The friendship between them ripened imperceptibly. Each day brought its
tiny thread linking them together, so gradually, so subtly, that it was
not until long afterwards that they realised the immense strength of
the bond. At first it was mere honest liking on both sides, a pleasant
consciousness of discovery, an ordinary attraction between two natures,
distinct, yet more or less complementary. Clytie found it written in her
Book of New Formulas that the loyal friendship between a man and a woman
was a strengthening element of existence. In her fierce pride and young
vigour she would not allow that each supplied what the other lacked,
according to the popular theory--the man strength, the woman grace--but
asserted strenuously the truth that each could lend the other elements
of strength the same in degree, but different in kind, owing to the
difference of sex. If it had been suggested to her that her weaker
woman's nature instinctively, in spite of perfect emancipation and proud
independence, sought the man's protecting fibre, the whole amazon within
her would have been up in arms. She found in Kent a man whom she could
meet upon a ground of perfect equality--perfectly even, neither blocked
by prejudices and social barriers nor haunted by sexual spectres. She
was woman enough, however, to perceive intuitively certain shynesses in
Kent, resulting from a half knowledge of her, that would have kept him
aloof in spite of a very sensible attraction towards her; and in
showing him, therefore, that this attraction was mutual she felt no
compunction,--rather pride, on the contrary, in reaching a superior
plane in which conduct was measured by superior standards.
And thus it came about that the eternal feminine once more deceived
itself, mistaking nature for what it called the Fine Art of Life.
Kent, for his part, did not attempt to realise the charm that made his
fingers close daily on the handle of the studio door. He accepted the
offered friendship, and returned it as frankly as it was given. It
became as natural to stop at the studio, before mounting to his
attics on his return home from the Museum, as to burst into the South
Kensington “monastery” for a midnight rubber. Variety, fresh interests,
were brought into his life, vivid as it was with darling hopes and full
working energies. It was refreshing to come once again into the sphere,
familiar and dear to him during his father's lifetime, of practical art.
It was something for him to look forward to, during his tramp home--the
stage nearer completeness effected during a day's work in an artistic
creation. Gradually, in his blunt, paternal way, he constituted himself
the censor of Clytie's work, criticising irregularities, suggesting
treatment. There grew within him, too, a brotherly kindness towards
Winifred, who looked forward also to his afternoon visit, when she would
shyly uncover the small canvas and receive with a gratified flush his
meed of appreciation.
He arrived after the tea-things had been cleared away, when the day's
work was over, in the twilight hour, outstaying Winifred a short while,
whose evening family meal was half an hour before Clytie's dinner.
It was in these short periods of companionship, when they were alone
together, that, unconsciously to themselves, the finer touches were
added to the broader intimacy that the previous half hour had brought
one step further in development. Piece by piece, by means of a reference
here, a petulant outburst there, he grew familiar with the ambitions
and struggles of her past life. He was quick to catch a certain note
of disappointment. She had not yet become a great artist, was defiantly
certain that she could never be one.
“Of course you won't if you use your art as a stepping-stone to life,”
he said one day.
She marked the saying, resolving, however, half rebelliously to make
him belie his words in the days to come. She, too, gathered from him
the nature of his hope and aspirations, wondered at the cheerful
selflessness with which he contemplated the work that would bring him
neither name nor fame, nor the things that many men desire.
One day he took Clytie and Winifred up to his attic museum, pleased as a
boy to show them his treasures. Winifred praised the bright neatness of
his arrangements. He confessed guiltily that he had been “tidying up”--a
process that had cost him the whole of the previous Sunday. Many of his
pictures had been left him by his father, particularly his collection of
Aldegravers, over which he fondly lingered, lamenting that the old days
of pure design were over, and railing at the mercenary spirit of modern
art. He counselled Clytie to study the little masters for her book
illustrating. She would learn restraint, abstraction.
“But it's no good preaching Dürer and Behm in these days,” he added
pathetically, with the resignation of the collector who does not expect
his hobby to be understood.
