Shadows of Flames: A Novel

by Amélie Rives

PART II

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I

Sophy spent the winter that followed her husband's death in the little cottage at Bonchurch. Her one desire, after Cecil's body had been laid in the Chapel-crypt at Dynehurst, was to return "to her own land and her own people." But Bellamy had warned her against an autumn crossing for Bobby, and the sudden change to a severer climate. At first she could not bring herself to walk or ride—the sight of blue water sparkling in the sun was so dreadful to her. And it grew to be almost an hallucination that, whenever she looked on it, she saw also a yellow chair, bobbing drolly to the motion of the waves. Little by little she dominated this aversion from the sea. Had it been a lake near which Bonchurch lay, she could not have borne it. But here, after two months, she began to ride daily, and gradually grew strong again.

It was on a lovely day in June when she reached the little country station of Sweet-Waters. The chuckle of Sweet-Water creek, that just here made a special music among crowding stones, rose dearly familiar. And there—there were her Mountains! Tears shut them out for a moment. Before she could see them clearly again, Charlotte's arms were round her. They clung together speechless.

"Oh!" murmured Sophy at last, her face buried in Charlotte's neck. "Oh, Chartie ... how you smell of home!"

This made them both laugh. But they were crying, too. The sisters loved each other as twins sometimes do, though they were not twins. Charlotte was eight years older than Sophy. And there, in the broad afternoon sunlight, Sophy again buried her face in her sister's neck to savour the sweet "home" fragrance.

Then she put Bobby in Charlotte's arms. Now Charlotte was afraid to speak. She pressed the boy to her in silence. At last she said:

"He has your eyes, darling," adding: "I've a new boy to show you, too, you know."

The long, grave shadows of late afternoon, in which there was no sadness, only the serene beauty of sleep, lay over the rolling fields through which the sisters drove homeward, hand in hand. Each native tree and wild-flower went to Sophy's heart. She so loved this friendly, smiling country, that almost she believed it "loved her back again," as children say. The silver-poplars along the road glittered whitely in a soft breeze. The sky changed to sheeted gold above the bluish mountains. As they turned in at the lawn of Sweet-Waters, the old box-shrubs scraped against the carriage in a way that meant home, and only home. Nowhere else in the world were box-trees set so close together on a driveway, that carriages could not pass without being brushed by the stiff leaves.

Sophy smiled, catching at a sprig as they passed, and Charlotte, also smiling, said:

"Yes. Joe is still promising me to clip them properly."

The old red-brick of the house now glowed on them between the boughs of tulip-trees and horse-chestnuts. They passed the clump of great acacia trees, where stood the round, green tables, covered with pots of pink and white geraniums. Sophy recalled that day when the London window-boxes had brought this memory of home. Now she was here. Home was reality—London the memory.

Judge Macon came down the front steps and took her in his arms as though she had been in truth his sister. He was much moved. Somehow to see her in the dull black of widow's weeds struck him as unnatural. Like most men, he hated "mourning." It hurt him to see her brightness thus quenched with crêpe.

"Doggone it, Chartie," he said to his wife that night when they were alone, "get that black off of our Sophy as soon as you can. For the Lord's sake, get some of it off right away. A human being can't go through a Virginia summer draped like a hearse!"

Charlotte said:

"Oh, Joe, don't talk so gruesomely. She'll wear white I'm sure—poor darling."

Then she went to his shoulder and cried frankly.

"I hate it as much as you do," she said. "It almost makes me 'lose my religion' to think of Sophy's being a widow. Don't you know how we—how every one—always thought of Sophy as being brilliant and happy?"

"Yes, yes; so we did, so we did," he soothed her. Then he added soberly:

"But those are just the people who seem to attract misfortune ... like lightning-rods," he concluded quaintly.

---

As soon as they had reached the house, Charlotte took Sophy upstairs to show her the nursery she had arranged for Bobby, and the old nursery just across the hall, that she and Sophy used to share together, and which was now to be her sister's bedroom. Even then Charlotte had ventured to suggest timidly:

"Won't you change to something cooler, dear?"

She longed to see Sophy in white blouse and duck skirt as in old days. She opened a closet door, suggestively. "There are some of your summer things hanging here just as they used to. Mammy Nan did them up for you herself."

Sophy stood with her arm about Charlotte's waist, looking at the freshly laundered, white skirts that she had worn as a girl. They seemed like ghosts to her, gleaming there in the dim closet—phantoms of her dead self—of that joyous, exultant, "cock-sure" girl that had been herself and could never come to life again. A new sadness came over her like the sadness with which we look on the garments of the dead.

"No—I don't think I'll change, Chartie," she said gently. "This gown I have on is really cool."

And she picked up a fold of her thin, crêpe skirt that Charlotte might see for herself. She did not realise that it was the blackness of her dress that Charlotte wanted changed. She was so used to wearing black now that she felt more at ease in it. It had become a sort of uniform. She was one of the army of sorrow. To wear its prescribed black made her feel less conspicuous. The repellent custom of "mourning" has this illogical consolation for its adherents.

But her sadness faded as she looked round the familiar room. The very smell of it was the same. A scent of India matting and beeswax, and the Russia leather of her sets of Shakespeare and Chaucer. She went from object to object, touching them lovingly. Colour had come to her face. Her grey eyes shone dark. She stood at the foot of the green bed with its painted birds-of-Paradise, now but faint blurs of gold and crimson, looking lovingly at its fluted pillow-slips and coverlet of old, white "honey-comb."

"What happy dreams we've dreamed there, Chartie!" she murmured. "We were such happy things."

Charlotte called from the window for Mammy Nan to bring the youngest of her three sons to see "Miss Sophy." This was William Taliaferro, usually called "Winks," Bobby's senior by three months. Jack and Joey were still out somewhere on the farm. Winks had his mother's yellow-hazel eyes, dark curls, and decision of character. He accepted Sophy for an aunt, after some solemn pondering, and allowed her to take him in her arms. She bore him across the hall to "make friends" with his new cousin. It was delightful to see the two youngsters "taking stock" of each other. Like two young cockerels they stood, fronting each other, heads down, thumbs home to the hilt in red mouths, hackles ready to rise at the least sign—round eyes fixed on round eyes. Bobby was the first to remove a glistening thumb. His delicious little grin shone forth.

"Bobby boy!" he announced. "P'ay sogers!"

Winks considered a second longer. Then he, too, removed his thumb.

"Mh-mh," he assented, and allowed Bobby to take him by the hand. They trotted off like brothers born, to play with the tin soldiers that Rosa had already unpacked.

"Che amorini!" sighed she, looking after them with clasped hands. She did not ask more of life than two such bambini to adore. Rosa's was the true mother-heart. Whether born of her own flesh or of another's, children were all in all to her.

Though Sophy felt so dusty from her journey, she would not take the time for a tub, from these first, wondrous hours of homecoming. She longed to be out in the old grounds. Charlotte left her at last, to "see about supper." How the familiar phrase warmed Sophy's heart! She peeped again into the nursery before going down. She had worried a little as to how Rosa would "get on" with the darkies. She need not have done so. She found the dear old negress and the Lombard peasant woman sitting side by side. Rosa looked up as she entered, and patted Mammy Nan's rather embarrassed, satiny-brown face.

"Ees goo-ood," she cooed. "La Mora e molto buona ... molto simpatica."

To hear Mammy Nan called "the Moor" made Sophy smile. She stood there smiling at them.

"Rosa's a mighty nice woman, Mammy," she said, slipping easily into the vernacular.

"She sho' do 'pear so," agreed Mammy Nan, amiable but nervous. It seemed so very peculiar to her to have a strange "white 'ooman" patting her cheek and calling her "Cara," when her name was Ann.

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II

Sophy went out, while Charlotte "saw about supper," and wandered alone but not lonely through the grounds. It was "sundown," as they say in Virginia. All the west was gold above the darkling violet of the mountains. She went along one of the old brick walks towards the garden. From the stable the scent of horses and fresh straw blew towards her, mingling with the perfume of the June roses. This, too, meant home. The stable was at the foot of the garden. Ever since she could remember, when the wind was due west, the scent of "horse" had mingled with the scent of flowers.

The garden lay in terraces connected by flights of wooden steps. She sat down on the first flight, between two damask-rose trees, and watched the swallows wheeling to nest against the dim gold of the sky. A great bush of calacanthus spread at her feet. She gathered some of the little, hard, maroon-coloured blossoms, and put them inside the breast of her gown. They would only give out their full sweetness thus warmed. Their perfume of strawberries-in-the-sun and fresh vanilla was the very essence of "home." The tank-tonk of cowbells sounded along the meadow field. The cows, just milked, were grazing leisurely again. Frogs crooned softly from the mill-pond. A screech-owl trilled.

The soft, fluctuant ebb and flow of blowing foliage—like an aerial surge playing along skyey strands—came to her from the lawn above. She turned and lay at full length in the warm grass—breast to breast with the earth of home. Her heart beat strong and warm against it—her lips pressed it. And a strange, tender, universal thrill such as she had never known, ran through her as she thus clasped and kissed the soil from which she had sprung, and to which she would one day return....

And suddenly it seemed to her that the greatest gift the gods could send her would be the wish to write again. Ah, if she, the poet that was her truest self, could only rise again! It was not a "resurrection" but a "risorgimento" that she longed for. The word came to her with its memory of Amaldi. But he seemed now only like one of the sad phantoms in her phantasmal past. Nothing, not even the lost spirit of poetry, seemed to her so unreal as her past, leaning secure as she now did on the warm earth of home.

"Risorgo.... I rise again...." she murmured, pulling the purple-headed meadow-grass from its close sheath, and nibbling the yellow-white waxen stalks absently. That was a home-taste! She stopped thinking more serious thoughts, to smile down at the nibbled stalk in her hand. "You taste of childhood...." she said to the blade of grass. Then she rose to her feet. Charlotte was calling her. As she went towards the house she mused:

"If I ever write another book of verse, I shall call it 'Risorgimento.'"

For the next two years, winter and summer, Sophy remained at Sweet-Waters. She felt herself a rich woman in these days, for Gerald had insisted on continuing the allowance that he had made Cecil, to her and Cecil's son. This allowance she found to be two thousand pounds a year. Now that she had become a widow with a son to care for, she grew thrifty. During these two years at Sweet-Waters, Judge Macon invested for her every penny of her allowance, with the exception of four hundred pounds a year. This sum, together with her own income of one thousand dollars, enabled her to share the expenses of the household and provide comfortably for herself and Bobby in all other respects. She remembered that at any moment Gerald might marry, and the allowance cease. She knew, of course, that in case Gerald died without issue, Bobby would succeed to the title. About the property, whether it were all entailed or only a part of it, she did not know. She had been quite happy to find that under the English Guardianship of Infants Act, 1886, she, the mother, was sole guardian of her son, as Cecil had appointed no other. One of her greatest trials, after the first shock of her husband's death, had been the dread that Lady Wychcote might have some control over Bobby. It was with bitter reluctance that his grandmother parted with him. She had exacted a promise from Sophy that she would not allow too long a time to elapse before bringing him back to England. "Five years ... I must have five years all to myself," Sophy had answered. It seemed to her that, even in five years' time, she would not be able to come to Dynehurst without horror.

"Do you propose to make an American of Cecil's son?" Lady Wychcote had asked bitterly.

"No. I realise that Bobby must be educated in England. But he will only be seven years old in five years from now. I am not so unreasonable as you think me. If I am to live to take care of him I must go home for a time," Sophy had answered.

The quiet magic of that first homecoming held through the years that followed. If a rose could "shut and be a bud again" it would feel much as Sophy felt during those tranquil years at Sweet-Waters.

Her nephews adored her. She had "a way" with boys. When she went to ride, they usually scuttled along on their ponies, one at either rein. Her "guard of honour" she called them. Joey, the eldest, went to school in winter, but Charlotte taught Jack herself—he was only eight. And he used to make Joey glum with envy during the holidays by telling him of how, in the autumn evenings, Aunt Sophy and he (Jack) would roast chestnuts together before tea—while she told him "Jim hummers of fairy stories."

Sophy read a good deal, but nothing that could touch her too nearly. She was afraid of stirring the deeper self that seemed so sound asleep.

It was odd how bits of her own girlish verse had kept haunting her ever since her return. One she often thought of at this time:

"Frailly partitioned is the Inn of Life:
I will go very softly, lest perchance
I rouse the traveller Sorrow...."

During the autumn of her first year at Sweet-Waters a strange quickening came to her spirit. It came swift and sudden, without warning, as such things always come. "Whereas I was blind, now I see," said the man restored to sight by miracle. Whereas Sophy's creative will had been dead within her, now it lived. It was like the immemorially old and ever new mystery of conception. Her mind was with child—in a supreme, sweet pang it revealed itself. The triumphant blue of an October sky glowed through her window. It was ablaze with silver cloud-sails. Sophy knelt gazing up at this splendour, and within her all was splendour—a glory of thanksgiving—a glory of conscious fertility. The majestic blue of the sky seemed to her like God manifest.

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III

It was again June in Virginia—the third summer since Sophy's return. Her new volume of poems, Risorgimento, had come out that April. It was being widely reviewed. The "people who mattered" had given it praise. This made her very happy. She had a fortunate nature. Things did not grow stale for her. The powers of wonder and of joy were very strong in her. The lines of George Herbert sang in her heart:

"And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my only light,
It cannot be,
That I am he,
On whom thy tempests fell all night."

But apart from the resurgence of her poetic gift, her whole life seemed also quickening. As the spring burgeoned and flowered into summer, she herself seemed burgeoning and flowering. A great restlessness came over her. She felt impelled to rush out with the tide of spring into the glittering, newly wakened world.

One afternoon there was a big storm brewing at Sweet-Waters. The sunlight was dulled—the leaves hung listless. Over the mountain just behind the house a huge cloud of thunderous blue-black was swelling slowly. Now and then came a flitter of lightning—a muffled detonation far away. Bobby was very much afraid of thunderstorms. But he was now five years old. Sophy could not bear it that her boy should be afraid of anything. She took him in her arms and went out to watch the coming tempest.

"See, Bobby man," she said. "The world's asleep. Now the Storm is coming to wake her up."

"I 'spec she'd wavver sleep," said Bobby doubtfully.

He gazed in awe at the great cedars, so black and sullen blocked out against the tremendous cloud. The intense stillness scared him almost as much as the approaching hurly-burly.

Suddenly there came a violet flash, followed by a bellowing blare of thunder. At the same time a sibilation of leaves ran through the sultry air.

"Le's we go, muvvah! Le's we go!" urged Bobby in a small voice.

"Not yet, sweetheart. It's so splendid out here. See that big cloud come flying! It's like Sinbad's roc in the fairy tale. Don't you remember?"

"I don't like wocs," said Bobby falteringly.

Now the wind fell on them with a shout. The trees tossed. They bowed wildly, almost to the sunburnt earth. Twigs and leaves spun through the air. White fringes streamed from the inky cloud; then lightning—the sky blazed with a gigantic frond of fire. A pulse stroke—then a shattering, re-echoing roar.

Bobby pressed hard against his mother's breast. He was too much a man to howl, but his heart was as water within him.

"Le's go now, muvvah," he whispered.

"Just a minute more, darling. Don't you want to see the rain come over the mountain? Hark! You can hear it—hundreds of little glass-slippered feet, like Cinderella's—running—running——"

This idea fascinated Bobby for a second, but another blast of thunder was too much for him. He began to tremble.

"Darling," coaxed Sophy, "surely you aren't afraid of God's own thunder?"

"Don't like Dod," said Bobby.

"You mustn't say that, sweetheart. God made the thunder, but he made you and mother, too. He loves you."

"El pias minga a mi" (He doesn't please me), said Bobby firmly.

Now the rain swirled over the mountain. In grey-white, hissing clouds it came, as though the earth were red-hot, and the cold drops burst into steam as they smote it. Sophy ran into the house with Bobby. She took him to the upper hall, and knelt down before a door that opened upon the railed roof of the front portico.

"Ah, be a man, Bobby," she pleaded. "You're the only man mother's got in all the world."

He stood with both arms about her neck. The bright, buff freckles showed up clearly on his pale little face. But with underlip thrust out and brows drawn down, his eyelids winking with every flash of lightning, he looked the storm firmly in the face, because "Muvvah" had begged him to be a man.

Charlotte, coming upstairs to see that all window-shutters were properly closed, found them kneeling there together. She had hardly appeared before there came a flash and crash in one, so appalling that Bobby could resist no longer. He flattened himself against his mother's breast and shouted clamorously to be removed.

Then Sophy turned and slipped his hand into Charlotte's. An inspiration had come to her.

"There!" she said. "Stay safe with Aunt Chartie and watch mother! Mother's not afraid!"

The next moment she was out in the scented downpour. To and fro she ran, laughing. Her sleeveless wrapper of white muslin was soon soaked through. The wind beat it close to her in fine, rippled lines. She looked like a living figure from Tanagra. And she had never felt anything more exquisite than this cool, pelting of summer rain against her whole body.

Now and then flares of lightning would illumine her, throwing her light, drenched figure into relief against the wind-blown leaves. She seemed dancing to great tambourines of thunder. Bobby, quite made over by his mother's bravery, gazed on enraptured. She called to him as she whirled:

"Look, Bobby! See how mother loves God's splendid storm!"

Suddenly the boy broke from Charlotte's grasp. He sprang out into the tempest towards his mother.

"Me, too!" he shouted. "Viva Dio!" (Long live God!)

---

Sophy was still smiling to herself over this "Viva Dio!" as she braided her damp hair into a loose plait before going down to supper. The placid life at Sweet-Waters was very old-fashioned. During the hot weather there was no dinner served, only this light, simple meal at seven o'clock.

"How like me Bobby is," she thought. "I'm always rebelling against the Deity, and then crying 'Viva Dio!' in the end."

The storm had passed. She went and stood at her window, drawing in deep breaths of rain-freshened air, dense with sweet-shrub and honeysuckle. A serene level light lay upon the glistening grass—the "clear shining after rain." Now and then a shower of heavy drops loosened by the breeze pattered through the magnolia tree near by. The great tree, splendid with creamy blossoms, looked as though covered by a flight of doves. The birds were at their evening gossip as though no storm had ever been. One alighted on a branch close to her window, beside one of the white, chalice-like flowers, and fluffing up its feathers in a sort of musical frenzy, began its joyous song.

Sophy's heart swelled. It seemed to her that she and the bird and the white, impassioned flower, and the spent storm, and repentant Bobby crying "Viva Dio!" were all one. The whole, glad, drenched, shining earth and all that clung to it seemed shouting "Viva Dio!"

And she stretched out her arms as though to embrace this thrilling wonder called life, so that the bird broke off its song, and flew away with a loud frrrrt! of startled wings, leaving the great white flower trembling as with ecstasy....

---

She put on an old, corn-coloured muslin frock for supper, made cottage-fashion with a soft kerchief. It was one of her girlhood's dresses. She was proud to find how easily it hooked about her slim waist. She was still as slender as she had been at twenty. As she ran lightly downstairs she sang to a tune of her own improvisation: "For the rain is over and gone ... the time of the singing of birds has come...."

Her song stopped suddenly. The last turn of the staircase had brought her face to face with a little group in the lower hall—Judge Macon, Charlotte, and two men. One was her cousin Aleck Macfarlane, one was a stranger—a young fellow of about twenty-six. Sophy was struck by the pure Greek type of his head, silhouetted against the outer green of the wet lawn. It looked like some classic bas-relief, seen so in shadow against the light, gleaming grass—bronze on a background of verdigris. He was introduced by Macfarlane.

"My friend, Morris Loring——"

Sophy learned that they had been caught by the storm when they were about a mile from Sweet-Waters. They had taken refuge in a farm-house, and then ridden on.

"We got horribly muddy," said Loring, glancing down at his riding breeches and puttees which were plastered with red clay. He had a fresh, clear voice. Sophy guessed that he was a New Yorker. Now that she saw his face in the light, she thought it manly in spite of being beautiful. She had never before seen a man's face that she thought beautiful. It struck her as very singular. But even in England, where the Anglo-Saxon race so often produces perfect Greek types, she had never seen anything so Hellenic as young Loring. In figure he was tall but slight; the regular horseman's figure—flat-thighed and slim of leg. His riding-clothes were almost too well cut, Sophy thought. Loring appeared to her a little too much like the smart tailor's advertisements of sportsmen attired for riding. But she enjoyed looking at him. She wondered, amused, if he didn't enjoy looking at himself. He, on his side, was thinking: "Lord! What a dazzler! She wins, hands down, over anything I've ever seen!"

Sophy suddenly remembered the loose plait that hung below her waist. She laughed, colouring a little. Loring couldn't get his eyes away from her.

"You must excuse my appearing as Gretchen...." she said. "I got caught in the rain, too. I left my hair down because it wasn't quite dry."

"You really needn't excuse yourself for the way you look, Sophy," said Macfarlane dryly.

Sophy slipped her arm through his.

"Old humbug!" she said affectionately. She was very fond of Aleck. He was about ten years older than she was and had taught her how to ride.

Judge Macon took the two men off to tidy up a bit before supper. As soon as they had disappeared, Charlotte darted to Sophy. She began speaking rapidly in a nervous whisper.

"Sophy!... I'm dreadfully worried—Machunk Creek is 'up' and those two boys (all men under fifty had been 'boys' to Charlotte ever since the birth of her first-born), they'll have to stay all night with us. And they haven't a thing to sleep in...."

"Well, but Joe will lend them things of course," said Sophy.

Charlotte's anxiety did not abate.

"That's just it!" she whispered hoarsely. "This Mr. Loring looks so very fashionable. And Joe never will wear anything but those long, old-fashioned night-shirts! I don't see how I can put one of Joe's night-shirts on the Blue-room bed for Mr. Loring, Sophy! Aleck's different— I don't mind Aleck."

Sophy stared at her for a second, then she sat down on the lowest step of the stairs and rocked to and fro, hiding her face.

"Sophy! Sophy!" said Charlotte, still in that raucous whisper, and shaking her vexedly by the shoulder. "Stop! Get up and help me! You're too trying sometimes!"

Sophy tried earnestly to speak, but laughter kept stopping her.

Charlotte shook her again.

"How selfish of you, Sophy! I can't see where the fun comes in. I tell you I don't want to lay out one of poor, dear Joe's night-shirts for that young man to snigger over."

"I ... I don't believe he's the ... the 'sniggering' sort...." murmured Sophy, wiping her eyes.

"Well, to sneer at, then. You've got to help me. Can't you think of anything?"

Sophy considered. Suddenly her face became convulsed again.

"I ... I might lend him ... a pair of B-Bobby's pyjamas...." she faltered.

Charlotte turned on her heel.

"Very well," she said haughtily. But Sophy ran after her, repentant. She hooked a cajoling arm in Charlotte's stiffened elbow.

"Don't get huffy, dear," she coaxed. "I'm sure one of Joe's night-shirts will do perfectly ... really I do...."

They finally went to the Blue-room together—Charlotte with a white object folded very small over one arm. She laid it on the foot of the bed, outside the old brocade quilt. Then she stood looking discontentedly down on it.

"I'm sure it looks very nice," said Sophy.

But Charlotte stood absorbed. Presently she said:

"I really think I'd better unfold it. He might think it was an extra pillow-case."

And she displayed the quaint garment at greater length.

"Thank heaven I marked these myself with white embroidery cotton," she then murmured. "Joe will mark them with that horrid, indelible ink if I don't watch him like a hawk. Do you think it looks better so?"

"I think it looks perfectly charming," said Sophy gravely. Then she went off again into uncontrollable fits of laughter. "I ... I even think...." she stammered, "that it will be becoming...."

Charlotte turned her back and left the room, perfectly outdone with her. But all during supper Sophy kept smiling now and then, as she pictured Morris Loring's classic head emerging from the Judge's ample night-robe.

---

IV

October had come. Sophy and Morris Loring were walking together towards the woods that lay along the hills behind Sweet-Waters. He had ridden over from the Macfarlanes' and was to stay to dinner. Bobby trotted soberly by his mother, his mittened hand in hers. He was a reticent child about his deepest feelings. One of these feelings was that he did not like Loring. As he had said of the Deity in His form of Jupiter tonans so he said in his heart of Loring: "El pias minga a mi." Bobby thought in the Lake dialect. It was his medium of intercourse with Rosa. He did not know why he did not like Loring. The young man was particularly nice to him—or tried to be. Children are peculiar. What seems "being nice" to grown-ups, does not always appeal to them by any means. For one thing, Loring always addressed him as "General." This soldierly epithet would have pleased some little boys. It did not please Bobby. He preferred to be called by his own name. Doubtless jealousy had something to do with his dislike of Loring. Until the young man had appeared in the neighbourhood, Bobby had had his mother almost entirely to himself. Now "Mr. Lorwing," like the world in the great sonnet, was too much with them. He even intruded on the hours heretofore sacred to Bobby—firelight hours just before bedtime, when "Muvvah" used to tell such lovely fairy tales: hours like this one, in which Bobby had looked forward to gathering the first chestnuts of the season—just he and "Muvvah," with Rosa to throw sticks into the big trees for them. So Bobby trotted along in sober silence, wishing that something would happen to make Mr. Lorwing go away forever.

Rosa walked happily in the rear, gathering a great posy of autumn flowers.

The afternoon was lovely—mild yet sparkling. The blue autumnal haze veiled everything. The sky was almost purple. Against it melted clouds of silverish azure. Just over the yellowing wood hung a frail day-moon.

"What a blue day!" said Sophy, looking up at the fragile disk. "Even the moon is blue—it looks as if it were made of thin blue crystal...."

Loring was looking at her.

"That's a good omen—a 'blue moon,'" he said. "All sorts of wonders happen in a 'blue moon.'"

"Well, we might find a blue rose," said Sophy, smiling.

"I've found one."

"Ah! Shall you press it or preserve it in spirits?"

"Blue roses don't fade."

Sophy answered flippantly that in that case he would always be provided with a unique and inexpensive "button-hole"—much more unique and economical than Mr. Chamberlain's orchid.

Loring was still looking at her. She did not look at him, but kept glancing about her at the October landscape that she loved best of all.

"It seems queer that you're so contented in this quiet old place after having led such a brilliant life abroad," he said. This strain of thought had been roused in him by the mention of Mr. Chamberlain's orchid. "I should think you'd long for it again."

"Not yet," said Sophy.

His face lighted.

"'Not yet'? Then you do feel sometimes that this buried-alive-life won't satisfy you forever?"

"Oh, no! I shall fly far and wide again some day."

Loring was silent. His heart gave a hot twist. This was just what he most feared, that she would "fly far and wide" away from him. He had never in all his exceedingly wilful life desired anything with the frantic vehemence that he desired Sophy. And he was not accustomed to having his desires denied him. At home the household word was: "Morry has such a strong will." This had been the slogan of his childhood: "My will—or nothing. My will—or a burst blood-vessel. Death or punishment in any form—rather than yield my will." He had been rather delicate as a child. So his parents had preferred concession to the convulsions with which he threatened them whenever he was crossed in any way. It was a wonder that he grew up to likable manhood. Yet people thought him "perfectly charming"—a bit spoiled, but delightful. Girls called him "fascinating." His own pals said: "Morry Loring's a good sort. A bit ugly if you cross him—you've got to know how to handle him; but he's all right." By "handling" Loring they meant that one must seem to give him his way while skilfully getting one's own. This was not always practicable. Then coolnesses sprang up. Only two out of the old Harvard set stuck to him. But he was, in fact, not at all a bad sort—provided that you were willing not to announce too positively and publicly that your soul was your own. And his will was certainly strong. It was a brand-new sensation for him to will so ardently the possession of a thing which he was in sick doubt of securing. It had a poignant yet terrible charm of sheer novelty. And at the same time he experienced an inner revelation which shook him even more. It was the undreamed of capacity for adoration. There was no denying it—his spirit was on its knees to Sophy. She seemed to him as beautifully overwhelming as the suddenly revealed goddess to the shepherd of Mount Ida. There was about her, in addition to the aura of beauty and talent, the glamour of a woman who has moved brilliantly in a brilliant world. Had he been told that this naïf snobbishness had much to do with his novel emotion of adoration, he would have received the information with a tempest of incredulous and outraged wrath. Yet, though undoubtedly due to it in part, there was also genuine humility in his love for Sophy—that romantic abasement of self which makes a man find a subtle pleasure in the realisation of his own unworthiness.

Loring had come down to Aleck Macfarlane's country place to buy hunters. When he saw Sophy, he believed suddenly in Fate. No mere chance wish to buy hunters had sent him to Virginia. Here was the Lady of Legend—the Princess out of the fairy-tale books of his boyhood. He had always heard of Virginia as romantic. Now he found that it was inhabited by Romance herself in the person of Sophy Chesney. He had heard often of the Hon. Mrs. Cecil Chesney. He knew that she "had written something." Poems were not much "in his line." Yet he sent to Brentano's for Sophy's poems the day after he met her. He was frankly disappointed in them. He had expected something more fiery. And he tried to get a volume of her first book, The Shadow of a Flame. But it was out of print. He had given Brentano an order to find it for him. Only that morning the book had arrived from England. He was still tingling with the fearless, young passion of her printed words, as he walked now beside her. Her own words seemed to put him from her—far back with that past self which she no longer was, and which he craved to have her be again. And how young she looked ... what a girl! It was absurd, vexatious, incredible, impossible that so keen a flame should have died down into the white ash of philosophy ... as expressed in her latest poems.

"A penny...." said Sophy.

His long silence disturbed her. He gazed down at her, his bold eyes softening.

"I was thinking that you looked about nineteen, with that black bow on your hair," he said.

"And you say that as if you were about ten," she retorted, laughing.

"I don't feel ten."

"And I don't feel nineteen."

"Yet you're really not quite old enough to be so devilish motherly with me." His tone was quite pettish.

She was teasing him on purpose. She had found out at once that he was badly spoilt. It pleased her to see him wince, and flush, helpless under her amiable elderliness. She liked him very much, but she didn't want any love-making, though she didn't mind his being so evidently in love with her. She thought that a "disappointment in love" might do him no end of good—teach him that he couldn't "swing the earth a trinket at his wrist"—avenge some of the many young women with whom she felt sure that he had flirted outrageously. One wasn't given a Greek head, many millions, and an exaggerated sense of one's Ego, in order that one might practise the homelier virtues, such as unselfishness.

At his "devilish motherly" she laughed out—her ringing, contralto laugh, that was so delicious and that made him want to shake her and to kiss her violently, at one and the same time.

"'Devilish motherly'...." she repeated. "I'm sorry I remind you of Medea—she's the only person I can think of who was 'devilish motherly' ..."

Before Loring could reply, Bobby's voice broke in, austere and haughty.

"My muvvah is not deviliss," he said.

Loring went round beside him.

"Bully for you, General!" he exclaimed. "You'd fight a duel with me this minute, if you could—wouldn't you?"

Bobby pressed close to Sophy. He refused to yield Loring his other hand.

"Please go away," he said coldly. "I don't want you."

"Well ... your 'muvvah' don't want me either."

"No. She wants me," said Bobby.

He looked up at Sophy, his chin quivering. He resented Loring's imitation of the way that he pronounced "mother."

"Don't you?" he appealed to her.

She stooped to him.

"More than anything in the whole, round world or the blue sky," she reassured him. He smiled to feel her lips on his cheek. Close in her ear he whispered:

"We don't want him, do we? Make him go away."

"No. We must always be polite," she whispered back.

He sighed deeply.

"It's awful hard being p'lite," he mourned. "Mos' as hard as being good."

They all walked on in silence for a few moments.

Then Bobby said, with what Sophy called his "inspirational look":

"God ain't p'lite, Muvvah."

"Hello!" laughed Loring.

"Sssh!" said Sophy, flashing him a vexed look.

"Why, darling?" she asked her son.

"'Cause ev'y night I talks and talks to God, an' He never even says, 'Mh-Mh, Bobby.' Vat ain't p'lite—are it?"

Loring strode on ahead to have his laugh out. He thought Bobby the "funniest little beggar" in the world. She was always scolding him for laughing at the boy out of season.

"Children and dogs hate being laughed at," she now told him. "Didn't you hate being laughed at when you were little?"

"Can't remember," said Loring. "I suppose so. But as for that, men don't like being laughed at either."

"You don't, I know. But it's very good for you."

"Why isn't it good for the General?"

"My name's Bobby," came the small but haughty voice. At times her son reminded Sophy strikingly of Cecil. This was just Cecil's tone with presuming strangers.

"Very well, Bobby—do you know why it's good for me to be laughed at, but not for you?"

"I don't fink it matters," said Chesney's son, again in exactly the tone that Chesney would have used. Sophy felt too awed to feel amused. She felt that with the law of continuance thus powerful, death, in one sense, ceased to exist.

"You don't like me, do you, Bobby?" asked Loring, looking queerly at the child.

"Not much—p'ease to 'scuse me," replied Bobby.

"Funny little tot you are," said Loring, rather hurt. Then, to his surprise, he suddenly realised that he on his side, didn't really like Bobby. It seemed as if the child came wilfully between him and Sophy. He walked on moodily, cutting with his riding-crop at the pyred flames of golden-rod, his handsome, short-lipped mouth very sullen.

"What's the matter?" asked Sophy, to break another too long silence. "You look like a tinted marble of Endymion in the sulks."

Loring turned on her passionately.

"Mrs. Chesney," said he, "would you mind letting up on my rotten appearance! It isn't my fault that I've got a nose like a damned statue's!"

His face was scarlet. Sophy put her hands up to her own face to temper the brutality of her wild mirth.

---

V

But this laughter of Sophy was so winsome, as she glanced at him through her shielding fingers, that Loring gave way and began to laugh himself. This was another new sensation for him—the joining in a laugh against himself.

"I'm a frightful ass, I know, to mind so much when you tease me," he said as they walked on. "But you make me feel such a fool—such a 'pretty fellow'...."

"You are a pretty fellow," murmured Sophy. "When you get red with anger like that you're quite dazzling."

"Oh, I say! Don't you think you're a bit too hard on me?" Loring protested.

He still writhed inwardly. It is acute agony to six and twenty to be made fun of by the object of its adoration.

Bobby's voice piped in again.

"I don't fink you're pretty," he remarked.

"Thanks, old chap," said Loring, this time without laughter.

They had reached the woods, on whose edge stood the big chestnuts, all one-sided from the reaching of their branches towards the free sunlight of the open. Behind them stretched the forest, a glitter of trembling yellow, shot with the velvet black of twigs and stems. Here and there a bough of maple fluttered as with swarms of scarlet butterflies. Above the leathern carpet of last year's leaves shone the lilac disks of autumn asters, and the brown, bee-like heads of self-heal, set with tiny, purple trumpets. The chestnuts were thick with greenish-brown burs.

"I see 'em! I see 'em!" Bobby cried, dancing gleefully, and making a noiseless clapping with mittened hands. For a moment the sight of the clustered burs among the pointed, russet leaves had made him forget his Kill-joy, Loring.

"Oh! Che splendore!" cried Rosa, running up.

She and Loring threw sticks among the laden branches. The nuts came down with pleasant swups upon the smooth, thick mat of dead leaves.

It was charming to kneel there in the warm October sunlight, at the edge of the rustling wood, pounding away the prickly hulls from the brown, smooth chestnuts. A fresh, pleasant scent rose from the bruised hulls. The breath of the autumn wood was keenly sweet. It smelt of wild grapes and mushrooms. From a field close by stole the odour of pumpkins that had been lying in the sun all day. And this mingled fragrance, so deliciously of the earth earthy, seemed just the perfume that would be shaken from October's russet smock as he strode across the land.

Sophy stood up at last. She lifted her arms in a boyish stretch, and stamped her feet which had "pins and needles" in them from crouching so long. Her big, clubbed plait had been somewhat loosened by her vigorous pounding. Leaves and withered grasses clung to her short, cord skirt. As she stood there stretching her cramped limbs, and laughing nervously as her feet "woke up" again, with the light wind frowzing the loose strands of hair about her face, and her short skirt disclosing her ankles in their tight-laced, brown shooting-boots, she certainly looked quite young enough, and girlish enough, to be Loring's sweetheart rather than Bobby's mother.

And Loring was thinking vehemently, his hands clenched on the chestnuts in his pockets:

"She's got to love me.... I'll make her love me.... I'll make her marry me.... I will.... I will!"

"Ouf!" said Sophy, letting her arms drop. "That was delicious! And what are you so fiercely determined over? You look ... but I won't say what you look like——"

"No ... don't, please," replied Loring shortly.

He turned away to help Rosa adjust the top of her hamper, which would not fit into place over the hard, round chestnuts.

It was beautifully still. The western sky was beginning to redden. A crisp rustling came from the shocks of Indian corn in a near field.

"It must be after five ... time for my Bobbikins to be trotting home," said Sophy, taking his sober face between her hands and crumpling it together like a soft flower. Then she laughed and kissed the crumpled flower of the little face.

"Ho-o-o-g! Ho-o-o-g!" came the long-drawn, minor wail of a negro-voice calling the swine from the mountain for their evening feed.

Rosa went off down the hill, with Bobby trotting at her side. Once the little fellow looked back—only once. His dignity forbade that he should be thought regretful. And "Muvvah" had promised to come and roast chestnuts for him before his bedtime.

"Now for a brisk walk!" said Sophy. "Let's strike into the woods at random and go a little way up the mountain—not far—I must be back to roast those chestnuts before Bobby's bedtime."

"You never break your word to him, do you?" said Loring, as they plunged into the golden depths that seemed aglow with stored sunlight.

"No. Never. I'd rather break my word to ten grown-ups than to one child."

They went on in silence for some yards, the dried leaves ruffling almost to their knees in places. Then Loring said:

"If you once gave your word you wouldn't break it to child or grown-up."

"I don't know.... I've never been tested."

"I know."

"Thanks. But you shouldn't get into the habit of idealising people. You'll end as a cynic if you do."

Her tone was pleasantly mocking.

Loring said quietly:

"I've never idealised but one person in my life."

"Well ... perhaps that's being a little too cautious."

"Caution has nothing to do with it. Such things come or they don't come."

"Yes ... perhaps they do. Ah! Wild grapes! What beauties!"

She stood gazing up at the little clusters of purple-black fox-grapes that hung against the arch of yellow leaves overhead. The vine had swung itself in great loops about a dogwood tree. The grapes were like a delicate design of wrought iron work against the gilded background of autumn leaves. But they hung high—out of reach. Loring caught at them with the handle of his riding-crop. Some of the ripe, purplish beads pattered about them.

"No—no! You can't get them that way," said Sophy. "They're too ripe."

"Wait.... I'll have a go for them this way," said Loring.

He grasped a bough of the tree in either hand, shook it to assure himself that it was equal to his weight, then swung himself up into its crotch. By standing with an arm about the main stem, he could reach the bunches easily on either side. Sophy held out the lap of her skirt.

"You are a nice playmate!" she called up to him, smiling.

He tossed down bunch after bunch from where he stood. Then, seating himself sideways on one of the larger boughs, gathered all that were within reach. His bare head, with its clustered, red-brown hair, looked quite wonderful in the setting of golden leaves and iron-blue grapes.

"Forgive me...." said Sophy. "But I must tell you.... You look like the young Dionysus—with those bunches of grapes hanging all about you."

"Well, that's odd," said Loring; "but from here you look to me like Ariadne." He thanked the gods that he had not forgotten all his mythology. "I ask nothing better than to give you a crown of stars. I believe that's what Dionysus gave Ariadne ... when she became his wife."

Sophy laughed.

"You dear boy," said she. "That was very quick of you. And I like you for conquering your evil temper so nicely. You never had a sister, had you?"

"Why! Are you thinking of offering to be a sister to me?"

"Not at all. I was only thinking that you wouldn't be so 'techess,' as the darkies say, if you'd had a nice, blunt sister to tease you when you were young—that is, younger than you are now," she ended cruelly.

Loring swung himself down beside her.

"The atrocious crime of being a young man!" he said, looking into her eyes boldly and somewhat mockingly, in his turn. "It seems hard for you to forgive me that."

Sophy was a trifle disconcerted.

"You are so easy to tease ... it's a temptation," she said rather lamely.

Loring replied with apparent irrelevance.

"I believe the Brownings are the accepted standard of married bliss, aren't they?"

"Why—yes—I believe they are," admitted Sophy.

"Very well. And do you happen to remember that Elizabeth Barrett was some years older than Robert Browning!"

Sophy was annoyed to feel herself colouring.

"Yes, I know that," she said coldly.

Loring kept his eyes on her. She was eating the little fox flavoured grapes as she walked beside him—very deliberately, one at a time.

"What I find so peculiarly interesting about it," continued Loring, his voice shaken, his heart racing, "is that the difference in their ages was even more than the difference in ours."

Sophy threw aside the bunch of grapes with an impetuous movement. She turned, looking him full in the face. She was very pale now and her eyes shone black. She had not foreseen any such sudden climax as all this.

"Don't ... don't spoil it...." she said vehemently, "don't spoil our pleasant friendship.... I beg of you not to do it."

They stood facing each other, shut alone into the great gold temple of the woods. Loring's beautiful bold eyes were black also. He, too, was white. The pent up passion of his worshipping love for her, that had all the unreasoning fire of a convert's fanaticism, burnt his lips with words. He had not meant to speak. Five minutes ago nothing had been further from his thoughts than the outburst, which now shook him with its violent suddenness.

"You can't stem the high tide with a straw...." he said low and breathless. "Do what you will with me.... I love you.... I more than love you.... I worship you.... I adore you.... Break me if you like.... Snap my life in two.... Throw away the broken bits.... But I worship you.... I worship you!"

He dropped suddenly to his knee on the brown leaves; caught the hem of her clay-stained skirt to his lips. He was past all self-consciousness. He had no dread of seeming ridiculous. Indeed it did not occur to him that he could be ridiculous. Young love has no sense of humour. His white, intense face looked up at her amazingly beautiful—the face of a wood-god kindled with awed passion for some skyey deity. And this sheer beauty of his kept Sophy also from seeing anything absurd in his kneeling there to kiss the soiled hem of her skirt. Supreme beauty, like supreme love, is never ridiculous. The gods wept over Icarus tumbling from his sire's chariot in mid-heaven. They would have tittered had it been lame Vulcan sprawling after his whirling hammer through the gulfs of ether. In the few seconds that Sophy stood transfixed, gazing down into that exalted young face, she understood how the legend of the moon's white stoop to Endymion had been invented. Not imagination so much as material beauty had been the source of the Greek myths. The artist and the poet in her ranged themselves on Loring's side. Her first impulse of anger was replaced by a sad tenderness. She forgot the Morris Loring of everyday in this Endymion of a moment. She forgot even that she had called him like Endymion "in the sulks" only a short while ago. This youth, with the white flame of worship quivering up from his heart's altar and lighting the antique mask of his ardent face—with his awed, yet eager eyes burning upon hers—this was a different thing—one quite new to her. She was startled by the throe of pitiful regret that seized her. If only she had been different herself ... a young virgin ready to receive this outpouring of virginal love.... What miracles would have enfolded them ... what wonders of dawn-time ecstasy. She had been mistaken. A face so beautiful could be only the symbol of a lovely soul. And this soul was gazing at her from the timid passion of the dark eyes, no longer bold, but infinitely, touchingly imploring. In continuous, swift flashes, like the luminous particles from radium, these thoughts showered from her mind, as she stood gazing down at him.

"I've heard of it.... I never believed.... Now I believe..." he was stammering. "My soul's in your body.... Your beautiful body is more than any soul to me.... I pray to you.... My soul in you prays to you...." He caught up a bit of leafy clay that had adhered to her foot, and pressed that also to his lips. "See...." he stammered on, "the dirt from your shoe.... That's how I love you...."

And even this act did not make him seem ridiculous. But Sophy caught his wrist, holding back his hand from his lips that trembled into a white, half-smile.

"My dear...." she said, her own voice shaken. "My dear boy.... Please...."

She felt her words very stupid—inane.

"Come...." she said, pulling at the strong wrist to make him regain his feet. He yielded to her touch and rose, standing tall and quivering before her.

"Won't you even let me worship you?" he asked in a smothered voice.

"My dear, no ... be reasonable...."

It seemed to Sophy that she had never been at the mercy of such banalities as her mind now offered.

He stared, his lip curling.

"Reasonable!"

"I mean...." Fitting words would not come to her. "You forget...." she said confusedly.

"What ... what do I forget?"

"My life ... what is past.... My life is over ... that part of life...."

"Your life?... Over?..." He gazed at her so that her eyes wavered from his. She could not help this. It distressed her to be standing there before him in her short skirt, bare-headed, with eyes that would not keep steady. She felt that he had the advantage of her out there in those wide, still aisles of gold with their groining of dark branches. It was as if he had her far from home, in his own haunts. The glowing forest sustained him, gave him his natural setting. He stood there facing her, the young wood-god in his own domain. She felt a droll almost hysteric yearning for trailing skirts, and the dignified refuge of an armchair. That absurdly girlish bow of black ribbon seemed to burn her neck. She knew that she looked incongruously young for the soul that inhabited her. She made a desperate grasp at dignity of voice. Her cold tone should be her trailing garment—make him realise the distance that was spiritually between them. When she spoke it was in a steady voice.

"My life—as regards love—is over, because I have come to a place in it where I do not even wish love," she said icily. A banal quotation slipped from her before she could stop it. "'Ich habe geliebt und geleben,'" she said, vexed at the crass ordinariness of the words as they struck her ear.

There was silence. A squirrel dropped a nut through the still, flaky gold of lapping leaves—then chittered angrily at its own awkwardness.

Loring said at last in a strangled voice:

"I am jealous of that dead man."

Sophy whitened.

"Don't say such things to me," burst from her in a sharp whisper.

"Have I hurt you?" he whispered back. "I'd die for you ... have I hurt you? Did you love him so much as that? Are you really dead ... with him?"

"Yes."

Another silence. Then the wilful, passionate young voice broke out again:

"No! you are not dead ... you are not dead! You are only sleeping...."

Sophy started as though from a sort of sleep.

"We must go," she said. "I'd forgotten...."

She turned and began walking rapidly away from him.

He caught her up in a stride.

"You break my life like a rotten twig," he said. "And go to roast chestnuts for your son."

The anguish of bitterness in his voice kept his words from absurdity.

"Don't say such things ... don't say such things," Sophy murmured, walking faster and faster. He kept beside her, implacable in the smarting novelty of defeated love and will.

"Your face is so beautiful and gentle.... Who would have thought you could be so hard ... like flint?"

"I am not hard.... I only tell you the bare truth to save you pain."

"You can't save me pain. Why do you throw me these mouldy crusts of old sayings? I offer you the best of me.... Don't you even think me worth a word out of your heart?"

Sophy paused. Her heart gushed pity—and regret.

"Oh, my dear...." she said lamentably, looking up at him with frank pain. "Why do you want to make it so hard for us both?"

"Then ... it is hard ... a little ... for you, too? I mean ... it hurts you to hurt me so?"

"Yes, yes, it hurts me! Do you think I am made of stone? Do you think I like seeing you suffer?"

"Then...." his throat closed on the words he wanted to say. He was ignominiously near to tears. Chokily he got it out:

"Then ... don't send me away ... just because ... I love you. Let me stay near you.... It can't hurt you ... and it's life to me."

"No, no. That would be horribly wrong of me—utterly, hatefully selfish."

He caught at this.

"You'd like to have me? You've called me a good 'playmate,' you know. I won't bore you with—with"—he gulped—"this craziness of mine.... If I'm 'good' ... you'll let me stay on?"

"Oh, it's all wrong! It's all wrong, my dear!" said Sophy, quite desperately. "You should go away at once. This is all just a phase ... just a passing...."

"Please," said Loring, with real dignity.

Sophy felt very unhappy. She knew that she was doing wrong to temporise. Yet that cruel kindness of the tender-hearted made her hesitate. She could not bear to banish him all at once in this harsh way.

"Well ... for a little while...." she murmured weakly. "But it would be much better for you to...."

"Please," said Loring again. "Allow me to judge of what will be best for me."

"I ought not to," she said miserably. The whole scene had unnerved her—jarred the fine, secure monotony of the life that she had thought so firmly established. One cannot stand face to face with genuine love without feeling a stir in chords long dumb. Loring's young, idealising passion had set certain strings in Sophy's nature vibrating. It gave her that sensation of aching melancholy with which we listen to the faint notes of an old piano that was rich and mellow in our youth. It made her feel very lonely. She had not once felt lonely since coming home—not once in these calmly joyous years of mental renewal. Restlessness she had known of late, but never loneliness. Now she felt all drooping with the solitude of her own spirit as she walked homeward beside Loring. The soft, dun red of the autumn sky seemed to her like the quiet, sombre glow of her own life that had no more flame to give forth, that had sunk into steady embers, that would presently resolve itself into the white ash of old age. Yet it was wonderful to be loved again—even though she had no love to give in return. It was movingly wonderful—though awful in a way—to feel this tonic answering of slack chords to the full, resonant notes struck from the blazing lyre of youth....

---

VI

Loring had said that he would be "good" if Sophy did not banish him altogether, and he was, very "good." It was the goodness of a spoilt child that swallows physic for the spoonful of jam to follow. The jam in Loring's case was represented by the hours that he was allowed in Sophy's presence. He had not known himself capable of such self-control. Altogether, his love for Sophy had revealed to him as it were another man cased within the man that he had heretofore thought was himself. This new man was of more sensitive stuff, finer and yet much stronger than the other man had been. It was something like having a sixth sense bestowed on him—this new appetency for all manner of things towards which until now he had only felt a vague indifference. His life, since college days, had been made up of sport, occasional spurts of travel in wild places, girls—to a moderate degree—the usual convivial, surface intercourse with other young bloods—some ennui, generally dispelled by drink (the average young American's ordinary indulgence in "high-balls" as a panacea for tedium).

Loring had an excellent, but lazy, mind. At Harvard he had read law. Once out of college, he had dropped it promptly. He had inherited fifteen millions at his father's death, when he was only twenty-one. What was the use of moiling away at law? The property was looked after already by a firm of the most distinguished lawyers in New York. He could see no "sense" in racking his brain with work that bored him when this work was absolutely without necessity. So he had spun in gay peripheral circles with the wheel of life—until meeting Sophy. Now she had drawn him to its centre. It was strange how his consciousness, thus centrifugally established, seemed another consciousness. Only the present was real—this radiant and somewhat awful present in which he loved Sophy as he had not believed that human beings could love. His past seemed like a dull, cheap volume of gaudy colour-prints. He could not realise that he had moved through those vulgar pictures of the past. This Morris Loring, he felt, had not been part of them. He flared hot with shame, merely in glancing back at them. Yet his life had not been really shameful—in the grossest meaning of the word. Some sensual pleasure he had taken, not much. In the odiously smug phrase with which his native literature was given to describing virtuous youth, he was rather by way of being a "clean-limbed, clean-minded young American." But the pig of St. Anthony has a trick of running between the limbs of youth, no matter how cleanly—indeed, he seems to take an evil joy in tripping the cleanliest, if only once. It was these chance tumbles into the mire that scalded Loring's heart with shame, as he knelt now at the white shrine of his lady. He would have liked to have a new body as well as a new soul to love her with. For the will in him had not really submitted to her will. It was only bent to this momentary obedience, like a strong spring ready to act at the least touch. Love made him as wary and as cunning as a fox in springtime. Not for one moment did he relinquish his determination to win her ultimately. In the meantime, he was "good." That is, he did not vex her by hinting at his love.

