'Ah, Miss Everdene! ' said the sergeant, touching his diminutive cap. 'Little did I think it was you I was speaking to the other night.
And yet, if I had reflected, the ‘Queen of the Corn-market’ (truth is truth at any hour of the day or night, and I heard you so named in Casterbridge yesterday), the ‘Queen of the Corn-market,’ I say, could be no other woman.
I step across now to beg your forgiveness a thousand times for having been led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a stranger.
To be sure I am no stranger to the place—I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a lad. I have been doing the same for you to-day.
' 'I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy,' said the 'Queen of the Corn-market,' in an indifferently grateful tone. The sergeant looked hurt and sad. 'Indeed you must not, Miss Everdene,' he said. 'Why could you think such a thing necessary? ' 'I am glad it is not.
' 'Why? if I may ask without offence. ' 'Because I don’t much want to thank you for any' thing. ' 'I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will never mend.
Oh these intolerable times: that ill-luck should follow a man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful! ’Twas the most I said—you must own that; and the least I could say—that I own myself. ' 'There is some talk I could do without more easily than money.
' 'Indeed. That remark seems somewhat digressive. ' 'It means that I would rather have your room than your company. ' 'And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman;