merely said:

"Most engaging pet-name, I'm sure...." and went on with his paper.

Belinda was already coaxing Cuthbridge again.

"Come, now—fork up! I know you've got something for me hidden away in some pocket or other...."

Cuthbridge chuckled knowingly. This fat, pasha-like chuckle almost sent Loring bounding from his seat.

The next thing he heard was a little scream of delight from Belinda:

"Oh, Santa!... You dear ... you angel!... Oh, you shall have a prize for this!... Just you wait.... Look, mater! Just look what Lewis has brought me this time!"

Morris glanced up to see the girl whirling about with a necklace of great emeralds looped from hand to hand. The big, translucent stones hung like threaded coals of green fire from her white fingers. She danced up to her mother, then to Loring, thrusting the jewels under their noses.

"Emeralds! Emeralds!" she sang. "I'd sell my soul for emeralds!"

"If you had one to sell...." said Morris under his breath to her.

She didn't seem to hear him. Dancing back to Cuthbridge, she put the necklace into his hands again, and turning her back lowered her white nape and cushion of ruddy hair before him.

"Put them on for me, Santa," she said. "I must feel them on me...."

Loring stifled with helpless rage, while those thick white over-manicured hands fumbled about the soft throat of Belinda. Oh!... But just wait until he got her by herself!

Now she cried out, laughing:

"Oooo ... oo! How cold they are!"

Cuthbridge said low, but not too low for Loring to hear:

"Ah ... but they'll be beautifully warm in a few minutes!..."

His voice gloated. So did his hands and his heavy, dense-blue eyes. He was altogether a rather unpleasantly "gloatful" person, as a lover. Loring quivered with wrath and nausea. He would have liked to tear Cuthbridge "from the scabbard of his limbs."

"Dinner is served," said the old butler.

It was not until the next day at tea-time that Loring got a chance to see Belinda alone. He came in just as she and her mother also returned from a drive. "I must go up to have tea with Grace," said Mrs. Horton. "You give Morry his tea, Linda."

"All right-o!" said Belinda cheerfully. She was her most glittering self. Hair, eyes, brilliant skin and teeth—all were shimmering, as though she gave forth a transparent, throbbing glow like a landscape in the summer sun. She was all in green to-day, a vivid, bright green cloth that sheathed her closely. Her shining, ruddy head rose from the rich bitumen-black of costly furs. One of the many gifts of her Santa Claus—Loring guessed. He longed to snatch them from her throat and chuck them into the fire.

"Don't wonder you stare, old boy," said she, with her gayest grin. "I know I look a Katydid in all this green—but Lewis is just dotty about my wearing green...."

Mrs. Horton had left the room. Loring looked at her, narrowing his lids.

"You little light-o'-love...." he said, in a low, level voice.

"Oh, tut-tut-tut!" said Belinda, with grieved reproof. "'Sich langwidge' for a tea-party!"

".... Little heartless wanton...." Loring continued, in the same voice. "Mercenary, too ... like all your kind.... Even he ... that fat louse! ... called you mercenary...."

"Really ... I shall have to put disinfectant in your tea instead of cream," mocked Belinda.

Then he pounced on her. He caught her by both wrists and jerked her to her feet before him, almost upsetting the tea-things.

"Answer me...." he said. "Has that brute kissed you?"

"Yes, dear," said Belinda, eyeing him calmly; but the garnet sparkles were in her eyes.

"You...!" He choked, controlled himself. "On the mouth?" he asked huskily.

"Oh, yes, dear!" said Belinda, and she laughed. His gaunt, furious face filled her with fierce joy. He was paying—paying—paying. Drop by drop she would wring from him all that he owed her. She had never enjoyed anything more in her fierce, wilful little life—not even Loring's kisses—than she enjoyed lying to him now. For she was lying when she said that Cuthbridge had kissed her on her lips—at least, in the way that Morris meant. Perhaps one of her chief charms for the satiated young roué to whom she was engaged was her Cossack-maiden savagery of reluctance in matters of pre-marital love-making. But she chose that Morris should think that another man with the right to do it had kissed her as he had once kissed her, with no right but what her own love had given him.

He stood now, looking at her, his face inflamed with the strange fever of mingled hatred and desire. "Faugh!" he said at last, turning from her as from something sickening.

She laughed again, and began calmly selecting four of the largest lumps of sugar for her tea. As she did so, she hummed an air from the latest musical comedy. Oh, she had him! She had him "where she wanted him." He might rage round the arena of circumstance like an infuriated young bull. She was the Matadora who knew how to tame him.

He was back again in a moment or two. The red gleam of her cloak of insolence maddened and attracted him at the same time—just as a real Matador's cloak maddens and charms a real bull. He stood over her, hands in pockets, "to keep from wringing her neck," he told himself.

"Look here," he said. "I suppose you mean me to believe you love that bounder?"

