“I do wish it, Clytie,” he said in a softened voice. “You can go your way, I will go mine. But we must live together as far as the world sees us.” Clytie yielded with some misgivings, and set herself to work to discover interests in life. The society life of London, in which she was free to play an important part, did not satisfy her. She saw too deep below the surface of things to be guilty of the silly cynicism that finds society hollow, its aims futile, and its morals corrupt. There is earnestness even among cultivated men and women. But society is formal, conventional, and in the external rules of life differs only in degree from Durdleham. True, it has a far wider intellectual scope. Contrary to Durdleham, it permits the possession of ideas, but it is just as punctilious as to their correct expression. The elaborate ceremonial of society weighed upon Clytie. She preferred a simpler, directer life. There were so many wrappings of convention to be pierced through before she could get to the heart of a thing or a person, and they wearied, irritated her. And now, as Thornton seemed to care very little whether she placed herself in evidence or not, beyond playing the part of hostess in his house, she consulted merely her own desires in her acceptance of invitations. But as the circle from which these mainly proceeded was that into which her husband's reputation, tastes, and political aspirations had led her, she did not find in it the interests which particularly affected her. It was beyond her power either to feel or to simulate an interest in Thornton's ambitions. Nor did she feel called upon now to profess the tenets of Thornton's political creed. She was a solitary, unconventional Radical in the midst of the most uncompromising Torydom, which is an unenviable position even for the least rabid politician. The political section, therefore, of her social circle she studiously avoided. The purely fashionable, frivolous element, that goes to Hurlingham and Ascot, and makes itself merry over material things, had attracted her the previous year with its graceful epicureanism. She had still been proud of her husband and his boyish zest in amusement, and she had caught from him the spirit of laughing Babylon. But now it was pain to be with him when he chatted and jested with pretty girls and idle young men. His light-hearted gaiety jarred upon her. She saw that men and women were affected by his charm, and she had half longings to tell them it was a lie. So she withdrew herself from their midst as much as possible. By this process of elimination Clytie's circle became conveniently limited. She was sick at heart, and she turned more and more to the friends of her girlhood.