"That you'll never be told," said she deedily.

"Whoever did it was wasteful of other people's property."

"Oh, that's nothing."

"But you want to speak to me, I suppose?"

"Oh yes; if you like to."

"Shall I clamber across, or will you come to the plank above here?"

Perhaps she foresaw an opportunity; for somehow or other the eyes

of the brown girl rested in his own when he had said the words, and

there was a momentary flash of intelligence, a dumb announcement of

affinity _in posse_ between herself and him, which, so far as Jude

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Fawley was concerned, had no sort of premeditation in it. She saw

that he had singled her out from the three, as a woman is singled out

in such cases, for no reasoned purpose of further acquaintance, but

in commonplace obedience to conjunctive orders from headquarters,

unconsciously received by unfortunate men when the last intention of

their lives is to be occupied with the feminine.

Springing to her feet, she said: "Bring back what is lying there."

Jude was now aware that no message on any matter connected with her

father's business had prompted her signal to him. He set down his

basket of tools, picked up the scrap of offal, beat a pathway for

himself with his stick, and got over the hedge. They walked in

parallel lines, one on each bank of the stream, towards the small

plank bridge. As the girl drew nearer to it, she gave without Jude

perceiving it, an adroit little suck to the interior of each of her

cheeks in succession, by which curious and original manoeuvre she

brought as by magic upon its smooth and rotund surface a perfect

dimple, which she was able to retain there as long as she continued

to smile. This production of dimples at will was a not unknown

operation, which many attempted, but only a few succeeded in

accomplishing.

They met in the middle of the plank, and Jude, tossing back her

missile, seemed to expect her to explain why she had audaciously

stopped him by this novel artillery instead of by hailing him.

But she, slyly looking in another direction, swayed herself backwards

and forwards on her hand as it clutched the rail of the bridge; till,

moved by amatory curiosity, she turned her eyes critically upon him.

"You don't think _I_ would shy things at you?"

"Oh no."

"We are doing this for my father, who naturally doesn't want anything

thrown away. He makes that into dubbin." She nodded towards the

fragment on the grass.




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