Loring's mother had written that Belinda was now with her at Nahant.
He arrived there late the next day, and learned that Lewis Cuthbridge
was stopping in the neighbourhood and was expected to dinner. He did not
see Belinda until she came down to the drawing-room. He was already
there alone when Cuthbridge was announced. They had never liked each
other. Now, instinct turned dislike to loathing. It was hard for them to
be ordinarily civil. But while Loring's detestation amounted to fury,
Cuthbridge only thought Loring "a sour, ill-bred cub." He was by several
years the elder of the two, and showed it. As Mrs. Loring had said, he
was good-looking, but too exuberantly so. He looked almost "made up,"
with his white forehead, red lips, shoe-black hair, and eyes of a dense,
swimming blue. And he was also slightly fat. As he sat there with
crossed legs, talking to Mrs. Horton, Loring thought the way that his
full, pleasure-loving thigh filled tight the sleek black cloth of his
trousers was one of the most obnoxious things he had ever seen. He hated
that plump, self-assured thigh and the glossy black stripe that curved
along it.
Belinda came down all in light yellow, with a scarf of pale green about
her shoulders. She wore the knot of topazes over one ear, as at that
first dance in Newport. When she saw Loring, she said "Hullo, Morry!"
in her coolest voice.
Cuthbridge regarded her with an air of ownership for which Loring itched
to smash him. He quoted, waving a thick, white hand with too-polished
nails:
"'Daffy-down-dilly has come up to town
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown.'"
Belinda went and stood before him, shaking out her yellow petals.
"D'you really like it, Lewis? Is this the shade of green you meant?"
She held up an end of her scarf. She was very charming with this new air
of almost docile appeal. Her eyes said that it mattered oh, so much to
her! whether Lewis found her scarf the right shade of green or not. He
came closer--took the thin stuff over his own hand--held it up against
her face.
"Yes. That's it," he said finally. "It's just that foliage effect I
wanted to get; throws out your hair and skin stunningly."
When Cuthbridge alluded to Belinda's "skin," Loring could scarcely keep
his hands off him. He was sick with pent rage. He sat near the fire
pretending to look at the evening paper. He could see them quite
plainly--every gesture--without raising his eyelids.
Now Belinda had her hand in Cuthbridge's bulging, black-sleeved arm.
She was cooing to him as she used to coo to Loring:
"And where's the prize I was promised for getting myself up all
green-and-yellow, like a bruise?"
"Oh ... you mercenary child!" reproached Cuthbridge. "Isn't my homage
reward enough?"
"Not by a long shot!" said Belinda ringingly. "You've spoiled me, you
know, Santa...." She broke off, and addressed Loring over her shoulder:
"I call him 'Santa Claus,' Morry, because he's always bringing me such
bully presents."
Loring thought of the lines in the classic rhyme on Santa Claus:
"... A little round belly,
That shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly."
He longed to quote them. But he held on to himself. He merely said:
"Most engaging pet-name, I'm sure...." and went on with his paper.
Belinda was already coaxing Cuthbridge again.
"Come, now--fork up! I know you've got something for me hidden away in
some pocket or other...."
Cuthbridge chuckled knowingly. This fat, pasha-like chuckle almost sent
Loring bounding from his seat.
The next thing he heard was a little scream of delight from Belinda:
"Oh, Santa!... You dear ... you _angel_!... Oh, _you_ shall have a prize
for this!... Just you wait.... Look, mater! Just _look_ what Lewis has
brought me this time!"
Morris glanced up to see the girl whirling about with a necklace of
great emeralds looped from hand to hand. The big, translucent stones
hung like threaded coals of green fire from her white fingers. She
danced up to her mother, then to Loring, thrusting the jewels under
their noses.
"Emeralds! Emeralds!" she sang. "I'd sell my soul for emeralds!"
"If you had one to sell...." said Morris under his breath to her.
She didn't seem to hear him. Dancing back to Cuthbridge, she put the
necklace into his hands again, and turning her back lowered her white
nape and cushion of ruddy hair before him.
"Put them on for me, Santa," she said. "I must _feel_ them on me...."
Loring stifled with helpless rage, while those thick white
over-manicured hands fumbled about the soft throat of Belinda. Oh!...
But just wait until he got her by herself!
Now she cried out, laughing:
"Oooo ... oo! How _cold_ they are!"
