Shadows of Flames Part 84

"I want you ... you're mine! How dare you keep me wanting you like this ... all these d.a.m.nable weeks?"

Sophy stood rigid in his locked arms. That look in his eyes was awful to her.

"You hurt me, Morris ... let me go...." she said.

"No, I'll not let you go.... I'm master in this room...."

"Morris!"

"You'll take the consequences of making me hate you and love you at the same time! By G.o.d! you'll take the consequences...."

She felt very strong and cold--very fiercely cold all at once. Their eyes blazed on each other. They were like two enemies at grips rather than two lovers. Then his arms dropped. He laughed. He put up one hand over his face and went on laughing.

As soon as he released her, Sophy drew one or two long breaths. It really hurt her to breathe at first, so savagely had he crushed her to him. Then she stood watching him as he laughed. And he laughed and laughed.

Suddenly she went up to him, stole her two arms tenderly about him, drew his face with his hand still over it down to her shoulder.

"Oh, Morris ... Morris ... Morris...." she said.

He stopped laughing and began to shake.

"Endymion...." she whispered close to his ear.

He slid to his knees before her, burying his face in her gown.

They forgave each other before they slept. But deep down in Loring's heart there was resentment, albeit unrealised.

XVII

The next two weeks they spent at Nahant with Loring's mother.

The dream was fading fast--the dream, but not her love for him. That remained like clear marble from which the purple glamour cast through stained gla.s.s slowly withdraws. And this clear, white love had more and more of the maternal in it. She could not have forgiven those scenes of drink-inflamed pa.s.sion had not there been in her love for him much of the indulgent tenderness with which she regarded Bobby's outbreaks. She did not realise this fully--the purple glow still lingered. Love to a poet is poetry or it is nothing. If she should ever come to read him in cold prose, love would flee forever--Pteros--the Flyer, he is called, as well as Eros....

By the nineteenth of June they were in the full swing of the Newport season.

Sophy did not play tennis herself, but she would go with Morris to the Casino in the morning. It amused her to watch all these pa.s.sionately energetic young women bent on fashionable slimness, violently exercising in the torrid heat--looking like some new type of odalisque, veiled with thick brown veils half way up their noses to prevent sunburn. Madly they would dart to and fro until midday, then rush for the beach. She found it even more amusing to see these crowds of men and women disporting on the well-kept beach and in the sea that looked so well-kept also; the men, of amazingly varied shapes--bereft of all elegance by their scant attire; the women more elegant than ever, with the decolletage of charming legs, and wearing fantastic headgear that made them look like great sea-poppies and bluets blooming on the tawny sand--or flying, as though wind-blown, in the swing.

The routine was much as she remembered it as a girl--luncheons, dinner parties with dancing to follow at the hostess's house or some other--b.a.l.l.s, fancy-b.a.l.l.s, theatricals at the Casino--the usual fantastic, highly-coloured, sparkling Masque of Pleasure. It was agreeable enough for a week or two--but her heart failed when she thought of the whole summer--and many summers to follow--spent in this fashion. She was glad when August drew to its close, and nearly all the women had taken the pose of being tired or even ill, and not going out any more. Then she had some delightful, real country rides again with Morris. The Island was charming to explore. The golden-rod was beginning to blow in the fields. It made her long for Sweet-Waters. But she would not vex him with such an allusion.

"It's nice to have these quiet days together, isn't it?" she said, as he tied a great bunch of golden-rod to the dees of her saddle, and another to his own.

These quiet days at Newport did not last long, however. The Kron Prinz of Blauethurme arrived suddenly one day, practically unheralded. And presto!--all the weary and ailing became restored as by magic. The descent of His Royal Highness into the stagnant social waters was like the descent of the angel into the pool of Bethesda. He did but trouble the waters with his princely foot, and straightway all sufferers were restored to abounding and healthful vigour. The erstwhile exhausted ladies went scampering about like chipmunks. And the "society" journals, that had been mournfully pecking here and there for stray grains of interest, now fluttered triumphant with whole sheaves of "snapshots" and thrilling items.

