Thornton returned in due time. The autumn session began. The weeks and months passed. Their relations remained the same as when they had parted in the summer. Towards Clytie he manifested a kindly indifference, so long as she obeyed his wishes. When she went counter to them he flared up, showed his teeth, and swore; on which occasions Clytie would draw herself up, and, with her chin in the air, leave the room and retire into her studio. Then, after two or three days of evil sullenness, the fancy would take him to kiss her, and lightly swear that she was the loveliest woman in the world. But Clytie had lost all responsive feeling. She met him not wholly unaffectionately, but calmly, presenting an obedient, passionless cheek. Thereupon he would either storm again or laugh, reminding her of a time when her lips sought his, asking her why she had frozen, where was the Clytie of their bridal month. And if he pleaded gently, womanlike, she would relent a little, yield to him, striving to blot out the objects that met her sight as she looked back towards the past. Then there would recur the season of indifference, which Clytie had grown to welcome.

The daily life went on, she scarce knew how. Visiting, entertaining, painting, filled her days. And she dreamed wistful little dreams.

And then there came to Clytie a great calm, a new, strange happiness, in the midst of the life she had thought to be broken. She would sit by herself and think, with a smile playing round the corners of her lips, and a light in her eyes. Again the order of things seemed changed. Again a newer life, with newer hopes and responsibilities, lay before her. For the time her art, her needs, were forgotten. Trifling, dainty occupations absorbed her as she sat in the solitude of the studio on the chilly autumn days, her feet luxuriously buried in the bearskin before the great fire. Sometimes Mrs. Farquharson would come and help her, with a yearning hunger in her eyes that Clytie knew the meaning of; for Caroline was a childless woman. And then Clytie would kiss her silently and Caroline would shake her head and laugh, and talk in her bright way of the wonder that would be.

Only at times did a wave of bitterness pass over her. If all that had happened in her married life since the train had carried her out of Bordighera station had been different! If only she could see her husband as she saw him that day, by the ruined tower, when she passed her hand over his hair and thought him all that could suffice a woman's needs! Sometimes she looked at him now, furtively, when his face was in repose. He seemed the same, handsome, brave, ideally perfect in manhood. Why had not the glamour lasted? Why should the “dream be better than the drink”? And then she would turn away and the thought would rise:

“Why did I not continue blind? Would to God this knowledge of him had never come!”

He grew a little kinder to her, however. It was a rough, patronising tenderness, it is true, but yet Clytie felt grateful. A little act of forethought and consideration softened her towards him much more than it warranted. Perhaps in spite of all he might have won her to him again, and brought her lips to his in a kiss of rare meaning—for at certain times there are wondrous tendernesses and wondrous powers of forgiveness in woman. But Thornton lost the golden chance, being busy with his muck-rake.

He came home one afternoon, in an evil humour. Clytie, prepared to welcome him, looked up kindly from her lounge-chair as he came into the studio, but as she saw the blackness of his face, her heart sank. A footstool came in his way, and he sent it, with a kick, sliding along the polished floor.

“Why do you litter up the place with these infernal traps, Clytie?” he asked crossly as he came up to the fire to warm his hands.

Clytie, like a wise woman, held her peace. Silence is a very good friend sometimes. But as he remained there moodily, without saying a word, and the silence was growing uncomfortable, she asked him what was amiss.

“Everything's amiss!” he replied roughly—“all through your silly folly. Read that!”

He drew a letter from his pocket book and threw it into her lap. It ran:

Dear Hernshawe:

As I think Simmons would be a more satisfactory man for Burchester than Hammerdyke, I have suggested the former to the local Conservative association. As they seem rather at a loss for a suitable candidate, I think they will accept my nominee.

Yours truly,

E. Godderich.

“I am sorry, Thornton,” said Clytie, laying the letter down on the afternoon tea table by her side. “But you hardly expected to have a chance so soon.”

“Do you suppose I am going to slave away at this hack's work for two or three years?”

“No; but this is only the second or third vacancy that has occurred.”

