He could never resist her when she pleaded (as she well knew). And
they sat side by side with joined hands, till she aroused herself at
some thought.
"I can't possibly go to that Temperance Inn, after your telegraphing
that message!"
"Why not?"
"You can see well enough!"
"Very well; there'll be some other one open, no doubt. I have
sometimes thought, since your marrying Phillotson because of a stupid
scandal, that under the affectation of independent views you are as
enslaved to the social code as any woman I know!"
"Not mentally. But I haven't the courage of my views, as I said
before. I didn't marry him altogether because of the scandal.
But sometimes a woman's LOVE OF BEING LOVED gets the better of her
conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a
man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love
him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in,
and she does what she can to repair the wrong."
"You simply mean that you flirted outrageously with him, poor old
chap, and then repented, and to make reparation, married him, though
you tortured yourself to death by doing it."
"Well--if you will put it brutally!--it was a little like that--that
and the scandal together--and your concealing from me what you ought
to have told me before!"
He could see that she was distressed and tearful at his criticisms,
and soothed her, saying: "There, dear; don't mind! Crucify me, if
you will! You know you are all the world to me, whatever you do!"
"I am very bad and unprincipled--I know you think that!" she said,
trying to blink away her tears.
"I think and know you are my dear Sue, from whom neither length nor
breadth, nor things present nor things to come, can divide me!"
Though so sophisticated in many things she was such a child in others
that this satisfied her, and they reached the end of their journey
on the best of terms. It was about ten o'clock when they arrived at
Aldbrickham, the county town of North Wessex. As she would not go
to the Temperance Hotel because of the form of his telegram, Jude
inquired for another; and a youth who volunteered to find one wheeled
their luggage to the George farther on, which proved to be the inn at
which Jude had stayed with Arabella on that one occasion of their
meeting after their division for years.