“Heu-heu-heu!” laughed dark Car’s
mother, stroking her moustache as she explained laconically:
“Out of the frying-pan into the fire!”
Then these children of the open air, whom even excess
of alcohol could scarce injure permanently, betook
themselves to the field-path; and as they went there
moved onward with them, around the shadow of each
one’s head, a circle of opalized light, formed
by the moon’s rays upon the glistening sheet
of dew. Each pedestrian could see no halo but
his or her own, which never deserted the head-shadow,
whatever its vulgar unsteadiness might be; but adhered
to it, and persistently beautified it; till the erratic
motions seemed an inherent part of the irradiation,
and the fumes of their breathing a component of the
night’s mist; and the spirit of the scene, and
of the moonlight, and of Nature, seemed harmoniously
to mingle with the spirit of wine.
The twain cantered along for some time without speech,
Tess as she clung to him still panting in her triumph,
yet in other respects dubious. She had perceived
that the horse was not the spirited one he sometimes
rose, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat
was precarious enough despite her tight hold of him.
She begged him to slow the animal to a walk, which
Alec accordingly did.
“Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess?”
he said by and by.
“Yes!” said she. “I am sure
I ought to be much obliged to you.”
“And are you?”
She did not reply.
“Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing
you?”
“I suppose—because I don’t
love you.”
“You are quite sure?”
“I am angry with you sometimes!”
“Ah, I half feared as much.” Nevertheless,
Alec did not object to that confession. He knew
that anything was better then frigidity. “Why
haven’t you told me when I have made you angry?”
“You know very well why. Because I cannot
help myself here.”
“I haven’t offended you often by love-making?”
“You have sometimes.”
“How many times?”
“You know as well as I—too many times.”
“Every time I have tried?”
She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable
distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung
in the hollows all the evening, became general and
enveloped them. It seemed to hold the moonlight
in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in
clear air. Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness,
or from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they
had long ago passed the point at which the lane to
Trantridge branched from the highway, and that her
conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.
She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at
five o’clock every morning of that week, had
been on foot the whole of each day, and on this evening
had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough,
waited three hours for her neighbours without eating
or drinking, her impatience to start them preventing
either; she had then walked a mile of the way home,
and had undergone the excitement of the quarrel, till,
with the slow progress of their steed, it was now
nearly one o’clock. Only once, however,
was she overcome by actual drowsiness. In that
moment of oblivion her head sank gently against him.
