When the eager young soul starts out unaided to solve the riddle of life, it meets with many paradoxes that admit of no solution, and many sordid simplicities that only unfamiliarity made it regard as enigmas. Despair in the one instance and disgust in the other not unfrequently drive it into a hopeless pessimism, in which inaction seems to be the least pain. Or else the soul bruises itself in vain against the mocking bars, shrinks in loathing from the disveiled corruption, and flies back to the unavailing aids that it spurned aforetime. It is cast in the valley of the shadow of death which only the stout-hearted can pass through unshaken.

The multitude stands by the formulas that profess to solve the eternal problem. It follows them blindly, like the schoolboy who cares not whether they are right or wrong, or whether the answer is conclusive. So long as there is an answer of some sort its mind is easy. But there are earnester inquirers whom these formulas do not satisfy—who see that they are followed for their own sake, that they never can lead to any conclusions. The soul, now of a people, now of an individual, rebels; it rejects the formulas; it starts from the first principles of being, asserting fiercely its individuality, its inalienable right to seek after truth according to its own methods. These are prejudiced. All great action must be. Because a system is rotten and incomplete the perfervid spirit judges that every factor must be false. It misses the fact that every great human system contains elemental truths of vital importance, without which it must fall in its struggle. And at last, when the forces of endeavour are well nigh spent, it finds the key of the great enigma inwrapped in a greater one still, in the eternal tragedy of things.

It was with this burning protest against formulas that Clytie entered into the world. They had been presented to her in their smug complacency as solving all mysteries human and divine. She had seen them worshipped as fetiches, and her soul revolted against the futile idolatry. She was too young to examine them carefully, to see that the sacrosanctity of some was miserably justified by human experience. She spurned them all, and she plunged into the waters of Life, a rudderless bark in search of the unknown.

She spent two years in study at the Slade School in University College, living under the protection of her aunt, who had a house in Russell Square. The training was severe and at times irksome. But she learned strict academical rules of drawing, in spite of her repugnance to the stern coldness of the antique. After her term of hard training was over she went for a year into a painter's studio and learned colour and painting from the live model.

They were years of probation, as Clytie well knew, and they brought her lessons in self-restraint, both in art and in the conduct of life. Her aunt, Miss Davenant, was shrewder and broader-minded than her brother, having lived more in the whirl of humanity, but the formulas of Durdleham were ranged as household gods upon her hearthstone, and Clytie, out of pure self-interest, was bound to show them outward respect. To compensate, however, for this, Clytie found in her student life many experiences, as she had found during her continental trip, with which she could fill her heart without violating her aunt's Lares and Penates.

She seldom went to Durdleham. She had an odd feeling that she was in disgrace there for having wished to leave it. Besides, both Mrs. Blather and Janet, as is the inconsequent way of such women, spoke tauntingly of her gay life in town, and contrasted it enviously with their country dulness. And then, too, her father was always querulous, complaining, not of her absence from home, but of her dissimilarity to her sisters.

“My dear papa,” she said one day, “I could no more be like them than they could be like me.”

“You might if you had tried,” said the old man.

Clytie looked hopelessly out of window. What possible reply could be made?

The happiest, most expansive hours that Clytie spent during these three years were in Harley Street with the Farquharsons. At first her aunt was rather averse to a continuance of the intimacy. Although she had kept up a visiting acquaintance with the Farquharsons since their return from Switzerland, and liked them both personally, she was conscious of an unfamiliar atmosphere in their house. The instinctive shrinking from the unknown made her seek to draw Clytie back with her towards the security of her own accustomed circle. But eventually, when she saw that the girl, to whom she had grown sincerely attached, found real happiness in going to Harley Street, she withdrew her tentative restrictions altogether. Perhaps she read deeper into the girl's heart than either was conscious of, and realised that in the Farquharsons' society Clytie found a relief from the strain of everyday life with her, which otherwise might have been unbearable.

The conditions of the household in Harley Street were favourable to the development of unceremonious intimacy. Mrs. Farquharson herself was bred in that strange London world we call Bohemia. Her father, long since dead, had been a journalist, a hack story-writer, a maker of plays, sometimes editor of a smart weekly, at others acting manager of a provincial company. Like most men of his type he spent his money as fast as he earned it, and when work came to a temporary standstill drew upon the prospects of his next success. His daughter Caroline had grown up in cheerful familiarity with this hand to mouth, makeshift existence. She had been called upon so often from her earliest childhood to condone the faults of her father and those of his intimates, who were men of much the same mould as himself, that a general habit of indulgence became natural to her. Folly seemed so inherent a quality in humanity that not to smile tolerantly, even though reprovingly, upon it was with her an impossibility. The lowering of moral tone that might have resulted from this mental attitude, and from a continuance of the same conditions of life, was prevented by her early marriage with a man of assured income and position. Her father died shortly afterwards and her connection with the seamy side of Bohemianism was thoroughly broken off. But the ingrained habits of freedom and carelessness still remained. She could never learn to be methodical, systematic. She had an inherited dread of account-books, household rules, fixed hours for meals, and appointed places for every domestic article. It was fortunate for her that she had married a man who worshipped her, and himself shared her distaste for rigidly organised life. His means had placed him beyond the necessity of working for his livelihood, and so the free life in a home where he could work, idle, eat, and receive his friends at any hour of the day or night was as much to his own taste as to that of his wife.

