Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/219

 mind. "And then we are cousins, and it is bad for cousins to marry. And—I am engaged to somebody else. As to our going on together as we were going, in a sort of friendly way, the people round us would have made it unable to continue. Their views of the relations of man and woman are limited, as is proved by their expelling me from the school. Their philosophy only recognizes relations based on animal desire. The wide field of strong attachment where desire plays, at least, only a secondary part, is ignored by them—the part of—who is it?—Venus Urania."

Her being able to talk learnedly showed that she was mistress of herself again; and before they parted she had almost regained her vivacious glance, her reciprocity of tone, her gay manner, and her second-thought attitude of critical largeness towards others of her age and sex.

He could speak more freely now. "There were several reasons against my telling you rashly. One was what I have said; another, that it was always impressed upon me that I ought not to marry—that I belonged to an odd and peculiar family—the wrong breed for marriage."

"Ah—who used to say that to you?"

"My great-aunt. She said it always ended badly with us Fawleys."

"That's strange! My father used to say the same to me!"

They stood possessed by the same thought, ugly enough, even as an assumption; that a union between them, had such been possible, would have meant a terrible intensification of unfitness—two bitters in one dish.

"Oh, but there can't be anything in it!" she said, with nervous lightness. "Our family have been unlucky of late years in choosing mates—that's all."

And then they tried to persuade themselves that all that had happened was of no consequence, and that they could still be cousins and friends and warm correspondents, and have happy, genial times when they met, even