“Of course,” said Clytie, with an inward smile.
On Monday morning Kent, as he was starting for the Museum, put his head in at Clytie's sitting-room door. She was at breakfast, having risen rather later than usual. By her side was an open letter. As Kent entered she pushed back her chair and looked up at him, a gleam of gladness eclipsing in her eyes a late expression of pain. Kent noticed the sudden change.
“You have been sad, Clytie,” he said in his rough tenderness. “That is not right. Did you not promise me last evening that you would be happy, very happy?”
“So I shall be,” she answered, taking his hand in hers and turning away her head. “Only there are things that cut one to the heart. You are a man; you can't understand a woman—no man can, no matter how he loves her. Look, read that—the end of the sordid story of my latter life. Oh, Kent, I am not worth your love! This thing has degraded me enough, and this last insult——Oh, read it and see. It would be better that you should know of how little account I really am.”
Kent took the letter which she thrust into his hand, and, without having read it, tore it into tiny pieces which he scattered through the open window to the four winds. Then he came and put one arm around her.
“Because one man insults you, dear, it is all the more reason that I should love and shield you. That part of your life is dead now. You said yourself this letter was the end. Let it be so, Clytie.”
His delicacy and tenderness moved her very deeply. Womanlike, she had wanted him to read the paper, and yet loved him all the more for not having done so. The letter was her own note to Thornton, which he had returned with “You can go to the devil!” scrawled across it. The sheer brutality had made her lose, as it were, her self-respect, had presented her to her own eyes as a thing of naught, unworthy of the reverential love that Kent brought her. How could she honestly be to him the brightest and noblest of women with that scrawled thing dragging her down? Accordingly his actions and words gladdened her. She looked up at him, and he read as in some magical book the spell of tenderness that swam in her eyes. Then he threw himself on his knees before her and buried his face in her lap.
“Oh, my love, my love!”
And, stirred to her depths with a passionate thrill that was like a great pain, she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.