"Well—are you sure you mean it only as my cousin?"
"Absolutely sure. I have no feelings of love left in me."
"That's news. How has it come to be?"
"I've seen Arabella." She winced at the hit; then said, curiously, "When did you see her?"
"When I was at Christminster."
"So she's come back; and you never told me! I suppose you will live with her now?"
"Of course—just as you live with your husband."
She looked at the window-pots with the geraniums and cactuses, withered for want of attention, and through them at the outer distance, till her eyes began to grow moist. "What is it?" said Jude, in a softened tone.
"Why should you be so glad to go back to her if—if—what you used to say to me is still true—I mean if it were true then? Of course it is not now! How could your heart go back to Arabella so soon?"
"A special Providence, I suppose, helped it on its way."
"Ah—it isn't true!" she said, with gentle resentment. "You are teasing me—that's all—because you think I am not happy!"
"I don't know. I don't wish to know."
"If I were unhappy it would be my fault, my wickedness, not that I should have a right to dislike him. He is considerate to me in everything; and he is very interesting, from the amount of general knowledge he has acquired by reading everything that comes in his way.... Do you think, Jude, that a man ought to marry a woman his own age, or one younger than himself—eighteen years—as I am than he?"
"It depends upon what they feel for each other."
He gave her no opportunity of self-satisfaction, and she had to go on unaided, which she did in a vanquished tone, verging on tears:
