XXVIII
Her refusal, though unexpected, did not permanently daunt Clare.
His experience of women was great enough for him to be aware that
the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the
affirmative; and it was little enough for him not to know that in
the manner of the present negative there lay a great exception to
the dallyings of coyness. That she had already permitted him to
make love to her he read as an additional assurance, not fully
trowing that in the fields and pastures to 'sigh gratis' is by no
means deemed waste; love-making being here more often accepted
inconsiderately and for its own sweet sake than in the carking,
anxious homes of the ambitious, where a girl's craving for an
establishment paralyzes her healthy thought of a passion as an end.
'Tess, why did you say 'no' in such a positive way?' he asked her in
the course of a few days.
She started.
'Don't ask me. I told you why--partly. I am not good enough--not
worthy enough.'
'How? Not fine lady enough?'
'Yes--something like that,' murmured she. 'Your friends would scorn
me.'
'Indeed, you mistake them--my father and mother. As for my brothers,
I don't care--' He clasped his fingers behind her back to keep her
from slipping away. 'Now--you did not mean it, sweet?--I am sure you
did not! You have made me so restless that I cannot read, or play,
or do anything. I am in no hurry, Tess, but I want to know--to hear
from your own warm lips--that you will some day be mine--any time you
may choose; but some day?'
She could only shake her head and look away from him.
Clare regarded her attentively, conned the characters of her face as
if they had been hieroglyphics. The denial seemed real.
'Then I ought not to hold you in this way--ought I? I have no
right to you--no right to seek out where you are, or walk with you!
Honestly, Tess, do you love any other man?'
'How can you ask?' she said, with continued self-suppression.
'I almost know that you do not. But then, why do you repulse me?'
'I don't repulse you. I like you to--tell me you love me; and you
may always tell me so as you go about with me--and never offend me.'
'But you will not accept me as a husband?'
'Ah--that's different--it is for your good, indeed, my dearest!
O, believe me, it is only for your sake! I don't like to give
myself the great happiness o' promising to be yours in that
way--because--because I am SURE I ought not to do it.'
'But you will make me happy!'
'Ah--you think so, but you don't know!'
At such times as this, apprehending the grounds of her refusal to be
her modest sense of incompetence in matters social and polite, he
would say that she was wonderfully well-informed and versatile--which
was certainly true, her natural quickness and her admiration for him
