The situation had solved itself after that. Dismayed and thunderstruck,
Loring had been glad to loose his weeping goddess from his arms. It had
never occurred to him that his Selene could cry frankly, with choking
sobs and great tears like any other woman. It was a most discomfortable
revelation. Like all men he hated tears--but these especial tears in
addition to disconcerting him made him feel a blunderer, a sorry fool.
They set him in a darkness of confused wonder, where he felt like a
chastised child in a cupboard.
But Sophy stopped crying almost at once.
"Morris, dear," she said, "you know I told you I was deadly tired.... I
really am too tired to talk to-night-- I feel almost ill, I'm so weary.
But to-morrow I'll say everything that's in my heart.... Go to bed now,
will you, like a kind darling? I ... I'm better alone when ... when I
feel like this."
Loring looked at her, then down at the hearth-rug. His lips pursed.
"You'll clear this up for me to-morrow?" he asked in a sullen voice.
"Yes, dear-- I promise."
"All right, then. Sorry you feel so seedy."
He went towards the door. Before he reached it his gorge rose with
wounded pride and bewildered indignation. He turned his head as he went
out.
"Sorry I've been guilty of blasphemy...." he said. "Loving a goddess is
rather steep work at times...."
He went out, his eyes hard and resentful.
Sophy sank into her chair again. She sat looking into the fire. She
remembered how they had sat hand in hand, after their first kiss,
looking into another fire only a few months ago.
But this was whiskey, she reminded herself--only whiskey. She must prove
to him and herself that she was stronger than a mere appetite. But as
she sat there staring at the fire, it was Cecil that she thought of,
more than Loring. How terrible and fatal it seemed that, twice over, she
should be the rival of such things with those she loved. For her sake
Cecil had set himself to conquer. Then death had taken him. But before
he had died he had killed her highest love for him....
The next day they had a full talk together. He was in a very gentle,
penitent humour. He said that he understood just how she had felt.
He was on his knees by her chair, in his favourite attitude, holding her
waist with both arms.
She bent towards him. Her heart was very glad within her. She took his
face between her hands and kissed him on the eyes.
"You see, dearest," she said, "I'm a very faithful wife. I'm Morris
Loring's wife and I won't be made love to by"--she looked straight into
the eyes that she had just kissed--"by John Barleycorn," she ended,
smiling, to ease the tense moment for them both.
Loring dropped down his face into her lap. Then he looked up again. A
dance came into his eyes, that had been ashamed for a moment.
"I'll.... I'll kill the adulterous beggar!" he murmured.
Sophy felt a sharp twinge at her heart. Were all men more or less alike,
she wondered? Cecil Chesney himself might have made that remark and in
just that way.
Things went well after that for some months. Loring's friends even
wagged wise heads of grave foreboding over it. "Mrs. Morry's got him too
rankly bitted," they agreed unanimously. "He'll rear and come over
backwards if she don't look out...."
But Sophy was very moderate. She had no prudish objection to his
drinking in reason. She didn't enjoy seeing him in the false high
spirits engendered sometimes by extra "cocktails," but she only
positively objected to the amorousness occasioned by them. He had had
his lesson, however.
And as the winter wore on, and Sophy became more familiar with the
social life of New York, she understood better and better this side of
Loring's character. She found that there were very few young men of his
"set" who did not drink as a matter of course. Very often, nearly always
at balls and dances, many of them would be genially "tight" by the end
of the evening. This only made them extremely noisy and "larky" as a
rule. She found that the women took this state of affairs with indulgent
philosophy. Often they were amused by it.
As a whole the social life of New York, quite apart from this feature,
did not appeal to her. Its mad speed and ostentation resulted in a sort
of golden glare of monotony. Yet there were charming people, both men
and women, caught protesting in the maelstrom. They protested bitterly
as they went whirling round and round. Yet, when the maelstrom spewed
them forth in the spring tide--for the most part, they allowed
themselves to be sucked in by other whirlpools, such as Paris and London
and Newport. Sophy wondered at the nervous constitutions which could
stand such fevered repetition endlessly renewed. She reflected that
Americans were said to be the most nervous people on earth. Yet she
thought their nerves must be of thrice tempered steel to support the
life that they protestingly led from year's end to year's end.
She determined that, since her lot was now cast here, she would temper
her surroundings as much to her own taste as possible. For she had found
out, among other somewhat astonishing things, that Loring was socially
ambitious for her. He was resolved to build an elaborate and sumptuous
house in New York--what American journals call a "mansion." Sophy
pleaded for ample time in which to decide on the architecture and type
of this house. In the meantime they spent their spare hours in hunting
for a temporary abode where they might live during the next three or
four years.
