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..."