Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/347

 the sight of her own fresh charms in the looking-glass made Sue's manner bright, till she reflected what a meanly sexual emotion this was in her, and hated herself for it.

"I've just looked in to see if you got back comfortably last night, that's all," she said, gently. "I was afraid afterwards that you might have met with any mishap."

"Oh, how stupid this is! I thought my visitor was—your friend—your husband—Mrs. Fawley, as I suppose you call yourself?" said Arabella, flinging her head back upon the pillows with a disappointed toss, and ceasing to retain the dimple she had just taken the trouble to produce.

"Indeed I don't," said Sue.

"Oh, I thought you might have, even if he's not legally yours. Decency is decency, any hour of the twenty-four."

"I don't know what you mean," said Sue, stiffly. "He is mine, if you come to that!"

"He wasn't yesterday."

Sue colored roseate, and said, "How do you know?"

"From your manner when you talked to me at the door. Well, my dear, you've been quick about it, and I expect my visit last night helped it on—ha-ha! But I don't want to get him away from you."

Sue looked out at the rain, and at the dirty toilet-cover, and at the detached tail of Arabella's hair hanging on the looking glass, just as it had done in Jude's time, and wished she had not come. In the pause there was a knock at the door, and the chamber-maid brought in a telegram for "Mrs. Cartlett."

Arabella opened it as she lay, and her ruffled look disappeared.

"I am much obliged to you for your anxiety about me," she said, blandly, when the maid had gone; "but it is not necessary you should feel it. My man finds he can't do without me after all, and agrees to stand by the promise, to marry again over here, that he has made me all along. See here. This is in answer to one from me." She held