“What does that matter? Godderich promised to run me as soon as he saw an opening. Hernshawe was amazed at this letter this morning. Don't talk of what you know nothing about. It's simply infernal spite on Godderich's part! Who is Simmons? A damned cheesemonger with a jubilee knighthood, and as much brains as a double Glo'ster! Godderich has the reputation for this sort of thing. That was why I wanted to keep in with him. If you had taken a ha'porth of interest in the matter, it would not have happened. You have treated the man in your confounded icy don't-address-me-or-I'll-petrify-you kind of way, and you have put his back up against us!”

“I always treated him courteously,” said Clytie.

“Yes, by Jove, I know what that means!” sneered Thornton. “And now you can have the satisfaction of seeing how your courtesy has played the fool with my plans.”

“I can't understand you, Thornton,” she replied wearily. “I should have thought you of all people would have preferred to win your own battles.”

“So I shall in future. I shall take jolly good care not to ask you to help me any more! After all your fine professions of identifying yourself with my life and that sort of rot I really thought you would be willing to help me—in about the only way a woman can.”

“By a silly, ignoble flirtation? Would you really hope to win success by your wife's dishonour?”

“Oh, rot!” cried Thornton savagely. “Who the devil talked about dishonour?”

“Well, then, we don't see things in the same light,” said Clytie quietly. “And I am very glad you have lost Godderich's influence, if that is what it depended upon.”

He turned and faced her, in one of his blind rages.

“Why don't you say at once you don't care a little damn about me? It would be nearer the truth. What the deuce did I marry you for, when there are thousands of better women in the world who are to be had for the asking? About the only thing I have ever asked you to do for me was to employ a little womanly tact, and then you get up on the high horse, damme! and talk about dishonour! One would have thought you had been bred in a nunnery instead of the disreputable gutter in the King's Road I found you in!”

“Oh, stop!” said Clytie, rising. “If I were well, perhaps I might be angry and amuse you with a row. But I am not equal to it at present, believe me. I'll see you at dinner.”

She walked towards the door, but Thornton intercepted her with three or four quick strides.

“I'm hanged if you do!” he said. “I have too much respect for my digestion. I'm not going to stay in the house with you!”

And he strode out of the studio, slamming the door.

“Thank God!” said Clytie to herself.

And so the film of reconciliation that new circumstances had begun to spread was rudely torn asunder, and the breach between them grew greater than before. For several days Clytie suffered. Then she resigned herself to the inevitable, and in her thoughts drifted away from her husband. For they were sweet thoughts, full of unspeakable consolation. And the weeks wore on, and the evenings grew shorter and shorter, and the little pile of dainty needlework grew higher in the press. Thornton rarely disturbed her; the time that he could spare from his official duties he passed as a man about town idles the hours away. A man with the least domestic tastes in the world, he found no especial pleasures in his house. His wife did not amuse him; the cooking at his club was more to his taste than that which awaited him at home. There was no earthly reason why he should use the house for any other purpose than sleeping, breakfasting, and the occasional entertainment, which was now discontinued for a season. He lived his own life, more or less satisfactory to himself, and left Clytie to her own devices. Wherefore she not unfrequently thanked the Almighty. She lived practically alone. Winifred came to see her from time to time. Mrs. Farquharson was often with her. The shrewd eyes of Caroline saw that there was something wrong in the marriage of which she had augured such fair fruits. But as Clytie proudly kept all her troubles to herself, Caroline could do no more than surround Clytie with her mute sympathy. This gradual discovery was a shock to her faith in human nature. One of the two had failed; which one was it? Her instinct told her that it was not Clytie; her husband unequivocally affirmed that it was Hammerdyke. When her instinct and her husband differed she sometimes trusted to one and sometimes to the other, by way of giving a certain variety to life. When they coincided she had no option but to believe. So, although giving up her hero cost her a great pang, her heart went out more than ever to her friend.

