She repeated the argument, and d’Urberville thoughtfully murmured the words after her.
“Anything else?” he presently asked.
“He said at another time something like this”; and she gave another, which might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the pedigree ranging from the Dictionnaire Philosophique to Huxley’s Essays .
“Ah—ha! How do you remember them?”
“I wanted to believe what he believed, though he didn’t wish me to; and I managed to coax him to tell me a few of his thoughts. I can’t say I quite understand that one; but I know it is right.”
“H’m. Fancy your being able to teach me what you don’t know yourself!”
He fell into thought.
“And so I threw in my spiritual lot with his,” she resumed. “I didn’t wish it to be different. What’s good enough for him is good enough for me.”
“Does he know that you are as big an infidel as he?”
“No—I never told him—if I am an infidel.”
“Well—you are better off today that I am, Tess, after all! You don’t believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and, therefore, do no despite to your conscience in abstaining. I do believe I ought to preach it, but, like the devils, I believe and tremble, for I suddenly leave off preaching it, and give way to my passion for you.”
“How?”