Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/197

 poets have been the most self-contained in their daily lives."

"Have you told Mr. Phillotson about this University-scholar friend?"

"Yes—long ago. I have never made any secret of it to anybody."

"What did he say?"

"He did not pass any criticism—only said I was everything to him, whatever I did; and things like that." Jude felt much depressed; she seemed to get further and further away from him with her strange ways and curious unconsciousness of gender.

"Aren't you really vexed with me, dear Jude?" she suddenly asked, in a voice of such extraordinary tenderness that it hardly seemed to come from the same woman who had just told her story so lightly. I would rather offend anybody in the world than you, I think!"

"I don't know whether I am vexed or not. I know I care very much about you!"

"I care as much for you as for anybody I ever met."

"You don't care more! There, I ought not to say that. Don't answer it!"

There was another long silence. He felt that she was treating him cruelly, though he could not quite say in what way. Her very helplessness seemed to make her so much stronger than he.

"I am awfully ignorant on general matter, although I have worked so hard," he said, to turn the subject. "I an absorbed in Theology, you know. And what do you think I should be doing just about now if you weren't here? I should be saying my evening prayers. I suppose you wouldn't like—"

"Oh no, no!" she answered; "I would rather not, if you don't mind. I should seem so—such a hypocrite."

"I thought you wouldn't join, so I didn't propose it. You must remember that I hope to be a useful minister some day."