Clara laughed, a thin, tired laugh. She was so weary of them harping on the silly story.
'I should go and tell them the truth, that I made him marry me and they'd let him go,' she said.
'It's such a waste of you,' said Sir Henry, sighing. 'You're not in love with him.'
She stared at him in astonishment.
'No,' she said, shocked into speaking the truth of her heart.
He crushed her in his arms, kissed her, gave a fat sigh, and staggered dramatically from the room. He had kissed her neck, her arms, her hands. She rushed to her basin and washed them clean.... Shaking with disgust and anger, she gazed at herself in her mirror, and was startled at the reflection. It was not Ariel that she saw, but Clara Day, a new Clara, a girl who stared in wonder at herself, gazed into her own eyes and through them, deep into her heart, and knew that she was in love. Her hand went to her throat to caress its whiteness. She shivered and shook herself free at last of all the obsessions that had crowded in her mind for so long, and she lost all knowledge of her surroundings and she could hear Rodd's beautiful deep voice saying,—
'Ay, that's it, to learn the tricks and keep decent. That's what one stands out for.'