All his energies were concentrated on becoming such "a playmate" as she would miss if taken from her. He was like Jacob serving for Rachel. This new life that had sprung up in him seemed to have the indomitable patience of spiders. And without tiring, ceaselessly, exhaustlessly, he spun about her the fine web of pleasant habit—a mesh of delicate, trivial customs, fine as the silken band that bound Fenris, and that would be as hard to break should the time come when she wished to break it.

His family and friends thought, of course, that he was merely staying on for the Virginia hunting season. It seemed reasonable enough. The "Eldon Hounds"—Macfarlane's pack—were well known in the North; but the Hunt was not fashionable. Most Northern sportsmen went to Loudoun county. There was too much wire in this part of Albemarle. Even Macfarlane threatened to leave if something could not be done about the wire. So Loring set to work in the matter. He became very popular in the county. This rather bored him, but he must seem to remain for the hunting. He did not choose that there should be gossip. He was very careful about his visits to Sweet-Waters. Even the Macfarlanes did not know how often he went there.

As for Sophy, after the first qualms of conscience had passed, and she saw how easily Loring slipped back again into the old, pleasant intercourse, she was delighted to have him stay on. He had a great charm for her, the charm of sheer beauty and a certain winsomeness that even Charlotte was beginning to yield to.

For this strange baptism of white fire changed Loring in all respects. His egotism shrivelled under it. He glowed with fellow kindliness towards every one. The homely, simple life of the Macons became full of enchantment to him. He did all sorts of little odd jobs for Charlotte, such as riding three miles out of his way to post a forgotten letter, or nailing hinges on the pigeon-house door, when there was no carpenter to be had for days.

Winks thought him a delightful person. He had the most glorious rides around the lawn, on Loring's hunters, every time that he came to Sweet-Waters. Even Bobby grew a little more tolerant. He, too, enjoyed these ambles on the big, shining beasts, that rattled their nostrils with high spirits, and stepped mincing sideways, as Loring walked at the bridle-rein. The boys straddled proudly, their small legs jutting wide apart, on the huge slanting shoulders of "Omicron" or "Proud Aleck."

Loring begged Sophy to try the splendid red hunter that he had bought from Macfarlane.

So she followed the hounds on Proud Aleck, and if Loring had adored her before, he could scarcely keep his love in hand when he saw her riding so gallantly at the tricky snake-fences, mounted on the glittering blood-red horse.

And, when the run was over, came the homeward ride with her, across twilit pasture lands and fallow. They would select low gaps in the fences—then over, side by side, like birds. There would be the reek of ploughed earth and wood smoke in their nostrils. Sometimes a rabbit would leap up under the horses' feet, making them swerve, snorting. They would see the little white, fluffy scut go zigzagging through the yellow broom-sedge.

As winter drew on, and they became more intimate, she read him some bits of her childish scribblings that she had discovered, put away by her mother in an old chest. They made deliciously funny reading in the firelit hours of tea-time. One line from a long, sprawling tragedy in blank verse came to be a saying with Loring:

"'Ah well to rob a comet of its tail
To make the moon a wig!'"

he used to quote dramatically, when anything seemed impracticable. He was a dear playmate! Sophy became very fond of him indeed. And Loring, for his part, loved every member of the household, especially Judge Macon. There was such a taking contrast between the genial humour of the man and his gaunt, lean figure with its dark, rather tragic-looking face, that reminded him of the photographs of Edwin Booth as "Hamlet." Yes, he certainly looked like a world-worn, weary Hamlet who had recovered with only a slight lameness from Laertes's sword-thrust. The Judge limped a little from a bullet in his knee. He had fought in the Southern army when a lad of sixteen. Loring, as he watched the Judge limping about the house, mused sometimes on what life must have been like in Virginia when boys of sixteen had gone to war.

The Judge, on his side, returned Loring's liking in full. He quite exasperated Charlotte by what she called his "real weakness" for the young man.

"Yes, I've got a mighty soft spot for this Yankee boy," he would admit. Then he would chuckle wickedly. "But it's nothing to Sophy's," he would add; "only she don't know it."

Charlotte's more kindly feeling towards Loring did not keep her from being quite miserable over such possibilities. She thought them only too likely. She could foresee nothing but unhappiness for Sophy in such a marriage. Yet she was helpless. Sophy was not the sort of person that one could "guide." There was nothing for it but to leave her in God's hands, as the Judge had once suggested. Charlotte was truly religious. Yet it is strange how hard it is for the truly religious to "leave things in God's hands." "Putting parcels in the Heavenly post-office, and jerking at them by the string of prayer," the Judge called it.

Towards the end of November Loring's mother fell ill. He was telegraphed for. He was very fond of his mother, but the old egotism surged up in him when he read that she was not in danger, only suffering. He could not ease her suffering. That was the affair of doctors and trained nurses. However, he left for New York at once.

---

VII

Loring was not able to return to Virginia until the middle of January. He arrived at the Macfarlanes' late in the afternoon, and as soon as supper was over had Proud Aleck saddled and rode to Sweet-Waters.

The night was wild with wind, but very clear. A newly risen moon tilted above the eastern woodlands. The wind played madcap games—now leaping high into the heavens, now rushing low along the earth. The great half-moon just skimming the dark reach of forest was like a silver sail bellying in the flaw.

Loring exulted to feel the bay's withers once more between his knees, and the free countryside about him. He rode at a clipping trot, then galloped; then gave the horse his head up a long hill. Proud Aleck, excited by the gusty wind, sped like a racer over the bone-white winter grasses. They faced the blast gloriously. The warm reek of the flying horse blew back in Loring's face. He felt the great body plying nobly against his legs. Now they swept downward, jumped a brook, leaped into fallow. The huge horse seemed bounding over a floor of dark-red cloud, so easily he took the ploughland of spongy clay, so noiselessly his hoofs went over it. Now they breasted another hill. This was living! To ride with the winter wind through the cold flame of moonlight to the glowing hearth of his Lady!...

Would she be alone, he wondered—in her own study?... Or would she be sitting with her sister and the Judge in the general living room?... He cantered across the lawn. Ah—there was a flicker of firelight from her study window!... Perhaps she was there. Perhaps he would have the joy of seeing her alone, this first moment after those interminable six weeks....

Mammy Nan told him that she opened "de do'" for him, "'caze Miss Chalt an' dee Jedge done step over tuh dee Univussity, an' I'se sleepin' in dee house tuh keep keer uv Miss Sophy."

Miss Sophy was "in her steddy," Mammy Nan further informed him. She "sut'ny wuz glad he done come tuh cheer Miss Sophy up some. 'Peared like, to Mammy Nan, that she'd ben a-mopin' ever sence Miss Chalt an' dee Jedge tuck an' lef' her behine."

Loring found Sophy sitting in the firelight, gazing at the big logs of hickory, and smoothing her collie's head as it rested against her knee. The room was large but cosy. It had old-fashioned curtains of dark-red worsted grosgrain at the windows. Little green "steps" set between them held pots of flowers. There was all through the room a sweet scent of rose-geranium, lemon verbena, and the clean, fresh fragrance of new-cut logs. It was the perfume that he associated with her. He stood near the door after entering, breathing deep of this pleasant, candid scent, and drinking her with his eyes.

She looked up, startled. And he shook inwardly with the soft firelit beauty of her face. She was wearing a gown that he loved—an old gown of olive velveteen trimmed with narrow bands of fur. It was made like the gown in a picture, quite straight from throat to shoe-tip. The long, wide sleeves opened from the shoulder. They hid her arms usually; but when she reached for something, her lovely, slender arms gleamed between the soft bands of fur. Behind her, on her writing-table, was an old Algerian water-bottle of dull copper, and in it a branch of magnolia. The scarlet seed-cones gleamed like gems or coals of fire among the glossy black-green foliage. Her face as it turned to him against this background of leaves and jewelled seed-cones was something for a lover to remember in old age.... He got a desperate grip of himself and went forward. As she lifted her hand to his, the wide sleeve parted, as he had known that it would do, and the amber-white arm shone bare for his worship.... Without speaking, she smiled a welcome, but the firelight showed him tears caught on her under-lids. Mammy Nan's surmise was correct. Sophy had been "moping" a little of late. When Charlotte and the Judge had left for some festivity at the University two days ago, her mood had been quite tranquil. But she had been rather overworking, and these two days, all alone in the empty house, had set her brooding. It was nearly nine o'clock. The wind thrummed in deep, minor chords between the double doors that shut her study from the greenhouse in the wing. A hound, hunting alone by moonlight, bayed from the distance. Dhu cocked his ears—the supple tips hung flickering an instant, then drooped again. The collie resumed his wide, gold-eyed, tranced stare into the fire. He, too, seemed overwhelmed by melancholy. Sophy drew him to her at last, and leaned her cheek against his silky black shoulder which smelt like warm, clean straw. His sire was not a kennel dog, but tended sheep in the Highlands. Now when Sophy put her head against his shoulder, he leaned down his head on hers much as a person might have done.

With her arms around him and her eyes on the fire, she listened to the beating of his heart. The warm, red mystery of hearts—even a dog's heart—awed her. What was this love that even dogs could feel, and why was it so immeasurably sad? The feeling of desolation grew and grew.... She was so horribly lonely. Even the close, simple contact with her collie did not comfort her. This love without comprehension, that he gave her, was only another sadness. Nothing lasted. No one remained the same. There was Morris Loring.... At least he had seemed to have a real fondness for her, after he had conquered his first boyish, fantastic frenzy. Yet already he, too, had changed, forgotten. Just a nice, beautiful boy ... but she had been fond of him also.... Now he had forgotten. She was growing old. Youth draws youth. Naturally he would forget her.

The collie, hearing her sigh, got down from his chair and leaned his head against her knee with a low whine. She sat gazing at the burning logs and gently stroking the sleek, black head. It was so that Loring found her when he entered.

---

VIII

He had put all his will into that grip upon himself when he went forward. But now as he stood looking down at her, and saw the tears on her lashes, his heart seemed a white-hot weight that dropped him to his knees beside her. He did not dare touch her, but he grasped the arms of her chair with both hands, his vivid young face close to hers.

"Oh, my Beautiful...." he stammered. "What are you crying for? Who has hurt you?"

It was amazingly startling to have this impassioned young Greek rush like a faun out of the winter night and hurl himself at her knees, just when she had been thinking of him as forgetful of her and hundreds of miles distant. She managed another smile, keeping her hand on Dhu's head. The collie sat stolidly between them, pressing, jealously, closer to his mistress.

"No one has hurt me.... It's nothing.... Nothing but foolishness ... contemptible foolishness...."

"You were lonely?"

"I was just silly.... Get up, dear child."

"I'm not a 'child'.... I'm a man who loves you.... And I shall not get up ... not until you tell me what is troubling you...."

"Dear Morris ... do you call this being 'good'?"

"No. I call it being what I can't help being.... Do you think I can see tears in your eyes and play good little Harry?... I can't stand your tears.... They make me wild ... quite wild. Don't play with me.... Don't laugh...."

He caught her hand suddenly, pressing it against his breast.

"Feel that...." he stammered. "Can you laugh at that?"

The violent young heart drummed against her hand pressed down upon it by both his.

"It's an Idolater...." he went stammering on, his voice low and thick with the swift heart-beats. "Each throb worships you.... And you tell me to be 'good'.... You tell me that!"

The dog growled suddenly. It was a low, menacing rumble deep in his chest. His eyes were fixed on Sophy.

"Be quiet ... lie down, Dhu," she said, glad for an excuse of speaking normally. "Lie down!" she repeated sharply, as the dog remained motionless. He withdrew his head unwillingly from her knee, and subsided on the rug near her feet. Now his gold eyes were fixed on Loring. A rim of milky jade showed beneath them. There was suspicion and cold anger in their gaze.

Sophy was hemmed in by those quivering arms that did not touch her, but whose vibration she felt through the wood of the old chair. Loring's face was rapt and wild. He was "out of himself"—terribly close to her in his fanatic mystery of adoration.

"Why should you mind?" his words came racing breathlessly. "What I offer you isn't common or unclean.... I think of you as Catholics think of Mary...."

"My dear...." whispered Sophy. He hypnotised her with the tremendous intensity of his emotion. It poured on her from his dark, bold eyes that had a wild timidity even in their boldness.

The same inanity of mind that had assailed her that day in the October woods, under his first outburst, again made her feel at a loss. She could not think of the right words to say. She drew back as far as she could from him in the deep chair. Her bosom rose and fell uncertainly. He moved her ... he confused her. She did not quite know what it was that he made her feel. The scent of horse and leather and winter fields was still fresh upon him. This scent confused her more. It was the sharp scent of vigorous manhood in her quiet room, with its warm fragrance of green wood and rose-geranium. It made her nervously aware of herself and of him.

"Dear Morris ... please get up...." she urged, making a great effort to be natural. "I can't think with you kneeling there like that.... You confuse me...."

"I don't want you to think.... I want you to feel.... I want to confuse you.... I want you to feel something of what I'm feeling.... Yes, something of it ... something at least...."

"Don't...!" she murmured.

Her brow contracted, as if with pain. Yet she tried to smile. She was quite pale. So was Loring. But he did not move. His thirsty eyes drank and drank of her face.

"Oh, you wonder...!" he whispered hurryingly. "You wonder of the world.... Rose of the World!..."

Suddenly he dropped his head, and began kissing the velvet of her gown. She felt these kisses through the velvet—swift, wild, hurried—like the alight and flight of birds. His passion seemed winged like birds. And these wings beat about her, softly reckless and confusing. All Venus's doves seemed loosed in the firelit room. The air was thick with the throb of their pinions. Outside thrummed the deep, harsh chords of the winter wind. Outside was cold, clear space—a frost of stars—the free, unloving wind....

She bent forward, quite desperate to feel herself thus stirred. With her slender, strong hands she lifted his head by force from her knee ... tried to put him from her.... She wanted to be stern. She knew well that her greatest weakness was in dealing with love. She had always temporised. She could never quite get her own consent to be harsh with love of any kind. Even now she could not be as stern as she wished to be.

"Morris ... really ... you must not.... I can't have this...." she said brokenly.

He did not yield to her restraining touch, but leaned against her hands—seized them in his own, pressing down his face into them. She felt his lips quivering on them. Her palms quickened with those trembling lips.

Again the collie growled.

"There! You see...." she exclaimed nervously; "even Dhu is vexed with you.... Do you want me to be really angry with you?... Yes—I shall be really angry if you keep this up any longer.... I shall be angry ... Morris!"

But he crouched before her, grasping the folds of her gown in both hands. He even laughed a little, tossing back his short locks, that had been rumpled against her knee.

"Be angry, then...." he murmured. "Be angry.... What do the famishing care for anger?... Yes.... I thirst for you.... I don't hunger for you.... There's nothing so gross as hunger in my longing.... But I thirst.... I thirst.... Oh, Beautiful!... Be kind.... What is it to you if I worship you?... Can the wind kindle the moon? You should have seen the poor, mad wind trying to kindle her, as I did, when I rode here to you this night!... He raved at her as I rave at you.... And she was just like you—oh, so like you!... Cold, white, still, superior ... far off there in a heaven of her own ... like you.... He couldn't reach her.... Couldn't warm her.... Like me with you...."

He broke off, a spasm marring the excited beauty of his face.

"Oh, don't I know I can't warm you...!" he cried. "Not if I bathed you in my heart's blood—it would slip from you like a red sunset from the moon. White Wonder ... cold Moon-Woman!... Now I know what Endymion felt.... I know—I know...."

Sophy sat gazing at him, fascinated. She was lapped in a sort of wonder. Here was Love at his miracles again. Could this be "Morry" Loring—keen sportsman, crack polo player—this frantic young Rhapsodist at her knee, talking poetry as though it were his native tongue? He seemed unreal to her. She, herself, seemed unreal. He rushed on:

"Yes, yes!... You've called me Endymion in mockery. But I am Endymion.... Did you know that when you mocked me?... Did you know that I am really the man that drew down the Lady Moon?..."

He laughed again. He was so amazingly beautiful as he crouched there, laughing with love in the firelight, that Sophy quivered with it. She felt dazed. She felt some one other than herself. She began to feel that there was a stranger within her—a woman she had never known. Some one wild and shy and spun of moonbeams—a sort of fairy-Sophy that this ecstatic youth was moulding out of dream-stuff—that was coming into ensorceled life under his touch as Galatea softened from marble into flesh under the caresses of Pygmalion....

She felt as if she must break away from him—escape from the sound of his feverish, flooding words—and that bold-timidity of his eyes that so fascinated her. She tried to rise, but he hemmed her in, with his arms upon her chair, encircling yet not touching her.

He laughed very low now—it was like a sort of sobbing.

"Oh, Selene.... Selene.... Selene...." he murmured. "Let yourself be loved ... with worship ... always with worship. I will never forget that you are a goddess, too.... But you shall never be lonely again ... if you will only bend to me.... There'll never be tears in your beautiful eyes again.... And you were lonely—you know you were.... It's lonely work, Selene, shining alone in the roof of heaven...."

Sophy put up her hands to her temples, pressing the hair back from her face. Her dilated eyes looked dazed.

"I ... I think you're not quite yourself to-night...." she stammered. There was certainly some spell upon her. She strove against it—but weakly, like one striving to wake from an overpowering dream.

He gave that low laugh that so confused her.

"I'm not myself...." he said. "Haven't I told you that I am Endymion?..."

He leaned towards her. His face grew soft and timorous. She felt his hand go stealing to her hair. One heavy lock had fallen loose. He drew it to him, buried his face in it and shivered from head to foot. Sophy sat gazing down at him. Her heart began beating strangely. The curve of the brown head bending near her breast struck her suddenly with a sharp tenderness. She touched it softly with her finger tips. At the touch of her fingers he trembled again—then looked up—that wild shyness still in his subdued eyes.... His hand slipped from her hair upon her neck. He knelt up and his quivering hand drew her gently towards him....

"This once ... only this once...." he pleaded, whispering ... "to remember all my life.... I will shut my eyes.... Selene.... You can think that I am sleeping ... as on Latmos...."

That thrall held Sophy—that and some wild, half-lawless romance in her own nature. It was as though reason forsook her. A veil woven of wind and firelight and the soft dreaminess of youthful passion floated between her and reality—shut her in from past and future—filmed about her like the pale smoke from an enchanter's fire.... She let herself be drawn towards that eager flower of the young, thirsty mouth. Nearer ... nearer.... Far, far away, a fine, chill voice said: "No. This you must not do...."

She heard it as the fainting hear their names called. An instant—then the young lips touched hers—delicately—clung trembling.... A thrill as in dreams—unreal, etherealised—ran through her.... This kiss was divine. Like nectar this kiss was to them both—long, miraculous, and mystically impassioned, as a kiss on the wild moors of elf-land....

When they came to themselves, they were leaning cheek to cheek, hand in hand, gazing into the fire which had glowed down to molten jewels. The wind harped round the quiet house, now low, now loud. A mouse, darting like a wee, grey fish, along the wainscoting, grew ever bolder. Presently he scampered across the train of Sophy's gown—then played upon the hearth-rug. The collie twitched his ruffled legs nervously as he lay sleeping. But those two did not move. For long, long minutes they sat there motionless, cheek to cheek, hand in hand, gazing into the fire....

---

IX

Before Loring went away, an hour later, he put a fresh log on the fire, smiling up at her shyly, as he knelt to do so.

"I'll mend the altar fire in your temple before I go, Selene," he had murmured.

He felt strangely subdued and awed after the wonder of that kiss. The enchantment that was over them held awe for them both. There was in it something mystic—an influence blowing, as it were, from home-lands of the soul dimly remembered. Sophy felt this consciously—Loring unconsciously. But he felt things through her, since that kiss. There had been between them during that long-blossoming kiss a transfusion of spirit. She was through and through him like music—like sunlight through the fibrils of a plant, from flower to root. And this subtle fusion made him know just what to say and do to satisfy her. It was this new-lent instinct that had made him so still after the wild magic of that kiss had set his blood and spirit singing. When she had whispered at last: "Go now ... dear...." he had risen without a protest. It was then he had knelt to put the fresh log on her fire. Afterwards he had bent and touched his lips to her hands as they lay together in her lap—then to the shining, fire-warmed tress that flowed over her shoulder. He had gone out, closing the door noiselessly as though she were in some mysterious trance, and he feared to waken her.

As in a trance himself, he had fetched Proud Aleck from the old stable. The horse had nickered when he heard him coming. In the fragrant darkness of the stable, Loring had thrown an arm over the bay's neck. "You brought me to her this night...." he whispered. He drew the horse's muzzle towards him, and pressed his lips to the broad front. He continued for some moments leaning against the great horse that quivered with impatience to be gone. He felt faint and languid. It was as if he had really been only mortal and she a goddess. His mortality seemed to fail under the bliss of this contact with immortality. It was as though sudden godhead had been bestowed on him and his flesh were consuming under it into a finer essence.

There was no pride as yet in his wonder. That beautiful humility of real love still held him. He was not even exultant that his "will" had won at last. He did not feel as though he had conquered but as though some great Winged Victory had caught him up and set him on this height, with its veil of golden mist. It was not the kingdoms of the earth that were offered him—but the kingdoms of the air ... starry places ... Diana's cloud-land ... hanging-gardens of the gods....

Loring was rapt into the ecstatic state of "conversion."... He was experiencing all the giddily rapturous throes and exquisite frenzies of what is known as "revelation"—only its cause was not divine but human love. He moved in a vision of clear light. Like Sophy, he was a stranger to himself, yet he felt that this new self was not really the stranger, but that old self which lay dark and shrivelled at the roots of being, like the husk of a seed, from which has sprung the triumphing blossom.... He rode home as on a wind of dreams. The splendid moon, now soaring in mid-heaven, seemed set there as a symbol for him, and him alone. "Selene.... Selene.... Selene...." went the hoofs of the great, red horse, like the strokes of a Rhapsodist, beating time to the music in his heart....

---

And Sophy, too, was all be-glamoured. She had heard the fairy-harp, she had listened to music blown from the land of Heart's Desire. Ior, the fairy chief, had kissed her eyes and lips. She was amazed, bemused—deep down in her heart there was a great fear. Yet there was joy also. Not the sane joy of everyday ... but a fragile, iridescent trembling as of a dewy gossamer spun between the lintels of the door of Dreams. She was afraid to move lest she should destroy this delicate, fine-spun joy. Beyond its veil glimmered the wings of golden dreams. She knew well how Diana must have felt after she had kissed the sleeping shepherd.

She was like one in some old-time fable, who gives a wanderer a cup of water, and, lo! after drinking, the wanderer shakes back his cloak of hodden-grey, and it is Eros himself glowing against the twilight—she had entertained, unawares, the mightiest angel of them all. The soft, electric plumes of Love had folded down upon her. She was smothered in his sparkling wings, yet this lovely death only released her to new life. It was only her self of later years that was dying softly. She felt herself gleaming, slipping from the hard shell of years—a pearl released, a pearl bathed in seas of wonder.

Back to her earliest girlhood she was washed ... back, back to that shore where all is dream and miracle.... When she had loved Cecil, she had not been so young; she was younger now than when she had wept over her first lover's death. She was not only young—she was youth itself. She was not standing outside the door of dreams as she had fancied, but within it. That trembling, iridescent gossamer of joy shut out reality—the past, the future—shut her in with the lovely serving-maidens, dreams fulfilled.... It seemed to her that all the poetry of the world was flowering in her heart. Her breast felt full of roses ... red and white roses of love for every mood....

Her little travelling clock struck twelve. It seemed like the voice of a malicious fairy rousing her from her too lovely trance. She started up. The collie sprang up with her, and stood alert, ears cocked, eyes upon her face. She looked about her dazedly. The room was not the same. It gazed back at her with a new expression. She felt as if bodily she, too, had grown different—were looking at the old, familiar objects from a child's stature. The plants in the windows seemed larger. They were like a fairy forest. As the firelight caught the crimson and purple bells of the fuchsias, they seemed to sway—to ring forth a faint, wild music....

She put her hands to her face. This racing of her fancy was like a light fever. And now when she glanced up again, she saw the fuchsias like strange insects flying among their leaves. Their scarlet stamens were like the frail legs of wasps drooped for flight.... She went up and touched one softly, to assure herself that it was a flower. Fuchsias were never like other flowers to her after that night.

She broke one off and took it with her upstairs. Her bedroom also greeted her with a new look. The fire was almost out. She kneeled down to mend it. As the flame sprang to life again beneath her fingers, she thought of "The Witch of Atlas": ".... Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is...." She knew. She knelt there, adoring the delicate flame, purest and fiercest of elements. Yes—fire was purity itself. This lovely fire in her own heart purified her. She was a Phœnix ... the ashes of her life were only a soft, pale nest from which she had risen thus glorious. Or no—the Dark Goddess had lain her on the coals of pain ... now she was immortal. This white flame within her was immortality....

She slept fitfully but deliciously that night. Every little while she would start awake. It was as if he spoke to her, saying: "Wake, beloved—I, too, am wakeful...." It was delicious to wake thus and drift delicately backward on the tide of dreams into that haven of light, rapturous sleep. Love hummed about her like a fairy bee and stung reason to numbness. All night long, sleeping or waking, phantasy rocked her softly. The warm, firelit air seemed abeat with the wings of the white doves of Venus....

---

When she woke fully next morning, Sophy thought at first that she had been dreaming. Then all came back to her. She started up in bed. Fright seized her—sheer, panic-terror. What had she done and felt? What had come to her?...

Mammy Nan had kindled a roaring fire, and thrown wide the shutters. The brilliant January sun streamed over the carpet. The sky was blue and bitter, without a cloud. Naked and unashamed, the bold winter morning glared in upon her. She shrank from it, feeling small and frightened like a child stripped for a bath in the ocean which it sees for the first time.

What had come to her?... Then she recalled the delicate clinging of that young, ardent mouth, and her own blood submerged her, pulsing in one shamed wave from head to feet.... She would not think. She sprang from bed and plunged into the icy water of her morning bath that was all netted with sunbeams. She dressed without knowing that she dressed. All the time she kept saying within herself, "What has come to me?... What has come to me?"

She went to the window—stared up at the cloudless blue that seemed to swim with crystal beads as she gazed.

"My God, what has happened to me?... What is this that has happened to me?" she asked. Lacing her fingers hard together, she kept murmuring: "What is it?... My God!... what is it?"

She felt ridiculous and abased in her own sight; but the glamour was stealing over her again. "It is impossible ... utterly impossible!" she kept telling herself. Yet at the bottom of it all, shining up through darkling depths, was that fairy-gold of joy, like the gold crown on the head of the frog in the folk tale. Recalling this old fable of her childhood, she laughed unwillingly. It was a wry laugh, indeed. "Yes," she told herself, "a frog with a gold crown—that is what this craziness amounts to.... I am ridiculous ... ridiculous...!" She looked harshly at her reflection in the mirror. "You are ridiculous," she said to it.

But there was more than her own absurdity to think of—there was Loring. She had to consider him. And at the mere thought of him, again came that frantic blush submerging her. What so ravaged her was the thought that this wild, unreal feeling could not be love. Then she had kissed him, had let him kiss her unworthily. She felt as though falling headlong down abysses in her own nature of which she had never dreamed. Had she, then, a wanton streak in her? Was she of that most contemptible breed of mature women who like to scorch themselves delicately at the fires of youth?

This so horrified her that she dropped into a chair, feeling physically faint. She sat there so long that Mammy Nan put her head in at the door and said severely: "Miss Sophy, yo' coffee's gettin' corpse-cold. Dee bell done rang twict...."

Sophy obeyed the stern voice of Mammy Nan, from the instinct of a hectored childhood. She rose at once and went meekly to drink the coffee that she did not want. She actually ate a waffle under the tyrannical gaze of her old nurse. It was like trying to swallow a bit of flannel. She rebelled suddenly, and, laying down her knife and fork, said: "I'm not hungry this morning, Mammy—I can't eat."

With this she went to her study—and found Loring standing before the fire. How it happened, Sophy could not tell; but like a homing-pigeon she went to him, and her head was on his breast, and his arms around her without a word spoken. And as his arms went round her, she knew suddenly that she was deathly tired. She also knew quite simply that, ridiculous, impossible, fantastic as it might be, she loved him. This knowledge was so soothing after the terrible idea that had come to her a little while ago—the sick fear that her kiss had been only of the senses, no matter how superfined—that she leaned against him in a sort of rapture of repose. For the moment she was safe—afterwards the deluge. This reassurance of her finer nature made all else seem trivial for the time being. She loved him. She, the mature, bitterly experienced woman, loved this youth! Well—it was ridiculous, but it was not unworthy. The higher gods might laugh, but they could not turn from her in disgust.

"My Beautiful ... my Beautiful!..." Loring was murmuring, his lips against her hair.

That keen, fresh, wholesome scent of horse and leather and outer air brought the past night back to her in one blinding flare. She stood so silent that he began to laugh, low and nervously.

"I didn't sleep a wink all night, Selene.... I was with you in some queer way. Did you feel me?... Or ... did you sleep?"

"No, dear...."

His arms tightened.

"Did love keep you awake too, my Beautiful—love ... for me?"

It was a whisper.

Sophy withdrew herself from his arms. She sank into the deep chair where she had been sitting last evening, and, as then, he came and knelt beside her. His eyes went thirstily to hers, and as she met those bold, soft eyes, the scarlet leaped to her face.

"Oh! ... like a little girl...." he cried, enchanted. "You blush for me like any little girl...."

Sophy blushed deeper still. Her voice faltered with shame for her own foolishness of belated love. She really thought herself middle-aged at thirty. The four years' difference in her age and Loring's seemed to her an absurd, impassable gulf. This sense of shame braced her to reason with him.

"Morris...." she began.

He broke into that low, exultant laughter which so confused her.

"Oh, little girl!" he cried again. "She is so young this morning that she lisps.... She calls me 'Morrith.'" And indeed Sophy had lisped over his name as she sometimes lisped in moments of excitement. She was overwhelmed to feel another blush suffuse her. She bit her lip—tried to frown, looking away from him into the fire. He continued laughing. His laughter stirred the hair on her bent neck. Unwillingly she, too, began to laugh. But this laughter was very near to tears. That subtle essence of herself which she had imparted to him made him suddenly grave.

"What is it, my Wonder?" he asked softly. "I am listening...."

"Then ... dear...." she said very low, "this ... that has happened is ... beautiful ... but ... but it is only a dream.... We ... we must wake now...."

"Bend down and see...." he whispered. "I am not dream-stuff, Beautiful. Bend down to me again ... as last evening...."

"No, my dear ... no and no...."

"Then I must reach to you...."

She felt the flutter of his lips at her mouth's edge. She drew aside, holding him from her. The words came quick and short.

"It is absurd. I am too old ... you are too young.... Heaven and earth would laugh at us.... I am a woman who has lived through horrors ... yes, horrors.... You are just at the beginning...."

"Yes ... just at the beginning—with you, my Wonderful!"

"My dear, dear boy...."

"'Boy' for your whim.... 'Man' to love you...."

"Oh, be reasonable!..."

"I wouldn't be reasonable for the throne of Cæsar——"

"You must be serious.... You must let me talk seriously with you. I.... I shall be offended if you do not. I shall think your love is only froth."

This brought him upright, a queer gleam in his eyes.

"Well, then...." he said. It was his Marmion tone. It implied, "Come one, come all; this rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as I."

"Go on, please...." he added, as she did not at once speak.

"Then," said Sophy, looking away from him, "you must think of last night as ... as a 'Twelfth Night's' madness. Very sweet.... Yes, beautiful in its way ... but just a moment's dream.... When you ... really love some one ... you will know that it was only a dream...."

"'When I really love some one'?"

"Yes."

"You think that?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind looking at me?"

"No...."

But her eyes wavered, and the soft red ran up again into her face, as she met that young, keen look, all fierce with wounded love.

"How dare you say that I do not love you really?" he demanded, his voice shaking with passion. "Even Selene didn't trample on Endymion——"

She went pale.

"My dear...."

"How can you call me 'your dear,' and yet set your foot down like that—hard—right on my bare heart! How can you suggest that my love for you is not real?"

He flung his arm about her suddenly—caught both her hands in his.

"Listen...." he said. "Perhaps because I bring you worship, too, you think that I don't love you with man's love.... But it's because I love you so madly that I bring you worship. I wouldn't soil the soles of your shoes with what most men call love. I never believed in this kind ... this that I feel for you. But, by God! I've found it is real! It only kneels because it's so strong. Because it's so strong, it has reverence. Do you understand? Now give me your lips to worship. Don't waste them in words. You needn't fear my kisses ... white Moon. I wouldn't sully you with base fire."

He had drawn her to her feet. He held her crushed against him. His face was white and fine with purifying fire.

Sophy felt awe steal over her. This was no boy that held her. His love made him her equal. And he offered her what she had craved without knowing it—the fire of love tempered with adoration.

"Give me your lips, my Wonder ... my white Wonder!" he was commanding, yet there was also pleading in his voice. "Give me your lips, that I may show you how I love you ... not with gross hunger, but with thirst ... divine thirst...."

That golden trance crept over her, as on the night before. Her head lay drowned in its thick hair against his breast. He stooped slowly, marvelling at the rapt beauty of her white, upturned face. Like a face coming slowly towards her through deep waters, his face bent nearer. There was that fine, quivering touch upon her lips—then their mouths melted into one....

This kiss was no less marvellous than their first had been. But it held this difference: With it she yielded herself consciously, though against her judgment.

They stood there tranced, after this long kiss was over, as they had sat hand in hand the evening before.

He said shakenly at last:

"'Too young'?... 'Too young'—am I? God!—I feel as though I had been from everlasting...."

---

X

But though Sophy yielded to these first bewildering moments of sudden glamour, she was not in the least minded to enter into a long, unbroken, spellbound dalliance. Loring found himself very short of kisses indeed during the next few weeks.

Sophy, as it were, got her head above those heavy, golden waves. She gasped deep of the fresh air of reason. She would not sink down to this strange, love-lighted underworld without a final struggle for freedom, for the clear daylight of common sense. He had to listen to much plain speaking. Sometimes he sulked, sometimes fumed; usually he ended by laughing with that low laughter against which she felt so oddly helpless. There is nothing in the world more disconcerting than this low, mocking laughter of love that knows itself stronger than reason. In vain Sophy pointed out to him the difference in their ages, in their tastes (this he furiously denied). She sternly bade him listen while she read aloud from books that were her daily food. He listened with heroism.

But one evening over Plotinus he actually nodded. They had been hunting. The geranium-scented warmth of her study, the soft crackle of the fire, her lulling contralto voice as she read aloud to him the words of the mystic whom he privately thought "a hipped old Johnny" because he was so ashamed of having a body that he wouldn't tell his birth-date ... (How Loring despised him for this denial of ruddy life!)—these things, together with the deep comfort of the old, leather armchair in which he sat, caused him to doze pleasantly. He woke with a jerk, at the sudden stopping of her voice. Her grey eyes were fixed on him over the volume of Plotinus, cool and smiling.

"You see?" she said. "What rouses my soul puts you to sleep!"

Loring had looked at her sombrely.

"I'll tell you what I think," he had said at last. "I think you fence yourself about with these old philosopher Johnnies because you're afraid of love. That's what I think, Beautiful."

Sophy had coloured, which always delighted him. He felt that he had won when her blood rose at his words.

She pointed out to him the complications that would arise in their life together, from the fact that Bobby would have to be educated in England.

"I couldn't possibly let him go there alone," she said. "His grandmother dislikes me, as I've told you. She'd do all in her power to wean him from me. And it's absolutely right and necessary that he should grow up an Englishman...."

"He can grow up a Timbuctooan, for all I care," Loring had replied, unmoved. "I've always wanted to hunt in the 'Shires. We can have a country place near Melton...."

"You'd expatriate yourself?" Sophy asked severely.

"Nonsense, Diana! You're too Olympian sometimes. Good Americans can live all over the place and still feel that 'little old New York is good enough for them.'"

"There's another thing," Sophy had retorted: "I am sure that I shan't care for New York—and as ... well, as Mrs. Loring, I should have to live there...."

"Only a bit in the winter. And it would do you good, Beautiful. You like homage—you know you do. You'd be first and beautifulest there. Thank God, I'm so rotten rich!... You'll queen it, I can tell you."

"Are you so rich, Morris?"

"I am—rather. Why?"

"Because that's another thing.... I hate this over-richness of some Americans. I feel as if my throat and eyes were full of gold-dust when I'm with them. I don't mean I'm such a goose as to despise money—but I do hate this ... this sort of golden Elephantiasis that deforms so many Americans...."

Loring gazed up at her with wondering adoration.

"By George!" he said humbly, "it's downright awe-inspiring to feel that you don't care a hang for my being rich. That you only care ... what little you do care ... for me, myself."

"'King Midas has the ears of an ass,'" Sophy had laughed, pulling the one next her.

He had responded only too quickly to this slight caress. She had to put both hands to her face to shield herself from his eager kisses.

"Ah, dearest—be kind.... Do.... Ah, do!" he had pleaded. But she had said, "No.... I shall be sensible—if that's being unkind.... I won't be rushed into elf-land by the hair of my head. I.... I won't be ... honeyfuggled...."

And they had laughed together.

Sophy finally got quite desperate with the fruitless struggle against him and against herself. She banished him ruthlessly for two weeks. He rebelled in vain. "I must have this time quite to myself," she told him. "I must think things out ... alone."

Loring found himself frantic thus exiled to the Macfarlanes, cut off from his heart's desire by six country miles as by the powers of darkness. He fled to Florida for a fortnight's tarpon-fishing. Then came her letters. He thought he should go mad over those letters. She played on him like the wind on water. Now he was all melting ripples under her delicate words—now some phrase sent his passion leaping mountain-high.... In the last letter she said: "Come back to me.... I miss you as the rose misses the honey from her heart ... as the stem misses the gathered flower.... I crave you as a sail might crave the wild wind that gives it life. Dear ... my dearest.... I know now why the 'wisdom of men is foolishness to God.'... God is Love ... my wisdom is foolishness to Love.... So I give you my foolish wisdom for a carpet under your feet. And my wise foolishness I give you for a seal upon your heart.... But myself I cannot give you, for I was yours when Love spread the foundations of the world...."

For she had found when Loring was far from her that "her heart was within him." She found the plain, wheaten bread of Philosophy dreary fare without the honey of romance. Poetry fled from her like a wild, shy bird, that would only come to one call. With his name she could lure it. She wrote page after page of love-verse as a sort of bridal offering for his return. She knew that there was madness in her mood, but it seemed a high and holy sort of frenzy—like the spiritual dementia that sends martyrs singing to the pyre. So she sung amid the flames that so exquisitely consumed her. For this was not a usual passion that she felt for Loring. She would have preferred that their love-life should be one long, ecstatic betrothal. She would have liked to give him the flower of love without its fruit. Yet his love was so different from all other loves that she had known ... it was so finely winged—so woven with adoration ... so fresh as with the dews of youth's first dawn; in her the answering love was so immaculate, veiled with imagination as for a first communion; all was so beautifully and perfectly harmonious between them, that she could not imagine discord ever following on this enchanted symphony.

And granted that their tastes were not always the same ... granted that she was older, that he seemed but a boy to her at times—must love mean oneness in all things? Was not oneness of heart and spirit enough? And was not woman immemorially older than man—the first created, but not the first conceived?—Did not the Christian faith give even God a mother, as if Divinity itself must needs be child of the eternal feminine?

And because the great, tender mother in her cherished Loring, the shy, wild lover in her only loved him more.

---

XI

They kept their secret from every one until May.

The greatest pang that Sophy felt at this time (and she had not a few) was the fact that Bobby was to be left at Sweet-Waters during these months of absence. They had never been a day, much less a night, apart since he was born. Now she would leave him, in Charlotte's care, whom he dearly loved, it is true, but—she would leave him.

Charlotte could not throw off the depression caused by this fulfilment of her anxious prognostications.

"She may be happy now," she told her Joe; "but oh! what will she feel—say in two years—when she wakes up?"

The Judge admitted the possibility of Sophy's present joy suffering a diminution. He even went so far as to say that very possibly there might be some disillusionment for her in the soberer future—but he roundly approved her present joy.

"Doggone it, Charlotte!" he exclaimed, using the one form of oath that he permitted himself. "The poor girl's seen enough misery. Why shouldn't she be happy in her own way! This Loring is a nice fellow. He's rich ... that's not to be sneezed at, let me tell you, old lady. He's good-tempered: he's a gentleman—he's heels over head in love with her...."

"And he's four ... nearly five years younger," put in Charlotte sternly.

The Judge rubbed his dusky wreath of hair the wrong way about his fine, bald poll—a sure sign that he was "up against" a knotty question.

"That's a pity, I admit," he said rather lamely. Like Charlotte, he had very old-fashioned notions about the desirability—almost the necessity—of a husband's being the elder of his wife. It shocked his fixed ideals, when brought face to face with it in this plump manner, that Sophy should be her lover's senior by four years.

Charlotte's fly-away eyebrows came down and joined.

"It's a tragedy and it's a shame!" said she.

"No, no ... no, no," almost coaxed the Judge. "Not a shame, Chartie—a pity if you like.... Yes ... it certainly is a pity—but...."

Charlotte's very apprehension for her sister made her bitter.

"It's just another of Sophy's tragic mistakes," said she. "I did think that awful experience had cured her of making mistakes."

Her husband looked at her rather whimsically from under the fluff of smoky black that he had forgotten to smooth down again.

"Are you so doggone sure of making no more mistakes till you die, old lady?"

Charlotte jerked a snarled place from her black curls by main force. She did not even notice the acute pain, so great was her agitation over what she considered this last dire error of her sister.

"That's not the point," she said firmly. She pinned up the now carded mass with two long, silver hairpins as she had done every night for twenty years, then went into her especial dressing-closet to fetch her night-gown.

It was the evening of the fateful day on which Sophy had announced her coming marriage to Loring, and husband and wife were preparing for sleep, in the big, friendly room which they shared together. In this room were two large, old-fashioned closets, each having its window, its washstand, and its array of pegs whereon to hang the simple and more necessary pieces of wearing apparel.

As Charlotte emerged again, attired in her nainsook gown that ended in decent frills at neck and wrist, the Judge in his turn strode into his sanctuary. He was in search of one of those old-fashioned garments which Charlotte had been so reluctant to lend Loring on the occasion of his first visit.

While she waited for him to appear again, she sat down at a little table near one of the windows, and began arranging what she called her "night-basket." She was the most methodical and orderly of souls, and into this little hamper went her watch, her handkerchief, a bit of "camphor-ice" for her lips, and a box of matches.

The moon was at its full again, and as she sat, sorting these familiar articles, she could see the white blur of Sophy's gown in one of the hammocks, and hear the soft undertone of voices, as she and her lover talked together.

"Just run along, you and Joe, Charlotte, dear," Sophy had said. "We'll come in by the time you're ready to put out the lights."

"And here," reflected Charlotte, frowning towards the hammocks, "it's eleven o'clock, and Joe and I nearly ready for bed, and she isn't even thinking of coming in!"

Her mood was such as in a vigorous, old-fashioned mother means a sound spanking for the offending child. And Charlotte felt that in some sort Sophy was her child, and dearly would she have liked to spank her.

Here Judge Macon came forth again, looking somewhat like the sheeted dead in the extreme length of his linen garment, and armed with a large, palmetto fan. He drew up a rocking-chair, and glancing out of the window towards the culprits, said just a trifle sheepishly, to his wife's acute ears:

"Let's give 'em as long as we can, old lady. Lovers on an old Virginia lawn in the moonlight! It's enough to soften the cockles of a stoic's heart."

Charlotte unbendingly smoothed out a bit of tin-foil and wrapped the piece of camphor-ice in it.

"The cockles of the heart, and the apple of the eye have always seemed absurd figures of speech to me," she then remarked, putting the unguent into her basket.

Judge Macon tried to take one of her hands, but she withdrew it and firmly wound up her watch before wrapping it in her handkerchief and laying it beside the camphor-ice.

"Come, old lady," wheedled her softer-natured mate, "what's the matter? Do you really foresee disaster?"

"Joe," replied Charlotte, clasping her hands over the handle of the little basket, and looking sternly at him, "can you, a man who has sat on the Virginia bench for over twenty years, seriously ask me such a question?"

"Why the Virginia bench, particularly, honey?" asked he, and from under his shaggy brows came a droll gleam.

But Charlotte was not to be wheedled.

"I merely mentioned your office," said she, "to recall to you that as a Judge you've had more opportunity than most to realise the rarity of happy marriages."

The Judge in his unofficial capacity whistled softly at this Addisonian language, but Charlotte went on undisturbed.

"I ask you," she continued, "as a Judge—what chances do you consider that those two"—she waved one hand towards the hammocks—"have of real happiness?"

Her husband rocked for a moment before replying, fanning himself with the round, yellow disk that glistened in the moonlight (Charlotte had blown out the candle for fear of midges).

At last he said seriously:

"You married me, my dear, and I am sixteen years older than you, yet I think we've been pretty happy."

"Oh, how like a man that is!" cried Charlotte, jumping up in her exasperation, so that the carefully packed little hamper was upset, and the two white-clad figures had to grovel for its contents on all fours in the moonlight. As Charlotte's curly head came near his during this operation, the Judge promptly kissed it, and Charlotte, much disconcerted, scrambled to her feet again, exclaiming: "Joe! how can you be so silly at our time of life?"

But the Judge only laughed, and pulled her down on his linen clad knees, demure frills, "night-basket" and all.

"See here, madam," he demanded, "what do you mean by saying I'm 'like a man'?"

Charlotte laughed in spite of herself.

"I meant it was like a man to take the very reverse of Sophy's case as an example," she said, putting her arm about his neck as they rocked gently together, and rubbing her cheek against his. "Don't you see? It's quite, quite different with us. Why your being my elder, by so many years, only makes me look up to you...."

"'Look up to me!'" echoed he, with a burst of Homeric mirth. Charlotte clapped her hand over his mouth. "Sssh!" she warned. "They'll hear you. They'll think we're laughing at them."

"Poor things," said he, sobered. "It seems mighty sad to think of two lovers being afraid of being laughed at."

"It is sad," said Charlotte. "You think I'm cross about it, Joe, but I could cry about it this minute."

She dropped her head on his shoulder, and her other arm went round his neck.

"Don't," said the Judge softly. "Don't you cry, honey, whatever you do."

Charlotte from her refuge in his strong neck spoke passionately. Her warm breath tickled him almost beyond endurance, but he held her and suffered in silence with the true martyr spirit of the husband who is born and not made.

"Oh, Joe," she murmured vehemently; "you're not a woman, so you can't see it all as I see it. Now, perhaps, it's all right, but in a few years ... just a few years.... Oh, my poor Sophy! The grey hairs ... will come ... then wrinkles.... Little by little, little by little, there, under his eyes—his hateful young eyes—she will grow old. She will look like his mother when she's fifty and he's only forty-five!"

"No, no, lady-bird, really you exaggerate!" slipped in the Judge.

"This can't be exaggerated!" said Charlotte. "It can't be—— Shakespeare couldn't exaggerate it!"

"He's got a right smart gift that way, honey," slipped in the Judge again.

Charlotte didn't hear him. She sat up, much to his relief, and putting her hands on his shoulders looked at him solemnly.

"Joe," she said, "you're a man, so you don't know about one of the worst tragedies in a woman's life—the tragedy of the hand-glass!"

"The what?" asked her husband.

"The hand-glass, Joe. That little innocent looking bit of silver-framed glass that you think I only use to do my hair with. Oh, some great poet ought to write an ode to a woman with her hand-glass! Talk of 'Familiars,' of 'Devils'—there's no Imp out of Hell...."

"Charlotte!" cried her astounded husband.

"I said out—of—Hell," repeated she firmly—"there's no Imp so cunning, so malicious, so brutal as a woman's hand-glass. First, like all devils, it begins by flattering her—when she's young. Then suddenly, one day, after long years of cunning flattery—suddenly—like that!..." She snapped her fingers in his still more surprised face.... "Like that!—the hateful thing tells her the truth—that she is growing old! Oh, just a shadow here—a line there—the first grey hair—— Nothing really—only—from that day, on and on and on relentlessly, the message, the odious message never stops! Oh, if anything ought to be buried with a woman, like her wedding ring, it ought to be her hand-glass—for it's been just as much a part of joy and pain as the ring has!"

She stopped, out of breath, and her husband, rather subdued yet trying to make light of it, hugged her and said: "Seems to me, Sophy oughtn't to claim all the laurels. Seems to me you're a right elegant little poetess yourself!"

Charlotte extricated herself from this frankly marital embrace, and pushing the curls out of her eyes went on, too excited and in earnest to heed this funny little compliment.

"That's what I see for Sophy!" she said. "The tragedy of the hand-glass—the tragedy of love in her case. For that boy can't love her soul and mind as he ought to—and what soul he's got she's given him—for the time being. He's just a walking mirror—a reflection of her. Sophy doesn't dream it—nor he—of course. But I can see it. Love does that sometimes. Oh, you needn't grin, Joe!—I watch life though I do live in the country the year round. Sophy's just a woman Narcissus. She's in love with her own reflection in Morris Loring. And some day she'll want to draw him from that dream-pool. Then she'll find empty wetness in her hands ... just tears...."

She broke off almost in tears herself. Suddenly she caught her husband's head to her breast:

"Oh," she cried, "I do thank God that you are bald, Joe, and sixteen years older than I am!"

"Lord love us!" exclaimed the Judge, bursting into inextinguishable mirth this time, "I reckon that's the funniest prayer of thanksgiving that ever went up to the Throne of Grace!"

---

XII

In the verandah of her cottage at Nahant, where she always passed the months of May and June, Mrs. Loring, Morris's mother, sat re-reading the letter in which he told her of his engagement to Mrs. Chesney.

There had been a storm the night before, and the sea made a marvellous, heroic music among the rocks. Mrs. Loring laid the open letter on her knee, and her light, bright blue, short-sighted eyes gazed wistfully towards the sound. Storms both in Nature and in human passions, when distant enough, had always possessed a strange charm for her, the charm of printed perils to minds congenitally timorous. She knew Sophy's history and had read her poems when they first came out, with that same sense of one enjoying a tempest in mid-ocean from the staunch deck of a liner. In her case temperament was the liner—though she had always felt in some inmost recess of her being, known only to herself and her Creator, that, given the circumstances, she, too, might have been a centre of tumult. And sometimes, gazing from the safe, close-curtained windows of her present personality—the result of many careful, cautiously repressed years—she wondered if the mistake makers, the convention breakers, had not the best of it after all? Repentance must be a wonderful emotion—that upheaving, ecstatic repentance that follows big sins. So unconsciously and typically New England was Grace Loring, that she could not think of splendid crime without following it up in her mind by repentance even more gorgeous.

As Mrs. Loring sat there, with her son's letter on her lap, her sister, Mrs. Charles Horton, came out of the house with a novel in her hand and joined her.

"Still brooding over Morry's letter, Grace?" Mrs. Horton asked in a brusque voice, sitting down beside her.

Mrs. Loring withdrew her vague, handsome eyes from the sea, and looked quietly and directly at her sister.

"I'm not brooding, Eleanor," she said gently.

"Well, what then?" asked Mrs. Horton.

