Such
vicissitudes had Tess passed through since that time that for a
moment she could not remember where she had met him; and then it
flashed upon her that he was the pedestrian who had joined in the
club-dance at Marlott--the passing stranger who had come she knew
not whence, had danced with others but not with her, and slightingly
left her, and gone on his way with his friends.
The flood of memories brought back by this revival of an incident
anterior to her troubles produced a momentary dismay lest,
recognizing her also, he should by some means discover her story.
But it passed away when she found no sign of remembrance in him. She
saw by degrees that since their first and only encounter his mobile
face had grown more thoughtful, and had acquired a young man's
shapely moustache and beard--the latter of the palest straw colour
where it began upon his cheeks, and deepening to a warm brown farther
from its root. Under his linen milking-pinner he wore a dark
velveteen jacket, cord breeches and gaiters, and a starched white
shirt. Without the milking-gear nobody could have guessed what
he was. He might with equal probability have been an eccentric
landowner or a gentlemanly ploughman.
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