Jude the Obsure

"What were they?"

"I don't care to go into them," she replied evasively. "I make a

very good living, and I don't know that I want your company."

Here a chappie with no chin, and a moustache like a lady's eyebrow,

came and asked for a curiously compounded drink, and Arabella was

obliged to go and attend to him. "We can't talk here," she said,

stepping back a moment. "Can't you wait till nine? Say yes, and

don't be a fool. I can get off duty two hours sooner than usual, if

I ask. I am not living in the house at present."

He reflected and said gloomily, "I'll come back. I suppose we'd

better arrange something."

"Oh, bother arranging! I'm not going to arrange anything!"

"But I must know a thing or two; and, as you say, we can't talk here.

Very well; I'll call for you."

Depositing his unemptied glass he went out and walked up and down the

street. Here was a rude flounce into the pellucid sentimentality of

his sad attachment to Sue. Though Arabella's word was absolutely

untrustworthy, he thought there might be some truth in her

implication that she had not wished to disturb him, and had really

supposed him dead. However, there was only one thing now to be done,

and that was to play a straightforward part, the law being the law,

and the woman between whom and himself there was no more unity than

between east and west being in the eye of the Church one person with

him.

Having to meet Arabella here, it was impossible to meet Sue at

Alfredston as he had promised. At every thought of this a pang

had gone through him; but the conjuncture could not be helped.

Arabella was perhaps an intended intervention to punish him for his

unauthorized love. Passing the evening, therefore, in a desultory

waiting about the town wherein he avoided the precincts of every

cloister and hall, because he could not bear to behold them, he

repaired to the tavern bar while the hundred and one strokes were

resounding from the Great Bell of Cardinal College, a coincidence

which seemed to him gratuitous irony. The inn was now brilliantly

lighted up, and the scene was altogether more brisk and gay. The

faces of the barmaidens had risen in colour, each having a pink

flush on her cheek; their manners were still more vivacious than

before--more abandoned, more excited, more sensuous, and they

expressed their sentiments and desires less euphemistically, laughing

in a lackadaisical tone, without reserve.