Mrs. Loring glanced at the letter through her face-à-main as though consulting it, then said in the same tranquil tone:

"I think I was rather admiring them both."

"What rubbish you talk sometimes, my dear Grace!" exclaimed her sister explosively.

Mrs. Horton was short, brune, and rather plump. She had small, chestnut-brown eyes, and rough, strong, crinkly dark hair. She was in every way the opposite of her tall, distinguished, rather hushed sister. Her manner of thinking and speaking was blunt and straightforward. Mrs. Horton had no half-tones—she was like some effective national flag, all clearly defined blocks of frank, crude colour.

"Are you going to write and remonstrate with that young fool, or are you going to sit by and see him smash his life like crockery?" she said abruptly.

Charles Horton had been a Californian and a man of exuberant vitality and speech. His wife, who had loved him and admired him for every contrast to the contained people among whom she had been brought up, had adopted something of his vigorous way of expressing himself.

"Are you?" she repeated.

It was not Mrs. Loring's way to evade things, but she was so really interested in Eleanor's point of view that instead of answering this question she said:

"What are your reasons for inferring that Morris is ruining his life?"

Mrs. Horton tossed her book aside, and clasped her crisp, capable looking little brown hands about one knee.

"'Reasons'!" said she. "Aren't facts enough for you? Isn't a love-sick boy of twenty-six who marries a woman years older pretty well smashing things up for himself?"

"Sophy Chesney is only thirty, Eleanor."

"Oh, what a hair-splitter you are, Grace! Four years' difference on the wrong side—the woman's side, is a big chasm ... say what you will."

"There have been very happy marriages of that sort, Eleanor, and with far greater difference in age. There was Miss Thackeray's marriage with Mr. Ritchie——"

"Oh, do go on!" said Mrs. Horton, with an outward snuffing of contemptuous breath. "Give us some more specimens from literature—George Eliot and Mr. Cross for example."

Mrs. Loring put up her face-à-main again and looked curiously at her sister.

"Why are you so vexed, Eleanor?" she asked mildly. "After all, it's a brilliant marriage for Morris in a way—Sophy Chesney is a very distinguished woman. Had you ... er ... plans for Morris?"

Mrs. Horton blushed. She had thought that Morris might marry her step-daughter Belinda some day, but she had never admitted this even to herself. Grace's random shot hit home. She retorted rather gruffly:

"Can't a woman take an interest in her own nephew, without being accused of scheming?"

"Oh ... 'scheming'.... My dear Eleanor!" protested her sister.

"The fact is," pursued Mrs. Horton, "I take the common-sense view of the case and you the sentimental one. Linda!... What on earth have you been doing to look so hot?"

This last sentence was addressed to her step-daughter, Belinda Horton, who came racing up the verandah steps, her blowze of red-brown hair blowing out behind her, and a tennis racquet in her hand. Belinda was a triumphantly beautiful hoyden of sixteen, despite a slight powdering of freckles and a tiny silvery scar through one raven black eyebrow, the result of trying to equal a boy cousin on the trapeze when she was nine years old. Her great, rich, challenging red-brown eyes, and her defiant yet sweet-tempered mouth, the up-curve of her round chin, the tilt of her nose, the way her head sat on her shoulders as though some artist-god had flung it there with careless mastery, like a flower—her lovely, long, still-growing body which had never known the "awkward age"—all these things made even the most collected gasp a little when Belinda first rushed upon their sight.

She now dropped upon the steps, near Mrs. Loring, pushed the sleeves of her blouse still higher on her cream-white arms, and flourishing the racquet at her step-mother, said in the rich, throaty voice of a pigeon in the sun:

"What do I look as if I'd been doing? Playing the organ?"

"Linda! Don't talk in that slangy way."

Belinda showed her teeth, beautifully white if a trifle too large, in the frankest grin.

"'Playing the organ' isn't slang, Mater."

Mrs. Horton returned her look severely.

"It's the way you say things that make them sound like slang—isn't it, Grace?" she ended, appealing to her sister.

Mrs. Loring smiled very kindly.

"It's the fashion to be slangy nowadays, Eleanor."

Belinda's eyes shot garnet sparkles at her mother. She patted Mrs. Loring's blue batiste skirt approvingly with her racquet.

"That's one for you, Mater!" she cried joyously, then to Mrs. Loring, "You're always perfectly bully to me, Aunty Grace!"

The idea of applying the term "bully" to that over-refined, softly majestic figure in its cane chair would have abashed any one less daring than Belinda. But Mrs. Loring seemed not to mind in the least. She knew that Belinda was "bad form." Belinda knew it herself. "Some people are born 'bad form,'" she used to say with her wide, lovely grin. "That's me."

In tapping her aunt's skirt with her racquet, she had dislodged Morris's letter. It slipped to the floor beside her, and lifting it to hand it back, she recognised his writing.

"Hullo!" she cried. "What's Morry writing such a screed about? He hates writing long letters like the devil."

"Belinda!" from Mrs. Horton.

"All right, Mater—not till next time."

Then she turned again to her aunt, frankly curious.

"What is he writing about, Aunt Grace? Not in a scrape, I hope—the admirable Morry!"

"He wrote to announce his engagement, Belinda," said Mrs. Loring.

Belinda sat stock still for a moment. Then she said:

"Who is it?"

"A Mrs. Chesney—a very unusual woman. She wrote a remarkable book once under her maiden name, Sophy Taliaferro."

Belinda sprung to her feet.

"Why, I've read some poems by a Sophy Taliaferro," she exclaimed. "Red-hot stuff they were, too!"

"Linda! I forbid you to speak in that way," said her mother.

"All right, Mater—but they were red-h—.... All right, I won't then. But, Aunt Grace, it couldn't be that Sophy Taliaferro—she must be a hundred!"

"No—only thirty," said Mrs. Loring, smiling again.

"My Gawd!" cried Belinda, pronouncing the sacred name grotesquely so as to take off the edge of her irreverence. She dropped back upon the steps, and sat staring open-mouthed at her aunt. "He's gone nutty!" she added, closing her lips with a snap. Then she sprang up again and stamped her foot.

"You've got to save him!" she cried, tears of rage in her eyes. "It isn't fair!— She's roped him in!— Morry is just at the age to do such rotten foolishness!— Thank God, this is a Land of Divorce!——"

"Belinda!"

"Yes—thank God for it!— And I wish trial marriage was here, too!"

"Belinda!"

"Oh, stuff, Mater! Haven't you read Ellen Key—she'd make you sit up!"

Mrs. Horton got up, went to the girl, and grasped her firmly by the shoulder. She was a determined little woman when roused and Belinda recognised the expression in her eyes. She looked up at her, sulky but silent for the moment.

"Listen to me," said her step-mother. "I will not have you talking in this manner. How dare you read Ellen Key, and—and poems that I've never given you?"

Belinda's radiant grin shone out again in spite of her.

"Oh, cut it out, Mater," she said amiably. "I hooked Roderick Random and Boccaccio when I was twelve—but you needn't worry. They made me sick—what I could understand of them. Yes, Mater—I've naturally got what they call a 'clean mind'—nastiness never would attract me. But this is a new age beginning, and a new sort of girl is beginning, too, and she wants to know what's what about everything, and— I'm her!" she wound up defiantly.

Mrs. Loring had put up her face-à-main, and earnestly regarded the girl's face during this speech. She had again that sensation of watching an interesting tempest from safe decks.

"I shall send you to school in France this winter," said Mrs. Horton grimly. "If you're so bent on acquiring knowledge it shall be given to you in ordered doses."

"All right, Mater!" said Belinda. Then she flung her racquet viciously on the steps, and groaned, thrusting her hands in the thick, red-brown clusters on either side of her face:

"French schools or not, Morry is a damn fool!" said she.

Then Mrs. Horton rose in all the severity of step-motherhood.

"You shall go to bed this instant!" said she, pointing. "You shall have only soup for dinner. You shall not leave these grounds for a week. Nor play tennis—nor go sailing."

"I couldn't very well go sailing in the grounds," said Belinda, with inextinguishable pertness. But she rose, and went upstairs to bed as the maternal finger indicated, making hideous, gargoylish faces all the way, which she did not dare turn to deliver.

And once, alone in her bedroom, having slammed the door so that the cottage jarred with it, she flung herself face down upon the floor, and sobbed furiously. With one clenched hand she beat the matting near her head. She strangled with this violent sobbing. Her whole body heaved with it.

"O God ... punish him!" choked Belinda. "O God ... help me to get even with him some day ... somehow...."

She rose after a half-hour of this frantic weeping; and, hiccoughing with spent grief, like a passionate child, went and unlocked a little drawer. She took out a photograph of Morris. Under it was written in her black, loopy handwriting, "My Hero and my Love." She gazed a moment at his face, all distorted and magnified by her tears; then she deliberately spat upon it, tore it in pieces, and ground them under her heel. "I hate you.... I hate you.... Beast!... Pig!... Liar!" choked the little fury. All at once, down she flopped, her skirt making a "cheese" about her, and gathered the desecrated morsels to her lips.

"Oh ... oh...." she moaned. "My heart is broken ... it's broken...."

Balling the fragments in her fist, and still seated on the floor, she shook her fist with the rags of love in it, at the empty air.

"I'll get even with you, Morry...." she said between her teeth, as though he were present in person. "I'll get even with you ... if I have to wait till I'm thirty!... Oh, I know you!... You dared to kiss me ... like that...." Her face flamed at the memory. "And then ... in less than a year ... oh!... But if you tired of me ... after just one kiss ... you'll tire of her ... after some hundreds.... Then, Mr. Morry...." Her beautiful face was quite savage—a woman's jealous face under the childish mop of hair—"then I'll be waiting! In two years I'll be eighteen.... I'll give you just two years ... then my innings begin...."

Belinda knew well that she was beautiful. She had known it supremely when she tempted Morris to kiss her—for she had tempted him—but then she loved him wildly. She was morally a little Oriental—with all her passions at white heat though she was but a schoolgirl. She had thought that his kiss meant that he loved her in like wise. He had been sorry the moment the kiss was over. But then—she had really tempted him beyond endurance, and he had always thought she had the most kissable mouth in the world. Besides, just at that psychological moment he happened to be bored to desperation. He had been spending the two weeks at Nahant that his mother always exacted from him in the summer. It was the only thing that she ever did exact from him, but they always seemed interminable. Then had come Belinda, tempting him with her passionate, sparkling eyes, and the desireful red fruit of her mouth ... fruit cleft for kisses....

He had hurried away the next day. He was honestly ashamed of that sensual kiss laid on a school-girl's lips. She was only fifteen then. He raged at himself and at her, too. "Kitten Cleopatra," he called her in his thought. "Amorous little devil— Jove! I pity her husband...."

For he never realised for an instant that the girl was really in love with him.

---

XIII

When Lady Wychcote received Sophy's letter, she was breakfasting at Dynehurst, alone with Gerald. She went very red under her light, morning rouge, then pale. After some bitter remarks, through which her son sat in silence, she said:

"I shall send for James Surtees." Mr. Surtees was the family solicitor. "I am sure that as the probable heir we have some legal control over the boy, in a case like this."

Gerald rose decidedly.

"I shouldn't use it if I had it," he said.

His mother rose, too.

"I should," she said curtly.

They were standing face to face. Gerald's eyes wavered first. He looked out of window over the rolling green of the Park to where the smoke from the mining town blurred the pale horizon. Then he looked back at his mother again. It was a gentle but bold look for him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I think there is no doubt about that."

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

Bobby clung fast to her. Then he whispered:

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

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

Bobby reflected a moment. Then he sighed.

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

"How do you mean, Mammy?"

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

Sophy, trembling herself, said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hell!" he said heartily.

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

After a while Sophy said in a low voice:

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

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

Sophy waited a moment.

"Morris...."

"Well?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

XIV

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

Sophy had mentioned this to Loring.

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

But Loring had replied:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He reinforced himself with another high-ball.

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

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

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

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

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

"What, Morris?"

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

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

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

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

Sophy hesitated. Then she said frankly:

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

"Make a fool of himself, you mean?"

Sophy went close and put her hand on his breast.

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

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

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

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

"Oh, Morris!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who is it?" came her voice.

"I ... Endymion," he murmured.

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

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

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

She put her hand on the bowed head.

"Never mind, dear," she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

XV

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

But Sophy stopped crying almost at once.

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

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

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

"Yes, dear— I promise."

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

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

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

He went out, his eyes hard and resentful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Damn Virginia!" said Loring.

Sophy laughed at him.

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

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

"You needn't be."

She was still smiling at his sulky face.

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

"Now, Morris...."

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

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

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

He had his "Marmion" tone very pronouncedly.

Sophy said prettily:

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

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

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

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

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

Sophy pondered a moment. Then she said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Tired of us all, eh?"

Sophy said nothing in reply to this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

XVI

It was on the twenty-fifth of April that Sophy went to Sweet-Waters. But in spite of all the familiar, springtide loveliness, this month of May was not what she had dreamed. She missed Loring. His curt letters wounded her. No—she could not be happy with this shadow between them.

But if she was not altogether content, Bobby was. He came and leaned against her knee as she was brushing her hair one morning. He was nearly six now, and spoke much more plainly. He was very fond of "grown up" words, which assumed quaint forms under his usage.

"Mother," he said, "couldn't we demain here with Uncle Joe and Aunt Chartie? Are we 'bliged to go back to Mr. Loring?"

Sophy laid down her brush and put her arm around him. His seemingly unconquerable aversion for Loring was a great grief to her.

"Bobby," she answered, looking gravely into his anxious upturned face, "don't you understand? Mother is Mrs. Loring now. She must go back to Morris."

Bobby pondered, lowering his eyes. Then he said slowly:

"Won't your last name ever be the same as mine any more at all, mother?"

"No, darling. But names matter very little. What matters is that you're my own boy, and I'm your own mother, forever and ever."

Bobby was silent. Then it broke from him:

"I hate you to have his name 'stead of mine!... I.... I hate it renormously, mother!"

She held the boy close and put her cheek to his.

"Yes, dear. Mother understands how you feel about that. That's natural. But what hurts me is, that you won't be friends with Morris. You won't even call him 'Morris' and he's asked you to so often. Can't you do that much to please mother?"

Bobby got very red. He said in a rather strangled voice:

"Mother, please don't ask me to do that."

"Why, dear?"

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

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

"Oh, Bobby—that hurts mother."

"I'm sorry," he said gravely.

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

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

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

He thought another moment, then added:

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Morris!"

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

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

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

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

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

He stopped laughing and began to shake.

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

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

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

---

XVII

The next two weeks they spent at Nahant with Loring's mother.

The dream was fading fast—the dream, but not her love for him. That remained like clear marble from which the purple glamour cast through stained glass slowly withdraws. And this clear, white love had more and more of the maternal in it. She could not have forgiven those scenes of drink-inflamed passion had not there been in her love for him much of the indulgent tenderness with which she regarded Bobby's outbreaks. She did not realise this fully—the purple glow still lingered. Love to a poet is poetry or it is nothing. If she should ever come to read him in cold prose, love would flee forever—Pteros—the Flyer, he is called, as well as Eros....

By the nineteenth of June they were in the full swing of the Newport season.

Sophy did not play tennis herself, but she would go with Morris to the Casino in the morning. It amused her to watch all these passionately energetic young women bent on fashionable slimness, violently exercising in the torrid heat—looking like some new type of odalisque, veiled with thick brown veils half way up their noses to prevent sunburn. Madly they would dart to and fro until midday, then rush for the beach. She found it even more amusing to see these crowds of men and women disporting on the well-kept beach and in the sea that looked so well-kept also; the men, of amazingly varied shapes—bereft of all elegance by their scant attire; the women more elegant than ever, with the décolletage of charming legs, and wearing fantastic headgear that made them look like great sea-poppies and bluets blooming on the tawny sand—or flying, as though wind-blown, in the swing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was quite frantic.

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

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

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

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

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

---

XVIII

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I found him," said Bobby.

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

"No," said Bobby.

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

"I mean 'no,'" said Bobby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Give me my son...."

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

"You shall never strike him—never!"

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

"Do you want me to despise you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

He sauntered out upon the sea-lawn, whistling.

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

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

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

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

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

Bobby pondered this. Finally he said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The boy looked stolidly at him.

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

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

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

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

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

---

XIX

Loring had got over the first novelty of having the moon descend to his crying. Selene was now a domesticated planet. They moved in the same orbit. He felt, without realising it, somewhat as a lover might feel who, while gazing entranced at the silver disk in mid-heaven, suddenly finds himself transported among the Mountains of the Moon. The lunar landscape, thus familiarly envisaged, struck him as a little bleak. There was nothing "chummy" about Sophy, he decided. He had always thought it would be great fun to drink wine freely with the woman one was in love with. A "bully" dinner after hunting, or a cosy supper after the play, with plenty of champagne to enliven it. Champagne added such zest to kisses. He felt aggrieved that Sophy did not care for this form of bliss. She said that wine "blurred" her. Such a rum expression! He thought her prudish. He told her so on one occasion.

"Look here, Goddess," he said fretfully. "You run your temple-business in the ground. You treat love-making like a religious ceremony. Hang it!— I can't feel like Cupid's high-priest all the year 'round. Love ought to be just a bully sort of spree sometimes."

Sophy had said, flushing:

"I'm sorry I seem priggish. But I'm afraid I'll never be able to look on love as 'just a bully sort of spree.'"

Loring had flushed, too.

"Well ... a chap can't go on playing Endymion forever. I suppose there was an end even to the Moon's honeymoon!"

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 all these frictions, and changes, and readjustments of vision did not come in a steady progression. The unfolding of their inner life followed intricate spirals, returned on itself, coiled outward again. Sometimes Sophy found herself standing breathless in a glow of the old glamour, that fell on her as if through a far window in the past, reflected back from the blank wall of the present. Then she would think that perhaps the man that he had seemed in their first love-days was the real man, and this Morris only the result of their hectic, vapid life. Again, she would wonder if he had really ever been what she had dreamed him, even then. It was as if some rare spirit had "possessed" him for the time being. Or was it that love had transfigured him? She could not bridge with her reason the gulf that lay between his past and his present personality.

Then as the months passed, and he grew more and more relaxed and slovenly of spirit under the ease of possession, she came to think that he had never been Endymion at all. She had loved a wraith, a seeming. She did not realise that sometimes love works temporary miracles, even as religion does; that love also makes conversions which are very real for the moment, but that cannot stand the wear of every day.

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

The more Sophy thought of this visit to England, the more she shrank from it and the more obligatory she felt it to be. She dreaded it for many reasons. The meeting with Lady Wychcote would be painful in the extreme. She could imagine those hard eyes as though they were already fastened on her. And then Morris—how would Lady Wychcote behave to Morris, should they be thrown together? How, indeed, would Morris behave to Lady Wychcote? Sophy hoped ardently that he would not go with her. She hoped it, not only on this account, but because it seemed dreadful to her that she should appear in London again, after five years of absence, as the wife of another man. She had left England in the dignity of a great tragedy; she would return to it as the wife of an American millionaire, "ages younger than she is, my dear." And Morris—how would Morris seem, thus transplanted? He had been to England before, of course; but he knew few of the people among whom her lot there had been cast. His English acquaintances were all of the ultra sporting sort.

She tried to fancy him at lunch or dinner with the Arundels. What would he make of that political and literary atmosphere?

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.

---

XXV

At dinner-time Loring had another shock. This was the sight of Belinda in evening dress. It was the full glare of her beauty that now smote him, together with the sense of her having become suddenly some one else. This was another person altogether—a new Linda. And yet Belinda had sought to temper the effect of her first appearance thus attired. She had a superstitious feeling that her coming-out ball at Newport was to mark an important crisis in her life. Her gown for that occasion had been carefully selected in Paris (by her—not by her mother). That is, she had selected the gown as the one in which she meant to burst upon Loring in the full splendour of her new womanhood. The ball would furnish this opportunity.

She was sorry to have to lessen that cherished effect, even by this one appearance in demi-toilette. So she had chosen the soberest gown in her wardrobe. It was of dark purple chiffon. The long, mousquetaire sleeves veiled her glinting arms. Her white breast was also veiled. But nothing could subdue the flame of her ruddy coronal of hair. An oval mole, black as her eyebrows, lay in the hollow of her white throat—one of those outrageously perfect imperfections with which Nature loves sometimes to seal her masterpieces. This mole was the final touch on the heady lure of Belinda's beauty.

Loring's eyes were drawn to it unwillingly again and again. He marvelled that he did not remember it. He even wondered if that "little devil!" had not painted it herself upon the snow of her throat.

And whenever he looked at the soft, jet-black mole on the white throat, that kiss of two years ago flamed in his blood as it had not flamed at the time of its bestowal. But he was decent enough to be ashamed of this feeling. He answered Belinda rather briefly on the few occasions that she spoke to him. Somehow he did not trust her. Somehow (though this he did not acknowledge to himself) he dreaded her. And he glanced from her to Sophy—telling himself how much more really beautiful Sophy was in her soft grey and pearls than Belinda in her pansy purple and rococo necklace of amethysts and strass. But for the first time, against his will, Sophy's beauty struck him as cold. And yet it was not cold, though, within it, Sophy herself felt chill and numb. She, too, was obsessed by Belinda. It was not so much the girl's flaring good looks that obsessed her, but the thrilling, imperial youth of her. Sophy felt as a wilting, cut rose might feel, looking from its crystal vase upon a vigorous sister-blossom still rooted in the warm earth. It was a wretched sensation. Sophy hated herself for feeling it, and yet each time that she glanced at Belinda it swept over her afresh.

The dinner was rather flat. Only Mrs. Horton was in really good spirits. She was quite elated and happy over the idea of Belinda's going to stop with Sophy at Newport. Her "coming out" would be much "smarter" and more brilliant under Sophy's chaperonage than under poor, dear Grace's.

Belinda, for her part, was rather depressed by Sophy's appearance in the grey gown that filmed like smoke about her beautiful bare shoulders. Belinda had not taken in quite how lovely her rival was when she had first seen her that afternoon in plain white linen. And just as her youth troubled Sophy, so the mystery of experience in Sophy's dark-grey eyes troubled Belinda. She had a moment—one bitter, stinging moment—of feeling not quite so cock-sure about the future.

And Harold Grey, nervously eating far more than he wanted in his effort not to look too often at Belinda, was thinking how sure he was that his mother would pronounce her "not quite a lady," and yet how much more she attracted him than any of the most genuine "ladies" that he had ever seen. "Don't be an abandoned ass," he kept telling himself. "You're an infant's tutor with a fat salary paid you to keep your place. Now keep it—confound you!"

Loring knew that his mother had some old-fashioned prejudice against having champagne served every day for dinner, and as a rule he submitted, though grumblingly, while he was at Nahant. But to-night he felt that he must have the cheering beverage at all costs. Besides, his mother was ill in bed upstairs. Old Biggs looked like a disapproving, Methodistic owl when the order was given. It violated his principles as Mrs. Loring's butler of twenty years' standing, to serve champagne to a family party of five.

"I'm afraid it will hurt your mother's feelings, Morris," Sophy ventured, as Biggs left the room with a very rigid gait.

"Pooh! Why need she know? Such a silly notion, at any rate! And we ought to drink Linda's health—after her two years in foreign parts. You like champagne, don't you, Linda?"

"You bet!" said Belinda. She flashed both rows of teeth in pleased anticipation.

"Linda!" expostulated her mother, just as in old days. She turned appealingly to Sophy:

"Now I ask you what was the use of my sending her to an expensive Pension school in Paris for two years, if she comes back talking like this?"

"Oh, for God's sake, let her be natural, Aunt Nelly!" put in Loring. "If you only knew how refreshing it is to hear one's own lingo after six weeks or so of England!"

"Didn't you like England, Morry?" asked Belinda.

Loring grinned in the direction of Harold Grey.

"Mr. Grey's presence keeps me from answering with entire candour," he said, a veiled sneer in his voice. He disliked the presence of Bobby's tutor in his household extremely. Harold Grey was an acute young man. He realised this dislike on Loring's part, and returned it with vigour but discretion. He thought Bobby's step-father "just a bit of a cad." He now said composedly:

"Pray don't consider me."

But Loring replied: "Oh, there's plenty of time ahead! I'll give you my sentiments in private, Linda."

Belinda glanced from him to Sophy.

"But you like it, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes. I love England," Sophy answered quietly.

Harold Grey had a "cult" for his pupil's mother. He thought her very wonderful in every way. Now, when she said in that deep, sweet voice of hers that she "loved England," he felt that she was really to be worshipped. And he wondered for the many hundredth time, how she could have married that "gaudy cub." Dependence of position made Harold even harder on his employer than Lady Wychcote had been. But then he shrewdly guessed that it was really the wife and not the husband who employed him. He was already aware of the antagonism that existed between Loring and Bobby. "Breakers ahead there, I should say," he told himself.

At Sophy's reply to Belinda, Loring cast an irritated glance at her and said:

"Oh, Sophy's an out-and-out Anglo-maniac—quite rabid on the subject, in fact. You can't take her opinion. You wait till I talk to you, Linda!"

Neither the look nor the tone escaped Belinda. She also saw that Sophy winced from them—that colour stole into her face and that her lips tightened a little. Here was a useful sidelight. So Morry was as hotly American as ever! That was good. Then Sophy must jar on him at times; for Belinda had decided that she was not very American, not even very Southern. Belinda thanked her stars that she herself was so aggressively a daughter of Columbia.

"See how severe Sophy looks at my daring to jest on such a sacred subject," Loring continued. "By Gad! Sometimes I believe she wishes that we'd remained a Colony of Great Britain!"

("Blithering brute!... Can't you see she's only annoyed because you're jawing this way before me?" thought Harold Grey wrathfully.)

But the truth was, that Loring had never forgiven Sophy for the off-hand lesson read him by John Arundel. He half suspected that she had "put him up to it, by gad!" That visit to England had left a big bruise on his amour propre. And he "took it out" on Sophy now and then in some such way.

The champagne was served. Belinda's health was drunk. She finished that glass and began another.

"Be careful, Linda," cautioned her step-mother. "You're not used to wine, you know."

All Belinda's dimples began to play like a throng of elves.

"Oh, Mater!" she cried. She leaned forward and squeezed Mrs. Horton's dry, brown hand in her velvety white one. "You're too innocent and guileless to run loose in this wicked old world by yourself ... you really are!"

"What do you mean by that extraordinary speech, Linda?"

"Why ... as if the girls at the Pension didn't get bottles of fizz smuggled in to them, any old time! Why, whenever we had a spread on the sly, somebody's cousin, or brother, or mash slipped us a quart or so of champagne...."

Mrs. Horton looked really aghast. Loring roared. Harold Grey couldn't take his eyes off those twinkling dimples, but in his heart he said: "By Jove! She's a larky little baggage!"

Sophy was the only one who took it calmly. She had decided all of a sudden that there was a good deal of "bluff" about Belinda—that she was of the type that enjoys "shocking people." She said with a smile:

"I don't think you need look so horrified, Eleanor. I believe that Belinda is taking what she'd call 'a rise' out of us."

Belinda only laughed, but she was vexed that Sophy should have seen through her. She had not given her credit for such astuteness. The fact was, that she had never had so much as a sip of champagne while at Madame de Bruneton's excellent Pension. But she found this family meal very dull, she hated seeing Loring in the bosom of domesticity.

However, she won more by her impish tarradiddle than she had looked for. Morris turned to her with something of the old devilment in his eyes and said:

"By Jove, Linda, I hope it's not all bluff! I hope you are a good-enough little sport to enjoy a glass of wine. Good cheer loves company as well as Misery."

Belinda took it in like lightning. Sophy was one of the prigs who do not care to drink even in reason. Poor Morry!

She smiled at him, letting her eyes turn full on his for the first time.

"Of course I enjoy it!" she said. "I love the funny little 'razzle-dazzle' feeling it gives me! But the greatest part of the fun is drinking it with some one.... Some one you like, of course."

"By George, you're a little brick, Linda! Have some more...."

"No," said Belinda, still smiling, and putting her hand over her glass. "'Enough's' heaps better than a feast.... I like to sparkle, but I don't want to boil over...."

"Oh, Belinda! Belinda!" said her step-mother.

Sophy came to the rescue.

"An old negro said the best thing I've ever heard about the way that champagne makes one feel," she remarked lightly. "I gave him a glass one Christmas at Sweet-Waters. He'd never tasted champagne before, and I asked him if he liked it. He said: 'Laws, Miss Sophy—dat I does! I feels like I'se done hit dee funny-bones all over me!'"

While every one was laughing at this, she rose. Harold Grey excused himself to "write letters." "Good riddance!" Loring muttered to Belinda, as Harold disappeared and they followed Sophy and Mrs. Horton towards the drawing-room.

Loring was in his usual after-dinner state—not tipsy, but over-excited. He flashed a side-glance of appraisal. "You've bloomed into an out-and-out beauty, Linda. But I don't suppose you need me to tell you that."

"I think I rather do, Morry."

"Oh, cut it, Linda! Don't try the 'maiden-modesty' act on me.... You know as well as I do that you're a dazzler."

They had lingered by the front door, instead of going on into the drawing-room. A full moon was rising. As Belinda stood in the open doorway, one side of her face and figure was silver, and one golden from the hall lamps. She looked like a wonderful figure of mingled fires. In the strange illumination of her face, her eyes burned dark and full. She and Loring leaned against the opposite door-jambs, gazing at each other.

"I can't get over your being 'grown up,'" Morris said a little thickly, as she did not reply to his last remark.

"Yes ... I'm 'grown up,'" she said softly. She kept looking at him. Then she looked at the sea, then she looked back at him again. "It's nice ... being a woman," she added, still in that very soft voice.

"'Nice'?" asked Loring, with a short laugh. "You find it 'nice'?"

"Very nice," said Belinda.

She smiled suddenly. Her teeth glistened with a strange silvery lustre in the moonlight.

"Why?... Don't you?" she asked, her voice slightly shaken as by withheld laughter. It was going to be easier, after all, than she had thought. She did not realise that Bacchus had as much to do with it as Venus. She only knew that Morris was vibrating to her nearness, that his blood was trembling in him.

As he did not answer, she put out her hand and laid it lightly on his breast.

"Don't you?" she said again.

"Don't I what?" he asked rather crossly.

That hand was like a white flame to his drink-stirred blood.

"Oh, Morry!... What a fraud you are!..."

She laughed smotheredly like Lorelei through some soft, warm wave. "What an awful fraud you are, Morry!... You pay me compliments and all the time you're thinking what a nuisance it's going to be, having me at Newport this season!"

Loring looked at her oddly. Then he looked down at the white hand which still lay against his breast.

"Take your hand away, Linda!" he said curtly.

She took it away and turned it about before her in the moonlight, gazing at it consideringly.

"Poor little old hand!" she breathed pityingly. "You've offended the king...."

She held it up between them, again laughing.

"Must I cut it off?" she asked teasingly. "Will you cut it off for me and 'cast it into the fire'?"

Loring said nothing. He leaned there looking at her darkly. He hated her and desired her. It was the old emotion, under whose stress he had once kissed her, magnified tenfold.

She straightened suddenly and was close to him.

"Why are you so horrid to me, Morry?" she said, in a vehement whisper. "What have I done to vex you? I think it's cruel of you ... my first evening at home ... my first 'grown-up' evening with you...."

He saw her lips trembling. It made him quite breathless to see those full, rich lips trembling so near his.

"I don't mean to be horrid," he said constrainedly.

"But you are ... you are!..." she insisted. Her voice hummed with passion like a 'cello string. "You are!..." she repeated. "What have I done that you should order me not to touch you—as though my hand were poisonous?"

"I ... I'm nervous this evening...." he said lamely. He knew that he should have turned and gone forthwith into the drawing-room. He simply couldn't. The Purple Emperor aroma—the Belinda magic—held him thralled. Belinda wanted to fall forward on his breast and have her laugh out in the dark warmth of his embrace. But the time was not yet. Some day they would laugh together with love's wild, kiss-broken laughter over this comic interview. But not now.

"Are you sorry you were so horrid?" she murmured.

"Oh, yes ... naturally!..."

She had her velvety finger-tips against his mouth in a flash.

"Then kiss it ... beg its pardon!" she said.

Loring snatched down her hand and ground it between his.

"Linda! You little devil!... You little devil!..." he said.

He pushed her from him, then swung her to him violently. He loosed her hand and gripped her hard by both shoulders. This grip was brutal and painful. She found it delicious to be hurt by him. That was her type.

"Let me tell you ... let me tell you," he gasped, and this gasping voice also filled her with joy, "you'll play with fire once too often, my dear ... just once too often.... Burns don't make becoming scars.... Now leave me alone!"

He flung her off in good earnest this time, and strode away to the library. His pulses were racing—his blood pounding. He was scared. He did not mean to be false to Sophy for a worldful of Belindas. Not that his love for Sophy was what it had been. The old ardour was clean gone. He found her cold. He felt cold to her. Yet something in him clung blindly to what had been—to the revealed self in him that Sophy had once called forth.

---

XXVI

According to agreement, Belinda arrived in Newport two weeks later, the day before the ball. When she came downstairs next evening, dressed for the occasion, Sophy thought that she had never seen so palpitantly gorgeous a creature. It was not her gown that was gorgeous, but the beauty that it illumined like sunlight catching a cloud. Belinda had told her step-mother that the regular dress of débutantes was "not her style." "I should look perfectly absurd in white or blue with rosebuds," she had said, with acumen. So she had selected a costume of shaded apricot chiffon. The rich, fruit-coloured stuff made her breast and arms look white as peeled almonds.

An old necklace of brilliants and topaz lay like flecks of sunlight on her milky throat. Belinda never wore modern jewelry. She had an astonishing gift for decking her own rather extravagant beauty in precisely the right way. A twist of golden tissue was threaded in and out through her burnished hair, and held in place by a clot of topazes. These jewels hid one ear, and their brilliant hardness cut against her cheek. It is impossible to describe the strange allurement of the glowing, yellow gems, thus pressed against the soft damask of the young cheek. An Eastern woman gets this effect by wearing heavy bangles that dent the flesh of the upper arm. Sophy could not explain why this cluster of topaz over Belinda's ear seemed to savour of perverseness—of an adroit and cunning perverseness. It was certainly charming—yet it repelled her. She reminded herself listlessly that Belinda's whole personality rather repelled her. It was a matter of temperamental aversion—for she felt sure that she also repelled Belinda.

Perhaps for this reason they were particularly civil to each other. And Sophy had certainly been kindness itself about this ball and the girl's visit to her. She had even chosen her gown for the evening with reference to Belinda's. She was all in black and silver. She looked pale—not her best. Those warm, dusky stains were too marked under her eyes. She felt at ebb-tide. But Belinda was like a great, joyous, sunlit, inrushing wave.

"You are very beautiful in that gown, Belinda," Sophy said. "You look like sunlight."

"And you look like moonlight—on lilies," said Belinda, who could say very pretty things when she chose. Yet as she said it she was thinking how glad she was that she herself was red-rose rather than lily! How typically a splendid tiger-lily she seemed in her orange gown, she could not have imagined. The black mole on her throat was just like the mark on a tiger-lily leaf.

When Loring joined them, he said:

"What the deuce! You look like a mandarin orange in all that yellow, Linda!..." But his eyes said something else. Belinda was quite satisfied. When he added fretfully: "Why d'you stick that lump of jewels over one ear, like that? This isn't Turkey or Hindustan...." she was more pleased than ever. She knew that the hard glitter against her soft cheek allured him, and that his pettishness only meant that he didn't wish to be allured. But his reasoned wishes didn't matter in the least to her. It was the unreasoning, uncontrollable wish at the depths of his nature that she meant to call forth. "Love" she named this Wish. The pride of the eye and the lust of life seemed the true glories of being to Belinda. Her creed was simple. To love, to enjoy, to laugh with all the strength of one's body—these were the exhilarating ends of existence.

The ball went merrily. Belinda had the success that might easily have been predicted. In contrast with her, the other young girls seemed like pale-hued flowers on some tapestry at whose centre glows a rich blossom worked in gold. She danced and danced without getting dishevelled or red, or pale. She looked the embodied Joy of Living, as she swayed tirelessly, a faint, secret smile just parting her lips, her head thrown slightly back. And the young men with whom she danced seemed also washed out and inadequate beside her—very insufficient twigs to support the radiant, full-blown blossom of her beauty.

But as the evening wore on, though she still smiled, a little flame of anger and disappointment began to burn her heart. Morry was evidently hard-set against her. Not once had he asked her to dance. It was very shabby of him. It was cowardly. She knew very well that he was afraid of her. She loved his fear of her, but she hated this dull, "proper," tame resistance that wouldn't dare even one dance with her. Then suddenly her spirits leaped. There would be the Cotillion. He would have to dance with her some time during the Cotillion! Her opportunity came with the "Mirror figure." She sat on a little gilded chair in the middle of the ballroom, one gold-shot foot thrust out. She was more than ever like Lorelei, as she sat there with the little silver mirror in her hand, coolly touching her tossed hair into place, while she waited for the swains to kneel foolishly before her.

Sophy, who had not danced this evening, stood near a doorway watching her. To her, the girl in her apricot draperies, looking at herself in the silver glass with such perfect disinvolture, seemed suddenly like a beautiful Falsehood who had stolen Truth's mirror and was trying to see what it revealed. For somehow, as she had watched her during the evening, the intuitive conviction had come to her that Belinda was very false. And yet Belinda was perfectly true—to herself. What to Sophy would have seemed falseness, would have seemed to Belinda "being true to herself." She really thought it "being true to herself" to take Morris for herself, if she could, by any means within the limits of conventional propriety and at any cost to any one—but herself and, within reason, him.

Young men by the score came and knelt at the golden shoes of Belinda. She sent them all away, with the most charming effrontery. Then Sophy saw Loring approach. He looked pale and sulky.

She watched the two curiously. It seemed as if Belinda were going to flout Morris also. But all at once she laughed, and pressed the mirror against his upturned face. It was an odd gesture—almost like a caress. Sophy thought that it displeased her because of something in it that she could only characterise as "bad form." The next moment, she saw Morris pull the girl rather roughly up into his arms, and waltz off with her.

A woman standing near by said spontaneously: "What a beautiful couple they make!"

Yes. Sophy saw that, too. They were really quite wonderful floating about to the sensuous rhythm in each other's arms. And all at once the thought flashed to her: "How well they suit each other in every way!" She stood gazing after them—singling them out from the whirling throng. And her thought returned to her, enlarged, more distinct: "He ought to have married her ... not me." The more she watched them, the more this thought possessed her. Belinda would not have bored him with ideals. Belinda would not have been bored herself by the "social stunt" as exacted in New York and Newport. Belinda would have found that visit to England "bully fun." She would have joined with him in "poking up the highbrows." Nor would Belinda have objected to wine-bred love—of this, somehow, Sophy felt particularly sure. Yes; in all things they would have been fittingly mated. In age, in taste, in habits, in temperament.

Just here Loring himself passed by her on his way out of the room. The waltz was over. He walked rapidly like a man towards some object. His face was white and set and his eyes black. Sophy could not know that he was drunk, not with wine but with Belinda. She slipped out into the hall after him. Only some servants were standing about—not near them. She detained him an instant, her hand on his arm. "Morris—don't be vexed...." she said very low. "But don't take any more—just this evening. Your cousin's first ball...."

He flung off her hand. His face worked. "For God's sake, go your way," he said, in a violent whisper, "and let me go mine! I'm tired of squatting on the steps of the temple. Let up on me, for God's sake! I don't interfere with you!..."

He was gone. And obeying a very natural if reprehensible impulse, he drank a glass more of champagne than he had intended to before Sophy spoke.

She turned and went quietly back towards the ballroom. To-morrow she would think things out more clearly. Certainly they could not continue as they were now. She had not meant to "nag." Yet she had nagged. Sophy had rare largenesses in her. She was neither as hurt nor as angered by Loring's words as most women would have been. She had reached that very chill room in Love's House, where it is easy to put one's self in another's place.

"But I can't go on like this ... not all my life," she thought wearily. Yet she saw no way out. The thought of divorce never occurred to her. She hated divorce as she hated other vulgarities. Yet, illogically enough, this view of the matter was only applied to her own case. She heartily and thoroughly approved of it for others. She even thought that marriage should be a civil contract, dissolvable by the mutual consent of both parties, or by the resolution even of one.

A woman of whom she was rather fond—Helen Van Raalt—spoke to her suddenly, touching her shoulder from behind.

"Sophy, dear, I'm dreadfully sorry to be so late! I had to take May to Fanny's party first, you know. And we've only just got away. And I've brought an old friend of yours along with me—my cousin—Marco Amaldi...."

---

XXVII

Sophy found herself with her hand in Amaldi's. She wanted to laugh nervously. She could think of nothing clearly for a moment.

Amaldi noticed how pale she was. She did not seem less beautiful than he remembered her, but his heart winced, for he thought that she looked ill.

He had the advantage of Sophy in this sudden meeting, because he had been prepared for it. However, "preparation" in such a case is something as if a man imprisoned for years in a dark dungeon should "prepare" to see the sunlight. As much as he might school himself, he would be sure to quake to his inmost core when once again it flooded him.

Amaldi had tried hard to forget. If he had not forgotten he had at least succeeded in dulling the edge of his feeling for her. But it was by time and work that he had chiefly commanded his love.

He flung himself into all sorts of agricultural and civic reforms and enterprises. Political life, as an end in itself, did not appeal to him, but he thought with Cavour in regard to the "need which every worthy man feels of making himself useful to the society of which he is a part."

Then had come the news of Sophy's marriage to Loring. Amaldi had had another bitter recrudescence of feeling over that. He was filled with a contemptuous anger against himself for what seemed to him a poor-spirited fidelity. He was nothing, had never been anything to this woman who spread devastation through his life. He had always despised the love that starves on in faithful submission. He would on every occasion have altered where he alteration found, and bent with the remover to remove—only he discovered that it was not in his power to do so. This emotion which had seized him without his volition or consent, proved stronger than his will. Even though he succeeded in curbing it, though it lay in chains, as it were, in the profundity of his being—yet it stirred and threatened at the idea of any other love. It was like a jealous, ill-governed prisoner who will not share his cell.

This one, supreme flame had burned out in Amaldi all capacity for loving any other woman.

As the years passed, however, a calmer temper rose in him. Reflecting on those early days of his love for Sophy, he realised that he had demanded much while offering little—that he had been unreasonable in expecting her to love him under the circumstances. Why, indeed, he asked himself one day, four years after he had parted from her so stormily—why truly should she have loved him? His whole effort at that time had been to repress himself. He had never been truly himself when with her, so much of his will had been absorbed in trying to restrain his passion. He had been silent, reserved, conventional. Yet he had expected her to return a feeling, whose depth and intensity she could not possibly have realised. Now for the second time she was the wife of another man....

No reasoning, no philosophy, no lapse of time could save Amaldi from crisping in the furnace of this thought.

But when, two years afterwards, his agricultural interests made a journey to America seem necessary, he faced the probability of meeting her again with tolerable coolness. He was nearing forty and he considered life a discipline to be endured with hardihood. His character had deepened and strengthened.

The Marchesa, in daily contact with him, found a dear companion, though his habit of long silences seemed to increase with growing years. To his inmost self she never attained. She did not know whether any chord of his former passion for Sophy still vibrated. He never alluded to her.

The situation in regard to his wife was just the same. When the Marchesa looked at her son's fine, sensitive dark face, grown stronger for controlled pain, and realised that in all likelihood no compensation would ever come to him, she felt that incomparable bitterness with which we watch the suffering of one for whom we would gladly die.

She might die for Marco ten times over, yet he would never really live. "Two women have seen to that," she told herself bitterly. Yet in her more rational moods she did not blame Sophy. She had known her too intimately to blame her. No—that Marco had loved her was not Sophy's fault. There had been in his love for her that inevitability which characterises true passion as well as true poetry.

---

And Sophy, standing now with her hand in Amaldi's after all these years, had at first no thoughts that could properly be called thoughts,—the memory of the three windows in the room where she had first met him—of how it had seemed to mean something, and yet had meant nothing, like all else in her life....

Then with a shock that "brought her to," as it were, she recalled how she and Amaldi had parted from each other six years ago, and the colour welled into her face.

He knew what she was thinking of. He, too, was thinking of it.

Mrs. Van Raalt was chattering again. "Just think what an odd thing Marco's been doing in America!... He's been all over the West studying the system of agriculture. Isn't that the funniest way for an Italian to spend his time in America?"

"But you've been in America before, haven't you?" said Sophy mechanically.

She was thinking what an air of race Amaldi had, and how quiet and strong he looked standing there against the whirling, parti-coloured background of the ball. Somehow she did not remember in him this powerful look of manhood. Then she realised—he was more a man. Those six intervening years had given him this new look.

"Oh, yes," he said, answering her question. "Twice. Once when I was a boy—once about nine years ago. My mother gave me many messages for you, Signora—'tanti auguri'...."

The Italian words swept Sophy back, and she paled again. This and the mention of his mother brought so vividly the memory of Cecil's death.

"Please give her my love ... when you write...." she said, her voice a little shaken. (Helen Van Raalt had turned away with some one.) "I shall never forget her kindness to me...." she added. As if she felt her words too formal, she repeated: "I shall never, never forget all her kindness to me...."

"She will be very happy to get such a message from you," said Amaldi. He, too, felt his tone to be formal. Yet what could there be between them but formalities! His heart shook in his breast. He had been mad, quite mad—a vain fool, to risk seeing her again. He had even thought that to see her thus, married for the second time, and happily, would allay the uneasy ache with which he always thought of her. He realised, in these very first moments, that it was the contrary which had happened. That half-numbed ache had sprung into a throb of acute pain at the first sight of her face. And how delicate she looked! Then leaped the question: Was she only ill ... or was she unhappy?

This thought of her possible unhappiness had not before occurred to Amaldi. That a woman with such bitter experience to guide her should make a second mistake in a question so vital as marriage had not seemed possible. Now as he observed her it seemed quite possible ... even probable. It took his breath. He felt that he must look strange and so began to speak casually. After a few moments Sophy said: "I must introduce you to some of these pretty girls.... They will be thinking me very negligent."

He followed her submissively. He had come to this débutante ball just for the opportunity of seeing her. Now he must pay the penalty.

Sophy led him first to Belinda.

"Belinda, this is my friend, the Marchese Amaldi," she said. "This is the heroine of the ball, Marchese ... Miss Horton, my...." she almost stumbled—"my husband's cousin," it came out bravely.

Belinda thought that Amaldi looked "a great swell." She set herself at once to enthrall him. Amaldi lent himself idly to the old, old game. Belinda had at times the stupidity of all cock-sureness. She went to bed that night firmly convinced that Amaldi was her future slave.

She said something of the sort jestingly to Sophy. Sophy looked at her gravely, then she coloured a little and said:

"I must tell you Belinda that the Marchese Amaldi is married. He is separated from his wife—but in Italy there is no divorce."

"Pooh!" said Belinda airily. "I don't want to be his marchioness.... I only want to see how a stately dago like that makes love...."

Sophy had not replied. And Belinda, safe in her bedroom, taking off her jewels with little pussy-cat yawns of replete pleasure, had thought:

"He must have been in love with her once ... when she was younger. Just common or garden jealousy—her telling me that!"

Then she looked at a little red mark on her white arm, and forgot all about Amaldi and Sophy. She lifted her arm and rubbed her cheek softly to and fro over the mark. It had been left there by a violent kiss.

"Oh, Morry ... Morry...." she purred, caressing her own arm where he had caressed it, full of voluptuous reminiscence. "As if I care whether all the dagoes in the world have as many wives as Bluebeard!— My Jove ... my darling!"

And she kissed and kissed the little red seal of love on her arm that was white like peeled almonds.

---

XXVIII

Amaldi had gone to that ball braced for two ordeals—the meeting with Sophy and the meeting with the man whom she had married. He was introduced to Loring a few moments before he left. Belinda introduced him. Loring had come up as they sat together on the terrace. A light just overhead shone directly on his face.

Amaldi had winced from the beauty of that face, as he had winced from Sophy's look of fragility. He had not the superficial scorn for male beauty which is felt by the average Anglo-Saxon. He did not fall into the common error of thinking that women are indifferent to beauty in men. On the contrary, he knew that some women are as much affected by it as men are by the beauty of women.

He looked at the perfect Greek type of Loring's face, enhanced by the intense pallor that over-stimulation always lent it, and he knew (being a Latin) the terrific spell that such a face can cast over the imagination.

At that moment, so strong is the fleshly man in even the most highly evolved being, he could have wished that she had loved a monster for his soul, rather than this stripling for his beauty. The power of vivid visualisation is one of a Latin's chief tortures when unrequited love mocks him. Amaldi could see the beauty of Sophy and Loring in each other's arms as plainly as though they had stood enlaced before him.

He had said good-night rather abruptly.

As he walked off along the terrace, Belinda had asked scampishly of Loring:

"Well, Morry, what d'you think of my dago mash?"

"I don't think of him," had been the surly retort.

"Well, I do. I think he's a peach. He's simply stunning to look at anyhow. So dark and sort of holding his breath at one. A marquis, too, let me tell you. Don't you think I'd make a nice marchioness?"

"For God's sake, don't play the fool with me, Linda."

She pouted.

"You won't let me play the fool with you! That's why I'm going to see if I can with my handsome dago."

Loring's reply to this had been to seize her by one arm and jerk her to her feet before him.

"My bracelet! You hurt me...." she had murmured. He released her arm, and she stood nursing it against her breast, thrusting out her red lips over it, saying, "There! there!" to it as if it had been a baby.

"I don't believe I hurt it an atom.... Let me see," he had demanded. She made him furious—furious with desire and detestation. He loathed her roguery and wiles, yet they mastered him just as drink did.

"Let me see," he said again, putting out his hand towards her arm.

She yielded it to him with a languid movement, so that it hung a warm, white weight in his grasp.

"There...." she said, pressing her forefinger into the soft flesh.

It was then that he had set that violent kiss upon it. His lips clung, drew at the delicate, supple texture. The girl leaned against him half swooning with the delight of his hot lips upon the coolness of her bare arm.

She didn't care in the least when, coming to himself again, he flung away her arm as though it had been a bit of trash.

"Go to bed," he had said roughly between his teeth. "Go to bed and say your prayers ... you need 'em...."

She had stood laughing softly, as he strode off after Amaldi, towards the house. She didn't mind his rudenesses because she knew of old that reaction was sure to follow. He was too good-tempered and easy-going in his normal state to keep up this savage mood with her. He was only cross like this when he'd "had too much." And the more brutal he was at such times, the more apt he was to make up for it by being "nice" afterwards. She had had some experience of these moods in him even as a schoolgirl.

In fact, the next day Loring, rather ashamed of the hazy memory that he retained of that scene on the terrace, was very "nice" to her indeed. He proposed a ride together. This was the beginning of delightful rides alone with him.

Sophy had given up both riding and dancing for the past two or three weeks. The truth was that she had not felt very well of late. The constant, hopeless sense of defeat, of a wearing situation from which she could see no means of extricating herself, had begun to affect her body. This sensation of physical weariness was new to her. Always, until now, her strong, elastic physique had resisted triumphantly. But nowadays she felt jaded. Everything seemed an effort. Her grey eyes, which Amaldi remembered so brilliantly eager, had that subdued, waiting look which comes from either physical or mental suffering constantly endured. Which of these causes brought that look into her eyes, he felt that he must know. He could not bear it that her eyes should have that look in them. What was wrong? Was it her health or was it that a second time she had made the mistake most terrible of all to a woman such as she was? In that case....