It was impossible that such a house should not possess a charm for those to whom the Farquharsons gave their friendship. The absence of formality encouraged expansiveness and individuality. There was a tacit understanding that one had a right not only to oneself, but to the appreciation of oneself by the host and hostess. It was this that Clytie had felt during her first visit, and it attracted her more and more to them as time went on. Gradually the house became a second home to her, and Mrs. Farquharson a friend such as she had never known before. She could go to her for strength and comfort during her fits of depression when the time seemed out of joint, and she did not in the least seem called upon to set it right. The restraints of strict draughtsmanship, academic modelling and grouping, chafed her as her simple arithmetic had done at school. She longed to throw them off and to plunge back into her old artistic wilfulnesses. But these occasions generally coincided with fresh sensations of restraint in her home life, and she was wise enough to appreciate the fact.

During this period an incident occurred in her life, giving it fresh colour and helping her to realise herself more fully. Her girlhood had been far removed from the lax sphere of idle flirtation in which many girls are brought up. The young men of Durdleham, who might have been attracted towards her by her beauty, were frozen by her scarcely veiled impatience at their society.

The dominant impulse towards active search after life had swayed her to the exclusion of any less powerful motive, and it had scarcely yet occurred to her that her personality might interest and possibly influence others. She was too absorbed in her work, in her dimly shadowed yet ever-haunting plans for the future, in the individualities round her, in the foretaste of that full sense of living, in the stirring objectivity of London life, to dwell at all earnestly on subjective matters and to devote much attention to self-analysis. It is only when the question, “How do others affect me?” ceases to interest that the other question, “How does my personality affect others?” begins to assume a paramount importance. The possibility of a man falling in love with her was a factor as yet absent from her scheme of practical life.

She learned that such an event had occurred from Mrs. Farquharson. She had gone to her one Monday morning, depressed, out of tune, to seek consolation.

“Oh, why am I not a man?” she exclaimed petulantly. “Why can't I live by myself, go where I like, and see what I want to see?”

Her friend laughed good-humouredly.

“You want to do too much at once, my dear. The world's your oyster, as ancient Pistol said, and you would force it open with one wrench. As for wishing to be a man, you are by no means original. Lots of girls say that, but when they grow older they think it's just as well for them that they are women.”

“What on earth's the good of being a woman?” asked Clytie, with rather unnecessary emphasis.

One of her studio companions had asked her to join a party at a theatre, and her aunt had demurred on the ground that ladies ought not to go to that particular house. It showed a certain knowledge of the world on the old lady's part, but Clytie did not realise it, and although she accepted the decision with good grace, it fretted her. These trivial things fret even the wisest amongst us quite as much as the important ones do.

Mrs. Farquharson did not reply, but continued placidly her usual Monday morning's occupation of putting her music in order, while Clytie watched her from the long rocking-chair where she was sitting, her hands clasped behind her head.

“What's the good of being a woman when one has to pass half one's life shut up in darkness? It's bad enough being a human being as it is, and having to sleep the other half.”

“How old are you, my dear?” asked Mrs. Farquharson, looking at a song.

“You know,” replied Clytie. “Twenty.”

“Then how would you like to be a young man of twenty—or even two-and-twenty? How would you like to be young Beaumont, for instance? Do you think he knows so very much more than you do?”

“He's such a boy,” said Clytie.

“And you, my dear, are such a girl,” said Mrs. Farquharson, coming up behind her chair and smoothing her cheeks. “But you are many years older than he is—and likely to remain so. Do you know why we women like to be women? Because we see so many things that men would give the eyes of their heads to know. Hasn't it ever struck you that we are familiar with a side of life that is almost forever hidden from men? And as for that particular side that men have exclusively to themselves, it is neither very pretty nor comfortful.”

“I suppose that is why men stop talking when one goes into the smoking-room,” said Clytie. “You hear shouts of laughter outside the door, and you think they must be having an awfully good time, and when you appear in the doorway they seem to pull themselves together, and one or two always look red and sheepish.”

“I should advise you to read the story of Bluebeard,” said Mrs. Farquharson.

