Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/133

 The voice, though positive and silvery, had been tremulous. They walked on in parallel lines, and, waiting her pleasure, Jude watched till she showed signs of closing in, when he did likewise, the place being where the carriers' carts stood in the daytime, though there were none on the spot then.

"I am sorry that I asked you to meet me, and didn't call," began Jude, with the bashfulness of a lover. "But I thought it would save time if we were going to walk."

"Oh—I don't mind that," she said, with the freedom of a friend. "I have really no place to ask anybody in to. What I meant was that the place you chose was so horrid—I suppose I ought not to say horrid—I mean gloomy and inauspicious.... But isn't it funny to begin like this, when I don't know you yet?" She looked him up and down curiously, though Jude did not look much at her. "You seem to know me more than I know you," she added.

"Yes—I have seen you now and then."

"And you knew who I was, and didn't speak? And now I am going away!"

"Yes. That's unfortunate. I have hardly any other friend. I have, indeed, one very old friend here somewhere, but I don't quite like to call on him just yet. I wonder if you know anything of him—Mr. Phillotson? A parson somewhere about the country, I think he is."

"No—I only know of one Mr. Phillotson. He lives a little way out in the country, at Lumsdon. He's a village school-master."

"Ah! I wonder if he's the same. Surely it is impossible! Only a school-master still! Do you know his Christian name—is it Richard?"

"Yes—it is I've directed books to him, though I've never seen him."

"Then he couldn't do it!"

Jude's countenance fell, for how could he succeed in an enterprise wherein the great Phillotson had failed? He