The old friendship was imperceptibly renewed, the schoolmaster
speaking of his experiences, and the cousins of theirs. He told them
that he still thought of the Church sometimes, and that though he
could not enter it as he had intended to do in former years he might
enter it as a licentiate. Meanwhile, he said, he was comfortable in
his present position, though he was in want of a pupil-teacher.
They did not stay to supper, Sue having to be indoors before it grew
late, and the road was retraced to Christminster. Though they had
talked of nothing more than general subjects, Jude was surprised to
find what a revelation of woman his cousin was to him. She was so
vibrant that everything she did seemed to have its source in feeling.
An exciting thought would make her walk ahead so fast that he could
hardly keep up with her; and her sensitiveness on some points
was such that it might have been misread as vanity. It was with
heart-sickness he perceived that, while her sentiments towards him
were those of the frankest friendliness only, he loved her more than
before becoming acquainted with her; and the gloom of the walk home
lay not in the night overhead, but in the thought of her departure.
"Why must you leave Christminster?" he said regretfully. "How can
you do otherwise than cling to a city in whose history such men as
Newman, Pusey, Ward, Keble, loom so large!"
"Yes--they do. Though how large do they loom in the history of the
world? ... What a funny reason for caring to stay! I should never
have thought of it!" She laughed.
"Well--I must go," she continued. "Miss Fontover, one of the
partners whom I serve, is offended with me, and I with her; and it
is best to go."
"How did that happen?"
"She broke some statuary of mine."
"Oh? Wilfully?"
"Yes. She found it in my room, and though it was my property she
threw it on the floor and stamped on it, because it was not according
to her taste, and ground the arms and the head of one of the figures
all to bits with her heel--a horrid thing!"
"Too Catholic-Apostolic for her, I suppose? No doubt she called them
popish images and talked of the invocation of saints."
"No... No, she didn't do that. She saw the matter quite
differently."
"Ah! Then I am surprised!"
"Yes. It was for quite some other reason that she didn't like my
patron-saints. So I was led to retort upon her; and the end of it
was that I resolved not to stay, but to get into an occupation in
which I shall be more independent."