Sophy slipped down from her perch on the window-sill, and came and stood
between them.
"Oh, Chartie ... Joe...." she said, turning from one to the other, "why
do you look so? Surely you don't want me to waste long years of my life,
clanking this chain after me, wherever I go?... Not free ... not a wife
... not _anything_ really--and Morris in the same plight!... And
Belinda.... Think of that wild, self-willed girl...."
"You're crazy, Sophy!... You really talk as if you were crazy!..." broke
in Charlotte, suffocated. "How can you _mention_ that ... that...."
Propriety prevented Charlotte from expressing herself fully. ".... That
_creature_?" she ended, breathing very short. "How can you care _what_
becomes of her?"
Sophy looked tired all at once. She dropped into a chair near the desk.
"I suppose you'll think I'm crazier than ever," she said. "But while I
don't like Belinda, I don't think she's _quite_ a 'creature' ... not
yet, anyway. And her one chance is to.... Well ... my setting Morris
free quickly ... as soon as possible, will give her her chance."
Charlotte stared at her; her little mouth unlocked by sheer amazement.
Then she said in a faint voice:
"To _think_ of my living to hear _you_ speak like that!"
"I can't help it, Chartie. That's the way I feel. I must be perfectly
honest with you and Joe, or what's the use of my talking with you at
all? Do you think I _like_ doing it?" she asked, her own voice suddenly
trembling. "Never, never have I hated anything so much!" she ended
vehemently.
She got up, went over to the window again, and stood leaning against it,
her back to them.
The Judge looked miserably at Charlotte, and her eyebrows said: "Wait a
while. She'll calm down."
So all three waited in an uncomfortable silence.
Presently Sophy turned round. There were tears in her eyes, but she was
smiling. "My poor _dear_ dears!" she said, in such an affectionate,
sorry voice that their hearts jumped towards her. "It was horrid of me
to burst out at you like that...."
Charlotte went up and put a brisk, muscular little arm hard about her
sister's shoulders.
"Come, now, darling ... let's talk _sense_," said she.
"I've got a friend in the West...." the Judge began, fidgeting a little.
Charlotte could not help it.
"Oh, Joe! _Not_ ... Sioux Falls!" she pleaded, as who should say: "At
_least_ let the headsman's axe be _clean_."
Sophy interrupted:
"If the gods give me freedom, Chartie, why should I care whether the
oracle speaks from Sioux Falls or Athens?"
"Well, _I_ care!" said Charlotte.
"It's _not_ Sioux Falls," said the Judge.
"Go on, Joe," said Sophy.
"I'll write to him. He's a very able lawyer--upon ... er ... these
questions...."
"Thank you, dear Joe," said Sophy softly.
The Judge replied mechanically: "Not at all." He was fingering the
paper-weight again. He looked uncomfortable ... with a new sort of
discomfort. He cleared his throat. Regarding Sophy with doubt in his
worried eyes, he said:
"Er ... Sophy ... er ... in case ... what about the question of
alimony?"
Like lightning, she replied as he had feared she would:
"Not a penny ... not a cent of alimony, Joe!"
"But in such a case, the Court...."
"I wouldn't accept it."
"Perhaps, dear...." began Charlotte, in a "sense-of-duty" tone. Though
she considered her sister unwise, yet she sympathised ardently with this
unwisdom.
"No--never!" Sophy said again.
The Judge looked more and more uncomfortable. The snowstorm in the
paper-weight became a blizzard. At last he jumped into the midst of
things, with all the jerky suddenness of a man who has at last
determined to break through the ice-skim on his morning tub.
"Sophy," he blurted, "I must tell you--there was a settlement ... at the
time of your marriage with Mr. Loring...."
(He had "Mistered" Loring punctiliously ever since Sophy's disclosure.)
"A settlement?" said Sophy blankly.
"Just so. Yes. A-rrrm!... I ... er ... am responsible for the ... er ...
arrangement ... a marriage settlement, you know.... It gives you ten
thousand a year, in your own right."
"Gives _me_...? Ten thousand...? My own right?" stammered Sophy. "Oh,
you must be mistaken, Joe!" she added, colouring deeply.
Then the Judge explained unhappily. He had stood _in loco parentis_....
