Of what was the correct Clytie thinking?
She was thinking, lying there with her burning cheeks pressed against the pillow, that she loved the master! She was recalling step by step every incident that had occurred in their lonely walk. She was repeating to herself his facile sentences, wringing and twisting them to extract one drop to assuage the strange thirst that was growing up in her soul. She was thinking—silly Clytie!—that he had never appeared so kind before, and she was thinking—sillier Clytie!—that no one had ever before felt as she did then.
How soft and white his hands were! How sweet and gentle were the tones of his voice! How easily he spoke—so unlike her father, McSnagley, or the young men whom she met at church or on picnics! How tall and handsome he looked as he pressed her hand at the door! Did he press her hand, or was it a mistake? Yes, he must have pressed her hand, for she remembers now to have pressed his in return. And he put his arm around her waist once, and she feels it yet, and the strange perfume as he drew her closer to him. (Mem.—The master had been smoking. Poor Clytie!)
When she had reached this point she raised herself and sat up, and began the process of undressing, mechanically putting each article away in the precise, methodical habit of her former life. But she found herself soon sitting again on the bed, twisting her hair, which fell over her plump white shoulders, idly between her fingers, and patting the carpet with her small white foot. She had been sitting thus some minutes when she heard the sound of voices without, the trampling of many feet, and a loud rapping at the door below. She sprang to the door and looked out in the passage. Something white passed by her like a flash and crouched down at the head of the stairs. It was M’liss.
Mrs. Morpher opened the door.
“Is Mr. Morpher in?” said a half dozen strange, hoarse voices.
“No!”
“Where is he?”
“He’s at some of the saloons. Oh, tell me, has anything happened? Is it about Aristides? Where is he—is he safe?” said Mrs. Morpher, wringing her hands in agony.
“He’s all right,” said one of the men, with Mr. Morpher’s old emphasis; “but”—