And now for the first time she was coolly shown that she was a woman, that her opinions were not worth serious consideration, that she must not trouble her pretty-head about things that were too deep for her. And by the man, above all, whose life she shared. They were hours of dull, dazed humiliation that she spent alone that evening; hours that were not lost even in the pain of her after life. Over the absence of sympathy with her own pursuits she was only a little regretful. It would have been nicer if Thornton had been able to take a pleasure in her art. But she was too large-natured not to be able to bridge over this small gap between them. She was ready to sacrifice her art entirely to her love, was eager to throw herself into his interests and ambitions. But she demanded a full, vigorous share. To live an empty life was with her an impossibility. And to this life Thornton, in his good-natured contempt for her powers, was condemning her. She was puzzled, humiliated, frightened. There is a vague mystery of woe in the dawn of a dreary day. Meanwhile Thornton was enjoying himself amazingly. The dinner was one which, as Heine says, “ought to be partaken of kneeling,” and the wine was excellent; the party well chosen, the talk essentially, broadly masculine. There is a certain type of man whose conversation is wholly made up of sport in its various aspects, women, shop, and crude personal gossip--a type which numbers its tens of thousands in English society. It can be met with, to utter weariness of the soul, in any heterogeneous gathering of upper- and middle-class Britons. They are God's creatures, it is true; many of them are possessed of estimable qualities, some of them have performed deeds of heroism. But as a type they are a glaring satire upon the vaunted culture and refinement of our civilisation. And it is a remarkable thing how little their power and influence are recognised by writers in their analysis of the spirit of this dying nineteenth century. This vast overwhelming type does not read, does not think, does not care for art or music, has no power of penetration to the heart of delicate things. It is dull, brawny, selfish, and a pillar of the Church and State. Its main subjective characteristic is the brutality of its views concerning women--varying from the kindly disdain of its highest members to the degraded brutality of its lowest. Of this type, with all his physical charm, his brilliant personality and splendid capacities for action, was Thornton Hammerdyke. The man whose magnetism had drawn Clytie irresistibly, headlong into his arms was only, after all, a representative of this ignoble, commonplace order of men. The love that had flooded Clytie's being with wild surging tumult was only, after all, the commonplace, ignoble passion of his type. There are some things so elementary that analysis quickly comes to an end. Put in a strip of litmus paper and it is done.