'Kitty, you filthy little claw-hammer----'
The door was slammed to, and he heard only their voices in bitter
argument, tears, reproaches, curses; but at last, as he paced to and
fro in his lonely room, the tumult died down and he could wrestle with
the new turbulent thoughts awakened in him.... Work was out of the
question. He had been clawed back into life. If he did not want to be
destroyed he must be profoundly, passionately, and scrupulously honest
with himself. He must face his emotions as he had never done.
At first he thought of wildly heroic solutions. He would seize his
opportunity with Kitty, take advantage of her soft gratitude and sweep
her out of harm's way..... But what was the good of that? It settled
nothing, solved nothing. To act without Clara's knowledge would be to
betray her. That he was sure was what Verschoyle had done.
Already he had interfered and there was no knowing what Claude's spite
might lead to.... O God, what a tangle! What should be done, what
could be done, for Clara? No one mattered but she. Mann, Verschoyle,
himself, what did any of them matter? She was the unique,
irreplaceable personality. Of that he was sure. It was through her
glorious innocence that all these strange things had happened to her.
A less generous, a more experienced and calculating woman would have
known instinctively that there was some queer story behind Charles
Mann.... She could leap into a man's heart through his mind. That was
where she was so dangerous to herself. The history of his purely
physical emotions would concern her not at all. Her own emotions in
their purity could recognise no separation between body and spirit, nor
in others could they suspect any division.... Of that he was sure.
Without that the whole embroglio was fantastic and incredible. She
could never in so short a time have achieved what she had done through
calculation and intrigue. That kind of success took years of patience
under checks, rebuffs, and insults.... Everywhere she offered her
superb youth, and it was taken and used, used for purposes which she
could not even suspect. Her youth would be taken, she would be given
no room, no time in which to develop her talent or her personality.
The way of the world? It had been the way of the world too long, but
the strong of heart and the worthy of soul had always resisted or
ignored it.
Sometimes Rodd thought the only thing to do was to wait, to leave the
situation to develop naturally. It would do Mann no great harm to get
into trouble, but then--Clara would be marked. All her life she would
have to fight against misunderstanding.... No, no. There could be no
misunderstanding where she was concerned. Her personality answered
everything. It would be fine, it would be splendid, to see her
overriding all obstacles in her bounteous gift of the treasure that was
in her to a world that in its worship of self-help and material power
had forgotten youth, courage, and the supreme power of joy.