ue pressed her autumn-tinted hair against her jet-black eyebrows. Her
skin was like nacre, her lips like petunia petals.

Looking at her, Sophy felt sure that if souls could have colour,
Belinda's soul was a brilliant purple, like stained glass--like the tie
that rose and fell with her splendid young breast as a moth sways with a
flower.

Belinda gave her hand to Sophy in silence. Her eyes were as busy with
Sophy as Sophy's with her. Belinda had peculiar eyes. They could be as
dense and impenetrable under her thick, white lids, as glossy red-brown
nuts shining from between the white lining of their hulls. Again, they
could throw out garnet sparkles and become limpid as wine. They had
their dense, horse-chestnut gloss as they regarded Sophy.

"What an extraordinary-looking girl!" Sophy thought.

Belinda was thinking:

"Yes ... she's beautiful ... but I bet she's an icicle when Morry's
blazing...."

Why she thought this, she could not have said. But she felt sure of it.
And it comforted her. She was so convinced of her "right" to Morris that
she regarded Sophy, not exactly as a wilful thief, but as a receiver of
stolen goods. Morris had stolen himself from her (Belinda), in a manner
of speaking, and Sophy had accepted this gift which he had no right to
make. Belinda was fair-minded. It was not Sophy's fault, because though
she had received stolen goods she had received them unwittingly. Morris
was the culprit. Belinda had long solaced herself with the thought of
how delightful would be the task of meting him his just punishment. Now
she looked at Sophy and wondered. She was wondering how this strain of
coldness that she felt in her rival affected Morry. And she clenched
herself against Sophy's beauty; for she did not belittle it, though she
thought it cold. But she had no real fear of it. Was she not eighteen
and this woman thirty-two--or nearly thirty-two? Belinda felt youth to
her hand like a bright sword. For two years she had been muttering as
she fell asleep, and as she waked: "Morry shall divorce her and marry
me." That kiss had sealed her his, and made him hers. She was unusual in
that she was lawless in method, but worked to law-abiding ends.

She had not the least idea of throwing her cap over the windmill for
Morry. She meant to keep house with him in the windmill and pay all
proper taxes on the grist it ground for them. It would be hard to find a
more determined character than Belinda. She had the sort o