“One never knows, my dear. Men are the most unreasonable beings in the world. With a woman, now, if you know just the least little bit about her,—it isn't everybody, of course, that does,—you can always tell what she is likely to do. But with a man—never. Do you think I know whether that husband of mine is going to be pleased with his dinner to-night? No, not one scrap. And Kent's a man—just like the rest of them.”
“Are you talking about Kent?” interposed Mr. Farquharson. “I saw him the other night at the meeting of the Numismatic Society.”
“There, now! How like a man! And you knew I wanted to know what had become of him. What had he to say for himself?”
“That most of the rude coins marked with the name of Alfred were in reality imitations made by the vikings during their periodical visits to this country. His remarks were very interesting, my dear.”
“Thornton,” said Mrs. Farquharson in her blandest tones, “would you be so very kind as to light the gas?” Her husband chuckled to himself, and Hammerdyke rose to comply with her request. During the operation all the three mechanically watched his movements.
“There!” he said, turning to face them, “I think that is better; we shall be able to see one another.”
As the full blaze fell upon him Clytie could not repress a little feminine thrill of surprise. Seen in the vague darkness she had imagined him quite different. He seemed to spring out of it a perfect type of physical manhood. He bore with him an atmosphere of splendid animalism. The artist in Clytie, trained to detect beauties of limb and set and fall of muscle, scanned him for a second with involuntary admiration. Although he was dressed with a fashionable tailor's perfection of fit, which generally gives suave uniformity to strong and puny, his clothes could not conceal the evidences of a magnificent strength—deep chest, arms that seemed to fit tightly the coat-sleeves, broad, massive shoulders, thick, powerful neck. He held his head high, commandingly, which gave him the appearance of tallness, although he was not much above medium height. Shortcut brown hair, clinging close to his head in crisp waves, a broad forehead with two thick vertical veins, added to this impression of strength. In spite of his thirty-four years the blood showed beneath his bronzed skin, on which there were few lines. His features, although on a large scale, were saved from coarseness by regularity. His under jaw was slightly heavy, but in keeping with the massiveness of his limbs. His eyes were dark and lustrous, with a light burning in their depths; his teeth white and even.
“When Hammerdyke is fighting he is all eyes and teeth,” was a saying that had come to Mrs. Farquharson's ears; she had repeated it long since to Clytie, who remembered it now as she beheld this hero of Caroline's for the first time. He was not fighting now, but laughing, talking with a certain daring charm of manner, almost boyish sometimes. The time passed quickly. When the little clock in the corner struck six Clytie rose in some confusion. She had promised to spend the evening with Winifred and the children. She took her leave hurriedly.
A little later she was sitting in the Marchpanes' drawing-room, with the children clinging around her, a block of paper and a pencil, as usual, in her hand. And led away by a sudden fancy she drew pictures for them of the wild deeds that she had heard tell of Thornton Hammerdyke. This was quite a novelty to the children, who were accustomed to street arabs and grotesque caricatures. They were delighted, hung on her lap, demanded more pictures of soldiers and camels and a great man in a helmet killing savages. To satisfy them she had to draw extensively upon her imagination, sometimes upon theirs. Winifred's suggestions were scouted as being too mild. The final picture was a great triumph. It represented the same man in the helmet dancing upon a struggling heap of savages, transfixing one with a spear held in his left hand, whilst with a sword in his right he clove another in twain. Nothing is so fascinating to children as the grotesquely horrible; Clytie herself was carried away by their enthusiasm.
Meanwhile the subject of this picture history had remained at Harley Street for a short time after Clytie's departure.