“You are pardoned, dear, for I love you.”
A moment later she was alone. And she resumed her position by the open window, and looked out upon the busy scene. But she heeded it not. Her sight was directed to the mysteries of an invisible world.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Clytie's last words rang in Kent's ears all night. She loved him. She had surrendered herself to his kiss, she had told him her heart in plain, unequivocal language. In the first blaze of this happiness he did not perceive the gloomy background of their love. All that he could feel was that Clytie had left the life to which he had been a stranger, that she had come back to live in his daily company in the old helpful way, that, furthermore, her simple friendship had changed into something unutterably sweeter. He looked into the future and found it glowing with many rose tints of beauty. He saw Clytie and himself carrying out to its fullest his brave gospel of work—to its fullest because of their belief and trust in one another. He saw Clytie painting noble pictures, drawing strength and confidence from his sympathy—himself stimulated to great achievement, the prose of life transmuted into sonorous epic, lyrical gladness, elegiac grace. The fever in his blood kept him awake as image after image passed before his fancy. But whether the vision was of Clytie walking by his side through the gaslit streets, or of Clytie's glorious head strained back to view the effect of brush strokes he had suggested, or of Clytie sitting by the table as he worked, the lamp between them, it ended always with the warm touch of Clytie's lips beneath his, and the low, clear voice, “I love you.”
This exaltation is common to most men when a strong love comes to them. But to Kent it was all the intenser through the peculiarities of his nature. He had lived without the sphere of women. The passionateness of his temperament had thrown itself utterly into another channel. His work had been his love, his wife, the centre of all his energies, all his hopes. The craving for the unknown complement of existence had found satisfaction in the added line upon line, the growing bulk of manuscript, the builder's thrill when the creation of his own brain is materialising itself course by course into a majestic edifice. Besides, action, whether it was spending hours in a musty library in the exciting search after a reference, or tramping for miles in the keen mountain air of Norway, always fascinated him and compelled the entire energy of his being. He beheld the earth after his wholesome fashion and saw that it was good. To him life was complete. Things, therefore, not contained within his sphere he looked upon as superfluities. Woman was a superfluity; the impulses of sex repugnant. The very intensity of his nature made him shrink all the more strenuously from the sexual principle upon which love is built. When, however, love came to him, in spite of himself, he was dazed with it, terrified. On that January morning when he buried his face in the faint perfume of Clytie's handkerchief he felt himself overcome with a kind of horror. The fierce consciousness that he would give his soul to hold her in his arms and kiss her hair and eyes and lips was to him a torture of debasement. This morbidness was due only to the violence of the reaction. It lasted but a short while, and toned down into a feeling of disloyalty to Clytie's friendship in daring to love her. But time at last adjusted his moral balance, when it was too late, and Clytie was lost to him. And then his love was purified into a deep, passionate devotion that was its own joy and recompense. If circumstances had remained unchanged, Kent would have carried this deeper than romantic love with him to the grave. It had grown into his inmost heart, informing that subconsciousness that makes a man's individual life. Even during the last few months, when they were meeting in frank, friendly fashion, his love had altered very little in kind. He believed her to be a happy wife, loving her husband, with whom in a moment of bitterness he had once silently measured himself. The precious boon of her friendship was regained, nothing more, and it was given to him, under no false pretences on his part, but all the more tenderly because she knew of his devotion. Secure in the impression of her happiness, he would never have wavered in word or thought from his straightforward, simple loyalty, and his days would have passed in quiet contentment, saddened a little, perhaps, by regrets for what might have been, but never tormented by longings for the impossible.
But conditions were no longer the same. Clytie had renounced her married life. Except as a memory of bitterness it had no place in her thoughts. Except by a legal fiction she was her own mistress once more, free to go and come, think and act. Even in name she would be Clytie Davenant again, and she had spoken to him in that strange tone he had never heard before, and had come nearer to him as her touch lay upon his arm. The whole pent up passion of Kent's life had gone forth into that kiss. For Kent the world was changed, and the night a dream of unutterable things. But by the morning it had brought counsel. This love, acknowledged on both sides—whither would it tend? A great problem. So great a one, indeed, that Kent was tempted to shirk grappling with it. Courage and a stout heart, he said to himself, and all would be well. But one cannot rid one's self in this easy way of responsibilities. If you shake them from your shoulders, they shackle themselves about your feet. Kent felt thus fettered as he lay awake. Moreover, his early misgivings concerning Hammerdyke came, like the curses in the proverb, home to roost. If he had spoken to Clytie then, before her marriage, possibly she might have been spared all this suffering. He wished that he had obtained from Wither all the particulars of the ugly rumours that had been afloat, investigated them, confronted Clytie bravely with the truth, and so saved her from wrecking her life. And yet he felt that he could not have done so. Well, what was past was past. The present and the future contained enough matter to engage his attention. He lay for some time in bed trying to solve these perplexities. At last, at half-past nine, he rose, dressed, and went into his sitting-room to prepare his breakfast. This was a simple process. On a couple of gas-stoves, connected by india-rubber piping with the two gas-jets in his room, he placed a kettle and a saucepan, the latter containing eggs. Then he spread a little cloth on a clear space of his dresser-table, and brought out his crockery and other breakfast requisites from one of the under-cupboards. A ham somewhat cut into, butter, and marmalade he procured from a safe in a third little room on the landing which he used as a combined larder and lumber-room. For years Kent had enjoyed the simple Bohemianism of this Sunday morning meal. He could linger over it easefully without the weekday glance at his watch, when time was short. There was the Sunday paper, a weekly review or two, the long, undisturbed after-breakfast pipe. It was a time when he could release himself with free conscience from his busy life and enjoy his leisure. But this morning the eggs seemed stale, the ham tasteless, the journals dull, and he found himself looking at his watch. He would go down and see Clytie at eleven, an hour which he had himself arbitrarily fixed upon, and he was counting the minutes. It is surprising how long minutes are when you count sixty of them.
At last eleven o'clock came and Kent descended the stairs. But Clytie was out. Mrs. Gurkins, who answered his ring on Clytie's bell, informed him that Miss Davenant would not be in for lunch. Perhaps she would be back during the afternoon. So Kent went upstairs again, disappointed, and, after vainly trying to occupy himself, seized his hat and went out for a long tramp through Putney and Wimbledon. His heart was full of strange emotions that beset him for many hours, making them seem hopelessly long. Of the two Clytie passed by far the happier day.
In the afternoon, on his return, he heard voices in the studio. He knocked and entered. Clytie was there with Winifred.