Sophy let him take the basket from her and kiss her rain-wet cheek. She
was glad that the rain came between her and that kiss. She could not say
anything just at first--her quick running and the suddenness of his
appearance had quite taken her breath for the moment.
"But you're sopping ... _sopping!_..." he kept repeating. He, too, could
not think of anything more fitting to say. And Sophy began to murmur
back:
"But you're getting wet, too ... what a shame!..."
They ran together towards the house. But now the rain ceased, and again
the wind came--vicious, blatant. The big hedge of box just in front of
them was a dark fury of tossing boughs.
"Oh, the trees!... I'm so afraid some of the trees will go down!..."
said Sophy.
They ran on under the dark tunnel of box, and out upon the lawn. As they
did so, Sophy gave a cry and halted.
"Look!" she gasped. "The big locust ... oh!... It's going ... it's
going...."
She ran towards the middle of the lawn. Loring followed--caught her
firmly by the arm.
"Wait...." he said. "Don't go any nearer...."
They stood dumbly watching the giant tree. It was fully a hundred feet
high--a monarch shaft crowned with massive branches--wrapped python-like
by a huge trumpet-vine. It was the last of its splendid generation--a
royal tree. Now it rocked heavily--to and fro--farther and farther each
way, each time--a groaning sound came from it. This sound splintered
suddenly. It was like the bursting of a human groan into a shriek. The
noble crown swept forward--majestically--as it were, deliberately at
first--then faster, faster, in a sort of suicidal frenzy. The huge tree
toppled, split at its middle fork--went crashing down, ripping loose the
snaky folds of vine, shattering the trees next it. Their splintered tops
shone suddenly raw and yellow against the grey sky. The remaining half
of the fallen locust had a great "blaze" all down one side, as though it
had been stripped by lightning. The inner wood, thus disclosed, all torn
and riven, had something ghastly, like the revelation of a wound in
living flesh.
For a second longer Sophy stood quite still. Then she ran forward again.
She was pale as at an accident to a dear friend.
The locust stretched across the gravel driveway. Its crown lay among the
crushed branches of a huge box-shrub. The poor box-shrub had a piteous,
feminine look, as though it had tried in vain to support the stricken
giant on its soft breast. The boughs and leaves of the prone tree still
quivered slightly as in a death-throe. The big vine swung its loose,
snaky folds over the ruin. The grass was strewn with leaves and broken
limbs. Sophy went up and put her hand on the rough trunk in silence. Her
lips quivered.
"What an infernal shame!" said Loring.
He stared all about, then at the wrecked tree again.
"Isn't this where the hammocks used to hang?" he asked.
"Yes," said Sophy.
They stood silent again. Both were thinking of how they had swung day
after day in those hammocks in their love-time. Then the scarlet bells
of the trumpet-vine had hung above them. It had been like their
flowering passion swinging scarlet bells above them. Both felt something
sad and ominous in the fall of the great tree just as Loring had
arrived.
"I'll send the gardener to see about it," Sophy said at last, turning
away. They went together to the house.
"When can I see you ... for a long talk?" asked Loring, as they reached
the door.
"As soon as I've changed. You'll want to change, too. Is your luggage
here?"
"Yes. A darkey drove me up from Sweet-Waters."
"Has Mammy Nan seen to your room?"
"Thanks. Yes. Everything's quite right."
"Then ... in half an hour ... in my study."
Loring told himself that he'd forgotten how beautiful she was. And that
black bow on her hair!... He had not seen her wear that black bow
since.... Oh, what a fool he'd been! ... what a superlative ass!... That
black bow had a queer magic for him. It made the past seem only
yesterday. Oddly it set her back where she had been when he first saw
her wear it. It shook his lordly sense of possession. She had not
belonged to him then. Somehow she did not seem to belong to him now. He
felt doubtful ... apprehensive. What if...? Yes. What if...?
He changed hurriedly and went down to her study. A clear fire of
apple-boughs and cedar burned on the hearth. The warmth drew their
sweetest scent from the rose-geraniums. There were no fuchsias on the
green steps now. It irritated Charlotte that Sophy would not have her
splendid fuchsias in this room. But Sophy could not endure the fantastic
flowers near her. They were too potent with wild memories.
Before the fire Dhu was lying. He eyed Loring from golden, white-rimmed
eyes without moving at first. Then he rose and wagged a languidly
polite tail. He had never quite approved of the young man.
Loring sat down and tried to beguile the dog into friendship. Dhu was
civil but distant. Sophy came in, and he rushed and reared upon her,
putting a paw on either shoulder.
