At the Gate of Samaria

by William John Locke

The forced confinement also brought Clytie a little more solitude than usual. Thornton found a race meeting or two to go to, and a nominally bachelor supper party, and he laughed, in his gay manner, at this resumption of bachelor habits. Clytie was rather glad, on the whole, to be left to her own society for a little. She was gradually awakening from the dream, realising herself. Very often in the ordinary, sober moments of life Thornton jarred upon her. His absence often was a relief. She hated herself when this unwelcome and unbidden thought came into her mind; but it came for all her hating. The sprained ankle marked definitely the end of this second or false honeymoon in Paris, whose glamour was the lingering twilight glow of the real one in Bordighera. It was then that Clytie first thought of the railway journey as a landmark. After her recovery Thornton continued his bachelor habits as a matter of course, and as a matter of course discontinued his playful apologies. Still he took Clytie whithersoever she expressed a desire to go, and gladly, proud of having his beautiful wife by his side. Only, if she elected to remain at home, he went out equally cheerfully by himself.

Occasionally they drove in the Bois in a neat phaeton and pair which he hired for her from a livery-stable, and he would point out to her the celebrities whom they passed by. Some of these she had herself met or seen at the various social functions to which they had received invitations. They themselves, too, had become known and were pointed out with some curiosity,—le beau couple, as the phrase went,—even by those who were unacquainted with their name or position. Thornton was always in his gayest humour on these occasions as he sat by his wife's side and guided his pair through the crush of magnificent equipages; and she felt glad too and elated, pleased by the vivid flashes of colouring in dresses and parasols, and the vague perfumes that filled the air, and the half-caught scraps of conversation and laughter. Her girlish delight at the gladness of life came back to her fresh and untainted. She indulged her old habit of speculation on the life that lay beneath individual faces, which she stored up in her memory for rapid sketching when at leisure, and she would draw Thornton into her vein, and then there were arguments without end. These were some of her happiest moments in Paris, when she recovered her old self, bright, satirical, paradoxical, and felt no cold hand on her heart.

One day, towards the end of their stay in Paris, they had drawn up in the block of carriages by the side of the promenade. The sun was powerful, and the glaring colours in the carriages contrasted with the cool tones of white and gray in the deep shade under the chestnut-trees. Clytie was animatedly observing the bright scene when her eyes met those of a woman, quietly though expensively dressed, seated in an open carriage quite close by. For a moment they looked at one another in silent inquiry, and then came a flash of mutual recognition. It was the girl whom Clytie had met the summer before in the hotel at Dinan. The scene, with its mingled associations of wonder and pity, came back to her, and moved by a strong impulse she smiled and moved her head slightly. A look of eager wonderment came over the other's face as she returned Clytie's greeting. And then she turned quickly away to talk to a man who had just come up to the side of the carriage.

“Confound it, Clytie!” cried Thornton, setting the horses in motion, “you must really make sure who people are before you bow to them. Do you know who that woman is?”

“Yes,” said Clytie, “that is to say, I know what she is. I don't know her name.”

“She is one of the most notorious women in Paris, Loulou Mendès. You mustn't go playing the fool like this! What did you bow to her for?”

“Because I know her—a little.”

“You—know—her?”

“Oh, yes, Thornton dear; it is somewhat of a story. I met her accidentally last year in Dinan. She was in trouble, and I took a fancy for her, and seeing her suddenly here, I showed her that I recognised her.”

“I sincerely hope you won't do such a thing again,” he said shortly, giving a vicious cut to the horses that sent them spinning down the allée. “And please to remember that you are not an amateur Bohemian any longer, but my wife.”