Shadows of Flames Part 81

"Well--you used just the tone you'd use to a youngster who'd been stealing jam," he said sulkily.

Sophy stood playing with the fan of white feathers. Life seemed a nightmare to her just then. This rude, sullen boy who was yet her husband made her feel as if all the G.o.ds of Malice were watching her.

She could almost hear the Olympian t.i.tter go round the room. She tried to think of some way of lifting their life out of this horrid, commonplace quagmire into which it had slipped so suddenly--and it was as if their life were some huge, smooth, handleless vessel upon which she could not get a grip.

"He isn't himself--this isn't the real Morris----" her thought sanely reminded her. "This is Whiskey...."

She lifted her slight figure with a sudden movement of determination.

"Morris, dear," she said, "I'm not going to let you quarrel with me....

Good-night."

She went swiftly by him into her bedroom. He longed to catch her arms and stop her as she went by, but he did not dare. He turned on his heel and went back into the drawing-room. The butler was clearing away the tray of liqueurs and whiskey.

"Hold on a moment, Jennings," said Loring. He took another stiff drink.

As often happens, this lost dram of whiskey wrought a totally different mood in him. Within five minutes his anger had merged into a wild impulse of desire. He wondered now that he could have been so curt with his Selene. He understood as in a flash of revelation why she had objected to that "rotten dance." He wanted to tell her so with devouring kisses. He waited until the servants had withdrawn, then went to her bedroom door.

"Who is it?" came her voice.

"I ... Endymion," he murmured.

He was ablaze with love and repentance and--whiskey, but he was still not in the least what could be called "drunk."

"Come in," said Sophy. Her heart failed her. Was he coming to have his quarrel out? She felt quite numb--lifeless--as though made of wood. Her maid had undressed her and plaited her long hair for the night. She was sitting before the fire in her white dressing-gown. Her eyes looked very sad to him in her quiet face. He came and threw himself on his knees beside her.

"Forgive me ... forgive me, Selene ... forgive me...." he murmured, unconsciously metrical. At any other time Sophy would have teased him for it. Now she did not even notice it. She had been thinking: "George Eliot says somewhere that 'we can endure our worst sorrows but once'....

I am enduring mine twice...."

She put her hand on the bowed head.

"Never mind, dear," she said.

He seized her bare arm in both hot hands, and his lips, still hotter, ran over it. She s.h.i.+vered, trying to draw it away from him. He thought that she s.h.i.+vered with love. He sprang to his feet, and, tall woman as she was, so great was the feverish strength of his desire, he drew her easily up from the low chair into his arms. His breath reeking of spirit poured over her half averted face. She could not bear to struggle with him. That would seem the last degradation.

"I'm tired, dear...." she whispered. "I'm deadly tired...."

And he laughed. And this low exultant laugh, that had once made such music in her ears, seemed like that silent t.i.ttering of malicious G.o.ds grown audible.

"No ... Morris ... no...." she said, bracing herself against him by her strong, slight arms. He laughed on. He began to whisper incoherently in her averted ear....

"Oh, moon-woman ... oh, virgin-G.o.ddess.... Don't I know all your sweet reluctances by heart?... Isn't that what made me mad to conquer you?...

You tempted me yourself.... Listen.... I never confessed it.... Now I'll confess for penance.... Do you know what made me first swear I'd marry you?... Your own words, Selene!... Your own words!... It was a verse of yours I read.... Oh, such a c.o.c.k-sure ... Olympian verse!... Listen: Do you remember?... Here's how it went...."

He muttered her own words of pa.s.sionate freedom into her averted, shrinking ear:

"I am the Wind's, and the Wind is mine!

No mortal lover shall me discover; Freedom clear is our bridal-wine-- Oh, lordly Wind! Oh, perfect lover!..."

"There!--That's what made me set my will like steel to conquer you....

_I'll_ be her 'mortal lover' I said.... And see!-- You are in my arms...."

He stopped aghast. In his arms, heavily drooping, her face thrust from him against her own shoulder, she was weeping like one broken-hearted.

XV

The situation had solved itself after that. Dismayed and thunderstruck, Loring had been glad to loose his weeping G.o.ddess from his arms. It had never occurred to him that his Selene could cry frankly, with choking sobs and great tears like any other woman. It was a most discomfortable revelation. Like all men he hated tears--but these especial tears in addition to disconcerting him made him feel a blunderer, a sorry fool.

They set him in a darkness of confused wonder, where he felt like a chastised child in a cupboard.

But Sophy stopped crying almost at once.

"Morris, dear," she said, "you know I told you I was deadly tired.... I really am too tired to talk to-night-- I feel almost ill, I'm so weary.

But to-morrow I'll say everything that's in my heart.... Go to bed now, will you, like a kind darling? I ... I'm better alone when ... when I feel like this."

Loring looked at her, then down at the hearth-rug. His lips pursed.

"You'll clear this up for me to-morrow?" he asked in a sullen voice.

"Yes, dear-- I promise."

"All right, then. Sorry you feel so seedy."

He went towards the door. Before he reached it his gorge rose with wounded pride and bewildered indignation. He turned his head as he went out.

"Sorry I've been guilty of blasphemy...." he said. "Loving a G.o.ddess is rather steep work at times...."

He went out, his eyes hard and resentful.

Sophy sank into her chair again. She sat looking into the fire. She remembered how they had sat hand in hand, after their first kiss, looking into another fire only a few months ago.

But this was whiskey, she reminded herself--only whiskey. She must prove to him and herself that she was stronger than a mere appet.i.te. But as she sat there staring at the fire, it was Cecil that she thought of, more than Loring. How terrible and fatal it seemed that, twice over, she should be the rival of such things with those she loved. For her sake Cecil had set himself to conquer. Then death had taken him. But before he had died he had killed her highest love for him....

The next day they had a full talk together. He was in a very gentle, penitent humour. He said that he understood just how she had felt.

He was on his knees by her chair, in his favourite att.i.tude, holding her waist with both arms.

She bent towards him. Her heart was very glad within her. She took his face between her hands and kissed him on the eyes.

"You see, dearest," she said, "I'm a very faithful wife. I'm Morris Loring's wife and I won't be made love to by"--she looked straight into the eyes that she had just kissed--"by John Barleycorn," she ended, smiling, to ease the tense moment for them both.

Loring dropped down his face into her lap. Then he looked up again. A dance came into his eyes, that had been ashamed for a moment.

"I'll.... I'll kill the adulterous beggar!" he murmured.

Sophy felt a sharp twinge at her heart. Were all men more or less alike, she wondered? Cecil Chesney himself might have made that remark and in just that way.

Things went well after that for some months. Loring's friends even wagged wise heads of grave foreboding over it. "Mrs. Morry's got him too rankly bitted," they agreed unanimously. "He'll rear and come over backwards if she don't look out...."