Page:Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891 Volume 2).pdf/96

look of gladness, shyness, and surprise, she exclaimed—

‘O Mr. Clare! How you frightened me—I———’

There had not at first been time for her to think of the changed relations which his declaration had introduced; but the full sense of the matter rose up in her face when she encountered Clare’s tender look as he stepped forward to the bottom stair.

‘Dear, darling Tessy!’ he whispered, putting his arm round her, and his face to her flushed cheek, ‘Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, Mister me any more. I have hastened back so soon because of you!’

Tess’s excitable heart beat against his by way of reply; and there they stood upon the red-brick floor of the entry, the sun slanting in by the window upon his back, as he held her tightly to his breast; upon her inclining face, upon the blue veins of her temple, upon her naked arm, and her neck, and into the depths of her hair. Having been lying down in her clothes she was warm as a sunned cat. At first she would not look straight up at him, but her eyes soon lifted, and his plumbed the deepness of the ever-varying pupils, with their radiating fibrils