Amaldi faced himself squarely. There was no escaping the truth of what he had brought upon himself by his own act. It had needed but that one sight of her, that one touch of her hand to rouse in him the old love, as much stronger for the lapse of years as was his manhood. And now ... what? There was no danger of his repeating his mistake of six years ago. A great love always, sooner or later, brings humility—the proud humility expressed in the fine old Latin phrase of the Romish ritual—"whom to serve is to be a King." To serve her in her need, Amaldi felt, would confer kinghood of spirit.

"If she is unhappy ... if love has failed her this second time ... if she has no love left to give me ... even in years to come ... why, then, at least I can be her friend...." thought Amaldi.

He had reached this "Station" in the Via Crucis of love. He looked back, wondering, on the man he had been as contrasted with the man he now was. Had any one told him at thirty that he would some day feel towards a woman as he now felt towards Sophy, he would have smiled. Yet, within a decade he had come to know by experience that the intense, sublimated passion of the Vita Nuova is no exaggeration.

Those who maintain that Beatrice was for Dante merely a symbol of Divine and Abstract love, cannot realise the miraculous power of metamorphosis inherent in a supreme, human love withheld from its natural expression.

Love of this kind is clairvoyant and clairaudient. Though he could not yet discern causes clearly, Amaldi could both see and hear the shadowy presences that followed Sophy in those days. The one stared with the eyes of a virgin at her broken cestus, the other plained softly: "Vanity of vanities ... all is vanity." Why this was, he did not know, but that it was, he knew certainly. He set himself to watch, with the watchfulness of the "Loyal serviteur."

Within the next day or two he called about tea-time as Sophy had asked him to. He found her having tea on the sea-lawn with Bobby and his tutor. Bobby made friends with him at once.

Then shortly Loring and Belinda came in from a ride. It amused Amaldi that Belinda appropriated him at once. This Attitude of hers suited him very well. He could see Sophy often in this way, while being considered "le flirt" of Miss Horton. He would also have opportunities of observing Loring in his own home. This, just at present, was what he most desired. He wished to find out what sort of man was behind the persona of that beautiful mask. Now as he responded with discretion to Belinda's rather familiar chaffing, he thought that Loring's glance was slightly hostile. He sat sipping a cup of tea in silence, looking at them every now and then over its brim.

Belinda thought it "bully fun" to flirt with Amaldi "under Morry's very nose." What a dog in the manger Morry was! He hadn't the courage to claim her himself, yet he glowered and sulked because another man responded to her bewitchment.

Sophy wondered what impression Amaldi was really receiving. She could not help thinking that the fencing between them was much as if Belinda wielded a bludgeon and Amaldi a rapier. And as this thought came to her, she winced, remembering that horrible time when she had seen Amaldi himself use a stick as a sword.

It was Loring's attitude throughout the scene that chiefly impressed Amaldi. "It is not possible...." he kept saying to himself. "No ... it's impossible...."

But the more he noticed those sullen, lowering glances of Loring in their direction, the more he felt that what he declared "impossible" was a fact.

Was that, then, the secret of Sophy's tired, subdued eyes? Did she still love that handsome, sulky boy, while he turned from her to this obvious young seductress? Amaldi felt hot with pain and anger at the mere surmise. Yet the situation was most likely. And if it were so, Belinda was "playing him off" to rouse the other's jealousy. "Little minx!" thought Amaldi in English. It made him furious to think that she might be using him in this way in the very presence of the woman he adored.

He went away some moments later with a troubled spirit. What could friendship avail here? He had not realised that part of his high mood had come from the conjecture that Sophy no longer loved the man she had married. What had he or "friendship" to do in a galère already weighted to the water-line with love and jealousy? Hope is so inevitably one with love, even the love that has decided on the stony path of "friendship." He had hoped ... what had he hoped? Down the long vista of years—what was it that he had glimpsed at the far end, as one glimpses sunlight at the end of a long, dark tunnel? He sat far into the night thinking—brooding.

But day brought counsel. He decided that he had jumped to premature conclusions. He determined to pursue the course that he had at first planned. At least, in this way, he would arrive at the truth. Now he only fumbled with conjecture. The first thing must be to win Sophy to a feeling of confidence in their renewed relations.

And very exquisitely, by fine indirection, he put her at her ease with him—conveyed the impression that time had done its work-a-day task of sobering passionate emotion into tranquil esteem.

Life had dealt rather harshly with them both. They had both grasped Illusion—flower of Maya—and been stung by the serpent coiled beneath. But a friendship such as this was not illusion. It wore no veils—its speech was plain and sober—it went clad in honest homespun. Had not Amaldi himself once told her that he was not a sentimentalist? This honest, daylight feeling that had now sprung up between them had in it no sentimentality. She did not want sentiment. She wanted this that Amaldi gave her—communion and stimulus, clear and bracing as a day of her Virginian autumn. It was so long—so unbelievably long—since she had talked pleasantly with a man who was interested in the things that she found interesting. And they would sit often, over the tea-table on the sea-lawn, before the others came in from driving or riding, exchanging ideas on philosophy and religion and poetry and art. She asked Amaldi about his everyday life. He replied smiling that he had become as ardent an agriculturist as Cavour had once been. Sophy did not know about this phase in the great statesman's career. She was deeply interested. It came out that Amaldi had been asked to give some lectures on the "Risorgimento" that coming winter at Columbia University. The idea rather pleased him, he said. He thought of taking Cavour as his chief subject.

Sophy kindled at the idea. It made her own problems and disappointments seem insignificant to think of the gigantic odds with which that great being contended all his life, and to selfless ends.

"How worth while it all was—his struggle and his Victory!" she cried.

Her eyes dilated—grew brilliant as he remembered them in other days.

"Yes," said Amaldi, "he really merged his private self in the self of humanity. Buddha was not more a Buddhist in that respect than Cavour was."

"And you will stay here this winter, and tell America something of him?"

"I think so ... yes."

It solved for him the riddle of being longer near her without causing comment.

"Ah," said Sophy, "that will be something to look forward to."

She was utterly unaware of how much this sentence and the tone in which she said it revealed to Amaldi.

There was, then, an emptiness in her life. But the more that Amaldi realised the sort of existence she now led, the more he felt convinced that even love could not have compensated her for such surroundings. He knew her latest book of poems almost by heart. Their exaltation of spirit had made him feel when he read them that he had offered his hot, human love to one of those women who are by nature Vestals.

He, too, had been stirred by that cry, "I am the Wind's, and the Wind is mine." But with him it had been the cold thrill of appeased jealousy. "No mortal lover" would possess what had been denied him. There was a bleak joy in this thought. Then had come the news of her second marriage.

But in this marriage he now felt that both the poet and the woman suffered.

---

XXIX

Amaldi had not yet seen Loring unduly affected by drink. The latter was on his guard just at that time. His fear of Belinda made him afraid also of wine. Wine was the Delilah that delivered him bound hand and foot to her Philistine sister, Belinda.

Sophy noticed this restraint and a faint hope sprang in her heart. She felt a sort of sad, maternal yearning over Morris—sad, because the part of mother-wife was but a melancholy one to take, after having played Selene to his Endymion. She would have got near him if she could. But he slammed the door of his heart in her face. What we have ceased to worship we resent, when it is still a part of our daily existence.

Loring resented Sophy's "superiority" as much as he had once adored it. He blamed it upon her that Belinda was for him "l'échanson de l'amour," the "janua diaboli" of the ancient church. If a wife repulsed her husband, then she need not wonder when he went elsewhere. It was plainly her fault. Wives should be mirrors—they should reflect moods—all moods. The woman who locked out her lawful husband, for such a high-flown reason as that he had taken a "bit too much," deserved to have him blown away from her on the four winds of desire. What was marriage for, if not to bind wives to their duties?

But while Loring had grown blasé in his passion for Sophy, his vanity in the "ownership" of her was still keen. And also, in the depths of him, he loved her, though with a flat, habituated sort of affection. All zest had gone out of it. This was why her refusals angered without piquing him. This was why he feared Belinda. His nature craved ever new toys, and Belinda was a gorgeously tempting toy. Yet he knew well that she was pinchbeck compared with Sophy. He had no idea of exchanging the real thing for the imitation.

He did not mean to give Sophy any serious cause for resentment. Indeed he was a little in dread of both women. He could not guess exactly what either would do if too much exasperated. His feeling for Sophy was a good deal that of the Collector for a unique jewel which he cannot wear, but which gives him a standing with other Collectors. His feeling for Belinda, that of an epicure who longs for a dainty that he knows will disagree with him. But he was rather fond of Belinda in spite of hating her cordially at times. He found her a congenial pal. He liked her dare-deviltry when it was not directed against himself. His will and Belinda's at this time represented the impenetrable wall and the irresistible ball of the old hypothesis.

And now the little demon chose to madden him by "carrying on" with that "dago."... Loring was horribly jealous of Amaldi.

He and Belinda were both very careful when in Sophy's presence. Quick as she usually was in "feeling" things, the common little drama passed unnoticed by her; so much of it was played "off stage," in the wings. And her nature was singularly free from suspicion.

Undoubtedly also, the amour propre natural to a beautiful woman who has been much loved, blinded her. It simply did not occur to her that Morris could be in love with Belinda. And to Amaldi it never occurred that Sophy could be blind to what in his eyes was so plainly evident. He only marvelled at her self-control, and raged futilely at the humiliation to which she was subjected. It cut him to the quick that she should care for a cad who "made love" in secret to a wanton girl under her very roof.

Now, however, Mrs. Horton had come to Newport for a few days. Surely she, as the girl's mother, would take steps in the matter, which Sophy's pride had prevented her from taking.

But to Amaldi's intense amazement, Belinda's mother seemed quite unaware of anything unusual. It was on the third day after her arrival that a most extraordinary scene took place. The afternoon was misty. Tea was served indoors instead of on the lawn. As usual Belinda and Loring came in from a long ride together.

Belinda still kept up an intermittent coquetry with Amaldi, though he did not meet her with the complaisance of those first days. Italians particularly object to being used as cat's-paws, even by a pretty woman. And in this instance Amaldi's natural aversion from serving such a purpose was increased by his resentment on behalf of Sophy.

Belinda was very wroth with Morris this afternoon. He had chosen to tell her, just now, with the brutality of self-defense driven to its limits, that Sophy's "little finger was worth a shipload of her" (Belinda). She determined to punish him. She dropped into a low chair near Amaldi, and leaned forward, chin in hand, her lambent, impish eyes on his.

"Come sta, Amaldi?" she said. "I haven't seen you for a month of Sundays. You're really much better looking than I remembered."

"Accept my humble gratitude," replied Amaldi with ironic exaggeration.

She blinked her eyes slowly, pondering this remark. She thought his dryness the result of her neglect of him for the past week. Poor dear! He was jealous of Morry. Well, now Morry should be jealous of him.

"What's on that ring?" she asked suddenly. "I hate men to wear rings as a rule—but that dark blue is ripping on your hand. I suppose you know you've got dandy hands?"

"You overwhelm me," said Amaldi as before.

"Not much I don't! I know your jeering way.... But I think you'd be rather interesting to overwhelm all the same ... to really overwhelm, I mean."

"But I assure you that is my state at present."

"Pooh!" said Belinda, laughing. She drew her chair a little closer. "Come, you haven't told me what's on your ring."

"My stemma—the coat-of-arms of my family."

He did not offer to show her the ring. She bent nearer, gazing at it.

"What's the motto?" she asked, her face close to his hand.

"'Che prendo—tengo,'" said Amaldi.

"And what does it mean?"'

"'What I take—I keep.'"

"I believe you!" she exclaimed boldly. She flashed her eyes to his. "You look as if you'd know how to keep what you chose to take. You've got such a very 'Don't-monkey-with-the-buzz-saw' air about you. It rather fascinates me...."

"You raise me to vertiginous heights," said Amaldi in the same tone.

"Oh, come off!" retorted Belinda with her joyous grin.

Sophy was talking with Mrs. Horton and paid no attention to this murmured dialogue, but Loring's eyes were fixed angrily upon them, as he sat smoking on one of the cushioned window-sills.

All at once Belinda put out her hand and touched the sapphire that Amaldi wore—then held up her finger.

"Lend it to me...." she said. "I've fallen in love with it."

Amaldi flushed. The ring had been his mother's. She had put it on his finger herself the day that he was twenty.

"Well?" laughed Belinda. "What are you afraid of? I'm not proposing to you.... I shan't steal it...."

There was no other course left him. Amaldi drew off the ring in silence and held it towards her. He did not offer to put it on her finger.

"'Fraid-cat!" she mocked. She snatched it from him and slipped it on herself. The ring that had fitted Amaldi's little finger fitted her third finger perfectly.

She gazed delighted at the carved sapphire against her white, velvety skin. Then she jumped up and danced away, holding up her hand before her, and chanting:

"'What I take—I keep!' 'What I take—I keep!'— You'll whistle long and loud before you get this beauty back, Amaldi!"

Amaldi was rather pale, but smiling. He said nothing. Mrs. Horton called sharply:

"What on earth are you about, Linda?— What are you making such a noise for?"

"Oh, nothing ... just a little game I've been playing with Amaldi."

"Well do be quieter ... you're really too noisy."

She went back to her talk with Sophy. But though Sophy listened, her eyes followed Belinda.

Loring got down from his seat on the window-sill, and sauntered forward. He met Belinda in the middle of the room.

"Go and give that ring back," he said in a low voice.

"Not much!" laughed Belinda.

"Yes, you will."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"You'll make me, I suppose?"

"Yes— I will."

"Pouf! Just try it...."

She pirouetted insolently, and he caught her by one arm. Then began a most astonishing scuffle. Belinda escaped, and rushed to the farthest end of the room. Morris bounded after her—caught her again. She turned and twisted in his grasp. Her red-brown mane came down; she struck at him, tried to bite his hand where it gripped her.

Amaldi sat like an image watching this, to him, appalling game of romps. His face was as expressionless as a Chinaman's. He thought he had never looked on a cruder exhibition of sex-provocation. He thought his ears deceived him when he heard Mrs. Horton exclaim:

"Did you ever see such a pair of children! Linda! Morry! You'll break something... Do behave! Can't you make Morry behave, Sophy?... Oh, dear! What do you mean by behaving like this, Linda?"

Amaldi thought this question most unnecessary. He thought Belinda's meaning only too painfully lucid. He was astounded to hear Sophy's sweet, natural laughter.

"Morris!" she called. "Belinda! You really shouldn't romp like this before Amaldi. He'll think you're demented...."

("'Demented!'" thought Amaldi.)

For the first time it dawned on him that perhaps Sophy did not take in the situation after all. Then he glanced at Belinda, panting, flushed, bacchante-like, in the grip of the white-faced, angry-eyed man who was trying to drag the ring from her finger. No! It was impossible. The others must see a thing so flagrant, so palpable. But Mrs. Horton continued to exclaim helplessly at intervals:

"Oh, what children! What babies!"

While Sophy merely sat resigned, waiting for the hurricane to subside.

Loring conquered, of course. He strode up to Amaldi and dropped the ring into his hand, while Belinda sank down on a distant sofa, gasping out:

"You're a brute, Morry!... I hate you!"

Loring gave a short laugh, and strolled out of the room.

Amaldi also took his leave in a frame of mind that may be described as bewildered.

---

XXX

But this occasion, which had led Amaldi to suspect that Sophy did not realise the state of things between her husband and Belinda, was the cause of her first awakening to something unusual in their relationship. It was not their boisterous romping which had done this. Sophy was too used to the fondness of Young America for indulging in this sort of "high-jinks" to notice particularly the rough-and-tumble of Belinda's passage with Loring.

She had been troubled by the disgust which she felt underneath Amaldi's quiet manner. She winced from what she divined to be his point of view—the point of view of a cultured Athenian watching the holiday pranks of barbarians. This mortified and disturbed her. But she had only regretted the bad taste of the scuffle; it had not revealed to her anything deeper. No—it was Loring's curt laugh as he turned away from Belinda's cry of "I hate you!"—it was something in Belinda's voice and look as she gave this cry that had startled Sophy. In the girl's voice and look there had been such concentrated, vibrating passion; in Loring's laugh she had heard an echo of the love-laughs of her own wooing. There was a certain note of secure mockery in it—a threat as of something controlled—a suppressed secret triumph, that brought the past giddily upon her.

She had glanced quickly from him to Belinda. The girl's face was quivering—but not with anger. Certainly not with anger. For though she frowned, her red mouth tilted upward. Her downcast eyelids fluttered as though she, too, were veiling some suppressed, triumphant secret. There was more than her usual almost insolent cock-sureness in the way that she twisted up her ruddy mane again, holding the amber hairpins between her strong, glistening teeth as she did so, and looking down in that veiled, secretive way. It was the air of the diverted pussy-cat who says: "All right, my nimble mouse—enjoy your seeming freedom. When I tire of the game, I know how to stop your friskings."

Sophy did not read the exact meaning of this air of Belinda, but she saw plainly that it indicated a certain secret understanding between her and Morris.

From this time she could not help observing Morris and Belinda "with a difference." If it were merely a flirtation between them it was in execrable taste. She could not help (being human and having loved him so well) resenting the idea that he should flirt, even in the most superficial way, with the girl that she herself had brought into their home. But supposing that it was more serious—supposing that this self-willed, violent madcap had a real feeling for Morris—supposing that in his present mood of anger against her (Sophy) he were to revenge himself by trifling with Belinda?

Sophy could scarcely bring herself to believe him capable of this—yet there was the possibility. Morris could be very reckless, especially when driven by resentment. It did not yet occur to Sophy that the feeling between the two might be mutual.

Her woman's instinct was to guard the girl temporarily in her care, from the freakishness of her own wayward, violent nature. She thought with dismay of Loring's constant drinking. What might he not say and do under the double stress of wine and Belinda's provocative beauty?

And in the week that followed she saw much that made her uneasy, yet nothing which she could actually fix upon. Certainly nothing that could give her an excuse for speaking to Belinda. For she had decided that she would speak to the girl if it became necessary, rather than to Morris. She recoiled, in all her being, from speaking to him on such a subject. Besides, she felt that it would only enrage him further. But Belinda might listen. She might appreciate it, that Sophy should go direct to her, instead of to her mother.

And still nothing had happened that made Sophy feel justified in taking such a course, though something there undoubtedly was—something not just right, not just clear—a tension, a vibration. It humiliated her to be thus on the alert. She felt like a spy. Yet she felt also that it was clearly her duty to be watchful if only for the sake of Belinda.

She knew that Morris was in a very exasperated, cruel mood. He nursed against her the most passionate grievance. She felt that given the occasion he might go to excessive lengths in his angry desire to punish her. She knew how vindictive his present temper was, because although he had been drinking much less of late, he had not sought a reconciliation with her. But she did not make any advances to him. She had told him one night at Nahant that she would never again live with him as his wife, unless he could show her beyond doubt that he loved her more than drink. He had stared at her, literally dumb with fury. Then he had flung out of the room, slamming the door behind him. They had never spoken on the subject since.

One evening, towards the end of the week, Sophy stayed at home by herself. She looked forward with relief to these quiet hours. She felt a craving for solitude and music—to sing out some of the pain that was oppressing her. She dined early and went to what was called "the little music-room." This room she had had done over for her especial use. The walls were tranquil and rather bare, of a soft cream colour. A frieze in subdued tones after a design by Leonardo ran about it. There was only one painting, a lovely Luini angel with a viol. The dark, polished floor reflected jars of blue Hortensias. Two church candles on silver "prickets" lighted the piano. The windows, flush with the sea-lawn, were opened wide. Through them floated soft, cloud-tempered moonlight and the deep breaths of the sea.

The room and the hour fitted her mood to perfection. She sat down at the piano and began thinking aloud, as it were, in what Chesney had called her "imperial purple voice."

First Russian folk music came to her. She, too, was isolated on the steppe of her own nature. The desolate words went voluming out upon the night, in that hushed, dusky gold of the great contralto:

"Lord, hear us!... Lord God, hear us!
We are in bondage:
Like the Volga, in its chains of ice,
We are bound in the bitter ice of sorrow.
Be to us as the springtide that melts the ice,
Arise! Shine! For we sit in darkness
And in the shadow of death.
Lord, hear us! Lord God, hear us!"

She looked up as she ended, to see Amaldi standing in one of the open windows.

"May I come in?" he said. "I shan't be disturbing you?"

She smiled, holding out her hand.

"No. Do come in, Amaldi. You're just the one person who won't disturb me. I'm music-thirsty to-night. Now you shall play for me."

"But not until you've sung more—please," he said quickly.

"Very well. I'll sing to you, then you'll play for me. It seems strange that I've never heard you play. But there were always so many people about. I can't enjoy music—really, in a crowd."

She sang on for half an hour, first more Russian music, then old Italian. He sat where he could see her face but did not seem to look at her. Glancing at him now and then, she knew that the immobility of his dark profile meant intense feeling, not any lack of it. When she would have stopped at last, he begged for one more song. "Something very simple—that you especially care for," he urged.

She thought a moment. Then she said:

"If I can remember the music I'll sing you a Scotch song called Ettrick. I loved it so that I made the music for it myself. But it's been a long, long time since I've sung it——"

Her hands wandered among the keys, gathering a harmony here, a note or two of the melody. It was as if she were gathering flowers of sound with her slow, caressing fingers. She found the right opening chords at last, ventured them softly, then struck full. It was a royal burst of sound—those chords and her violet voice together: out leaped the glad exultant words:

"When we first rade down Ettrick,
Our bridles were ringing, our hearts were dancing,
The waters were singing, the sun was glancing.
An' blithely our voices rang out thegither,
As we brushed the dew frae the blooming heather,
When we first rade down Ettrick."

She paused, drew in a deep breath like sighing. The next chords fell sad and heavy as earth upon the dead.

"When we next rade down Ettrick,
The day was dying, the wild birds calling,
The wind was sighing, the leaves were falling,
An' silent an' weary, but closer thegither,
We urged our steeds thro' the faded heather,
When we next rade down Ettrick."

Then came wild dissonance, and a minor like the wailing of the wind—then once more the heavy, disconsolate chords, dirge-like, apathetic. Her voice sounded like a voice wafting back across the river of death in those last lines of all—so spent and inconsolable it was:

"For we never again were to ride thegither
In sun or storm on the mountain heather."

Amaldi sat very still, but his heart raced. Wonder filled him—wonder and exultation and great pain. She was so marvellous to him—her beauty of flesh and of spirit—now this added beauty of music. And this soul of music in her was one with his. They were one in this at least. He felt that if chance had been less cruel they might have been one in all things. It seemed hateful and stupid, that the gross senselessness of circumstance should have set them so far apart. When she ceased singing he sprang to his feet, went close to her.

"You are wonderful ... you are wonderful...." he said shakenly. They were both rather pale. She sat looking up at him in silence. Then she said in a low voice:

"It is a joy to sing to one who understands as you do."

He repeated as if unable to find more fitting words:

"You are a wonderful, wonderful woman. There is no one like you. No one ... no one...."

"Dear Amaldi ... thank you," she said, much moved; and a little confused by his impetuousness she rose from the piano, reminding him of his promise to play for her. He submitted reluctantly. It seemed a pity, he protested, to play after such singing. And now he flushed with the inner tension of his thought, then paled again—for he was sure now, quite sure, that love had failed her a second time; her own love as well as another's. The passion in her voice had been the passion of renunciation.

He began with an étude of Bach. It was the nun in her mood that he played to.

As an instrument the piano resembles a woman who speaks many languages quite well. She speaks to aliens in their different tongues and people think "what a clever linguist!" But sometime there comes one who understands her own native language. To him her soul goes forth; he draws from her true eloquence, the heart's warmth. Glittering facility is put aside. Soft, sonorous, velvet-voiced the erstwhile brilliant chatterer becomes a poet singing forth the riches of her secret self.

With the first tones drawn by Amaldi from the familiar that Sophy thought she knew so well, she caught in a quick breath and leaned forward. Was that the voice of her own excellent Steinway, that deep, liquid, ringing sound that seemed to flow from the white keys without concussion? She sat almost in tears for the perfect sound, the infinite plaint of the music, as of a soul crying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The change to ineffable exultation—the triumph of the great, crystal-white major chords that seemed to shout, "Death is conquered!"

"Go on," she whispered when he paused. "Go on ... play me something of your own this time...."

Amaldi glanced at her, then away again. A strange look had flashed into his eyes as they rested on hers. It stirred her oddly. There had been something half-mystic, half passionate in that fleeting look. She wondered what it was he had thought of as that expression quickened his eyes.

"Do you remember those lines in Die Nord See?" he asked the next moment.

"Dort am hochgewölbten Fenster
Steht eine schöne kranke Frau
Zart durchsichtig und marmorblass
Und sie spielt die Harfe und singt,
Und der Wind durchwühlt ihre langen Locken
Und trägt ihr dunkles Lied
Ueber das weite, stürmende Meer."

"Yes. They always cast a sort of spell over me. But what made you think of them just now, Amaldi?"

"Because they cast a spell over me, too. In fact they haunted me till I put the story of that 'lovely, ill woman' into music. I'll play that for you."

Sophy could not restrain an impulse of curiosity.

"Tell me first ... will you—what you thought her story was?"

Amaldi kept his eyes on the keyboard and spoke rather low and rapidly.

"I fancied," he said, "that love had made her a prisoner in that castle. Then love had died. But love's ghost haunted the empty halls. I dreamed that her sickness was a sickness of the heart and soul ... the regret for love ... the fear of the ghost of love."

He began the opening movement as he finished speaking, a wild, monotonous, plangent cadence, like the rhythmic beat of surf on a rocky coast.

There is in the life of every artist, of every sensitive and lover, a supreme inspirational hour, wherein expression seems simple as breathing, and inevitable as birth and death. Amaldi, who was really great in music, played that night as never until then, as it was never given him to play again. Grief and love, these are the mighty angels that urge genius to its fullest utterance.

As the music poured over Sophy its splendid and tumultuous mystery, she felt like one chained upon a rock that the high tide overwhelms ... drowning, suffocating in that passionate welter of sound. The composition was in itself a masterpiece, but her knowledge of what it was intended to express lent it a terrible lucidity. That woman in her prison-castle, alone with the ghost of love—was she herself. It was her secret malady—her soul's mortal sickness that he was revealing in that dæmonic candour of superb harmony.

She put up one hand over her eyes, as she sat gathered in upon herself. She felt as if some barrier were too completely down between them, as if, in some well-nigh insufferable way he touched the open wound in her heart.

"He knows ... he knows...." she kept thinking. "He is telling me in this way that he knows...."

And she could not be sure whether she shrank from his knowing, or whether it was a relief to her.

There flashed silence. The exquisite, intolerable music ceased, went out like flame. The dead silence was like a darkness.

Then Sophy forced herself to speak.

"You are very great, Amaldi," she said uncertainly, her hand still over her eyes. "You ... you should give all your life to music."

He answered in a voice as strange as his look had been just now:

"All my life is not mine to give to music."

She could not think of any fitting response to this. Silence fell again. She broke it nervously by asking him to play more for her, "something not quite so despairing." She smiled as she said this, but Amaldi thought: "She knows now that I know." This gave him a feeling of curious satisfaction and relief. It seemed, somehow, the beginning of something, the beginning of a new phase in their relations. Hope had stirred in him. The future seemed to him vague yet promising like an uncharted sea.

He played for her an hour longer, all the music that she loved best.

They said good-night gravely, avoiding each other's eyes.

---

XXXI

It was about this time that Belinda came to a momentous resolution. She said to herself: "I've made Morry feel that he wants me. Now I've got to show him how much he wants me. I'll just clear out and let him see what it feels like to miss me."

The process of "clearing out" was accomplished by the acceptance of an invitation to cruise for a week with an aunt of May Van Raalt. There was to be a gay party of young people aboard. It was the most natural thing in the world for Belinda to wish to go.

When, however, she told Morris, during their afternoon ride, that Sophy had consented to this outing, he seemed to regard it as not only a highly absurd idea but as a personal affront. In fact he was so outrageously ill-tempered about it that Belinda was in inner ecstasies at the sureness of her "inspiration." "If he's like this before I even start, what will he be like by the time I come back?" she thought gleefully.

She set off on the day appointed, in high spirits, all the higher because Morris had refused to shake hands at parting and called her a "shallow gad-about."

But he was shortly to rest in amazement before the fact of how excessively he cared. Everything seemed strangely flat without her. He missed her provocative teasing ... the singing of his blood at her look and touch. The constant, thrilling struggle with temptation. One certainly "lived" every atom of the time that one spent near Linda. She kept existence at high-pressure. One could almost see the little "nigger squat on the safety-valve" of her pleasure-craft, by George! But then, too, she was such bully fun to ride with and romp with. Nothing highbrow about Linda. All the same he wasn't going to let her make a fool of him. But, by George! she was the sort one missed—confound her!——

The day after Belinda's departure he was again in the full swing of his old tippling habit. To do without the stimulants both of drink and Belinda he found beyond him. But even this remedy proved vain. The flatness left by her absence was not to be dispelled so easily. The thought of her dogged him night and day.

With Sophy his intercourse was very restricted. On the occasions that the conventional exigencies of their life brought them together he treated her with an aloof and ceremonious politeness. But this manner was not now so much the result of displeasure as of a growing indifference.

The thought of Belinda was such an obsessing flame that all other facts of his existence had become like shadows, Sophy among them. He craved the girl's return so fiercely that he had no coolness of imagination left with which to regard anything but that desired and immediate future. What was to be the result of their reckless, hot-blooded drawing each to each did not seem to him to matter much just then. All that mattered was that this hateful, gnawing emptiness should be filled. He was not used to that hungry cramp of "wanting." Even his want for Sophy—which had for a time given him the wholesome discipline of the seemingly unattainable—had been only too soon assuaged. In some way, somehow ... he was lordly in his vagueness ... this horrid vacuum created by Belinda must be filled by her.

He rushed into the day's pleasures like one hag-ridden. His play at polo was maniacal rather than brilliant.

Belinda came back one afternoon towards twilight. She was on tiptoe with delicious anticipation and curiosity. There was in her mood, also, an exasperated craving, for in disciplining Morris she had subjected her own heart to the rod.

The butler said that "Mrs. Loring was out, but Mr. Loring had just come in." Where was Mr. Grey? Mr. Grey was having tea in his private study with Master Bobby. Belinda's heart sent up a glad little tongue of flame. The coast was clear, then. She pulled off her gloves carelessly. No. She wouldn't have any tea. Did Simms know where Mr. Loring was? Simms thought that Mr. Loring was in the library. He would go and see.

"Never mind," Belinda said indifferently. "I want a book to take upstairs anyway. Just see after my trunks, Simms. They'll be here in a few minutes...."

She went lightly towards the library, through the long drawing-room that opened into it. Her soft, quick steps in her yachting shoes made no sound. She stopped mid-way the long room and leaned forward from her supple waist, peering between the folds of tapestry that veiled the communicating doorway. Yes. He was there. The lights had not yet been turned on. He was slouched in an armchair smoking moodily. Whiskey and soda stood on a tray beside him.

Belinda thought she knew well what he was brooding on as he lounged there in the deep chair, with the cigarette burning out in his dropped hand. If she had really known all that he was thinking, her triumph would have been complete.

She stole up behind him—leaned over. Close to his ear, so that her warm, musky breath flowed with the words, she murmured: "Have you missed me?"

Ah ... it was worth that week and many more away from him—this crushing clasp of all herself against him. She had not known he was so beautifully strong. It assuaged the fever of her breast to be so bruised. And that kiss—that endless kiss—she had dreamed of kisses such as this through a hundred wakeful nights....

Sophy had returned within ten minutes of Belinda's coming. She, too, had asked Simms where Mr. Loring was, and to her also Simms had replied that Mr. Loring was in the library, he believed—that Miss Horton had just arrived and joined him there.

Sophy, too, had gone down the long room towards the library. It was barely dusk. She could see into the further apartment as plainly as Belinda had done. What she saw was the girl in Loring's arms, and his head just lifting from that prolonged kiss. She stopped, transfixed, her breath inheld.

"You imp ... you witch...." Loring was muttering unsteadily.

"But a 'white witch'?" cooed the girl.

Sophy heard him laugh low—that exultant, soft laugh which had once so charmed and disturbed her in the days of their love. "No, by God! ... a red witch ... colour of blood ... colour of my heart ... flame-colour ... little devil's colour...."

The passion-broken words fell about Sophy like drifting sparks, as she hurried away from them in an anguish of panic lest she should be glimpsed by one or the other of those oblivious, hot lovers.

When she reached her bedroom she was breathless mentally and physically. Reality had fallen upon her like some clumsy, overtaking Titaness. Its great bulk, heavy and hot and panting, weighed her down. She felt that she must drag herself from under that dense weight, or suffocate. She turned the key in the lock—went and stood by the open window—took off her hat, her cloak, her gloves, mechanically, with quiet deliberation. Her movements were all quiet and deliberate. She was saying to herself, "Let me think.... Let me think ..." as though some one were keeping back thought from her.

It is one thing to suspect—to surmise. It is quite another to see with bodily vision. Seeing is believing, they say, yet Sophy felt herself, her inmost self, refusing to believe what she had seen—and heard. This was just at first, before she succeeded in freeing herself from that leaden smothering sense of stupefaction.

Within ten minutes her mind was working with lightning speed and clarity. Now in contrast to her former state, she had a sense of being giddily light and uplifted above the situation. It was as if her part in it did not count at all, as if she were nowhere. Or as if being somewhere, she was conscious on another plane. She had the mental poise of a Sylphide, surveying from the cool balcony of a cloud the doings of two Salamanders in their grotto of flames. This feeling also passed quickly. She found herself realising that she was Sophy Loring—just simply and painfully a woman who had seen her husband holding another woman in his arms.

As she faced this realisation, all of pride in her rose to announce, "I do not care." But no sooner had one part of her said this, than another part cried out that she did care—intensely, vehemently. She struggled to clear her mood. She asked herself harshly whether she had any love left for Morris. The reply came with mortifying promptness. Whether she loved him or not, she passionately resented another woman's loving him and being loved by him. She felt humiliated by the crass, primitive fibres that this wound had exposed in the substance of her nature. Was she then capable of a blind, instinctive, mean jealousy, when there was no real love left to excuse it? She did not know that the jealousy for what has been is sometimes even more bitter if less keen than that for what actually exists. She was jealous for all the beautiful, unsullied past that this present act of his defaced beyond retrieval. But then there was also the angry fire of wounded pride—of hurt womanly vanity in her flame of resentment against Belinda. She knew this. It humiliated her to the core. Then her feeling veered again. She experienced a throe of such scorn for Loring as sickened her. This in turn reacted into a sort of wild, impersonal regret for the whole thing—for all concerned in it—Morris, the girl, herself. It was Othello's cry of unspeakable, confused anguish that echoed in her heart: "But yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago—the pity of it, Iago!"...

She rose suddenly with a quick, determined movement and looked at her watch. Seven o'clock. She and Loring were dining out at half-past eight. She must have time to think, to reflect. There must not be a sign of what she knew in face or voice or manner, until she had thoroughly determined how to act. She must go to this dinner as if nothing had happened. She must meet Belinda as she had parted from her. She was deeply thankful that she and the girl were not in the habit of exchanging kisses. Sophy had strength of will, but not enough to have allowed her to kiss Belinda or receive her kiss that evening. And as she thought of the girl's brilliant, sensual mouth, and of that other mouth to which it had lately clung—she blushed hot, then cold—for that icy tingle through all her blood was like a cold and bitter blush.

She spent unusual thought in selecting her toilette for that evening. She desired to look the antithesis of Belinda, so she chose a gown of dead white embroidered in crystal. She wished to sign herself to herself, as no longer belonging to Morris—so she wore with it a circlet of little diamond flames, one of Gerald's gifts to her.

But little by little her mood of lofty disdain passed finally into still, hot anger. This flashed its fire into her eyes and cheeks. As Louise set the diadem of frosty-flames in place, she remarked with conviction:

"Madame n'a pas été aussi en beauté depuis longtemps...."

Sophy had the strangest sense of triumph in defeat, of dark exultation as she went slowly downstairs towards the drawing-room—the age-old exultation of the deposed queen who feels that her beauty is greater than that of her supplanter.

---

XXXII

Belinda and Loring were already in the drawing-room when she entered. Belinda stood by a table fingering a vase of Hortensias. She broke one off just then and twirled it nervously. Loring was lighting a cigarette. It seemed troublesome to light. His hand shook a little.

Sophy paused just within the door, drawing on her gloves, her eyes on Belinda. The pale, mauve-blue flower against the girl's flame-coloured gown made an odd, decadent note. She was all in red chiffon—a silver girdle about her waist—poppies with silver hearts over one ear. "'Colour of blood ... colour of my heart...." Sophy thought, and it was hard to keep her lip from curling to the sneer in her thought.

She spoke while still busied with her gloves. She said that she hoped Belinda's trip had been pleasant. Belinda said, Thanks, that it had been "bully." Sophy then glanced at the clock. It was only a quarter to eight.

"How very punctual we all are to-night...." she said.

Loring said, as if surprised: "By Jove! Yes ... so we are."

He, too, looked earnestly at the clock. A self-conscious laugh followed his words.

Belinda remarked that as her dinner was at eight she wasn't so very early. "I ought to be going now...." she concluded.

Sophy finished fastening her gloves and came forward. One of the side lights caught her full as she did so, and her white figure sprang out against the shadows of the room beyond with the glitter of snow-spray in sunlight.

She saw Loring glance at her, then look away. Belinda, her chin a little down, gazed steadily. Sophy came still nearer. She had been so pale and listless of late that the delicate, soft fire of her cheeks, and the dark, bright fire of her eyes was doubly striking. The little tongues of flame that lit her hair dazzled with iridescence. Her gown, the jewels in her hair, the light in her dark eyes—all were quivering, glinting. But she herself was very still. This intense, composed stillness of hers seemed to make the others restless. They fidgeted—Belinda with the blue flowers, Loring with another cigarette.

Suddenly Belinda said spasmodically:

"You are gorgeous to-night, ain't you?"

"You like my gown?" asked Sophy, smiling.

"Ripping," said Belinda.

"I rather like it myself," said Sophy. "I hope you like it, too, Morris?"

"Awfully smart ... you look awfully well...." he murmured.

Belinda left off fingering the flowers.

"I really ought to be going," she said.

"Yes. It's about time for you to go now," assented Sophy.

Her tone was quite even, yet at something in it those two winced.

Sophy had a cruel moment.

"Do you know," she said, "you and Morris both seem rather overstrung to me. What's the matter? You haven't been quarrelling again already, have you?"

Neither answered. Sophy repeated it. "Have you?" she said again.

"No," said Loring.

Belinda had taken up her wrap from a chair and was going towards the door.

"I think the carriage must be there...." she said in a high, artificially anxious voice as she went. She almost ran into the arms of Simms, who had come to announce the brougham.

Sophy stood smiling and looking after her. Then, still smiling, she turned to Loring. It was a peculiar smile.

"Will you tell me what has happened, Morris?" she said, and he thought her tone also very peculiar.

"'Happened'?... Why, nothing," he stammered.

He was appalled to hear himself stammering. He wondered with panic what his expression was like. It was in fact so puerile in its look of nervous guilt that Sophy was wrung with sudden shame for them both—for the man who looked at her with that weak, apprehensive smirk that sat so oddly on his pale face—for herself who had stooped to bring it there. She turned away, saying: "We'd better be going, too, I think."

There was a biting acid of pain at work on her heart now. To have seen that look on his face—to have brought it there! She, who had once been "Selene" to him.

Loring stood gazing after her as she walked from him into the hall. Her beauty struck him as startling. But it struck him as the beauty of the Snow Queen struck Rudi. It left a sliver of ice in his heart. He was rather scared by something in her whole look and air. He wondered if Linda had noticed it. He'd have to talk things out with Linda to-morrow—take her for a long walk—off on the rocks somewhere. Things must be got into shape somehow. He had a spasm of sheer terror when he thought that Sophy might suspect something. Yet he couldn't give up Belinda. Yet he did not want to give up Sophy. Here again was the impenetrable wall and the irresistible ball. He had not yet realised that he alone was not the arbiter of their three destinies. He thought that it still remained with him to say what the future should or should not be for himself, for Belinda, for Sophy.

A dance followed the dinner to which they went that night. And Sophy danced for the first time in several weeks.

As soon as Amaldi saw her, with that tense, bright fever of beauty upon her, he knew that she was at some crisis. Something of this look she had had that night in London when he first met her. What was it? What had brought this strange, "fatal" look to her? Love and apprehension strung him to the utmost pitch. For he had seen agony under her bright cloak of exaltation. He feared now that he must have been mistaken. That her love for Loring still survived.... That this crisis at which she was came probably from the sudden discovery of how matters stood between her husband and Belinda Horton.

---

To Sophy that night was horrible. She did not even try to sleep. She rushed to and fro among throngs of turbulent thoughts, like a lost child in a Carnival—like one seeking a friend among frenzied revellers. Now she would think that she had found it—the thought that would befriend her. Then the mask would slip, and she would see the evil leer of revenge, or hatred, or personal malice, or self-centred wrath—not once the kind face of a thought worthy of her. But towards morning it came to her of its own will. She lay afterwards with closed eyes, spent and lifeless. That mental travail had been terrible. Now her good thought lay weakly on her heart like a babe outworn also by the fierce struggle of birth. It seemed scarcely to live. She had conceived it and brought it forth, but it was as though there were no strength in it. She lay there saying: "God ... help ... help...." as she had said so long ago, in that other dreadful time at Dynehurst. And as then, little by little, she became aware as it were of a vast Presence, and from this Presence there seemed to flow the help for which she had cried.

---

Belinda and Loring met very early in the lower hall as though by appointment. Neither had they slept well, but while Loring looked pale and rather haggard, the girl's face was fresh and beautifully ruddy with sea-water and defiant passion. She had come up from her morning dip in the sea, all tingling with love like Anadyomene.

They had fruit and coffee together, then went for that "long walk to the rocks." When they were safely out of reach of prying eyes, Belinda turned, expecting a repetition of yesterday's wild embrace.

But Loring sat with his arms about his knees. He looked harassed and rather glum. He was staring at the sea. Belinda kept her eyes on him. She had one of her admirable silences. She half knew what was coming, but she wanted Morry to "begin it."

"Linda," he said at last, still scowling at the milky-blue of the sea, "I rather think we're up against it—you and I...."

Belinda's eyes narrowed shrewdly.

"What's 'it,' Morry?" she asked.

He gave a jarring little laugh.

"'It' is ... Sophy."

"Mh!" said Belinda.

"Did it strike you last evening," he went on, "that she was ... well ... er ... that she was a bit on to things?"

"Yes ... it did."

"Well ... er ... have you any notion why she was like that ... all at once ... so suddenly?"

Belinda dropped a pebble into a little pool in the rocks just below her. She leaned over looking after it. Then she dropped in another. She was smiling secretly. Morris turned his head, as she did not answer. This smile nettled him somehow.

"Well...? Speak up, can't you?" he said sharply.

Belinda dusted her fingers daintily on her handkerchief, then laced them behind her head. This gesture drew the thin silk of her blouse tight over her round breasts. The little hollow behind her waist as she leaned against the dark rock was just large enough for a man's arm. She looked down sideways at him from under her thick, white lids and the garnet sparkles came into her eyes.

She passed it to him coolly.

"Yesterday ... when we were in the library together," she said, "I ... heard a chair move ... in the next room...."

"What?" cried Loring.

He sat erect. His face went scarlet, then white.

"What?" he said again.

Belinda nodded.

"Just that ... a chair ... scraped, you know, as if some one had brushed against it ... in a hurry."

Loring had his lip between his teeth. His eyes looked black as when he had been drinking heavily.

"You think ... it was ... Sophy?" he said at last.

"Yes," said Belinda.

"Great God!" groaned Loring.

Belinda's face changed. She took down her arms, and bent forward.

"Look here, Morry," said she in a low, concentrated voice. "You've got to play square with me."

Loring gave her a decidedly unloverlike glare.

"Oh, confound you, Linda," he growled, "don't turn heroics on me at this hour of the morning. I tell you we're in a hell of a mess."

"I'm not," said Belinda.

Loring couldn't help a grin.

"You're not, hey? Well, I like your colossal cheek," he said.

Belinda shot out her hand, and grasped him firmly by the arm with her white, soft fingers in which the little bones were strong as steel.

"You look at me, Morry," she commanded. "You look me right in the eyes."

He did so, unwillingly.

"Well?" he said.

"I want you to understand," said Belinda, "that when you took me in your arms yesterday and kissed me ... like that ... you took me for good."

"Oh, go to the devil, Linda! I tell you I'm not in the mood for high-mucky-muck talk."

"I don't care what mood you're in, and my talk's plain English," said Belinda. "You played with me two years ago, but you can't play with me now. I belong to the man who kissed me as you kissed me yesterday, and that man belongs to me."

"Oh, for God's sake, cut it out!" said Morris, with exasperation. "Who do you think you're talking to?..."

"The man that belongs to me," retorted Belinda fiercely, gritting her white teeth at him. "The man that belongs to me ... that has always belonged to me ... ever since that first time he kissed me ... two years ago—when I was only a child...."

"I don't believe you ever were a child," put in Loring moodily. "I'll bet you cast some unholy spell in your cradle...."

"Well ... whatever I was or wasn't— I'm a woman now," said Belinda. "A woman who loves—who's been loved back—who'll die ... who'll kill before she sees that love wrenched from her."

All blazing, she threw herself suddenly upon his breast. Her soft mouth offered itself—like a flower—fluttered its honeyed, crimson petals close to his. Tears of rage and love magnified her ardent eyes. The pulse of her reckless young breast against his was like the pulse of the sea against the rock. Loring was no rock. He hesitated—was lost—kissed her greedily. Grew mad with those intemperate kisses intemperately returned. Drank and drank of the honeyed, flower-scented mouth.

"We 'belong' ... oh, Morry! say we belong...." Belinda kept sobbing without tears, the quick dry sobs of passion. "I belong to you body and soul ... you belong to me body and soul ... don't you? don't you ... body and soul?..."

"Well ... chiefly body," said Loring thickly, with that short, unpleasant laugh.

---

XXXIII

They were very quiet for some time after that storm of kisses had spent itself. Morris leaned back languidly in a smooth hollow of the rocks. Belinda leaned against him. Her head was on his breast, her arm clinging close about him under his coat. The buckle of his waistcoat cut into her arm, but she loved the bite of the little piece of metal that was warm with his body. It amused and thrilled her both, to feel the everyday intimacy of his clothing in this sharp pressure of the buckle that nipped her soft forearm. And she loved the feeling of his strong, lean waist breathing in the living girdle of her arm. She lay in a daze of happiness, not thinking of the past or future, or even of the present clearly. She was being fully—she had no need of thought.

Morris's voice roused her with a start.

"See here, Linda," he was saying. "This is all very fine— I'd be an ungrateful beggar to complain if we'd only the present to consider. But we've jolly well got to consider a good deal else."

"Oh, it'll all come straight of itself, Morry," she murmured drowsily. "Don't bother ... not now at any rate...."

"'Now' is just what's got to be bothered about, you reckless witch.... We'll have the house about our ears if we go on like this...."

"I don't care what comes about my ears.... Your heart's under my ear now—that's all I care about...."

"Linda! You really are a reckless devilkin, aren't you?"

"Well ... isn't it nice to have me reckless about you?"

Loring gave his short laugh.

"Oh, it's 'nice' enough, I grant you. But nice things have a rather cussed way of ending nastily, my dear."

"This won't——"

"Come, Linda. Show a little gumption. You say you think Sophy probably ... er ... was probably in the next room ... yesterday. Well, granting that, do you think things are going calmly on the way we like 'em?"

"Of course you'll have to have a plain talk with her," said Belinda, her voice taking a practical note.

Morris gave her a little shake as she lay within his arm. She laughed softly.

"My God! but you're a cool proposition," he said, half laughing, too, half exasperated again.

"I'm not cool to you," wooed Belinda.

"No, you're not," he answered shortly. "And that's just the devil of it for both of us!"

"Do you want me to be cool?" teased Belinda.

"No, I don't. And that's the devil again."

"Well, what do you want?"

He might have replied truthfully that what he wanted was for Lawlessness and Law to kiss each other and abide in a beautiful serenity together. But he had not formulated his own state of mind clearly enough to put it thus. The worst part of his distress was that it was so "muddled." The Son of Sirach could have explained it sternly to him. "Woe to the sinner that goeth two ways," would have been his comment.

"See here, Linda," said Loring again. "You talk confoundedly chipper about my 'having a plain talk' with Sophy. Have you thought what this plain talk may lead to?"

"Divorce," said Belinda calmly.

Loring sprang up so violently that she was tilted from his side. He clutched her just in time to keep her from rolling on to the pebbles.

"Look here," he said, very white. "I've been rather a cad to make love to you as I've done ... but I'm not an out and out scoundrel."

Belinda faced him, as white as he, brow and hands clenched.

"You will be," she said through her locked teeth, "if you don't divorce and marry me."

"My God...." breathed Loring, actually bewildered by her utter disregard of all principle. "Where'd you come from?... What are you?..." He went close and caught her fiercely by both arms. "What are you, you little, lawless wildfire?" he repeated.

"I'm your heart's desire ... your heart's desire...." she crooned, half mocking, half cajoling.

He dropped her arms and turned away. The touch of her had set him in a fever again. Nothing would come clearly to him. He raged against her in his heart, but the tide of his blood set resistlessly towards her. He stood with his back to her, biting his knuckles, glowering out at the bright sea.

Belinda waited, with her little secret smile. She loved the aching of her arms where his fierce grip had bruised her. She was very sure of him. She waited for him to come back as patiently as a fisherman waits for the up-rush of a pike that is sulking under the boat. Belinda rocked gently in the boat of her own love, and waited with smiling patience for her sulky lover to rejoin her.

But when Loring did finally turn to her again, his mood was not at all the lover's. He spoke with hard, deliberate precision, biting off the words at her, as it were.

"If you expect me to insult a woman like Sophy and ruin her life to please you, you're rather thoroughly mistaken," he said.

Belinda eyed him curiously. Then she made a great mistake. Instinct had kept her from making it before. Now self-will smothered instinct. She was so bent on making Morris see this question as she saw it, and without further loss of time, that she had recourse to an heroic method.

"Are you really as blind as you seem to be, Morry?" she asked.

"'Blind'?" said Loring, rather taken aback.

"Exactly—stone blind."

He said with stiffness:

"I don't catch your meaning."

"Well ... do you really think that Sophy will mind divorcing?"

Loring stared at her blankly. Then he flushed.

"Are you insinuating that she doesn't care for me?" he demanded.

Belinda eyed him again in that sly, incredulous way. Then she said:

"And do you mean to tell me that you haven't noticed a thing of what's going on between her and the dago?"

"What the devil are you after?" he cried angrily. "I'll thank you not to hint things about Sophy. She's as high above you as the stars—that's what!"

"Oh—a kite's high above me, too," said Belinda airily. "What I'm 'hinting' as you call it is only what any one with eyes in his head couldn't help seeing."

"Come ... speak out!" said Loring roughly.