It was a period of strange new happiness for Clytie. It showed itself outwardly in her art. No one but herself has ever seen the pictures that she painted during this time—not even Caroline. They were all unfinished, sketched in the hurried, semi-impressionist manner with which from her early girlhood she had been wont to give objectivity to her cravings and imaginings; but they were dainty, laughing, tender things, a world of waxen touches and sweet hopes. It would be hard to say how many small panels she covered with the promises of this new life. Sometimes, when she was quite alone, she would lock the door and take them out and arrange them along the wall on the ledge above the dado, and gladden her heart with them. After which she would collect them hastily and lock them up, with a smile at her own foolishness. She meditated now and then, before the fire, with closed eyes, turning over the leaves of her Book of New Formulas, which had grown somewhat tear-stained and dusty; but she found in it nothing relating to present things, and she laughed quietly at the omission, resolving to rectify it by and by. It was strange that she had not included this in her scheme of life. And yet, after all, was it so strange? She could not quite decide. But the future she never questioned. The evolution of her own individuality seemed in no wise to concern her. She had projected herself into another life. And she looked at the world, and again she saw it fair; and peace rested on her eyelids as she slept. And the weeks went on.

One evening in the middle of December Thornton and herself were alone together. They had finished dinner and he was smoking a cigar with his coffee in the dining-room. Relations between them were beginning to grow kindlier again. That is to say, he curbed his temper, inquired after her health, and occasionally spent an evening at home. They had not spoken much during the meal. Now that they had so few interests in common, their conversation was generally desultory. The one great and precious bond that was to be between them was rarely mentioned. It was too deeply rooted in the holiest place of Clytie's soul for her to discuss it in the commonplace interviews she had with her husband, and his interest in the matter did not go much beyond a rather irritating sense of responsibility. Some feeling of the sort prompted him on this evening to allude to the subject.

“I heard from the Claverings this morning,” he said, knocking off his cigar ash into the fender. “They want us to go and spend Christmas with them in their new place in Hampshire.”

“Oh?” said Clytie politely.

She had seen Mrs. Clavering several times during the summer in town, and further acquaintance had only increased the antipathy she had conceived in Paris. Thornton, however, had been pretty intimate with them during the latter part of the season, and he had met Major Clavering again in Scotland. Hence the invitation.

“Well,” asked Thornton, “what shall I do? Of course your going is out of the question.”

“Naturally,” replied Clytie, glad that that point was settled without any discussion. “Why do you ask me?”

“To know what your wishes are as regards myself. Clavering has got some good shooting, I believe, and his wife always keeps a decent house. I don't see what good I should be here; but still, if you would like me to stay on and see you through, I don't mind a bit.”

He meant to be magnanimous. Perhaps he expected his wife to be duly grateful; as it was she only replied somewhat wearily:

“You must do whatever you think best, Thornton. I should not like to keep you here on my account, while you might be having a good time with your friends.”

“Oh! it's all the same to me,” he said. “It's just as you like.”

Clytie shook her head despondently. If there could have been any pleasure to either of them in his staying, these questions would have been impossible. It was love and not politeness that should have kept him by her side.

“You are very kind to think of it, Thornton,” she said, “and I thank you for asking me; but you couldn't do much if you stayed, you know.”

“I think I should be somewhat in the way,” he said good-temperedly. “That sort of thing is not much in my line. However, I did not like to accept without asking you. Are you sure you don't mind?”

“Oh, quite sure!” said Clytie suavely.

So the point was amicably settled, and Thornton went down to Hampshire to shoot Clavering's pheasants and to be led cynically captive by Clavering's wife. To avoid giving the latter a gratuitous loophole for sarcastic attack, he forbore to hint at the cause that prevented Clytie from accompanying him. He said vaguely that she was with her people. Mrs. Clavering did not press the point in any way, as she reciprocated Clytie's dislike, and was perfectly indifferent as to what became of her. In fact she was greatly relieved when Thornton announced that he was coming alone. Him she could manage as she liked—or thought she could, which comes to the same thing.

