Shadows of Flames Part 80

As he had said once before, he was jealous of the dead man--of Bobby's father. This is perhaps the bitterest jealousy of all--the jealousy of the dead who has once been dearest to what is now our dearest.

XIV

It seemed very strange to Sophy, as unreal as this new love in another way, to find herself once more in the noisy glitter of the world after her three years of hermitage. "The crackling of thorns under a pot" it seemed to her--of big gilded thorns under a big gilded pot. The pot bubbled merrily, boiling over with iridescent froth; its steam was heady, causing those who tended it to dance blithely like self-hypnotised Arabs about a brazier. Sophy enjoyed gorgeous foolery as much as any other, when she was in the mood. But now she was far from the mood. It was as if Endymion had insisted on presenting Selene at the court of Elis with "excursions and alarums," and gaudy pageants--as if he could not feel his G.o.ddess wholly his until the curious eyes of the courtiers approved his choice. For she had found out that it was by his desire that his mother had so insisted on this visit. Mrs. Loring had been quite unconscious of betraying motives when she said: "I wouldn't urge you, my dear, but Morry so wishes it. He thinks you've been too long in this dear, dreamy old place. Besides," she had added, smiling, "he naturally wishes the world to see his Faery Queen...."

Sophy had mentioned this to Loring.

"Don't let's go, dear.... I'm sure your mother will understand. And I really hate the idea," she had said to him.

But Loring had replied:

"You don't know my mother yet, Beautiful. She would feel awfully cut up if we didn't go to her after we came back. Don't you see?-- It would look queer to others, too...."

Sophy had yielded in the end. Yet she smiled to herself, a little wistfully, reflecting on the meaning of the name Endymion, "a being that gently comes over one." Here she was--to her mind the most pitiable of trophy-ikons--a bride displayed in new attire, new jewels and new love, to the eyes of the appraising world.

In all the conviviality poured over him as bridegroom by laughing friends, Morris was very careful not to go too far that summer. The friends grinned slyly--"Morry's on the water-wagon of love," the word went round. Some wag said that the fire-water of matrimony went flat in the second year--and "Mrs. Morry" might find her consort drinking from other stills. This would prove a shock.

"Oh, she won't mind," a woman had said easily. "Morry's so perfectly delightful when he's taken a bit too much. He's _so_ amusing."

But on the first occasion of this kind Sophy had minded very much indeed. It did not happen until towards the middle of their first winter in New York. They had given a dinner and some people had stayed on afterwards until one o'clock. One of the guests, a young Bavarian, had played rousingly on the piano. The keys seemed to smoke under his long, vigorous hands. He ended with some frenzied Polish dances. Everybody was drinking and smoking--Loring drank more than he smoked. A pretty gypsy looking woman jumped up and began an impromptu dance to the wild music.

Loring began to dance with her. The game of drawing-room romps became breathless.

Sophy sat amused like the rest. His head looked so oddly Greek with its short, tossing locks above the ugly cylinders of his modern dress. He should have had on a leopard's skin. As this thought came to her, some one cried: "Oh, Morry!--_Do_ give us the 'Reformed Alcibiades'. Do!

_do!_--I haven't seen you do it for a whole year...."

A chorus rose at once about him. He hesitated a moment--glanced at Sophy. She was smiling. "Shall I?" he said doubtfully.

"Well-- I confess I'm curious to see how a 'reformed Alcibiades' _would_ dance...." she said, still smiling.

Von Hoff, the young man at the piano, began a most enticing, fiery measure. It went to Loring's head. He tossed off a whiskey and soda, cried, "Here goes, then!" and ran from the room.

"Haven't you really ever seen him do it, Mrs. Loring?" said the woman who had asked for the dance.

"No-- I didn't even know he could dance so cleverly----"

"You've a treat before you, then. It's _the_ most delicious thing you ever saw...."

"Strike up, slave!" came Loring's voice from the next room. Von Hoff "struck up." Loring had whispered him what to play as he ran out. It was a voluptuous, half Spanish, half Oriental measure. To its rhythm Loring danced back into the room. He had set a huge wreath of artificial roses with flying ribbons on his head. His evening trousers were rolled up, leaving his legs bare from the knee down. A pair of elaborate sandals--relics of Harvard days--encased his feet. He had taken off his coat and collar and rolled back his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. A wide, white silken scarf of Sophy's formed his peplum. Under one arm was tucked a big, stuffed pheasant to represent the pet quail of Alcibiades. In his hand he held a wine-cup, inverted.

