“I have the right to kiss you—to kiss you and kiss you till the world's end—for I love you—and I would sacrifice all I have got—my life itself, for one kiss from you—I loved you, wanted you, from the first time I saw you—when the suddenly lit light revealed your beauty to me, and you sprang glorious, bewildering out of the darkness.”
“Let me go, let me go!” she murmured, faintly struggling.
“Not until you tell me that I have the right to kiss you—I know you will give it, you must! Clytie, I am stronger than most men, and my love is stronger than most men's and will not be denied—I will make you, force you to love me as passionately as I love you. Look at me. Speak! say just a word!”
She flashed a swift, sidelong glance at him, and met his eyes with the light burning in their dark depths. His passion intoxicated her.
“You know,” she murmured. The words came almost without volition.
He released her hands. She remained standing for a moment, motionless with downcast eyes. Then she lifted them once more shyly, met his, and uttered a short gasping cry as he caught her in his arms and kissed her passionately.
“You will be my wife, and let our whole lives be one long kiss?”
“Yes,” she said, below her breath.
A little later Thornton put her into a cab, and she drove home. The cold night air invigorated her relaxed body, but seemed to benumb her mind. She could not think—only feel Thornton's kisses upon her. The rest of the subjective and objective universe was a blank. Only when the cab stopped and the driver asked the number of her house through the trap-door in the roof, was she conscious of external things. Then she found that he had driven a long way past the familiar door. As he turned round grumblingly, she was aware of being chilled through from her drive across London, and longed to get indoors.
It was not until she told Winifred the next morning that she realised the great change that had come over her life.