But that kiss-sealed oath to Belinda did not keep Loring from "going two
ways" in his heart, for some time still. He was truly between two fires.
He could not bear to let Sophy go in order to keep Belinda. It was
unendurable to think of relinquishing Belinda that he might keep Sophy.
In the end, however, Belinda won. When it came to the final test, he
found that he could more easily let Sophy slip from him into a vague
future than resign Belinda to the fat arms of Lewis Cuthbridge. And he
suffered. For the best in him clung to Sophy, and he knew that it was
with his best that he clung to her.
Belinda saw this inward struggle quite plainly. She remained calm in
presence of it. Propinquity was her staunch ally. Besides, she had
refused to break her engagement with Cuthbridge, until Morris could
assure her--could let her see "with her own eyes"--that a divorce
between him and Sophy had been decided upon past recall.
By the middle of December he was able to satisfy her in this respect. As
soon as she was convinced that matters had reached an irrevocable point,
she broke her engagement as she had promised. Then she set herself to
blot out all possible regret on Loring's part. For this role nature had
consummately endowed her. Loring's heart had no chance to ache. His
frantic passion filled every crevice of his consciousness. Memories,
doubts, regrets--all went scurrying before it, like wild things before
the onrush of a prairie fire.
As "Venus Victrix," Belinda was quite wonderful. Yet though she was now
wholly Venus and triumphant, she still kept homespun Respectability at
her elbow. Not a hair's-breadth too far did she permit her inflammable
lover to venture. Belinda as Goddess would have compelled all Olympus to
address her as Mrs. Vulcan.
* * * * *
And so, towards the end of December, Sophy left Bobby in the care of
Charlotte and Harold Grey, and went to desolate, far-western Ontowega.
After six months of that desolation she would be free again. It seemed
incredible. She did not go alone, however. Susan Pickett, a second
cousin of whom she and Charlotte had been very fond since childhood,
went with her. Miss Pickett was a delightful spinster of fifty. She had
not married, simply because she had never loved a man enough to want to
marry him.
No one ever called Susan Pickett "Cousin Susan" or "Aunt Susan." She was
"Sue" to all who loved her, young as well as old. She was a tall,
vigorous woman, deep-breasted, and of perfect health. Her thick, brown
eyebrows were masculine, her large, well-shaped mouth feminine. Her
eyes, deep-set, grey, and humorous, might have been either a man's or a
woman's. Eyes of this type--when they are kindly affectionate, as in Sue
Pickett's case, are the sign of a big, impersonal humanity. It was never
necessary to have Sue "on one's mind" even for a moment. She was always
occupied in some way, and always serenely content. This is why Sophy
ventured to ask her to share with her for six months the abomination of
desolation called on the map of the United States Ontowega.
During the first stages of the long, tiresome journey Sophy was
conscious only of a heavy, dull weight of determination and flat
sadness. She hated the smell of train-smoke. Now it seemed as if this
rank, clogging smoke trailed over the whole landscape of her life, past
and future. She sat drearily, hour after hour, watching the telegraph
poles snatch up the sagging wires as they flew past. The threads of her
own life were like that, she thought--dark strands strung from one bare
pole of fact to another, endlessly, monotonously. The bare poles had
once been trees--living, joyous things. So had the bare facts of her
life. Now lopped, stripped, rigid, they hemmed her in, guiding the
thread of her destiny to some dull, conventional end--some mechanical
fixture in a bleak station to which this hard, beaten road of divorce
was leading.
* * * * *
After certain matters at Ontowega had been settled, they found that they
could go to the Black Hills of Dakota without disturbing the course of
events. They both loved riding. The lawyer told them that there was
capital riding about the Black Hills. The place he suggested was called
Bear Spring.
The world without lay in great curving swathes of white, pricked out by
green-black pines as in an old Japanese print.
On the third day came a bundle of letters forwarded from Ontowega. The
two that Sophy kept for the last were from Bobby and Amaldi. How strange
it seemed to see the Italian stamp in the snowy wilderness of Bear
Spring! And that seal with its arms and motto--"_Che prendo--tengo_"....
In a flash there rose the memory of the struggle between Loring and
Belinda for Amaldi's ring.... How things could hurt one ... things like
the impression of a seal. Then she opened Bobby's letter. At the top was
written, "I did not let Mr. Grey see this letter. So please to excuse
mistakes. R. C. C." Among other things it said:
"Mother, since you went away, I have decided a important thing. I
have decided to be an Author--like you are. I send you a poim. It
is called 'Plantagenet.' Mr. Grey does not think my best is
poertry. He likes the best what I wrote about 'A grey day.' Please
tell me which you like best. It is most important, as I must
decide as soon as possible if I will be a statesman or a poit.--A
author anyhow."
"Plantagenet" began as follows:
"Richard of England, monarch brave,
Bold as the lion that haunts the cave,
Wielding thy battle-axe with a crash,
As into the foe thou dost boldly dash!"
"Oh, my darling little 'poit'!" murmured Sophy, as she read. But she did
not think, from "Plantagenet," that Bobby would ever really be a "poit."
The "Grey Day," however, was another thing. Sophy had a queer feeling
about her heart as she read that.
"The day is very still. It is grey and tired. It seems old as if
the sun had risen a long time ago, and it is too tired to go on.
It seems standing there before me so tired. The clouds hang in the
air very still. The grey light creeps into the house, and the
house is still like the day. All is still and grey, even my
thoughts. Only the clock moves, and the fire. Only the fire shines
in the greyness. I do not know why it makes me so sad to see the
red of the fire in the greyness; I do not know why it is such a
sorrowful thing to hear the clock ticking very slowly, or why the
rustle of the fire makes me know I am lonely. If my dear mother
was with me she could interprit it to me like dreams in the bible.
But then if my mother was with me, I think this grey day would
seem shining. I think the still would only be quiitness if my
mother was with me."
As Sophy read these last words she raised them to her lips. It seemed to
her that Bobby need not fear about becoming "a author anyhow." She could
not think that it was only mother-love that made "A Grey Day" seem
unusual to her.
Then she opened Amaldi's letter. Here, too, was an unexpected pleasure.
She had found his letters charming from the first, but in this one it
was as if he had put aside a certain reserve that she had always noticed
before. He might have been talking to her over a log fire at Le
Vigne---- Or, no, she corrected herself with a smile--never had Amaldi
"talked" to her with the ease, the fulness, the alternate gaiety and
depth with which he wrote to her in this long, delightful letter. She
sat holding it in her hand when she had finished reading it, trying to
recall clearly his dark, irregular face and olive eyes--the sound of his
voice. And she smiled again, thinking of the Corinthians' opinion of
Paul: ".... His letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; ... but his
speech is contemptible." "Dear Amaldi...." she thought, still smiling.
"I wonder how it is that you are such a silent man as a rule, and yet
can write such perfectly adorable letters?"
She put his letter with Bobby's and laid them both away. For a long time
she stood at her bedroom window looking out over the snowy wilds towards
the sunset. The afterglow burned red through the inky pines. The snow
shone a queer, witch-like blue in the twilight. Sophy saw it all without
seeing. She was thinking that there were beautiful things in her life
still ... that she ought to be very grateful ... that after a while she
ought even to be happy in them....
But as she gazed at the smouldering watchfires of the west, Bobby's
words came back to her: "I do not know why it makes me so sad to see the
red of the fire in the greyness...."