Sophy sat watching him, and her heart yearned over him. In spite of her
flash of bitterness, she did feel truly mother-like towards him. He
seemed to her so young--so very, touchingly young as he leaned there
against the old, smoke-toned ivory of the carved mantelpiece, grasping
the ledge, his forehead on the back of his hand. She knew how crushingly
he was realising that he had "made a mess of things." But then--he _had_
made a mess of things. She was powerless to comfort him there. If she
could only show him how much better it would be not to try to rearrange
this tangle--but to step free of it, and begin over ... that there was
no real adjustment of their two lives--their two utterly different
natures, possible.... Could she show him? Well ... she could at least
try....
"Morris," she said softly. "Suppose we try to look at it all from
another angle? Suppose we try to see it all as though _we_ weren't
concerned in it--as if some one had asked our impartial advice? Don't
you think that would be a good way to get at it?"
"But what is it you want to 'get at,' Sophy? What is it you want me to
do? God knows I'm ready to do anything...."
"Anything?"
"Yes ... anything in reason," he hedged nervously.
"Would you call it reasonable for us both to be free?"
He started--eyed her suspiciously.
"How 'free'? Free in what way?"
"Quite, quite free, Morris."
He paled.
"Divorce...?" he said.
"Yes."
"You want to divorce me?"
"I want us both to have our own lives wholly in our own hands
again--that is the only way."
He stared at her, whiter and whiter.
"Didn't you ever ... love me ... at all?" he managed, at last.
"Ah!--you know whether I loved you...."
"You ... you mean ... I ... I've killed it?"
"Yes, dear."
"Oh, you are cruel ... you are cruel!..." he burst out. He stared at
her, his face working. "You're the crudest woman God ever made!" he said
huskily.
Sophy was white too. She, too, stammered a little.
"I ... I think ... that truth ... is nearly always cruel," she said.
"But it's only truth that will make us free----"
His hands were gripping the sides of the chair into which he had sunk
again, so that his arms trembled.
"Damn the truth, then...!" he said slowly and thickly.
"You'd want to keep a wife who doesn't love you as a wife should?"
"Yes, I want to keep you.... I want to keep you if you _hate_ me!...
Yes. Yes."
"_That_ is cruelty...."
"Is it? Then I'm cruel, too."
Sophy sat with her eyes on his suffused, lowering face. Her hand went to
and fro over the collie's head. She sat so long thus, without speaking,
that he said gruffly:
"Well? What now? Why do you stare so?"
"I'm trying to imagine how it would be to feel like that. I'm trying to
get your point of view."
"How ... my point of view?"
"The wanting to hold a woman against her will. But I can't understand
it. I never understood how a man or woman could want to hold another
when love had gone ... the love that is the only reason for marriage."
"You rub it in, don't you?"
She said sadly:
"Why do you speak so roughly and bitterly to me--as if it were my love
only that had failed? Do you think I didn't know when first your love
began to wane?"
He tried to brave it out.
"And why did it 'wane,' as you call it? Can a man be snubbed day in, day
out, and yet keep at concert pitch forever?"
"You mean that I would not respond to you when you had been drinking?"
"Well--put it that way."
Sophy gave a tired sigh.
"Why must we go over it and over it?" she asked. "It is not me that you
want, Morris--it is your own way. You never want what is yours--only
what is out of reach. You have turned on Belinda now, only because she
came to you too easily. If I came back to you--you would not want me any
longer."
He sneered.
"It's easy to say what I would or wouldn't do. It's easy to arraign me.
But what of yourself? I thought you were so great on unselfishness!
Where's the unselfishness in all this, I'd like to know?"
"I'm not trying to be unselfish, Morris. I've been unselfish so long
that I've nearly lost my best self. I find it's better to keep one's
best self than to be selfless."
He looked startled at this heresy against the great Credo of
Man's-Ideal-Woman.
"Good Lord!... You _have_ changed!" he said, in blank dismay. "It
doesn't seem to be you talking...."
"It's a 'me' that you don't know, perhaps...."
"I certainly don't know this side of you."
"It isn't a side of me--it's the core of me."