Clytie laughed softly, sympathetic with his enthusiasms. No real artist
can help loving the little masters. But Clytie's artistic impulses
warred with each other, with circumstance, and with herself. So she
refused to sit, for practical purposes, at the foot of Aldegraver. She
ran over the titles of books, borrowed a couple, which he recommended,
from the general literature section, stood in some dismay before the
scientific specialist's library, and asked to see what was visible of
the great work. He gave her some bundles of manuscript, which she turned
over helplessly and handed back without a word. They were evidences of
a world of infinite toil and devotion not yet intelligible to her. She
gazed around the picturesque walls of the room that contrasted strangely
with the carpetless floor and the fenderless grate. The absence of
the minor softnesses of material life struck her vividly. There were
evidences of a high love for art, but art in a too rarefied atmosphere
for her nature. She would have liked to curtain the windows,--they were
even destitute of blinds,--to put rugs about the floor, to soften the
room with drapery, plants, flowers; even an armchair beside the
fire would have been aesthetically as well as physically reposeful.
Winifred's simpler feminine impulses struck the true chord.
“Why doesn't your sister make you some pretty things for your room?”
“She does--heaps of things.”
“Where are they, then?”
Kent looked at her with humorous shamefacedness.
“I am afraid I have a drawer full of them somewhere,” he replied.
“Well, your room is very much like yourself,” she said in a low voice,
and hesitating a little. “You both lack the same thing.”
And blundering John Kent misread the oracle, accepting it as a reproach
for brotherly unkindness.
Meanwhile Clytie's “own” picture of the model Jack was developing into a
more finished and more ambitious work than she had originally intended.
On Kent's suggestion she had toned down some of its brutality without
rendering less vivid the presentation of the problem. She thought of
trying to exhibit the picture when it was completed; Jack therefore
continued to appear in the studio at irregular intervals. Winifred
encouraged him now, trying to humanise him with picture-books, stories,
and simple talk, but Clytie shook her head at her gentle friend's
efforts, conceiving them, with her fuller and more materialistic
knowledge, to be entirely futile. Still Winifred obtained from him more
details of what Clytie called his private life than she herself could
do. With both of them he was fierce and sullen, but with Winifred he
was more cynically expansive. These details only supplemented the data
afforded by his own personality. Sometimes he went to the board school,
where he was in the third standard; oftener he stayed away. He slept in
his mother's room, ate his desultory food there with the fierceness of a
young wolf; but his real home was in the street. Once he had been given
a situation as satellite to a thriving costermonger, but the restraints
of regular employment had chafed him into resignation of his post.
Besides, his employer had thrashed him unmercifully. As for his
parentage, he was entirely ignorant; he did not care. To his mind it
was a merciful dispensation of Providence that he only had one parent
to irritate and annoy him. He liked to come to the studio because it was
warm and comfortable, besides which he obtained a shilling at the end
of the day to be expended on inferior tobacco when together with his
playmates.
One morning, earlier than usual, he slouched up the stairs and, contrary
to custom, found the studio door open and the apartment empty. He
entered, swinging the door with him, which, being caught by the draught
from an open skylight, slammed with sudden violence. If he had heard
the quick rattle of a falling door-knob, his subsequent conduct would
doubtless have been modified. He was alone in the studio; he waited
idly, lying in front of the stove; but as no one came, he began to
feel restless. He rose to his feet, wandered about, shut the skylight,
examined the contents of the studio. He found a packet of cigarettes
lying about, which he pocketed; an investigation of the cupboard in
the wall rewarded him with some lumps of sugar and some sweet biscuits.
Still no one came, which was not extraordinary, as his employer had not
yet thought of breakfasting. No further resources being offered to his
predatory instincts, he proceeded to look at the pictures, with which he
had already a contemptuous familiarity. The only one for which he had
a genuine admiration, or rather the barbarian's feeling of awe at any
counterfeit presentment of himself, was his own portrait. At this he
seldom tired of looking.
He took down from the wall a little painted mirror, and, sitting on the
stool in front of the picture, proceeded to compare the original and the
portrait. He saw that the resemblance was not quite perfect, and like
a monkey he grimaced into the looking-glass until he had reproduced the
expression that Clytie had fixed upon the canvas. Then he laughed in
great glee, scratched his black curly head, and went in quest of further
occupation. He crossed over to Winifred's easel and took off the cloth.
