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....