C. D.
Kent turned the canvas round. It was the exhibition picture of Jack.
He took it in with him, and placed it on his dresser-table. It formed a strange contrast to the calm-faced Woolmer cavalier that was hanging above; a strange contrast, too, with its colour, its modernity, its realism, to the cold classicism of the pale, pure relics of the past that lined the walls. Troubled by the discord, he turned its face to the wall, but immediately, ashamed of the impulse and calling himself a fool, he turned it again. Then, after lighting his reading-lamp and turning out the gas, he sat down at the writing space on his dresser-table.
The room door was open. The house was perfectly still, save for the occasional creak of the stairs and banisters near the attics. From the street outside, far beneath, came the faint, ghostlike rumble of passing vehicles. Kent had never realised what absolute silence reigned at night in that quiet household. A cuckoo-clock in the bedroom below struck with a suddenness and clearness that startled him. It was only twelve o'clock. Clytie would be back soon if she had gone out to spend the evening with friends or at a theatre. He proceeded with some mechanical work, docketing papers, his ear expectant of the sudden drag of a hansom at the street door. Several times he was deceived and went out on the landing to listen for the sounds announcing Clytie's arrival. Then he resumed his occupation. Perhaps she was indoors and asleep all the time, he thought; but the open door surely betokened her absence. He persuaded himself into this belief, desiring intensely to see her. The immediate fulfilment of Wither's prognostications troubled him. Had it not been for his friend's bantering remarks he would have judged Clytie's frank confession by the touchstone of his own simplicity, and found it natural, prompted by no other motives than kindliness and common sense. But what if it proceeded from the “fundamental silliness” of woman, that he himself pitied and Wither professed to hold in contempt?
At last an unmistakable pause in the dimly heard rattle of a hansom made him rise again and go on to the landing. Someone entered the house. He heard the far distant creak of the stairs and the vague rustle of skirts. It was Clytie. In the deathlike stillness of the house he heard the sharp striking of a match. He waited for a moment or two and then went down.
Clytie, in her hat and cloak, was reading, by the light of her bedroom candle, a letter that had arrived by the last post.
“May I come in for one minute?”
“Of course—for two if you like. Do you know, I had an idle fancy that I should see you when I got home?”
“Did you? I am very glad; it assures me that you don't think me—what shall I say?—presumptuous in waiting for you to come in and then intruding.”
“Did you listen for me? You are good. I am scarcely worth it.”