was something in Belinda's voice
and look as she gave this cry that had startled Sophy. In the girl's
voice and look there had been such concentrated, vibrating passion; in
Loring's laugh she had heard an echo of the love-laughs of her own
wooing. There was a certain note of secure mockery in it--a threat as of
something controlled--a suppressed secret triumph, that brought the past
giddily upon her.

She had glanced quickly from him to Belinda. The girl's face was
quivering--but not with anger. Certainly not with anger. For though she
frowned, her red mouth tilted upward. Her downcast eyelids fluttered as
though she, too, were veiling some suppressed, triumphant secret. There
was more than her usual almost insolent cock-sureness in the way that
she twisted up her ruddy mane again, holding the amber hairpins between
her strong, glistening teeth as she did so, and looking down in that
veiled, secretive way. It was the air of the diverted pussy-cat who
says: "All right, my nimble mouse--enjoy your seeming freedom. When I
tire of the game, I know how to stop your friskings."

Sophy did not read the exact meaning of this air of Belinda, but she saw
plainly that it indicated a certain secret understanding between her and
Morris.

From this time she could not help observing Morris and Belinda "with a
difference." If it were merely a flirtation between them it was in
execrable taste. She could not help (being human and having loved him so
well) resenting the idea that he should flirt, even in the most
superficial way, with the girl that she herself had brought into their
home. But supposing that it was more serious--supposing that this
self-willed, violent madcap had a real feeling for Morris--supposing
that in his present mood of anger against her (Sophy) he were to revenge
himself by trifling with Belinda?

Sophy could scarcely bring herself to believe him capable of this--yet
there was the possibility. Morris could be very reckless, especially
when driven by resentment. It did not yet occur to Sophy that the
feeling between the two might be mutual.

Her woman's instinct was to guard the girl temporarily in her care, from
the freakishness of her own wayward, violent nature. She thought with
dismay of Loring's constant drinking. What might he not say and do under
the double stress of wine and Belinda's provocative beauty?

And in the week that followed she saw much that made her uneasy, yet
nothing which she could act