At the Gate of Samaria

by William John Locke

“Oh! it's all the same to me,” he said. “It's just as you like.”

Clytie shook her head despondently. If there could have been any pleasure to either of them in his staying, these questions would have been impossible. It was love and not politeness that should have kept him by her side.

“You are very kind to think of it, Thornton,” she said, “and I thank you for asking me; but you couldn't do much if you stayed, you know.”

“I think I should be somewhat in the way,” he said good-temperedly. “That sort of thing is not much in my line. However, I did not like to accept without asking you. Are you sure you don't mind?”

“Oh, quite sure!” said Clytie suavely.

So the point was amicably settled, and Thornton went down to Hampshire to shoot Clavering's pheasants and to be led cynically captive by Clavering's wife. To avoid giving the latter a gratuitous loophole for sarcastic attack, he forbore to hint at the cause that prevented Clytie from accompanying him. He said vaguely that she was with her people. Mrs. Clavering did not press the point in any way, as she reciprocated Clytie's dislike, and was perfectly indifferent as to what became of her. In fact she was greatly relieved when Thornton announced that he was coming alone. Him she could manage as she liked—or thought she could, which comes to the same thing.

The house which the Claverings had taken for the winter was one that appealed to the quieter tastes of a man like Thornton. There was good hunting in the neighbourhood, and the stables were well filled with hunters, some of which Major Clavering had hired for the season. Over the estate attached to the house was excellent partridge shooting, and the covers were stocked with pheasants. The house itself was straggling—as a country house should be—roomy, and capable of accommodating comfortably the large party that was assembled for Christmas. It contained two billiard tables, a concert room staged for private theatricals, and a magnificent club-furnished smoking-room with a specially made baccarat table. Among the party the masculine element greatly preponderated, but the few women who were there had been carefully selected by the hostess to maintain a nice equilibrium. The major invited the men, and his wife, running over the list, had settled upon the women. She was doubly grateful that Clytie had thought fit to decline.

On the evening of his arrival Thornton came down early after dressing and found Mrs. Clavering alone in the drawing-room, reclining luxuriously before the blaze under the great marble chimney-piece.

“Clavering must have come into a pot of money in order to run this,” he said, parting his coat tails. “I have just been round the place. I had no idea it was such an extensive development.”

“Yes. It's better than soldiering. Tom's looking out for a place of his own something after the style of this. The Dynevors wanted to go to Australia, and so they have let it to us cheap.”