“You're a deuced lovely woman, you know, Clytie,” he said, his great bulk sprawling over a small drawing-room chair, his hands in his pockets. “I have half a mind to fall in love with you again. If you had not turned into absolute ice, perhaps I should. You've got that same devilish witchery in your skin that made me go wild over you a year ago.” “Oh, please don't talk of that, Thornton. It is the past,” she said, with a tremor. “Well, upon my soul!” he said, gathering himself together. “I don't see why it might not be the present. I was going to unfold to you a little scheme by which we might live politely together, but, by Jove! now I look at you and reflect that you are my wife after all--you're so gloriously beautiful, Clytie!” He rose, but she was on her feet before him, having sprung up with a beating heart. She looked at him with a fearful surmise in her glance, and as he made a stride towards her she recoiled in a terror she had not known before. “Oh, no, no, no! For God's sake!” she cried, catching at her breath, instinctively putting out her hands to keep him off. “That is all over. We loved one another once. A horrible mockery of it is more than I can bear.” “Confound it, Clytie!” he exclaimed, clenching his hands and showing his teeth, “you're my wife, and, by the Lord! I'll kiss you if I choose!” The flash of his brown eyes that had once overpowered her will now made her shudder. She stiffened into a woman of iron, with bloodless cheeks. Standing up perfectly rigid, she closed her eyes, and hung her hands against her sides. “Kiss me, then, since you claim the right,” she said in a choked voice. For a moment or two he stood looking at her. Then with a loud laugh he flung himself back in his chair. Clytie with shame and horror in her heart rushed from the room. It was not an encouraging home-coming. The incident, though not repeated, upset many of her plans for the reconstitution of her existence. It added a new dread. For she had counted upon the continuance of the entire indifference with which Thornton had grown to regard her. A sudden outburst like this had not occurred for many months. What guarantee had she that this was not the beginning of a series of spasmodic rekindlings of a fire she had thought dead? For some days anxiety lay heavy on her mind. But human nature is very elastic; if it were not so, God help us all! After a while she recovered and was able to talk calmly to Thornton, who began by treating her with an ironical politeness, and then relapsed into his usual cheerful indifference. Once while discussing their mutual relations she broached the subject of separation. “I won't consent,” he replied. “As we can't be lovers, we may as well be friends. You would gain very little by it. Besides, people would talk, and for me that is an important consideration.” “It hardly concerns me,” she said, with a touch of cynicism that was new to her. “Still, if you wish it very much, I will remain.”