"
She gave a little, reckless laugh.
"Did I? It's like the people who think they could act or sing, if they
only had the chance. I choose to think I could feel. And of course I
couldn't. We've lost the power. All the old, horrible, splendid things
are dead and done with."
"The old passions, you mean?"
"And the old poems!
You'll never write like that again."
"God forbid!" said Cliffe, under his breath. Then as Kitty rose he
followed her with his eyes. "Lady Kitty, you've thrown me a challenge
that you hardly understand. Some day I must answer it."
"Don't answer it," said Kitty, hastily.
"Yes, if I can drag the words out," he said, sombrely. She met his look
in a kind of fascination, excited by the memory of the story which had
been told her, by her own audacity in speaking of it, by the presence of
the dead passion she divined lying shrouded and ghastly in the mind of
the man beside her. Even the ugly things of which he was accused did but
add to the interest of his personality for a nature like hers, greedy of
experience, and discontented with the real.
While he on his side was nattered and astonished by her attitude towards
him, as Ashe's wife, she would surely dislike and try to trample on him.
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