Shadows of Flames Part 3

"We'd better be getting on with your toilette, Olive," she said.

"What a darling you are!" cried Mrs. Arundel, quite melted. "You're so _unselfish_.... It's perfectly touching."

Sophy couldn't help smiling.

"It isn't unselfishness," she said; "it's the instinct of self-preservation. I can't give way to decent, moderate little angers."

She was talking to keep Olive from seeing how deep the thing had pierced her. And she hooked deftly and lightly, with fingers that were icy cold but nimble. After she had admired her friend and the new gown sufficiently, she said: "Was there any more? What motive did she say I had?"

Mrs. Arundel glanced slyly at the clock again. She had still a good twenty minutes before her guests would arrive.

"Let's sit here cozily by the window--and I'll tell you _everything_!"

The homely yet amorous fragrance from the white carnations in the window-box flowed gently over them. It drowned out the smell of soot--the London smell. They might have been in a cottage-garden.

"My dear," Olive began, "the old cat hates you. That explains evewything."

"She hates all Americans," said Sophy evenly.

"_So_ stupid of her! Yes; I believe she does. And she's wild with rage because poor, dear Gerald is sickly--and won't marry. And Cecil has married _you_ and flouted the family politics."

"Those liberal articles he wrote some years ago?"

"'Liberal'! You never read such radical stuff in your life! The Wychcotes are the _Toriest_ Tories in England. Yes; he did that. That was bad enough. Then he went exploring in Africa and got laurels from the R. G. S. and chucked _that_. But you know it all----"

"Yes," said Sophy.

"He's really awfully able, Sophy--bwilliant----"

"Yes. I know."

Olive paused a moment.

"Can't you do _anything_ with him, Sophy?"

"No."

"Poor dear! Well, I suppose not. He was always as obstinate as--as ... a Behemoth."

Sophy couldn't restrain a tired little laugh.

"Well, you know what I mean. But when one thinks of how...."

Sophy broke in on her firmly:

"Olive dear, this isn't telling me 'everything.' I want to know what motives Lady Wychcote attributes to me."

"Really, dear--it's so disgusting of her!"

"What did she say?"

"You _will_ have it?"

"Yes ... please."

"She says you want to get rid of Cecil on account of Gerald."

Sophy was silent for some moments. Olive leaned forward and took her hand, caressing it.

"Don't mind too much, dear," she coaxed. "Only--be on your guard."

III

The dinner was as pleasant and heterogeneous as Olive's dinners always were. But Sophy could not rouse from the dark mood into which Olive's confidences had thrown her. The hateful scene with her husband had already destroyed all the gay antic.i.p.ation which she had felt at the idea of an evening in the brilliant, whimsical world that liked and spoiled her. She had been kept at home by Cecil's humours and strange illness all during the early spring. Of late, he had been in his gentler frame of mind. Very "nice" to her. He had seemed to want her to have the pleasure of this evening's gaiety. She was only twenty-seven. To be known as a beauty in London society, and petted by some of its most famous circle--this was very bewitching to seven-and-twenty--even with Tragedy glowering in the background. But now all was spoiled for her.

As she went with Olive again to the latter's bedroom, while the other women chattered over their wraps in the hall below, she said: "I don't think I'll go on to this musicale with you, Olive. I'm tired. I think I'll just have Parkson call me a cab and go home."

"_Now_ ... I _do_ feel a wretch!" Mrs. Arundel exclaimed, turning on her a reproachful face. "It's those horrid things I repeated to you, of course!"

She caught both Sophy's hands in hers.

"_Don't_ make me feel a pig by not going, there's a _darling_," she pleaded. "Don't, _don't_ be _morbid_!"

"I'm not morbid-- I'm really tired," said Sophy, looking down at the tip of her shoe and moving it softly on the carpet, in that way she had when deeply troubled or very angry.

"And if you _will_ go home, don't talk about having a _cab_. I'll send you in Jack's brougham. It's _beastly_ of Cecil not giving you a carriage!"

"He says we can't afford it."

"Then Gerald ought to give you one. The Wychcotes simply _stink_ of money!"

Sophy smiled faintly. She could never get used to hearing such words come so simply from pretty lips. Her black "Mammy" had once washed her little tongue with soap for saying "stink."

"I know," she said; "but Gerald gives Cecil an allowance as it is."

Olive opened her hyacinth-blue eyes frankly.

"But Cecil had quite a fortune of his own! How does that happen?"

"I don't know," said Sophy tiredly. Money did not interest her. She had a thousand dollars a year from her father's estate. That gave her a rich feeling of independence. She loved to feel that her clothes, even her underlinen and shoes and stockings, were bought with her own money. She did not know how much it was that Gerald Wychcote allowed his younger brother. She had never asked. But she knew that the house in Regent's Park belonged to Gerald and that he let them have it for a nominal rent.

"I think it's a shame!" said Olive. "I suppose he made ducks and drakes of it with that exploring fad, and travelling in India and such places.

Such _nonsense_!"