In spite of her struggles
he held her tightly against his breast and kissed her eyes, cheeks, and
mouth. Then releasing her he winked and made a gesture for silence. "On a
wedding night some one's got to have the nerve to do a little love-making,"
he said, looking pointedly toward the place where Hugh sat with head bent
and with his eyes staring at a glass of wine that sat at his elbow.
* * * * *
It was past two o'clock when the feast came to an end. When the guests
began to depart, Clara stood for a moment alone and tried to get herself
in hand. Something inside her felt cold and old. If she had often thought
she wanted a man, and that life as a married woman would put an end to
her problems, she did not think so at that moment. "What I want above
everything else is a woman," she thought. All the evening her mind had been
trying to clutch and hold the almost forgotten figure of her mother, but it
was too vague and shadowy. With her mother she had never walked and talked
late at night through streets of towns when the world was asleep and when
thoughts were born in herself. "After all," she thought, "Mother may also
have belonged to all this." She looked at the people preparing to depart.
Several men had gathered in a group by the door. One of them told a story
at which the others laughed loudly. The women standing about had flushed
and, Clara thought, coarse faces.
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