Perhaps if they had remained in Bordighera the intoxication would have lasted longer. But as our lives are hemmed in by infinite possibilities, to each of which is strung its infinite ramification of consequences, it is somewhat rash to predicate ex hypothesi. At any rate so long as they were at Bordighera there seemed to be no reason that the continuity of the charm should be broken; whereas it did suffer a change during the railway journey from Bordighera to Paris. And this railway journey was a kind of neutral ground in their married life, separating the dream from the reality. On entering the train they were lovers. On leaving it they were a married couple. Wherein lies somewhat of a difference. They were not conscious of the change. Realisation of this mysterious operation is fortunately denied to human beings, seeing that they turn their eyes inwards rather too much as it is already. Nor do they recognise what has happened until some time afterwards, as the old influences still remain lingeringly; but then they can generally look back to the point of transition, and set it up as a forlorn landmark in their lives.

Why they did not remain longer in the south they themselves could scarcely explain. They had arranged to spend a month there, and then to proceed to Paris to wait indefinitely until their new house in the Cromwell Road should be ready to receive them. There is nothing so irrefragable as an arbitrary programme. Even the most emancipated enslave themselves to it sometimes, as in the present case did Thornton and Clytie They possibly lost a good deal,—the flowers of life seldom grow along the beaten track,—but they never thought of attributing it to the fixity of their programme. They were in Paris, then, living under totally fresh conditions. Thornton found there a succession of friends and acquaintances, and was pleased rather than otherwise to meet them. At Monte Carlo he fled from Carteret of the Hussars; on the Boulevard des Capucines he greeted him heartily and carried him off into the American Bar. Besides discovering acquaintances daily in the hotel list, Thornton was not unknown in general Parisian society. His name could procure him admission into most circles that he cared to enter. He was put up at a couple of clubs and received invitation cards by the dozen.

To please him Clytie went with him a little into society. He was proud of his beautiful wife, loved to watch the effect produced as she entered a drawing-room upon his arm, and the eager admiration on the faces of the men who crowded round her chair. In fact, Clytie had a small social success—and a paragraph in the Figaro. It was a new sensation for her; but in these early days of her married life she would have preferred a quieter, less conspicuous existence. But Thornton, just as he had sought in the south to keep her and her beauty to himself, now seemed to wish to exhibit it abroad.

“I seem to wear you like a decoration, darling,” he said once.

At first Clytie flushed with pleasure at the little flattery. Then she thought over it for a bit, and it did not please her so much. But she did not confide this to her husband. She had already begun to discover that for the safekeeping of many little matters her own heart was the best place.

They had a set of rooms in a hotel in the Champs ElysÉes with a balcony overlooking the Grande Avenue. Clytie loved to sit there with Thornton in the quiet half hour before dinner watching the stream of vehicles, fine and vague far away by the Arc de Triomphe, then gradually broadening, till fashionable Paris returning from the Bois blazed beneath her in its movement and gaiety. They seemed to her so alone up there, above the whirl and the glitter and falseness. It was a return of the hours of the month in the south, and happiness fluttered tremulously around her—like a butterfly, ever so elusively. When she leaned over the balcony by his side many people looked up admiringly at them. When she saw one woman twitch the arm of her companion in a victoria, and both shoot swift feminine glances up at the balcony, she could not help feeling a little thrill of pride in her husband. And then she would remember the morning's solitary ramble among the sculpture of the Louvre (Thornton and herself were less dependent upon each other now for entertainment), and reflect, with a sense of pleasure, that she had seen no antique ideal that could compare with him in splendid manhood. He, too, had done heroic deeds, she would think, and she would move nearer to his side and be glad that he was there. Yet the butterfly happiness was just beyond her grasp.

Some such thoughts were passing through her mind one afternoon as they stood together on the balcony. He broke a short silence by saying:

“We are getting quite an old married couple, Clytie!”

“What made you say that?” she asked, smiling.

“Oh! I hardly know. I have got so used to having you by me. It seems as if I had been married ever since I was born.”

“It does seem a long, long time ago that we first passed through Paris. But I can't say I am quite used to matrimony yet. Do you know, I have sometimes hoped that I never should be.”

