The first part of her stay in England was more endurable, however, than she had thought possible. Loring was rather subdued by the "highbrows," though he carried it off in private to her with an air of indulgent toleration for the "fool ceremoniousness" of an "effete" civilisation. The greater number of her friends and acquaintances he characterised as "lemons." He said there was not a "shred of snap or go in the whole bunch of them," that they made him long to "yowl" and fire off pistols in Piccadilly. One exception he made, however, in favour of the Premier. "Fine old boy," he said. "Can't exactly call him a lemon ... but he leans that way. I guess I'll have to class him as a citron—a rarer product of the lemon variety, you know."

It is not only the husband who feels a sense of responsibility in marriage. This feeling of being responsible for Loring as the man whom she had chosen for her mate out of all the world, after such a dire first marriage, kept Sophy taut with apprehension. Every time that they went out together she was in nervous dread lest he should "bust loose," as he sometimes threatened, and take some undue liberty of speech with one of the "highbrows" that so oppressed him. One thing, however, gave her great comfort: It was that he was careful not to drink too freely. The "pomp and circumstance" that bored him to extinction had at least the good effect of restraining him in this respect, and his male-pride could not but glow pleasantly at the way in which he found his wife considered. And he was immensely gratified—until one day it occurred to him that he was being assigned the rÔle of "Mrs. Loring's husband." Then in a burst of inner resentment he determined to shake himself free of the singular spell which great names and personages had cast over his usual spirits, and "be himself." His mood became aggressively American. "Old Glory" seemed to fill his blood with stars. He had had enough of doing in Britain as the Britons did. He began to take whiskey-and-soda between meals, just as in New York. When they dined out, he had a cocktail at the hotel before leaving. But though Sophy saw this with a quailing heart, he did not go beyond bounds, as at home, only the return to customary uses made his spirits soar and rendered him rather garrulous at times. Still, Loring was no fool. The fount of talk thus loosened had a certain crude and pungent novelty that diverted the soberer English very much. He found his new rÔle vastly diverting himself. He thought it "bully fun" to "poke up the highbrows." But Sophy writhed, for she saw clearly what did not even glimmer on his consciousness—the fact that the "highbrows" oftener laughed at than with him. She tried on one occasion to make him realise this without offending him. But she need not have troubled as to how he would regard her suggestion. He took it with lordly superiority.

"Bless you, Goddess! ... you don't know your own little old British world a bit! 'Laugh at me'? Why not? I mean 'em to. I bust panes in their old window-sash of conventions and let in God's outer air! I'm the cyclone-blast from Columbia's fresh and verdant shore! They like it, you squeamish dear—they like it! I beard the British lion in his den and he purrs!"

Sophy had said, laughing helplessly:

"I'm afraid that when a lion 'purrs' it's really a sort of growling."

"Never you fear! Just you leave it to me, Old Thing!" Loring had replied easily.

This bit of slang endearment which he had picked up of late grated on Sophy, until it was almost impossible for her to keep from flashing out at him when he used it. She said nothing, however, reflecting that the reason she so detested it was probably because she was too "old" to enjoy being called "old" in fun.

It was during Ascot week which they spent with the Arundels at their place on the River that Loring surpassed himself in his game of "poking up the highbrows." It was at luncheon. There were about twenty people present—some very important Personages among them. Loring was feeling especially "full of beans." A famous beauty had coaxed him into making "American drinks" for the whole party before luncheon. She thought them "ripping"! She was a very sporting beauty, and Loring was enjoying himself, what with the races and one thing and another, more than he had believed it possible to enjoy one's self in England away from the 'Shires in the hunting season. The American cocktails had a succÈs de curiositÉ. Loring, himself, took two. At luncheon he was in high feather. The beauty egged him on. He began to give thumb-nail sketches of the characters of those present. Sophy's sensations were indescribable. Not a "highbrow" did her husband spare. In pithy, American slang he set forth, amid the laughter even of the victims themselves, what he considered their chief characteristics. Nimbly piling Ossa on Pelion, he capped the whole with Vesuvius, by pointing a finger at a stern, iron-clad, reserved and venerable member of the Opposition, and announcing: "You do the benevolent patriarch act to a T; but deep down—gad!—you're foxy!"

