Mrs. Blather was anxious that Clytie and her husband should come to Durdleham to stay there after the season in town was over. But Clytie replied evasively to the affectionate invitation. She shrank from Durdleham even more than from herself. Mrs. Blather, now that the soreness as regards the wedding had worn off, was delighted at the brilliant match--just the very marriage one could have wished for Clytie, as she remarked over the Durdleham tea tables. Besides, it was definite settling down for Clytie, saving them from that shadow of scandal that had always seemed liable to be cast over them through her unprincipled behaviour. There were no longer any fears. And Mrs. Blather had her own little triumph in another way. She remembered now she had prophesied years ago that Clytie's desire to live her art life in London was a craze that would not last long--like Janet's transient enthusiasm for cookery classes. Both Janet and herself took it for granted that Clytie viewed her past errors with the same indulgent retrospective smile, and wrote her complacent letters based on this assumption. And Clytie found it harder than ever to write to them naturally, to answer these letters in the same tone. If her sisters had failed to understand her when to her her young, earnest self was brightly intelligible, how could they do it now when she saw herself vaguely, dimly, wrapped in impenetrable vapours? A visit to Durdleham, under the circumstances, seemed almost an ordeal. Yet Thornton's presence there might make some difference. She spoke to him very little on the subject. He broached it himself one day at breakfast, almost the only time now, except late at night, that she saw him alone. It was nearing the end of July and the session of Parliament was on the eve of closing. “When are you going to see your people, Clytie?” he asked, looking over his paper. “I thought I had told you. They want us to come for a week as soon as we can leave town.” “Us?” “Yes; won't you come?” “Oh, no, thanks. It would not suit me at all. You go and make an excuse for me.” “Things are not gay there, I know,” said Clytie, “but I should like you to come with me.” “It can't be done, my dear,” replied Thornton. “You had better have a quiet time there by yourself, while I go up to Scotland----” “I thought you would have liked me to go to Scotland with you--we have seen so little of each other lately. You don't want to stay up there all the autumn without me?” she added half pathetically. “Why, my dear Clytie, you can come if you like,” said her husband, drawing back his chair from the table. “Only you won't find much fun in a little shooting-box in the middle of a glen in the Highlands. Look: you go and see your people for a month, and then, if you like, you can come and join me there--that is to say, if Carteret has any of his women folks staying in the house, which does not seem to be quite settled yet. If he hasn't, naturally you can't come.”