“Why?”

“Can't you guess? At present, dear, it is all glamour and mystery, and when you get too familiar with the glamour it turns into the commonplace. That's why I am just a little bit sorry we left Bordighera.”

“It was certainly very jolly,” he assented reflectively. “But we are having as good a time here, aren't we?”

“Well, I like these little half hours best,” said Clytie, “when we are alone together. When we are parted it seems as if I am suddenly called upon to live as an individual and do not quite know how to begin. You see, when I am alone with you I know how to behave as Clytie Hammerdyke, but not yet when I am by myself or with other people.”

Thornton laughed, as a man in love laughs when he thinks he is replying to an idle, pretty remark.

“You have always Clytie Davenant to fall back upon,” he said.

“Have I? That's just the question I have been putting to myself. But I can't explain it to you. I don't think you would understand.”

“Of course I understand!” he cried quickly. “You have to mix with people as a married woman, and you are a bit shy at first. But you'll pull through all right, dear. Why, as it is, you are superb.”

“Oh, come,” she said, laughing. “I can talk to people without blushing and morally biting the corner of my apron. I meant something a little more subtle than that. You see, after all, you don't understand. I can never, never be Clytie Davenant again. She was buried for good and all at Bordighera.”

“And my sweet phoenix has arisen out of her ashes,” said Thornton.

“If you like—and the phoenix hasn't quite got the sense of her environment yet.”

“All this is very pretty, my dear,” said Thornton, with a laugh. “But I can't quite see what we are driving at.”

“Have I been talking such great nonsense, then? Perhaps it all tended to express the fact that when I am with you I don't think of myself; when we are apart I am confronted with myself, and feel embarrassed. You see, Thornton dear,” she went on, “I have lived a queer kind of life, full of such different hopes and dreams. I scarcely thought about marriage in those days. I knew that love would come to me some time or the other, but then it seemed as if it would all be mixed up with my art, whereas now——Oh, you can't see how different it is!”

There was no tone of sadness or regret in her voice as she said this, but a touch of tenderness, a tribute, as it were, to his influence.

“But there's nothing to hinder you from amusing yourself with painting pictures, is there?” asked her husband lightly. “You have no call now to earn a livelihood, but you can paint all day if you like, my dear.”

“Of course I shall paint—I could not live without it—except perhaps such a month as last. But, don't you see, my art was once the guiding principle of my life. Now I have my art and my love, and they seem to have nothing to do with each other. They are on different planes, so to speak. It is all that that makes me feel I don't quite realise myself yet when I have to leave the love plane for a little.”

“Don't leave it,” said Thornton.

“Ah! we have done that by going away from Bordighera, and leading this dissipated life here,” she replied, laughing. “But we can get on and off whenever we like, you know. That is one comfort.”

“Well,” said Thornton, lighting a cigarette, and speaking between the first few whiffs, “marriage must make some difference. You have lived a free and easy, emancipated life among artistic people, and now you belong to somebody else—a wild barbarian, who could no more tell you how to paint a picture than how to cut out a dress. Of course it makes a difference in your way of viewing things. It has made a difference in mine too, by Jove! When a yearning for Africa comes over me I have to say: No; I have a wife, with her arms,—the roundest in the world, my dear,—about my neck. And so I have got to settle down to politics and domesticity in the Cromwell Road.”

“But you don't regret it, do you, Thornton?” she asked, womanlike.

“Look at me and see if I do,” he said.

Clytie obeyed him, half shyly, feeling, as she always did since her return to Paris, the fascination, half pleasant, half painful, of his eyes. He loved her. There was no doubt of that. Yet the nature of his love sometimes frightened her a little if she strayed for a moment off the “love plane.” Her own responsiveness she never questioned, preferring to shut her eyes and let the current of his love carry her whither it would. But at times now, during her solitary walks through the Louvre, the thought obtruded, What would the new life be like? Not these early days, which were holidays from the seriousnesses of existence, but the life in the years that lay before her, of whose responsibilities she had as yet but vague premonitions. How would her art be affected?

