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

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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.




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