Cuthbridge said low, but not too low for Loring to hear:
"Ah ... but they'll be beautifully warm in a few minutes!..."
His voice gloated. So did his hands and his heavy, dense-blue eyes. He
was altogether a rather unpleasantly "gloatful" person, as a lover.
Loring quivered with wrath and nausea. He would have liked to tear
Cuthbridge "from the scabbard of his limbs."
"Dinner is served," said the old butler.
It was not until the next day at tea-time that Loring got a chance to
see Belinda alone. He came in just as she and her mother also returned
from a drive. "I must go up to have tea with Grace," said Mrs. Horton.
"You give Morry his tea, Linda."
"All right-o!" said Belinda cheerfully. She was her most glittering
self. Hair, eyes, brilliant skin and teeth--all were shimmering, as
though she gave forth a transparent, throbbing glow like a landscape in
the summer sun. She was all in green to-day, a vivid, bright green cloth
that sheathed her closely. Her shining, ruddy head rose from the rich
bitumen-black of costly furs. One of the many gifts of her Santa
Claus--Loring guessed. He longed to snatch them from her throat and
chuck them into the fire.
"Don't wonder you stare, old boy," said she, with her gayest grin. "I
know I look a Katydid in all this green--but Lewis is just dotty about
my wearing green...."
Mrs. Horton had left the room. Loring looked at her, narrowing his lids.
"You little light-o'-love...." he said, in a low, level voice.
"Oh, tut-tut-tut!" said Belinda, with grieved reproof. "'Sich langwidge'
for a tea-party!"
".... Little heartless wanton...." Loring continued, in the same voice.
"Mercenary, too ... like all your kind.... Even _he_ ... that fat louse!
... called you mercenary...."
"Really ... I shall have to put disinfectant in your tea instead of
cream," mocked Belinda.
Then he pounced on her. He caught her by both wrists and jerked her to
her feet before him, almost upsetting the tea-things.
"Answer me...." he said. "Has that brute kissed you?"
"Yes, dear," said Belinda, eyeing him calmly; but the garnet sparkles
were in her eyes.
"You...!" He choked, controlled himself. "On the mouth?" he asked
huskily.
"Oh, yes, dear!" said Belinda, and she laughed. His gaunt, furious face
filled her with fierce joy. He was paying--paying--paying. Drop by drop
she would wring from him all that he owed her. She had never enjoyed
anything more in her fierce, wilful little life--not even Loring's
kisses--than she enjoyed lying to him now. For she was lying when she
said that Cuthbridge had kissed her on her lips--at least, in the way
that Morris meant. Perhaps one of her chief charms for the satiated
young roue to whom she was engaged was her Cossack-maiden savagery of
reluctance in matters of pre-marital love-making. But she chose that
Morris should think that another man with the right to do it had kissed
her as he had once kissed her, with no right but what her own love had
given him.
He stood now, looking at her, his face inflamed with the strange fever
of mingled hatred and desire. "_Faugh!_" he said at last, turning from
her as from something sickening.
She laughed again, and began calmly selecting four of the largest lumps
of sugar for her tea. As she did so, she hummed an air from the latest
musical comedy. Oh, she had him! She had him "where she wanted him." He
might rage round the arena of circumstance like an infuriated young
bull. She was the Matadora who knew how to tame him.
He was back again in a moment or two. The red gleam of her cloak of
insolence maddened and attracted him at the same time--just as a real
Matador's cloak maddens and charms a real bull. He stood over her,
hands in pockets, "to keep from wringing her neck," he told himself.
"Look here," he said. "I suppose you mean me to believe you love that
bounder?"
"Why no---- What d'you take me for?" she said, a lump of sugar in one
cheek. She crunched down on it contentedly with the last words.
"Better not ask what I take you for," said Loring hotly. "You're a cool
hand, Linda; but I don't think you'd stay cool if I formulated my
opinion of you."
"And I wonder if _you'd_ stay _at all_ if I gave _my_ opinion of _you_?"
asked she, grinning.
Loring clenched his hands that he still kept in his pockets.
"Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that you're going to marry this
brute without loving him?"
"Oh, well.... Marriage 'makes the heart grow fonder,' they say," she
retorted easily.
"Good God!... How dare you say such things to me ... to _me_?" burst out
Loring furiously.
"And why not 'to you ... to _you_'?" she mimicked.
