Shadows of Flames Part 98

"What on earth are you about, Linda?-- What are you making such a noise for?"

"Oh, nothing ... just a little game I've been playing with Amaldi."

"Well do be quieter ... you're really _too_ noisy."

She went back to her talk with Sophy. But though Sophy listened, her eyes followed Belinda.

Loring got down from his seat on the window-sill, and sauntered forward.

He met Belinda in the middle of the room.

"Go and give that ring back," he said in a low voice.

"Not much!" laughed Belinda.

"Yes, you will."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"You'll make me, I suppose?"

"Yes-- I will."

"Pouf! Just try it...."

She pirouetted insolently, and he caught her by one arm. Then began a most astonishing scuffle. Belinda escaped, and rushed to the farthest end of the room. Morris bounded after her--caught her again. She turned and twisted in his grasp. Her red-brown mane came down; she struck at him, tried to bite his hand where it gripped her.

Amaldi sat like an image watching this, to him, appalling game of romps.

His face was as expressionless as a Chinaman's. He thought he had never looked on a cruder exhibition of s.e.x-provocation. He thought his ears deceived him when he heard Mrs. Horton exclaim:

"Did you ever see such a pair of children! Linda! Morry! You'll break something... _Do_ behave! Can't you make Morry behave, Sophy?... Oh, dear! What do you _mean_ by behaving like this, Linda?"

Amaldi thought this question most unnecessary. He thought Belinda's meaning only too painfully lucid. He was astounded to hear Sophy's sweet, natural laughter.

"Morris!" she called. "Belinda! You really shouldn't romp like this before Amaldi. He'll think you're demented...."

("'Demented!'" thought Amaldi.)

For the first time it dawned on him that perhaps Sophy did not take in the situation after all. Then he glanced at Belinda, panting, flushed, bacchante-like, in the grip of the white-faced, angry-eyed man who was trying to drag the ring from her finger. No! It was impossible. The others _must_ see a thing so flagrant, so palpable. But Mrs. Horton continued to exclaim helplessly at intervals:

"Oh, what _children_! What _babies_!"

While Sophy merely sat resigned, waiting for the hurricane to subside.

Loring conquered, of course. He strode up to Amaldi and dropped the ring into his hand, while Belinda sank down on a distant sofa, gasping out:

"You're a _brute_, Morry!... I _hate_ you!"

Loring gave a short laugh, and strolled out of the room.

Amaldi also took his leave in a frame of mind that may be described as bewildered.

x.x.x

But this occasion, which had led Amaldi to suspect that Sophy did not realise the state of things between her husband and Belinda, was the cause of her first awakening to something unusual in their relationship.

It was not their boisterous romping which had done this. Sophy was too used to the fondness of Young America for indulging in this sort of "high-jinks" to notice particularly the rough-and-tumble of Belinda's pa.s.sage with Loring.

She had been troubled by the disgust which she felt underneath Amaldi's quiet manner. She winced from what she divined to be his point of view--the point of view of a cultured Athenian watching the holiday pranks of barbarians. This mortified and disturbed her. But she had only regretted the bad taste of the scuffle; it had not revealed to her anything deeper. No--it was Loring's curt laugh as he turned away from Belinda's cry of "I _hate_ you!"--it was something in Belinda's voice and look as she gave this cry that had startled Sophy. In the girl's voice and look there had been such concentrated, vibrating pa.s.sion; in Loring's laugh she had heard an echo of the love-laughs of her own wooing. There was a certain note of secure mockery in it--a threat as of something controlled--a suppressed secret triumph, that brought the past giddily upon her.

She had glanced quickly from him to Belinda. The girl's face was quivering--but not with anger. Certainly not with anger. For though she frowned, her red mouth tilted upward. Her downcast eyelids fluttered as though she, too, were veiling some suppressed, triumphant secret. There was more than her usual almost insolent c.o.c.k-sureness in the way that she twisted up her ruddy mane again, holding the amber hairpins between her strong, glistening teeth as she did so, and looking down in that veiled, secretive way. It was the air of the diverted p.u.s.s.y-cat who says: "All right, my nimble mouse--enjoy your seeming freedom. When I tire of the game, I know how to stop your friskings."

