Jude was winding threads round him as a silkworm winds a cocoon,—tiny threads but deathly strong. It was almost as though she were becoming part of himself,—part of himself and part the sun and freedom and blue sea. She seemed half built up of those things and to have the power to make him one with them. Well, there was no use in bothering. So he said to himself, and as he said it the cloud no larger than a man’s hand swelled and twisted and rolled across the sandspit before him, resolving itself into a troupe of female relations, male relations, friends,—people as remote from Satan and Jude as parrots from seagulls, caged parrots content in the great gilded cage of convention.
What would they say about Jude? He had an instinctive knowledge of what Jude would say about them, if they ever met, which seemed impossible.
Then came the weird recollection that they had, in a way, actually met. She had met Skelton, the high priest of the whole crowd, Sir William Skelton, Bart. Old Popplecock was the label she had affixed to him, and it somehow stuck and fitted. What label would she affix to his aunts, his two maiden mid-Victorian aunts, should she ever meet them?
A faint halloo from the south sent aunts and all other considerations flying. He turned. Jude, far away on the sands, was coming toward the dinghy. She was carrying something and running as if pursued; then he saw her trip and fall.
She was on her feet in a second, and the thing pursuing her had evidently given up the hunt, for she stood examining something she had picked up from the ground, and seemed regardless of everything else.
He waited for her by the boat, and as she came up he guessed the tragedy. She had been carrying a hatful of birds’ eggs and had smashed than when she fell. The hat was eloquent.
“Smashed them every one,” said Jude, wading out and beginning to wash the hat. “All your fault!”
“My fault! For heaven’s sake how?”
“Stuffing me up with them yarns.”
“What yarns?”