After all, so far, she only asked him to talk of himself,
and for a man of his type the process is the very breath of his being,
the stimulus and liberation of all his powers.
So that before they knew they were in the midst of the most burning
subjects of human discussion--at first in a manner comparatively veiled
and general, then with the sharpest personal reference to Cliffe's own
story, as the intimacy between them grew. Jealousy, suffering, the "hard
cases" of passion--why men are selfish and exacting, why women mislead
and torment--the ugly waste and crudity of death--it was among these
great themes they found themselves. Death above all--it was to a thought
of death that Cliffe's harsh face owed its chief spell perhaps in
Kitty's eyes. A woman had died for love of him, crushed by his jealousy
and her own self-scorn. So Kitty had been told; and Cliffe's tortured
vanity would not deny it. How could she have cared so much? That was the
puzzle.
But this vicarious relation had now passed into a relation of her own.
Cliffe was to Kitty a problem--and a problem which, beyond a certain
point, defied her. The element of sex, of course, entered in, but only
as intensifying the contrasts and mysteries of imagination.
Pages:
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316