Sophy did not read the exact meaning of this air of Belinda, but she saw plainly that it indicated a certain secret understanding between her and Morris.

From this time she could not help observing Morris and Belinda "with a difference." If it were merely a flirtation between them it was in execrable taste. She could not help (being human and having loved him so well) resenting the idea that he should flirt, even in the most superficial way, with the girl that she herself had brought into their home. But supposing that it was more serious--supposing that this self-willed, violent madcap had a real feeling for Morris--supposing that in his present mood of anger against her (Sophy) he were to revenge himself by trifling with Belinda?

Sophy could scarcely bring herself to believe him capable of this--yet there was the possibility. Morris could be very reckless, especially when driven by resentment. It did not yet occur to Sophy that the feeling between the two might be mutual.

Her woman's instinct was to guard the girl temporarily in her care, from the freakishness of her own wayward, violent nature. She thought with dismay of Loring's constant drinking. What might he not say and do under the double stress of wine and Belinda's provocative beauty?

And in the week that followed she saw much that made her uneasy, yet nothing which she could actually fix upon. Certainly nothing that could give her an excuse for speaking to Belinda. For she had decided that she would speak to the girl if it became necessary, rather than to Morris.

She recoiled, in all her being, from speaking to him on such a subject.

Besides, she felt that it would only enrage him further. But Belinda might listen. She might appreciate it, that Sophy should go direct to her, instead of to her mother.

And still nothing had happened that made Sophy feel justified in taking such a course, though _something_ there undoubtedly was--something not just right, not just clear--a tension, a vibration. It humiliated her to be thus on the alert. She felt like a spy. Yet she felt also that it was clearly her duty to be watchful if only for the sake of Belinda.

She knew that Morris was in a very exasperated, cruel mood. He nursed against her the most pa.s.sionate grievance. She felt that given the occasion he might go to excessive lengths in his angry desire to punish her. She knew how vindictive his present temper was, because although he had been drinking much less of late, he had not sought a reconciliation with her. But she did not make any advances to him. She had told him one night at Nahant that she would never again live with him as his wife, unless he could show her beyond doubt that he loved her more than drink.

He had stared at her, literally dumb with fury. Then he had flung out of the room, slamming the door behind him. They had never spoken on the subject since.

One evening, towards the end of the week, Sophy stayed at home by herself. She looked forward with relief to these quiet hours. She felt a craving for solitude and music--to sing out some of the pain that was oppressing her. She dined early and went to what was called "the little music-room." This room she had had done over for her especial use. The walls were tranquil and rather bare, of a soft cream colour. A frieze in subdued tones after a design by Leonardo ran about it. There was only one painting, a lovely Luini angel with a viol. The dark, polished floor reflected jars of blue Hortensias. Two church candles on silver "p.r.i.c.kets" lighted the piano. The windows, flush with the sea-lawn, were opened wide. Through them floated soft, cloud-tempered moonlight and the deep breaths of the sea.

The room and the hour fitted her mood to perfection. She sat down at the piano and began thinking aloud, as it were, in what Chesney had called her "imperial purple voice."

First Russian folk music came to her. She, too, was isolated on the _steppe_ of her own nature. The desolate words went voluming out upon the night, in that hushed, dusky gold of the great contralto:

"Lord, hear us!... Lord G.o.d, hear us!

We are in bondage: Like the Volga, in its chains of ice, We are bound in the bitter ice of sorrow.

Be to us as the springtide that melts the ice, Arise! Shine! For we sit in darkness And in the shadow of death.

Lord, hear us! Lord G.o.d, hear us!"

She looked up as she ended, to see Amaldi standing in one of the open windows.

"May I come in?" he said. "I shan't be disturbing you?"