They were both silent again. Loring was the first to take it up.
"Look here ... have you spoken to Judge Macon and your sister about all
this?"
"Yes."
He reddened angrily.
"A pleasant position for me, isn't it?"
"It's odious for both of us, Morris," she said, with feeling.
"Did you tell them about ... about...?"
He couldn't bring it out.
"I told them about you and Belinda. I didn't tell them ... that other
thing. I couldn't tell any one that...."
"Oh ... thanks!" he sneered.
Sophy flashed out:
"It wasn't for your sake I didn't tell them--it was for my own!"
He looked staggered. He was so used to her forbearance and gentleness
that he could almost have believed in the old tales of "possession." It
was as though Sophy's body had become "possessed" by a strange, heretic
spirit that denied all her former religion of abnegation in one strange
speech after the other. He was humiliatingly at a loss in dealing with
this new, essential Sophy. He felt something as the Miltonian Adam might
have felt if his docile Eve had announced her intention of leaving him
and Eden in the companionship of the serpent. Indeed, these new ideas of
hers hissed like a whole nestful of serpents. And all the time, just
because--in spite of his angry denials--she seemed slipping farther and
farther from him--he desired her as he had never desired her. Not
beautifully, as of old--but desperately, bitterly, blindly!
He sprang up suddenly, and took a few turns about the room. He went and
stood at the window, gazing out into the twilight. The fire reflected in
the window-panes seemed flickering among the dark leaves of the
magnolia.
Joycie came in with the tea things. He sat sullenly nursing one leg upon
the other while Sophy made tea. He wouldn't have any.
They could hear Charlotte's voice here and there about the house. The
Judge rode past the window on Silvernose. But no one interrupted them.
Only Joycie came in after a little, to clear away the tea things. She
went out with the tray, Dhu following her, and they were alone, once
more. Sophy rose as Joycie went out, and herself lighted the lamp on her
writing-table.
"Why didn't you ask me to do that?" he said irritably.
"I didn't think," she answered.
Now in the lamplight he could see how very white and tired she looked.
His heart softened. He went over impulsively and stood close to her.
"Sophy," he said, "what is it you really want?"
Her answer gushed quick and hot like heart's blood:
"My freedom, Morris!... My freedom ... my freedom!" It was like the
breaking of the waters. It poured in a cataract of passionate,
breathless words. "Oh, be kind ... be generous, let me go, without
haggling ... without bitterness.... We owe it to the past to part as
friends. We should be big in this big thing ... get above littleness of
every sort. Just because we have made a heart-rending mistake ... why
should we be like enemies?... Give me this one memory of you ... clear,
great. Something I can remember all beautiful. You owe it to our love,
Morris. You owe it to that wonderful dream we dreamt together...."
"Stop ... stop!..." he gasped. "It's like death.... It's worse than
death...."
"Oh, my dear!..." she said. "I know.... It's horrible! To me, too, it's
horrible.... But let me go ... ah, let me go, and I'll love you with a
new love!... It will last ... it will bless you all your life.... Let me
go, dear, let me go!..."
He stood shaking. His breath came quick and hard. He was dreadfully near
to tears.
"I can't," he got out at last.
"Yes. Yes. You can ... you will...."
"No," he stuttered, "no ... no...."
She turned away, sank down again, her face in her hands. For a second or
two he stood watching her. Then he went and flung himself on his knees
before her as he had done that wild, windy night, three years ago. He
grasped either side of her chair as he had done then, prisoning yet not
touching her with his arms.
"Beautiful...." he whispered. "Beautiful...."
She cowered back as though he had struck her, her face still hidden.
"Don't you remember...." the husky voice went on. "That night ... the
wind ... the wild moon!... Oh, Selene! Selene!... I've blasphemed ...
but I still worship.... I still worship...."
She began to sob, desperately, helplessly, like a child.
"Forgive me ... take me back, Selene.... Only try me once more.... This
one time.... You'll see.... You'll see you can trust me ... give me your
love again ... this once ... this once...."
She struggled to speak. The big sobs choked her. At last, between them,
the words came. "It's ... all ... emptiness," she said, "here...." She
put one hand to her breast. "There's nothing...." The sobs broke in
again. ".... To give...." she ended.