Belinda gave a sharp sigh, as of disgusted patience.

"Why any baby can see that she and Amaldi are in love with each other," she flung at him. "Now why do you gape at me like that? I dare say it began years ago—in Italy, where she saw so much of him...."

Loring could not articulate.

"Amaldi!" he stammered at last. "Why, the fellow's sweet on you!"

"Pooh!" said Belinda. "He only flirted about with me a bit to make her jealous...."

"To make ... Sophy ... jealous?"

Loring was talking like a sleep-walker, slowly, with thick utterance.

Belinda began to feel a little uneasy at the very potent effect of her disclosure. This was a queer, new Morris staring at her. She might have been a phonograph that contained some record important to him, for all the consciousness of her personality in his blank stare. He looked at her a good deal as a man looks at the nearest object when coming to after a severe blow on the head. This stare of his irritated Belinda and rather scared her at the same time. Had she gone too far? What was there in it so shocking for Morry, since he loved her, Belinda? She had thought that he would jump at the easy solution of their problem that it afforded.

She went up to him, and laid her hand on his breast.

"Wake up, Morry...." she said. "Why in the world should you take it like this? You look positively doped...."

Morris caught her hand in a grip that was too painful, even for Belinda's amorous temperament. She gave an angry little miaul of pain.

"Linda ... you little fiend!..." he was saying hoarsely. "You've made this up.... I know you ... all the tricks of the trade.... What d'you mean by it, eh? What do you mean by slandering my wife?..." He shook her to and fro. "Eh?... Tell me that.... What d'you mean?... How d'you dare?... Eh?... Tell me that...."

Belinda gave him back his savage looks full measure.

"You're a fool...." she sobbed, raging. "You're just a common or garden fool, Morry! I can't help that, can I? Let me go!... It's not my fault if you're a fool ... a fool ... a fool...."

He flung her from him so that she stumbled. He saw red ... black ... red again. He felt choking—murderous. Mere sensual love runs like this, from desire to hate and back again, to and fro, "swifter than a weaver's shuttle." At the present moment he had only hate for Belinda. She herself had lashed awake his jealousy for another woman by her miscalculated cunning. Sophy was his—his. How dare she so much as look at another man? And this little devil dared to say that she loved.... He was really transfigured by rage. Even Belinda the dauntless shrank from him. She had unstopped a very small vessel of malice and out of it had arisen a black smoke obscuring all her golden heaven of love, and congealing before her into this fierce, wry-faced Afrit of a man. She had never seen the male in the grip of real jealousy before—the man-tiger sensing the defection of his mate. It horrified her, infuriated her, filled her with a curiously helpless sense of dismay.

He turned suddenly and strode away from her. Then she found her voice again.

"Morry!" she called. "Morry!"

He paid not the slightest heed. She ran after him, caught him up, panting.

"Don't go off half-cocked like this," she gasped, running at his side, for he was literally running himself now over the rough shingle. "I never meant to hint anything really wrong you know."

She might have been the waves that babbled along the shore.

"What are you going to do?... Don't do anything now.... You'll be sorry...."

He ran on. She kept up with him. They looked quite splendid, running shoulder to shoulder through the fresh morning air, against the background of glinting water.

"Morry ... answer me...."

She was less to him than the air; he had to breathe the air—he had no need for Belinda just then, in any way. But when they had reached the levels where other people passed to and fro, he turned on her. He really looked dangerous. All the brute was up in him—all in him that a man at Polo had once called "howling cad." This cad now howled at Belinda. She cowered under it.

"I guess even you know when a man's had enough of you," he flung in her white face. She dropped back as though she had been spat upon. He strode on, exulting to be rid of her.

---

XXXIV

As he reached the house, he met Amaldi coming from it. It was only eleven o'clock in the morning, an odd hour to call, but Amaldi had not been to call, he had only stopped by for a moment to leave some music that he had promised Sophy. He was most anxious to have news of her after his anxiety about her last evening. So he took this excuse to stop in.

The butler said that Mrs. Loring had breakfasted but had not come down yet. It was only when the man told him that Sophy had breakfasted that Amaldi realised how anxious he really had been. Then he turned away and was face to face with Loring.

The young man gave him the barest, surly nod. His expression was singularly hateful. Amaldi could not quite make it out. Loring had always been perfectly negative in his manner to him, except when goaded to a passing jealousy by Belinda. On those occasions he had usually flung out of the room. Now Amaldi felt hatred in the fleeting insolence of the look that brushed across his face as Loring passed. Was this unaccountable, moody being going to take sudden umbrage at his friendship with Sophy? He went on his way heavy of heart, anxious and disquieted again.

Loring was met by Simms with a message. Mrs. Loring would like to see Mr. Loring as soon as he came in. Mrs. Loring was upstairs in her writing-room.

So she had not seen that "damned dago"! His anger dropped slightly. Perhaps it was only some of Belinda's deviltry after all. He went quickly towards the stairway, then slowed down a bit. It had just come over him what was probably Sophy's reason for desiring this interview. What if she had really been in the next room as Belinda thought? What if she had seen and heard? And if she taxed him with it how should he act? What should he answer? His thoughts whirled like the thoughts of one coming out of chloroform.

He went doggedly on, after two pauses, and knocked at the door of Sophy's study.

"Come in, Morris," she said at once.

He entered and, closing the door, remained near it an instant, looking at her. Then he came slowly forward.

She had been writing. She put aside her portfolio as he came in. Her figure in its white muslin gown lay sunk in the green hollow of her chair, very listless. All the feverish light of the past evening had faded from her face. Her eyes looked soft, grey and tired in their deep shadows. They rested on his face with a sad depth of maternity that he could not at all fathom. He was uneasy under this look, yet it had no reproach in it. It was the look most terrible to Love. Hatred does not wither him like that look. It comes from the heart that, comprehending all, has forgiven all. To forgive all, one must detach oneself, become impersonal. Sophy was now regarding Loring from this standpoint of absolute detachment. Even the maternity in her look and feeling was impersonal—the abstract sense of motherhood with which Eve, leaning from the ramparts of her regained Paradise, might regard mankind. Loring was not a man to Sophy that morning—he was mankind—a symbol. She, the woman, symbolised the Mother.

It was this in her look that made Loring ill at ease, vaguely apprehensive. But it was a look, to his mind, so out of keeping with what he had feared might be the reason of her sending for him, that he decided with intense relief that his conjecture must have been a mistaken one.

"Hope you're not feeling very seedy," he said constrainedly. "You look a bit done, you know."

"Yes— I'm tired. Won't you sit in that other chair? It's more comfortable."

He shifted to the other chair, feeling more and more ill at ease. As she did not speak at once, he said nervously:

"You sent for me, didn't you?"

"Yes," she said. "I was only thinking how to begin."

Then she looked into his eyes with a clear, direct look.

"Morris," she said. "I am ashamed of something I did last night. I don't make any excuse—but I'm very, very much ashamed.... It was the way that I spoke to you and Belinda, when I came down to the drawing-room—just before we went out to dinner...."

"Now, really, Sophy——" he began. He thought she was at some of her "highbrow" subtleties. "I assure you that neither of us...."

Sophy broke in hastily.

"Wait, Morris.... I haven't done. I'm ashamed because I pretended not to know—how things were between you two—and I did know."

As she said these words she flushed as deeply as Loring did in hearing them. But she kept right on—she forced her eyes to remain on his.

"I was in the next room ... yesterday. I ... I ... saw...."

"For God's sake! ... don't!" exclaimed Loring, jumping up. He was white now.

Sophy took away her eyes from that white face. For all her impersonality of mood, that white, aghast face of his hurt her cruelly. The shame on it hurt her. It made her feel desperately ashamed, too.

He went to the window and stood looking out, his back towards her. And in the very lines of his back there was shame. And this shame wrung her, struck to her inmost self. Oh, how humiliating it all was! ... for them both! How she felt as though they were groping towards each other through mire.

She caught at all her force of will.

"It's no use, Morris...." she said very low. "We must talk frankly.... I hate it as much as you do.... Oh, I hate it.... I loathe it!" she ended with an irrepressible cry from her sick heart.

He turned at that, his head down.

"Why must we?" he said thickly.

"Because it's got to be clear ... it's got to be straight between us," she returned passionately. Her breast was heaving. She put up her arm across it as though to hold it quiet by force. She had felt so calm, had been so sure of her calmness. Now her heart was bounding as though it would leap from her body. He turned again to the window, and she sat silent until something of calmness had come back to her.

"Don't stand so far away," she then said hurriedly, and half under her breath. "Come nearer. I ... I am not ... angry. I don't want to speak loud.... Some one might hear."

He came nearer. He could not find any words. He had no thoughts which words would have expressed. But Sophy was regaining control of herself. Some of the oft-rehearsed sentences were coming back to her. Now they were more or less in order. She uttered one, speaking clearly, in a rather expressionless voice.

"Morris...." she said, "how much do you care for Belinda?"

He stared gloomily at the carpet.

"I rather think I hate her," he said.

Scorn choked Sophy. She could not speak again, either, for a moment. Then she said:

"The person you have got to consider chiefly in all this is Belinda."

Now he stared at her.

"Belinda?" he stammered.

Sophy's face and voice grew hot. It seemed as though even Fate's bludgeonings couldn't drub impulse out of her. She wrestled now with this impulse for a moment. It got the better of her.

"For shame!" she cried. "Oh ... for shame! for shame! A young girl ... in your own house ... you treat her like that ... your own kinswoman.... Oh, yes! I know.... But by bringing-up she is your kinswoman.... You do this ... you do this...." She was stammering with the heavy heart-beats that again suffocated her. "And then ... to me ... you speak.... Oh, let me breathe!" she cried, and stood up as if throwing off some intolerable weight.

Loring stood changing from red to white, from white to red. His eyes shone sullenly. His head was lowered in that way she knew. He looked up at her defiantly from under the beautiful arch of the brows that she had once loved. "Well?... And what course has your superiority mapped out for me?" he sneered finally.

She said in a cold voice:

"I have 'mapped out' nothing. But there seems only one way to me.... To be quite truthful about it all. Then ... to act truly."

He gave his ugly little laugh.

"Perhaps you'll favour me with your ideas on 'acting truly'?"

"I will. You love this girl...."

"Damn it! I've told you I hate her!" he broke out violently.

She tried hard to keep the contempt out of her voice. "You can hardly expect me to accept that, Morris," she said gravely.

"Why not? You're so precious anxious for the truth. That's the truth. Now you say you won't 'accept' it...."

Sophy sank wearily into her chair again. She found that it made her giddy to stand. Her hands were damp and cold. She felt physically ill. She covered her eyes for a moment, and in the momentary darkness her truest self whispered to her.

She uncovered her face and looked at him with that first gentle, quiet, to him inexplicable, look.

"Morris," she said softly, "don't you see? I want to be your friend—really your friend in all this. I ... I understand how it has happened. Yes ... better than you do perhaps. We ... we have drifted apart. Oh, don't think I'm reproaching you——" she interrupted herself proudly. "If you'll look back ... to ... to ... that time ... in Virginia. When...."

She couldn't go on for a moment.

"When that glamour was on us both," she continued. "You'll remember that I told you.... I warned you ... that it was glamour ... that some day ... some day...."

No. She could not go on. Love—when it has been real, if only for an hour—is always sacred. She sat very white, her chin in her hand, her eyes downcast.

There was all about her the atmosphere of that wild, windy night when, as she sat alone in the old house, he had rushed in to her like the very Magic of Youth....

Still looking down, she said presently:

"Won't you even let me be your true friend, Morris?"

Very huskily he said:

"Well.... I ought to be grateful for that much...."

It was all horribly sad. She felt faint with the wasteful, useless sadness of it all.

"What did you think of ... of proposing?" he asked, still in that husky, beaten voice.

Sophy's own voice trembled a little when she spoke.

"I think this, Morris," she said. "I think your life ought to be free ... to offer to Belinda."

"'Free'? ... to offer ... 'free'?" he gasped.

"I am willing to set you free...." she said.

There was silence. It lasted so long that she lifted her eyes to his face. The look on it appalled her ... a sort of blasted look, as though rage had struck like lightning.

"Are you ... are you...." he tried to get out his question. Choked on it. He tore it out finally. "Are you suggesting divorce to me?"

"It is the only straight, honest way out of this ... this tangle, Morris."

"You ... you ... suggest divorce? Like that? Coolly ... damned coolly ... as you might suggest a drive ... a walk...? Divorce?... You?"

He jumped up, his face all distorted. He seized the chair in which he had been sitting and dashed it with all his might against the wall. It fell in splinters.

"Hell!" he almost sobbed at her. "Do you too take me for a fool?... 'A common or garden fool'?... Do you, I say?... Now, then! Out with it! I'm a soft fool you think. Hey?— The sort of little, tame husband-fool that never feels his budding antlers, till he sheds 'em in the divorce court? Hey? That's what ... is it? You think so?..."

He was so incoherent with fury, that she could scarcely understand half of what he said. The saliva churned at the corners of his mouth in the frenzy of his sudden madness of jealous rage and suspicion. He'd show her he saw through her noble unselfishness. She and her dago!

Sophy stared at him in horror. She thought that his brain had given way.

"Morris ... Morris...." she kept murmuring.

"O God...." he choked. "God ... God that you should take me for a sucking fool—you and your dago ... you and your little Lombard mucker.... You!—To me!... for my sake!... 'Divorce'!... Set me free!..."

He dropped across a table, hugging himself, shivering with stridulant, choked laughter. He shook with it—was convulsed with it as with throes of nausea. Long, steady drinking had its meet effect. He was hysterical bedlamite—unmanned man—raging tiger of jealousy ... all these things in one ... dreadful to see ... to hear....

Sophy stood gathered up and back from him. She looked dead—as though she had died standing.

With Loring, the paroxysm passed. He clung to the table as to the taffrail of a reeling ship. The whole world seemed waving like a flag.

Then suddenly, in a high, clear, toneless voice, Sophy said:

"I do not now offer to set you free.... I demand to be set free myself...."

She went swiftly into the next room. He heard the key turn in the lock. He went on clinging to the table which seemed to swing him to and fro. He remembered hearing that rage kills sometimes. He thought for long moments that he was dying.

For some days after he was, indeed, seriously ill.

---

XXXV

When Sophy had realised the full meaning of Loring's confused, frenzied words, she had felt in addition to her unspeakable indignation and disgust, a strange sensation as of something withering and falling away from her. At the same time, in the depths of her, there was a quick clench like the snap of a vise. And she knew that this gin had set upon the past—upon her long forbearance; that inevitably, implacably her whole being had revolted, had set itself in that vise-like lock against all future temporising. It was over—done with. Her life with Morris Loring was as past as though they had lived it in another age, on another planet. She knew that she would be inflexible. Her mood might soften, pity might rise murmuring. She, herself—her very self of self—would never change—could not change indeed. It was her inmost being—her realest self—that had locked thus vise-like.

Had she desired to with all her might she could not have dragged it open. One may not love, or hate, or even be wroth at will. Here her will was powerless, or rather, this was her will, the irresistible law of her nature acting with a sort of divine mechanism—as undefiable as the law of gravitation.

Under this revelation of personality acting in utter disregard of the person—of any wish or will of the ratiocinating individual—she rested breathless. Quite independently of her reason or her conscious will, this inmost, vital nature had solved all, come to an immutable resolution. "I will be free. I am free," it had announced. "I have a supreme right to be myself. I refuse further humiliation. I repudiate further self-sacrifice."

In the vigorous reaction of her whole being, she wondered at her past meekness, as at the unworthy subservience of another. How had she borne it all so long? Why had she borne it? She had behaved towards Morris just as his parents and relatives had behaved from his childhood. She had criticised them unsparingly in her thought, and all the time, she, too, had been victimising herself that he might be content, untroubled, indulged, easy in his boundless egotism.

When she thought of her long patience in certain matters, she shrivelled with shame. Reaction is a terrible exaggerater. Under its influence Sophy saw herself as a wretched puppet sewn together of rags of sentiment. If at the first she had been courageous, if she had said to him fearlessly: "Either things must be different or we must part," how much better it would have been than this long-suffering condonement of what she despised!

What was it in her nature, what hidden spring that had led her to act Griselda to two such men as Chesney and Loring? She knew herself fundamentally imperious, impulsive, not to be commandeered. Why, then, had she coerced herself to sit meekly in two houses of bondage, and for long, long years?

She wondered and wondered over it. Yet the answer was very simple. She was tender-hearted, and she was one of the women who watch long by the sepulchre of Love, lest perchance he may be not dead but sleeping, and she not there to roll away the stone.

She gave up trying to solve the riddle of her own state at last, and set to work to put her thoughts in order.

First of all, then, she must be free again.

To be free she must be true—quite truthful. This made her shrink. But the pain would be only temporary. His nature could not long sustain any emotion. Besides, such pain as he would feel would come from wounded pride and jealousy, not from love.

She must go away. She would write Charlotte a letter asking her to send a telegram requiring her (Sophy) to come at once to Sweet-Waters, "on a matter of importance." Harold Grey, Bobby, and Rosa should go with her. Then her mind checked again. She must have an interview with Belinda. This was an odious necessity, but unescapable. Sophy had certain things to say to Belinda. That done, she would leave at once for Virginia.

Suddenly a new thought halted her. She remembered Amaldi. She could not leave like this, without even a good-by. Should she write? But what then could she write? Perhaps it would be best to see him for a few moments. Yes. That would be best. And yet her heart swelled painfully at the thought. Amaldi was too near her with his idealising friendship for her to treat him with absolute convention. And she could not speak out to him.... Or, could she? No, that was impossible. Still, it would be better to see him. She owed him and herself that much.

It was the day after Loring's outbreak. His fever was high. Sophy had sent for James Griffeth, the family physician of the Lorings. He had been quite frank. "A collapse from alcohol and over-excitement," he pronounced it.

She shivered uncontrollably. Griffeth begged her to go and rest. She said that she would, and when he had left went thoughtfully upstairs. She had to pass Loring's door on the way to her own room. She paused, startled, just before reaching it. Belinda was standing close to it, the knob in her hand. The door was open on a crack. Evidently some one also had hold of the knob on the other side. The door swayed to and fro in little jerks. Belinda was speaking in a hoarse, passionate whisper.

"I will come in.... Let me in this minute—you impertinent woman!" she was saying.

Sophy came forward. She could now see the white cap and flushed face of the trained nurse. She heard her answer:

"You can't come in.... It's the doctor's orders.... Nobody but Mrs. Loring can come in.... Please let go the door...."

"Belinda...." said Sophy, now close to her.

She wheeled like an angry cat.

"Come with me, please, for a moment," said Sophy.

The nurse had shut the door. Belinda, after a side-glance at it, jerked up her chin and followed Sophy, defiance in every vigorous line of her.

Sophy led the way into her writing-room and closed the door. She stood, and Belinda stood facing her. The girl was scarlet and Sophy very pale.

"Belinda...." she began.

Words leaped like flames from Belinda.

"Oh, I know you saw us!" she said. "He loves me.... What are you going to do about it?"

Sophy's eyes were so almost smilingly scornful that the girl's bravado failed her. She began changing colour. Her black brows scowled, but she held her tongue.

"I wished to speak to you about ... your mother," said Sophy quietly.

Belinda scowled on without a word.

"I think, that for ... every one concerned ... it will be better for your mother to know nothing of all this ... at present."

Belinda kept silence.

"So I am going to ask you to go back to Nahant to-morrow. As soon as Morris is better, I shall have to go to Virginia on an important matter. You cannot remain here alone. If you go quietly, there will not be any need of my speaking to your mother. Tell her that your visit has been shortened by my leaving for Virginia."

Now Belinda burst forth again:

"Oh, I see!... Morry may be dying and you want him all to yourself!... You don't want us to be together ... even if he's dying.... You...."

"Not another word...." said Sophy.

Her eyes sobered Belinda. Grey eyes are the most terrible of all when utter wrath lights them. Belinda glared into those burning eyes and was silent again. Sophy went to the door and held it open.

"That is all I wished to say. Do as you choose. If you do not go, I shall send for your mother."

Belinda gave her one look of wild hatred, and went out. The next day she left for Nahant. She was quite desperate with rage and grief, but she dared not do otherwise. She dared not risk being separated from Morris by some distance far greater than that between Nahant and Newport. If her mother knew what had happened, she might whisk her off to the ends of the earth. Rage, pain, doubt, fear, jealousy—all these swarmed stinging in her heart.

The next day Morris was much better, but still too weak to talk. Sophy went in and out of the room at stated intervals. He always closed his eyes and feigned sleep when she was there. He could not face her or himself. He tried not to think. But thoughts, sharp and burning, clotted in his mind like sparks against the dark side of a chimney.

On the fourth day came the telegram from Charlotte. Loring was now sitting up in his bedroom. Griffeth said that on the morrow he could go out. Sophy gave orders to have some necessary things packed. She had decided to leave the next night by boat. How was she to see Amaldi? More and more she felt that she must say farewell to him. People had been coming to inquire about Loring. She had not seen any callers since his illness, but to-day she decided to receive them—and in the morning she sent a note to Amaldi. She told him that she had to leave suddenly for an indefinite period. "I am seeing my friends to-day," she wrote. "If you will come about half-past six this afternoon we can have a quiet talk."

Then she took Charlotte's telegram in her hand and went to Loring's rooms.

---

XXXVI

She knocked at his dressing-room door, and Miss Webb, the trained nurse, opened it. When she saw Sophy, she stepped aside, smiling, for her to enter.

"My patient's doing fine, to-day," she said. "He's eat half a chicken, and wants more. So I'm giving him the other half."

Sophy showed her the telegram, and asked if she thought Mr. Loring were well enough to be consulted about a matter of importance. Something that might perhaps agitate him. Miss Webb asked how important it was. Sophy replied that it was of the utmost importance. Miss Webb considered a moment, then said:

"Well, if he's got to know it, morning's the best time. I guess he's well enough not to have important things kept from him."

She held open the door and Sophy went through the dressing-room to Loring's bedroom. Miss Webb opened that door also and called out in the tone of artificial good cheer with which one addresses convalescents:

"Here's Mrs. Loring come to see you eat that other half, Mr. Loring!"

She withdrew, closing the door, and Sophy went over to where Loring sat in an armchair with a tray on a little table before him.

He had swallowed a mouthful of broiled fowl with undue haste when he heard Miss Webb's announcement, and now as Sophy advanced he gulped some White Rock, partly to clear his throat, partly to cover his embarrassment.

His face, pale and chastened by his recent attack, went to her heart. There was in it something so boyish, so irresponsible. That mother-pity welled in her. What she had determined on was going to hurt more even than she had dreaded. Yet she knew that she would go through with it to the end, no matter how it hurt. The pain of freeing herself from this coil would be as nothing to the pain of remaining stifled and loathing in it.

She drew up a chair and sat down on the other side of the little table.

"I'm so glad to see you so much better!" she said. "Please don't stop. You make me feel that I've spoiled your appetite."

"No. I've finished," he said, pushing the plate from him.

He touched a little bell. Miss Webb appeared.

"Please take these things away," he said.

"Oh!..." she exclaimed, disappointed, as she lifted the tray. "You said you could eat it all, and now you've left a whole drumstick!"

Loring reddened. Fool of a woman! She made him ridiculous with her nursery expressions and concern as for a sick little boy who wouldn't eat enough.

"Take it away!" he repeated sharply. "I'll ring again when I need you."

Miss Webb retreated, her eyes fixed regretfully on the neglected "drumstick." When the door had closed again, he lifted his moody glance with an effort to Sophy's face.

"It's rather good of you to come, I must say," he observed. "I thought I'd be taboo for a long while...."

Sophy held out the telegram.

"It's from Charlotte," she said. "I shall have to go to Virginia to-morrow."

He looked startled—glanced through the telegram. "What's up? What is it?" he then asked. "It strikes me as rather high-handed to send you a wire like this—without a word of explanation."

"I asked her to send it," said Sophy.

"You asked her...."

"Yes—so that my going suddenly wouldn't be commented on."

He remained dumfounded, staring at her. Sophy returned his gaze steadily and very gravely.

"Morris," she said, "has it really not occurred to you that I wouldn't remain longer in this house than I could help?"

His stare grew quite bewildered, a little frightened.

"In ... this house...?" he stammered.

"In any house of yours, Morris."

Now his lips whitened. Sophy felt sick. But she had to go through with it—she had to....

"What am I to understand by that?" he asked at last, his voice husky.

"Ah! I'm sorry...." she said, her own voice quivering. "But ... it's the end.... It's all ... over...."

"What is?" he asked; but he knew already.

"Our life together," she answered.

He said nothing, just sat there looking down at the bit of yellow paper in his hands, which he folded and refolded with the utmost nicety. Then he asked:

"Do you suppose that I'll take this seriously?"

"I hope you will."

"Well, I don't, and I won't, by God!" he retorted, in a sort of fierce whisper, and the violent words sounded strange uttered in that whispering voice.

Sophy sat still, her eyes on his.

"Morris," she said, "do you think that I will ever be your wife again, after what you said to me the other day? After what you accused me of?"

The blood rushed into his face, up to the very roots of his hair.

"I was mad.... I didn't know what I was saying——"

"You knew well what you were saying.... You were only mad with rage.... I can never forgive those words—never really forgive them. There's some part of me that cannot forgive them."

He looked at her doggedly. His face was a mask of obstinacy.

"What did I say?" he demanded. "I've forgotten.... I was beside myself, I tell you.... What were those unforgivable words?"

Sophy did not reply at once; then she said softly, on a deep breath:

"Oh ... Morris!..."

He flared red again, set his jaw. All at once he relaxed. There came a kind of hopeful bravado into his voice.

"It's no use," he said. "You can't get me to believe any such thing as this. But you've given me a bad jolt—if that's any satisfaction. I suppose what you're after is to discipline me a bit. That's why you've rounded on me like this.... Well, I'll admit I've deserved it. But if you only knew how that little demon worked on me ... damn her!"

He brought his fist down on the arm of his chair several times.

"Damn her! Damn her!" he kept repeating back of his locked teeth.

Now Sophy reddened.

"Don't...." she exclaimed, in revolt. "Don't lay the blame on a woman ... a girl...."

"Why shouldn't I lay it where it belongs?"

"Then lay it on yourself," she retorted, with passion. "Take the blame like a man ... let me remember you as acting like a man ... not like a spoiled child...."

"A 'spoiled child,' am I?"

"Yes, Morris, yes.... And that makes me patient with you. You haven't had half a chance—no, not from boyhood. And I ... I've helped.... Oh, do you think ... do you dream ... that if it hadn't been for that, I'd have stayed one moment under your roof after you said those vile, unspeakable things to me? Don't you understand?... It is over.... I am going back to my own home. I will never live with you again.... Never.... Never!"

Still he did not believe her—he could not. He said sullenly at last:

"Well—go to your precious Virginia. I'll come there later when you've simmered down a bit. Then we can talk of things rationally." He stopped, and added with surly but genuine feeling: "I suppose you know I'm damnably sorry and all that.... I apologise ... humbly. I ... I ... acted like a cad to you, and that's a fact...."

He paused, as if waiting for her to say something. She said nothing. He blustered on:

".... But when you mentioned divorce to me in that cool way.... By God!... I did go crazy.... I'll swear I did.... And that little fiend had...."

"Don't, Morris...." she said again.

"But I tell you I was a lunatic for the moment...."

"No, Morris ... it's no use ... it's no use...."

"And that cursed Italian chap!..."

Sophy's eyes grew hard.

"The Marchese Amaldi is an old and dear friend of mine," she said; "please don't vilify him to me."

Loring had a flash of rage; then controlled himself.

"Well—I guess that subject had better be dropped between us," he admitted shamefacedly.

Sophy, looking at him quietly, said:

"Another thing that I have to tell you is that Amaldi is coming here this afternoon. He will come about half-past six. I wish to see him before I go to Virginia. I asked him to come."

"Oh, all right ... all right ... of course," Loring replied, in a rather foolish voice.

"I shall take Bobby and Rosa with me to Sweet-Waters," Sophy continued. "Mr. Grey will follow in a day or two after he has seen that the household and accounts are all in order. We went over the accounts together this morning. I am also leaving directions with him about a few other things. He will hand you certain keys. You had better have the jewels taken to the bank at once."

Loring looked rather staggered. He forced a smile.

"I say...." he protested. "You are laying it on a bit thick, you know...."

He had again that boyish look which so hurt her—there was in his forced smile the sort of timid, ingratiating air that a dog has when it knows that it is muddy and yet wishes to jump up on the most cherished chair.

She said hurriedly:

"I shall have to dress now. I've told Simms that I'm at home this afternoon...."

She went out.

Loring stood a moment, looking at the telegram which he still pinched and twisted in his cold fingers. All at once he sank down, laying his face on his arm and his arm on the little table. His hands were tight-clenched.

"Oh, Lord, what a fool I've been!..." he groaned. "What a double-damned fool!..."

But he did not believe for one instant that Sophy's words were final. He did not for the most fleeting atom of time give credence to the idea that she meant to break with him entirely and for good.

---

Sophy waited for Amaldi in the "little music-room." It was nearly September. In the last two days the mornings and evenings had grown chilly, so she had had a log fire kindled in the big chimney-place. The shadows leaped elfishly upon the bare, clear walls, as though shaken with silent laughter. The fire-gleams flickered over the glossy case of the piano until it glowed like a black opal. White chrysanthemums thrust their pretty dishevelled heads into the dance of gloom and shine. The room was fresh with their bitter-sweet, autumn scent.

Sophy loved this room. She looked around it with regret, as she stood waiting for Amaldi. Bit by bit she had thought it out. She had spent many hours alone in it. Here Amaldi had made that wonderful music for her. She tried to recall it as she waited for him. Phrases came ... melted away. It was like trying to hold snow-crystals in one's hands. Then his words came back to her:

".... By the window of a Castle on the North Sea, sits a beautiful, ill woman.... Love brought her to the Castle ... then Love died ... but Love's ghost wanders through the empty halls...."

Had Amaldi really guessed?... Did he know?... Had he known when he said those words—when he played that music to her? She stood gazing into the spark-broidered violet of the flames from the driftwood fire. How much had he divined? Somehow, she felt that he knew.

And she did not mind his knowing. It would make him understand all that was to follow.... How strange that, after all her passionate, wild dreams, friendship and not love should be what life had to give her!

As Amaldi came towards her through the firelight, she thought that his face looked set and rather strange. She said as she gave him her hand:

"I sent for you because I didn't want to write 'good-by.' It may be a long time before we see each other again."

"May I know how long?" he asked, in a low voice.

"I don't know that myself," she answered. "Perhaps a year ... perhaps longer. It ... it depends. But ... afterwards, I shall be in England with Bobby."

"Ah!" said Amaldi.

They stood silent, looking into the fire. Then he said abruptly:

"May I write to you?"

"Of course, Amaldi." Her lip quivered suddenly. She added in a rather uncertain voice:

"I haven't so many real friends that I could be indifferent about hearing from one of them."

Amaldi said slowly without looking at her:

"I shall try to be your friend.... I shall try not to fail you."

"As if you could fail any one!"

Now he looked at her with a very curious expression—as he had looked at her the evening he played for her. He hesitated a moment; then the words rushed:

"Forgive me ... but it's not an easy thing to be the friend of the woman one has loved.... Are you very angry with me?"

It came like a real shock to Sophy. Her absorption in her own troubles had blinded her to this possibility. She could not think of the right word to say—murmured nervously: "No ... no. I'm not angry ... only...."

"'Only'?" he took it up.

With tears in her eyes, she said:

"Oh, Amaldi ... your friendship meant so much to me!... It meant so much!..."

This cut him cruelly. He exclaimed with passion:

"How can you speak as if it were past ... over?... I'm honest with you. I confess that it is a struggle for me ... to feel ... to act only as your friend. But I tell you that I shall try ... and you turn from me...."

"No, Amaldi.... No.... That isn't just ... it isn't fair...."

"You said 'meant' ... that my friendship meant much to you ... as if it were over...."

"No, no. But I...."

She broke off, and they stood in unhappy silence. Then all at once she turned to him.

"Listen, Amaldi," she said impetuously. "I can't tell you ... but if you knew...."

"I do know," he said.

They stood silent again. At last she said, under her breath:

"Then ... if you know ... you must feel that everything is over for me ... but friendship.... You must feel that.... The mere idea of ... 'love'...."

She broke off again, shivering.

Amaldi said in a constrained voice:

"I was not speaking of you, but of myself. I don't think that you can imagine how intensely I want to be a real friend to you. As I said, not to fail you...."

"And you think," she returned, her lips again quivering, "that I would take your friendship at such cost to you? You think I'm as selfish ... as unfeeling as that?"

Amaldi looked at her almost indignantly. "You know I think nothing but the highest of you," he said. Then his voice shook, the look in his eyes changed. "Forgive me...." he said. "It's I who am selfish."

But Sophy couldn't speak. She put up one hand to shield her face from him, and he saw that her wedding ring was gone. He flushed, struggled with himself; then, going close to her, he said in a vehement whisper:

"I will be what you want ... only what you want. And if the time comes when ... when I find I can't hold out ... I will tell you, and go away."

Still she could not speak. She held out her other hand to him in silence. The tears were running over down her face.

He took her hand, hesitated a moment; then lifted it to his lips.

"I swear that I will be your true friend," he said.

She put up the hand that he had kissed with the other, over her face.

"Go now...." she managed to whisper.

"But you believe me? You will still call me your friend?"

"Yes ... my dear, dear friend."

He went quickly from the room. He vowed to himself that he would be her true friend at no matter what cost to his own feelings. But he had never loved her as he loved her in that hour. And underneath it all there was hope, hope, hope—— He could wait. Yes, he could wait long years more, if need be.

---

XXXVII

Sophy stood by the open window of her old nursery bedroom at Sweet-Waters. It was only ten o'clock, but she had come up early this first evening. She wanted to be alone. Now that she had told Charlotte and the Judge how things were with her, it was a strain to live up to their pained conception of the situation. She felt it a reproach that in spite of all, such an irrepressible fount of glee bubbled within her. It was not happiness certainly, yet too much akin to it not to be out of keeping with her present outward state. Her heart would sing in spite of her. It was like a naughty, overexuberant child shouting week-a-day songs at a funeral. It sang: "I am free! I am free! I am free!" The sky was spread with clouds. Behind these clouds was a hidden moon. Its rays filtered through, and this soft, grey moonlight was eerily lovely—elfin-like.

From this pale fleece of cloud fell a light shower, trilling on the roof of the east wing beneath her window. And from field and wood and hill went up another trilling, exquisitely musical and plaintive—the clear, sweet, myriad flutes of autumn crickets. So that heaven and earth seemed doubly woven together by this interlacing of lovely sound, the one descending, the other ascending.

The rain came softly in her face. She held up her face to it, loving the delicate, cool touch upon her lips and eyelids.

As usual, Sweet-Waters had given her to herself again. She was just Sophy Taliaferro once more. Sophy Chesney and Sophy Loring were poor, wind-driven waifs, somewhere far away in the outer deserts of her mind. To-morrow Charlotte and Joe wished "to talk very seriously with her." This had been Charlotte's parting word that night. Well—to-morrow was twelve hours away. Now she would just be Sophy Taliaferro.

---

But she waked up next morning to find herself unmistakably Sophy Loring once more.

Her heart was very heavy. Life had no taste. The future rose before her like a cyclopean wall, which could not be scaled or dug under and in which there was no door.

Her heart winced and shrank from the long, painful scenes with Morris that she apprehended. She was quite sure that he had no real love left for her, yet she knew his nature. She feared that the very fact of finding himself about to lose her would kindle in him a fictitious ardour. It might well be that, as the unattainable, she would once more seem his heart's desire.

After breakfast she went with Joe and Charlotte to Joe's study. Bobby and Winks were having a gorgeous time playing "Indians" all over the place. As she sat in the open window, Sophy could hear the voices of the two "Braves," rising in shrill, ecstatic warwhoops from the straw-stack near the stables. She smiled. At least Bobby was thoroughly happy in the new state of things.

She was seated on the low window-ledge, Charlotte opposite her. The Judge had established himself in the revolving chair before his desk. He felt the need of some strong, dignified background during the coming interview. His sombre, official-looking desk, with its piles of legal documents and tomes, afforded him this spiritual sustainment. He was very nervous. Sophy was so "hard to tackle" sometimes. "Rash" was the disconcerting adjective that kept rising in his mind. Sophy was so "almighty rash"! He thanked his stars that rashness was not Charlotte's characteristic. "Firmness" described his helpmeet. He felt that this firmness would indeed make her a true helpmeet in the present case. There was certainly no help coming from Sophy herself. She was (they both thought) most inconsiderately waiting for them to "begin."

The day was exquisitely temperate and golden after last night's showers. She had put on one of her old duck skirts and thin white blouses. Her hair was "clubbed" and fastened with a black bow as of old. She was, outwardly at least, even defiantly Sophy Taliaferro. Charlotte felt that it was almost improper of Sophy to look so like her former self, so "unmarried," as it were, "after all she had been through." But Sophy was Sophy. The most that they could hope was by great "tactfulness" to persuade her to be "reasonable" on certain points.

The Judge cleared his throat. Sophy had her hands clasped about her knee, one slim, brown-shod foot was dangling. It was a disconcertingly "unmatronly" attitude. The Judge glanced nervously at Charlotte. Her eyebrows said: "Go on." He cleared his throat a second time:

"A-rrrum!"

Sophy turned her head and looked inquiringly at him.

"Yes?" she said.

The Judge flushed as his eyes met hers. Good man ... it embarrassed him to meet the eyes of one of his own womenkind whose wedded husband had actually embraced an "abandoned minx" under their own roof. Charlotte had termed Belinda Horton an "abandoned minx." The Judge considered the term apposite. So Belinda figured thus in their thoughts from that moment. But all this came too perilously near to mentioning the seventh commandment in "the presence of a lady" not to cause the dear, old-fashioned man acute discomfort.

"Well, Joe?" said Sophy again, as he hesitated.

"It's ... it's all ... mighty involved, Sophy," he stammered, looking down at the snowstorm paper-weight which he had picked up and was turning nervously round and round.

"Yes, Joe. I know that," she said gravely. "That's what I want you to help me about."

"Divorce is a mighty serious—er—ugly thing...."

"But not as ugly as marriage that is no marriage, Joe."

The Judge rumpled his smoky wreath the wrong way.

"Yes ... I know how you must feel...." he admitted unhappily.

"No, Joe. Nobody but a woman can know how she feels," put in Charlotte, reddening in her turn.

"Well ... I reckon I can give a mighty shrewd guess at it," said the Judge.

"It's very simple," Sophy said. "I want to be free. I don't think I've any false vanity about it. I did have at first. But then, you see, I was mistaken, as well as Morris. I don't feel hard to Morris. It really isn't all his fault...."

"Oh!" said Charlotte. She was quite crimson now.

"No, Chartie, it is not," Sophy persisted. "But I can't enter into all that...."

"I should think not!"

"I only want to get free and to set him free, as soon as possible."

"He oughtn't to be free—the idea!" cried Charlotte indignantly.

Sophy shook her head at her, smiling.

"Oh, Chartie," she said, "we aren't in the 'dark backward' of the Victorian era! Why shouldn't he be free to live his life as he wants to, as well as I?"

"That's downright irreligious, Sophy!" cried her sister with passion.

"I don't think so," said Sophy mildly.

The Judge intervened.

"Come," he said nervously, "don't let's squabble over side-issues."

"'Side-issues'! Joe!" exclaimed his wife.

"Oh, well ... don't let's squabble, at any rate," he said huntedly. "The main point, what we're here to discuss, is Sophy's wish to be divorced."

"And I think she's perfectly justified!" snapped Charlotte.

The Judge resumed, addressing Sophy:

"Now, the question is, what will be ... er ... Mr. Loring's attitude in the matter?"

"I think he'll oppose it ... at first," said Sophy.

The Judge looked curious.

"Why only 'at first'?" he asked.

Sophy said quietly and rather sadly:

"Because it isn't in his nature to keep up anything for long."

"Mh!" said the Judge.

He took up the paper-weight which he had laid aside and turned it so vigorously that the little cottage and figures within the glass-ball were almost blotted from sight by the mimic snowstorm.

"Divorce is a slow affair in Virginia," he said at last.

"Then I'd rather get mine in the West," said Sophy.

Charlotte looked at her in horror.

"Oh, Sophy!" she cried. "No! ... you wouldn't!... It's ... it's so vulgar!"

"Life is vulgar," said Sophy.

"Oh, my dear!"

"I mean it in the big sense. Vulgar means common to all—to all people. So I say life is vulgar ... and the longing for freedom is vulgar. No one has ever longed for freedom as slaves have, I suppose. Well, I am a slave ... and I long for freedom. I long for it so that I want it quickly. I want it as one wants water when one's famishing, and bread when one's starving. I'm not so aristocratic in my hunger and thirst that I prefer to wait through dignified years for a bit of stale bread. I want my loaf now ... and I want the whole loaf ... not half...."

Sophy was indeed speaking with "vulgar" intensity. She "let herself go" because she wanted Joe and Charlotte to understand once for all that there was no use in trying to make her behave "reasonably."

Charlotte's small mouth was tight shut. The Judge looked rather pale. Just as he had thought, Sophy was evincing rashness in its most aggravated form.

---

XXXVIII

Sophy slipped down from her perch on the window-sill, and came and stood between them.

"Oh, Chartie ... Joe...." she said, turning from one to the other, "why do you look so? Surely you don't want me to waste long years of my life, clanking this chain after me, wherever I go?... Not free ... not a wife ... not anything really—and Morris in the same plight!... And Belinda.... Think of that wild, self-willed girl...."

"You're crazy, Sophy!... You really talk as if you were crazy!..." broke in Charlotte, suffocated. "How can you mention that ... that...." Propriety prevented Charlotte from expressing herself fully. ".... That creature?" she ended, breathing very short. "How can you care what becomes of her?"

Sophy looked tired all at once. She dropped into a chair near the desk.

"I suppose you'll think I'm crazier than ever," she said. "But while I don't like Belinda, I don't think she's quite a 'creature' ... not yet, anyway. And her one chance is to.... Well ... my setting Morris free quickly ... as soon as possible, will give her her chance."

Charlotte stared at her; her little mouth unlocked by sheer amazement.

Then she said in a faint voice:

"To think of my living to hear you speak like that!"

"I can't help it, Chartie. That's the way I feel. I must be perfectly honest with you and Joe, or what's the use of my talking with you at all? Do you think I like doing it?" she asked, her own voice suddenly trembling. "Never, never have I hated anything so much!" she ended vehemently.

She got up, went over to the window again, and stood leaning against it, her back to them.

The Judge looked miserably at Charlotte, and her eyebrows said: "Wait a while. She'll calm down."

So all three waited in an uncomfortable silence.

Presently Sophy turned round. There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling. "My poor dear dears!" she said, in such an affectionate, sorry voice that their hearts jumped towards her. "It was horrid of me to burst out at you like that...."

Charlotte went up and put a brisk, muscular little arm hard about her sister's shoulders.

"Come, now, darling ... let's talk sense," said she.

"I've got a friend in the West...." the Judge began, fidgeting a little.

Charlotte could not help it.

"Oh, Joe! Not ... Sioux Falls!" she pleaded, as who should say: "At least let the headsman's axe be clean."

Sophy interrupted:

"If the gods give me freedom, Chartie, why should I care whether the oracle speaks from Sioux Falls or Athens?"

"Well, I care!" said Charlotte.

"It's not Sioux Falls," said the Judge.

"Go on, Joe," said Sophy.

"I'll write to him. He's a very able lawyer—upon ... er ... these questions...."

"Thank you, dear Joe," said Sophy softly.

The Judge replied mechanically: "Not at all." He was fingering the paper-weight again. He looked uncomfortable ... with a new sort of discomfort. He cleared his throat. Regarding Sophy with doubt in his worried eyes, he said:

"Er ... Sophy ... er ... in case ... what about the question of alimony?"

Like lightning, she replied as he had feared she would:

"Not a penny ... not a cent of alimony, Joe!"

"But in such a case, the Court...."

"I wouldn't accept it."

"Perhaps, dear...." began Charlotte, in a "sense-of-duty" tone. Though she considered her sister unwise, yet she sympathised ardently with this unwisdom.

"No—never!" Sophy said again.

The Judge looked more and more uncomfortable. The snowstorm in the paper-weight became a blizzard. At last he jumped into the midst of things, with all the jerky suddenness of a man who has at last determined to break through the ice-skim on his morning tub.

"Sophy," he blurted, "I must tell you—there was a settlement ... at the time of your marriage with Mr. Loring...."

(He had "Mistered" Loring punctiliously ever since Sophy's disclosure.)

"A settlement?" said Sophy blankly.

"Just so. Yes. A-rrrm!... I ... er ... am responsible for the ... er ... arrangement ... a marriage settlement, you know.... It gives you ten thousand a year, in your own right."

"Gives me...? Ten thousand...? My own right?" stammered Sophy. "Oh, you must be mistaken, Joe!" she added, colouring deeply.

Then the Judge explained unhappily. He had stood in loco parentis.... The future was always uncertain.... He should have felt himself culpable towards her, et cetera, et cetera. And fearing that she might raise objections against her own interests, he had accepted a power-of-attorney to administer the property for her. This was the reason of her ignorance on the subject.

Sophy stood transfixed. Then she took it in. She went up to him, put her arm about his neck, and kissed his harassed face. "You're a dear, kind, real brother," she murmured; "but you're a lawyer, too—so you can just arrange to unsettle that settlement."

"Now, Sophy ... now, Sophy...." he pleaded. "There's nothing undignified ... or ... or...."

"I couldn't, Joe! It's impossible ... utterly...."

"Think of Bobby...."

She coloured deeper than ever.

"I should never maintain my son on Morris's money," she said proudly.

"But, Sophy!... Oh, dog my buttons!..." groaned the harried man. "You've got to live...."

"You forget what you saved for me, Joe ... and my thousand a year."

"Saved! About twenty thousand. How will you eat and clothe yourself and the boy and educate him on the income of such a sum? I'm not talking high sentiment; I'm talking hard facts," wound up the Judge, much excited.

Charlotte sat motionless, looking at them. Sophy's eyes had gone black.

"I'll ... I'll ... sing for my living and Bobby's first," she said.

"Pooh!" said the Judge.

He was quite reckless. He, like Charlotte, sympathised too much in one way with this quixotic attitude of hers not to feel called on to remonstrate vigorously in another. He kept telling himself that Sophy was being hifalutin in addition to being rash. He must save her from hifalutiness at least.

"Pooh!" he said again hardily. "As Chartie said, let's talk sense. What about Bobby's education?... Eton—Oxford ... this tutor who's coming in a day or two? Do you think you're going to get divorced and established at the Metropolitan in time to pay for all that?"

"Joe!" cried Charlotte.

"Never mind.... I like him to speak out," said Sophy bravely, a scarlet spot on either cheek. Then an inspiration came to her.

"Gerald will educate Bobby for me," she said. "I know he will! I shall write to Gerald and tell him the whole truth. He has always been like a true brother to me."

The Judge was thinking hard and quickly.

"Yes—and suppose he dies suddenly—what then?"

"How 'what then'?" asked Sophy, bewildered.

"Why, what about the property? Is it all entailed—or only partly!"

"I ... I ... don't know," faltered Sophy.

"Very well. If Lord Wychcote dies suddenly, Bobby will inherit ... as I understand it. But if the property is all entailed, your brother-in-law can't leave you anything. The property would be in trust for Bobby until he came of age legally. It would depend entirely on the Court what you had as his mother. Suppose you found yourself more or less at the mercy of the old lady—Bobby getting his education in England—as you've promised he should, mind you—and you without the means to live near him—— Eh? What then?"

"I ... I will write to Mr. Surtees," said Sophy, very white.

"Who's he?"

"The family solicitor."

"Well, do.... I advise you to, by all means."

Here Charlotte stepped forward. She put her arm about her white, suddenly subdued sister, and looked sternly at her husband.

"Joe.... I'm surprised at you!" she said. "A Virginia gentleman being so cruel to a woman!"

"Pooh!" said the Judge a third time. He was in a state of flagrant rebellion. "Stuff!... I'm being a Virginia lawyer and a mighty good friend. If I wasn't darned fond of Sophy, I wouldn't go on like this, you may be sure. Whew!"

He wiped his brow and looked at his handkerchief as though expecting to see it incarnadined. It really was like sweating blood to try to talk reason into one so hopelessly unpractical and hifalutin as Sophy.

"I'll look forward to reading Mr. Surtees's letter with great interest," he remarked grimly.

Sophy had a flash of spirit.

"No matter what he says, I shan't accept alimony!" she retorted.

"And the...."

"Or that settlement either."

The Judge glowered at her for a second. Then he reached out, drew her to him, and kissed her.

"Well ... God bless you for a sweet fool!" was his strange remark.

Sophy laughed faintly, and the sisters went out with their arms about each other. The Judge sank exhausted into his chair.

"Dog my buttons!..." he murmured, as the two disappeared. "The Lord probably thought Adam out more or less carefully, but I reckon He made Eve on impulse...."

---

XXXIX

But Sophy did not write to Mr. Surtees, as she had said so boldly that she would do. All that was finest in her rebelled at the idea when she came to think it over clearly. It was quite impossible for her to write thus cold-bloodedly and ask the old solicitor what would be her prospects as Bobby's mother, in the event of the sudden death of the man who had really been to her like the kindest, most indulgent of brothers.

Instead, she wrote to Gerald himself, telling him of her proposed divorce and her determination not to accept alimony or avail herself of the marriage settlement arranged by her sister's husband without her knowledge. She asked him not to tell Lady Wychcote of this matter until it should be accomplished. She said simply: "So you see, dear Gerald, as things will be, I shall not have the means to educate Bobby as his father wished. Will you do it for Cecil's son, dear Gerald? Somehow, I don't mind asking you this at all. I feel, indeed, that you would be hurt if I did not ask it."

Gerald's answer came with the name of a steamer written on the envelope to insure promptness. Sophy cried when she read that letter.

"Dear Sophy," he wrote, "I am more touched than I can express by your confidence in me. I beg you not to give another thought to the matter. All shall be just as before your present marriage. I only hope that you will resume Cecil's name again when you are at liberty to do so. As Bobby's mother, it seems to me that it would be more fitting. I am very happy to think of your being in England again. Don't make it too long, and don't think, 'There's that poor, hipped old rotter Gerald, mooning about himself—but sometimes I have a beastly feeling that I mayn't see you again. And as you know, I'm rather fond of you, old girl. Love to the little chap. G."

One thing in his letter, however, seemed odd to them all. It was his suggestion that she should take Chesney's name again, after her divorce. About this, on the Judge's advice, she did write to Mr. Surtees. She herself, as Bobby's mother, would have much preferred to be called Mrs. Chesney. She did not wish to go on calling herself "Mrs. Morris Loring." She felt very sure that within a short time after the divorce there would be another "Mrs. Morris Loring." She awaited Mr. Surtees's reply with some anxiety. It was quite satisfactory. He expressed himself as of the opinion that it would be "quite natural, fitting, and possible for Mrs. Loring to resume the name of her first husband." He quoted the case of Cowley v. Cowley, decided in the House of Lords in 1901: "Lady Violet Neville, after becoming Countess Cowley, obtained a divorce from her husband on the ground of his misconduct. She then married a commoner, a Mr. Biddulph, but nevertheless continued to call herself Countess Cowley. The Earl brought proceedings to restrain her from using the name, but the House of Lords, on appeal, refused to grant an injunction. Lord Macnaughton, in giving judgment, said: 'Everybody knows that it is a very common practice for peeresses (not being peeresses in their own right) after marrying Commoners to retain the title lost by such marriage. It is not a matter of right. It is merely a matter of courtesy, and allowed by the usages of society.'"

