"Admiring their own work," said Arabella. "How like Jude--always
thinking of colleges and Christminster, instead of attending to his
business!"
They glanced cursorily at the pictures, and proceeded to the
band-stand. When they had stood a little while listening to the
music of the military performers, Jude, Sue, and the child came up on
the other side. Arabella did not care if they should recognize her;
but they were too deeply absorbed in their own lives, as translated
into emotion by the military band, to perceive her under her beaded
veil. She walked round the outside of the listening throng, passing
behind the lovers, whose movements had an unexpected fascination for
her to-day. Scrutinizing them narrowly from the rear she noticed
that Jude's hand sought Sue's as they stood, the two standing close
together so as to conceal, as they supposed, this tacit expression
of their mutual responsiveness.
"Silly fools--like two children!" Arabella whispered to herself
morosely, as she rejoined her companions, with whom she preserved a
preoccupied silence.
Anny meanwhile had jokingly remarked to Vilbert on Arabella's
hankering interest in her first husband.
"Now," said the physician to Arabella, apart; "do you want anything
such as this, Mrs. Cartlett? It is not compounded out of my regular
pharmacopoeia, but I am sometimes asked for such a thing." He
produced a small phial of clear liquid. "A love-philtre, such as was
used by the ancients with great effect. I found it out by study of
their writings, and have never known it to fail."
"What is it made of?" asked Arabella curiously.
"Well--a distillation of the juices of doves' hearts--otherwise
pigeons'--is one of the ingredients. It took nearly a hundred hearts
to produce that small bottle full."
"How do you get pigeons enough?"
"To tell a secret, I get a piece of rock-salt, of which pigeons are
inordinately fond, and place it in a dovecot on my roof. In a few
hours the birds come to it from all points of the compass--east,
west, north, and south--and thus I secure as many as I require.
You use the liquid by contriving that the desired man shall take
about ten drops of it in his drink. But remember, all this is told
you because I gather from your questions that you mean to be a
purchaser. You must keep faith with me?"
"Very well--I don't mind a bottle--to give some friend or other to
try it on her young man." She produced five shillings, the price
asked, and slipped the phial in her capacious bosom. Saying
presently that she was due at an appointment with her husband she
sauntered away towards the refreshment bar, Jude, his companion, and
the child having gone on to the horticultural tent, where Arabella
caught a glimpse of them standing before a group of roses in bloom.