Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/138

 minster. Though they had talked of nothing more than general subjects, Jude was surprised to find what a revelation of woman his cousin was to him. She was so vibrant that everything she did seemed to have its source in feeling. An exciting thought would make her walk ahead so fast that he could hardly keep up with her; and her sensitiveness on some points was such that it might have been misread as vanity. It was with heart-sickness he perceived that while her sentiments towards him were those of the frankest friendliness only, he loved her more than before becoming acquainted with her; and the gloom of the walk home lay not in the night overhead, but in the thought of her departure.

"Why must you leave Christminster?" he said, regretfully. How can you do otherwise than cling to a city in whose history such men as Newman, Pusey, Ward, Keble, loom so large!"

"Yes—they do. Though how large do they loom in the history of the world?... What a funny reason for caring to stay! I should never have thought of it!" she laughed. "Well—I must go," she continued. Miss Fontover, one of the partners whom I serve, is offended with me, and I with her; and it is best to go."

"How did that happen?"

"She broke some statuary of mine."

"Oh! Wilfully?"

"Yes. She found it in my room, and though it was my property, she threw it on the floor and stamped on it, because it was not according to her taste, and ground the arms and the head of one of the figures all to bits with her heel—a horrid thing!"

"Too Catholic-Apostolic for her, I suppose? No doubt she called them Popish images, and talked of the invocations of saints."

"No.... No, she didn't do that. She saw the matter quite differently."

"Ah! Then I am surprised!"