Would it lose or gain in that breadth and insight that it needed? Would she continue to reckon herself an artist at all, or would she only degenerate into the amateur—painting little meaningless pictures for amusement? And at the end of a year would she not stand face to face with a new Clytie, paler, more shadowy, and therefore less insistently demanding self-expression? Even these few weeks had changed her: what would she be at the end of one year, two years, twenty years? Happier, with all her old cravings satisfied, with her individuality worked out to its fullest, with the riddle of life joyously solved? Or else——She scarcely dared think of it. She looked at what had been written in her Book of New Formulas, and found that the marriage service had been omitted. It merely said that marriage was unformularisable, an easy way of curving a contumelious lip at the old formulas which she had rebelled against, but scarcely satisfactory in her present position. Now, in the Old Formulas, marriage was minutely, scrupulously regulated by the most definite of rules. Although they broke up the poem of life into a disjointed copy-book, or at best into a collection of elegant extracts, still they presented a homogeneous scheme. Should she at last have to accept this, confess to Mrs. Blather smiling complacently that the Durdleham philosophy was the only one? But then she would look at her husband and take a measure of comfort. Such a man could not come out of Durdleham.

That was her consolation in the perplexities that the problem of her married life caused her. She took refuge from herself, her thoughts, her forebodings, in his grand strength and personal magnetism. It was intermittent intoxication, this long Paris after-honeymoon, rather than continuous charm, and the intervals of soberness had their wearinesses. She had thrown her cap over the windmills. Sometimes she regretted it.

On the evening after the above conversation they went to the opera, where they had taken a box with the Claverings, army people with whom Thornton had been intimate in Cairo. Clytie had met them only for a moment the day before, and had not been favourably impressed. However, they were Thornton's friends, and it behoved her to appreciate them. Mrs. Clavering passed for being a clever woman by virtue of a plain face and a vivacious manner; also because she ruled her husband and had a cultivated taste in sherry.

Thornton had admired her some years before. Mammas with marriageable daughters put it in that way; those who could afford to be independent put it in another. Whichever way they put it in no wise affected the parties concerned. Mrs. Clavering was too superior a woman to allow idle gossip to influence her or her husband. Now she was eight-and-thirty, she had seen the world and had preserved few illusions, least of all any respecting Thornton Hammerdyke. She met him with a cynical encouragement, which to some men is flattering.

Clytie was quick to notice her manner towards Thornton, and resented it. There was a touch of banal familiarity, too, in his talk with Mrs. Clavering that jarred upon her. The tone was undignified, suggestive of the falser strata of regimental society, in which frankness stands for scarcely veiled mutual contempt.

He was sitting behind Mrs. Clavering, who smiled in a superior, half-patronising way at his remarks. Clytie listened to the music absently, wished they had come alone. The house was crowded, and the air was stifling. She found the opera, “La Juive,” uninteresting.

“I am going to carry off your husband to the terrace, Mrs. Hammerdyke,” said Mrs. Clavering at the end of the second act, “and I leave you mine in pledge. I hope he will take good care of you.”

He was a heavy but honest Briton, who idolised his wife, his dinner, and the British Constitution. As neither the opera nor Clytie came within this area of adoration, he treated them with a polite though somewhat embarrassed indifference. Still he acquitted himself of his charge satisfactorily and entertained Clytie during the entr'acte. After a tour round the house he found a seat for her in the Salle des Pas Perdus and talked with solemn fitfulness. Then it occurred to him that it was oppressive indoors and he took her out upon the terrace. Clytie did not wish to stay there long—only for a moment to get a breath of fresh air. She remained for a little leaning on the broad balustrade and looking at the scene in front of her—the broad place below with the continuous passing to and fro of vehicles crossing each other in all directions, the CafÉ de la Paix on the right with its crowded tables far out on the pavement and trayladen waiters hurrying between them, the glittering vista of lights in the Avenue de l'Opera, the duller line of lamps in the Rue de la Paix with the VendÔme column towering high in the dim moonlight. It was so instinct with gaiety and movement and the brightness of life that a little thrill of its gladness passed through her, ending in a strange kind of sob that filled her throat. She took her companion's arm, and went across through the stream of loungers back into the heavy air of the Salle des Pas Perdus.

