... I will," she whispered back.

"And ... and ... you'll ... give yourself to me ... you'll chuck that
brute ... at once?"

Respectability, the only chaperon that ever influenced Belinda, warned
sharply. She relaxed her hold of him a little. Her voice took a keener
note.

"D'you mean ... will I marry you when you're free?"

Loring paled, then the blood rushed to his face again.

"Yes ... damn it ... I mean that," he said.

She eyed him for a few seconds narrowly. Then she said:

"You swear it?"

"I swear it," he muttered.

"On your honour?"

"Yes ... on what's left of it."

Belinda stretched upwards against him, like a luxurious young puma,
relaxing to pleasure after a long strain of crouching watchfulness.

"Ah ... Morry...." she sighed, and she held up to his her parted,
vaguely smiling lips.

XLIV

But that kiss-sealed oath to Belinda did not keep Loring from "going two
ways" in his heart, for some time still. He was truly between two fires.
He could not bear to let Sophy go in order to keep Belinda. It was
unendurable to think of relinquishing Belinda that he might keep Sophy.
In the end, however, Belinda won. When it came to the final test, he
found that he could more easily let Sophy slip from him into a vague
future than resign Belinda to the fat arms of Lewis Cuthbridge. And he
suffered. For the best in him clung to Sophy, and he knew that it was
with his best that he clung to her.

Belinda saw this inward struggle quite plainly. She remained calm in
presence of it. Propinquity was her staunch ally. Besides, she had
refused to break her engagement with Cuthbridge, until Morris could
assure her--could let her see "with her own eyes"--that a divorce
between him and Sophy had been decided upon past recall.

By the middle of December he was able to satisfy her in this respect. As
soon as she was convinced that matters had reached an irrevocable point,
she broke her engagement as she had promised. Then she set herself to
blot out all possible regret on Loring's part. For this role nature had
consummately endowed her. Loring's heart had no chance to ache. His
frantic passion filled every crevice of his consciousness. Memories,
doubts, regrets--all went scurrying before it, like wild things before
the onrush of a prairie fire.

As "Venus Victrix," Belinda was quite wonderful. Yet though she was now
wholly Venus and triumphant, she still kept homespun Respectability at
her elbow. Not a h