The house which the Claverings had taken for the winter was one that appealed to the quieter tastes of a man like Thornton. There was good hunting in the neighbourhood, and the stables were well filled with hunters, some of which Major Clavering had hired for the season. Over the estate attached to the house was excellent partridge shooting, and the covers were stocked with pheasants. The house itself was straggling—as a country house should be—roomy, and capable of accommodating comfortably the large party that was assembled for Christmas. It contained two billiard tables, a concert room staged for private theatricals, and a magnificent club-furnished smoking-room with a specially made baccarat table. Among the party the masculine element greatly preponderated, but the few women who were there had been carefully selected by the hostess to maintain a nice equilibrium. The major invited the men, and his wife, running over the list, had settled upon the women. She was doubly grateful that Clytie had thought fit to decline.

On the evening of his arrival Thornton came down early after dressing and found Mrs. Clavering alone in the drawing-room, reclining luxuriously before the blaze under the great marble chimney-piece.

“Clavering must have come into a pot of money in order to run this,” he said, parting his coat tails. “I have just been round the place. I had no idea it was such an extensive development.”

“Yes. It's better than soldiering. Tom's looking out for a place of his own something after the style of this. The Dynevors wanted to go to Australia, and so they have let it to us cheap.”

He nodded, not very interested, and twirled his moustache in silence.

“You are not making a very good start by way of being amusing,” said Mrs. Clavering. “How is your wife?”

“Oh, very well. But I don't see how that topic could amuse you. Matrimony isn't very funny.”

“Glad to get out of the toils, I suppose.”

“Passably. It leaves me free in the society of the only woman I have reasonably cared for,” he said, without changing his attitude.

“Have you come down to play at that sort of thing again?” she asked, arching her eyebrows, with a little supercilious curl on her thin lips.

“That's what you wanted me here for, I suppose.”

“You came to shoot little birds on the invitation of my adoring husband.”

“Perhaps the motives were mixed. You wouldn't believe me if I told you I had come to see you. That was my main inducement. I suppose I ought to have begun better and told you of my longing and despair. Let me make my declaration now, Clara.”

“Bah! my friend. What is the meaning of all this?” she said cynically. “You don't care a straw for me—you told me yourself I had gone off lamentably. And I don't rate you a halfpenny above your worth. You are a fine-looking man with impulses and animal passions instead of brains and heart; and if you were to die to-morrow, my delicate appreciation of my dinner would not be impaired. So why in the name of common sense have we revived this miserable farce?”

“It's a kind of absinthe. We like it.”

“If I could pump up any enthusiasm about you,” she went on, not heeding his epigram, “I could understand it. But you are bad all through. You would not even be moderately faithful to me—as you are not to your wife.”

“What the devil do you mean?” asked Thornton quickly, showing his teeth. But Mrs. Clavering laughed.

“Do you take me for a fool, or a woman of the world, my friend? I have eyes and I have ears. I'll go into particulars if you like.”

“That would scarcely be interesting,” he said.

He looked at her for some moments and then burst out into his resonant laugh, expecting boyish indulgence for his peccadilloes. His whole-hearted animal laughter was irresistible. The woman joined in.

“I don't know which is the worse of us two,” she said. “Perhaps I. I forgive you.”

The piquant cynicism of this revived liaison attracted Thornton, was an enjoyable complement to the essentially masculine side of that country-house life. He was a keen, brilliant sportsman, a famous shot, a perfect though reckless rider, standing out in all physical qualities far above the other men of his type who were his fellow-guests. By them he was flattered, in an honest British way, his acts were applauded, and his opinions received with respect. In the slaying of creatures, brute or human, he was an indubitable authority. And although he was accustomed to a certain shade of deference from his associates, it never failed to gratify his somewhat barbarous nature. Much of him had remained undeveloped. Small things pleased and captivated him. To be the central figure in this tiny world of sport was unalloyed pleasure to the man of fierce passions and heroic courage. And the bitter philandering in his relations with Mrs. Clavering amused, stimulated, irritated, and fascinated him. In his own way, therefore, he was enjoying himself exceedingly. Beyond writing Clytie a hurried note on the second day after his arrival, he scarcely recalled to himself her existence. When he did it was with petulant annoyance. He wished to God he had not been such a fool as to marry. And now what the deuce was the point of having children? But that was his wife's concern after all, for which he cordially thanked the wise contriver of the human mechanism.

