"Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my own
power."

"Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for the
place, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point
you had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me in a
tone which I don't at all like."

"Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. You only trifle with
me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so much of
you!"

"Nonsense; do not be so passionate....Eustacia, how we roved among these
bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades of the
hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!"

She remained in moody silence till she said, "Yes; and how I used to
laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me
suffer for that since."

"Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone
fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia."

"Do you still think you found somebody fairer?"

"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so nicely
that a feather would turn them."

"But don't you really care whether I meet you or whether I don't?" she
said slowly.