y. When Bobby
went out again, Loring, looking after him, said bitterly:

"There goes one of the chief causes of division between us."

"Never, never have I put him before you!" cried Sophy, with a painful
flush. "Be just to me, Morris; at least be just to me."

He said sullenly:

"You didn't need to 'put him' ... he was always there."

Sophy parted her lips to deny passionately, then closed them again. What
was the use? They must not come to recriminating each other.

"Oh, Morris," she pleaded, a moment later, "let's be kind to each other!
Let's have kindness to remember..."

He gave that short, ugly laugh of his.

"You think you're being kind, eh?"

Chesney's tone--almost his words again! Sophy, too, had her haunting
nightmare.

The third day Loring decided to speak with Judge Macon "man to man." He
asked for a private interview. The Judge gravely ushered him into his
sanctum. As during that first "serious talk" with Sophy, he established
himself in the revolving-chair before his desk. Loring sat to one side.
He was pale and felt abominably nervous. The Judge looked calm and
noncommittal. He waited for Loring to begin.

The young man began rather unfortunately:

"Sophy tells me she's confided in you about this teapot tempest of
ours," he said. "I find it's devilish hard to get a woman to look
sensibly at such things. But you're a man, Judge ..."

"Yes," admitted the Judge imperturbably, as the other paused.

".... You're a man," Loring continued. "You know that these ... a ...
little lapses will occur 'in the best-regulated households'...."

The Judge's face took on suddenly the expression of a Rhadamanthus.

"May I ask what you refer to?" he said starkly.

Loring's smile became a rather foolish grin.

"Why ... a ... this ... a ... this--this.... Oh, hang it all, Judge!
You've surely kissed some pretty woman besides your wife in twenty years
of marriage!"

He was rather startled by the effect of this jocose insinuation. The
Judge suddenly stood up. Wrath and disgust transformed his kindly face.

"I allow no liberties from any man," he said, in his deepest bass.

Loring, also, leaped to his feet. He looked genuinely dismayed and
confounded.

"But ... but ... I meant no liberty...." he stammered.

"Then," said the Judge, in no wise placated, "your idea of what
constitutes a liberty differs fundamentally from mine."

He remained standing.

"Do you mean to say...?" fumbled Loring.

"I mean