“You would not have kept me so long had you known what I come about,” he said with bitterness.  “Still, you are worth waiting for.”

“What has happened?” said Eustacia.  “I did not know you were in trouble.  I too am gloomy enough.”

“I am not in trouble,” said he.  “It is merely that affairs have come to a head, and I must take a clear course.”

“What course is that?” she asked with attentive interest.

“And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the other night?  Why, take you from this place, and carry you away with me abroad.”

“I have not forgotten.  But why have you come so unexpectedly to repeat the question, when you only promised to come next Saturday?  I thought I was to have plenty of time to consider.”

“Yes, but the situation is different now.”

“Explain to me.”

“I don’t want to explain, for I may pain you.”

“But I must know the reason of this hurry.”

“It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia.  Everything is smooth now.”

“Then why are you so ruffled?”

“I am not aware of it.  All is as it should be.  Mrs. Yeobright—­but she is nothing to us.”

“Ah, I knew she had something to do with it!  Come, I don’t like reserve.”

“No—­she has nothing.  She only says she wishes me to give up Thomasin because another man is anxious to marry her.  The woman, now she no longer needs me, actually shows off!” Wildeve’s vexation had escaped him in spite of himself.

Eustacia was silent a long while.  “You are in the awkward position of an official who is no longer wanted,” she said in a changed tone.

“It seems so.  But I have not yet seen Thomasin.”

“And that irritates you.  Don’t deny it, Damon.  You are actually nettled by this slight from an unexpected quarter.”

“Well?”

“And you come to get me because you cannot get her.  This is certainly a new position altogether.  I am to be a stop-gap.”

“Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day.”

Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence.  What curious feeling was this coming over her?  Was it really possible that her interest in Wildeve had been so entirely the result of antagonism that the glory and the dream departed from the man with the first sound that he was no longer coveted by her rival?  She was, then, secure of him at last.  Thomasin no longer required him.  What a humiliating victory!  He loved her best, she thought; and yet—­dared she to murmur such treacherous criticism ever so softly?—­what was the man worth whom a woman inferior to herself did not value?  The sentiment which lurks more or less in all animate nature—­that of not desiring the undesired of others—­was lively as a passion in the super-subtle, epicurean heart of Eustacia.  Her social superiority over him, which hitherto had scarcely ever impressed her, became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first time she felt that she had stooped in loving him.