that!"

Then she looked at a little red mark on her white arm, and forgot all
about Amaldi and Sophy. She lifted her arm and rubbed her cheek softly
to and fro over the mark. It had been left there by a violent kiss.

"Oh, Morry ... Morry...." she purred, caressing her own arm where he had
caressed it, full of voluptuous reminiscence. "As if I care whether all
the dagoes in the world have as many wives as Bluebeard!-- My Jove ...
my _darling_!"

And she kissed and kissed the little red seal of love on her arm that
was white like peeled almonds.

XXVIII

Amaldi had gone to that ball braced for two ordeals--the meeting with
Sophy and the meeting with the man whom she had married. He was
introduced to Loring a few moments before he left. Belinda introduced
him. Loring had come up as they sat together on the terrace. A light
just overhead shone directly on his face.

Amaldi had winced from the beauty of that face, as he had winced from
Sophy's look of fragility. He had not the superficial scorn for male
beauty which is felt by the average Anglo-Saxon. He did not fall into
the common error of thinking that women are indifferent to beauty in
men. On the contrary, he knew that some women are as much affected by it
as men are by the beauty of women.

He looked at the perfect Greek type of Loring's face, enhanced by the
intense pallor that over-stimulation always lent it, and he knew (being
a Latin) the terrific spell that such a face can cast over the
imagination.

At that moment, so strong is the fleshly man in even the most highly
evolved being, he could have wished that she had loved a monster for his
soul, rather than this stripling for his beauty. The power of vivid
visualisation is one of a Latin's chief tortures when unrequited love
mocks him. Amaldi could see the beauty of Sophy and Loring in each
other's arms as plainly as though they had stood enlaced before him.

He had said good-night rather abruptly.

As he walked off along the terrace, Belinda had asked scampishly of
Loring:

"Well, Morry, what d'you think of my dago mash?"

"I don't think of him," had been the surly retort.

"Well, I do. _I_ think he's a peach. He's simply stunning to look at
anyhow. So dark and sort of holding his breath at one. A marquis, too,
let me tell you. Don't you think I'd make a nice marchioness?"

"For God's sake, don't play the fool with me, Linda."

She pouted.

"You won't _let_ me play the fool with you