She looked very tall in her black satin tea-gown. The collie was
beautifully golden against the black, shining stuff. And this gown
Loring recognised as he had recognised the black bow. It was a gown of
old days. It had some yellow lace at the throat, and queer, carved
silver buttons. How that lace smelt sweet of her! How often he had
kissed it in kissing her throat! And those silver buttons ... how cold
and hard they had felt to his cheek upon the warmth of her breast!
She came up and sat down in her own low chair on the other side of the
hearth.
"Quite Darby and Joan we look...." said Loring, with a nervous laugh.
Sophy smiled, but this smile was enigmatic.
"Why didn't you write to me? Why didn't you tell me you were coming,
Morris?" she asked gently.
"Oh ... well...." said Loring.
He went red, and fussed with a piece of cedar that had fallen on the
hearth. The fragrant smoke got into his eyes--and made them smart.
"You see...." he went on with more assurance, as he hammered the log
into place again, "I knew this was the sort of thing that would have to
be talked out...."
"Well, then...?" said Sophy.
He glanced at her rather sheepishly.
"Oh, hang it all, Sophy!" he said. "Don't make it _too_ hard. What do
you want?... Probation?... Kow-towing? What?"
"No. I don't want anything like that, Morris. What I want is for us both
to act like good, sensible friends, and...."
"_Friends!_" he exclaimed.
"Yes ... friends," said she firmly.
"Now look here, Sophy," he protested, red again. "You surely aren't
nursing that grievance still? After all these weeks?"
"What 'grievance' do you allude to, Morris?"
He grew redder and redder.
"Why ... you know," he muttered shamefacedly.
"No, Morris. I don't. I really haven't any 'grievance.' You did a thing
that seems to me final. It isn't a grievance ... it's just an end."
"Now, Sophy! If you think my ... my ... a ... my idiocy with that
girl...."
"Morris ... don't! But while that is one reason of my feeling as I do
... it isn't the thing I mean."
"Then in God's name ... _what_ is?"
He was standing now, looking excited and angry. He came over in front of
her.
"_What_ is?" he repeated.
Sophy looked up at him and her nostrils spread a little.
"Have you really forgotten?" she said, in a clear voice. "You accused me
of having a lover...."
"Oh, for God's sake!" cried Loring. His chest laboured with his strong
excitement. "Haven't I told you I was damned sorry! Haven't I
apologised--humbly? Haven't I explained I was out of my wits? Haven't I?
Haven't I?"
He stood waiting for her to answer. All up in arms--white now--quite
outraged by her unkind obstinacy.
She answered without apparent emotion:
"All that doesn't change what you said then. Of course you apologise--of
course you say you were out of your wits. What else could you say?
But---- Well, you see, Morris--it happens to be one of those facts that
can't be wiped out by apologies and regrets. Some words can't be wiped
out by other words," she ended, with a flash of bitterness.
He gazed at her sullenly.
"Can't you make allowances for a man's being mad with jealousy?" he
said.
"No. Jealousy--of that kind--is always an insult."
He stood silent for a while. Then suddenly he dropped to his knees
beside her. He felt inspired.
"Sophy...." he said very low, a sort of wheedling cunning in his voice.
"I wonder ... if _you_ aren't ... just a bit ... jealous, yourself?"
"I?"
"Yes. You. Of ... oh, you know who I mean! But, Sophy ... listen ... I
swear to you a man can be ... like that ... about another woman--and
yet love his wife ... _really_ love only her ... I swear it to you."
Sophy smiled again.
"Yes. So I've heard," she said.
He was eager in a moment.
"Well, then ... don't you see?... It was only a ... a flash in the
pan--as one might say.... Really, you know, it's true. That one can
fancy a woman for a bit like that, yet never dream of loving her as one
loves one's wife...."
"Morris...." said Sophy seriously. She leaned her chin on her hand, and
looked gravely at him.
"Well?" he said expectantly.
"What would you think of an American who had himself naturalised a
German, or a Russian, or a Spaniard ... yet declared that he really
loved America best of all!"
"I don't see...." stammered Loring.
"Yes, you do see," smiled Sophy. "And I want to take this opportunity of
assuring you that I'm not jealous of Belinda. Only--please don't try to
make your love for her a proof of your still greater love for me."
"Sophy...!"
"I'm not one of those people who cut up love into sections--vivisect it
... for it dies, I can tell you, when it's hacked to bits like that!...
This part ignoble--that part noble. Love is a whole--a whole--or it is
nothing. What you gave to Belinda you could not have given her if you'd
loved me really. I don't say _would_ not ... I say _could_ not...."
"But I swear to you...."
".... _Could_ not!" repeated Sophy inflexibly.
He had got to his feet again, and was looking at her with a disturbed,
baffled look.
"I _do_ love you, Sophy," he said at last. "Don't you believe I love
you?"
"In a way ... yes," said Sophy.
"What do you mean by 'in a way'?".
