It was a period of strange new happiness for Clytie. It showed itself outwardly in her art. No one but herself has ever seen the pictures that she painted during this time--not even Caroline. They were all unfinished, sketched in the hurried, semi-impressionist manner with which from her early girlhood she had been wont to give objectivity to her cravings and imaginings; but they were dainty, laughing, tender things, a world of waxen touches and sweet hopes. It would be hard to say how many small panels she covered with the promises of this new life. Sometimes, when she was quite alone, she would lock the door and take them out and arrange them along the wall on the ledge above the dado, and gladden her heart with them. After which she would collect them hastily and lock them up, with a smile at her own foolishness. She meditated now and then, before the fire, with closed eyes, turning over the leaves of her Book of New Formulas, which had grown somewhat tear-stained and dusty; but she found in it nothing relating to present things, and she laughed quietly at the omission, resolving to rectify it by and by. It was strange that she had not included this in her scheme of life. And yet, after all, was it so strange? She could not quite decide. But the future she never questioned. The evolution of her own individuality seemed in no wise to concern her. She had projected herself into another life. And she looked at the world, and again she saw it fair; and peace rested on her eyelids as she slept. And the weeks went on. One evening in the middle of December Thornton and herself were alone together. They had finished dinner and he was smoking a cigar with his coffee in the dining-room. Relations between them were beginning to grow kindlier again. That is to say, he curbed his temper, inquired after her health, and occasionally spent an evening at home. They had not spoken much during the meal. Now that they had so few interests in common, their conversation was generally desultory. The one great and precious bond that was to be between them was rarely mentioned. It was too deeply rooted in the holiest place of Clytie's soul for her to discuss it in the commonplace interviews she had with her husband, and his interest in the matter did not go much beyond a rather irritating sense of responsibility. Some feeling of the sort prompted him on this evening to allude to the subject. “I heard from the Claverings this morning,” he said, knocking off his cigar ash into the fender. “They want us to go and spend Christmas with them in their new place in Hampshire.” “Oh?” said Clytie politely. She had seen Mrs. Clavering several times during the summer in town, and further acquaintance had only increased the antipathy she had conceived in Paris. Thornton, however, had been pretty intimate with them during the latter part of the season, and he had met Major Clavering again in Scotland. Hence the invitation.