Jude the Obsure

"Platonic!"

"Well no. Shelleyan would be nearer to it. They remind me of--what

are their names--Laon and Cythna. Also of Paul and Virginia a

little. The more I reflect, the more ENTIRELY I am on their side!"

"But if people did as you want to do, there'd be a general domestic

disintegration. The family would no longer be the social unit."

"Yes--I am all abroad, I suppose!" said Phillotson sadly. "I was

never a very bright reasoner, you remember.... And yet, I don't see

why the woman and the children should not be the unit without the

man."

"By the Lord Harry!--Matriarchy! ... Does SHE say all this too?"

"Oh no. She little thinks I have out-Sued Sue in this--all in the

last twelve hours!"

"It will upset all received opinion hereabout. Good God--what will

Shaston say!"

"I don't say that it won't. I don't know--I don't know! ... As I

say, I am only a feeler, not a reasoner."

"Now," said Gillingham, "let us take it quietly, and have something

to drink over it." He went under the stairs, and produced a bottle

of cider-wine, of which they drank a rummer each. "I think you are

rafted, and not yourself," he continued. "Do go back and make up

your mind to put up with a few whims. But keep her. I hear on all

sides that she's a charming young thing."

"Ah yes! That's the bitterness of it! Well, I won't stay. I have a

long walk before me."

Gillingham accompanied his friend a mile on his way, and at parting

expressed his hope that this consultation, singular as its subject

was, would be the renewal of their old comradeship. "Stick to her!"

were his last words, flung into the darkness after Phillotson; from

which his friend answered "Aye, aye!"

But when Phillotson was alone under the clouds of night, and no

sound was audible but that of the purling tributaries of the Stour,

he said, "So Gillingham, my friend, you had no stronger arguments

against it than those!"

"I think she ought to be smacked, and brought to her senses--that's

what I think!" murmured Gillingham, as he walked back alone.

The next morning came, and at breakfast Phillotson told Sue: "You may go--with whom you will. I absolutely and unconditionally

agree."

Having once come to this conclusion it seemed to Phillotson more

and more indubitably the true one. His mild serenity at the sense

that he was doing his duty by a woman who was at his mercy almost

overpowered his grief at relinquishing her.