Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/237

 "Thanks, Arabella," said Jude, without a smile. "But I don't want anything more than I've had." The fact was that her unexpected presence there had destroyed at a stroke his momentary taste for strong liquor as completely as if it had whisked him back to his milk-fed infancy.

"That's a pity, now you could get it for nothing."

"How long have you been here?"

"About six weeks. I returned from Sydney three months ago. I always liked this business, you know."

"I wonder you came to this place!"

"Well, as I say, I thought you were gone to glory, and being in London I saw the situation in an advertisement. Nobody was likely to know me here, even if I had minded, for I was never in Christminster in my growing-up."

"Why did you return from Australia?"

"Oh, I had my reasons.... Then you are not a Don yet?"

"No."

"Not even a Reverend?"

"No."

"Nor so much as a Rather Reverend dissenting gentleman?"

"I am as I was."

"True—you look so." She idly allowed her fingers to rest on the pull of the beer-engine as she inspected him critically. He observed that her hands were smaller and whiter than when he had lived with her, and that on the hand which pulled the engine she wore an ornamental ring set with what seemed to be a real sapphire—which it was, indeed, and was much admired as such by the young men who frequented the bar.

"So you pass as married," he continued.

"Yes. I thought it might be awkward if I called myself a widow, as I should have liked."

"True. I am known here a little."

"I didn't mean on that account—for, as I said, I didn't expect you. It was for other reasons."