Thomas Hardy: The Woodlanders

25. CHAPTER XXV. (continued)

"Though you forget, No word of mine shall mar your pleasure; Though you forget, You filled my barren life with treasure, You may withdraw the gift you gave; You still are queen, I still am slave, Though you forget."

She had tears in her eyes at the thought that she could not remind him of what he ought to have remembered; that not herself but the pressure of events had dissipated the dreams of their early youth. Grace was thus unexpectedly worsted in her encounter with her old friend. She had opened the window with a faint sense of triumph, but he had turned it into sadness; she did not quite comprehend the reason why. In truth it was because she was not cruel enough in her cruelty. If you have to use the knife, use it, say the great surgeons; and for her own peace Grace should have contemned Winterborne thoroughly or not at all. As it was, on closing the window an indescribable, some might have said dangerous, pity quavered in her bosom for him.

Presently her husband entered the room, and told her what a wonderful sunset there was to be seen.

"I have not noticed it. But I have seen somebody out there that we know," she replied, looking into the court.

Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did not recognize anybody.

"Why, Mr. Winterborne--there he is, cider-making. He combines that with his other business, you know."

"Oh--that fellow," said Fitzpiers, his curiosity becoming extinct.

She, reproachfully: "What, call Mr. Winterborne a fellow, Edgar? It is true I was just saying to myself that I never could have married him; but I have much regard for him, and always shall."

"Well, do by all means, my dear one. I dare say I am inhuman, and supercilious, and contemptibly proud of my poor old ramshackle family; but I do honestly confess to you that I feel as if I belonged to a different species from the people who are working in that yard."