“Oh! a pipe,” he replied with much fervour, instantly seeking for it in his pocket. Clytie turned to poke the fire. It was black and sulky, and her efforts were of not much avail. “Let me try,” said Kent, bending down with her on the hearthrug; “this is a thing not generally known.” He threw a lighted match on to the fire, the escaping gases burst into flame, and cheerfulness was established in the grate. A trivial incident, but it was recognised by them both in after years as having served to cement their comradeship. CHAPTER VII. The friendship between them ripened imperceptibly. Each day brought its tiny thread linking them together, so gradually, so subtly, that it was not until long afterwards that they realised the immense strength of the bond. At first it was mere honest liking on both sides, a pleasant consciousness of discovery, an ordinary attraction between two natures, distinct, yet more or less complementary. Clytie found it written in her Book of New Formulas that the loyal friendship between a man and a woman was a strengthening element of existence. In her fierce pride and young vigour she would not allow that each supplied what the other lacked, according to the popular theory--the man strength, the woman grace--but asserted strenuously the truth that each could lend the other elements of strength the same in degree, but different in kind, owing to the difference of sex. If it had been suggested to her that her weaker woman's nature instinctively, in spite of perfect emancipation and proud independence, sought the man's protecting fibre, the whole amazon within her would have been up in arms. She found in Kent a man whom she could meet upon a ground of perfect equality--perfectly even, neither blocked by prejudices and social barriers nor haunted by sexual spectres. She was woman enough, however, to perceive intuitively certain shynesses in Kent, resulting from a half knowledge of her, that would have kept him aloof in spite of a very sensible attraction towards her; and in showing him, therefore, that this attraction was mutual she felt no compunction,--rather pride, on the contrary, in reaching a superior plane in which conduct was measured by superior standards. And thus it came about that the eternal feminine once more deceived itself, mistaking nature for what it called the Fine Art of Life.