Shadows of Flames Part 83

"I'll----"

The chuff-chuff of the moving engine drowned the rest of the sentence.

XVI

It was on the twenty-fifth of April that Sophy went to Sweet-Waters. But in spite of all the familiar, springtide loveliness, this month of May was not what she had dreamed. She missed Loring. His curt letters wounded her. No--she could not be happy with this shadow between them.

But if she was not altogether content, Bobby was. He came and leaned against her knee as she was brushing her hair one morning. He was nearly six now, and spoke much more plainly. He was very fond of "grown up"

words, which a.s.sumed quaint forms under his usage.

"Mother," he said, "couldn't we demain here with Uncle Joe and Aunt Chartie? Are we _'bliged_ to go back to Mr. Loring?"

Sophy laid down her brush and put her arm around him. His seemingly unconquerable aversion for Loring was a great grief to her.

"Bobby," she answered, looking gravely into his anxious upturned face, "don't you understand? Mother is Mrs. Loring now. She _must_ go back to Morris."

Bobby pondered, lowering his eyes. Then he said slowly:

"Won't your last name ever be the same as mine any more at all, mother?"

"No, darling. But names matter very little. What matters is that you're my own boy, and I'm your own mother, forever and ever."

Bobby was silent. Then it broke from him:

"I _hate_ you to have his name 'stead of mine!... I.... I hate it renormously, mother!"

She held the boy close and put her cheek to his.

"Yes, dear. Mother understands how you feel about that. That's natural.

But what hurts me is, that you won't be friends with Morris. You won't even call him 'Morris' and he's asked you to so often. Can't you do that much to please mother?"

Bobby got very red. He said in a rather strangled voice:

"Mother, please don't ask me to do that."

"Why, dear?"

"'Cause...." He hesitated--then said in a rush, very low:

"'Cause I don't like him 'nuff to do it."

"Oh, Bobby--that hurts mother."

"I'm sorry," he said gravely.

"Then, won't you try to feel differently--for mother's sake?"

Bobby twisted a lock of her loosened hair round and round his finger. He said presently:

"Tain't any use _tryin'_ to like people, mother."

He thought another moment, then added:

"Mr. Loring don't like me an' I don't like Mr. Loring. I 'spec G.o.d fixed it that way--'cause it's fixed so tight it won't come loose."

Loring, on his side, was determined to discipline Sophy a bit. She shouldn't think that she could desert him for a whim, and he take it like a good little husband, by Jove!

He went quite wild at times with longing for her, because this absence only whetted his desire. All his desires throve for being thwarted sharply. It was only continuous, prolonged denial that wore his very thin fibred patience to the snapping point. In that case he turned to new desires. He had never in his life been really patient over but one thing, and that was his wooing of Sophy. Or no, he had been patient when stalking deer, or waiting for wild duck. It was the sporting spirit in him that made him so admirably patient on these like occasions. But there was no sporting spirit to sustain him in the role of husband. A wife was not game to be stalked. She was a possession to be enjoyed.

Sophy must learn that as Selene she was G.o.ddess to his Endymion--but as Mrs. Morris Loring, she was, well, wife to her husband.

Loring had an astonishing power of sustaining ill temper. He could keep a grievance alive for months by merely muttering over the heads of the offense against him--as a lover can thrill himself by murmuring the beloved's name.

Not since he was a child of three, afraid to go to sleep in the dark, and obstreperously demanding that both nurse and mother should sit holding each a hand until oblivion claimed him, had he demanded not to be forsaken without being obeyed.

Sophy returned to New York, as she had promised, on the twenty-seventh of May. He was not at the station to meet her. She wondered whether a match had detained him, or whether she would find him at the house.

She felt very helpless against this unyielding wall of sullen, consistent anger.

The butler told her that Mr. Loring had been spending the week-end with some friends on Long Island but had 'phoned that morning to say that he would return in time for dinner. He had not yet come in.

She went upstairs feeling sad and discouraged. It was very warm and oppressive in town after the open country. The scent of the hot asphalt came in through the open windows. The house looked queer and bleak, all dressed in brown holland for the summer.

The butler had filled the rooms with American Beauty roses. She disliked these roses. They always suggested to her the idea that they had been mulched with bank notes. She sat listlessly in the big, ornate room of the rented house, surrounded by yards of brown holland and acres of the artificial looking roses.

At a quarter past eight Loring came in. She heard him speak to the butler. Then he went to his own room. He came down in half an hour. Her heart swelled when she saw him.

He came over, took her hand loosely, and left a glancing kiss upon her cheek.

"You look fit.... Had a pleasant time?" he asked politely. Then in the same breath he added: "Jove! I'm hungry.... There's nothing like a good go at polo for making a chap keen on his tuck."

"Who won?" asked Sophy politely. She was dreadfully hurt; but she was proud also.

"Oh, our side.... We've been winning pretty steadily. Nipped the three last goals from under their noses."

They maintained a laboured conversation in the drawing-room until ten.

Then she rose, saying that she thought as they were to leave for Newport next day, she would go to bed early. There was so much packing to see about. He rose, too, and held the door ceremoniously, while she pa.s.sed out.

She went to her room with her heart aching and heavy.

Drawing aside one of the light muslin curtains, she stood at the window in her thin night-dress trying to refresh herself with a breath of outer air, even though it reeked of asphalt.

The door of her room opened and shut. She turned with a start. Morris was striding towards her, white of face and black of eyes. He wrapped her in a fierce hug. She was crushed against him so that it hurt her.

His eyes were eating her face. They were hard, angry, yet burning with desire. It was almost the glare of hatred.