Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/313

 drawing away from him as far as she could, looked severely out into the darkness. She presently added, in hurt tones, turning round: "My liking for you is not as some women's perhaps. But it is a delight in being with you, of a supremely delicate kind, and I don't want to go further and risk it by—an attempt to intensify it! I quite realized that, as woman with man, it was a risk to come. But, as me with you, I resolved to trust you to set my wishes above your gratification. Don't discuss it further, dear Jude!"

"Of course, if it would make you reproach yourself... but you do like me very much, Sue?—say you do! Say that you do a quarter, a tenth, as much as I do you, and I'll be content!"

"I've let you kiss me, and that tells enough."

"Just once or so!"

"Well—don't be a greedy boy."

He leaned back, and did not look at her for a long time. That episode in her past history of which she had told him—of the poor Christminster graduate whom she had handled thus—returned to Jude's mind, and he saw himself as a possible second in such a torturing destiny.

"This is a queer elopement!" he murmured. "Perhaps you are making a cat's-paw of me with Phillotson all this time. Upon my word, it almost seems so-to see you sitting up there so prim!"

"Now, you mustn't be angry—I won't let you!" she coaxed, turning and moving nearer to him. "You did kiss me just now, you know, and I didn't dislike to, very much, Jude. Only I don't want to let you do it again, just yet—considering how we are circumstanced, don't you see!"

He could never resist her when she pleaded (as she well knew). And they sat side by side with joined hands till she aroused herself at some thought.

"I can't possibly go to that Temperance Inn, after your telegraphing that message!"