He had no great idea of “the other one's” picture. It did not interest
him. But, unfortunately, in his simian mood, an idea shot through his
mind. Why should he not try to paint too?
He mounted upon Winifred's seat, took her palette in his hand as he had
seen her hold it, with his small, dirty thumb through the hole in the
white porcelain, gathered the little sheaf of brushes, arranged the
mahl-stick imitatively, and, dipping a brush into the remains of some
Chinese white, tried to fill in some anemones. They were only splotches
of white paint, but the occupation absorbed him. In a very few moments
the whole canvas was starred with Jack's white dabs. Then, growing tired
of the monotony of white,--the colours on the palette did not attract
him,--he fetched Clytie's, which was more richly prepared, and painted
in strokes of crimson and yellow. The delight of colour fascinated him.
He obliterated all the white, daubed the canvas over and over with heavy
streaks, laughing aloud with the spirit of diabolical mischief. Then,
with a fox terrier's or a monkey's instinct of destruction, he took up
the palette-knife and stabbed holes through the canvas.
He contemplated his work for a moment, and then, the very human
anticipation of consequences occurring to his mind, he bethought himself
of flight. But, to his dismay, he found the door-handle had fallen off
when the door had slammed, and that he was a prisoner until someone
should open it from outside. He paused for a moment in the middle of
the room, reflecting. Then he covered up his handiwork carefully with
a cloth, scrupulously replaced the palettes and brushes, and curled
himself up in his usual doglike attitude by the stove, there to await
events.
After a time there came a rattle of the knob-screw being fitted into the
vacant hole in the lock, which made his heart beat, and Clytie entered
the room humming a song. She was surprised to find him there, and
elicited a monosyllabic explanation of his presence. She was in a good
humour and talked lightly to him as she moved about the studio, changing
the water of some flowers. The errand-boy from the shop below came up
with Winnie's anemones that had been put in a cool place over night
to keep them fresh one day longer. Clytie set them on the stand beside
Winifred's easel. Jack watched her, looked at the door, measuring the
distance.
“Where are you going?” Clytie asked sharply as she turned round and
caught him stealing across the room.
He was terribly afraid of her. Those great dark blue eyes seemed to
command him. He never could meet them with his own. He relapsed doggedly
into his position by the stove. Clytie touched the anemones daintily,
picking some faded leaves, still humming her song. In lightness of heart
she took off the cloth to look at Winnie's work, and then fell back with
a cry of horror and anger. A swift glance at Jack brought her knowledge.
“You little fiend!” she cried with eyes aflame, and catching the
cowering, sullen urchin by the collar of shirt and jacket, she dragged
him out of the studio, on to the landing.
Kent happened to have just gone down the stairs on his way out. The
noise of the scuffle reached him in the entrance passage and brought him
up to the studio door.
“What is the matter?” he asked, taking the boy from Clytie's grasp into
his own.
“The matter? Go inside. I must call Winnie. Winnie!”
She opened the sitting-room door. Winifred ran out, holding her gloves,
which she had just taken off, in her hand.
“That boy--that little devil!” cried Clytie, and they both ran into the
studio.
Kent had just entered, and was standing before the mutilated picture
holding the boy, who in Kent's hands was struggling violently. Winifred
looked at it for a moment blankly, scarcely understanding. Then the
sickening truth rose to her brain, and she leaned, very white, against
the wall, looking at the others.
“For God's sake take the little brute out and kill him, Mr. Kent!”
Clytie broke out fiercely. “Murder him! break every bone in his body! To
have done such a thing as that! It is not human.”
“I'll give him a thundering hiding,” said Kent wrathfully, dragging him
towards the door.
But Winifred rose quickly, moved her neck, cleared her throat, and laid
her hand on Kent's arm.
“Don't beat him--I couldn't bear it.”
“Nonsense, Winnie! sit down,” cried Clytie. “Take him away Mr. Kent, or
I'll do him some mischief myself!”
Kent shook the urchin till his teeth chattered and his evil little face
grew red. Winifred still clung to his arm.
“Don't! you shan't do it! He is no better than an animal! He did not
know what he was doing. Nothing you could do to him would give me back
my picture. It would be simple vengeance. Oh, send him away! Send him
away!” and turning from Kent, she burst into tears and clung to Clytie,
sobbing.
