man's jealous
face under the childish mop of hair--"then _I'll_ be waiting! In two
years I'll be eighteen.... I'll give you just two years ... then _my_
innings begin...."

Belinda knew well that she was beautiful. She had known it supremely
when she tempted Morris to kiss her--for she had tempted him--but then
she loved him wildly. She was morally a little Oriental--with all her
passions at white heat though she was but a schoolgirl. She had thought
that his kiss meant that he loved her in like wise. He had been sorry
the moment the kiss was over. But then--she had really tempted him
beyond endurance, and he had always thought she had the most kissable
mouth in the world. Besides, just at that psychological moment he
happened to be bored to desperation. He had been spending the two weeks
at Nahant that his mother always exacted from him in the summer. It was
the only thing that she ever did exact from him, but they always seemed
interminable. Then had come Belinda, tempting him with her passionate,
sparkling eyes, and the desireful red fruit of her mouth ... fruit cleft
for kisses....

He had hurried away the next day. He was honestly ashamed of that
sensual kiss laid on a school-girl's lips. She was only fifteen then. He
raged at himself and at her, too. "Kitten Cleopatra," he called her in
his thought. "Amorous little devil-- Jove! I pity her husband...."

For he never realised for an instant that the girl was really in love
with him.

XIII

When Lady Wychcote received Sophy's letter, she was breakfasting at
Dynehurst, alone with Gerald. She went very red under her light, morning
rouge, then pale. After some bitter remarks, through which her son sat
in silence, she said:

"I shall send for James Surtees." Mr. Surtees was the family solicitor.
"I am sure that as the probable heir we have some legal control over the
boy, in a case like this."

Gerald rose decidedly.

"I shouldn't use it if I had it," he said.

His mother rose, too.

"_I_ should," she said curtly.

They were standing face to face. Gerald's eyes wavered first. He looked
out of window over the rolling green of the Park to where the smoke from
the mining town blurred the pale horizon. Then he looked back at his
mother again. It was a gentle but bold look for him.

"I wouldn't if I were you, mother," he said gravely.

"No. There are many things that you leave undone, which would be done if
_you_ were _I_," she said in a harsh voice