Part 86

Wildeve looked her in the eyes.

Eustacia blushed for the first time that day. “Well, I am a questionable gift,” she said quietly. “I thought you meant the gift of content—which he has, and I have not.”

“I can understand content in such a case—though how the outward situation can attract him puzzles me.”

“That’s because you don’t know him. He’s an enthusiast about ideas, and careless about outward things. He often reminds me of the Apostle Paul.”

“I am glad to hear that he’s so grand in character as that.”

“Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man in the Bible he would hardly have done in real life.”

Their voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first they had taken no particular care to avoid awakening Clym. “Well, if that means that your marriage is a misfortune to you, you know who is to blame,” said Wildeve.

“The marriage is no misfortune in itself,” she retorted with some little petulance. “It is simply the accident which has happened since that has been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for figs in a worldly sense, but how could I tell what time would bring forth?”

“Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. You rightly belonged to me, you know; and I had no idea of losing you.”

“No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you; and remember that, before I was aware, you turned aside to another woman. It was cruel levity in you to do that. I never dreamt of playing such a game on my side till you began it on yours.”

“I meant nothing by it,” replied Wildeve. “It was a mere interlude. Men are given to the trick of having a passing fancy for somebody else in the midst of a permanent love, which reasserts itself afterwards just as before. On account of your rebellious manner to me I was tempted to go further than I should have done; and when you still would keep playing the same tantalizing part I went further still, and married her.” Turning and looking again at the unconscious form of Clym, he murmured, “I am afraid that you don’t value your prize, Clym.... He ought to be happier than I in one thing at least. He may know what it is to come down in the world, and to be afflicted with a great personal calamity; but he probably doesn’t know what it is to lose the woman he loved.”

“He is not ungrateful for winning her,” whispered Eustacia, “and in that respect he is a good man. Many women would go far for such a husband. But do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called life—music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that are going on in the great arteries of the world? That was the shape of my youthful dream; but I did not get it. Yet I thought I saw the way to it in my Clym.”

“And you only married him on that account?”

“There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won’t say that I didn’t love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of that life in him.”

“You have dropped into your old mournful key.”

“But I am not going to be depressed,” she cried perversely. “I began a new system by going to that dance, and I mean to stick to it. Clym can sing merrily; why should not I?”

Wildeve looked thoughtfully at her. “It is easier to say you will sing than to do it; though if I could I would encourage you in your attempt. But as life means nothing to me, without one thing which is now impossible, you will forgive me for not being able to encourage you.”

“Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak like that?” she asked, raising her deep shady eyes to his.

“That’s a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I try to tell you in riddles you will not care to guess them.”

Eustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said, “We are in a strange relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety. You mean, Damon, that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow, for I am not made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing to spurn you for the information, as I ought to do. But we have said too much about this. Do you mean to wait until my husband is awake?”

“I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary, Eustacia, if I offend you by not forgetting you, you are right to mention it; but do not talk of spurning.”

She did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym as he slept on in that profound sleep which is the result of physical labour carried on in circumstances that wake no nervous fear.

“God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!” said Wildeve. “I have not slept like that since I was a boy—years and years ago.”

While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a knock came to the door. Eustacia went to a window and looked out.

Her countenance changed. First she became crimson, and then the red subsided till it even partially left her lips.

“Shall I go away?” said Wildeve, standing up.

“I hardly know.”

“Who is it?”