Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/381

 had an unexpected fascination for her to-day. Scrutinizing them narrowly from the rear, she noticed that Jude's hand sought. Sue's as they stood, the two standing close together so as to conceal, as they supposed, this tacit expression of their mutual responsiveness.

"Silly fools—like two children!" Arabella whispered to herself, morosely, as she rejoined her companions, with whom she preserved a preoccupied silence.

Anny meanwhile had jokingly remarked to Vilbert on Arabella's hankering interest in her first husband.

"Now," said the physician to Arabella, apart, "do you want anything such as this, Mrs. Cartlett? It is not compounded out of my regular pharmacopoeia, but I am sometimes asked for such a thing." He produced a small phial of clear liquid. A love-philter, such as was used by the Ancients with great effect. I found it out by study of their writings, and have never known it to fail."

"What is it made of?" asked Arabella, curiously.

"Well—a distillation of the juices of doves' hearts— otherwise pigeons'—is one of the ingredients. It took nearly a hundred hearts to produce that small bottleful."

"How do you get pigeons enough?"

"To tell a secret, I get a piece of rock-salt, of which pigeons are inordinately fond, and place it in a dovecote on my roof. In a few hours the birds come to it from all points of the compass—east, west, north, and south—and thus I secure as many as I require. You use the liquid by contriving that the desired man shall take about ten drops of it in his drink. But remember, all this is told you because I gather from your questions that you mean to be a purchaser. You must keep faith with me."

"Very well—I don't mind a bottle—to give some friend or other to try it on her young man." She produced five shillings, the price asked, and slipped the phial in her capacious bosom. Saying presently that she was due at an appointment with her husband, she sauntered away towards the refreshment bar, Jude, his cousin, and the child