Clytie went to the table where she had thrown it. Not seeing it, she remembered the sound that had startled her, and turning round, perceived the photograph lying face upwards on the floor. She gave a little start of dismay. The situation threatened to become dramatic, and she was unprepared. In her hurry to dismiss the boy she had forgotten the photograph. Now he had called attention to it, and she felt bound to restore it to him to save the poor little urchin's honour and most probably his back. And Thornton was leaning against the mantelpiece, with his hands in his pockets, frowningly surveying the scene. With outward calm, but with a beating heart, she picked up the photograph, wrapped it in the dirty covering, and put it into Jack's hand. Thornton, who had watched her movements with gathering surprise, strode forward with an oath.
“What the devil——”
But Clytie quickly interposed herself between him and the boy.
“Run away!” she said in a hasty whisper, and Jack, accustomed from his childhood to sudden dartings, disappeared like a flash. Clytie put her back against the door and looked at her husband with strange eyes. It had been done with the speed of a conjuring trick.
“What on earth is the meaning of all this?” asked Thornton; “and what are you giving away my photographs for? Upon my soul, I think you are taking leave of your senses. You'll have to drop this sort of thing. I'm damned if I am going to have my photographs given away to all the street urchins in London. Play the fool yourself if you like, but I'll trouble you to keep me and my things out of it. Have you been giving me away any more?”
“Oh, God! Thornton, you have given yourself away!” she cried, echoing his slang phrase half unconsciously in her bitterness. “I'll tell you, if you like. The photograph belongs to the boy's mother. He is your child.”
“What!” cried Thornton in a voice of thunder, showing his teeth savagely.
“Yes, your child,” she went on, striving to be calm. “His mother's name is Burmester. You gave her the picture yourself years ago. I had just made the discovery when you came in. Ah—h!” she cried, putting her hands suddenly before her face, “it is horrible, horrible!”
“Ha!” retorted Thornton fiercely. “You are in one of your damned high-horse moods. Well, I did give one of my father's kitchen-maids a photograph, and she did have a child, and I paid her for her trouble, and, damme! what that's got to do with you now is more than I can see. Besides, you never were such a fool as to imagine you were marrying an infernal saint.”
“Oh, stop! stop!” she cried. “Don't say anything more. You will brutalise me as well as yourself. I never thought you a saint—even when I cared for you. I know what you are, and, oh, God! this is the end of it. If you had betrayed a sweet, innocent girl, you would have been a villain, but not necessarily a brute—someone charming, pretty, attractive—I could have understood it; but a poor stupid drudge—a kitchen-maid—little better than an animal——”