“Miss Marchpane is right,” said Kent slowly and looking at Clytie. “Let
the little brute go. Here, you, go! If ever I see you near the place, I
will give you to a policeman!”
Visions of the lowering blue storm-cloud, ever seeming to the children
of the streets ready to burst upon their heads, loomed before the little
outcast's imagination. He shivered, shrunk away from Kent's relaxed
grasp, darted a keen, swift look of malignity at Clytie, and disappeared
like a flash through the open door.
Clytie held Winifred protectingly with one arm, soothing her, mingling
words of comfort with outbursts of self-reproach and unrighteous
indignation. As Jack slipped away she made an impulsive movement
forward, but Winifred restrained her.
“How dare you let him go?” she exclaimed, turning her anger upon Kent.
“If it had not been for you I would have given him a lesson he'd have
remembered all his life. To do a work of devilry like that and not be
punished! I'll set the police upon him!”
“No, no!” murmured Winifred.
“I will. What are reformatories for? Go and call a policeman, Mr. Kent.
It is the least you can do!”
“I shall leave him alone,” replied Kent. “It would not do him any good
and it would not do Miss Marchpane any good. He'll never come here
again, and I should advise you not to introduce any more of his sort
into your studio. When a child of the flesh and the devil gets hold of a
thing of the spirit, the spiritual suffers.”
“I do not wish to be lectured,” said Clytie stonily.
“I am sorry if I have offended you, Miss Davenant,” replied Kent. “I
have the sincerest sympathy with Miss Marchpane for her loss, and I
would do anything in the world to help her or you; and so--good-morning.”
Kent worked hard that day at the Museum. He was troubled over the
morning's occurrence. He was conscious that he had acted rightly
in acquiescing in Winifred's counsel of mercy, but he had a vague,
inarticulate regret that he had not pleased Clytie. He resolutely set
himself to forget everything in his work and finished earlier than
usual. On his way out he met his friend Wither in the great hall.
“I have come to carry you off to the club to dine and there to reason
with you,” said the small, gnomelike man. “They are spring-cleaning at
home and the place reeks of freshness and innocence. Greene and Fairfax
like it; they say it's healthy. I prefer the accumulated and mellowed
deposit of winter. It's as bad as washing a meerschaum. Anyhow, it's got
to get coloured a bit, and until it does I clear out and you are coming
to clear with me.”
“Very well,” replied Kent; “I will waste part of an evening upon you--to
prevent you wasting it yourself more sinfully. You were lucky to catch
me; I was just going.”
The policeman at the door saluted Kent as he passed out.
“That ought to have been for me,” said Wither. “I am far the more
reputable-looking of the two.”
Kent laughed good-humouredly and grasped his ash stick sturdily in his
gloveless hands. The contrast between the dandified elegance of Wither's
dress and his own careless, loose attire appealed to his sense of the
humorous.
“I'll walk a few yards behind you if you like,” he said, repeating a
familiar and time-honoured jest between them.
They walked down the great flight of steps and across the courtyard,
where the pigeons were fluttering joyfully in the afternoon sunshine.
When they had arrived at the railings, whose gilt spear-points caught
the sun, Wither turned and looked for a moment at the frowning mass of
the edifice.
“This always suggests the brain of London, immeasurable in this ugly
poll of a Bloomsbury, with its watery eyes and dejected face, that seems
to be perpetually meditating on death and influenza. I am going to work
up the idea one of these days and turn it into copy.”
“It certainly does not look promising in the crude state,” observed Kent
by way of encouragement.
They walked along Oxford Street and down Shaftesbury Avenue. Here, while
passing in front of a photographer's window, their eyes were caught by
a group of complacent people of both sexes--“with superior smiles and
inferior clothes,” as Wither said--described by a legend printed on
the mount as the “Parnassus House Mutual Improvement Society.” Wither
entered the shop and purchased a copy, as a “monument of the stupendous
fatuity of man.” In the comfortable smoking-room of the Junior
Cosmopolitan, St. James's Square, Wither held the photograph out on his
knees before him and discoursed upon it.
