od. She rose at once and went meekly to drink the coffee
that she did not want. She actually ate a waffle under the tyrannical
gaze of her old nurse. It was like trying to swallow a bit of flannel.
She rebelled suddenly, and, laying down her knife and fork, said: "I'm
not hungry this morning, Mammy--I can't eat."

With this she went to her study--and found Loring standing before the
fire. How it happened, Sophy could not tell; but like a homing-pigeon
she went to him, and her head was on his breast, and his arms around her
without a word spoken. And as his arms went round her, she knew suddenly
that she was deathly tired. She also knew quite simply that, ridiculous,
impossible, fantastic as it might be, she loved him. This knowledge was
so soothing after the terrible idea that had come to her a little while
ago--the sick fear that her kiss had been only of the senses, no matter
how superfined--that she leaned against him in a sort of rapture of
repose. For the moment she was safe--afterwards the deluge. This
reassurance of her finer nature made all else seem trivial for the time
being. She loved him. She, the mature, bitterly experienced woman, loved
this youth! Well--it was ridiculous, but it was not unworthy. The higher
gods might laugh, but they could not turn from her in disgust.

"My Beautiful ... _my_ Beautiful!..." Loring was murmuring, his lips
against her hair.

That keen, fresh, wholesome scent of horse and leather and outer air
brought the past night back to her in one blinding flare. She stood so
silent that he began to laugh, low and nervously.

"I didn't sleep a wink all night, Selene.... I was with you in some
queer way. Did you feel me?... Or ... did you sleep?"

"No, dear...."

His arms tightened.

"Did love keep you awake too, my Beautiful--love ... for me?"

It was a whisper.

Sophy withdrew herself from his arms. She sank into the deep chair where
she had been sitting last evening, and, as then, he came and knelt
beside her. His eyes went thirstily to hers, and as she met those bold,
soft eyes, the scarlet leaped to her face.

"Oh! ... like a little girl...." he cried, enchanted. "You blush for me
like any little girl...."

Sophy blushed deeper still. Her voice faltered with shame for her own
foolishness of belated love. She really thought herself middle-aged at
thirty. The four years' difference in her age and Loring's seemed to her
an absurd, impassable gulf. This sense of shame braced