The "benevolent patriarch" himself, after a gleam of surprise such as might have stirred the countenance of Moses, had a gentile youth suddenly made a pied de nez at him, gazed inscrutably. The table rocked with suppressed and somewhat scared laughter. Sophy felt bathed in flame. She knew that Majesty itself would not have adopted a jesting tone with the Being whom Loring had just called "foxy." That this Superior Being in all probability was "foxy" did not at all mend matters.

She had stayed on for Ascot week because Loring had wished it. She now determined to return to America as soon as possible. She had never suffered in just this way before. She found it almost as excruciating as the death of love had been. She marvelled at the endless variety of pain.

That night Olive came to her bedroom for a private chat. She had slipped on a dressing-gown and brought her cigarette-case with her, so Sophy knew that she had "things on her mind" which she meant to unburden.

She lounged in an armchair and smoked while Sophy's maid finished brushing her hair. When the girl had left the room, Olive looked at her with affectionate but keen curiosity, and said abruptly:

"Sophy, you must forgive me, because I'm so vewy fond of you—but ... are you weally as happy as I want you to be?"

Sophy returned her look quietly.

"Who is really happy?" she said.

"Well ... I am ... at times," replied Olive.

Sophy couldn't help smiling. She knew that this "at times" meant when Olive was deep in some love-affair.

"Is this one of the times, dear?" she asked lightly, hoping to change the subject.

Olive nodded, making little rings of smoke with the lips that were still so smooth and fresh—though she had a big girl of sixteen.

"It's because I'm so happy myself that I want you to be happy, too, darling," she murmured.

"It takes such different things to make different people happy, Olive, dear."

"Oh, love makes evwybody happy—while it lasts!"

"Yes—while it lasts."

Olive crushed out her cigarette thoughtfully. Then she said in a musing voice:

"Isn't it atwocious of it not to last?"

Sophy had to laugh out for all her sore heart.

"Very atrocious," she admitted.

"Just suppose one could contwol love," Olive continued, still in that musing voice. "What a divine place the world would be! Evwybody would be happy all the time, then. Nobody would be bored—nobody would divorce—nobody would be disagweeable."

"Nobody would need a God or a philosophy," supplemented Sophy.

"But as it is, they are most necessary," said Olive seriously. "Which is it with you, Sophy?"

"Both," replied Sophy. She was not smiling now.

"With me," said Olive, "it's first one and then the other. I'm afraid I've a very fwivolous nature, Sophy. I can't seem to keep to one thing, all the time. But you, now...."

She gazed again at Sophy with that affectionate, meditative curiosity.

"You seem made for a gwande passion, Sophy. And yet...." She hesitated; then went on quickly: "Now do forgive me ... but, somehow, I don't feel as if you'd found it ... even now."

This "even now" sent the blood to Sophy's face. She sat very still, looking at the monogram on one of the brushes with which she had been playing as Olive talked.

"Are you vexed, darling? You mustn't be vexed. It's only because I'm so twuly fond of you. Now Mr. Loring is awfully nice, and immensely good-looking, and ... and all that. But...." She hesitated again, then went on as before: "The twuth is, Sophy—that he's much more the sort of man I might fancy, than your sort. He's ... he's ... you see, he stwikes me as too fwivolous for you, you sewious darling!"

Sophy said, in a flat, tired voice:

"Don't you mean he's too—young for me, Olive?"

"Oh, no! No, darling! Fancy! How widiculous!" Her tone was the acme of sincerity. "I never had such an absurd thought for one moment! I only meant that he's ... well ... a bit larky for any one like you. And ... and ... he's so ... so twemendously Amewican ... and you aren't, you know...."

"Yes," said Sophy wearily. She wished with all her might that Olive would go away. She was very fond of her, but she didn't like even those kindly little fingers fumbling at the latch of her heart. She wanted to be alone—in the dark.

"Were you desperwately in love with him, Sophy?"

This "were you" hurt almost as much as the "even now" had done. Was her state of mind so apparent, then, that even affectionate but flighty Olive had divined it?

She got up, and went round the room as though in search of something. As she moved about, she said casually:

"Dear Olive, do you think I would have married again if I hadn't been very much in love?"

"No. Of course not," replied the other absently. She had not at all said what she had come to say. Suddenly she too rose, and went over to Sophy. She flipped an arm about her shoulders.

"Darling," she said. "You are so wowwied.... I can't bear it!... I know perfectly well what's wowwying you.... The fact is Jack and I talked it over before I came in here just now.... I'm going to be perfectly fwank.... May I?"

