ike to see
Mr. Loring as soon as he came in. Mrs. Loring was upstairs in her
writing-room.

So she had not seen that "damned dago"! His anger dropped slightly.
Perhaps it was only some of Belinda's deviltry after all. He went
quickly towards the stairway, then slowed down a bit. It had just come
over him what was probably Sophy's reason for desiring this interview.
What if she had really been in the next room as Belinda thought? What
if she had seen and heard? And if she taxed him with it how should he
act? What should he answer? His thoughts whirled like the thoughts of
one coming out of chloroform.

He went doggedly on, after two pauses, and knocked at the door of
Sophy's study.

"Come in, Morris," she said at once.

He entered and, closing the door, remained near it an instant, looking
at her. Then he came slowly forward.

She had been writing. She put aside her portfolio as he came in. Her
figure in its white muslin gown lay sunk in the green hollow of her
chair, very listless. All the feverish light of the past evening had
faded from her face. Her eyes looked soft, grey and tired in their deep
shadows. They rested on his face with a sad depth of maternity that he
could not at all fathom. He was uneasy under this look, yet it had no
reproach in it. It was the look most terrible to Love. Hatred does not
wither him like that look. It comes from the heart that, comprehending
all, has forgiven all. To forgive all, one must detach oneself, become
impersonal. Sophy was now regarding Loring from this standpoint of
absolute detachment. Even the maternity in her look and feeling was
impersonal--the abstract sense of motherhood with which Eve, leaning
from the ramparts of her regained Paradise, might regard mankind. Loring
was not a man to Sophy that morning--he was mankind--a symbol. She, the
woman, symbolised the Mother.

It was this in her look that made Loring ill at ease, vaguely
apprehensive. But it was a look, to his mind, so out of keeping with
what he had feared might be the reason of her sending for him, that he
decided with intense relief that his conjecture must have been a
mistaken one.

"Hope you're not feeling very seedy," he said constrainedly. "You look a
bit done, you know."

"Yes-- I'm tired. Won't you sit in that other chair? It's more
comfortable."

He shifted to the other chair, feeling more and more ill at ease. As she
did not speak at once, he said nervously:

"You sent for me, didn't yo