or mother's sake?"

Bobby twisted a lock of her loosened hair round and round his finger. He
said presently:

"Tain't any use _tryin'_ to like people, mother."

He thought another moment, then added:

"Mr. Loring don't like me an' I don't like Mr. Loring. I 'spec God fixed
it that way--'cause it's fixed so tight it won't come loose."

* * * * *

Loring, on his side, was determined to discipline Sophy a bit. She
shouldn't think that she could desert him for a whim, and he take it
like a good little husband, by Jove!

He went quite wild at times with longing for her, because this absence
only whetted his desire. All his desires throve for being thwarted
sharply. It was only continuous, prolonged denial that wore his very
thin fibred patience to the snapping point. In that case he turned to
new desires. He had never in his life been really patient over but one
thing, and that was his wooing of Sophy. Or no, he had been patient when
stalking deer, or waiting for wild duck. It was the sporting spirit in
him that made him so admirably patient on these like occasions. But
there was no sporting spirit to sustain him in the role of husband. A
wife was not game to be stalked. She was a possession to be enjoyed.
Sophy must learn that as Selene she was goddess to his Endymion--but as
Mrs. Morris Loring, she was, well, wife to her husband.

Loring had an astonishing power of sustaining ill temper. He could keep
a grievance alive for months by merely muttering over the heads of the
offense against him--as a lover can thrill himself by murmuring the
beloved's name.

Not since he was a child of three, afraid to go to sleep in the dark,
and obstreperously demanding that both nurse and mother should sit
holding each a hand until oblivion claimed him, had he demanded not to
be forsaken without being obeyed.

Sophy returned to New York, as she had promised, on the twenty-seventh
of May. He was not at the station to meet her. She wondered whether a
match had detained him, or whether she would find him at the house.

She felt very helpless against this unyielding wall of sullen,
consistent anger.

The butler told her that Mr. Loring had been spending the week-end with
some friends on Long Island but had 'phoned that morning to say that he
would return in time for dinner. He had not yet come in.

She went upstairs feeling sad and discouraged. It was very warm and
oppressive in town after the open