See--I'll stand on this side
of the wire-netting, and you can keep on the other; so you may feel
quite safe. Now, look here; you screw up your lips too harshly.
There 'tis--so."
He suited the action to the word, and whistled a line of "Take, O
take those lips away." But the allusion was lost upon Tess.
"Now try," said d'Urberville.
She attempted to look reserved; her face put on a sculptural
severity. But he persisted in his demand, and at last, to get rid of
him, she did put up her lips as directed for producing a clear note;
laughing distressfully, however, and then blushing with vexation that
she had laughed.
He encouraged her with "Try again!"
Tess was quite serious, painfully serious by this time; and she
tried--ultimately and unexpectedly emitting a real round sound.
The momentary pleasure of success got the better of her; her eyes
enlarged, and she involuntarily smiled in his face.
"That's it! Now I have started you--you'll go on beautifully.
There--I said I would not come near you; and, in spite of such
temptation as never before fell to mortal man, I'll keep my
word... Tess, do you think my mother a queer old soul?"
"I don't know much of her yet, sir.
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