se the tense moment for them both.

Loring dropped down his face into her lap. Then he looked up again. A
dance came into his eyes, that had been ashamed for a moment.

"I'll.... I'll kill the adulterous beggar!" he murmured.

Sophy felt a sharp twinge at her heart. Were all men more or less alike,
she wondered? Cecil Chesney himself might have made that remark and in
just that way.

Things went well after that for some months. Loring's friends even
wagged wise heads of grave foreboding over it. "Mrs. Morry's got him too
rankly bitted," they agreed unanimously. "He'll rear and come over
backwards if she don't look out...."

But Sophy was very moderate. She had no prudish objection to his
drinking in reason. She didn't enjoy seeing him in the false high
spirits engendered sometimes by extra "cocktails," but she only
positively objected to the amorousness occasioned by them. He had had
his lesson, however.

And as the winter wore on, and Sophy became more familiar with the
social life of New York, she understood better and better this side of
Loring's character. She found that there were very few young men of his
"set" who did not drink as a matter of course. Very often, nearly always
at balls and dances, many of them would be genially "tight" by the end
of the evening. This only made them extremely noisy and "larky" as a
rule. She found that the women took this state of affairs with indulgent
philosophy. Often they were amused by it.

As a whole the social life of New York, quite apart from this feature,
did not appeal to her. Its mad speed and ostentation resulted in a sort
of golden glare of monotony. Yet there were charming people, both men
and women, caught protesting in the maelstrom. They protested bitterly
as they went whirling round and round. Yet, when the maelstrom spewed
them forth in the spring tide--for the most part, they allowed
themselves to be sucked in by other whirlpools, such as Paris and London
and Newport. Sophy wondered at the nervous constitutions which could
stand such fevered repetition endlessly renewed. She reflected that
Americans were said to be the most nervous people on earth. Yet she
thought their nerves must be of thrice tempered steel to support the
life that they protestingly led from year's end to year's end.

She determined that, since her lot was now cast here, she would temper
her surroundings as much to her own taste as possible. For she had found
out, among other somewha