said she, with an ostensible sneer, though he could hear that she was
brimming with tears. "But I have never yielded myself to any lover,
if that's what you mean! I have remained as I began."
"I quite believe you. But some women would not have remained as they
began."
"Perhaps not. Better women would not. People say I must be
cold-natured--sexless--on account of it. But I won't have it!
Some of the most passionately erotic poets have been the most
self-contained in their daily lives."
"Have you told Mr. Phillotson about this university scholar friend?"
"Yes--long ago. I have never made any secret of it to anybody."
"What did he say?"
"He did not pass any criticism--only said I was everything to him,
whatever I did; and things like that."
Jude felt much depressed; she seemed to get further and further away
from him with her strange ways and curious unconsciousness of gender.
"Aren't you REALLY vexed with me, dear Jude?" she suddenly asked, in
a voice of such extraordinary tenderness that it hardly seemed to
come from the same woman who had just told her story so lightly. "I
would rather offend anybody in the world than you, I think!"
"I don't know whether I am vexed or not. I know I care very much
about you!"
"I care as much for you as for anybody I ever met."
"You don't care MORE! There, I ought not to say that. Don't answer
it!"
There was another long silence. He felt that she was treating
him cruelly, though he could not quite say in what way. Her very
helplessness seemed to make her so much stronger than he.
"I am awfully ignorant on general matters, although I have worked so
hard," he said, to turn the subject. "I am absorbed in theology, you
know. And what do you think I should be doing just about now, if you
weren't here? I should be saying my evening prayers. I suppose you
wouldn't like--"
"Oh no, no," she answered, "I would rather not, if you don't mind.
I should seem so--such a hypocrite."
"I thought you wouldn't join, so I didn't propose it. You must
remember that I hope to be a useful minister some day."
"To be ordained, I think you said?"
"Yes."
"Then you haven't given up the idea?--I thought that perhaps you had
by this time."