Shadows of Flames Part 89

Olive was more thoughtful than ever as she returned to her own room. She stood in a brown study for some moments when she reached it, then went and tapped on the door of her husband's dressing-room.

It was nearly one o'clock, and, attired in his pyjamas, he was swinging a light pair of Indian clubs before going to bed. He put them down as his wife entered and said:

"How did it come off? Awkward thing to do--eh? Was she huffy?"

"'Huffy'!... She was a _Sewaph_!... Oh, Jack"--she dropped limply upon a chair-arm--"it's _twagic_!"

"I felt tragic enough at luncheon, that's certain," replied he grimly.

"But what's tragic now?... If Sophy wasn't offended by your suggestion?

You really made it, I suppose?"

"Yes. I did," said Olive curtly. "But I'm not thinking of _that_ any longer--I'm thinking of Sophy. I'd _so_ hoped she was happy _this_ time!... But she isn't ... she isn't...."

"How could she be ... married to a young bounder like that?" asked Arundel.

Olive shook her head.

"No, Jack. He's _not_ a bounder ... that's what's so puzzling. There's _something_ w'ong with him--but he's _weally_ not a bounder...."

"Well, no ... perhaps not," admitted he grudgingly.

"But there's certainly something d.a.m.ned 'wrong' with him."

"Yes. And Sophy knows it as well as we do ... only she has to _pwetend_ not to. Now isn't that _twagic_?"

"Yes. Hard lines ... poor girl!..." said Arundel. He had always been very fond of Sophy. "First she gets a Bedlamite like Chesney--then this ... this lurid Yankee."

Olive began giggling in spite of her genuine concern. "Lurid Yankee"

seemed to her so exquisitely fitting an epithet. But she stopped as suddenly as she had begun.

"What _is_ w'ong with him, Jack?" she took it up, deeply pondering once more. "You're a man ... you ought to be able to say at once."

Arundel pondered also.

"Perhaps it's a form of National swagger," he ventured at last. "That sort of way they have of implying 'I'm as good as a king, and better, d.a.m.n your eyes!' It's odd to me that an American of this type will condescend to bend his knees in prayer. They'd call up the Lord over a telephone wire if they could."

"Maybe it's the way they're brought up, Jack."

"Oh, they aren't 'brought up'!"

"Well, then ... maybe it's that."

Olive's heart was sore for her friend. She was as loyal in her friendships as she was fickle in her loves. She lay long awake as she had predicted, thinking it all over.

"Sophy ought to have made a _gweat_ match, with her gifts and charm and beauty," she reflected sadly. "And she goes and mawwies that _howidly_ handsome boy."

Just as she was drowsing off, however, a consoling thought occurred to her:

"But he must have made _divine_ love!" she reflected, smiling. And this smile lay prettily on her lips as she slept. To be "made divine love to"

was, in Olive's creed, compensation for most of the ills of life.

XXIII

John Arundel was quite as "tactful" in speaking to Loring as he had a.s.sured his wife that he would be. He merely took advantage of the first opening and said in a by-the-way-my-dear-chap tone that a certain guest then at Everstone was accustomed to a rather exaggerated homage, and might, he feared, take umbrage if too often jested with. He said that lions, especially aged lions, were not noted for their sense of humour. He alluded to the fact that no less an one than Huxley had once ventured to be playful in replying to the Personage in question, and had received only a thunderous roar in return. That, in fact, the Personage had never pardoned the Scientist for venturing to use irony in this discussion. It was all said in the most casual way, and interspersed with amusing examples of the Personage's unyielding sense of his own not-to-be-trifled-with dignity. But Loring was very quick at taking veiled meanings. He himself had feared that he had gone just a bit too far on that occasion. Now he was sure of it. He gave no sign, but a mortified resentment smouldered in him. He detested John Arundel. He would have liked to blurt some rudeness and leave his house on the instant. This civil, middle-aged Englishman reading him a lesson on behaviour in the guise of anecdotes that characterised the peculiarities of the celebrity whom he, Loring, had made too free with, filled him with fierce indignation. His helpless wrath was trebled by the fact that John Arundel was in the right, and managing a difficult thing with consummate good-breeding. He had not been so angry in just such a way since, when a boy of ten, his youngest uncle had boxed his ears for speaking impertinently to his grandmother.

Pride kept him from mentioning the matter to Sophy, however. He only said the next time that he saw her alone that he "guessed he'd had about enough of the Lemon-groves of England, and would she please get a move on for 'Home, sweet home.'"

Sophy knew from this speech that John Arundel had uttered the "word"

suggested by Olive. She also knew, from the harsh slang in which Loring addressed her, that he was deeply incensed. He always used this sort of language when irritated. But she gave no more sign of her real feeling to him than he had given of his to Arundel. What was the use? She was only too glad, too relieved, to be returning to America at short notice.

England seemed strange and distorted to her, viewed through the mental atmosphere in which she now moved, like a familiar landscape changed by the alchemy of an evil dream.

Sophy found a letter from Mrs. Loring awaiting her in New York. The poor lady was at Nahant suffering from an acute attack of arthritis, with a trained nurse in attendance.

As always, Loring was very restless and ill-at-ease in the presence of sickness. He darted gingerly in and out of the sick-room twice a day, like a nervous terrier investigating a th.o.r.n.y hedge-row. Mrs. Loring was sweetly grateful for these flitting visits.

"Morry is always so dear and unselfish about telling me good morning and good night when I am ill!" she said to Sophy. "He has always had a horror of illness since his earliest childhood."

Sophy looked at her with wonder, and with a pitying regret. She recalled Spencer's chapter on "Egoism versus Altruism." She thought how well it would have been for Mrs. Loring and Morris, had his mother marked, learned, and inwardly digested that chapter.

Mrs. Loring said that her chief regret at being ill just at present, however, was that Eleanor and Belinda were arriving from France to-morrow. "You see, this was to be Belinda's 'coming-out' season at Newport, and I'm afraid Eleanor won't go to open the house without me.

She is very much attached to me," the poor lady ended, with restrained pride. "I'm afraid she won't consent to leave me until I'm well again."

"I should think not!" exclaimed Sophy warmly. "And I shan't leave you, either, until you're far better than you are now."

"Thanks, my dear. That is very, very sweet of you. But," she added anxiously, "don't let Morry get an idea that I think I've any claim on you. You know what was said: 'Forsaking father and mother'--I wouldn't have my boy think that I would take his wife away from him, even for a day, for my selfish pleasure."

"Oh, _dear_ Mrs. Loring!" cried Sophy. Both affection and exasperation were in her voice. She put her cheek down against the long, feverish hands. She wanted to shake and to "cuddle" the suffering lady at one and the same time.

"You're a very sweet woman, my dear," said Grace Loring faintly. "I a.s.sure you, I appreciate it that Morry has such a wife as you. He was always so difficult. If only Eleanor would be sensible and take Belinda to Newport. The child will be so disappointed! I confess this worries me very much."

"But, dear Mrs. Loring, why should you worry? Even if Mrs. Horton won't be a selfish pig and leave you here to suffer all by yourself? It's so perfectly simple. Belinda can come to us."

"Would you?... Really?..."

Mrs. Loring had ventured to hope for this solution once--but the fear that "Morry" might find it annoying had made her repress it. She now added quickly:

"But you would have to find out--tactfully, my dear--indirectly, as it were--whether Morry would object in any way."

"Why should Morris object, if I don't?" asked Sophy, a little brusquely.