The dance began charmingly. Alcibiades was evidently refusing all invitations to drink from many invisible comrades.... The first shock of thus seeing him comically "dressed up"--in a costume which was only saved from low absurdity by the perfect beauty of his cla.s.sic head and slight figure--this first startled recoil having pa.s.sed, Sophy watched his amazingly graceful poses with a tolerable pleasure. She could not really enjoy it--that her husband should prance about so attired for the amus.e.m.e.nt of their guests--but she remembered, soberly enough, that he was very young, and that her distaste was probably the result of maturer years.

Then came the real shock. The dance grew frankly ludicrous. With dextrous sleight of hand, Alcibiades made it appear as though his "quail" were angrily demanding a drink from the inverted goblet. The fowl finally conquers. The goblet is filled for him again and again.

Alcibiades can no longer resist temptation, thus seeing a mere fowl take its fill. He, too, begins to drink.... The dance ends in a mad, drunken whirl, in which Alcibiades crowns the pheasant with his wreath, and they collapse together upon the floor in a maudlin heap.

The thing was really wonderfully well done. The guests were in ecstasies of laughter. But Sophy felt cold and sick. It seemed to her that he could not love her as she had thought. Else how could he turn the body that she loved into a travesty for others to laugh at? She felt as though the dignity of their mutual love were lying there on the floor, sprawled and ruffled and lifeless like the stuffed pheasant....

This feeling was not apparent in her face. Her training had been too thorough and bitter for her to let the world have even a glimpse of her chagrin. But though no one else guessed it, Loring was aware instantly of something wrong. As soon as he had changed back to ordinary dress, and returned to the drawing-room, where people were now saying good-night--he felt this. And he, too, was chagrined. He had taken just enough liquor to make this chagrin of his savour of anger. For the first time he felt her "superiority" not as that of a G.o.ddess, but of a wife.

She "disapproved" of him. To be "disapproved" of had always roused the ugly side of his nature.

"And she told me herself to go ahead," he thought irefully. "Now she's got it in for me.... I'll be curtain-lectured I suppose--get a glimpse of the seamy side of matrimony...."

He reinforced himself with another high-ball.

When the last guest had gone he went up to Sophy. She had turned to get her fan from a sofa where she had left it. It was the fan of white peac.o.c.k feathers that Amaldi had once admired. She thought of him suddenly as she took it in her hand. How would he have looked had he seen that dance?-- She reddened. Why did such thoughts come to one? Life was quite difficult enough without these unbidden, scathing fancies. She tried to put on a natural, easy expression. As is always the case, this gave her face a strained look--the look of one "sitting" for a photograph.

On his side, Loring's had an expression that Sophy was only too familiar with--but until now, she had never seen it on _his_ face. It was the pale, black-eyed, fixed expression of a man who has taken too much to drink, without being in the least "drunk." Sophy could not tell what it was she felt at that moment. It was like the pang of a strange sickness.

And again it was like a blow on an old wound. The old and new wound seemed bleeding together in her breast. She tried to pa.s.s him with a smile.

"It's all hours of the night.... I'm simply dropping with sleep...." she said, her voice, at least, natural enough.

He planted himself in her way. His hands were deep in his pockets. His white, fixed young face was dropped a little. He looked up at her stilly from under the beautiful arch of his brows that she so loved.... They always reminded her of Marlowe's lovely expression "airy brows." Now they lowered like clouds over the bold, still eyes.

"I say, Selene," he blurted, enunciating his words very clearly. "Let's have it ... and get done with it...."

"What, Morris?"

"The wigging you've got in pickle for me.... Mixing my metaphors, too, ain't I?... There's another grievance for you.... Poetess as well as G.o.ddess will take umbrage now...."

Sophy hated being called "poetess." That Morris should call her "poetess" seemed the last touch of irony. She stood looking at him gently.

"I haven't got a 'wigging' in store for you," she said. "Why are you angry?"

"Why are _you_ angry?... But, there, that's poppyc.o.c.k--my asking that. I know devilish well why you're angry. It's because I danced that Alcibiades thing.... Well--you told me to, didn't you?"

Sophy hesitated. Then she said frankly:

"It's true I didn't like it, Morris. But that oughtn't to vex you." Her voice trembled suddenly. "When a woman loves a man as I love you--she can't bear to ... to see him ... like that."

"Make a fool of himself, you mean?"

Sophy went close and put her hand on his breast.

"Morris...." she said, "are you trying to quarrel ... with _me_, dear?"

Her tone was lovely as she said this. "He's so young ... so young...."

she was telling herself.

But Loring's overstrung mood sensed this maternal indulgence, and it infuriated him still further.

"You've got me mixed with your dear Bobby, haven't you?" he asked sneeringly.

"Oh, Morris!"

She drew back, flus.h.i.+ng even over her neck and arms. Anger as well as pain drove her blood.