His closeness to her was so suggestive that he trembled, and turned
his face away with a shy instinct to prevent her recognizing him,
though as she had never once seen him she could not possibly do so;
and might very well never have heard even his name. He could
perceive that though she was a country-girl at bottom, a latter
girlhood of some years in London, and a womanhood here, had taken
all rawness out of her.
When she was gone he continued his work, reflecting on her. He had
been so caught by her influence that he had taken no count of her
general mould and build. He remembered now that she was not a large
figure, that she was light and slight, of the type dubbed elegant.
That was about all he had seen. There was nothing statuesque in her;
all was nervous motion. She was mobile, living, yet a painter might
not have called her handsome or beautiful. But the much that she was
surprised him. She was quite a long way removed from the rusticity
that was his. How could one of his cross-grained, unfortunate,
almost accursed stock, have contrived to reach this pitch of
niceness? London had done it, he supposed.
From this moment the emotion which had been accumulating in his
breast as the bottled-up effect of solitude and the poetized
locality he dwelt in, insensibly began to precipitate itself on this
half-visionary form; and he perceived that, whatever his obedient
wish in a contrary direction, he would soon be unable to resist the
desire to make himself known to her.
He affected to think of her quite in a family way, since there were
crushing reasons why he should not and could not think of her in any
other.
The first reason was that he was married, and it would be wrong.
The second was that they were cousins. It was not well for cousins
to fall in love even when circumstances seemed to favour the passion.
The third: even were he free, in a family like his own where marriage
usually meant a tragic sadness, marriage with a blood-relation would
duplicate the adverse conditions, and a tragic sadness might be
intensified to a tragic horror.
Therefore, again, he would have to think of Sue with only a
relation's mutual interest in one belonging to him; regard her in
a practical way as some one to be proud of; to talk and nod to;
later on, to be invited to tea by, the emotion spent on her being
rigorously that of a kinsman and well-wisher. So would she be to him
a kindly star, an elevating power, a companion in Anglican worship,
a tender friend.