d boy," said she, with her gayest grin. "I
know I look a Katydid in all this green--but Lewis is just dotty about
my wearing green...."

Mrs. Horton had left the room. Loring looked at her, narrowing his lids.

"You little light-o'-love...." he said, in a low, level voice.

"Oh, tut-tut-tut!" said Belinda, with grieved reproof. "'Sich langwidge'
for a tea-party!"

".... Little heartless wanton...." Loring continued, in the same voice.
"Mercenary, too ... like all your kind.... Even _he_ ... that fat louse!
... called you mercenary...."

"Really ... I shall have to put disinfectant in your tea instead of
cream," mocked Belinda.

Then he pounced on her. He caught her by both wrists and jerked her to
her feet before him, almost upsetting the tea-things.

"Answer me...." he said. "Has that brute kissed you?"

"Yes, dear," said Belinda, eyeing him calmly; but the garnet sparkles
were in her eyes.

"You...!" He choked, controlled himself. "On the mouth?" he asked
huskily.

"Oh, yes, dear!" said Belinda, and she laughed. His gaunt, furious face
filled her with fierce joy. He was paying--paying--paying. Drop by drop
she would wring from him all that he owed her. She had never enjoyed
anything more in her fierce, wilful little life--not even Loring's
kisses--than she enjoyed lying to him now. For she was lying when she
said that Cuthbridge had kissed her on her lips--at least, in the way
that Morris meant. Perhaps one of her chief charms for the satiated
young roue to whom she was engaged was her Cossack-maiden savagery of
reluctance in matters of pre-marital love-making. But she chose that
Morris should think that another man with the right to do it had kissed
her as he had once kissed her, with no right but what her own love had
given him.

He stood now, looking at her, his face inflamed with the strange fever
of mingled hatred and desire. "_Faugh!_" he said at last, turning from
her as from something sickening.

She laughed again, and began calmly selecting four of the largest lumps
of sugar for her tea. As she did so, she hummed an air from the latest
musical comedy. Oh, she had him! She had him "where she wanted him." He
might rage round the arena of circumstance like an infuriated young
bull. She was the Matadora who knew how to tame him.

He was back again in a moment or two. The red gleam of her cloak of
insolence maddened and attracted him at the same time--just as a real
Matador's cloak maddens and cha