Jude the Obsure

She had come forward prettily, but Jude felt that she had hardly

expected him to kiss her, as he was burning to do, under other

colours than those of cousinship. He could not perceive the least

sign that Sue regarded him as a lover, or ever would do so, now that

she knew the worst of him, even if he had the right to behave as one;

and this helped on his growing resolve to tell her of his matrimonial

entanglement, which he had put off doing from time to time in sheer

dread of losing the bliss of her company.

Sue came out into the town with him, and they walked and talked with

tongues centred only on the passing moments. Jude said he would like

to buy her a little present of some sort, and then she confessed,

with something of shame, that she was dreadfully hungry. They were

kept on very short allowances in the college, and a dinner, tea, and

supper all in one was the present she most desired in the world.

Jude thereupon took her to an inn and ordered whatever the house

afforded, which was not much. The place, however, gave them a

delightful opportunity for a _tete-a-tete_, nobody else being in the

room, and they talked freely.

She told him about the school as it was at that date, and the rough

living, and the mixed character of her fellow-students, gathered

together from all parts of the diocese, and how she had to get up and

work by gas-light in the early morning, with all the bitterness of

a young person to whom restraint was new. To all this he listened;

but it was not what he wanted especially to know--her relations with

Phillotson. That was what she did not tell. When they had sat and

eaten, Jude impulsively placed his hand upon hers; she looked up

and smiled, and took his quite freely into her own little soft one,

dividing his fingers and coolly examining them, as if they were the

fingers of a glove she was purchasing.

"Your hands are rather rough, Jude, aren't they?" she said.

"Yes. So would yours be if they held a mallet and chisel all day."

"I don't dislike it, you know. I think it is noble to see a man's

hands subdued to what he works in... Well, I'm rather glad I came

to this training-school, after all. See how independent I shall be

after the two years' training! I shall pass pretty high, I expect,

and Mr. Phillotson will use his influence to get me a big school."