And all this time (it was nearly October) never a word came from Loring. Sophy corresponded with his mother, who knew nothing of the strained relations between them, and through her she learned that Morris had gone to Canada with some friends. A sporting expedition. Mrs. Loring mentioned it casually, of course, supposing that Sophy knew already. Mrs. Horton and Belinda were still at Nahant. Morry had been so thoughtful! He had come down to say good-by to her before starting for Canada—but had not stopped the night. Didn't Sophy think he looked rather thin? She herself was much better, et cetera, et cetera.

When Sophy read this letter, she wondered what had passed between Morris and Belinda during that flying visit to Nahant. He was evidently "disciplining" her (Sophy). Silence and absence were to bring her to a right frame of mind.

She began to get desperately restless and impatient. She felt that she must come to a definite understanding with him. She would have written, but she did not wish such a letter to follow him from place to place at the risk of getting lost.

Judge Macon had heard from his "friend in the West." If Mrs. Loring wished to institute divorce proceedings, the sooner she came to Ontowega herself the better. So wrote the Western lawyer. He wished to interview Mrs. Loring personally.

Yet Sophy felt that it would be impossible for her to go until she had come to a definite understanding with Morris.

All her philosophy, drawn sound and sweet from the sodden husk of experience, could not keep her from fretting inwardly. Her first irrepressible joy over the mere idea of freedom died flatly down. She was unhappy—even very unhappy. Memories stung her day and night. Vain regret.... It was like the feeling of homesickness for a home that has been burned down. As she walked and rode, as she sat in her study, with its perfume of rose-geraniums and cedar wood, her collie at her feet—these memories came teasing, teasing, like wan-eyed, persistent beggars when one's purse is empty. Sophy's heart was empty of the coin of love—but it brimmed with pity—the heavy, leaden currency of pity.

The only real pleasure that she had in these days was from Amaldi's letters. The first one had been sent from the steamer in which he had sailed for Italy a few days after she had left Newport. It was rather short, rather shy. "You must forbear with my English, please," he had said. "I find it much more hard to write than in speaking." But the little quaintnesses of construction only made his letter seem more charming to her. He had not alluded to their last meeting except indirectly. He wrote: "There is much mist this morning. I see the last of America, dim as dreams through this mist. But above rises the great goddess, she that is to America what Pallas was to Athens. She lifts high her torch—and it seems I see it shine upon your face. I remember her name and the meaning of this light that she is holding so high above the mist. For you I repeat her name many times in my heart. It is with a feeling of religion that I say this name over and over—linking it to yours. And I feel that for you, high above all mist, is that pure flame shining."

Sophy loved this letter, for among other things, it reassured her about their friendship. It made her feel in many ways that he was too fine not to have realized that there could be no more love in her life and too strong to sacrifice their beautiful friendship to a vain desire something that could never be. She spent a solacing hour in writing him a letter such as she felt he would love to receive—all about her home, herself, her daily doings, her dog, her horse ... some of her inmost thoughts that she felt he would understand and share with her.

The end of September had been chilly, but October came in with soft, spring-like showers again, very mild—real May weather—rather like Indian Spring than Indian Summer. On the second day the showers held about noon. Harold Grey set off with the whole "bunch" of boys for a long-promised jaunt. They were to ride up to the top of Laurel Mountain and spend the night there in an old rubble hut, sleeping on pine boughs. There was to be a camp-fire, they were to cook their own meals. Off they went, all on horseback, laughing and singing:

"Ole ark a-movin', movin', chillun!"

Sophy watched Bobby as he rode off on the old Shelty, his face a-shine, and again she felt that it was all worth while if Bobby were so blissfully content. He had never worn that shining face in Newport or New York. That afternoon she went out to look for mushrooms. This was surely ideal mushroom weather. She put on an old corduroy skirt, and stout boots, and borrowed a little basket from Mammy Nan.

A great west wind had suddenly sprung up. Wild tatters of cloud were blown across the sky. Now they veiled, now they revealed the sun. The box hedges glittered darkly, waving their sombre plumes to and fro, up and down. The grass glinted like yellow crystal as the sun caught it. Leaves scurried in flocks through the air. The wet clay was just the colour of a sweating sorrel horse.

Sophy went down to the pasture behind the stable. There were cattle grazing there—a fine black Angus bull, and his harem of forty young heifers. But she was not afraid of them—they were all very gentle, the black Pasha as well as his wives.

The field hollowed in the middle, and a little dark-red path coiled through the soaked green. Sophy dipped under the pasture-bars, and went slowly forward, looking to right and left, for the cool, fleshlike glisten of fungi.

The bull was grazing on a hill at the far end of the field. His splendid, black silhouette stood out against the grey wrack of cloud. Half of his harem grazed near. The other half had discreetly withdrawn to that part of the field where Sophy was now walking. One lovely little heifer, black and soft of pelt as a black Angora cat, regarded her musingly out of lustrous, still eyes that were heavy as with sorrow. Sophy went up to her ... put out her hand, saying: "Coo ... co-o-o...."

The heifer let her stroke her forehead, her ears—let the slim, quick hand run along her sides, play with her glossy pelt. "You sweetheart!..." said Sophy.

She was more like a calm, friendly dog than a cow. Sophy finally gave her a kiss between her tranquil, melancholy eyes, and continued on her quest for mushrooms.

The wind was higher than ever now. It blew in squally gusts. Clouds were sagging dark in the southwest. The sun winked in and out like the light of a great pharos.

Sophy found her first mushroom—small, but a beauty. It nestled low in the grass on its plump, naked leg. Its round, white top was faintly browned like a well-cooked meringue. Then she found another, enormous—a real prize, it seemed. But something about it was too perfect—too white. She nipped it out of its green bed, and looked at the gills. They were snowy white. Its slender leg was cased in a fine, white-silk stocking that was "coming down."

"Oh," said Sophy, looking queerly at the too-lovely creature, "how very like you are to some other mistakes of mine!... And yet ... if I ate you ... you would cure them all," she ended quizzically.

She threw the false mushroom away. It lay, pale and corpse-like, in the wet grass. It was so like damp, dead flesh that Sophy shivered.

Now the wind began really to tussle with her. It blew in wild, whoorooshing blasts. The thickets seethed. The old orchard on the hill above made a harsh rattling with its gnarled boughs. She could see the tree-tops on the lawn, bowing, twisting, lashing wildly, as though trying to wrench their roots free from the grip of earth, as though possessed to follow their flying leaves into the sky. Now came a spat of rain. She ducked her head and began to run.

The bull was proceeding with majestic leisureliness towards his shed. He booed from bass to treble, several times. "My sultanas," said this booing, "I advise you to seek, with me, the shelter of my palace."

All the heifers began moving after him towards the shed. Now the rain came in earnest—big, cold drops. Sophy ran faster and faster. The mushrooms in her basket bounced plumply. She was afraid they would be smashed. She took off her brown velvet cap and pressed it over them as she ran. The rain rather blinded her. She ran full-tilt into some one who emerged suddenly from behind a thicket near the pasture-bars.

"By Jove!... You're soaked!..." said a voice she knew. It was Loring.

---

XL

Sophy let him take the basket from her and kiss her rain-wet cheek. She was glad that the rain came between her and that kiss. She could not say anything just at first—her quick running and the suddenness of his appearance had quite taken her breath for the moment.

"But you're sopping ... sopping!..." he kept repeating. He, too, could not think of anything more fitting to say. And Sophy began to murmur back:

"But you're getting wet, too ... what a shame!..."

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 next day Loring felt unnerved in an absurd manner by that dream. It kept coming between him and reality. Even after he was wide awake, the remembered voice of the huge negro saying: "This is the black knife of Lur," gave him a disagreeable shiver. The mental atmosphere of the house did not tend to soothe him. At breakfast Charlotte was icily polite, the Judge restrained and taciturn. Sophy did not come down till after ten. She suggested a ride. This ride also was very trying for them both. He began with the old arguments. She answered with a sad listlessness, but with an under note of determination which made him feel angry and discouraged.

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

Loring's mother had written that Belinda was now with her at Nahant.

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.

---

XLIV

But that kiss-sealed oath to Belinda did not keep Loring from "going two ways" in his heart, for some time still. He was truly between two fires. He could not bear to let Sophy go in order to keep Belinda. It was unendurable to think of relinquishing Belinda that he might keep Sophy. In the end, however, Belinda won. When it came to the final test, he found that he could more easily let Sophy slip from him into a vague future than resign Belinda to the fat arms of Lewis Cuthbridge. And he suffered. For the best in him clung to Sophy, and he knew that it was with his best that he clung to her.

Belinda saw this inward struggle quite plainly. She remained calm in presence of it. Propinquity was her staunch ally. Besides, she had refused to break her engagement with Cuthbridge, until Morris could assure her—could let her see "with her own eyes"—that a divorce between him and Sophy had been decided upon past recall.

By the middle of December he was able to satisfy her in this respect. As soon as she was convinced that matters had reached an irrevocable point, she broke her engagement as she had promised. Then she set herself to blot out all possible regret on Loring's part. For this rôle nature had consummately endowed her. Loring's heart had no chance to ache. His frantic passion filled every crevice of his consciousness. Memories, doubts, regrets—all went scurrying before it, like wild things before the onrush of a prairie fire.

As "Venus Victrix," Belinda was quite wonderful. Yet though she was now wholly Venus and triumphant, she still kept homespun Respectability at her elbow. Not a hair's-breadth too far did she permit her inflammable lover to venture. Belinda as Goddess would have compelled all Olympus to address her as Mrs. Vulcan.

---

And so, towards the end of December, Sophy left Bobby in the care of Charlotte and Harold Grey, and went to desolate, far-western Ontowega. After six months of that desolation she would be free again. It seemed incredible. She did not go alone, however. Susan Pickett, a second cousin of whom she and Charlotte had been very fond since childhood, went with her. Miss Pickett was a delightful spinster of fifty. She had not married, simply because she had never loved a man enough to want to marry him.

No one ever called Susan Pickett "Cousin Susan" or "Aunt Susan." She was "Sue" to all who loved her, young as well as old. She was a tall, vigorous woman, deep-breasted, and of perfect health. Her thick, brown eyebrows were masculine, her large, well-shaped mouth feminine. Her eyes, deep-set, grey, and humorous, might have been either a man's or a woman's. Eyes of this type—when they are kindly affectionate, as in Sue Pickett's case, are the sign of a big, impersonal humanity. It was never necessary to have Sue "on one's mind" even for a moment. She was always occupied in some way, and always serenely content. This is why Sophy ventured to ask her to share with her for six months the abomination of desolation called on the map of the United States Ontowega.

During the first stages of the long, tiresome journey Sophy was conscious only of a heavy, dull weight of determination and flat sadness. She hated the smell of train-smoke. Now it seemed as if this rank, clogging smoke trailed over the whole landscape of her life, past and future. She sat drearily, hour after hour, watching the telegraph poles snatch up the sagging wires as they flew past. The threads of her own life were like that, she thought—dark strands strung from one bare pole of fact to another, endlessly, monotonously. The bare poles had once been trees—living, joyous things. So had the bare facts of her life. Now lopped, stripped, rigid, they hemmed her in, guiding the thread of her destiny to some dull, conventional end—some mechanical fixture in a bleak station to which this hard, beaten road of divorce was leading.

---

After certain matters at Ontowega had been settled, they found that they could go to the Black Hills of Dakota without disturbing the course of events. They both loved riding. The lawyer told them that there was capital riding about the Black Hills. The place he suggested was called Bear Spring.

The world without lay in great curving swathes of white, pricked out by green-black pines as in an old Japanese print.

On the third day came a bundle of letters forwarded from Ontowega. The two that Sophy kept for the last were from Bobby and Amaldi. How strange it seemed to see the Italian stamp in the snowy wilderness of Bear Spring! And that seal with its arms and motto—"Che prendo—tengo".... In a flash there rose the memory of the struggle between Loring and Belinda for Amaldi's ring.... How things could hurt one ... things like the impression of a seal. Then she opened Bobby's letter. At the top was written, "I did not let Mr. Grey see this letter. So please to excuse mistakes. R. C. C." Among other things it said:

"Mother, since you went away, I have decided a important thing. I have decided to be an Author—like you are. I send you a poim. It is called 'Plantagenet.' Mr. Grey does not think my best is poertry. He likes the best what I wrote about 'A grey day.' Please tell me which you like best. It is most important, as I must decide as soon as possible if I will be a statesman or a poit.—A author anyhow."

"Plantagenet" began as follows:

"Richard of England, monarch brave,
Bold as the lion that haunts the cave,
Wielding thy battle-axe with a crash,
As into the foe thou dost boldly dash!"

"Oh, my darling little 'poit'!" murmured Sophy, as she read. But she did not think, from "Plantagenet," that Bobby would ever really be a "poit." The "Grey Day," however, was another thing. Sophy had a queer feeling about her heart as she read that.

"The day is very still. It is grey and tired. It seems old as if the sun had risen a long time ago, and it is too tired to go on. It seems standing there before me so tired. The clouds hang in the air very still. The grey light creeps into the house, and the house is still like the day. All is still and grey, even my thoughts. Only the clock moves, and the fire. Only the fire shines in the greyness. I do not know why it makes me so sad to see the red of the fire in the greyness; I do not know why it is such a sorrowful thing to hear the clock ticking very slowly, or why the rustle of the fire makes me know I am lonely. If my dear mother was with me she could interprit it to me like dreams in the bible. But then if my mother was with me, I think this grey day would seem shining. I think the still would only be quiitness if my mother was with me."

As Sophy read these last words she raised them to her lips. It seemed to her that Bobby need not fear about becoming "a author anyhow." She could not think that it was only mother-love that made "A Grey Day" seem unusual to her.

Then she opened Amaldi's letter. Here, too, was an unexpected pleasure. She had found his letters charming from the first, but in this one it was as if he had put aside a certain reserve that she had always noticed before. He might have been talking to her over a log fire at Le Vigne—— Or, no, she corrected herself with a smile—never had Amaldi "talked" to her with the ease, the fulness, the alternate gaiety and depth with which he wrote to her in this long, delightful letter. She sat holding it in her hand when she had finished reading it, trying to recall clearly his dark, irregular face and olive eyes—the sound of his voice. And she smiled again, thinking of the Corinthians' opinion of Paul: ".... His letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; ... but his speech is contemptible." "Dear Amaldi...." she thought, still smiling. "I wonder how it is that you are such a silent man as a rule, and yet can write such perfectly adorable letters?"

She put his letter with Bobby's and laid them both away. For a long time she stood at her bedroom window looking out over the snowy wilds towards the sunset. The afterglow burned red through the inky pines. The snow shone a queer, witch-like blue in the twilight. Sophy saw it all without seeing. She was thinking that there were beautiful things in her life still ... that she ought to be very grateful ... that after a while she ought even to be happy in them....

But as she gazed at the smouldering watchfires of the west, Bobby's words came back to her: "I do not know why it makes me so sad to see the red of the fire in the greyness...."

---

XLV

Sophy told Miss Pickett all about Amaldi. Sometimes she would read her extracts from his letters when they were unusually delightful.

One day, towards spring, when Sophy had been thus reading to her, she said thoughtfully:

"Sophy, child—you aren't afraid of preparing a new unhappiness for yourself?"

Sophy laughed out.

"Oh, Sue," she cried, "that's the first old-maidish thing I ever heard you say!"

"Old maids are very wise sometimes," returned Miss Pickett calmly. "The Delphian Oracle was an old maid as far as I can make out."

Sophy said in a disappointed voice:

"Sue ... don't you believe in friendship between men and women?"

"I certainly do. No one has stauncher men friends than I have."

"Then why on earth don't you think I can have them?"

Miss Pickett twinkled.

"'Twasn't a question of them," she said demurely. "There's safety in numbers. I was referring to this particular one."

Sophy said reproachfully:

"Sue ... do you really think I'm the sort of woman to flirt with a man on paper, while I'm getting a divorce?"

Miss Pickett, still quite calm, replied:

"No, honey, you know I don't think so."

"Then what do you think?" demanded Sophy, beginning to bristle a little.

"I think," said her cousin, putting down her embroidery on her lap for a moment, and looking quizzical but profound, "that sometimes congeniality is more dangerous than passion."

Sophy returned her look a little loftily.

"Dear Sue," said she, "haven't you really taken in that all that side of me is dead ... quite dead?"

"No ... 'playing 'possum,'" flashed Miss Pickett.

"Oh, have your little joke by all means," said Sophy, smiling. "But after all it's 'my funeral' as they say out here.... I suppose the corpse knows better than any one else whether it's dead or not."

"On the contrary—the corpse doesn't know anything whatever about it," said her cousin. "If you were really a corpse, my lamb, you wouldn't know it."

Sophy looked almost hurt.

"Won't you allow me to know about my own nature, Sue?" she asked.

Now Miss Pickett smiled.

"Nature," said she, "is as fond of revivals as a nigger."

On a hot, gusty, dusty day in summer, having returned to Ontowega, they set forth with the lawyer to go before the Judge who was to give Sophy a decree of divorce. The little town looked more hideous than ever in the glare of summer. Such trees as grew along the board sidewalks were grey with dust. The pettish wind flung handfuls of grit into their eyes and nostrils. Sophy followed Mr. Dainton's tall, scraggy figure like a hypnotised "subject." She had but to follow that round-shouldered, obstinate looking back into the yellow-brick square of the "Town Hall" that loomed just ahead, and she would be free. That lank, black figure with its ravel of grey locks escaping from under a black "wide-awake" was the Nikè that led on to Freedom.

Emerald Dainton, the lawyer's little nine-year-old daughter, skipped at Sophy's side, clinging tightly to her cold, gloveless hand—for Sophy's hands were very cold though the thermometer stood at 85 degrees. Emerald had a "mash" on "pa's last divorce lady." That is what Emerald called Sophy in her thought. She was a shrewdly intelligent child, not unattractive, with the most penetrating green-hazel eyes that Sophy had ever seen. She shrank from these eyes, when they fixed consideringly on her face. She could feel Emerald wondering how and why she had come to Ontowega as "pa's" client. She had an insane impulse every now and then to ask the child her views on divorce. She was sure that she held views on the subject and that they would be crisp and to the point.

They entered the Court House, and Mr. Dainton showed the ladies into a dingy room on the left. Emerald skipped in also as a matter of course. There were some plain wooden chairs, a table, a stove, and in one corner behind the stove a horsehair sofa.

From one of the wooden chairs rose a mealy tinted but clever looking man of about forty. Mr. Dainton "presented" him as Mr. Wogram. He was Loring's representative. Mr. Dainton then excused himself for a moment. He returned shortly to say that Judge Boiler was just about to dismiss a case in the Court Room, and would be with them in a few moments.

A desultory conversation on politics then began between Mr. Wogram and Mr. Dainton. Sue and Sophy sat silently side by side on two of the wooden chairs. Sue had put one of her hands on Sophy's and was gripping it tighter than she knew. Emerald had retired to the horsehair sofa behind the stove.

There was a maple tree just outside of the window. An opening in its twigs and leaves made a ridiculous profile against the white-blue dazzling sky. Sophy gazed at this profile, until when she looked away she saw it swimming in green and red on the whitewashed walls. She thought in odds and ends. Then Judge Boiler entered and was introduced. He sat down finally before the bare table and assumed his air of office. He was a heavy, impassive looking man of fifty with a pale, dyspeptic skin, pale blue eyes and thick whitey-brown hair going grey.

Just as proceedings were about to open, Sophy noticed Emerald's little many-buttoned boots and red stockings protruding from behind the stove. She looked at Dainton and the blood swept over her face.

"Excuse me for interrupting ... but your little girl is still in the room, Mr. Dainton," she said.

The lawyer jumped up and drew a protesting Emerald from her horsehair coign of vantage.

"Please, pa ... lemme stay!" she whined. "I might have to get divorced some time. I want to see how you fix it up. Please, pa!"

Mr. Dainton whispered fiercely that he'd "smack her if she didn't shut up that minute." Father and daughter disappeared into another room. Then the father reappeared alone, and the case of Loring v. Loring proceeded....

When it was all over and Mr. Wogram had taken his leave with jerky bows to friend and foe alike, Mr. Dainton turned to Sophy, with a curious reminiscence of the facetious manner in which one addresses brides, and said:

"Allow me to congratulate you ... Mrs. Chesney!"

Judge Boiler did likewise.

Sophy had one dreadful moment of fear, regret, grief, distaste—the awful vertigo of the irrevocable. She tried to smile conventionally. Sue slipped an arm through hers, held her close without seeming to do so, and talked for her—nice, easy, well-sounding commonplaces. While she was thus talking, Mr. Dainton stalked to the inner door and, flinging it open, called jocosely:

"Come along in, Maldy. The knot's untied...."

Emerald sidled in, looking sulky but curious. She eyed Sophy a moment, then said in a loud whisper:

"Is she really divorced?"

"Sure thing," replied her parent

"You did it quick as that, pa? Truly?"

"Truly," said he.

"My!" exclaimed Emerald, overcome with admiration. "I guess it takes longer to hitch 'em up than to unhitch 'em, when you do the unhitching, pa!"

Then she skipped over to Sophy, and clung to her hand again. Her green-hazel eyes devoured the tall, pale lady's face. She was fairly a-quiver to participate in the emotions of the divorced heroine.

"Well...." she said. "Now you're un-married. Are you happy?"

Sue looked like a hawk about to pounce, but Sophy answered quietly:

"I really don't know, Emerald," she said.

"But you ain't sorry you did it, are you?" persisted the child.

This was too much for the patience of a childless woman. Miss Pickett took Miss Dainton by the hand and led her firmly to her father.

"Please explain to your little girl,", said she, "that there are some occasions where children should not be seen, much less heard."

Mr. Dainton admitted ruddily that "he guessed that was so." But he would have liked to shake the woman who had snubbed his Emerald.

The child pouted a while, then sidled up to Sophy again as they walked through the hot, gusty streets towards the hotel. It seemed impossible for her to resist the double fascination that Sophy exercised over her, as woman and as divorcée. Sophy let the child take her passive hand. She was hardly conscious of it, so far was she in a world of alien thought.

Father and daughter escorted them to the Palace Hotel, where they said final good-bys. The two women went upstairs in silence. Without taking off her hat Sophy sat down, still in that brown study. Her eyes were fixed vaguely on the white satin "Regulations" over the door. Miss Pickett moved about, putting articles into her open trunk. They were to leave for Virginia on the midnight train. Every now and then she would glance at Sophy, but she said nothing.

Presently Sophy spoke to her.

"It's very painful ... being born, Sue."

"'Being born'?" said Miss Pickett, stopping on her way to the trunk with an odd shoe in her hand.

"Yes, Sue.... It's hard. It hurts.... Drawing in the first breaths hurts.... When I've breathed really deep, it will be different...."

"Yes— I understand, lamb," said Sue softly.

Sophy went on, her eyes still fixed on the white satin scroll.

"You know, Sue ... it's said that when one dies and wakes up in quite another state, one doesn't realise that one has died just at first. Well ... I feel something like that. I've come into a queer, new state of being. I can't seem to realise myself or anything just yet."

"Yes, dear," said her cousin, fitting the shoe into a corner of the trunk, and coming back to sit down near her. Sophy reached out one hand mechanically, and Sue took it in both her own, with quiet, matter-of-fact affection. Sophy still gazed before her, seeing nothing.

"It's a queer thing to say, Sue," she continued after a moment, "but I don't think I've lived at all yet ... not really."

This did seem odd to Miss Pickett, but she thought it due to a certain inevitable old-maidishness on her part, and gave no sign.

"I'll try to explain what I mean," said Sophy. "I've loved love all my life. But love isn't given us just to love ... the love between two people—a man and a woman ... is only one tiny part of love. Yes...." She knitted her straight brows trying to bring her thought to clearness for the other. "That kind of love—if it tries to be an end in itself has to die ... to wither away. Or, if it does last, then the soul withers."

She smiled suddenly, turning her eyes on her cousin.

"I think the Serpent was really kinder to Adam and Eve, when he got them turned out of Eden, than Jehovah was when he shut them up in it," she said.

"How's that?" asked Miss Pickett, startled, for she was rather orthodox in her views on religious form, though her big heart made her more unconventional in practise.

"Why, just think of it for a moment," Sophy answered. "If the Serpent hadn't interrupted their tête-à-tête—there they would be to this day—wandering love-sick among fadeless flowers, with nothing, nothing, nothing before them but an eternity of love-making!" Her pale face alight with mingled whimsicality and sadness, she added, leaning closer: "Sue ... I'll whisper you something.... The Serpent was Jehovah in disguise, Sue!"

A second later she said:

"Don't be vexed, dear, will you?... It's such a comfort thinking aloud to you like this...."

"No, indeed. Go on. I won't be vexed," Miss Pickett assured her warmly. "You always were an irreverent monkey—but then the Lord made monkeys. He knows how to allow for their antics."

But Sophy was intent upon her own train of thought again and only smiled absently at this indirect reproof.

"Two lessons...." she then said slowly. "It took two bitter lessons to teach me the truth about love—the sort of love that I always dreamed of as supreme—the love that is 'like an Archangel beating his iridescent wings in the void'...."

Miss Pickett could not follow the subtleties of Sophy's musing, she could only feel the pain that underlay it. She said gently:

"You mustn't deny love, honey, just because it's failed you. I don't ever want to see my child grow bitter."

"It's only one kind of love that I'm denying, Sue—not Eros, but Anteros ... the false god.... He comes in a lovely glamour. He's the rainbow on the foam of breaking waves. When the sea is still he vanishes. My bitterness is only against myself—for having worshipped a false god."

"Well, child—maybe you have. But thank the Lord! no mistake is final at your age...."

"My mistakes have been very final for me, Sue. I've laid all my frankincense and myrrh on the altar of Anteros, I've nothing to offer the true god. But there's my son ... my defeat shall make his victory. There shall be one man in the world who knows the true god from the false. Some woman shall be glad through my pain. Some day, when a woman loves my Bobby, she shall be able to say: 'This is my beloved and this is my friend!'"

Sue glanced quickly at her, but her expression was wholly unconscious. She was not thinking of Amaldi in that moment. She was only thinking that love to be real, to be perfect, to be lasting must include friendship, comradeship, understanding, mutual endeavour. That to retain its fulness it must give out to others besides the one, give incessantly, untiringly, without stint, without grudging. That instead of raising magic walls of enclosure, it should level all barriers.

She took another tone suddenly.

Colour came into her face. She looked with darkened eyes at her cousin.

"Sue...." she said. "The fact is that all these years I've been nothing but a miserable happiness-hunter!"

"Nonsense!" said Miss Pickett.

"Just that ... a happiness-hunter," repeated Sophy.

"Well ... and what is everybody else doing but hunting happiness, I'd like to know?" retorted her cousin. "Even the martyrs were after it! If they hadn't found happiness in martyrdom they wouldn't have sought it, you may be sure. Don't be morbid, child, for goodness' sake!"

"I'm not morbid. And what you say is true in a way. But there is selfish happiness and unselfish happiness, and what I've wanted was the selfish kind. I wanted love all to myself. What do I know of life really?... What do I know of what's going on in the real world?... Oh, 'it is good for me that I have been afflicted!' It is something, at least, that I can say that from my soul—with all my might. It is good ... it is good for me.... I'm glad the Serpent has come into Eden.... I'm glad that I've eaten of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil!... Now I'm going out into the wilderness of life, and I'm going to learn how to live. I'm just born, but I'm going to 'put aside childish things' ... that toy called happiness, with all the rest!"

Miss Pickett gazed at the ardent face, with affection. Then she smiled wisely.

"Perhaps, honey," she said, "you'll find happiness in doing without it. At any rate—you seem right happy at the prospect of not being happy."

Sophy rose and, kneeling down beside her, leaned her head on that kind breast.

"Do you know, Sue," she said dreamily, "after all, it's rather wonderful to feel that one has done with love, and yet finds life worth while."

"Is it, dear?" said Sue.

"Yes, it is. You know Socrates was glad when he had passed the age of love. Now I understand why that was. I never did before."

Sue Pickett said nothing, only stroked the dark head upon her breast. But a rather cryptic smile stirred her lips. She was thinking that from all she had read and heard, two beings could hardly differ more essentially than Sophy and the Sage of Athens.

---

XLVI

Sophy spent the rest of that summer and the following winter at Sweet-Waters. She did not wish to go among people so soon after her divorce, besides she felt the need of self-adjustment to her new relations with life.

That sense of being unreal in a world of unreality, which she had mentioned to Susan Pickett on the day of the divorce, lasted for some time. Then, in the early autumn—in her favourite month of October—began a recrudescence of the imperishable passion for life as opposed to mere existence, that lent her always the elemental charm of fire. Many natures shine in the great dim of circumstance, but with light differently derived. Some are, as one might put it, phosphorescent. In others one divines the pinch of star-dust in the clay—still luminous, still perfervid, as when the cosmic nebula first spun the white hot core of things. It was this mystic fire that glowed again in Sophy, burning clearer for the ash beneath it, even as the humbler, yet still sacred fire of hearths, burns clearer in like case. It was as if in resigning her desire for one supremely personal love, Love itself had drawn nearer. Motherhood meant for her now, not only her feeling for her little son, but an aching towards all unmothered things. It was not welt-schmerz, this feeling—welt passion rather.... She was like one who has lived for years in a lovely, doorless, painted house, lit by perfumed candles—then one day steps through a sudden break in its wall to face the tremendous sea. Yes—life lay like that before her—perilous but to be drowned in rather than left unessayed—unsailed. The cosmic romance was upon her. She no longer belittled romance to a love-tale—rather it was the adventure of a creative god—Zeus as Poet. And this new, impassioned desire to live fully, largely, universally, so confused her in the beginning, that she hardly knew where first to turn—so vast were her ignorances—so clamorous the wave-like voices that called from every side.

She felt a great thirst to know more of the vital questions of the day. She awoke to the fact that the time was in the throes of parturition. Something huge, cyclopean, was being born. Change already stared iron-eyed from the cradle of the twentieth century and hammered with fists of brass. Now was nascent its twin Disorder. She read until her brain reeled and her heart ached. Giddy and downcast, she bared her mind to the bludgeonings of tremendous questions which she could not adequately comprehend. Then common sense—kind old nurse—whispered soothingly: "'Seek not out things that are too hard for thee.' There is a glory of the stars of Political Economy, and another of the moon of Poetic Faculty. Thou shalt comprehend by intuition what will never be given thee by ratiocination. For 'if a man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than seven watchmen that sit above in an high tower,' a woman's heart can divine the very stars above the tower and draw down influences as sweet as those of Pleiades for the sustainment of her spirit."

So Sophy left off trying to understand clearly all the "ologies" and fly-wheel within fly-wheel movements of the day, and contented herself with a general apprehension of the zeitgeist. She decided that these gigantic sociological and political questions were for her what the higher mathematics are to the humble arithmetician. She could comprehend that a fourth dimension might exist, but not in what it might consist. It consoled her to remember that in the higher mathematics of existence as of numbers there was an "incalculable quantity." The bigger brains, then, paused at a point higher up, just as hers paused at one lower down.

Then again woke in her the desire to create in her own world of poetry.

All these struggles and hopes, and glees and failures—all this turbulence of her new-straining self, she poured out in her letters to Amaldi, and he answered them in kind. Almost every day they wrote to each other. It seemed incredible to her that her life had once been empty of those letters to which she now looked forward every day as to the simple necessity of food and drink. Never once did he fail to respond to the mood or need from which she wrote—and with so fine, so just a discernment that sometimes he seemed to answer thoughts that she had not written down, but that had been in her mind when she was writing. So exquisitely true was this communication of their minds and natures at a distance that sometimes she almost dreaded meeting him in actuality again. Would not the charm vanish with nearness? She felt that she could far better miss his bodily presence from her life than those wonderful, satisfying letters.

---

The spring came and with it a new shock for Sophy. She was writing in her old study one March morning when Harold Grey entered with the day's paper in his hand. What he had come to show her was the notice of the death of Lord Wychcote.

Sophy took the paper from him, feeling quite dazed. She grew pale as she read. The notice stated that Viscount Wychcote had died in his sleep at his country seat, Dynehurst, on the night of the second of March. The news had been wired to the Times as being of interest in connection with the divorce of Mrs. Morris Loring, whose son, by her first marriage with Lord Wychcote's younger brother, the Hon. Cecil Chesney, would now succeed to the title—etc., etc.

The shock was a double one to Sophy, for in addition to her sincere affection for Gerald, there was the question of the allowance which he had renewed immediately after her divorce. Now this allowance would most probably be stopped. She had no idea whether Gerald had been in a position to leave her anything, or whether, in case the property were all entailed, she would be still given an allowance, as Bobby's mother and guardian. In case she had to depend entirely on her own slender income, she did not see how she could manage to live in England. She supposed that a sum would be apportioned for Bobby's education, but even that was only a surmise.

Within a few days, however, came a full letter from Mr. Surtees. He explained to her that the bulk of the Wychcote property was entailed, but that certain property which had been left to the late Lord Wychcote in fee simple by a maternal aunt, had been willed to her (Mrs. Chesney) by his lordship. This property consisted of the town house in Regent's Park in which Mrs. Chesney had formerly resided, and a small estate in Warwickshire, called Breene Manor. The Manor house was in good condition, though not of great size. It was a Tudor building and stood in grounds thickly wooded. The situation was salubrious and the view fine, but there was no income from the estate, as Miss Bollinghame, the relative from whom the late Earl inherited the property, had sold all but a hundred acres of the original lands. He wished to explain to Mrs. Chesney, however, that the trustees of the Wychcote property were empowered to advance sums of money for the education and maintenance of her son, and that the money for maintenance would be paid to her as his guardian, in order that she might keep up a position suitable for the young peer. Mr. Surtees ended by venturing to express to Mrs. Chesney his opinion, as the legal adviser of the family, that it would be well for her to come to England with her son as soon as possible.

From the receipt of this letter until two months later, when she was settled at Breene, Sophy moved again in a world of unreality. The quiet of the lovely old house and its surrounding woods and gardens helped to restore her to her normal state once more; for she found Breene a place after her own heart, strangely familiar, as though she had visited it before in dreams. As Mr. Surtees had said, the house was Tudor, but it had been added to and altered during so many other epochs, that it had ended by having a flavour and architecture all its own. For some years it had been leased, and the great walls of yew that enclosed the lawns were smooth and massy from constant clipping. It stood in a crescent of beech woods. Scotch firs towered behind it. To the south lay rose-gardens sloping to an oval pond.

And this adorable old place was her own. Sophy could scarcely believe it. The first three weeks of her return to England had been spent at Dynehurst with Lady Wychcote. Those had been gloomy weeks indeed, for in addition to the natural sadness of the situation, there had been inevitable friction between her and Lady Wychcote on the subject of Bobby's future. Sophy had known of course that this must come, but she had hoped that it would not come so quickly. Lady Wychcote was intolerant of the idea that Bobby should become a writer. Sophy firmly maintained that the boy should choose his own career. Both women controlled their tempers, but there had been some sharp passages of arms between them. When Sophy went to her room the second night at Dynehurst, she thanked Gerald, as though he had been alive and could hear her, for having made it possible for her to live in a house of her own with her son, apart from his grandmother.

While she was at Dynehurst, Olive Arundel had helped Miss Pickett to get all in order at Breene—for Susan had consented to come and live with Sophy for the next few years.

It was quite wonderful to drive up to the old Manor house in the late April afternoon, and find Susan standing in the open doorway to receive her. Behind her the light from a fire of beech logs flickered over the dark wainscoting. Candles and lamps were lighted. The tea-table stood ready. This was home—her home and Bobby's—this lovely, dignified old house with its sheltering yew hedges shutting out the world until she should need it once again.

---

XLVII

The only regret that Sophy felt for not living part of the time in London was on account of her friendship with Amaldi. It would have been so much easier for her to see him constantly had she been in town. But then Breene was not so far away. He could easily spend a day with her now and then. Susan's presence would make such visits perfectly proper. In his last letter he had said that he would be in England about the end of April. The symphonies that had met with such acclaim in Dresden were now to be given in London.

Sophy looked forward with more and more of that odd mingling of dread and pleasure to seeing him again. She had found the attempt to realise ideals but a tragic business. And the ideal that she had of their friendship was very high.

But from the first day that Amaldi spent with her at Breene, she knew that her doubts had all been unfounded. Their friendship when together again was more perfect than ever, for the slight constraint that she had so often felt underneath his spoken words seemed quite gone. He talked with her now almost as freely as he had written in those letters that she so treasured. And there was something different, also, in his look, his voice, a naturalness, as it were a relaxing of some inner tension.

She did not realise that never before had Amaldi known her as a free woman. Always before she had belonged to some one else. Now she was her own. What she gave him no one else had any right to. The relief and the joy that he had in this knowledge made him seem another man even to himself at this time. It was enough for the time being to realise the inviolateness of all her sanctities. This realisation was so wonderful that it stayed for a while the sharp urge of love, and filled the vacancies of absence with a sense of triumph.

As for the little household—Sue Pickett, Bobby, Harold Grey—they all liked Amaldi heartily. And as other friends, both men and women, often "spent a day" at Breene with Sophy, Miss Pickett had no cause to worry over "appearances," as she had frankly feared that she might have to. Still ... Sue was not quite easy in her heart over the situation. As she had declared, she did believe in friendship between men and women—but not so very much in a friendship between a man and woman as young and attractive as these two.

Then one day something happened to make her really apprehensive. It was about the end of June. Amaldi and Sophy were in the rose-garden. Through an archway in the yew hedge Susan could see them as she sat with her embroidery under one of the big beeches on the lawn. Sophy was cutting roses. As she cut them she laid them in a basket that Amaldi held for her. The sunlight on her thin white gown, and the red and pink and yellow roses that kept tossing into the basket, gave an effect of light-hearted happiness. Sophy's black sash only heightened this impression. It was as though grief had shrunk to the size of a narrow riband.

And as Sue sat there thinking this, she heard the chugging of a motor, and there was Lady Wychcote sweeping round the lawn, all in black from top to toe, the reverse, as it were, of that bright, sun-washed picture framed by the yew hedge.

Susan had not met Lady Wychcote before, but she guessed in an instant who it was. She went forward, her back pringling with the consciousness of the sunny tableau upon which it was turned.

Lady Wychcote was inclined to be gracious. She had heard of Miss Pickett from Sophy of course. So very good of her to take pity on poor Sophy's solitude. And just as she was saying this, she caught sight of the two in the rose garden. Susan knew that she had seen them by the sudden stiffening of her figure, even before she lifted her face-à-main in that direction.

"Who is that with Sophy?" she asked rather abruptly.

"Oh ... an old friend," replied Susan, and the moment the words were uttered she wished them back. They sounded excuse-making somehow. She added quickly: "The Marchese Amaldi."

"Ah?... 'An old friend'?" repeated Lady Wychcote. "I've not met him I think. What did you say the name was?"

"Amaldi.... The Marchese Marco Amaldi...."

"Wait a bit...." said Lady Wychcote. "Though I don't know him, the name seems familiar." She repeated it once or twice: "Amaldi ... Amaldi...." Then she looked quickly at Susan. "Is he by any chance the man whose music has been so much discussed this season?"

"Yes—the same," said Susan.

"Ah ... now I place him. They were talking of him at dinner last night. He has an impossible wife, it seems, that he can't get rid of."

"The Marchese is separated from his wife. There's no divorce in Italy, I believe," said Susan.

"That must seem odd to an American," observed Lady Wychcote in her dryest tone.

Susan resented this tone and the remark, but made no reply.

Her ladyship was again looking towards the garden through her face-à-main.

"He's a very good-looking young man, is he not?" she said at last.

"Yes," assented Susan.

"He comes quite often I suppose?"

Susan looked straight at her.

"What would you call often?" she asked.

"Ah—you're annoyed," said Lady Wychcote coolly; "but the fact is, that a young woman in Sophy's position can't be too careful. In England, among people of our class, there's still a strong feeling against divorce. As an American you could hardly realise how deep-rooted this feeling is. I think it right to tell you of it."

"Thanks," said Susan. She turned towards the rose-garden. "If you will come with me...." she suggested, moving forward as she spoke.

But Lady Wychcote made no move to follow her.

"By the way, do you happen to know where my grandson is?" asked she.

"With his tutor. They've ridden over to Carbeck Castle. A picnic with Lady Towne's children and Mrs. Arundel's little boy. But if you'll follow me, Lady Wychcote, I'll go and tell Sophy that you're here...."

"No. Wait, please," said the other quickly. "I'd like to talk a bit more with you first."

Susan drew forward a wicker chair. Lady Wychcote seated herself, and Susan, following her example, took up her embroidery again. But her fingers felt very nervous. It seemed to her that she had never heard those two in the garden talk and laugh so gaily and incessantly.

"You know Mrs. Arundel, I believe?" now enquired the other, in her chill, brittle voice.

"Yes. She kindly helped me to get this home ready for Sophy."

"You like her?"

The question was a sneer.

"Very much," said Susan rather sharply. She flushed with vexation as she spoke.

Lady Wychcote noticed this flush and divined its cause, but continued with undisturbed composure.

"I'm sorry to seem captious," said she, "but I confess that I'm sorry to hear you say so. In my opinion, Mrs. Arundel is not at all a fitting friend for my daughter-in-law, especially in her present position."

Susan remained silent. She felt too irritated to trust herself.

"I see that you resent what I say," Lady Wychcote took it up again. "But you're probably unaware that Mrs. Arundel's looseness of morals is a matter of common knowledge."

Susan put down her embroidery.

"I don't know anything about that, Lady Wychcote," said she firmly. "I only know that she's been very, very kind to Sophy. I think, if you don't mind, I'll call Sophy now. I'd rather you said these things direct to her."

She rose as she spoke, and went off to the garden before her ladyship could protest.

"Hateful, hateful woman!" thought Susan as she went; "... ready to think evil of every one." But all the same she felt uneasy and perturbed. Suppose that Lady Wychcote should use that acrid tongue of hers in starting gossip about Sophy? But then she would hardly care to do such a thing in regard to the mother of her only grandson! Still—one never knew how such spiteful natures would act. Susan felt thoroughly upset.

She was somewhat reassured by the calmness with which Sophy took the news of her mother-in-law's unexpected visit.

"Motored over?" said she. "Then she must be stopping with the Hiltons. But I thought she wasn't going there until July."

Susan was further relieved to find that Lady Wychcote was very civil indeed to Amaldi. She seemed to find him interesting. They talked together quite a while. When she was leaving, she said to Sophy:

"You must let Robert come to me for a day, while I am with Mary Hilton, Sophy. I shall be there a week longer." Then she turned to Amaldi.

"While you are stopping in the neighbourhood," said she, "it would be very kind of you to come and let me hear a little of the music that every one is talking of, Marchese. My mourning keeps me out of town this year."

Amaldi said that he would be delighted to call on her ladyship, only that he was not stopping in the neighbourhood, and was returning to town that afternoon.

"Ah?" she said, with a look of faint surprise. And this "Ah?" renewed all Susan's uneasiness. To her it seemed so plainly to say: "What! you come all the way from London to call on my daughter-in-law? Then things are even more serious than I thought."

That evening, after Amaldi had gone, she told Sophy bluntly of her misgivings. Sophy was annoyed but not apprehensive.

"She dislikes me, Sue, and she has a bitter tongue—but somehow I don't think she'd go as far as that...."

"Why not?" asked Sue, who was beginning more and more to think that in any matter Lady Wychcote would go just as far as she chose.

"Well ... after all I'm Bobby's mother.... Why should she slander her only grandson's mother? What possible good could it do her?"

"I don't know," Susan said uncertainly. "But somehow I feel afraid of her ... for you...."

"Oh, I've taken care of myself with her ladyship before now!" retorted Sophy lightly.

Susan still brooded.

"I'd be awfully careful, Sophy, child, if I were you."

"How 'careful'—old Mother Misery?" smiled Sophy, slipping an arm about her shoulders.

Susan looked straight at her as she had looked at Lady Wychcote that morning.

"I'd be careful about ... Amaldi," said she bluntly.

Sophy's arm dropped. Rather coldly she said:

"In what way?"

"I think ... perhaps ... yes— I think you'd better not let him come here so often, honey."

Her tone pleaded for indulgence, but was also firm with conviction. Sophy was still rather cold in manner.

"You mean you think I'd better sacrifice a beautiful, harmless friendship to the whim of a sour old woman?" asked she.

Sue didn't retreat.

"I think you'd better not give that 'sour old woman' the least scrimption of cause to gossip about you," she replied.

"You'd have me mould my life on Lady Wychcote's ideas?"

Susan put her hand very lovingly on the dark head.

"Now, lamb ... don't be huffy with your old Sue," she said. "I only want you to be very, very careful how you cross that old tyrant's prejudices.... I've one of the strongest feelings I ever had in my life that you'd regret it."

Sophy looked at her with grey eyes dark and defiant.

"Sue...." she said, "I'll never, never, never give up one atom of my friendship with Marco Amaldi for anybody or anything."

What more could Susan say—at least just then. She went to bed a very disturbed, unhappy woman.

Towards the end of the week Sophy sent Bobby over to the Hiltons' for a day, as she had promised. He returned that evening in quite an agitated state of mind. He rather enjoyed being with his grandmother occasionally. As he told Sophy: "I don't like Granny much—but I almost love her sometimes—when she's telling me 'bout father, and what a great man he would have been if he'd lived—and what jolly things all my grandfathers did for England. I think Granny's something like machinery. You're awful interested in it ... but you don't want to get too near to it."

This evening the cause of his excitement was shown plainly by his remarks to his mother when she went in to "tuck him up."

"I tell you what it is, mother," said he. "It's a awful responsibility for a chap having not to disappoint his mother or his only gran'mother, either of 'em. Now I was just thinkin'—Granny's so set on my bein' a statesman—and you'd like me to be a great writer. Well— I might be both! Dizzy was, you know. Don't you think if I was a great novelist and Prime Minister, both at once, that would be a solution?"

Sophy hugged him and replied with perfect gravity that she thought it would certainly be "a solution."

"Well, I'm glad," sighed Bobby, settling back upon his pillow. "'Cause if you hadn't thought so, I don't think I'd have slept a wink to-night. I'll write Granny first thing to-morrow. She's leaving after lunch. She told me to be sure to tell you so you'd send your letters to her at Dynehurst when you wrote."

But three days later, about six o'clock in the afternoon, a motor from the Hiltons' swept again round the lawn at Breene, and in this motor was Lady Wychcote.

This time, it happened to be Sophy and Amaldi who were sitting out under the big beech. Bobby was there, too. He was leaning with both arms on Amaldi's knee, and looking up eagerly into the young man's face. Amaldi had been telling him some of the adventures of Orlando Furioso.

This time Amaldi had not come down from London for the day, but had also motored over with Olive Arundel from her country place some fifteen miles distant. Susan and Olive were in the house, superintending the hanging of an old print that the latter had brought over for Sophy's writing-room.

Sophy was frankly surprised to see her mother-in-law.

"Why, I thought you were at Dynehurst!" she exclaimed. "Bobby sent you a letter there yesterday."

"No. Mary persuaded me to stop on another week. I came to bring Robert a book I promised him."

"Oh, thank you, Granny!" said the boy. He held up his cheek to be kissed, received the rather forbidding looking volume that she held out, and retired soberly with it. It was called Lives of Noted Statesmen, Condensed. Bobby could not quite make out whether it meant that the lives or the statesmen were condensed. In any case it promised to be but a dull exchange for the adventures of Orlando. And then it was always so much jollier to be told a thing than to read it.

Lady Wychcote said affably to Amaldi:

"I shall flatter myself that if you'd known I was still here you'd have come to play for me while you were in the neighbourhood, Marchese."

"I should have been only too happy," replied he. "Perhaps you will allow me to come to-morrow?"

"What! All the way from London to call on an old woman?— Ah, that's very charming and Italian of you, I must say...."

"I'm stopping with the Arundels just now," said Amaldi. "But I should have been delighted to come from town to play for you." Like Susan, he found something perturbing in Lady Wychcote's manner. He could not define it, but he felt uneasy. There was a something underneath that very affable tone.... He thought her singularly antipatica. Perhaps that was it.... Yes ... it must be that.... She was antipatica.

On this occasion her ladyship did not leave before Amaldi as on her last visit. She remained until he and Olive Arundel had gone. Then she said to Sophy: "By the way—could I have a few minutes alone with you?"

"Of course," said Sophy.

She thought it was to be the usual thing about Bobby's education, which Lady Wychcote did not think sufficiently strenuous and political. But her mother-in-law had quite another matter in mind.

They walked off together down one of the beech avenues, and Lady Wychcote began without preamble.

"My dear Sophy," said she, "you will probably be very angry, but I feel that I must speak. Your friendship with Mrs. Arundel doesn't at all do you justice...."

"Please don't say anything against Olive," put in Sophy quickly.

"Very well. But you know my opinion on that subject already, so after all it isn't necessary. I was thinking of her chiefly just then in connection with the Marchese Amaldi."

Sophy merely looked at her with an inquiring expression.

"I mean that it seems to me doubly unfortunate that he should be such a friend of hers also," continued Lady Wychcote.

"Please explain what you mean by 'doubly unfortunate,'" said Sophy.

"I shall—very frankly. Your position as a divorcée is a very difficult one, and I think that your rather intimate friendship with the Marchese will make it still more difficult."

"You are certainly frank," said Sophy, white with anger. "But you must allow me to be the judge of my own conduct."

"The world constitutes itself judge in such cases," retorted her mother-in-law. "Now pray try to take my words as I mean them. I haven't the least desire to pry or meddle. I am merely calling your attention to what others might think if they chanced to come here twice within a week, as I've done, and each time found that young Italian with you. There would be comment—and not kindly comment either, you may be sure of that."

"Oh," exclaimed Sophy, exasperated, "what a low way of thinking most people have!"

"Yes—the average mind is not exalted in its views," assented the other calmly. "That is what I wanted to remind you of."

Sophy stood still and looked into her eyes with a proud look.

"No breath of scandal has ever touched my name," she said.

"I'm quite aware of that, my dear Sophy," replied Lady Wychcote. "My only object was to help you to prevent such a thing from ever happening."

"It's very kind of you, I'm sure," said Sophy, speaking with difficulty.

The older woman answered with considerable amiability:

"No. You don't think it kind of me. And I quite understand that you resent what you think only tiresome meddling on my part. But I meant it well. Believe me or not, as you choose. Of course, as you said, you must be the judge of your own conduct. Only"—she gave her a very shrewd look indeed—"don't forget, pray, in case a ... some ... unpleasantness should occur, that I tried to forewarn you."

Whiter than ever, Sophy said in a low voice:

"I shan't forget."

"Then that is all. I won't annoy you with the subject again."

"Thanks," said Sophy.

They walked back to the house, and Lady Wychcote commented on the charm of the old grounds, and the advantage that it was for Bobby to have such healthful surroundings, but Sophy said nothing whatever.

