They had just returned from the West End Gallery, where Clytie's picture had been exhibited during the season. This was the closing day, and they had gone to see the picture for the last time. A wealthy American had purchased it for the art museum of his native city, and to-morrow it would be packed up and sent over seas.
“It's like parting forever from the child that is dearest to you,” she said with a little touch of melancholy. “That is the worst of painting. A poet or a musician—even an etcher can keep his work by him, but a painter loses all. Doesn't it seem hard?”
Kent acquiesced, comforted her, spoke with vague cheeriness of the law of sacrifice which we must all obey. On the other hand, she must think of all that the picture had brought her, the public fame, the homage of those whose opinion was dear to her.
“Yes; in all that I have succeeded beyond my wildest hopes,” said Clytie. “But what is it? At the Redgraves' the other afternoon crowds of people stared at me, whispered each other requests to be introduced to Clytie Davenant. The men praised all the wrong points in my picture, and the women tried to get at the way I did my hair. I know it's flattering to one's vanity, dear, and I like it. I honestly like it. But it is a superficial little gratification. Now it is all over I begin to think of what that picture has cost, what has gone to the making of it. Neither money nor fame can pay me back.”
“It has cost you hours of work in which you have found happiness,” said Kent. “You must not overlook that.”
“Oh, Kent!” cried Clytie, not seeing for the moment that he had deliberately avoided the deeper elements in her thought. “Don't you know what I mean? You who have been just now preaching to me the law of sacrifice! Don't you know that to be the woman to paint that picture there were sacrificed the traditions and formulas of my home—there were sacrificed the first pure flush of a girl's love, the illusions of a wife, the joy of motherhood, the dignity of a proud woman?”
She raised herself impulsively on her elbow and continued with flashing eyes:
“Don't you see that? And you of all men who have shared with such bitterness in the sacrifice! Yes, you, my dearest, my best, my love! Your life has been sacrificed, your love, your devotion, your nobleness. For once in the world the man has paid, and not the woman. For two long years we have lived together, eating at the same table, living a common life, which, had one great fact been non-existent would have crowned our days with happiness. I am of Samaria—I don't care. I have offered to you to defy the world, to live openly together, to bear your name. You have said 'No,' for my sake sacrificing yourself. Can this life last forever? Have not the past two years been filled with longings, restraints, bitternesses, regrets, all silently working—you too loyal to utter them, I dreading lest the utterance of them on my part should render you unhappier?”
“I have been happy,” said Kent. “A thousandth part of what you have given me would have made me more than happy.”
“But your due is a thousand times more!” cried Clytie. “I have given you little enough, but I have drawn from you the breath by which I live, the strength, the passion, the will by which I have reached my poor success. It can't be so any longer; it would be unjust, cruel!”