"Why no—— What d'you take me for?" she said, a lump of sugar in one cheek. She crunched down on it contentedly with the last words.

"Better not ask what I take you for," said Loring hotly. "You're a cool hand, Linda; but I don't think you'd stay cool if I formulated my opinion of you."

"And I wonder if you'd stay at all if I gave my opinion of you?" asked she, grinning.

Loring clenched his hands that he still kept in his pockets.

"Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that you're going to marry this brute without loving him?"

"Oh, well.... Marriage 'makes the heart grow fonder,' they say," she retorted easily.

"Good God!... How dare you say such things to me ... to me?" burst out Loring furiously.

"And why not 'to you ... to you'?" she mimicked.

She slid suddenly from the edge of the table on which she had been perched, and went up close in front of him. The garnet fire blazed in her eyes now. Her black brows were drawn down close over them.

"See here, Morry," she said. "I'll give you a straight tip: You can't play dog-in-the-manger with me. You can behave decently to me or ... clear out!"

It was Loring's turn to laugh.

"'Clear out'?" he exclaimed. "Well, of all the cool minxes!— 'Clear out' did you say? ... from my own mother's house?... I'd like to know how you mean to accomplish it?"

Belinda gave him a look of supreme and contemptuous insolence.

"I'll tell Lewis the truth about you," said she.

Then Loring "saw red." Without a word, he seized her in his arms.

"Aren't you afraid to say such things to me?" he demanded thickly. "Aren't you afraid...?"

"No," said Belinda. But just for a second she was afraid. There had been such a gleam of dementia in his eyes.

"Yes, you are afraid," he said, still holding her fast. "Little devil ... you are afraid.... And you need be ... you need be...." He laughed cruelly. "If I were an Oriental," he went on, "I'd cut off your lips for having let another man touch them...." His face suffused suddenly. He bent it down over hers. "Give them to me all the same...." he muttered. "Give me your lips, Linda. They're mine...."

For answer, she pressed them inward until they were only a thin mark in her face. Her eyes glittered up at him, defiant, rebellious, fiercely mocking.

The passion ebbed gradually from his own face. As he still held her, and she still continued to keep her full lips turned inward, he broke into a helpless, unwilling laugh. "Of all the little brutes...." he muttered unsteadily. At last he let her go. She backed away from him, then her lips curled free again, redder for their imprisonment. She smiled with impish delight at the success of her simple device.

"And yet women say they've been kissed against their wills!" she gurgled gleefully. "We are liars ... we women, Morry, dear!"

Something in her tone gave him a queer hope. He went up to her again. He said in a voice that trembled a little:

"Have you lied to me, Linda?... Was it a lie when you told me that beast had kissed you?... Had kissed your mouth?"

Belinda certainly had inspirations. She looked at him with her most melting yet most wayward look. Her dimples flickered.

"Well ... I guess he didn't enjoy the sort of kisses he did get," she murmured.

"Linda...." whispered Loring. "Linda...."

The sudden revulsion of mood made him dizzy.

"Oh ... Linda," he repeated, and, putting out his arms, drew her to him again.

But she was quite serious now. Frowning a little, and swayed back stiffly in his grasp, she said:

"See here, Morry—you've called me some hard names. But I'll let that pass. I can understand that. What I can't understand, and what I won't let pass is your trying to keep me and your wife at the same time. I won't lie any more—— Yes.... I did lie just now. It did me good all over, too!" And she showed her white teeth in a rather fierce little smile. "But I won't lie any more. I don't love Lewis Cuthbridge— I rather loathe him ... but as sure as I live ... as we both live ... unless you break free ... unless you get that divorce, or let her divorce ... I'll marry Lewis within two months. Mind you...." she added, as she felt his arms tighten convulsively, "I'm not lying.... I mean it."

Loring's face looked drawn and curiously hunted.

As she spoke, his eyes followed the movements of her full, soft lips. They curled into such lovely curves when she talked—now hiding her little fine, white lower teeth, now revealing them.

"And if I say I'll do it ... then ... will you kiss me?" he whispered.

A wild thrill sang through Belinda. Her arms, which had been hanging at her sides, whipped round him. She strained him to her.

"If you'll swear it ... I will," she whispered back.

"And ... and ... you'll ... give yourself to me ... you'll chuck that brute ... at once?"

Respectability, the only chaperon that ever influenced Belinda, warned sharply. She relaxed her hold of him a little. Her voice took a keener note.

"D'you mean ... will I marry you when you're free?"

Loring paled, then the blood rushed to his face again.

"Yes ... damn it ... I mean that," he said.

She eyed him for a few seconds narrowly. Then she said:

"You swear it?"

"I swear it," he muttered.

"On your honour?"

"Yes ... on what's left of it."

Belinda stretched upwards against him, like a luxurious young puma, relaxing to pleasure after a long strain of crouching watchfulness.

"Ah ... Morry...." she sighed, and she held up to his her parted, vaguely smiling lips.