“Why, of course I have called, Lucetta,” he said.  “What does that nonsense mean?  You know I couldn’t have helped myself if I had wished—­that is, if I had any kindness at all.  I’ve called to say that I am ready, as soon as custom will permit, to give you my name in return for your devotion and what you lost by it in thinking too little of yourself and too much of me; to say that you can fix the day or month, with my full consent, whenever in your opinion it would be seemly:  you know more of these things than I.”

“It is full early yet,” she said evasively.

“Yes, yes; I suppose it is.  But you know, Lucetta, I felt directly my poor ill-used Susan died, and when I could not bear the idea of marrying again, that after what had happened between us it was my duty not to let any unnecessary delay occur before putting things to rights.  Still, I wouldn’t call in a hurry, because—­well, you can guess how this money you’ve come into made me feel.”  His voice slowly fell; he was conscious that in this room his accents and manner wore a roughness not observable in the street.  He looked about the room at the novel hangings and ingenious furniture with which she had surrounded herself.

“Upon my life I didn’t know such furniture as this could be bought in Casterbridge,” he said.

“Nor can it be,” said she.  “Nor will it till fifty years more of civilization have passed over the town.  It took a waggon and four horses to get it here.”

“H’m.  It looks as if you were living on capital.”

“O no, I am not.”

“So much the better.  But the fact is, your setting up like this makes my beaming towards you rather awkward.”

“Why?”

An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnish one.  “Well,” he went on, “there’s nobody in the world I would have wished to see enter into this wealth before you, Lucetta, and nobody, I am sure, who will become it more.”  He turned to her with congratulatory admiration so fervid that she shrank somewhat, notwithstanding that she knew him so well.

“I am greatly obliged to you for all that,” said she, rather with an air of speaking ritual.  The stint of reciprocal feeling was perceived, and Henchard showed chagrin at once—­nobody was more quick to show that than he.

“You may be obliged or not for’t.  Though the things I say may not have the polish of what you’ve lately learnt to expect for the first time in your life, they are real, my lady Lucetta.”

“That’s rather a rude way of speaking to me,” pouted Lucetta, with stormy eyes.

“Not at all!” replied Henchard hotly.  “But there, there, I don’t wish to quarrel with ’ee.  I come with an honest proposal for silencing your Jersey enemies, and you ought to be thankful.”

“How can you speak so!” she answered, firing quickly.  “Knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl’s passion for you with too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting!  I suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of your wife’s return and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little independent now, surely the privilege is due to me!”