“No—do not hope! Let us go on.”
“I will call upon you again to-morrow.”
“No—please not. Give me time.”
“Yes—I will give you any time,” he said earnestly and gratefully. “I am happier now.”
“No—I beg you! Don’t be happier if happiness only comes from my agreeing. Be neutral, Mr. Boldwood! I must think.”
“I will wait,” he said.
And then she turned away. Boldwood dropped his gaze to the ground, and stood long like a man who did not know where he was. Realities then returned upon him like the pain of a wound received in an excitement which eclipses it, and he, too, then went on.
CHAPTER XX
PERPLEXITY—GRINDING THE SHEARS—A QUARREL
“He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can desire,” Bathsheba mused.
Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind, did not exercise kindness here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all.