Meanwhile Thornton and Mrs. Clavering had established themselves in a corner at the end of the terrace.

“It seems like old times—on the veranda—at a regimental dance,” she said. “At least that is what you were going to say, I suppose. I never yet met an old admirer but what he made some remark of the kind. So I have saved you from the commonplace.”

“I was meditating some politeness of the sort,” replied Thornton carelessly. “I thought you would expect it.”

“I hope you will always have the same delicate consideration for others, Mr. Hammerdyke. How long are you going to be good and domestic?”

“Always, I suppose. I am going to run politics and that sort of show.”

Mrs. Clavering laughed lightly.

“Ha! When I see you at it I'll believe it—unless you have changed extraordinarily since I last knew you. And you don't look much changed. Perhaps matrimony will work the miracle. Ha! ha! Pardon my laughing, but it seems so ridiculous to see you, of all people, married.”

“I suppose I have human attributes somewhere about me,” he said.

“Too vastly human, my poor friend; that is where the danger lies. To err is human, you know. I hope your wife will do the divine part of the business, as women generally do, and forgive. By the way, I have not made you my compliment, as they say in this country. I think your wife simply perfect.”

“We agree there for once,” replied Thornton drily.

“Tell me all about it. Can't you see I am dying to know? That is why I brought you out here. Who is she? Where did you meet her? Were you long engaged? And I know you too are dying to talk to someone about her. You may as well gratify the craving while you still have it.”

“I believe you are madly jealous, Clara. Pardon my frankness. But you and I always went in for being frank with one another.”

“Call it amiable brutality—it would be better.”

“As you like. I never went in for splitting hairs. I suppose it's brutal to say you are jealous.”

“It is simply idiotic. Therefore I bear you no ill will for your saying so. I honestly admire your wife, and think you have got very much more than you deserve, and I am femininely curious. Now perhaps you will tell me.”

“Well, I met her at a cousin's house. She is, or rather was, an artist.”

“I appreciate the distinction. Proceed.”

Thornton threw himself back with a great laugh against the balustrade, his elbows resting upon it, his hands in his pockets.

“I think you are just a little bit jealous,” he said. “Well—to finish my story. She is of an old Buckinghamshire family, and we were engaged about a month. And then we were married. But tell me, by way of changing the conversation——”

“Which may be painful.”

“Precisely. How long are you going to stay in Paris?”

“I don't know. As long as Paris pleases me. Am I going to see you any more, or are you too much engrossed? I don't want to take you away from your duties.”

“I don't think you are likely to, Clara.”

“Possibly not. Your wife will keep a tight rein upon you. She looks that sort. But I don't know why we should be talking in this strain the first time we have had a word together for—how many years? Four? Five? We have quickly dropped into old ways. But then you were a fire-eater, a chartered libertine, independent, a bird of freedom. Whereas now—my poor friend!”

“By George!” cried Thornton, starting forward, with some excitement in his eyes that glowed in the dimness, “don't fall into any delusion. If you think I am going the way of another poor friend of ours who can't call his soul his own, you are devilishly mistaken. I married because it happened to strike me that I wanted to do so. But I run the concern, and my wife's a sensible woman and recognises the fact. And whatever I want to do I am going to do. I have generally done it, and don't see why I should break through my habit now.”

“And your wife?”

“How—my wife?”

“Is she going to enjoy a beautiful independence likewise?”

“No. It isn't good for women.”

“Thank you. You always were a delicate judge in things feminine. Did you ever read 'As You Like It'? 'Lock the door on your wife's wit and it will out at the casement.' Have a care, my friend. I am about the only woman you have tried to make a fool of and haven't succeeded, and so you perhaps have a kind of respect for my intelligence, and I give you warning.”

“I burned some of your letters the other day,” said Thornton cynically.

“That was wise. Suppose we go in. The act must be about commencing.”

The curtain was already up. Major Clavering was scanning the house drearily through a pair of opera glasses. Clytie was looking at the stage and thinking of her husband, wishing he would come in. When the door behind opened she turned round, and with an eye trained to catch fleeting expression, noticed a look upon Thornton's face,—the after-light, as it were, of a sneer, before the features had time to reset,—that she had never observed there before. The change from this to his usual gay smile was so rapid that she thought she had been mistaken, and attributed it to an illusion produced by the shadow at the back of the box. But the impression of it remained and it was unpleasant.