The house of Loring's mother was the usual mass of gilding and marble
that characterised the last quarter of the nineteenth century in New
York. It was Italian. The lower floor looked like an ancient Roman Bath.
On the second floor was a Renaissance fountain. The library
chimney-piece was formed of an entire doorway taken from some tomb in
Italy, and still bearing the Italian family's coat-of-arms.
Sophy found what she wanted at last in a delightful old corner-house in
Washington Square. Every one remonstrated. The tide of fashion was
rushing like an eagre "up to the Park." Sophy did not care for Central
Park. She said that she was sure its Dryads were all made of cast-iron
and went bumping up and down every night between the horrific bronze
colossi in the main avenue. This did not seem a sufficient reason to
Loring's friends for selecting such an out-of-date, deserted spot as
Washington Square in which to live for the next four years.
However, when Sophy had finished furnishing and decorating the old
house, Loring was charmed, and very proud of her. But the house was not
completed until the following autumn.
In the meantime, Loring, without saying anything to Sophy, had leased
one of the Newport "palaces" from an absent owner for five years.
Sophy saw that the world had claimed her again. Now her mind bent itself
to the task of redeeming some months of the year for her own use. She
began to feel afraid. How was such a delicate visitant as Poetry to be
entertained amid all this confusion of tongues and glittering
paraphernalia?
"I must go to Sweet-Waters for May," she told Loring. "I'll open the
house in Newport on the first of June."
"But I'm booked for those polo matches on Long Island in May," said
Loring.
"I'm sorry, dear.... However, you won't miss me when you're playing polo
you know.... And I do long for a May in Virginia."
"Damn Virginia!" said Loring.
Sophy laughed at him.
"You'll love me all the more when I come back to you," she coaxed.
"Don't 'damn' poor Virginia."
"I do damn it.... I'm jealous of it."
"You needn't be."
She was still smiling at his sulky face.
"Yes, I do need ... you put it before me."
"Now, Morris...."
"Yes, 'Now, Morris'.... 'Now, Morris'...." (He mimicked her reproachful
tone.) "It's always 'Now, Morris' when I want what belongs to me...."
"Oh! So I 'belong' to you, do I?" she teased affectionately.
"Yes! By gad, you do! You married me.... You're my wife. A wife should
stay with her husband. You do belong to me."
He had his "Marmion" tone very pronouncedly.
Sophy said prettily:
"I think it would be truer to say we both 'belong.'"
"Well.... _I'm_ not leaving _you_, am I?"
She reached out and took the sulky, cleft chin between her finger and
thumb.
"Poor sing! Did dey 'buse it?" she said, as she addressed Dhu when he
had one of his fits of collie-melancholy. But Loring jerked away his
chin.
"Please don't treat me like a baby," he said stiffly. "I'm very far from
feeling like one."
Sophy pondered a moment. Then she said:
"I hate to remind people of promises ... but you'll remember that you
promised me I should have some time, every year, to myself----"
"You're tired of me already--is that it?"
"Now, dear--how am I to keep from treating you like a baby, when you act
so exactly like one?"
"It's babyish for a man to want his wife with him, is it?"
"Isn't it rather babyish of him not to want her to take one little month
to rest in and see her own people?"
"I thought my people were to be your people like the woman in the
Bible?"
"So they are ... but I've seen them all winter."
"Tired of us all, eh?"
Sophy said nothing in reply to this.
"Oh, well!" he exclaimed angrily, flouncing to the door. "If the new
salt has lost its savour--go to your old salt-lick----"
He bounced out, clapping the door. It was the first coarse thing he had
ever said to her. She felt indignant as well as hurt. But when she
reflected that his ill temper came from jealousy she was sorry for him,
too.
"But I must go all the same," she reflected. "If I give in this time, I
can never call my soul my own again."
She left for Virginia two days later, taking Bobby with her. She and
Loring had not quite "made up" before she left. They were very polite to
each other. Sophy's heart felt sore. This attitude of his was spoiling
her visit home. She thought that he would surely soften before the train
drew out. But he did not.
He lifted his hat as the engine began its hoarse starting cough.
"Well--so long," he said. "A happy May to you!"
Sophy felt a proud impulse to reply in kind. Then the sad influence of
parting, even for so short a time, melted her. She put her head from the
window.
"You'll come down to Virginia to fetch me back, won't you, dear?" she
asked.
"Don't know. Depends on how the games go," he answered curtly.
"I'll----"
The chuff-chuff of the moving engine drowned the rest of the sentence.