didn't want to marry again, either! … But, yes—I agree, I agree! I do love you. I ought to have known that you would conquer in the long run, living like this!'
She ran across and flung her arms round his neck. 'I am not a cold-natured, sexless creature, am I, for keeping you at such a distance? I am sure you don't think so! Wait and see! I do belong to you, don't I? I give in!'
'And I'll arrange for our marriage to-morrow, or as soon as ever you wish.'
'Yes, Jude.'
'Then I'll let her go,' said he, embracing Sue softly. 'I do feel that it would be unfair to you to see her, and perhaps unfair to her. She is not like you, my darling, and never was: it is only bare justice to say that. Don't cry any more. There; and there; and there!' He kissed her on one side, and on the other, and in the middle, and rebolted the front door.
The next morning it was wet.
'Now, dear,' said Jude gaily at breakfast; 'as this is Saturday I mean to call about the banns at once, so as to get the first publishing done to-morrow, or we shall lose a week. Banns will do? We shall save a pound or two.'
Sue absently agreed to banns. But her mind for the moment was running on something else. A glow had passed away from her, and depression sat upon her features.
'I feel I was wickedly selfish last night!' she murmured. 'It was sheer unkindness in me—or worse—to treat Arabella as I did. I didn't care about her being in trouble, and what she wished to tell you! Perhaps it was really something she was justified in telling you. That's some more of my badness, I suppose! Love has its own dark morality when rivalry enters in—at least, mine has, if other people's hasn't… I wonder how she got on? I hope she reached the inn all right, poor woman.'
'Oh yes: she got on all right,' said Jude placidly.
'I hope she wasn't shut out, and that she hadn't to walk the streets in the rain. Do you mind my putting on my waterproof and going to see if she got in? I've been thinking of her all the morning.'
'Well—is it necessary? You haven't the least idea how Arabella is able to shift for herself. Still, darling, if you want to go and inquire you can.'
There was no limit to the strange and unnecessary penances which Sue would meekly undertake when in a contrite mood; and this going to see all sorts of extraordinary persons whose relation to her was precisely of a kind that would have made other people shun them was her instinct ever, so that the request did not surprise him.
'And when you come back,' he added, 'I'll be ready to go about the banns. You'll come with me?'
Sue agreed, and went off under cloak and umbrella letting Jude kiss her freely, and returning his kisses in a way she had never done before. Times had decidedly changed. 'The little bird is caught at last!' she said, a sadness showing in her smile.
'No—only nested,' he assured her.
She walked along the muddy street till she reached the public house mentioned by Arabella, which was not so very far off. She was informed that Arabella had not yet left, and in doubt how to announce herself so that her predecessor in Jude's affections would recognize her, she sent up word that a friend from Spring Street had called, naming the place of Jude's residence. She was asked to step upstairs, and on being shown into a room found that it was Arabella's bedroom, and that the latter had not yet risen. She halted on the turn of her toe till Arabella cried from the bed, 'Come in and shut the door,' which Sue accordingly did.
Arabella lay facing the window, and did not at once turn her head: and Sue was wicked enough, despite her penitence, to wish for a moment that Jude could behold her forerunner now, with the daylight full upon her. She may have seemed handsome enough in profile under the lamps, but a frowsiness was apparent this morning; and the sight of her own fresh charms in the looking-glass made Sue's manner bright, till she reflected what a meanly sexual emotion this was in her, and hated herself for it.
'I've just looked in to see if you got back comfortably last night, that's all,' she said gently. 'I was afraid afterwards that you might have met with any mishap?'
'Oh—how stupid this is! I thought my visitor was—your friend—your husband—Mrs. Fawley, as I suppose you call yourself?' said Arabella, flinging her head back upon the pillows with a disappointed toss, and ceasing to retain the dimple she had just taken the trouble to produce.
'Indeed I don't,' said Sue.
'Oh, I thought you might have, even if he's not really yours. Decency is decency, any hour of the twenty- four.'
'I don't know what you mean,' said Sue stiffly. 'He is mine, if you come to that!'
'He wasn't yesterday.'
Sue coloured roseate, and said, 'How do you know?'
'From your manner when you talked to me at the door. Well, my dear, you've been quick about it, and I expect my visit last night helped it on—ha-ha! But I don't want to get him away from you.'
Sue looked out at the rain, and at the dirty toilet-cover, and at the detached tail of Arabella's hair hanging on the looking-glass, just as it had done in Jude's time; and wished she had not come. In the pause there was a knock at the door, and the chambermaid brought in a telegram for 'Mrs. Cartlett.'
Arabella opened it as she lay, and her ruffled look disappeared.
'I am much obliged to you for your anxiety about me,' she said blandly when the maid had gone; 'but it is not necessary you should feel it. My man finds he can't do without me after all, and agrees to stand by the promise to marry again over here that he has made me all along. See here! This is in answer to one from me.' She held out the telegram for Sue to read, but Sue did not take it. 'He asks me to come back. His little corner public in Lambeth would go to pieces without me, he says. But he isn't going to knock me about when he has had a drop, any more after we are spliced by English law than before! … As for you, I should coax Jude to take me before the parson straight off, and have done with it, if I were in your place. I say it as a friend, my dear.'
'He's waiting to, any day,' returned Sue, with frigid pride.
'Then let him, in Heaven's name. Life with a man is more businesslike after it, and money matters work better. And then, you see, if you have rows, and he turns you out of doors, you can get the law to protect you, which you can't otherwise, unless he half-runs you through with a knife, or cracks your noddle with a poker. And if he bolts away from you—I say it friendly, as woman to woman, for there's never any knowing what a man med do —you'll have the sticks o' furniture, and won't be looked upon as a thief. I shall marry my man over again, now he's willing, as there was a little flaw in the first ceremony. In my telegram last night which this is an answer to, I told him I had almost made it up with Jude; and that frightened him, I expect! Perhaps I should quite have done it if it hadn't been for you,' she said laughing; 'and then how different our histories might have been from to-day! Never such a tender fool as Jude is if a woman seems in trouble, and coaxes him a bit! Just as he used to be about birds and things. However, as it happens, it is just as well as if I had made it up, and I forgive you. And, as I say, I'd advise you to get the business legally done as soon as possible. You'll find it an awful bother later on if you don't.'
'I have told you he is asking me to marry him—to make our natural marriage a legal one,' said Sue, with yet more dignity. 'It was quite by my wish that he didn't the moment I was free.'
'Ah, yes—you are a oneyer too, like myself,' said Arabella, eyeing her visitor with humorous criticism. 'Bolted from your first, didn't you, like me?'
'Good morning!—I must go,' said Sue hastily.
'And I, too, must up and off!' replied the other, springing out of bed so suddenly that the soft parts of her person shook. Sue jumped aside in trepidation. 'Lord, I am only a woman—not a six-foot sojer! … Just a moment, dear,' she continued, putting her hand on Sue's arm. 'I really did want to consult Jude on a little matter of business, as I told him. I came about that more than anything else. Would he run up to speak to me at the station as I am going? You think not. Well, I'll write to him about it. I didn't want to write it, but never mind—I will.'
III