Christmas came, was celebrated with much festivity. On Boxing Day there was a big partridge drive over a distant corner of the estate. It had been carefully saved for this one day's sport and the birds were accordingly plentiful. The best portion of it—a field sloping from a ridge and skirting a pine wood and then merging into a wide gorse-covered pasture tract—was reserved till after lunch. But the sport was good in the outlying approaches to this, and it was not without some irritation that Thornton tore open a telegram which a breathless messenger brought up. It announced the birth of a son. Thornton went on with the line across the wet, ploughed fields, but until they halted for lunch luck did not come his way.

Mrs. Clavering and the other ladies had walked over with the luncheon-baskets. The day was warm and relaxing. They lingered over the meal longer than they had intended. When a keeper came up and suggested that if they wanted to shoot the slope before dusk they had better be starting, the men sprang up in a hurry and betook themselves thither. Thornton was the extreme man, on the right, near the pine wood, which was being beaten. His ill-success in the morning had piqued his vanity. He was not accustomed to be second or third in matters of prowess. After he had brought down his first brace his whole frame was kindled with the desire to slay. Even partridges he could not kill calmly. Covey after covey was driven out of the wood, and as he had the first chance, his bag increased speedily. They had thus proceeded halfway down the long, straggling slope. The keeper by Thornton's side had just handed him his gun, and was watching the wood with intent, outstretched hand. A covey was being driven. At that moment another messenger, a boy, ran down the slope and put a telegram into Thornton's hand. With an impatient oath he stuffed it into the pocket of his shooting-coat, just in time to be able to fire his two barrels into the whirring flight of birds. The next man to him fired simultaneously. Two birds fell. The warm dispute that arose caused Thornton to forget the existence of the telegram in his pocket. And the continuance of the drive kept his mind entirely from it.

But when the party arrived home, and were standing for a moment in the hall, Mrs. Clavering came up to him and asked whether he had received his second telegram safely. Then he remembered. He drew it out, read it.

“Damn!” he muttered under his breath, and crumpling the flimsy sheet into a ball, threw it with a gesture of impatience into the fireplace. Then he turned and talked with Mrs. Clavering until he went upstairs to change.

As chance willed, the crumpled telegram had not fallen into the blazing wood fire, but had struck upon a log and dropped on its unkindled side. And chance willed that Mrs. Clavering should have noticed this. Women of her type are cynically unscrupulous. As soon as the hall was clear of men she picked up the telegram and read it. Her face, which when she was by herself was somewhat faded, grew a little grayer. She put the telegram in her pocket.

Chance willed also that Thornton and Mrs. Clavering should find themselves alone for a long spell after dinner in the little withdrawing-room, where smoking was permitted. Most of the men were tired. One or two of the women had gone up to their rooms. The rest were playing billiards. Thornton was in gay spirits, talking recklessly, giving her openings for sarcasms, and then closing in upon her with a brutality. It was an amusing game.

Suddenly she asked him irrelevantly:

“When are you going back to London?”

“You're a wise woman,” he replied, leaning back in his chair. “But what do you mean?”

“I asked you a question—a simple one. Are you going to London to-morrow?”

“No; why should I?—unless you are getting sentimental over me, and would prefer the illusion of my absence to the disenchantment of my bodily presence. If you mean it as a hint, of course I'll go.”

“I do mean it as a hint,” she said with a hard kind of drawl. “I didn't know you were quite such an unreasoning brute. Hadn't it occurred to you that it was only common decency to go off and help bury your newborn child?”

She rose, and gathering up her skirts, left him before he had time to recover.