She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the
circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them
in hungry subjection there.
A spiritual forgetfulness co-existed with an intellectual
remembrance. She walked in brightness, but she knew that in the
background those shapes of darkness were always spread. They might
be receding, or they might be approaching, one or the other, a little
every day.
One evening Tess and Clare were obliged to sit indoors keeping house,
all the other occupants of the domicile being away. As they talked
she looked thoughtfully up at him, and met his two appreciative eyes.
"I am not worthy of you--no, I am not!" she burst out, jumping up
from her low stool as though appalled at his homage, and the fulness
of her own joy thereat.
Clare, deeming the whole basis of her excitement to be that which was
only the smaller part of it, said--
"I won't have you speak like it, dear Tess! Distinction does not
consist in the facile use of a contemptible set of conventions, but
in being numbered among those who are true, and honest, and just, and
pure, and lovely, and of good report--as you are, my Tess."
She struggled with the sob in her throat.
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