“You are just as bad as the rest,” cried Clytie, half laughing and half vexed. “I never thought it of you. That's what I have always been told: Never try to find out what you don't know. Always remain in a state of blissful ignorance. Men are superior beings, and a good little girl ought to accept her position with meekness.”

“I could a tale unfold,” said her friend, “but I won't. It is too early for you. If you want to make experiments on your own account there is young Beaumont for you. He will tell you the sum total of his knowledge in ten minutes.”

“Do you know, I like him,” said Clytie, leaving the main track of the conversation. “He always looks so clean, and his clothes fit him so well, and he is so serviceable. He always seems to be trying to make the best of himself, since God has done so little for him. And it's very plucky of him to try to improve on the Almighty.”

“I would not like him too much.”

“Why?”

“My poor Clytie! You haven't even got the elements of woman's knowledge yet. Can't you see why Beaumont wears those very chaste ties and those wonderfully shiny boots, and does errands all over London for you? Oh, dear!”

“Do you mean that he——?”

Mrs. Farquharson looked at her quizzically and nodded.

“Therefore I would not like him too much.”

Obeying a first impulse, Clytie burst out laughing. It seemed so ridiculous. Beaumont was a good-looking, fresh-faced young fellow of two-and-twenty, a distant relation of the Farquharsons, and a habituÉ of the house. She had met him there many times and had begun to feel quite friendly towards him. Besides, he had fetched and carried for her in the most useful way. She had never thought of his falling in love with her. As he was the last man she herself would have thought of falling in love with, she found the event ludicrous.

She stopped laughing suddenly, and crimsoned to her hair; then rushed impulsively up to Mrs. Farquharson, and put her arm round her waist.

“I am sorry; forgive me. What must you think of me! I could not help it, indeed I couldn't. You put me in such a new light before myself. And, dear Mrs. Farquharson, I do so want you to see the best side of me.”

“My dear girl,” said her friend, “you don't suppose that with your face and your nature you are going to pass through life without having men falling in love with you! You see what a lot you have to learn. You want to have a man's experiences before you have passed through the elementary ones of a woman.”

“And Mr. Beaumont—what shall I do?”

“Oh! don't fret yourself about him. He will get over it. He has no end of this sort of thing to go through before his life is up. It will do him good.” Clytie had not much time to map out any fixed plan of treatment of her would-be lover, for he met her an afternoon or two afterwards outside University College, where he had been waiting for her, and pleaded that she would walk a little way up towards the Regent's Park, as the afternoon was fine.

Clytie looked at him and hesitated.

“Only just a little way. I have something I must tell you.”

“Perhaps you had best never tell it,” said Clytie.

The red-waistcoated gate porter behind them beamed on them smilingly. He had seen something of youthful love in his professional career.

“I must, whatever happens,” replied the young fellow. “I know it's wrong to ask you to walk in the street with me, but I don't know when I shall get another chance.”

“I don't see anything wrong about it,” said Clytie. “I will go with you wherever you wish.”

So they wandered up Gower Street and the Euston Road into the park, and there, for the first time in her life, Clytie heard a man confess his love for her and ask her to marry him. He was only a boy after all, but he was in great earnest. Clytie felt humbled, almost guilty, and yet a great, unknown pleasure thrilled through her. Although she knew that the sooner and more summarily the interview was brought to an end the better for both herself and him, she could scarcely resist the temptation of allowing him to pour out the fulness of his boyish love for her.

She suddenly found herself listening to the sound but not the meaning of his words, her senses filled with the sweetness of the new sensations and the pure May sunlight that flooded the trees and the gay flower-bed opposite the bench where they were sitting. Then she realised her situation, and in a few kind words, harder to speak than she would have expected, dismissed him.

And that was the end of the matter. He went off whither young men in his predicament generally betake themselves, and Clytie returned slowly home to Russell Square.

When she had reached her own room she went deliberately up to the glass and scanned her features. Then she laughed a strange, contented little laugh, and taking off her hat and gloves, went downstairs to tea. She had advanced several steps along the road to knowledge.

Three years! How quickly they passed! How sure yet dimly working were their influences! If they were years of probation and self-restraint for Clytie, they also brought with them softening influences. Hitherto her life had been one of revolt and harsh, crude judgments that had turned away friendship and had left her solitary. Mutual misconception and misunderstanding had crushed sisterly love. Her heart had never been touched by real affection. Now she had friends, real ones, in the Farquharsons whom she could love for their own sakes, and pleasant, sympathetic ones in her companions at the Slade School and at the studio. She learned, too, the sweetness of active protection and helpfulness. Her aunt, though somewhat stronger-fibred than the rest of the Davenants, possessed their essential physical characteristics. Her health, which had been failing for some years, gradually gave way altogether. During the few months of her last illness she depended entirely upon Clytie for care and tenderness. It was a new, strange experience for the girl. She learned to love the faded elderly lady who bore her sufferings so calmly, so cheerfully. Both Mrs. Blather and Janet offered to come and nurse her, but Miss Davenant would have none but Clytie. If this period of selflessness and sacrifice had lasted, who knows what sweet effacement of individuality might have resulted? Who knows into what channels of pity and sublime endeavours of mercy the girl's full, ardent nature might have been directed? But the high gods had ordained otherwise. Miss Davenant died, and Clytie again found herself with the unknown destiny before her that had to be worked out unaided.