He knelt staring at the slight hand that still hid her face from him.
Suddenly he noticed, as Amaldi had done, that her wedding ring was not
on it. He dropped his head upon her knees. That broke his manhood to see
that she had put aside even the symbol of their union. He felt her hand
upon his hair. He wept and wept, wishing, as he had wished about
Belinda--that he had never been born.
And over Sophy came the old feeling of nightmare--the sensation of
having lived twice over her fatal marriage with Chesney. Just so Cecil
had once clung weeping to her knees. But then she still had some
hope--some love to give. Now she was beggared of all but pity. And even
this pity was not strong enough to make her return once more to the
unspeakable sacrifice of loveless marriage.
A sudden rattling at the door sent him to his feet, apprehensive,
shamefaced. Then an impatient whine told him that it was only the collie
asking to be let in again. He crossed over and opened the door with a
vexed jerk. The dog always irritated him. Now he would have liked to
kick it. The collie rushed over to Sophy, and pressed against her
anxiously, as if he knew something were wrong with her. He whined
again, nuzzling his head against her breast. Loring pulled out his
watch.
"I suppose I'd better get ready for dinner," he said.
"Yes," she said, rising.
He held open the door for her, and she went out, her swollen eyelids
lowered. His heart gave a great gulp as she passed him--half love, half
anger. His vanity ached with resentment that she should hold out against
him like this. What was left of love ached also with the dread of losing
her. He was beginning to take it in that he really might lose her.
As he changed for dinner, he bruised his brain trying to recall exactly
the words that he had used to her in that mad outbreak of jealousy. He
could not remember half. But what he did remember made him scorch with
shame. No wonder she had revolted!... No wonder!... No wonder!... He had
this spasmodic burst of inward honesty. But then again she was _too_
hard ... _too_ self-righteous. Yes, damn it all ... that was what she
was--"self-righteous"!
A reaction of mood began to set in. The dinner was constrained and
painful to a degree. Every one was glad to go to bed early and break up
the oppressive evening.
That night Belinda haunted Loring's dreams. He would wake up
aflame--resentful ... then plunge back into the maze of lurid dreams
again. Towards morning he had a long, hateful illusion of being married
to both Sophy and Belinda. He was going up an endless church-aisle all
sickly with flowers--and on either arm was a bride in veil and
orange-blossoms. And one of these brides was Sophy, and one Belinda.
The dream was ridiculous and horrible as well as hateful. The clergyman
was a huge negro, all in red. He wore an Oxford cap and married them out
of a little box covered with red velvet, instead of out of a
prayer-book. This box was a music-box. The clergyman explained. He said:
"When I grind the first tune, you will be married to this woman." He
pointed at Sophy. "When I grind the second tune, you will be married to
this woman." He indicated Belinda. Then he ground away at the little red
velvet box. The tunes were rag-time. The big negro patted with his foot
as he ground them out.... Then he gave Sophy a ring, and Belinda a
pointed knife. He said:
"_This is the black knife of Lur; it cuts through all things._"
And at these words, Loring broke out in the horrible cold sweat of fear
that only a dream can give.
Then everything changed. He lay in the midst of a frightful, black,
catafalque-like bed. On one side lay Sophy, on one side Belinda. He
could see Belinda; but try as he might he could not see Sophy, though he
knew that she was lying at his other side. Belinda was leaning across
him and pressing down his face with her hand. She was laughing. He could
see the tip of her tongue between her white teeth as in mischief. She
looked very beautiful, but wicked. Her white breast showed through
little petals of red flowers. He struggled to lift his head.
"Where is the black knife of Lur?" he cried; and as he cried it, again
he broke into a sweat of fear. Belinda laughed more, and said:
"It is there. Look!"
She took away her hand from his face, and he rose on his elbow, and
turned to see Sophy lying, white and still, with the handle of the knife
protruding from her breast. Belinda was saying:
"Didn't I do it well? Not a drop of blood!"
He gave a choked scream, and woke sweating and trembling like a
panic-stricken horse.