She was at this moment coolly dealing with a dashing
young farmer, adding up accounts with him as indiffer-
ently as if his face had been the pages of a ledger. It
was evident that such a nature as his had no attraction
for a woman of Bathsheba's taste. But Boldwood grew
hot down to his hands with an incipient jealousy; he
trod for the first time the threshold of "the injured
lover's hell." His first impulse was to go and thrust
himself between them. This could be done, but only
in one way -- by asking to see a sample of her corn.
Boldwood renounced the idea. He could not make
the request; it was debasing loveliness to ask it to
buy and sell, and jarred with his conceptions of her.
All this time Bathsheba was conscious of having
broken into that dignified stronghold at last. His
eyes, she knew, were following her everywhere. This
was a triumph; and had it come naturally, such a
triumph would have been the sweeter to her for this
piquing delay. But it had been brought about by
misdirected ingenuity, and she valued it only as she
valued an artificial flower or a wax fruit.
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