Before Thornton's departure for Scotland a kind of reconciliation was patched up between them. The first overtures had come from Clytie. After all, he was her husband. They were bound together, for better or worse, till death parted them. It was only common sense to struggle that it should be for better. She humbled herself, then, a little, confessed that she had been unreasonable in some things. He happened to be in a softer mood, and encouraged her to tell him she was sorry if she had been cold and selfish. Unconsciously she made him feel quite magnanimous. He kissed her gaily, bade her think no more about it, and even condescended to say with regard to the main point at issue: “Well, perhaps you are about right in not caring to go to Durdleham. Your sisters are not rapid.” A remark which, although it jarred somewhat on Clytie's strung nerves, she nevertheless accepted as a token of peace. This was the second time in her life that she had deliberately humbled herself before a man. She thought of it with a queer little pang. When she had put down her young pride so as to retain Kent's friendship and esteem, on the day that Jack had destroyed Winifred's picture, it had been all gladness and triumph. She remembered how happily she had gone to sleep that night, in pleasant subconsciousness of certain feminine workings. It had been a joy to surrender then. But now? She shrugged her shoulders, tried to dismiss it from her mind. In the middle of August she found herself alone in the great house, enjoying the leisure and solitude, the independence, the freedom from friction. She devoted most of her time to her painting, which had been sadly neglected since her marriage. Her studio was a pleasant room, with a good light. It had not the severe, businesslike air of the one in the King's Road; it was warmer, heavier with velvet hangings, richer in quaint furniture. Instead of the whitewashed walls scrawled over with grotesque caricatures, it had a delicately toned Morris paper. The floor was polished, strewn with thick rugs; a great white bearskin lay before the hearth. The piles of canvases stretched upon rough wooden backs that used to lie stacked up in odd corners Thornton had had framed for her, as a surprise to greet her on her home-coming, and now the best of them were hung round the room. Some of her cherished possessions found a place--the etching by Rupert Kent, two or three of Winifred's delicate studies, and an exquisite Jacquemart that Kent had given her long ago. But otherwise all was new, luxurious, separating her from the old associations of her art life.