During the next entr'acte the men went out, leaving Clytie and Mrs. Clavering alone together. Either through the mere social desire to please or through a feeling of compassion proceeding from conscious superiority, the elder woman sought to make an agreeable impression upon the young wife. But Clytie had wrapped herself up in a strange veil of reserve and her attitude was unpropitiatory. Mrs. Clavering's falsetto voice struck upon her nerves, the confident air of patronage irritated her. She longed to be away from the heavy, acrid atmosphere, the artificiality of the opera, the society of Mrs. Clavering. She felt self-conscious, was angry with herself. She had the keen feminine sense of a false position and longed for extrication. She was glad when her husband and Major Clavering returned.

“I have been telling Mrs. Hammerdyke about old times in Cairo, and singing your praises,” said Mrs. Clavering. “Are you not grateful to me?”

“I am flattered,” said Thornton somewhat ironically.

“That is always the way to make a man grateful.”

“It is the same with us. I don't suppose there is much difference in that respect between men and women,” said Clytie, for the sake of saying something.

“I am not so sure of that,” replied Mrs. Clavering; “women can generally sift the grain from the chaff—only, poor things, they too often take the chaff by preference.”

“I hope you are not alluding to me, my dear,” said the major, who was given to saying stupid things by way of showing that he followed the thread of his wife's conversation.

Thornton chimed in with his deep laugh.

“That is one for you, Clavering. Perhaps one for me too. Anyhow, the curtain is going up and that saves us. Make room for me by you, Clytie, and tell me about what's going on.”

He edged in his chair between Clytie and Mrs. Clavering. The major lounged behind, with his hands in his pockets, very much bored. He was hoping to escape soon.

“Are you enjoying it?” whispered Thornton to Clytie.

“Moderately. It is a dull opera. And it is so unbearably hot.”

“It is not entrancingly interesting. Would you like to clear out after this act? I should.”

“And the Claverings?”

“They are a bit tired of it. Shall we all go back together to the hotel and have supper?”

“I'd sooner we were alone together, Thornton dear—this evening.”

He made a little gesture of impatience.

“Of course we won't ask them if you don't want to. But then we must stay this thing out.”

He leaned back in his chair and looked at the mass of heads in the opposite tiers, vague in the dimness, and drummed with his fingers on the rails of his chair.

“Sh!” said Mrs. Clavering. “That's one of your old tricks. You never seem to think that people have nerves.”

Clytie caught the words, although they were whispered. She turned her head round quickly and stared at the stage for the rest of the act.

When it was over Mrs. Clavering solved the question of departure.

“I think we all want to go,” she said, rising. “My husband is suffering acutely, and yours I know is not very musical. When shall we see you again, Mrs. Hammerdyke? Will you come and dine with us some evening, quietly—when we can talk better? I'll let you know what evenings we are free. Will that do? That is your wife's cloak, not mine, Mr. Hammerdyke.”

A few minutes later Thornton and Clytie were driving back to their hotel in the pleasant Paris victoria. It seemed a superb night. A slight breeze had risen, and the leaves in the Champs ElysÉes rustled pleasantly. Clytie leaned back with a sense of relief, physical and moral. They had both been rather silent since they left the opera house.

“Don't let us go in,” said Clytie suddenly. “Let us drive about a little, along the quays—anywhere.”

“I was just going to suggest it,” said Thornton.

He gave the order to the coachman, who turned back through the Place de la Concorde and took them past the Tuileries and the great mass of the Louvre and along the quays in the direction of Auteuil.

“What do you think of the Clavering woman?” asked Thornton. “Not much, eh?”

“I can't say that I like her. Perhaps I oughtn't to say it, as she is a friend of yours, but—she doesn't please me.”

“Well, I can't say that she does me now. She never was a beauty, but she has sadly fallen off the last few years. She thinks herself so deuced superior. And she isn't, by Jove! Still she is amusing, you know, and that is a quality that covers a multitude of sins. But other women can't understand her. She was loathed by them all in Cairo, so you are not alone in your antipathy.”