The future was always uncertain.... He should have felt himself culpable
towards her, _et cetera, et cetera_. And fearing that she might raise
objections against her own interests, he had accepted a
power-of-attorney to administer the property for her. This was the
reason of her ignorance on the subject.
Sophy stood transfixed. Then she took it in. She went up to him, put her
arm about his neck, and kissed his harassed face. "You're a dear, kind,
_real_ brother," she murmured; "but you're a lawyer, too--so you can
just arrange to unsettle that settlement."
"Now, Sophy ... now, Sophy...." he pleaded. "There's nothing undignified
... or ... or...."
"I couldn't, Joe! It's impossible ... utterly...."
"Think of Bobby...."
She coloured deeper than ever.
"I should never maintain my son on Morris's money," she said proudly.
"But, Sophy!... Oh, dog my buttons!..." groaned the harried man. "You've
got to _live_...."
"You forget what you saved for me, Joe ... and my thousand a year."
"Saved! About twenty thousand. How will you eat and clothe yourself and
the boy and educate him on the income of such a sum? I'm not talking
high sentiment; I'm talking hard facts," wound up the Judge, much
excited.
Charlotte sat motionless, looking at them. Sophy's eyes had gone black.
"I'll ... I'll ... sing for my living and Bobby's first," she said.
"Pooh!" said the Judge.
He was quite reckless. He, like Charlotte, sympathised too much in one
way with this quixotic attitude of hers not to feel called on to
remonstrate vigorously in another. He kept telling himself that Sophy
was being hifalutin in addition to being rash. He must save her from
hifalutiness at least.
"Pooh!" he said again hardily. "As Chartie said, let's talk sense. What
about Bobby's education?... Eton--Oxford ... this tutor who's coming in
a day or two? Do you think you're going to get divorced and established
at the Metropolitan in time to pay for all that?"
"_Joe!_" cried Charlotte.
"Never mind.... I like him to speak out," said Sophy bravely, a scarlet
spot on either cheek. Then an inspiration came to her.
"Gerald will educate Bobby for me," she said. "I know he will! I shall
write to Gerald and tell him the whole truth. He has always been like a
true brother to me."
The Judge was thinking hard and quickly.
"Yes--and suppose he dies suddenly--what then?"
"How 'what then'?" asked Sophy, bewildered.
"Why, what about the property? Is it all entailed--or only partly!"
"I ... I ... don't know," faltered Sophy.
"Very well. If Lord Wychcote dies suddenly, Bobby will inherit ... as I
understand it. But if the property is all entailed, your brother-in-law
can't leave _you_ anything. The property would be in trust for Bobby
until he came of age legally. It would depend entirely on the Court what
you had as his mother. Suppose you found yourself more or less at the
mercy of the old lady--Bobby getting his education in England--as you've
promised he should, mind you--and you without the means to live near
him---- Eh? What then?"
"I ... I will write to Mr. Surtees," said Sophy, very white.
"Who's he?"
"The family solicitor."
"Well, do.... I advise you to, by all means."
Here Charlotte stepped forward. She put her arm about her white,
suddenly subdued sister, and looked sternly at her husband.
"Joe.... I'm _surprised_ at you!" she said. "A Virginia gentleman being
so cruel to a woman!"
"Pooh!" said the Judge a third time. He was in a state of flagrant
rebellion. "Stuff!... I'm being a Virginia lawyer and a mighty good
friend. If I wasn't darned fond of Sophy, I wouldn't go on like this,
you may be sure. Whew!"
He wiped his brow and looked at his handkerchief as though expecting to
see it incarnadined. It really _was_ like sweating blood to try to talk
reason into one so hopelessly unpractical and hifalutin as Sophy.
"I'll look forward to reading Mr. Surtees's letter with great interest,"
he remarked grimly.
Sophy had a flash of spirit.
"No matter what he says, I shan't accept alimony!" she retorted.
"And the...."
"Or that settlement either."
The Judge glowered at her for a second. Then he reached out, drew her to
him, and kissed her.
"Well ... God bless you for a sweet fool!" was his strange remark.
Sophy laughed faintly, and the sisters went out with their arms about
each other. The Judge sank exhausted into his chair.
"Dog my buttons!..." he murmured, as the two disappeared. "The Lord
probably thought Adam out more or less carefully, but I reckon He made
Eve on impulse...."