The reconciliation did not last long. Clytie strove with an earnestness that was torture to keep the peace between them, but sometimes her nature clamoured within her and broke out in self-assertion. Only four months married, and already the breach between them was perceptible, slowly widening. And it was Clytie that drifted away from her husband. If she had been a lesser nature, she might have retained the love on both sides. A woman of a lower type would have been able to flatter, soothe, cajole, yield, and thus have kept Thornton at her feet. The patronising contempt for her own needs, which lashed Clytie to the soul, she would have treated lightly, as the natural and foolish vanity of the superior being; and she would have found in a sudden demonstration of passion full compensation for previous indifference. But Clytie was not only unversed herself in the arts of seduction, but despised them fiercely in other women. And she began also to dread Thornton's fits of affection as much as his fits of anger. He left her one morning quivering with mortification and suppressed bitterness. He himself was not conscious of the slight he had inflicted, and he went away in gay spirits. Their talk had turned upon a Cabinet Minister named Godderich, whose influence Thornton was anxious to acquire. Now it had so happened that this same Godderich had succeeded in making himself vastly obnoxious to Clytie. She told her husband this, giving him the reasons. “I have not been accustomed to that kind of admiration,” she said, “and I don't like it.” But Thornton laughed his great laugh, called her “his unconventional prude,” and went on to show her what an invaluable ally Godderich was. “You must swallow your dislike, Clytie,” he said. “Why, God bless my soul, if ninety-nine women out of a hundred had that chance, they would get the eyes out of his head.” “Would you so much desire me to be like ninety-nine women out of a hundred, then, Thornton?” “Oh, nonsense, Clytie; you know what I mean. Come! Don't you see that here's a way of pushing things on a bit? What does it matter if the ass is attentive? You can laugh at him. But keep him in hand a bit until we want to let him loose. Do you see? Of course I trust you, and all that sort of thing.” “I thank you for your confidence,” she replied. “But I don't think you will need to exercise it much.” “What do you mean?” “Oh, never mind. Do you really want me, Thornton, to encourage this man to make love to me, so as to get a hold on him for other purposes?” “I never saw anyone like you for the dotting of i's,” said Thornton, amused. “But that's about the size of it. Don't you see what an infernal ass we can make of him? Well, think it over, little wife. Good-bye.” He opened the front door,--this little conversation had taken place in the hall,--and ran down the steps very well pleased with himself.