“Look at them,” he said, half hidden in the great armchair. “Dear old
Philistia! When is the Almighty going to redeem his promise and
triumph over it? Mutual improvement!--on the principle of Mark Twain's
islanders, who eked out a precarious livelihood by taking in each
other's washing! This pathetic kind of person belongs to home reading
societies. Do you know what they are? I was staying with the Brownes
last summer; asked the youngest to come and play tennis. She replied
with awful solemnity that she was going to read her 'half hour.' I was
impressed; good girl, I said, and pictured her to myself conducting
her devotional exercises over St. Thomas à Kempis or St. Augustine's
'Confessions' in the sanctity of her maiden chamber. Next day I found
her reading the report of an agricultural commission for the year 1831.
Asked her what the deuce she was reading that for. She replied she was
reading her 'half hour'; it was the only 'solid' book she could find
downstairs! Novels and poetry and magazines were tabooed. I asked her
whether she thought George Meredith or Dante flippant. She could not
exactly say--but they were not solid. God help us!”
“You are as bad as my friend Miss Davenant,” said Kent, laughing. “She
is always railing at Philistia. You might lend me the photograph to show
her; it would amuse her--perhaps it might teach her something.”
Wither gave him the photograph, but after a short pause Kent returned
it.
“I'll take it some other time. I don't quite know at present how we are
going to stand to one another; we had a bit of a scene this morning.”
Wither raised his eyebrows and turned his head lazily, looking at Kent.
“You interest me, friend John. Is Saul also among the prophets?
Expound.”
Kent roughly sketched the morning's episode in the studio.
“So, you see, there's something in the nature of a split,” he added.
“She will come round all right,” said Wither, “if she cares about you.
If she doesn't, she is not worth caring about. Never you mind. There is
nothing does women so much good as a little wholesome neglect. _Crede
experto_. As for the matter in question, of course you were wrong. You
should have thrashed the little devil's life out. But with a woman,
having right or wrong on her side has nothing to do with it.”
“That may be true in the case of the woman you like to philander with,
Teddy, but Clytie Davenant's different.”
“Bah, my dear old boy, they are all the same, every one of them.”
“You have never met one of them whom you could treat in the ordinary
straightforward way--make a friend of as if she were a man.”
“No, old chap, nor do I want to. If you've got to treat a woman as if
she were a man, what the devil's the good of her being a woman?”
“You are talking for the sake of talking, Teddy,” said Kent with some
earnestness. “You know it's all nonsense. Women generally are foolish
enough, God knows, but the sole end of their being is not to be fooled
about with in flirtations and love-makings and such sickening nonsense.
And when one does come across a girl with an intelligence above the
ordinary and instincts above bazaars and the river, one likes her and is
exceedingly sorry to have any row with her.”
“Ah me!” murmured the little man, examining his trim finger nails with
intent brow, “whether we cultivate the 'languor and lilies of virtue,'
or the 'roses and raptures of vice,' it doesn't matter--the trail of the
petticoat's over us all. Come and have a 'hundred up' before dinner.”
Kent did not carry home the ridiculous portrait, and Wither, to avoid
the trouble of taking with him the awkwardly sized parcel that would not
fit into his pocket, very characteristically posted it to himself. As
Kent passed Clytie's door he noticed that it was ajar and that the room
was dark. Evidently she had gone out. If she had retired early to
bed, she would have shut the door, as her bedroom opened into the
sitting-room. He felt a certain sense of loss, he did not know why, for
even if the little streak of light beneath the door had announced her
presence within, he certainly would not have sought admittance. He went
upstairs more slowly than usual, thinking of her and of the morning's
scene. By the dim gas on his landing he perceived an unframed picture
leaning, face-hidden, against his door, and on the ground a letter.
This was addressed to him in the bold, rounded handwriting which he
recognised as Clytie's. He opened it and read:
You were right. I am sorry. Keep the picture as a token.
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.”
“I felt I must thank you for your little note--and the picture.”
“Well? And are we going to make friends again, Mr. Kent?”
She looked him in the face proudly, yet laughingly, and held out her
ungloved hand.
“There!” she added. “I behaved very badly to you this morning, and you
must thank Winifred for bringing me to a sense of decency; but really
when I saw the dear child's work done to death by my own fault I was not
mistress of myself. I suppose it is best when one is in the wrong to own
it--to one's friends.”