---

XLVIII

It seemed intolerable to Sophy that Lady Wychcote should have taken such a view of her friendship with Amaldi and ventured to speak with her about it. Not that for a moment she felt any anxiety in regard to what "people" might think and say. It was only by chance that Amaldi had come twice to see her within so short a time. Usually there was at least a fortnight's lapse between his visits—sometimes more. But Lady Wychcote's view of the whole matter had left a smirch on what was so clean and fine. The bright mirror of friendship had been breathed upon. The image in it was blurred by this evil breath. And though she gave no hint of what had passed, or what she was feeling, Amaldi knew quite well that something had disturbed her. He kept this knowledge to himself, however. What she did not give him freely he did not want. And alas! he wanted so much that she did not give him in any wise. His first delight in feeling that she was wholly her own again had died down. This masque of friendship, in which she was whole-souled and he half-hearted, became an anguish. He doubted his strength to keep it up. Sometimes he thought that it would be more endurable to blurt out the truth and go into banishment. He felt often that he would prefer the violent, final wound of severance to the long, eked out pain of being near her only as a friend.

Then one day in August he went to Breene, and as soon as he saw Sophy felt sure that some crisis was upon them both.

In fact she had just received the following letter from Lady Wychcote:

"My dear Sophy, you must pardon me for breaking through my resolve, this once, and alluding to a matter which I had seriously intended never mentioning to you again. Clara Knowles came to call on me to-day. As you probably know she has one of the most venomous tongues in England. She had barely said 'How d'ye do' before she flooded me with enquiries as to who was the 'foreigner that was making such running with Sophy Chesney.' (I quote her own elegant expressions.) She said that 'The Barton-Savidges' (a family also famed for scandal-mongering) 'vowed that he was always either turning in at the Breene lodge gates, or coming out of them.' Olive Arundel they said was 'gooseberry.' She asked if it were true that he was a bigamist. And whether you really belonged to a 'free love league' in the States as she had heard. I will not quote more of her disgusting jargon. I only write this much of it, that you may see my apprehensions on your behalf were not without reason." The rest of the letter was confined to inquiries about Bobby, and suggestions as to a special method of German, which had been recommended to her by an ex-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, whose grandson was, at sixteen, proficient in four modern languages, etc., etc.

This letter filled Sophy with rebellious anger, yet at the same time she realised that it had to be considered seriously. The most painful part of all was that she felt that she must speak about it to Amaldi. Despite all her natural independence, she could not defy conventionality to the extent of allowing their friendship to give rise to such odious gossip. And she thought how strange and almost tragic it was, that the only breath of scandal that had ever touched her should be caused by the one perfectly clear, passionless affection of her life.

She told him of the letter as they walked in the beech wood beyond the garden.

"It's only what we might have foreseen in this crowded, narrow-minded place!" she ended bitterly.

Amaldi, who was stripping the fronds of a dead leaf that he had picked up, kept his eyes on it. He did not say anything for a second or two, then he observed in that level, withheld voice that she knew meant intense feeling:

"I'm afraid we might have expected it in any place."

"Oh, Amaldi!—no!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"I'm afraid so," he repeated.

They were seated now on a felled log. Through the incessant quivering of the nervous leaves they could see the gleam of the pond sunk in wreaths of loose-strife—the "long purples" of Ophelia's garland. It was all white and blue with the August sky. Except for the sound of blowing leaves the wood was very still. This stillness seemed to make it all more embarrassing and hateful somehow. Sophy sat chin on hand, staring at the shining pond. Other things that must be put into words were impossible to utter just then.

Amaldi broke the silence.

"I suppose," he said in that expressionless voice, "that we shall have to stop seeing each other—for the present at least."

This was just what Sophy had shrunk from saying. She answered very dejectedly:

"I ... I suppose so. Yes ... it's the only thing to do of course." Then she broke out in her impetuous way: "Oh, how hateful and unnecessary it all is!—how humiliating—and how sad.... I did think that friendship would be left me...."

There were tears in her voice. Amaldi turned suddenly and looked at her. The moment that she saw his eyes she knew what was coming.

"I've failed you, too," he said. "It isn't friendship that I feel for you...."

As her eyes fell away from his, he added passionately: "How could it be otherwise?... How could it be?..."

And all at once it was revealed to Sophy that he was right—that she had been blind and mistaken once again to an almost incredible degree. She sat dumb with pain, knowing less than ever what to say. And her pain told her that he was very, very dear to her, and yet that she recoiled from the mere idea of love more violently than ever. But there was no half way here, she must renounce him if she could not return his love.

Amaldi went on:

"It had to come. I meant to tell you. I hoped that I would be strong enough ... but I'm not. It's beyond me.... I can't endure it—this being near you ... knowing you are free ... loving you ... loving you ... having only your friendship. No man could endure it ... no real man...."

He broke off. The next instant he said, "Forgive me. It seems brutal to speak so ... so bluntly—but at least there must be truth between us."

Sophy said in a choked voice:

"If you think all the suffering is yours ... you ... you are mistaken, Amaldi."

"Forgive me...." he repeated.

"And ... and...." she stumbled on, "you speak of my being free ... but even if ... if things were ... different ... you are not free...."

"Do you mean if you ... loved me?" said Amaldi.

"Yes," she murmured, colouring deeply.

He flushed, too, then paled.

"In that case I should soon free myself," he said.

Sophy glanced up at him in amazement, then down again.

"But ... there is no divorce in Italy...." she stammered.

"An Italian can be naturalised in Switzerland and divorced there," he rejoined, steadying his voice with an effort.

All at once her face quivered, she put up her hands to hide it. Then she whispered brokenly:

"You would do that for me?"

"It would be nothing ... if you loved me," he answered.

There was silence for a moment or two. Then it broke from him again.

"I couldn't go on acting to you ... lying to you...."

"Oh, I know ... I know...." she answered.

Suddenly he was on his knees beside her. He caught her hands and held them to his breast.

"Can't it ever be different?" he was stammering. "Can't it ever be different? Some time ... after years maybe?... Is there no love in you for me?... None at all?"

But as he knelt there beside her stammering with the ardour of his long suppressed love, it was Loring that Sophy thought of—Loring who had also knelt beside her in desperate appeal. She blanched with the confused, humiliating pain of it.

"Oh, don't you see ... don't you see," she pleaded. "I haven't any love to give.... How could I have?..." She drew away her hands and pressed them to her own breast. "I'm like a dead thing...." she said desperately, "dead ... cold...."

He rose and walked away from her, stood thinking for a little, then came back. Still standing, he looked down at her bent head.

"Tell me this at least," he said, "if we had met ... at first ... before things happened in both our lives ... do you think that you might have ... cared for me?"

Sophy did not answer at once. Her past was rushing before her. Then she sprang impulsively to her feet.

"Yes, Amaldi, yes...." she said. "When we were both young ... if we had met then.... Oh, how beautiful life could have been for us!"

Amaldi started forward, then drew back. His eyes confused her. She stood there, rather overwhelmed by her own outburst, looking down again now at the tip of one shoe which she moved nervously from side to side among the last year's leaves. He said in a low voice:

"That makes it easier to say 'good-by' ... and harder. I...."

He stopped short. She forced herself to ask for how long he meant to be gone.

"I think a year ... two years, perhaps, would be best," he answered heavily. The next instant he put it more lightly: "I've always wanted to travel for some years in strange lands. I might come back a more satisfactory 'friend' ... who knows?"

"Don't...." said Sophy, blind with tears now.

She could never remember clearly how they parted. He promised to write her of his plans as soon as he had decided on them. Walking back through the garden, they met Sue Pickett and Bobby. They were not alone again until he left for London.

---

XLIX

The next two days passed very unhappily for Sophy. She ached with the ice of her flesh and the wild flame of her spirit. Some part of her being was knitted so closely with Amaldi's, that this tearing asunder of their lives caused her anguish.

On the morning of the third day, however, something happened that gave things a sharp wrench in a new direction. Sophy had always been very indifferent about reading newspapers. So the morning papers were always laid at Susan's plate. They chanced to be breakfasting alone, and as Sue was glancing over the Times, she flushed suddenly and an exclamation broke from her.

"What is it?" asked Sophy, deathly afraid, she knew not of what.

It had to be told. Susan bungled it so, that Sophy caught the paper from her and read for herself. This was the item:

"A very shocking accident occurred last night in front of White's. The Marquis Amaldi, a distinguished Italian nobleman, well known here in both social and musical circles, was struck by a motor car as he was crossing the street. He was unconscious when he was taken to his lodgings, which, fortunately, are near by in Clarges Street. The friend who was with him would not allow him to be removed to an hospital. Later reports say that the Marquis has recovered consciousness but that his injuries are serious."

Sophy laid down the paper without a word, and her face terrified Susan.

"My dear ... don't go thinking the worst," she stammered. "You know how newspapers exaggerate!"

"Not in England...." said Sophy dully.

Then she caught her breath. It was as if she had shot suddenly to the surface of some black pool, and gasped in air again.

"Will you go with me to London?" she asked in that dead voice, keeping her eyes on the paper.

Susan went pale.

"Oh, child!... Think a minute...." she protested.

"Well ... if I must go alone...." said Sophy, and as she spoke she got to her feet.

"No, no!—You shall never go alone, Sophy!"

"Then you'll come?"

"Yes," said Susan despairingly. She felt there was no use in arguing it, yet as she went upstairs with Sophy to change her gown, she tried once more. "Sophy, darling— I know— I understand how you feel," she said. "But think, dear—think what it would be if some one saw you ... there.... If it got to Lady Wychcote's ears.... Oh, child!... I'm so mortally afraid of some dreadful tragedy coming out of all this for you...."

"Don't you think the tragedy's dreadful enough as it is?" asked Sophy rather wildly. She looked for a moment as if she were about to break into crazy laughter. Then she held her face tight in both hands.

"Go and dress...." she muttered thickly after a second. "Go and order the carriage.... There's a train in twenty minutes.... It will take us more than ten minutes to drive to the station...."

The two women reached Amaldi's lodgings about eleven o'clock. His Milanese servant, Piero, opened the door. He looked grave and rather worried, but for the first time hope glimmered in Sophy when she saw his face.

"The Marchese...?" she managed to ask.

Her voice was like the shadow of a voice. Piero said that Don Giovanni was asleep under an opiate. The doctors had just gone. They did not think the injuries as serious as they had thought last night.... But Sophy was scarcely listening.

"'Don Giovanni'?" she repeated haltingly.

"Si, Signora ... the brother of the Marchese. He arrived in England for a short visit only yesterday morning. Eh, Santa Maria! ... a sad visit it has proved...."

He begged the ladies to be seated while he went to tell his master of their coming.

As he left the room, Sophy turned to Susan. "Sue...." she said. "Forgive me ... but I must see him alone ... just for a few minutes. I won't be long."

"But, Sophy...."

"I won't be long, dear, I promise ... only a few minutes ... but I must.... I must see him alone ... just at first...."

She was so determined that poor Susan felt she had no choice. She went out into the hall, misery and dread in her heart—not for anything that she feared between Sophy and Amaldi—she knew them both too well for that—but lest some malevolent eyes might have seen Sophy go in ... might watch for her coming out.

Sophy had not mentioned their names, or given any cards to Piero, and he was too discreet a person to ask questions. When, therefore, he announced to Amaldi that there were visitors for him, he said merely, "due signore" (two ladies).

Amaldi came in to find Sophy standing alone in the middle of the room, her hands locked tight together, and her eyes fixed on the door by which he entered. The next instant he was close to her, and she was faltering out:

"I thought you were ... dead.... Then I knew...."

"What?... You knew ... what?" he said dazedly.

She kept her eyes on his—they looked scared and brave and piteous at the same time.

"That I ... cared for you ... more than I knew...."

Things went black before Amaldi for a second. He had been through a hideous night with poor Nano. He had seen him lying on the pavement drenched with blood—dead to all appearance. Then had come the long hours of waiting for the doctors' verdict. Then the shock of hope after the long vigil. Now this....

He mastered himself, thinking that he could not have taken her meaning rightly.

"It was ... like you ... to come...." he said almost stupidly. He felt stupefied, not equal to grasping the situation fitly.

But now Sophy held out her locked hands to him. Her white face flushed and quivered.

"Marco ... don't you understand?" she whispered. "I ... I want you to know ... that I...." She caught her breath. ".... It's ... it's ... love, Marco...."

A profound instinct told him not to touch her. The black mist closed down again for an instant. His bewildered, haggard face went to her heart. Close to him, trembling, her eyes still courageous and timid at the same time, she laid one hand upon his breast.

"Dearest," she said, "don't look like that ... as if you couldn't believe me ... you'll have to be very patient with me...."

She put down her forehead suddenly on the hand that still rested against his breast, and began to cry softly and restrainedly, like an overtaxed child. Then his arms went round her, but very lightly, as if she were indeed a wounded child that he was afraid of hurting.

"Forgive me.... I can't help it...." she kept murmuring. "To find you alive ... alive...."

The words choked into sobs. He stood holding her in that light, gentle embrace silently. He could not have spoken though both their lives depended on it. Presently she lifted her head from his breast and glanced up at him. His face awed her. There was a look on it that made it quite beautiful and rather strange. The look of one who sees with other than bodily vision.

When she said timidly a moment later that she must be going now, he did not try to detain her, only lifted the hand that had lain upon his breast, and held it to his lips, then to his eyes a moment.

---

In some natures tenderness springs from passion; in others passion can only flower from tenderness. Sophy was of the latter type. With all her capacity for suffering, she could never have felt the excoriating pain of the being bound by sensual fascination to another whom it knows to be despicable. This quality in the very essence of her nature was the secret of her ardent ventures in love and her equally ardent recoils from it.

But though her present love for Amaldi was all tenderness there was in it also such anguish as passion sometimes brings. Pure as it was, almost mystic in its exaltation, it yet shamed her to herself. Was she then the sort of woman who loves, and loves and loves indefinitely? She fought her way out of this doubt, only to stand confounded and miserable before the bald fact that she had had two husbands, one of whom was still living, and yet, that in a future no matter how vague and distant, she contemplated taking another. "It must be a long, long time...." she had written Amaldi after those moments in Clarges Street. "Years and years, perhaps. It isn't that I shrink from you, my dear one—oh, you know that!—but from the thought of marriage with any one. I can't help it, dearest. I told you that you would need all your patience with me—— Yes— I shall try you sorely I'm afraid. I wonder—but no—when I think of your love for me, I feel that I have never before known real love. And see how selfish I am with you! This is your reward—a cruel egoist, who can't give you up—who can't give you herself. That is the truth, Marco. It isn't that I will not— I cannot. Besides——"

Here she had laid aside her pen in despair. It was the thought of Bobby that had come to her. How tragic and ridiculous to think of giving her son two fathers besides the real father who had died when he was a baby! Yes, this thought was nothing less than hideous. The absurdity in it was grim as the risus sardonicus. And yet—and yet—— Like poor Desdemona she perceived here a divided duty. This duty to her son was tremendous—yet was there not also a duty towards the man who had loved her for long years, whom she had told that she loved in return? Perhaps, when Bobby had grown up—— Yes, that would make things different. But could any man be constant for all those added years—had she a right to ask such constancy? And even then—to take a third husband! The words of Christ to the woman of Samaria came back to her: ".... Thou hast well said, I have no husband. For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband."... Five husbands or three ... what real difference was there? She felt stunned with self-abasement and misery. A voice within her kept crying: "Too late! too late!" But when she thought of her life without him it seemed vain and empty. Even the thought of her son could not fill that void.

---

Nano Amaldi's injuries proved far less serious than was at first believed. Within ten days after his accident he was able to travel, and he and Marco went together to stop with their mother on the Brenta, near Venice—where she had taken a friend's villa for the months of September and October.

From this place Amaldi wrote to Sophy, asking her if it would not be possible for her to come to Venice during the autumn. His mother longed to see her, and people could hardly talk if they met occasionally under such circumstances. He also told her in this letter that Barti, the family lawyer, had gone to Switzerland to inquire about the formalities necessary for the divorce.

Sophy had intended going to Italy in September. Now it seemed to her that there could be no objection to her choosing Venice as a stopping place. She longed to talk with the old Marchesa almost as much as she longed to see Amaldi. To talk with his mother would lift some of the load of doubt and pain from her heart, she thought.

But when she mentioned this plan to her cousin, Sue looked anxious. She was thinking of Lady Wychcote—of what she might think and say when she heard that Sophy was going to Italy. Her native shrewdness would lead her to surmise something very like the truth, Sue felt sure, while her dislike for Sophy would cause her to put the worst construction on it.

However, to her great relief, Lady Wychcote took the news of the projected trip to Venice with composure. She was even affable about it and said in a letter on the subject that she envied Sophy the pleasure of seeing Venice for the first time, and of being out of England during September. But as Susan pondered this letter afterwards, something in its very affability made her nervous. It struck her as odd that Lady Wychcote, after having called Sophy's attention so insistently to the danger of possible gossip about her and Amaldi, and now knowing that there actually had been gossip on the subject, should suddenly hear without protest of any kind that Sophy intended going to Italy. If Susan had been aware of the fact that Lady Wychcote also knew of Sophy's visit to Amaldi's lodgings, she would have returned to America rather than have gone with her to Venice.

Lady Wychcote did know of it, however, and from a sure source—from her own brother, Colonel Bollingham, a retired and grouchy old Anglo-Indian, who had always taken Sophy at his sister's valuation and had no more love for her than had her ladyship.

He had chanced to be passing on the other side of the street when Sophy and Susan got out of their cab before Amaldi's lodgings. His sister had talked with him about her fears in that regard. The accident, of which he had read that morning, caused him to put two and two together—making a round dozen, after the custom of his type of arithmetician.

"The little hussy...." he muttered, as the two figures disappeared within a house opposite. "'Clarges Street'.... So it was, b'gad!"

He posted forthwith to Dynehurst with this news. After the first start of surprise at his disclosure, her ladyship showed a calmness that quite outraged him.

"Gad!... Cissy!... You take it damn coolly, 'pon my word!" said he.

"I am thinking," replied Lady Wychcote quietly. "It requires a great deal of thought ... such a thing as you have just told me, James."

"The devil it does!" exclaimed the irascible Colonel. ".... Bundle her out on the double-quick, say I! What the deuce!... Is a woman like that to have the upbringing of your only grandson?"

His sister regarded his inflamed countenance with lenient sarcasm.

"'Bundling out' is doubtless a simple matter in the army, James," said she. "But you wouldn't find it quite so simple in this case. The Court would hardly deprive a woman of the guardianship of her child because she'd been seen to go ... with another woman ... to inquire after an injured man ... ostensibly a friend ... who may or may not be her lover...."

The Colonel bumbled like an angry hornet. "Who's this other woman, anyhow?" demanded he. Then answered himself as crusty old gentlemen so often do. "In my opinion she's only a common...." The Colonel's language became very Anglo-Indian indeed.

But Lady Wychcote succeeded in calming him down and finally persuading him that her method would be the wisest and surest.

---

It was on a day all magical with shine and storm that Sophy journeyed to Venice across the Lombard plain. As they neared the sea one-half the sky was thunderous blue, one-half like golden crystal. Green marsh lands spread in gentle melancholy beneath. Suddenly two orange sails in sunlight unfurled their burning petals against the green. And these great, burning sail-petals, drifting slowly along hidden waterways across the sad, green reaches, lent a thrill as of the passionate mystery of the sea to the tranquil inland.

There was more pain than joy for Sophy in this beauty. One should first see Venice with first love in one's heart, not third love, she told herself bitterly. And she was glad that she had written Amaldi not to meet her. As much as she longed to see him, she was relieved to think that she would have some hours in which to adjust her mood to this rather overwhelming loveliness before seeing him again. As they went up the Grand Canal towards the Rio San Vio, where she had taken a flat, the Vesper bells began to ring. A feeling of sadness, almost of apprehension, stole over her. The clear, liquid voices of the bells seemed warning her of something. She began to wonder if she had been right to come to Venice....

But the next day when she saw Amaldi she was glad again. This love that he gave her was very wonderful. She remembered, wincing, how she had once longed for Loring to give her a love like that of the old Romaunts. Now this love was really hers. Yet she felt that she was cruel to accept it—taking so much yet willing to give so little; for when she saw Amaldi this first time after telling him that she cared "more than she knew"—she realised that what she offered him was indeed the shadow of a flame. And yet ... she could not give him up. This shadow was, after all, cast by a flame. But she shivered, thinking of the dreary service of patience that she demanded of him.

Amaldi on his side, however, was quite content for the present with the fact that she loved him—that this love had been strong enough to cause her to tell him of it. He had that genius of passion which knows how to wait. When the right hour struck he would wait no longer, he told himself. He did not believe for a moment that years would have to pass before Sophy would come to him as his wife. He did not wish things different. It would have repelled him if Sophy could have shown passionate feeling for him so soon after her second unhappy marriage. But some day——

Barti was still in Switzerland. There were some points that needed clearing up, he wrote, but he and the Swiss lawyer Beylan, thought that all could be arranged. He expected to come to Venice very shortly.

After she had been three days in Venice, Sophy went by gondola up the Brenta with Amaldi to see his mother, who had been confined to the house for some time by an attack of rheumatism. Sue and Bobby were with them. The boy seemed as fond of Amaldi as ever, yet every now and then when he thought that others were not noticing, he looked at the young man with a grave, pondering look. He was not jealous of him, yet as much as he liked him, he was hoping that "Mother wouldn't have him round too much." It was so jolly when he and mother went for larks quite alone.

From the moment that the Marchesa took her in her arms and kissed her as a mother kisses her daughter, a weight seemed to fall from Sophy's heart. There was something in the kiss so natural, so warm, so consoling. It said better than words could have done, "I understand. I approve. Be happy, my dear—be happy."

She held the Marchesa very tight—his mother who might some day be her mother. Tears sprang in spite of her. The Marchesa kissed away these tears.

"It will all come right, dear—Speriamo bene!" she murmured, smiling.

But the next day something occurred that cast a shadow over all. Susan received a cable from America telling her that her only sister had died suddenly. As this sister was a widow and left three little children Susan felt that she must go to America at once.

When Sophy returned from seeing her cousin off for Genoa, a profound, desolate sadness overcame her—a sense of apprehension. The old adage kept going through her mind: "It never rains but it pours." She could not get away from the idea that other painful things were going to happen. Besides, she loved Sue dearly, and missed her, and would miss her more and more. The thought of a paid "companion" filled her with distaste. Yet she couldn't now stay on in Venice for some weeks, as she had meant to, with only Bobby and Rosa. Harold Grey had been ill with influenza and would not join them until October; and all the more when he came would she need some woman to play propriety.

Intolerant and careless of the world's opinion as she was too apt to be, she felt that it would not do for her to remain all alone in Venice with Amaldi as her only acquaintance there. But then she felt that she must stay till Barti came. She couldn't leave Marco anxious and harassed with doubt, for during the last few days she had come to the conclusion that he was far more anxious about the divorce than he would admit to her.

.... Rain was falling. With slim, grey-white rods it beat the surface of the water. She could see it rushing like a host with lances down the Grand Canal, past the palace of Don Carlos. Her heart grew heavier and heavier.

Amaldi, who had insisted on accompanying Susan to Genoa, returned two days later. Something preoccupied and sad in his manner struck Sophy.

"What is it?" she urged. "You are troubled. Tell me."

He confessed at last that he was a little worried at Barti's delay. He feared that there might be some serious doubt about the final issue of the question.

"Barti's a good soul," he ended. "Almost too soft-hearted.... I can't help feeling that he's rather shirked telling me things, perhaps ... that he's still shirking. I can't explain this delay on his part, in any other way...."

He broke off and they looked at each other rather blankly. And it was as they were silently looking at each other in that sorrowful, baffled fashion that Rosa ushered in Lady Wychcote.

As Sophy went forward to greet her, the old adage again began its thrumming in her mind: "It never rains but it pours.... It never rains but it pours...."

---

L

Had Susan been present, she would have felt very apprehensive at the pleasant, matter-of-fact way in which her ladyship greeted Amaldi. But Sophy was simple-minded enough to be greatly relieved by it. She explained about Susan—that Amaldi had just returned from seeing her off for America. Lady Wychcote seemed really shocked to hear of Miss Pickett's trouble.

"And what a loss to you, too!" she said. "I can't conceive of anything more odious than having a hireling for a companion. Of course you will have a companion...?"

"Of course!" said Sophy.

Then her ladyship explained how she came to be in Venice. Her brother, Colonel Bollingham, and his wife had persuaded her to join them at a moment's notice.

Sophy felt that now Susan was gone, she ought to ask her mother-in-law to stop with her. She did so. Lady Wychcote said thanks—but that it would hurt poor dear Mildred's feelings to be planté like that.

"However," she added, "if you're going to be here longer than a week, I might take advantage of your offer. James and Mildred are going to Bordighera next week ... and I detest Bordighera...."

Sophy replied, with a hesitation in her heart which she did not think apparent in her voice but which Lady Wychcote discerned there, that she had intended stopping for at least three weeks longer—but now that Sue had gone she thought of returning to Breene in a few days.

"If you would stay with me, though," she ended, "then I shouldn't feel that I had to hurry off."

"Thanks," said Lady Wychcote. "I'll let you know later."

She left a few minutes afterwards. Amaldi left with her. He disliked her as much as Susan did, and felt that he must be very careful not to give her a wrong impression of his relations with Sophy.

Later, when Sophy came to reflect, she felt as apprehensive about her mother-in-law's sudden appearance in Venice as even Susan could have wished. She knew that unlike so many of her compatriots, Lady Wychcote did not care a fig about Italy. On the contrary, she was in the habit of extolling France as a far more delightful place in every way.

During the following week Sophy was very careful not to see Amaldi often, and went about a good deal with Lady Wychcote. Barti had not turned up yet.

The days passed in this rather dreary fashion, until the time had come for the Bollinghams to leave. They were to set off Tuesday and on Tuesday afternoon Lady Wychcote was to come to the Rio San Vio to stop with Sophy until they both returned to England.

On Sunday Barti arrived in Venice. He was a short, rotund man of about sixty, with a grizzled black beard, and the grey-blue eyes under black lashes that one sees so often in clever Lombards. He loved the "ragazzi Amaldi," as he called them, as if they had been his own sons. Marco had confided to him his reasons for wishing to be divorced. He had spoken in a rather dry, curt fashion, but Barti realised fully what this passion must mean to him. Marco had always been his favourite of the two "boys," and men of the type of Marco did not change the views of a lifetime except for the most vital reasons.

As soon as Amaldi saw Barti, he knew that the lawyer had no very reassuring news to give him. They met at Barti's hotel in his bedroom so as to be quite private.

"Well?" said Amaldi.

Barti began skirting the subject from different points of view. It seemed that in Switzerland, at that date, proceedings for divorce on the ground of adultery had to be brought within six months of the knowledge of the fact. So that Amaldi would not be able to obtain divorce in respect of his wife's original misconduct with her first lover. He could, however, obtain the divorce in respect of any subsequent misconduct of hers if proceedings were instituted within six months of such misconduct becoming known to him.

Here, Amaldi, who had been very pale, flushed darkly. He parted his lips as if to speak, and the old lawyer said nervously:

"Wait ... wait just a moment, caro mio ... there are ... er ... other difficulties...."

Amaldi kept silence. He sat looking out of the window, and now his face was quite impassive; but it hurt Barti to see the strained quiet of that impassive face. These "other difficulties" that he had to tell of were even more painful. He went on to state them as rapidly and clearly as he could. In any case, as they knew already, in order to qualify for a divorce in Switzerland Amaldi would have to become a Swiss citizen. To do so, he would have to get the consent of the local authority and the State authority. The first was comparatively easy, the second exceedingly difficult to obtain. As Marco might remember, a famous Italian author had attempted to divorce his wife in this way, but the Swiss Government decided that they would not let their citizenship be obtained for such an object.

Amaldi here interrupted quietly.

"Then, my dear Barti," he said, "I have only to thank you for all your trouble. I don't see that we need discuss the matter any further...."

"Pazienza.... Pazienza!..." murmured Barti. "On the contrary ... there are many things to consider...."

"I don't see...." Amaldi began rather vehemently.

"Prego ... but I see.... You must allow me," returned the other. "This is painful, I know ... for me as well as for you...." he added, with some feeling.

Amaldi said in a different tone, but without looking at him:

"Yes. I know it is. Forgive me. Go on."

Barti then said that it might be possible for the citizenship to be obtained without the disclosure of its object, though this would be extraordinarily difficult.

"In fact," he wound up, "I am afraid that in your case it would be practically impossible. The head of a noble Italian family does not apply for Swiss citizenship without some very unusual object, and in my opinion the authorities would be sure to demand for what object the Marchese Amaldi wished to become a Swiss."

Amaldi got to his feet this time.

"Then, really...." he began.

"Caro Marco ... I beg of you to let me finish," pleaded Barti.

He, too, was pale by now, and he snatched off his eyeglasses, breathing nervously upon them, and squinting slightly with his short-sighted eyes, in the stress of the moment.

"Switzerland is not the only country in the world," he hurried on, polishing and repolishing the glasses as he spoke, very glad not to be able to see Amaldi's set, white face more clearly. "I have made inquiries, and it seems that in Hungary...."

"'Hungary'!" echoed Amaldi. He gave a short laugh. "But I beg your pardon. Go on, please...." he said gravely the next moment.

"And why not Hungary?" Barti demanded, with a show of impatience which he was far from feeling. "For my part, I think I should prefer a Hungarian citizenship. It seems that in Hungary there is a process of adoption...."

Again Amaldi echoed him.

"'Adoption'!" he exclaimed, with even more emphasis than before. "My dear Barti, excuse me—but I hadn't realised that the thing would be ridiculous as well as humiliating."

Then he checked himself, walking to and fro in the small room several times. The other sat watching him in silence.

Presently he stopped in front of Barti and looked down at him with a rather wry but affectionate smile.

"Forgive me, dear Barti," he said. "You've gone to no end of trouble for me, and I act like a bad-tempered tousin. Will you please go on about ... Hungary?"

Barti rushed into suggestions now. He wished, he said, with Amaldi's consent, to go forthwith to Hungary and make a thorough investigation of the legal questions involved.

"Ma!... Go if you think best," Amaldi said, when he had ended. Then added with irrepressible bitterness: "After all, what difference does it make to what country I sell my birthright?"

"Caro mio ... caro mio!..." muttered the old man, much upset.

"You understand, Barti," returned Amaldi quickly, "I am quite determined to be free if possible. I...." he hesitated, then went on emphatically: "I count it a small price to pay. What makes me bitter is that an Italian should not be able to free himself from a worthless woman in his own country. Yes, Barti, that makes me bitter, I confess."

They spoke together a few moments longer. When Amaldi left, it had been decided that Barti was to leave for Buda-Pesth that night.

---

LI

On the same afternoon, Amaldi sent Sophy a note, saying that he had some important things that he would like to talk over with her, and asking if she would not go with him again by gondola up the Brenta to see his mother.

"I feel," he ended, "that we could talk so much more quietly in the old garden there. Here in Venice there is always some interruption, and Lady Wychcote comes to stop with you on Tuesday. Then, too, it would be such a happiness for Baldi to see you again in this way. We could be back in Venice by six o'clock."

Sophy thought this over. She felt that she could not refuse, and yet she hesitated. But she knew that Barti had returned. She was sure that it was about the divorce that Amaldi wished to talk with her. What had Barti said? Was the divorce in Switzerland impossible, after all? And as this doubt came to her she knew for the first time how much she really loved Amaldi. The dreadful sinking of her heart when she faced the thought that he might not be able to get free made her decide at once to go with him the next day. And she would not take Bobby with her this time. He was all agog over a lesson in rowing that Lorenzo, the first gondoliere, was to give him to-morrow. She would keep him with her until she and Amaldi started at twelve o'clock; then he and Rosa could spend the afternoon with Lorenzo.

She sent word to Amaldi by the messenger who brought his note that she would be ready to go with him next day at noon.

He did not tell her of what Barti had said, and she did not ask him until they were alone in the garden of Villa Rosalia.

When he told her about the possible alternative of Hungary, she gave a cry of pain.

"I can't bear it.... I can't bear it that you should make such sacrifices!..." she stammered.

"When a man loves as I love you, there aren't any sacrifices," said Amaldi.

"Ah, don't talk that way!" she urged. "As if I didn't know what it all means to you...."

"I doubt if you know what you mean to me ... quite," he answered.

The smothered passion and sorrow in his voice shook her to the heart. She tried to speak, and began to cry.

"Forgive me ... forgive me!" she sobbed. "I used to be so proud of not crying. It's the tragedy of it all.... Our love is such a tragedy!..."

Amaldi looked at her a moment, his face set. Then with a quick, almost violent, gesture he took her in his arms. "You shall not say that our love is a tragedy...." he muttered. But she sobbed on:

"It is ... it is!... Oh, why couldn't we have known each other ... from the first!..."

"But you love me ... now?"

"Oh, you know it ... you know it!..."

He put his hand up suddenly and turned her face to his. It gave him a strange thrill to feel her warm tears on his hand. He looked down into her eyes, and there was something imperious and fateful in this look.

".... Really love me?" he said.

Her "Yes" came in a whisper.

He kept his eyes on hers another second, then bent his mouth almost deliberately to hers.

".... Sei mia moglie ... sei la mia vera moglie...." (Thou art my wife ... thou art my real wife....), he kept whispering brokenly after that deep kiss. She clung to him in silence. Yes, she too felt that she belonged to him as she had never belonged to another; yet, to her, this was the supreme tragedy. With her heart at home on his—with all herself at home in him—she knew at last the love in which flesh and spirit are one essence—in which God the fire and God the fuel are one. But to know such love only after having passed through the nether fires of other loves—was not that the tragedy of tragedies? She would not have been true woman had she not felt it so, and he would not have been true man if, even in that hour, the memory of those other loves had not wrung him. But while it was the woman's way to confess this sense of tragedy, it was the man's way to deny it stoutly. So he told her over and over with passionate insistence that she had never known real love—that the great fire of his love would consume even the memory of her mistakes—that the past was nothing to him and should be nothing to her in the light of the present.

They sat there, locked in each other's arms for a long time. The sun was westering. The shadows of the cypresses lengthened along the grass until they seemed to leap softly from the river brink into the water.

---

When they went back to the villa, they found old Carletto preparing to serve tea in the columned portico. The Signora Marchesa was just about to descend, he told them. She called from above as he finished speaking:

"Hé, Carletto!... Go tell the Signora Chesney and the Marchesino that tea is ready...."

"We are here," said Amaldi, going towards the staircase. "Wait ... let me help you...."

The Marchesa was coming down very slowly, one step at a time, leaning heavily on a big, ebony cane. The rheumatism in her knee was much better, but she was still very stiff. She called out in her jolly, plucky voice as he began mounting towards her:

"But just look how cleverly I manage by myself!..."

As she said this, she planted her stick on the marble floor of the first landing. Amaldi was within a yard of her—Sophy watching from the hall below. It all happened in a second. The stick slipped ... the Marchesa, who had leaned her whole weight upon it for the next downward step, was thrown head first against the opposite wall. The sound of her bare forehead against the marble of the wall was horrible. Then Amaldi had her in his arms.... Sophy and Carletto ran wildly. It seemed as if she must be dead. They could not realise that such a crashing blow could result in anything but death.

In a few moments the whole villa was in confusion. Amaldi and his man Piero carried the Marchesa to her bedroom. Sophy directed the frightened maids what to do. Amaldi sent Piero to Cortola, the nearest town, for a doctor. All the time that Sophy was working with Amaldi over the unconscious form of his mother, a stupid voice kept dinning in her mind: "It never rains but it pours.... It never rains but it pours...."

It was nearly an hour before the Marchesa regained consciousness. Her mind became clear in an astonishingly short time, but she was suffering frightful pain in her head. Fortunately, almost at the moment she opened her eyes Piero came back with the doctor from Cortola. After a careful examination, he assured them that there was no concussion of the brain, and that if the Signora would remain quietly in bed for a few days, all would be well. It was nearly ten, however, before they became satisfied that her condition was not dangerous.

Sophy insisted that Amaldi should send Carletto back with her to Venice and himself remain with his mother. He would not consent to this. The physician was to spend the night at the villa. The Marchesa was sleeping quietly now under a strong sedative. Her faithful old cameriera of forty years' standing was at the bedside. He was not willing for Sophy to take the journey back without him.

At half-past ten they walked once more through the old garden. The soft night was wonderful with stars. Carletto went ahead carrying a candle. His knotty fingers, through which the flame shone in gold and reddish streaks, and the silver outline of his hair, glided forward mysteriously against the purple bloom of the night. On the river bank, they saw the glow of a lantern where the gondolieri were getting things in readiness. Then the brazen beak of the gondola gleamed suddenly.

When they entered it and the gondolieri began to row, it seemed to Sophy that the quiet river, veiled in darkness like the stream of fate, was gliding with them to some appointed end. A feeling of presage welled in her. She shivered and drew closer to Amaldi.

The night was hushed and grave. The banks stole by soft with grass or the brooding dimness of foliage. The fields were quiet as sleep. Against the violet dark rose sometimes the roofs of thatched cottages and now and then a lighted window shone out—the watchful, steadfast eye of home.

The gates of the first lock opened—the gondola floated in. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they began to sink with the ebbing water. Little by little, the trees, the houses, the tranquil fields slipped from view. Now they were in a dark well, as in a tomb together. A strip of starry sky shone above. They looked up at it without speaking. The dark lock was like their present—the strip of sky with its secret writing of stars was like the far hope that glimmered for them above the gulf of years....

The gates unclosed again; they glided out once more upon the Brenta, and more than ever it seemed to Sophy like the hidden stream of fate, bearing them to an appointed end.

---

LII

When they turned into the Rio San Vio, it was nearly one o'clock. Glancing up at the windows of her flat, Sophy saw that the little drawing-room was lighted. Some one came to one of the windows and looked out between the slats of the blinds as the gondola stopped before the house—Rosa, probably—poor soul, sick with anxiety!

Amaldi stepped ashore and held out his hand. They went together into the small court and began to mount the stairs leading to her flat. The stairway was enclosed and very dark. On the first landing was a window through which shone a faint gleam of starlight. He stopped and took her in his arms, but very tenderly. He felt her weariness and apprehension. His passion curbed itself to her need.

"When shall I see you again?" he whispered.

She whispered back:

"I will let you know.... I will write."

Suddenly she started. Amaldi, too, looked up at the dark stairway.

"I heard a door open.... We must go...." she murmured.

"Wait. Let me go first," he said, taking out a box of matches. "These will be better than nothing...."

He mounted slowly before her, lighting the little wax-matches as he went. It seemed to her that the stairway was endless—she was so tired! She dragged herself up, watching his face and figure spring out in the orange wax-light against the darkness, then fade again as the light died down. Now she could not see him. Then again came the spurt of bluish flame deepening to orange, and again she would see his slight, strong figure and the clear-cut mask of his face.

As they turned the last landing, and went up the flight leading direct to her apartment, they saw that the door was open and Rosa standing with a candle at the top of the stairs. She gave a cry of joy as she caught sight of Sophy—and came rushing down to meet her. Oh, the Madonna and San Guiseppe be praised! Oh, what had happened? She and Miladi had been so afraid—so terribly afraid!...

As she was speaking, a tall figure appeared in the open doorway. Sophy's heart seemed to lose a beat. Lady Wychcote acknowledged Amaldi's greeting, then called to Sophy:

"Are you really unhurt?... I fancied all sorts of horrid accidents...."

Sophy answered in the natural voice that astonishes one's self at such moments:

"Yes. I'm quite all right, thanks. But there has been an accident...."

"Ah.... I felt sure of it!" said Lady Wychcote.

All three entered the drawing-room. Rosa had rushed off again to tell the other servants of the Signora's safe return. Amaldi felt that he must not leave too abruptly. Lady Wychcote's unexpected presence at the flat struck him as not only unfortunate but very singular, even ominous. Why had she come, then, a day before she was expected by Sophy? One who wished to surprise another in some overt act would follow just such a course. And as he looked at the cold, composed face that now wore an expression of polite interest he felt a stir of fear. What was the real woman cogitating under that civil mask? What was her real feeling towards Sophy? Whether grief had sharpened his perceptions to an unusual acuteness, or whether to-night some unusual force went out from Lady Wychcote, it would be difficult to say—but a conviction as strong as the conviction of his own existence seized him—the conviction that this woman was Sophy's enemy—implacable, ruthless, willed to it with all her being. And as he thought of what a clever, unscrupulous tongue might make of Sophy's being with him at such an hour of night, he felt cold with dread and anger. It seemed too horrible that the cruel past should reach out to her even from the shadow of death. First the brutal son—then his mother. It was as if Cecil Chesney grasped at the issues of her life, even from the grave, through the cold will of his mother.

In the meantime, Sophy was describing the Marchesa's fall to Lady Wychcote, who listened with that expression of civil interest, and now and then an interjection of conventional regret.

The more Amaldi reflected, the more sinister the whole situation seemed to him. But he was quite powerless. He excused himself in a few moments, saying that he must get back to the villa as soon as possible. Lady Wychcote murmured some expressions of formal sympathy. Sophy gave him a cold, rather rigid, hand. Her eyes looked blank, like the eyes of a puppet.

He went out sick at heart with impotent love and wrath.

When he had gone, Lady Wychcote said to Sophy:

"You look rather ill. Don't you think you'd better have something to eat ... some wine, perhaps?"

"Thanks, no. I'll just go to bed. Sleep will be the best thing for me."

"But you don't look as if you would sleep much," returned Lady Wychcote. "You seem terribly overstrung...."

"Yes. It was a horrid thing to see!" Sophy answered. In her mind the senseless, chaunting voice had begun again: "It never rains but it pours.... It never rains but it pours."

Rosa came running back. She, too, pressed her mistress to eat and drink.

"No. I only want to lie down ... to be quiet, Rosa."

The kind soul, full of affectionate concern, threw an arm about her in order to sustain her better.

"Good night," Sophy then said. "I'm sorry to have to leave you at once, like this.... But I'm really worn out...."

"Just one thing before you go," returned Lady Wychcote, following as they went towards the door. "I'd like to explain my unceremonious descent on you.... James and Mildred decided to leave Venice this afternoon instead of to-morrow. So, as I knew you were expecting me to-morrow, I thought it couldn't really make any difference to you if I came a day sooner. I hope it hasn't inconvenienced you in any way...?"

"Not in the least. How could it?"

"Thanks very much. I hope you will feel rested in the morning."

"Thanks. I'm sure I shall."

Sophy moved on again. She felt that if she did not soon reach her bedroom she would drop to the floor in spite of Rosa's supporting arm.

But now Lady Wychcote was speaking again. She had followed them out into the corridor.

"Oh ... by the way ... I'm sorry to detain you, but I want to mention something about Robert...."

The spent life in Sophy leaped like flame in the draught of a suddenly opened door.

"Yes?" she said.

"The poor boy was so upset by your being so late that I promised him a trip to the glass-works to divert him."

"That was very kind of you," murmured Sophy.

Lady Wychcote continued:

"So, if you've no objection, we are to go to Murano rather early to-morrow morning.... A sort of all-day affair. We'll lunch there...."

"No, of course I don't object. I think it's very kind of you," said Sophy.

"Then ... good night," said Lady Wychcote.

Through the haze of fatigue and misery that clouded her, Sophy felt something peculiar in the tone of this "Good night." But then her ladyship's voice often took a peculiar tone in speaking to her. She was too tired to analyse this special shade of expression.

A great sigh of relief escaped her as she found herself in her own room.

"Chut!" whispered Rosa, smiling wisely, her finger at her lips. Then she lowered it and pointed to the bed under its tent of white mosquito netting. "Guarda!... povero angelotto!" (Look! ... poor little angel!), she murmured. "He wouldn't sleep till I let him come into his dear mamma's bed...."

As Sophy saw through the mist of the white curtains, the little sturdy form and dark-red curls of her son, all her being rose in a great wave of love and anguish. And borne forward as by this wave, she went and looked down on him. He lay prone, hugging his pillow to him with both arms, as if in her absence he would at least make sure of something that had been close to her. And not even on the day when he had been born to her with anguish had she felt such a throe of tenderness.

She turned away after a moment and let Rosa help her to undress; then as soon as she was alone blew out the shaded candle and stole again towards the bed.

A clear September moon had risen. It shone in upon the veiled bed and made it gleam mysteriously—made it look like a shrine. The curtains had a holy whiteness in the moonlight.

Sophy went and knelt down beside it, and as she knelt there Bobby stirred, lifted himself on his elbow.

"Mother...?" he said.

"Yes, darling. I'm here ... just saying my prayers."

He gave a little smothered whoop of joy, and scrambled to the edge of the bed, dragging up the netting that divided them. He shook the loose folds down behind her, and threw both arms around her neck, hugging her head tight against him. The warm, lovely perfume of a sleepy child enfolded her. It was like the very essence of love enfolding her.

She had to explain everything to him before he would let her go. Then he began pleading: "Don't send me back to my room right away, mother.... I know it was rather girly of me to come and get in your bed like this.... But Rosa's a good old sort. She won't peach on me.... And I think it's rather natural, a chap being a bit girly about his mother when he thinks things might have happened to her, don't you?"

Sophy said that indeed she did, and that he should stay with her till morning—that it made her feel ever so much happier and safer to have him near her. Bobby snuggled down blissfully, keeping her hand in both his.

"After all," he said, "though I'm not grown, I'm the only man you've got.... It's nice to have a man awfully anxious about you, ain't it, mother?"

"Ah, yes, indeed it is!" she murmured.

He was silent for a few seconds; then he said:

"I am the only man you've got ... really, ain't I, mother?"

Sophy's heart stabbed. She put her other arm about him.

"Yes, Bobby—yes, darling," she said, holding him to her.

"I like awfully being your only man," he murmured. "I ... I like the 'sponsibility."

"Dear heart!..." she murmured back, her lips on his curls.

He gave another of his snuggling wriggles of content, and was silent again. She thought he was dozing off, when he said suddenly in a by-the-way tone:

"I say, mother—is Marchese Amaldi married?"

Sophy's heart stabbed again. Why did the boy ask this?

"Yes, dear. Why?" she said.

"Oh ... nothing in particlar," replied Bobby, his voice more off-hand than ever. "I just wondered...." Then he remarked, still in that casual way:

"You haven't told me yet what kept you so late, mother."

Sophy told him, and as she spoke she kept thinking: "He has been worrying about Amaldi. He has been thinking of me and him together." And this idea was full of bitter pain to her—the idea that her little son might have been troubling over the possibility of her marriage with yet another man!

And, in fact, this thought had harassed Bobby for the last two days. It had embittered even the joy of his first lesson in rowing a gondola that afternoon. When Sophy had not returned by six o'clock, as she had said that she would, dreadful surmises had taken hold of him. Perhaps she was so late because she had decided suddenly to be married to the Marchese. Perhaps she would come back with him and say: "Bobby, this is your new father." The mere idea had filled him with a blackness of resentment and jealousy. Not until Sophy had replied that Amaldi was already married had this feeling subsided, though his joy in having his mother again with him, safe and sound, all his own for the time being, had made him put it aside for the first few moments. But boyhood is terribly reserved in some things. The rack could scarcely have brought Bobby to confess his apprehensions to his mother.

Too excited to sleep, and wishing to get away from the subject of Amaldi, he began to tell her all about the projected trip to Murano.

"Do you think you'll feel well enough to come, too, mother?" he wound up.

"I'm afraid I'll be too tired, dear. But well see...."

"Of course, I wouldn't have you come if you felt tired; but it won't be half so jolly without you."

"We'll see, sweetheart," Sophy repeated. "I'll surely come with you if I'm able to...."

He rushed off into an eager description of Venetian glass-blowing.

"And they make every sort of thing, mother.... They even make stuff for dresses.... Oh, mother.... I'd love to buy you a spun-glass gown! 'Twould be like a sort of foggy rainbow—don't you s'pose so? I wonder if I could get glass slippers to go with it?... Wouldn't you like a glass gown, mother? You'd look just like a princess in the Arabian nights! You must have one!..."

He chattered like this for some time. Then just as she thought he was falling asleep, he roused.

"I say, mother dear.... Don't let Harold Grey know I got in your bed to wait for you.... He's an awfully set chap ... he'd think me so beastly soft. You see, his mother's always had his father to look after her.... So he couldn't understand how I feel about you ... being your only male relative, and all that...."

Sophy promised, kissing the red curls again for good night.

He was quiet for about five minutes; then once more he roused.

"I've just had such a stunning idea, mother," he announced. "I want us to write a book together ... when I know a bit more rhetoric, of course. But we might both be thinking up a subject. Wouldn't it be jolly to have our names printed together like that on the first page?... 'What-you-may-call-it ... by Sophy Chesney and her son Robert Cecil Chesney....'"

"That's a beautiful idea, darling; but I'm afraid your name would have to be signed Wychcote...."

"No.... I choose to have it Chesney for our book. I am a Chesney, too, ain't I?"

"Yes, dear; but...."

"Just for our book, mother," he pleaded. "There they'd be—our two names—close together—long after we'd gone.... Isn't life a rummy thing, when you come to think of it, mother?"

"Yes, dear. But try to go to sleep now...."

"All right-o...."

He snuggled closer, settling himself with a deep breath of determination. But suddenly he exclaimed:

"Just one thing more.... What do you think of 'Spun Glass' for the title of our book, mother?"

"Well, darling—that would depend on what the book is to be about...."

"Oh ... about life in general!..." said Bobby largely. Then with the quick drowsiness of healthy childhood he fell fast asleep before she could answer.

But Sophy lay long awake. It seemed to her that life clung about her like a strong, dark web, meshing every natural movement of her heart. The idea of thrusting another man into her son's life—another "father"—became more and more painful to her. The idea of giving up Amaldi was unendurable. The idea of his giving up his country for her sake revealed itself suddenly as a sacrifice too terrible for her to accept.

The more she struggled for some egress from the clogging meshes, the tighter they closed about her. At dawn she was still wide awake, but when Bobby and his grandmother set out for Murano at eight o'clock she was sleeping like one drugged.

---

LIII

She did not wake until eleven, and by the time that she was dressed it was after twelve. Recalling what Lady Wychcote had said about lunching with Bobby at Murano, she thought for a moment of going there and trying to find them in time for luncheon. Then she recoiled from the idea of being with her mother-in-law for several hours. But she was too restless to read or go out in the gondola. Rosa told her that Lady Wychcote had gone to Murano by steamer.

She decided finally that she would take a long walk among the little by-streets of Venice and have luncheon at some small ristorante, all alone. She went out into the soft brilliance of the September day, and the very radiance of the sunshine had a curious melancholy for her mood. It was a relief to her, after crossing the ugly iron bridge over the Grand Canal, to find herself in the shadowed by-ways. Now and then, through a gate in some wall, a plot of flowers laughed out at her, or she saw the flicker of sunlit green high above. But the shadowed water ran darkly, and the smell of the cool, dank streets was like the breath of sleeping centuries. She came to the portico of an old church, and went in. The fumes of incense brought back that day in London, so many years ago, when she had gone to see Father Raphael of the Poor. She bent her head, standing all alone in the dark, quiet church, and her heart hung leaden in her breast. Even Father Raphael could not have helped her now, she thought ... for there seemed to her no clear way of right and wrong here. All was subtle, inextricably tangled—a maze of approximations, instincts, conflicting duties, inclinations.