She slid suddenly from the edge of the table on which she had been
perched, and went up close in front of him. The garnet fire blazed in
her eyes now. Her black brows were drawn down close over them.
"See here, Morry," she said. "I'll give you a straight tip: You can't
play dog-in-the-manger with _me_. You can behave decently to me or ...
clear out!"
It was Loring's turn to laugh.
"'Clear out'?" he exclaimed. "Well, of all the cool minxes!-- '_Clear
out_' did you say? ... from my own mother's house?... I'd like to know
how you mean to accomplish it?"
Belinda gave him a look of supreme and contemptuous insolence.
"_I'll tell Lewis the truth about you_," said she.
Then Loring "saw red." Without a word, he seized her in his arms.
"Aren't you afraid to say such things to me?" he demanded thickly.
"Aren't you afraid...?"
"No," said Belinda. But just for a second she was afraid. There had been
such a gleam of dementia in his eyes.
"Yes, you are afraid," he said, still holding her fast. "Little devil
... you _are_ afraid.... And you need be ... you need be...." He laughed
cruelly. "If I were an Oriental," he went on, "I'd cut off your lips for
having let another man touch them...." His face suffused suddenly. He
bent it down over hers. "Give them to me all the same...." he muttered.
"Give me your lips, Linda. They're mine...."
For answer, she pressed them inward until they were only a thin mark in
her face. Her eyes glittered up at him, defiant, rebellious, fiercely
mocking.
The passion ebbed gradually from his own face. As he still held her, and
she still continued to keep her full lips turned inward, he broke into a
helpless, unwilling laugh. "Of all the little brutes...." he muttered
unsteadily. At last he let her go. She backed away from him, then her
lips curled free again, redder for their imprisonment. She smiled with
impish delight at the success of her simple device.
"And yet women say they've been kissed against their wills!" she gurgled
gleefully. "We _are_ liars ... we women, Morry, dear!"
Something in her tone gave him a queer hope. He went up to her again. He
said in a voice that trembled a little:
"Have _you_ lied to _me_, Linda?... Was it a lie when you told me that
beast had kissed you?... Had kissed your mouth?"
Belinda certainly had inspirations. She looked at him with her most
melting yet most wayward look. Her dimples flickered.
"Well ... I guess he didn't enjoy the sort of kisses he _did_ get," she
murmured.
"Linda...." whispered Loring. "Linda...."
The sudden revulsion of mood made him dizzy.
"Oh ... Linda," he repeated, and, putting out his arms, drew her to him
again.
But she was quite serious now. Frowning a little, and swayed back
stiffly in his grasp, she said:
"See here, Morry--you've called me some hard names. But I'll let that
pass. I can understand that. What I can't understand, and what I won't
let pass is your trying to keep me and your wife at the same time. I
won't lie any more---- Yes.... I _did_ lie just now. It did me good all
over, too!" And she showed her white teeth in a rather fierce little
smile. "But I won't lie any more. I _don't_ love Lewis Cuthbridge-- I
rather loathe him ... but as sure as I live ... as we both live ...
unless you break free ... unless you get that divorce, or let her
divorce ... I'll marry Lewis within two months. Mind you...." she added,
as she felt his arms tighten convulsively, "I'm not lying.... I mean
it."
Loring's face looked drawn and curiously hunted.
As she spoke, his eyes followed the movements of her full, soft lips.
They curled into such lovely curves when she talked--now hiding her
little fine, white lower teeth, now revealing them.
"And if I say I'll do it ... then ... will you kiss me?" he whispered.
A wild thrill sang through Belinda. Her arms, which had been hanging at
her sides, whipped round him. She strained him to her.
"If you'll _swear_ it ... I will," she whispered back.
"And ... and ... you'll ... give yourself to me ... you'll chuck that
brute ... at once?"
Respectability, the only chaperon that ever influenced Belinda, warned
sharply. She relaxed her hold of him a little. Her voice took a keener
note.
"D'you mean ... will I marry you when you're free?"
Loring paled, then the blood rushed to his face again.
"Yes ... damn it ... I mean that," he said.
She eyed him for a few seconds narrowly. Then she said:
"You swear it?"
"I swear it," he muttered.
"On your honour?"
"Yes ... on what's left of it."
Belinda stretched upwards against him, like a luxurious young puma,
relaxing to pleasure after a long strain of crouching watchfulness.
"Ah ... Morry...." she sighed, and she held up to his her parted,
vaguely smiling lips.