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.