Chapter XIX: Part 19

"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.