Chapter 25 - Page 2

This caused him to
recover balance. He looked her oddly in the face, losing
his awe.

"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