Sophy winced to see a photograph of herself as frontispiece of a "smart"

weekly. It had been taken as she crossed the lawn of the Casino with the Crown Prince. It was headed, "A Famous Beauty and a Foreign Prince."

Underneath was written, "Mrs. Morris Loring walking with H. R. H. the Crown Prince of Blauethurme. Mrs. Loring is one of our most distinguished and _chic_ young matrons. She entertains lavishly and brilliantly both at her unique town house in New York (said to be decorated by her own fair hands) and at her sumptuous summer palace in Newport. Mrs. Loring was formerly the wife of the Hon. Cecil Chesney, younger brother of Viscount Wychcote."

She tossed the paper to Morris with a grimace. "Look at that sn.o.bbish abomination!" she said. "_How_ good Americans would love a King and Court all their own! It's a pity Washington didn't accept that crown they offered him...."

But she broke off, rather dismayed at Loring's extreme fury over the picture. She did not realise that what so enraged him was the allusion to her as "formerly the wife of the Hon. Cecil Chesney."

"d.a.m.n it!" he fumed. "How dare they take liberties with your name! You are my wife-- I'll teach them to accept that fact for good and all!"

The thing rankled in him for days. Indeed Sophy had cause to remember the visit of the Crown Prince of Blauethurme in more ways than one; for there was a "stag dinner" given him towards the end of his stay at Newport, and Loring was one of the hosts. It is hard to leave a "stag dinner" in perfect equipoise of mind and body, especially when its chief guest is a Royalty who chooses to remain until dawn, and shows a truly regal prowess with the wine-cup. Loring returned at five o'clock and demanded to enter Sophy's room. She had locked the door. She came to it when she heard his voice, but refused to open it.

"d.a.m.n it! Do you turn me from your door like a beggar?" he called angrily, rattling the k.n.o.b.

"Don't talk so loud, Morris.... You'll be dreadfully sorry for losing your temper like this to-morrow.... You'll be glad I wouldn't let you in...."

He was quite frantic.

"Some fine day you'll shut me out too often, my lady!" he raged at her.

"Morris! The servants will hear you. Do go!"

"All right. But you won't always be able to whistle me to heel when you want to.... I give you that straight."

He laughed coa.r.s.ely. His state showed more in his laughter than in his speaking voice.

She had never known him as bad as this. Her very soul felt sick and faint under it. She heard him muttering as he went off along the corridor to his own room. She went back to bed trembling. She thought there must be _some_ way to stop it. She sat there in the chill August dawn, thinking, thinking.

XVIII

Loring's ill humour lasted into the next day. He could not remember clearly what had caused it, but he knew that he was aggrieved with Sophy for something. It came to him while he was dressing. He did not get up until two o'clock that afternoon. His man served him some black coffee in his bedroom. As he gulped it between phases of his toilet, he remembered suddenly: "Locked me out of her room, by gad!"

His face burnt. He knew perfectly well that he had deserved to be locked out, but that did not make the crime any less heinous in his eyes.

He went downstairs in a still, molten frame of mind. The feeling of physical malaise only added to his mental irritation.

As he reached the hall, Bobby was just coming in from his afternoon walk with Rosa. He loved this walk with Rosa. She allowed him to do so many more delightful, interesting things than his French governess. For instance, Mademoiselle would never in the world have permitted him to pick up the dear, dirty, lame puppy that he was now squeezing to the breast of his white coat.

Loring looked down at the clean little boy and the dirty little dog with a displeased frown. Bobby met this frown with calm defiance, but his heart began to throb with apprehension for his "sick doggie."

"Where on earth did you get that filthy beast?" asked Loring.

"I found him," said Bobby.

"Well, you can't bring him into the house. In fact, you can't keep him at all," his step-father remarked grimly. "Put him down. I'll have one of the men clear him away."

"No," said Bobby.