"Well--in a way that doesn't allow me to interfere with greater
pleasures."
He went crimson.
"Oh, I say!" he said. "How unkind ... how awfully hard and unkind of
you!"
"There mustn't be anything but truth in this talk between us, Morris.
I'm sorry to seem unkind. I only said what I feel and believe."
"God! I didn't know you could be so cruel...." he muttered, staring at
the fire.
"It isn't I that am cruel; it's the truth that's cruel," she said.
"You call that 'the truth'? ... God!" he said again.
"Then tell me...." she said. "What pleasure have you ever put second to
me?"
"What ... pleasure?" he stammered.
She looked at him steadily.
"Yes ... what pleasure?" she repeated.
"I.... I...."
He was frankly at a loss. She had such a queer, upsetting way of putting
things. He stood ruffled, resentful, aggrieved, helpless. Not a pleasure
could he think of that he had not put before her. His head buzzed with
the effort to recall some small sacrifice that he had made in her
behalf. She was speaking in a different voice now--softer, more feeling.
"Ah, Morris," she said, "it is all so sad ... so horribly sad! Though I
may seem unkind--my heart aches with it. But this has not come suddenly.
A long, long time it's been coming. It began ... yes ... that night ...
do you remember?--that night over two years ago ... when you came to my
room...."--she hesitated, caught her lip hard for a second, went on in a
lower voice--"when you came to me--not yourself ... for drink...."
He had put up one hand over his eyes as he leaned with his elbow on the
mantelpiece. He said in a choked voice:
"I've been a beast ... sometimes ... I admit."
She hesitated again; then said, whispering:
"_That_ was a pleasure you always put before me."
"Don't!" he said.
"I won't, then," she answered pityingly.
Her eyes scalded with tears. Her hands, locked hard together, were
trembling.
There was a long pause.
"Sophy," he said presently, very low, his hand still over his eyes, "how
if I take an oath to you never to drink again?"
She looked with a tender, wise look at his hidden face.
"You would come to hate me for it in the end, dear."
"Oh ... Sophy...."
"Yes, dear. You would."
"I know.... You think I couldn't keep it," he said miserably.
"No. But if you kept it, you would be hating me all the time."
A gush of bitterness rose in him.
"So _that's_ what you think of me?" he said.
"It's what I think your nature would make you feel--bound by such an
oath."
There came another pause.
He broke out rather vehemently again:
"At least do me the justice to admit that I was dead set against having
Linda visit us...."
"Yes. I remember. But it would have come sooner or later. You would have
been thrown with her in other ways."
"You really think I ... a ... care for her?"
Sophy didn't answer for a second or two; then she said:
"Morris ... that morning at Newport ... when you said those words to me
... you told me afterwards--that it was Belinda who had made you ...
suspect me."
"Ah ... don't put it that way!..."
"What other way can I put it? You did tell me it was Belinda, didn't
you?"
"Yes. And a more...."
"Wait, Morris. I want to ask you something. Whether you answer it or
not, I must ask it. It's this: You had been with Belinda--before you
came to me. Had you been together--like lovers?"
He dropped his face into his two hands. She could see the hot flush on
it between his fingers.
"Oh ... but you're hard ..." he groaned.
Now Sophy had her moment of bitterness.
"I know," she said, "that the perfect wife is supposed to be motherly
when her husband's fancy strays--and lover-like when it turns home
again. But I am not perfect in any way. And I don't think I'm hard when
I ask for truth between us."
Loring dropped his hands and uncovered eyes ablaze with a helpless fury
of regret and vindictiveness.
"I wish to God the girl had never been born!" he cried.
"You haven't answered me yet," said Sophy.
He gazed at her with a sort of braggadocio of defiance for an instant,
then dropped his face into his hands again.
"Oh ... it's no use!..." he lamented. "We are low brutes ... men are low
brutes.... Passion is a low thing...."
"No--real passion is not low," Sophy broke in on him.
"You know what I mean...." he muttered.
"Yes. I do. But don't call mere sensuality passion. Real passion is like
a great, flowering tree. Its roots strike deep into the earth ... its
crown is among the stars. Do you call a red rose 'low' because it
springs from the earth?"
"How you catch one up!" protested Loring moodily.
She rushed on:
"I do hate so to hear that word misused--abused! Sensual fancies are low
because they have no soul ... no flowering. They are like truffles ...
all of the earth earthy. Yes ... there are truffle-loves," she ended
bitterly.
"And men, you think, are like swine rooting for truffles!" he muttered.
"Sometimes ... when Circe is about...." she admitted.
Morris got up and leaned again upon the mantelpiece. He heaved a
disconsolate sigh.
"Oh, Lord!... What a talk for a man to have with his wife!" he said
heavily.