She roused, glanced listlessly at the paintings over the High Altar, then went out again. She stood a moment in the street before the church, considering her next move. She was now not far from the Piazza San Marco. She recalled a little place in the next Rio where she could get a simple meal, and had taken a step forward when a burst of laughter made her look round. Her heart was jumping fast—that laughter was so painfully familiar—like the whinny of a young mare in springtime. Then she saw. Three people—a man and two women—had just turned the corner, about twenty yards away, and were coming towards her. The girl who walked a yard or so in advance had burnished, ruddy hair. She swung her white beret in her hand as she walked, and her blowing white serge gown moulded her handsome legs and vigorous young bust. The man's gait was rather sullen, the elder woman's frankly protesting.

"For goodness' sake, have some consideration for me, at least, Belinda!" she called fretfully. But in reply the girl only laughed her careless, whinnying laugh again.

Sophy had just time to spring back behind the dark columns of the porch before they could recognise her. She had been as if paralysed just at first. She squeezed in among the columns, with a feeling of sick faintness. Now they were at the church door ... they paused.

"Now here's where I balk!" rang out Belinda's voice. "No more rotten old churches in mine to-day, thank you. Come along, Morry."

"But, Belinda— I really need to rest a moment!" protested Mrs. Horton.

"You can rest all the time you're eating your luncheon," replied her step-daughter. "Come along, Morry!"

Sophy thanked Heaven that she was not called upon to hear Morris's voice. He was evidently sulky about something. He made no reply. Mrs. Horton grumbled a little, calling Belinda "selfish." Again Belinda laughed. Then the three went on up the narrow, twisting Rio.

Sophy, trembling all through, leaned there against the columns, with eyes closed. Round and round in her mind the old adage went humming: "It never rains but it pours.... It never rains but it pours...."

She remembered that Loring and Belinda had been married last May. She felt ashamed and sick for herself, for them, for life, for human nature, for the whole social scheme, for civilisation.... Everything seemed to her like a sickness in that moment. This life that the world crawled with was like the swarming of maggots in a cheese.... She hated herself—she hated the existing order of things. She understood the darkest throes of pessimists and cynics in that moment. And under it all her heart burnt fiercely with the supreme pang of the proud, chaste being, who has yielded to lesser loves before the one, great, real love has been revealed.

---

Sophy went back into the church and stayed there a long time. She felt faint and ill. She was grateful for the quiet darkness in which she could sit still without attracting attention. At last she went out into the street again. When she reached the Piazza, she took a gondola and returned to the Rio San Vio. She had forgotten that she had not lunched. She looked so pale and strange that Rosa exclaimed when she saw her. She lay down on a sofa in the little sitting-room and let the kind soul bring her a cup of hot tea. This revived her a little, and by and by as she lay there she fell asleep. It was nearly six o'clock when she waked. Her eyes and the back of her head ached dully; but she felt that she must refresh herself and change her morning gown before Lady Wychcote came back with Bobby. She bathed her face and eyes, put on a tea-gown, and returned to the drawing-room to wait for them. Taking up a book, she tried to read, but found that she could not command her attention. It occurred to her that she ought to write to Amaldi, but this also she found impossible. She could not write to him on the same day that she had seen Loring for the first time since her divorce. Then suddenly memories of Cecil began to haunt her. Incidents of their early love-days together came back to her with words and looks distinct as reality itself.

She went and leaned on the little balcony. The sun had just gone down. Air and water were suffused with the afterglow. High overhead, the Venice swifts flew shrilling as with ecstasy. Their musical arabesques of flight patterned the upper blue like joy made visible. Some dementia of supernal bliss seemed to impel them. The fine, exultant, piercing notes were like showers of tiny, crystal arrows shot earthward from the heights of heaven.

Sophy stood gazing up at them, and the mystery of their joy, and of her pain, filled her with a new aching.

She leaned there until the afterglow had died away; but it was not until seven o'clock that she began to feel anxious. By the time that it was nearly eight and Lady Wychcote and Bobby had not come, she was greatly alarmed, and this alarm swept away all lesser considerations. She sent a wire to Amaldi, saying: "Bobby and his grandmother went to Murano this morning. Expected to return at six. Not here yet. Fear some accident. Will you come and advise me." Then she had a consultation with Lorenzo, the first gondoliere, a quiet, capable man of about forty. She thought of going herself to Murano to make inquiries, but it would take a long time by gondola. Could Lorenzo think of any way of getting there more quickly. Lorenzo said that his cousin Ippolito had a steam-launch in which he took out pleasure-parties. He might try to get that; but then he must remind the Signora that the glass-works at Murano would be closed at this hour. It would be very difficult to make inquiries. Why did not the Signora go to the Questura for aid? The police might be able to think of some way in which to get at the people of the glass-works.

An idea came to her suddenly. She wondered at herself for not thinking of it before. She would go to the hotel at which Lady Wychcote had been stopping. It was quite possible that they might know something at the office. She might even find Lady Wychcote herself. Yes—she was quite capable of doing an inconsiderate thing like this for her own convenience. She might have stopped there for tea on the way back, and, feeling tired, might have lingered to rest a while, not troubling to send Sophy word. Yes, yes. It might very well be like that. Sophy had ordered dinner for half-past eight that evening out of consideration for her mother-in-law's habits. It was now only ten minutes past eight. Lady Wychcote might consider it quite sufficient if she arrived in time for dinner.

---

LIV

Sophy ordered the gondola, took Rosa with her, and went to the Grand Hotel.

The head official at the bureau looked rather surprised by her questions. Lady Wychcote? No, her ladyship was not there. She had been there that morning, however. She had sent a message late the night before—after twelve o'clock, in fact—to tell them to keep her luggage at the hotel until further instructions, instead of sending it to 35 Rio San Vio next day, as she had at first ordered.

"To keep her luggage?" Sophy interrupted blankly.

"Si, Signora. But I was about to explain," answered the clerk. "This morning, about nine, Lady Wychcote came again with her railway tickets so that we might check her luggage straight through to Paris...."

Sophy turned white.

"You must be mistaken!..." she said.

"Ma, no, Signora—scusi. ... I am not mistaken," said the clerk decidedly. "The tickets were through from Venice to Paris. Her ladyship wished her luggage sent by the ten-thirty train this morning. I think that she herself left by that train also. Shall I send for the head porter? He will know."

"Yes, please," Sophy managed to murmur. She sank down into the nearest chair.

The head porter came shortly. He had just returned from the station. Yes. Lady Wychcote had left that morning on the through train for Paris.

Sophy could not articulate for a moment. Then she said, her lips stiff and dry:

"Was she ... was she ... alone?"

The porter replied that Miladi had been alone when he last saw her, as she had insisted on being taken to the station an hour before the train left. But that the tickets were for herself and her maid. So that he supposed that the maid had joined her later. There happened to be no other guests leaving on the through train for Paris that morning, and as Miladi had insisted that he should not wait, he had returned to the hotel. Miladi was very positive.

"You are sure there was not a ... a little boy with her?" Sophy asked.

Yes—the porter was quite sure that there had been no little boy with Miladi.

Sophy's mind was working in terrible, clear flashes.

She turned to Rosa, who stood a little apart, rather scared, feeling that something puzzling and dreadful was in the air, but only understanding now and then a word of the English in which all were speaking.

"You said that Lady Wychcote took her maid with her this morning, didn't you?" Sophy asked.

Rosa replied that Anna had certainly started for Murano with Lady Wychcote and Bobby.

It seemed to Sophy that she saw it all now. Her mother-in-law, afraid of being traced too easily if she kept the boy with her, had left him somewhere with Anna until a few minutes before the train started. Anna was a clever, middle-aged Yorkshire woman who had been with her ladyship some twenty years. She could be trusted to hold her tongue and act intelligently in such a case. She was, oddly enough, devoted to her mistress, and would never have thought of questioning her commands, no matter how singular they might have appeared to her.

And yet—could Lady Wychcote really have dared to kidnap the boy—for it was nothing less than kidnapping if she had taken him away with her in that determined, secret fashion. But why? What excuse could she give? And had she really done it! And, if not, where was Bobby? Where was her little son at this late hour of the evening? She felt quite crazy and witless for a few moments. What to do? How to act? And time was going. If Bobby had really been stolen from her, then she must follow on the next train, if possible. But where? Where would that relentless old woman take him? If she (Sophy) went to Paris—she would have no further clue on reaching it. Lady Wychcote might go on to England; she might not. And why? Why?

Suddenly she knew. In a searing flash she knew just why it was that Lady Wychcote had taken the boy—and that she had surely taken him. She remembered that strange tone in her voice last night, when she had spoken with her after Amaldi had left. Yes—that was it! She had thought the worst of her late return in company with Amaldi. She would give that as her reason for taking away the boy—his mother's unfitness to be his guardian.

Something wild and potent sprang to life in her. She got to her feet. She looked like another woman. Now she was asking when the next through train left for Paris. At ten o'clock, they told her. It was now twenty-five minutes past nine. She might make it if she went straight to the station in the gown she wore, without stopping to get even a small travelling-bag. But no—she was not sure enough that that was the best thing to do. The through tickets that Lady Wychcote had bought to Paris might be only a blind. She must be very certain when she acted to act in the surest way. A favourite saying of Judge Macon's came into her mind. "Be sure you're right—then go ahead." Besides, Amaldi might be at the Rio San Vio by now. He would be sure to advise her in the sanest, most clear-sighted way. He was the very man to stand firm in a crisis, not to lose his head. Then, with a hot recoil of shame, she thought of what she must tell him. She had not yet taken in what all this might also mean to her and Amaldi. She could think only of Bobby, bewildered, unhappy, rushing away from her on the night express to Paris in company with the bitter old woman who had always hated her. She recalled the feeling of his strong little body as he had snuggled close to her last night. A fury of impotent love and rage shook her. The gondola seemed to crawl over the light-jewelled water of the canal, though Lorenzo and Mario were sending it along at racing speed. A gaily lighted barge filled with singers and musicians passed them.

As they turned into the little Rio, by the Palace of Don Carlos, another barge began burning Bengal lights. The dark, narrow water-way, with its crowding houses and little bridges, flared red before her as in some operatic scene. Why were things always so brutally ironical? Why should there be a festival in Venice on the night that her boy had been stolen from her?

When she reached her flat she found a wire from Amaldi, saying that he would take the train from Cortola to Venice, and be with her by ten o'clock. It was the quickest way that he could reach her. As she put down the telegram she heard his voice on the stair, speaking to Lorenzo. Then he came in alone. He took her in his arms, held her close a moment, then led her to a sofa, and sat down beside her, keeping her hands in his.

"Now tell me," he said.

She told him everything. As she spoke he kept muttering, "What infamy!... What infamy!..." He was as convinced as she was of the truth of her conjectures.

Her dark, tortured eyes made him wince with a double pain. It was only her son that she was thinking of in those moments, not of him, her lover—not of what this parting would mean to him and her. "What must I do?" she kept asking him. "What must I do next? Ought I to have tried to catch that ten o'clock train? Tell me, Marco ... for God's sake, tell me what I'd best do...."

"Wait, dearest...." he said. "Give me time to think...."

He sat frowning down at the floor for a few moments. Then he turned to her. He asked her about the Wychcotes' solicitor.

"Do you think this Mr. Surtees is really your friend?" he said when she had told him all about her relations with the old lawyer.

"Yes. I'm sure he is," she said positively. "Why?"

"Because, in that case, it seems to me that the best thing would be for you to wire him to meet you at Folkestone. You can then give him the true facts and ask his help—before trying to see Lady Wychcote."

"You think she's taken Bobby to England, Marco?— You feel sure of that?"

"I don't think there's a doubt of it. She will go straight to Surtees with her story; of that I feel positive."

Sophy coloured painfully.

"You mean that ... that she would want him to speak to ... the trustees?" she asked in a low voice.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," he assented. What he really thought was that Lady Wychcote would want to have the matter taken at once before the Court. But he could not bring himself to tell her this. Her shamed flush had hurt him horribly. It was intolerable that this revengeful old woman should have the power to sully and cloud their relations. Then fear seized him. What if Sophy were mistaken about the solicitor? What if he were a tool of Lady Wychcote? The possibilities that this idea disclosed appalled him. He went as white as Sophy had gone red.

"What is it? What are you thinking of now, Marco?" she urged anxiously, scared by his expression.

"I was thinking how you could get to England in the shortest time," he answered. "It's very vital that you should get there as soon as possible."

"Yes, yes. By that first through train to Paris to-morrow morning."

"No. You needn't go to Paris," said Amaldi. "It will be more direct for you to go from Venice straight to Boulogne via Laon. You'll save several hours by taking that route."

"Oh—thank God!" she stammered. Then she caught up his hand to her heart. "How good you are to me! Don't think I don't realise it—your unselfishness.... You think only of me—and I can't think of anything but my boy ... of how frightened and wretched he must be.... It's not that my love for you is any less than my love for him ... but he's so little ... he's my only son ... he needs me so...."

Amaldi felt like crying out, "And do I not need you?" but he choked down this cry. What meaning had the love of lovers for Rachel mourning her children? He drew her to him and kissed her loosened hair very gently.

"This is Bobby's hour," he said. "I can wait for my hour."

He left not long after, so that the servants might have no cause to gossip. It had been decided between them that he would attend to everything for her and that she and Rosa would be ready to leave by the morning train.

"I will send men to fetch your boxes at nine," he said. "Your maid can go with them. I will take you to the station myself."

"Thank you ... thank you, dearest...." she said.

Suddenly he caught her in his arms as on the day before in the Villa garden.

"Don't forget that you are the blood of my soul...." he said in a strangled voice.

She sobbed out his name—put up her arms about his neck. He kissed her rather wildly and went without another word.

That strange phrase of his rang in her mind all night, mingled with her frantic, confused thoughts of Bobby—and anguish of dread about what Lady Wychcote might say and do before Mr. Surtees could hear the true facts.

Amaldi had spoken in Italian as he nearly always did in moments of great feeling. She could hear his choked voice saying those strange, intense words ... "sei il sangue del anima mia"—the blood of his soul ... she was that to him. And yet, as she lay on the bed that Bobby had shared with her only last night, she felt as if her son were the true blood of her own soul ... that if she lost him by any dreadful, unspeakable chance—her soul would bleed away ... there would be no love left in her for any one.... And she began to reproach herself bitterly through the endless, sleepless night. She had been wrapped up in her own life ... she had not thought as she should of the precious little life derived from hers.... She should have foreseen. Knowing Lady Wychcote as she knew her, she ought to have had such a possibility as this that had happened always before her.

Then again she would think of Amaldi with a throb of pain and yearning. How pale he had looked ... how worn. She could not sleep. Her head and heart both were burning. Now Loring's face came before her. It blended with Amaldi's, blurring it, blotting it out. Now it was Cecil who looked straight at her with hard, angry eyes. "Where is my son, eh?... What have you done with my son?" he seemed to say.

She rose from the bed finally, lighted a candle and began to pack her travelling bags. As soon as daylight came, she asked Rosa to make her some coffee. Then, in spite of the woman's protests, helped her with the other packing. Once when they were folding Bobby's little garments, she put down her head on Rosa's shoulder and began to sob. Then she controlled herself again. She would need all her strength for the hours and days that lay before her.

---

LV

Later in the morning, when she was on her way to the station alone with Amaldi, it was even worse, but she had no temptation to cry now. This new pain that had sprung suddenly to life in her had the searing quality of hot iron. She kept stealing glances at his face, as he sat beside her in the gondola looking straight ahead, his under-lids drawn slightly up. It gave him a queer, short-sighted yet uncanny look, as though he were trying to focus some apparition of the future. He was thinking:

"If she has to choose between me and her son—she will choose her son."

Sophy was thinking:

"How long will it be before I see him again?... What if I never see him again?" She felt as if some inner force were tearing her in two. She had just begun to realise that in finding Bobby again she might lose Amaldi.

She put her hand on his.

"Marco...." she whispered. Her voice was full of fear and pain.

His hand turned under hers, clasped it tight. He looked at her but said nothing.

"I'm afraid...." she whispered again. "Not only about Bobby ... about us...."

"I know," he said this time.

He tried to think of some words of comfort, but they would not come. He was obsessed by the suffocating pain of his desire to help and guard her in this dreadful crisis, and the knowledge that the only thing he could do for her was to keep away, to let her take that long, anxious journey alone. At the time when she needed him most he could do nothing. His love was powerless. It was because of his love that this dark thing had come upon her. He said at last, rather mechanically:

"When you see the solicitor, things will clear, I feel certain.... You'll write me as soon as you've seen him?"

"Yes ... yes," she answered eagerly. "And you ... you'll write to me ... every day, won't you?... That will be my only comfort ... my only...."

She choked and could not go on.

He asked her where he should address his letters, and she answered "to Breene."

"They will be forwarded to me wherever I am ... you see.... I don't know yet where I shall be ... just at first...."

Again she broke off.

They had reached the station. It was now a quarter to ten. Only fifteen minutes more and they would be parted—for how long?

But even for these fifteen minutes they could not be together. Amaldi had still to see to things—to find out whether her luggage was all on board. She watched him as he went to and fro with his light, nervous step. It was all so unreal. Even he looked unreal. She could not see his face plainly at this distance. She tried to recall it, and it frightened her when she found that she could not imagine it clearly though she had looked at it so often and so earnestly during the past hour. Would she be unable to see his face in her thought when they were really parted? Then she began to watch the station clock. Only ten minutes more now—only nine ... eight——

He came back with a fachino, who gathered up her bags, and went off towards the train with them. Seven minutes now....

She sprang to her feet.

"Let us walk together...." she said, "somewhere away from all these people...."

They went slowly down the long station, beside the rails over which her train would soon be rolling. Their white, drawn faces would have attracted more attention were not such faces often seen at railway stations. One or two people gave them a passing glance of curiosity. About them sounded voices and footsteps, trundling wheels, sharp whistlings, the clang of testing hammers, the stridor of escaping steam, all made harsher and more echoing by the vaulted roof and stone walls of the station.

He offered her his arm, and she clung to it faint with pain. The clattering, grinding, sibilant din added to her misery. The acrid smell of coal-smoke recalled hateful memories. She had so many things she wished to say. They jostled in her mind. She could not choose which one to say first. And with him it was much the same. Then he murmured something that she could not catch. She clutched his arm, saying, "What is it?... Tell me again.... I didn't hear."

The scream of an engine drowned her voice. They heard the guard's whistle. People were scrambling into the carriages. A fat man in plaid trousers was running ridiculously, his bag banging against his legs. People laughed. Amaldi was helping her into a carriage. The guard slammed the door. She stood at the window and reached out her hand to him. He grasped it, looking up at her in silence. Then the train began to move. He walked beside it for a little way. The rhythm of the wheels quickened. The trucks began their clangorous, jerky sing-song. The closely clasped hands were drawn apart. She felt the rushing air chill on her hand that was still warm from his. She sank back, pulling down the brown travelling veil that she had thrown back for her last look at him. With closed eyes she tried to recall his face, and, as before, in the station, it refused to come clearly to her. Mile after mile she sat there without stirring, and it seemed to her that she must have cried out with the sharp misery of it all, but for the motion of the train which seemed in some inexplicable way to dull the edge of her suffering. When the train stopped at some station she could scarcely endure the sudden stillness. Then when it rushed on again, again in that odd way, her pain became once more soothed.

But after half an hour or so this haze of stupefaction lifted, leaving her face to face with clear agony once more. It was the thought of her son that racked her now ... her little son, flesh of her flesh, heart of her heart. What must he, too, be enduring?—he who had once begged her never to leave him again, "for Jesus' sake, Amen." She could see his little, pale face upturned to the car windows at Sweet-Waters station and hear the tremble in his voice. She felt as though a knife were being turned round and round in her breast. Then black fear seized her again ... fear of what it might be in Lady Wychcote's power to do against her—what she might have done already. Would Mr. Surtees really be her friend? Would he believe her? Would all those strange men believe her story? Would she have to tell it to them face to face?— Perhaps go into Court?

She clenched her hands in her helpless anguish until they ached and burnt.... O God!... God! Suppose that some ill had come to him. Suppose she were never to hear that eager, strong little voice again.... She stood up suddenly to her full height. People in the carriage stared at her. She dropped back again wondering if she had cried out....

About sunset the train began to mount the Gothard. Now she was in the grip of a new horror—the memory of the last time that she had taken this journey. She could see, as if it had been yesterday, Gerald Wychcote's thin, frail figure looking so much frailer than usual in its unaccustomed black—that awful, oblong black box guarded by Gaynor in the luggage van—the box in which Cecil travelled like goods on a goods train.... Now it was for Cecil's son that she was taking the dreadful journey.... Again it seemed to her that she saw his angry, hard blue eyes staring at her and heard him saying, "Where is my son, eh? What have you done with my son between you—you and your latest lover?"

She grasped her head in both hands, wondering if the wild pain in it meant brain fever....

It was drizzling next morning when they reached Boulogne, but the sea was calm. She looked hungrily at the grey curtain of mist that shut out England.

The crossing was short. And yet it seemed to her an eternity before the steamer docked at Folkestone. Had Mr. Surtees received the telegram that Amaldi had sent for her night before last? Would he be there to meet her? Her heart beat to suffocation, as she leaned over the taffrail staring down at the crowd below. Then it gave a sudden leap—— Yes—there he was. His prim, kindly old face was anxiously upturned. He was looking for her just as she was looking for him. She waved to him ... called his name. A few moments more and she was beside him. She tried to speak, but no sound came from her white lips. He hurried to tell her what he knew that she was trying to ask.

"Your son is with Lady Wychcote at Dynehurst, Mrs. Chesney," he said. "I saw her ladyship yesterday."

Sophy staggered. The old lawyer offered his arm. He looked almost as pale as she did. He wanted to fetch her a glass of brandy, but she would not have it.

"I shall be quite right ... quite right in a moment," she kept gasping. She bent her head as she walked beside him, struggling with a desire to burst into inane laughter. Hateful throes of hysteria convulsed her throat. She overcame them by a violent effort of will that left her feeling weaker than ever. She clung blindly to Mr. Surtees' arm, stumbling now and then.

"I reserved a compartment in the London train," he told her. "Do you wish your maid to go with us, or in the next compartment?"

"Not with us," murmured Sophy. "I wish to talk with you quite alone."

She regained her composure little by little, and as soon as the train was under way turned to him and said in a firm voice:

"Mr. Surtees—what did Lady Wychcote say to you about me?— What reason did she give for abducting my son?"

The solicitor flushed and his eyes fell away from hers.

"If you will excuse me a moment, Mrs. Chesney," he answered, "there is a paper in my bag that I would like to show you. I ... a ... have embodied in writing the gist of her ladyship's ... a ... remarks."

He opened a small black bag as he spoke and took out a legal looking paper. He half unfolded it, glanced nervously at its contents, then hesitated.

"It is most painful to me to have to submit this document to you, Mrs. Chesney," he said, distress in his voice. "I beg you to believe that I have never had a more painful duty to perform."

"Thank you, Mr. Surtees," said Sophy. She changed colour cruelly, but her tone was still firm and quiet. "Let me see it, please...."

He gave her the paper, and looked away from her while she read it.

It stated that the Viscountess Wychcote alleged that her daughter-in-law, the Hon. Mrs. Cecil Chesney, widow of the late Hon. Cecil Chesney, etc., etc., was an improper person to have the care of the young peer, her son, Viscount Wychcote, as she, Viscountess Wychcote, believed that Mrs. Chesney had committed adultery with the Marchese Marco Amaldi. Then followed Lady Wychcote's reasons for so believing, and for the first time Sophy learned that Colonel Bollingham had seen her enter Amaldi's lodgings in Clarges Street the day after his supposed accident.

She sat motionless for some time after reading this accusation, then she spoke to the solicitor:

"Mr. Surtees...." she said.

He turned unhappily.

"Mr. Surtees," she repeated, looking straight into his eyes with her own so passionately intent and still, "I am going to tell you the whole truth—so help me God."

She lifted her right hand slightly as she spoke, her eyes fixed on his. He bent his head mechanically as if acknowledging her oath. Then clearly, slowly, pausing now and then to command herself, Sophy told him the whole story of Amaldi's love for her and hers for him. The old lawyer sat listening intently. After the first few moments he forgot his distressing embarrassment in the deep human interest of the story that was being unfolded before him. As Sophy drew near the end and told of the bad news that Barti had brought from Switzerland, and of how the accident to Amaldi's mother had made her so late in returning to Venice, of how she had found Lady Wychcote there a day before her intended visit, and of all that she had endured next day when she feared at first that some dreadful accident had happened to her son—as she told all this very simply, very movingly in plain, quiet words, the sedate face of Mr. Surtees grew first discomposed then rather grim.

Sophy ceased. The whispering roar of the heavy English train filled the silence for a little. Then she said:

"Do you believe me, Mr. Surtees?"

He answered gravely, even solemnly.

"I do believe you, Mrs. Chesney."

At this Sophy broke down, and hiding her face from him cried bitterly.

---

LVI

It was most distressing to Mr. Surtees to see this tall, dignified woman collapse into such a bitter abandonment of weeping. He had even a secret affection for Sophy after his prim fashion. As poor Bobby would have said, it made him feel "rather sick" to sit there helplessly watching her. He had an almost irresistible impulse to put his hand on her shaking shoulder and pat it gently. Only the habit of a decorous legal lifetime restrained him. He fidgeted nervously with his glasses and the paper that she had handed back to him, began to mutter such words of consolation as he could think of.

"My dear lady ... my dear lady.... Compose yourself.... We shall find a way out.... I have suggestions ... yes, suggestions...."

Sophy reached out one hand to him blindly, her face still hidden. He took it gingerly but tenderly in both his own. Nature overcame decorum.

"My poor, poor child...." he said shakily.

As a staunch Conservative and member of the church of England, he had not approved of Sophy's divorce. In theory he was much shocked by the fact that she should have contemplated a third marriage. Yet, as she herself told it, her story took quite another aspect in the old lawyer's mind—seemed, in fact, the most natural and inevitable outcome of circumstances. The circumstances he still disapproved of, while sympathising, against his judgment and much to his own astonishment, with the romance that had resulted from them. And he felt highly indignant at the course pursued by Lady Wychcote.

When Sophy was calm again, he asked leave to tell her some of the "suggestions" to which he had referred.

"Tell me first of all how to get my son again," she urged. "What must I do to get him back at once, Mr. Surtees? I will not stop at anything ... no! not at anything!" Now she was all fierce and strong with maternity again. Her eyes blazed from her swollen lids, giving her ravaged face a wild, piteous look.

"If you should insist upon regaining possession of your son by legal proceedings," answered Mr. Surtees, "you would have to apply to a Judge at Chambers for a writ of habeas corpus, demanding his production before the Judge and an order that he be released to you his mother and guardian. But if you will allow me, I think I can suggest a better way than taking this distressing matter before the law.... I would suggest...."

Sophy interrupted him breathlessly.

"But that paper ... the paper you showed me just now. Isn't that to be shown in Court—to a Judge!"

Mr. Surtees hastened to reassure her.

"That is not a legal document strictly speaking," he said quickly. "It is merely my memorandum of the affidavit that Lady Wychcote wishes to present—to the Court. I have taken no steps whatever as yet. I felt it necessary to delay this deplorable matter as much as possible—certainly until I had seen you, Mrs. Chesney. Now if you will allow me ... I really think that you will find my suggestions of value...."

Sophy listened in silence while he told her of the solution that had occurred to him. In the first place, that the matter should be kept out of Court, he considered vitally important, for although the application would be heard in Chambers at the first instance, either party dissatisfied with the Judge's decision might appeal and then the matter would become public. Now what he suggested was that he should accompany Mrs. Chesney to Dynehurst, and that she should demand a private interview with Lady Wychcote in his presence. After what Mrs. Chesney had confided to him, he thought there could be no doubt of a private settlement of the matter. That the mother of the Marquis Amaldi would be willing to witness in Mrs. Chesney's defence was a most important fact; also the circumstance of her having been accompanied by Miss Pickett when she went to inquire for the Marquis after his supposed accident. Then, too, the stainlessness of her reputation in the past would undoubtedly weigh considerably with the Judge in his estimate of the case. Altogether, everything pointed to the likelihood of a decision in favour of Mrs. Chesney against her ladyship, should the matter be brought to law. So that when Lady Wychcote had been made to understand this, he thought that she could scarcely refuse to deliver up Mrs. Chesney's son to her.

"You don't know her, Mr. Surtees," here broke in Sophy, white and hard. "You don't know to what lengths that woman is capable of going...."

"I am not entirely ignorant of her ladyship's ... a ... characteristics," replied her solicitor somewhat tartly. "But in this instance I think that I could present the case to her so that she would a ... see its a ... rationality."

Sophy brooded a moment. Then she said:

"And if she would not listen ... if she insisted on proceeding against me!"

"Then," replied Mr. Surtees, "she would have to state formally in her affidavit the sources of her information. An affidavit would also be forthcoming from the person or persons who could prove the alleged ... a ... misconduct, or the circumstances from which the misconduct could be proved. If the Judge believed her ladyship's story he would order your son to be handed over to her. If he disbelieved it he would order him to be delivered up to you. I think there is little doubt which story he would believe, Mrs. Chesney. Besides, the abduction of a child is an utterly illegal and reprehensible act—no matter what the motive. A court of morals would look at the motive of course, and so Lady Wychcote's abduction of your son being prompted by her affection for him, would be judged differently from a like case in which base or sordid motives were the cause. But I do not think that her ladyship's act would be regarded by any Judge as other than highly reprehensible. This fact, taken with the rest, may well cause her ladyship to reconsider."

Sophy still brooded, her eyes on the streaking fields. The stilted legal phraseology seemed part of the grim unnaturalness of everything. Suddenly she flashed round on him.

"Which way can I get my boy the sooner?" she said.

"By allowing me to go with you to Dynehurst; I am convinced of it," he replied without an instant's hesitation. "Days might elapse if you took the other course."

"Very well," she said, "I will go with you—by the first train that we can take."

---

It was about nine o'clock when they reached Dynehurst station. They had to wait there half an hour for a fly. It seemed to Sophy as if this half-hour of waiting would never end. Then when they were once more on the way again, the lean hacks plodded at a snail's pace over the sodden roads. For the last twenty-four hours it had been raining heavily, now the air was moistened by a Scotch mist. Sophy sat forward on the musty seat, her hands gripped together, thinking of those other times she had driven to Dynehurst through the night—first as a bride—then as a widow, with her husband's body following in that huge, oblong black box, that now lay in the crypt of the little chapel.... When they drove past the chapel a fit of shivering seized her. She set her teeth to keep them from chattering. Now the cliff-like house loomed. She saw the files of lighted windows, but the nursery was at the back, she could not see if there were still lights in his window. Her heart began a sick throbbing. Was he asleep, her Bobby, her little son? Or did he lie awake, wretched, unhappy, wondering about it all—longing for her so that he could not sleep? She wanted to cry out to him that she was coming. She could scarcely wait for the fly to draw up at the front door. Before Mr. Surtees could assist her, she was out and up the steps. She rang twice. Rage woke in her as she stood waiting for admittance into the house where her son was shut from her as in a prison. She trembled with her pent anger more than she had trembled in passing Cecil's tomb. Then a footman opened the door. She stepped past him without a word, and ran towards the stairway.

Mr. Surtees hurried after her.

"Wait ... wait, Mrs. Chesney ... be advised ... I implore you...." he panted.

But Sophy did not even hear him. Her son ... she was going to her son ... that was all that she knew or felt in that moment.

She had not mounted five steps before she saw Lady Wychcote and Bellamy coming down.

She stopped and threw back her head with a fierce gesture.

"I've come for my son," she said, her eyes on Lady Wychcote's. "Where is my son?"

Both Lady Wychcote and Bellamy stood staring down at her without a word, and something in their faces made her suddenly shrivel with fear. She reached them in a bound or two, seized Lady Wychcote's arm, holding her as in a vice. Her wild look went from one pale face to the other.

"What's the matter? What have you done to him?" she gasped. "Where is he?"

She loosed Lady Wychcote as suddenly as she had seized her. Now her frantic, asking fingers grasped Bellamy.

"Is he ill? Is he ... dead?" she stammered.

Then with the same violent quickness she released Bellamy also before he could reply. Leaping past them, she ran towards the nursery.

Bellamy caught her up.

"Wait, Mrs. Chesney ... wait...." he implored as the old solicitor had done. "He's not in the nursery.... He is in ... in his father's room.... Wait a moment.... Let me explain ... for the boy's sake."

He had ventured to take her arm, and held her back somewhat as he hurried beside her.

"Bobby is not well...."

She stopped short—spun round in his hold.

"Is he dead? Is he dead? Is he dead?" she kept muttering like an automaton.

"No ... no. Only a bad cold ... from exposure.... Rather feverish.... You mustn't excite him, though.... Mustn't rush in on him like this.... Sit here a moment, Mrs. Chesney.... Recover yourself.... Let me explain."

Like an automaton she sat down in the hall chair that he pushed forward. He could see the beading of sweat about her eyes and lips as she looked up at him.

He galloped his explanation, bending over her, speaking in a low voice, and glancing now and then at the door of Cecil's old bedroom near which they were.

"The little chap got lost in the Park last night ... was some hours in a pelting rain ... d'you see? He's in no immediate danger ... but he has pneumonia ... is feverish. We mustn't startle or excite him—d'you see?"

She sat staring up at him out of a dead face in which the eyes looked startlingly alive. Then she rose, said in a flat, quiet voice:

"Yes ... I see. Now take me to him."

---

LVII

Bellamy went ahead and opened the door carefully so as to make no sound. She stood a moment on the threshold looking in. Cecil's bed faced her, and in it lay his son, propped on pillows to help his difficult breathing. His grey eyes were wide and bright and unfocused—his cheeks scarlet. On the sheet before him lay some bits of silver money and a few bank notes. He fumbled with them incessantly. He was saying in a thick quick, little voice:

"A first-class ticket.... A ticket to London.... A first-class ticket to London, please.... I have the money ... here's the money.... I have the money.... A ticket to London...."

Sophy clung to the jamb of the door. She could not move. Bellamy put his arm round her. The nurse, who had been sitting by the bed, rose and came forward.

Suddenly the boy cried out piteously: "Oh! it's getting wet ... it's melting ... my money's melting...."

The nurse flew back to him.

"No, dear, no," she reassured him. "Here's your money all nice and dry. Here's your ticket to London. You're going to London...."

"No, no! ... It's all melted ... it won't buy a ticket.... I can't find her.... I can't get to her...."

Sophy sank down by the bed, and took the hot little hand in both her own.

"I'm here, my darling.... I'm here...." she said in a voice of wonderful quiet. "You won't need to go to London to find me, dearest.... See, I'm here...."

The brilliant eyes fixed on her anxiously. ".... Mother?" ventured the perplexed voice, faintly hopeful. Then again that piteous wail broke from him. The little hand jerked in hers trying to release itself. "You're not my mother ... my mother's in Venice.... I'm going to her.... Where's my money? Where's my money?"

Sophy dropped her face upon the bedclothes. The nurse and doctor stood by in silence. Bobby fumbled with the money. He began again: "A first-class ticket, please.... A ticket to London.... A ticket to London.... I've got the money ... here's the money...."

The anguish of remorse and love were rending her, but outwardly she was as calm as the two professionals who stood and pitied her.

She looked up at last. She said to Bellamy:

"You can trust me. I am quite controlled. But...." She gasped in spite of her furious will. ".... don't let her come into this room."

"No, she shall not. Don't be afraid," Bellamy said soothingly as to a child. "I will go and see to it. Nurse Fleming here will aid you in every way. Bobby likes her...." he added, then left the room.

Now the boy was turning his head from side to side on the pillow.

"It's jolly hot in here ... it's too hot ... it's too hot...." he kept muttering. Then he called out fretfully: "I'm thirsty!... I want some water!"

Nurse Fleming gave him some chilled water in a spoon. He was quiet for a second or two. Then he began again in that thick, quick little voice:

"A ticket to London, please.... A ticket to London.... I'm her only man.... She said I was.... He ain't her man ... he's married.... I'm glad.... I don't want a new father.... I hate new fathers.... Mother dear, I'm your man.... Don't marry anybody.... I'm your man...."

Sophy began whispering softly, her face close to his:

"No, sweetheart. You're my only, only man.... I'm not going to marry anybody, my darling. Bobby.... Bobbikins ... it's mother talking to you ... mother.... My little man ... my only little man...."

He seemed to recognise her for an instant. "Mother!... Let's begin our book.... Once upon a time.... No, that's silly.... It was glass ... glass ... a glass book.... Put our names together ... print them.... No.... I want a ticket to London, please.... A ticket to London...."

---

In the meantime, Mr. Surtees and Bellamy were talking very seriously to Lady Wychcote. Her ladyship was badly frightened. It did not take them long to bring her to a reasonable view of the question at issue. If her grandson should die, she could not but realise that his death would be laid to her account by others, though her own angry thought insisted that his mother would be really the one to blame. Then, too, she loved the boy, as has been said, far more than she had ever loved her own sons. She quailed inwardly with pain when she thought of the shriek of terror with which Bobby had greeted her a little while ago when she had entered the room with Bellamy. "Don't let her get me!... Don't let her take away my ticket!" he had screamed. For with the strange inconsistency of delirium he had recognised his enemy at once, though his mother's presence had been unable to soothe him. Lady Wychcote had been compelled to withdraw, lest the child should go into convulsions from his frenzied fear of her.

She sat subdued though haughty while Mr. Surtees pressed home the facts that he considered would militate against her should she persist in her struggle for the sole guardianship of her grandson. Bellamy, in whom she had confided when he was called to Bobby's bedside, was strongly of the solicitor's opinion.

They both agreed in thinking that Lady Wychcote's case would be as good as lost before being presented. Besides, after laying before her every other circumstance in Sophy's favour. Mr. Surtees assured her that the Judge would be certain to demand a private interview with the boy. In that case Bobby's absolute devotion to his mother would have the greatest weight with the Court. And—her ladyship must pardon him—but after the events of the last two days, she could hardly expect that her grandson would reply as ... a ... favourably when questioned about his feeling for her.

They expatiated on the way that the boy had come to be in his present serious condition. The proud old woman sat listening with a face as grey as flint and as hard. But she was suffering as she had not suffered before in all her imperious life. Bellamy wound up by saying: "I regret having to distress you, Lady Wychcote; but the boy's condition is much more serious than I would admit to his mother. In fact he is very dangerously ill.... But even if he recovers, you would scarcely like, I presume, to have your part in the matter brought up in Court."

Lady Wychcote swayed on her chair.

"'If he recovers'...." she repeated thickly. "Is there danger ... of ... his ... dying?"

"Grave danger," said Bellamy.

Lady Wychcote fainted for the first time in her life.

---

When Bellamy thought of how poor Bobby had come to have pneumonia, he did not wonder that his grandmother should faint on hearing that he might die. It had happened in this way:

To all the boy's frantic inquiries when he found that he was on the way to England without his mother, Lady Wychcote had always answered in some such words as these: "You must trust me, my dear. You will understand some day, but now you must submit to my judgment without questioning. It is best for you and for your mother that you should come with me. I cannot tell you anything more at present. Be a good boy. After a while you will be very happy I am sure."

She told him frankly, however, that they were going to England.

When he asked if his mother knew, if she would come, too, very soon, Lady Wychcote had replied: "She will know shortly. I do not know what her plans are."

Then Bobby gave way to such rage as his grandmother had not witnessed since his father's childhood. He was like a demon. He tried to jump from the window of the carriage—fought with her and the maid till their gowns were torn and he was in a state of collapse. When he recovered from this he took refuge in utter silence. He would not eat or drink—would not move—crouched white and stony with closed eyes. When they reached Boulogne they had to get a man to carry him. But now his eyes were open. They looked fierce and animal-like. He himself looked like some savage, trapped little animal with a red mane. As he caught sight of the channel steamer and realised that he was to be carried aboard of it, he began to fight again. The man had difficulty in mastering him without hurting him. Lady Wychcote explained that the boy was temporarily insane and that she was taking him to England for treatment. Bobby shrieked: "You lie! You lie! You've stolen me! She's stolen me from my mother!"

It was the first time that the determined old lady had ever felt really afraid. She almost lost her head for a moment; but, fortunately for her, it was at this moment that Bobby collapsed again, as he had done in the railway carriage.

All the way from Dover to London he crouched again, motionless, with closed eyes. But now he was thinking—wildly yet rationally. He must escape somehow and get back to his mother. To escape he must put his grandmother off her guard. He must pretend to "be good." His pockets were full of money. He had taken from his little "bank" that morning the savings of two months. He had taken out all the money he had, because he wanted to buy his mother a glass gown if possible. There were in his pockets some English shillings and half-crowns, some silver lire, some five lire bank notes. It seemed quite a fortune to him—certainly enough to pay his way back to Venice. But how to get away from his grandmother? The only thing to do was to pretend to "be good" and wait ... and watch his chance. Then, too, he must keep strong. Now he felt very faint and sickish from hunger. He unclosed his eyes, looked at his grandmother, and said slowly:

"I've decided to behave. I'd like something to eat, please."

Lady Wychcote could have shouted with relief and joy. She would have kissed him, but he fended her off.

"Please ... I feel rather un-affectionate," he said. Something in his voice and look put the old lady at her proper distance. She could not meet the boy's eyes comfortably.

She said with great meekness for her: "Very well, Robert. But I am pleased to see you act like a man."

Anna opened the luncheon hamper and he ate a sandwich and drank some coffee and milk. The food sickened him suddenly. He could not eat more though he tried. He then sat quietly looking out of window till they reached London. Mr. Surtees met them at the station. He looked very much surprised when he saw Bobby. Lady Wychcote made him a significant gesture, and he did not express the surprise he felt. Also he thought that the boy looked ill. Bobby walked around and slipped his hand in the old solicitor's. He and Mr. Surtees had not seen each other often but they liked each other. Bobby's brain was racing. "Shall I tell him? Shall I tell him?" he was thinking. Then something in him said, "No." That Mr. Surtees would have to do as his grandmother wished him to—at least now. Perhaps later he could see him alone. They went to Claridge's. His grandmother and Mr. Surtees were alone together for a long time. Bobby was left upstairs in another room with Anna. She tried to coax him to talk with her but he had relapsed again into resolute silence. Then his grandmother came up, and told him that they were going to Dynehurst at once, and that he should have a new pony, and any kind of dog that he liked.

He said, "Thank you," civilly, but nothing more. His face had reddened as his grandmother spoke—with pleasure she thought. Yes ... ponies and dogs were a sure way to a boy's heart. She felt quite complacent and encouraged. The boy would be easier to manage than she had dared hope, after the frightful incidents of the journey.

Bobby had flushed because when she said that they were going to Dynehurst that afternoon, the thought had leaped to him: "I can get out of the house to-night, and buy a ticket to London at the station." Once in London he thought that it would be easy to get back to Venice. Perhaps Mr. Surtees would be his friend. Yes, he had better trust Mr. Surtees. But again, no—he was not sure about that. What he was sure about was that he could get out of the house that night and find his way to the station. It did not occur to him that the station-master might be unwilling to sell him a ticket to London.

That same night—the night that Sophy spent so miserably on the express that was taking her to him—he managed to dress himself and find his way out of the huge house without rousing any one. One of the housemaids had been sent to stay in the dressing-room next his, but she was a sound, healthy sleeper, and did not hear the boy's cautious movements. He crept downstairs in his stocking-feet, boots in hand. His overcoat had been put away. He went out into the dark, chill, misty night, dressed only in thin serge. At first he could see nothing, then bit by bit the shrubbery and trees revealed themselves ink on inky-grey. The crunching of the gravel helped him to find his way. His heart thumped sickeningly but high. He was free, free! On his way back to his mother. When he had groped some fifty yards from the house, he sat down on the ground to put on his boots. As he laced them he looked wrathfully back at the black mass of the grim old house. Two lighted hall windows in the floor above, and the lighted glass above the front door, gave it the appearance of a huge staring face, with luminous mouth and eyes. It seemed glowering at him like an ogre. He scrambled up, feeling rather queer and little in the lap of the dark, empty night, then trudged sturdily on, guided by the crunching of the gravel, as he strayed to right or left.

All at once, the trees began to sigh and creak—big drops struck his face—at first spatteringly, then thicker together. Within half an hour of his leaving the house, a heavy, wind-swept rain was pelting down; ten minutes more and he was soaked to the skin.

Now it was that he began to fear for his money, which was more than half in notes. He clenched his hands tightly over as much of it as he could grasp, and plodded on determinedly. But the steady pelting of the rain bewildered him. He wandered from the driveway—tried to find it again, with hands and feet this time. Blown twigs and leaves began to strike him. He walked against a tree—clung to it a moment, panting. Then groped his way on again. But now he was hopelessly lost in the big Park. A great, soggy mass of bracken stopped him. He skirted it—walked against more trees. He would not admit in his fierce, dogged little heart that he was lost. He kept rehearsing what he would say to the station-master: "A first-class ticket to London, please. Here's the money."

For nearly three hours the boy groped and stumbled in that maze of trees through the driving rain. For some time he had been saying earnest little prayers:

"Our Father who art in heaven ... please help me to get back to my mother. Our Father ... please. Our Father ... please...."

---

When they found him he was lying unconscious on the sodden grass under an elm—both hands clenched fast upon as much of the notes and silver in his pockets as he could grasp.

When he had been put to bed, and roused at last he was delirious. He began calling frantically, "My money! my money!" They gave it to him. Then had begun that monotonous chant of: "A first-class ticket to London, please.... A ticket to London.... Here's the money.... I've got the money."

This was why Bellamy did not wonder that Lady Wychcote fainted when he told her that Bobby might die.

---

LVIII

And now Sophy descended into the darkness of darkness where death and remorse sit brooding together—that vasty cavern of uttermost black gloom which underlies the Valley of the Shadow. Faith does not walk there nor hope. There a thousand years seem not as a day, but a day seems as a thousand years.

As she watched beside her son, she felt a more rending anguish than when she had given him birth, for now her soul was in travail of him. She who had given him life might now have given him death. If he died it would be she who had killed him. "Happiness hunter ... happiness hunter...." her own phrase rang in her mind.

And this was what her son had come to, while she was absorbed in hunting happiness....

She would not leave him now even long enough to change her clothes. Nurse Fleming brought her some fresh linen and a dressing-gown to the bedside, and put them on her as if she had been a child. She submitted quietly. The nurse unbound her hair, brushed and plaited it, then made her take an easy chair that she rolled up.

When Bellamy entered again Sophy roused from her tranced watching long enough to ask him to get Anne Harding if it were possible. He went at once to do so.

There was no night or day to Sophy now. The grim, candle-lit hours went by monotonous as a linked chain paid out of darkness into darkness by invisible hands.

Then came intervals of horror—struggles for breath. Wild shadows on the ceiling as nurse and doctor fought together with that other Shadow.

Anne Harding came. Sophy stared at her blindly, and said: "I thought you'd come, Cecil...."

Then after many days, each as a thousand years, a voice came through the smothering blackness in her mind. It said:

"He will live.... He's past the crisis...."

The blackness closed in again.

She came to herself on the bed in Cecil's dressing-room. There was an old etching of Magdalene Tower on the wall at the bed's foot.

She thought: "What a pity to call it 'Maudlin' instead of Magdalene...." Then everything weltered in on her at once—waves, wreckage, as of a world after flood. She was on her feet. She was in the other room. Anne Harding and Bellamy had hold of her. Her head felt hollow and very light. Her voice sounded light and piping in her own ears.

"Tell ... tell...." she was saying.

Anne Harding put her finger to her lips—glanced towards a smooth white bed. There was a little round of sunlight dancing on it. "Ssssh...." whispered Anne. "He's asleep.... We mustn't wake him. You've been very ill yourself, but our little man's doing finely."

They helped her to a chair beside the bed—Cecil's old leather armchair. Anne Harding could see his huge form in it as he used to sit glowering at her between the reduced doses of morphia. It gave her an odd feeling to put Sophy in that chair, and tuck a rug about her.

They all three sat in silence watching the sleeping child.

Sophy whispered once, with her avid eyes on the little, sunken face:

"Is he really only ... asleep?"

For answer, Bellamy lifted one of Bobby's hands and laid it in hers.

"He's so sound it won't wake him," he reassured her, smiling.

And for Sophy the warmth of that little hand was as the warmth of her own soul's blood.

---

For a long, long time she sat there with inner vision fixed on the beautiful and terrible star that had risen in the dark night of her soul—the star of a destiny as stern and far more ancient than that foretold at Bethlehem: the star of primordial and eternally recurrent sacrifice ... of the crucifixion of the mother for the child. And a woman if she be so lifted up shall draw all women to her and to each other—for this is the dark yet shining law, whereby the individual's loss is the gain of the whole race.

When Bobby at last opened his eyes they rested on his mother's face. She hardly dared to breathe, it was so wonderful to see those grey eyes looking into hers with recognition. And the boy, too, was afraid to stir or speak lest his mother's face should vanish or change into some dreadful difference as it had vanished and changed in the dreams of fever. But as she knelt, holding his hand against her breast, gazing at him out of the eyes that meant all love to him—a little stiff, wistful smile parted his lips.

"Mother ... dear...." he whispered.

Then Sophy put her cheek to his. He felt the soft glow of her sheltering breast.

"Hold me fast ... don't leave me...." he murmured.

"Never, my darling ... my only man ... never, never again...."

"Our Father...." stumbled Bobby, ".... thank you ... ever so much...."

Then he drowsed off again.

---

A week later Sophy was sitting beside him as usual, and again he was sleeping. It was drawing towards sunset. A lovely glow filled the sky and lighted the yellowing trees in the Park.

Bobby waked suddenly and, gazing out of the window near his bed, pleaded:

"Mother ... I do so want to smell the out of doors.... Couldn't you open this window?"

Sophy called Anne Harding, who was in the next room.

"Do you think we might open it?" she asked, after telling her what Bobby wanted. "It's so mild to-day—like St. Martin's summer.... He wants it so much...."

"Of course we can," Anne answered cheerfully. "Dr. Fresh Air's the best doctor of 'em all."

She raised the sash and went back into the other room. Doctors and nurses left those two alone together as much as possible.

The mild air, sweet with fading leaves and bracken, stole softly into the room.

"How jolly...." breathed the boy. "It's like fairies touching me...."

He turned his face towards his mother.

"Come lie by me, mother ... like that night in Venice," he said.

Sophy lay down beside him and took his head upon her arm. Bobby sighed deep in the fulness of his content. "I feel so jolly safe this way," he murmured. They rested quietly in each other's arms, looking up at the soft gold of the September sky. As on that day, nearly eight years ago, when Cecil had been laid in the chapel crypt, the yellow leaves drifted down, gently turning in the delicate air. The fallowed earth gave forth a fresh, pleasant smell. From the pasture lands below came the lowing of the Wychcote herd. Now a flight of homing rooks streamed across the sky.

"Oh, how jolly ... how jolly it all is," breathed the boy. "I'm glad I didn't die.... What a jolly noise the rooks make, don't they, mother?"

"Yes, darling," she answered him.

But what she heard and saw, high, high above their clamorous winging, was the ecstatic shrilling of the Venice swifts, and their impassioned arabesques of flight like joy made visible—like a joy above, beyond—far, far removed....