There was a long silence. Thornton drew her closer to his side and took her hand in his. Clytie felt somewhat hurt. It was not flattering to be grouped with the other women in Cairo, however estimable they may have been in their non-appreciation of Mrs. Clavering. They drove on, and began to talk of different subjects, disconnectedly, without much interest. Finally Thornton came back to the Claverings.

“By the way, I suppose you'll dine with them, as they were civil enough to ask us.”

“Certainly, if you wish it and it gives you any pleasure. Perhaps I may like her better when I know more of her.”

“You see, you can't drop people because you don't happen to take a violent fancy to them,” he said rather lamely. And then he added:

“I wish you had let me ask them to supper.”

“Why?”

“It would have livened us up a little.”

“Perhaps it would,” answered Clytie almost wearily. “I half wish you had.”

The evanescent charm had gone from the drive. The weather, too, had changed. Clouds, that had imperceptibly gathered, covered the moon. The quay looked desolate, the water black and lifeless, on the other side the great buildings loomed forbidding in the darkness. An air of disenchantment was over all things.

“Will monsieur turn back? It is going to rain,” said the cabman, lounging sideways and looking down at them.

They turned off through the narrow streets, on the nearest way back to the hotel. The cab horse was tired and jogged on painfully, indifferent to the loud-cracking whip and the “hue's” addressed to him in the driver's raucous voice. Clytie shivered a little at the sudden fall in the temperature. She was chilled too—ever so little—at her heart. She drew away slightly from her husband, who held her hand mechanically. When she withdrew it he did not seem to notice. He had discovered that he was annoyed about the supper.

Suddenly the horse, overdriven, stumbled, tried to recover himself, and then crashed down helpless, snapping the shaft. The victoria lurched violently on the side where Clytie was sitting. To save herself she jumped out quickly, but her foot slipped on the kerb and she nearly fell. Thornton sprang out and raised her, and then turned to the coachman in a sudden frenzy of passion. He stood there moving his arms about and cursed him in English. Clytie was shocked to the heart. She was thankful that she could see his face but dimly in the bad gaslight. The cabman shrugged his shoulders as he bent down to loosen the traces. Some people came up, chiefly from a small brasserie whose few tables were just visible some yards further along the street. Another cab arrived and paused, interested and expectant, watching the scene: the little group round the fallen horse; the stately figure of the girl in white dress and rich opera-cloak standing by the upset cab; the great figure of the man, stamping with rage, pouring forth a torrent of oaths. It all happened very quickly.

Clytie touched her husband's arm quietly.

“Stop, Thornton,” she said. “He does not even understand you.”

Thornton looked at her for a moment, then at the group. Then he burst into a loud laugh, pulled a ten-franc piece from his pocket and threw it to the cabman, who picked it up with an ironical, “Merci, bourgeois.”

They entered the other cab and drove quickly homewards. Thornton seemed to have forgotten his rage, for he laughed in high spirits over the incident. He apologised gaily for his loss of temper and language. He was still infected with his years of savagery, he pleaded. He had been so accustomed to rule men by terror that he forgot himself sometimes. Often he had been the only white man among hundreds of fierce, lawless savages, over whom he had despotic authority of life and death. If they had not feared his rage and violence, his life would not have been worth a moment's purchase.

He had regained his old manner, the daring personal charm that had swept her along in spite of herself into marrying him. The glamour of his fame, his power, his heroism came over her and hid the sordid scenes of the evening. When they reached the hotel they were lovers once more.

As Clytie alighted from the cab her foot gave way beneath her. It had been hurting her since her slip on the kerb, but she had scarcely noticed the pain. Now she found that she could not walk. She had sprained her ankle. She limped into the hotel with Thornton's aid. Then she stood at the foot of the stairs and looked at them helplessly. It was an old-fashioned hotel, without a lift, and their rooms were on the third story.

“I'll carry you up,” said Thornton.

He took her up in his arms, and mounted the stairs with a step as light and springy as if he had no burden to carry. Until then Clytie had not realised his marvellous strength.

“I feel like the fairy princess being carried off by the giant,” she whispered.