"Oh!"
"I never heard anything of you, or I don't know that I should have come here. But never mind! What shall I treat you to this afternoon? A Scotch and soda? Come, anything that the house will afford, for old acquaintance' sake!"
"Thanks, Arabella," said Jude without a smile. "But I don't want anything more than I've had." The fact was that her unexpected presence there had destroyed at a stroke his momentary taste for strong liquor as completely as if it had whisked him back to his milk-fed infancy.
"That's a pity, now you could get it for nothing."
"How long have you been here?"
"About six weeks. I returned from Sydney three months ago. I always liked this business, you know."
"I wonder you came to this place!"
"Well, as I say, I thought you were gone to glory, and being in London I saw the situation in an advertisement. Nobody was likely to know me here, even if I had minded, for I was never in Christminster in my growing up."
"Why did you return from Australia?"
"Oh, I had my reasons… Then you are not a don yet?"