Clare's shape appeared at the door. "You must not work like this," he
said. "You are not my servant; you are my wife."
She raised her eyes, and brightened somewhat. "I may think myself
that--indeed?" she murmured, in piteous raillery. "You mean in name!
Well, I don't want to be anything more."
"You MAY think so, Tess! You are. What do you mean?"
"I don't know," she said hastily, with tears in her accents. "I
thought I--because I am not respectable, I mean. I told you I
thought I was not respectable enough long ago--and on that account
I didn't want to marry you, only--only you urged me!"
She broke into sobs, and turned her back to him. It would almost
have won round any man but Angel Clare. Within the remote depths of
his constitution, so gentle and affectionate as he was in general,
there lay hidden a hard logical deposit, like a vein of metal in a
soft loam, which turned the edge of everything that attempted to
traverse it. It had blocked his acceptance of the Church; it blocked
his acceptance of Tess. Moreover, his affection itself was less fire
than radiance, and, with regard to the other sex, when he ceased
to believe he ceased to follow: contrasting in this with many
impressionable natures, who remain sensuously infatuated with what
they intellectually despise. He waited till her sobbing ceased. "I wish half the women in England were as respectable as you," he
said, in an ebullition of bitterness against womankind in general.
"It isn't a question of respectability, but one of principle!"
He spoke such things as these and more of a kindred sort to her,
being still swayed by the antipathetic wave which warps direct souls
with such persistence when once their vision finds itself mocked by
appearances. There was, it is true, underneath, a back current of
sympathy through which a woman of the world might have conquered him.
But Tess did not think of this; she took everything as her deserts,
and hardly opened her mouth. The firmness of her devotion to him was
indeed almost pitiful; quick-tempered as she naturally was, nothing
that he could say made her unseemly; she sought not her own; was not
provoked; thought no evil of his treatment of her. She might just
now have been Apostolic Charity herself returned to a self-seeking
modern world. This evening, night, and morning were passed precisely as the
preceding ones had been passed. On one, and only one, occasion did
she--the formerly free and independent Tess--venture to make any
advances. It was on the third occasion of his starting after a meal
to go out to the flour-mill. As he was leaving the table he said
"Goodbye," and she replied in the same words, at the same time
inclining her mouth in the way of his. He did not avail himself of
the invitation, saying, as he turned hastily aside-"I shall be home punctually." Tess shrank into herself as if she had been struck. Often enough had
he tried to reach those lips against her consent--often had he said
gaily that her mouth and breath tasted of the butter and eggs and
milk and honey on which she mainly lived, that he drew sustenance
from them, and other follies of that sort. But he did not care for
them now. He observed her sudden shrinking, and said gently-"You know, I have to think of a course. It was imperative that we
should stay together a little while, to avoid the scandal to you that
would have resulted from our immediate parting. But you must see it
is only for form's sake." "Yes," said Tess absently.