Much had happened during the past three weeks—the discovery of a new world for Clytie in which all was strange, beset with vague dangers, vibrating with a tremulous joy akin to terror. She had been lifted off her feet, hurried against her will into a whirl of new sensations. At first she resisted with fierce virgin pride; then gradually she began to close her eyes for a short sweet spell and allow herself to be drifted by the current; finally she gave up struggling. The history of most women at their first contact with passion.
The story of this period is very simple. In its first developments love is usually not ultra complex. Given a man and a woman and conditions for meeting freely alone; further, a sudden overmastering passion on the part of the man, a half known, unfulfilled need in the woman; given these premises, and a child can deduce the result. It is the fundamental law of sex. Only when the sentimentalities and more delicate affinities come into play, when the needs of the finer animal man begin to cry after their satisfying, does love leave its simple phase and gird itself with its infinite many-coloured web of complexities. At first the mind may see the web glimmering in a far-away twilight—but heeds it not as long as the sense is held captive.
Two remarkable personalities had met, Thornton Hammerdyke and Clytie. With the intensity of a strong animal nature he had fallen in love with her, with her beauty, charm, and directness. Her magnificent vitality drew him, compelled him. He shut his eyes to every other interest. The sense that he wanted her was sufficient justification for setting all else aside. He never even thought of marriage in the first flush of his passion. But that was the result of habit. Passion is a very different thing from the serene considerations that, according to the Book of Common Prayer, induce people to enter into the holy state of matrimony—and Thornton was quite free from any considerations of the kind. So that when marriage dawned upon his mind as a necessary condition, he accepted it, as a reckless sacrifice, as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. He was a man whose life had been passed in hot, headstrong action. Desire imperiously compelled immediate gratification. Since loving Clytie entailed marriage, he resolved to marry her forthwith.
He informed Mrs. Farquharson of the fact, in his masterful manner.
“I am going to marry Clytie—so get yourself a wedding garment.” Mrs. Farquharson jumped up, clapped her hands. She would not have been a woman had the possibilities of this match not occurred to her seductively. The announcement, however, anticipated her hopes.
“Oh, Thornton,” she cried, “I am so glad! I have been longing for it. You two are made for each other. I must go down and see Clytie this afternoon!”
“Better not,” said Thornton. “I'm going. Besides, I don't think Clytie knows it yet.”
Caroline's face fell a little. “Oh! I thought you meant you were engaged, and that sort of thing.”
“That's a detail—it doesn't matter. She's going to marry me, and you'll come and dance at the wedding.”
Caroline kept her counsel, but she worked steadily in Thornton's cause, sang his praises to Clytie, invented many occasions for bringing them together. She believed with all the fervent loyalty of her nature that this marriage was an ideal one for her cousin and her friend, and had at heart equally the interests of each.