Part 50

Jude’s eyes grew rounder.

“What made you part from him?”

“Don’t you ask questions, and you won’t hear lies.”

“Come then, give me my change, which you’ve been keeping from me for the last quarter of an hour; and I’ll romantically vanish up the street of this picturesque city.”

She handed the change over the counter, in taking which he caught her fingers and held them. There was a slight struggle and titter, and he bade her good-bye and left.

Jude had looked on with the eye of a dazed philosopher. It was extraordinary how far removed from his life Arabella now seemed to be. He could not realize their nominal closeness. And, this being the case, in his present frame of mind he was indifferent to the fact that Arabella was his wife indeed.

The compartment that she served emptied itself of visitors, and after a brief thought he entered it, and went forward to the counter. Arabella did not recognize him for a moment. Then their glances met. She started; till a humorous impudence sparkled in her eyes, and she spoke.

“Well, I’m blest! I thought you were underground years ago!”

“Oh!”

“I never heard anything of you, or I don’t know that I should have come here. But never mind! What shall I treat you to this afternoon? A Scotch and soda? Come, anything that the house will afford, for old acquaintance’ sake!”

“Thanks, Arabella,” said Jude without a smile. “But I don’t want anything more than I’ve had.” The fact was that her unexpected presence there had destroyed at a stroke his momentary taste for strong liquor as completely as if it had whisked him back to his milk-fed infancy.

“That’s a pity, now you could get it for nothing.”

“How long have you been here?”

“About six weeks. I returned from Sydney three months ago. I always liked this business, you know.”

“I wonder you came to this place!”

“Well, as I say, I thought you were gone to glory, and being in London I saw the situation in an advertisement. Nobody was likely to know me here, even if I had minded, for I was never in Christminster in my growing up.”

“Why did you return from Australia?”

“Oh, I had my reasons… Then you are not a don yet?”

“No.”

“Not even a reverend?”

“No.”

“Nor so much as a rather reverend dissenting gentleman?”

“I am as I was.”

“True—you look so.” She idly allowed her fingers to rest on the pull of the beer-engine as she inspected him critically. He observed that her hands were smaller and whiter than when he had lived with her, and that on the hand which pulled the engine she wore an ornamental ring set with what seemed to be real sapphires—which they were, indeed, and were much admired as such by the young men who frequented the bar.

“So you pass as having a living husband,” he continued.

“Yes. I thought it might be awkward if I called myself a widow, as I should have liked.”

“True. I am known here a little.”

“I didn’t mean on that account—for as I said I didn’t expect you. It was for other reasons.”