It was only after the first outburst of grief that she realised this fully. She had gone back to Durdleham, with a new range of feelings freshly revealed. Her sisters she found were gentle, quiet women like her aunt, narrower perhaps, with thin currents of old prejudice still running through them, but still lovable and sympathetic in her sorrow. They welcomed her back like a lost sheep to the fold. Never had her home life seemed so peaceful, comfortful; London was scarcely mentioned, and her sisters agreed between themselves that Clytie's absence from home was an episode of the past, never to recur.

But time wears and effaces the deepest intaglio of impression, even that of a young girl's first knowledge of death and eternal loss. Gradually the quietude of eventless life, as the need for it wore away, grew wearisome, oppressive, and the old restless cravings began to gnaw at her heart. The breach that death had closed slowly widened again, so gradually that not till it was fully appreciable did the sisters recognise it. The formulas seemed narrower, more lifeless than ever. She had viewed dimly the potentialities of life, and her soul burned within her with a fiercer hunger. Almost against her will she revolted finally.

“What is this that Janet has been telling me,” said Mrs. Blather one morning, “about your wanting to go back to London? You cannot be in earnest, Clytie?”

Clytie looked at her sister rather sadly, tears springing into her eyes.

“You have been very good to me since I have come back, Gracie, and I have learned to love you more than I did before—much more. But can't you understand, dear, that if I am to go on loving you I must go away?”

“I can't see it at all,” replied Mrs. Blather. “If we have got on so nicely together these last few months, why can't we continue? Janet and I are willing to give you all in our power to make you happy.”

“Ah! but don't you see that what I want is out of your power to give?” said Clytie. “Don't think I am wicked and ungrateful. If a man wants five pounds, he is grateful to anyone who gives him one; but that does not lessen his need of the other four. Now the other four pounds are not to be got in Durdleham, Gracie, and I must have them.”

“You should learn content, Clytie,” said her sister. “We have all to put up with our lot in life.”

Clytie checked an impulse of impatience at the platitude, and answered with great gentleness of voice and manner:

“This is not my lot in life, dear. It is quite different. You and Janet can bear it, because your natures crave this tranquillity. Mine craves movement, excitement, strange faces. Oh, Gracie, it is no use talking—I must go away, or I shall begin to hate Durdleham as I used to do. There is nothing for me to do here. I am too bad for it, perhaps. I don't know. I can't explain it to you; you have never felt it.”

“My dear Clytie, that is all nonsense,” said Mrs. Blather, who prided herself, above all things, on being a woman of common sense. “As a matter of fact, you can't go to London, because you would have no one to live with, and you would only have your hundred a year to support you, as papa has lost a great deal of money lately and can hardly afford to give you an allowance. When your aunt was alive it was a different thing. The whole idea of going to live alone in London is silly. So there's an end of it.”

Mrs. Blather went on with her sewing, with mingled feelings of content at having done her duty and disappointment in the failure of promise of reform in Clytie. She would have judged her sister mercifully had she been able. She was naturally a gentle woman, full of kindness. But her canons of duty would not allow her to encourage or condone wilfulness, caprice, and a tendency to wrong-doing. She earnestly believed it was for Clytie's good to stay in Durdleham. The girl's wider needs she could not understand.

Clytie turned from the hearthrug, where she had been standing, to the drawing-room window, and looked out blankly at the rain. Her young face was set rather hard; her lips quivered a little; her heart beat quicker than usual. A struggle was taking place within her—the struggle between the girl and the woman. She felt that the great moment of her life had come. She must choose. Which should it be: the dazzling light with its weird shadows of things unseen, or the gray, easeful glimmer in which the familiar realities cast no shadow? Which should it be: daughterly duty and maidenly retirement, or the sundering of home ties forever and going out, one woman, to battle with the world?

She turned away from the window at last and called to her sister. The latter looked up and was filled with foreboding as she saw the girl's pale face.

“Yes. What is the matter, Clytie?”

“I have made up my mind, Gracie,” she said a little huskily. “I am going to London to live by myself. I can share lodgings with one of the girls I know at the Slade School. There will be no difficulty. I can earn money; I have already earned a little. As for mamma's money, I am of age now, and it is my own to do what I like with it—as you and Janet do. Let this be an end of the discussion, Gracie. I am going.”