“It is sensible,” said Kent, “and I am very proud of your reckoning me
among your friends.”
She looked at him, a strange little smile playing round the corner of
her lips as she put up both hands to withdraw her hat-pin--a graceful
attitude, instinct with femininity. The look and the attitude
disconcerted Kent for a moment. However, her next words reassured him.
“I judged you by myself, you know. I had found our friendship a pleasant
thing, and felt that you did so, too, and I was sorry lest anything
should break it; otherwise I should not have taken the trouble to 'climb
down,' as they say.”
“Let us say no more about it,” replied Kent magnanimously. “If we pride
ourselves on being superior to certain conventionalities of habit, we
ought to extend our conventionalities of sentiment. I have been very
troubled all day, Miss Davenant, I must confess, and I can't tell you
how touched I was by your message. It's not every woman by a long way
that would have sent it.”
“And I would not have written it to every man,” returned Clytie; “of
that you may be quite certain.”
And so they parted for the night.
Thus the breach between them was quite covered over and their relations
strengthened by a newer impression of mutual dependence, a more active
sense of comradeship. They laughed frankly at the Great
Conventionalities, and went about together to theatres, concerts,
picture-shows. Kent accompanied her to Mrs. Farquharson's Sunday
evenings, where he found a ready welcome from the artistic and literary
circle, to whom his father had been well known. Mrs. Farquharson called
them “Orestia and Pylades,” by this time recognising their
companionship as a social fact. They always went back together,
generally for a great part of the way on foot when the weather grew warm
and the nights were dry and clear. On the weekday evenings, when Clytie
was at home, Kent would bring down his work and his reference-books to
Clytie's room, and write there, while she drew or read or busied herself
with odds and ends of needlework. It had all the outward seeming of
friendship--nothing more. For hours they would sit together without
exchanging a word--a real test. But Clytie grew interested in the
progress of Kent's work, gradually obtained a clear idea of its scope
and proportion, and could speak intimately to him concerning it,
although its matter was as incomprehensible to her as to any other
non-specialist. It gave the girl, too, a sense of rest and strength to
see him sitting there, patiently, serenely working. She began to have
doubts as to the completeness of her own scheme of life, its worthiness,
satisfaction. Hitherto the sense of independence, freedom, accumulating
knowledge of that whose foreshadowings had filled her girlish heart with
unrest, had almost satisfied her. Now she began to look beyond. With her
young being as yet untouched by passion, she did not realise the fulness
that love must bring into life. She vaguely speculated upon it, faint,
elusive gleams of perception passing rapidly through her into the
darkness, but that was all. The secret of life, she thought, could only
be wrested from the tangle of the labyrinth by single-minded endeavour,
sacrifice, devotion. Was not Kent right when he accused her of making
her art a stepping-stone instead of an end?
Kent, manlike, and honester, too, than most men, was unconscious of this
self-abasement. Since the day of that fierce struggle with herself which
had resulted in her sending him the missive of submission he had vaguely
felt that she was dependent on him for many things; but he had helped
her in his frank, unquestioning way, feeling pleased, warmed by the
flame of a newly kindled spark of vanity. He preached to her his simple
doctrine.
“Work while work pleases you. Love it for its own sake. Set a great
end before you; but the attaining it is the delight, not the ultimate
attainment. If you think of nothing but the end, the reaching it is all
feverish unrest and toil.”
She listened, rebelled, submitted, without loss of her proud
fearlessness. Yes; it was common sense, she agreed. No one can be
humiliated by giving in to common sense and acting in accordance with
it. Kent persuaded her to finish the picture of Jack.
“It is the best thing you have done. There is more work in it--real
work. It will not take long to finish. Then send it for exhibition.”
He appealed to Winifred, who added her soft note of encouragement. The
picture was painted. Kent stonily refused to keep it as his possession.
There was a heated argument. He valued her gift and her friendship; he
valued her fame and life-interest more. He would not refuse a replica.
In the end she acquiesced. The picture was accepted by the hanging
committee of the exhibition, made a stir, was sold for £120. Clytie was
launched..