"Yes ... do ... please," said Sophy. She was pale now. She had felt something of what was coming as soon as Olive mentioned John Arundel. "Go on, Olive ... please do. I beg you to," she urged, as the other still hesitated.

"Well, then, my sweet—would you like Jack to speak to Mr. Loring—oh, vewy tactfully, of course! ... but just make him understand, you know, that one doesn't ... that it isn't ... customawy ... for people to joke ... er ... in that way ... with ... er ... personages like Mr...."

But Sophy broke in on her. She felt that she could not bear the sound of the overwhelming name whose owner Loring had called "foxy" to his august countenance.

"Yes, yes ... do!" she said hurriedly. "I'll take it as an act of the greatest kindness and friendship on Jack's part. Tell him so from me. You see, Morris is so young and so ... so 'American,' as you said." She forced a smile. "The bump of reverence isn't much cultivated in my native land, you know...."

"I know," said Olive soothingly. "But we weally make allowances for that, you know. It isn't at all as if an Englishman had called that old gwandeur 'foxy.' You see, Amewicans think so vewy differently from what we do." She was rattling on in her affectionate desire to mitigate Sophy's mortification by showing her a comprehending sympathy. "Why, I knew the most charming young Amewican girl once ... and she told me, as a gweat joke, that when she was pwesented to the Pwincess Louise, she said: 'Hello!'... Now, you see, she weally thought that was funny—and what Amewicans call 'smart.' You see, it's just the different point of view, darling. And we all understand that. I'm sure that Mr...."

"Never mind, Olive," Sophy broke in again. "If Jack will make Morris understand ... that such things aren't done ... I'll be very grateful. More grateful than I can say."

Olive was more thoughtful than ever as she returned to her own room. She stood in a brown study for some moments when she reached it, then went and tapped on the door of her husband's dressing-room.

It was nearly one o'clock, and, attired in his pyjamas, he was swinging a light pair of Indian clubs before going to bed. He put them down as his wife entered and said:

"How did it come off? Awkward thing to do—eh? Was she huffy?"

"'Huffy'!... She was a Sewaph!... Oh, Jack"—she dropped limply upon a chair-arm—"it's twagic!"

"I felt tragic enough at luncheon, that's certain," replied he grimly. "But what's tragic now?... If Sophy wasn't offended by your suggestion? You really made it, I suppose?"

"Yes. I did," said Olive curtly. "But I'm not thinking of that any longer—I'm thinking of Sophy. I'd so hoped she was happy this time!... But she isn't ... she isn't...."

"How could she be ... married to a young bounder like that?" asked Arundel.

Olive shook her head.

"No, Jack. He's not a bounder ... that's what's so puzzling. There's something w'ong with him—but he's weally not a bounder...."

"Well, no ... perhaps not," admitted he grudgingly.

"But there's certainly something damned 'wrong' with him."

"Yes. And Sophy knows it as well as we do ... only she has to pwetend not to. Now isn't that twagic?"

"Yes. Hard lines ... poor girl!..." said Arundel. He had always been very fond of Sophy. "First she gets a Bedlamite like Chesney—then this ... this lurid Yankee."

Olive began giggling in spite of her genuine concern. "Lurid Yankee" seemed to her so exquisitely fitting an epithet. But she stopped as suddenly as she had begun.

"What is w'ong with him, Jack?" she took it up, deeply pondering once more. "You're a man ... you ought to be able to say at once."

Arundel pondered also.

"Perhaps it's a form of National swagger," he ventured at last. "That sort of way they have of implying 'I'm as good as a king, and better, damn your eyes!' It's odd to me that an American of this type will condescend to bend his knees in prayer. They'd call up the Lord over a telephone wire if they could."

"Maybe it's the way they're brought up, Jack."

"Oh, they aren't 'brought up'!"

"Well, then ... maybe it's that."

Olive's heart was sore for her friend. She was as loyal in her friendships as she was fickle in her loves. She lay long awake as she had predicted, thinking it all over.

"Sophy ought to have made a gweat match, with her gifts and charm and beauty," she reflected sadly. "And she goes and mawwies that howidly handsome boy."

Just as she was drowsing off, however, a consoling thought occurred to her:

"But he must have made divine love!" she reflected, smiling. And this smile lay prettily on her lips as she slept. To be "made divine love to" was, in Olive's creed, compensation for most of the ills of life.