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.