Perhaps Casaubon, in his hatred and jealousy,
had been insisting to Dorothea that Will had slid below her socially.
Confound Casaubon!
Will re-entered the drawing-room, took up his hat, and looking
irritated as he advanced towards Mrs. Lydgate, who had seated
herself at her work-table, said--
"It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted. May I
come another day and just finish about the rendering of `Lungi dal
caro bene'?"
"I shall be happy to be taught," said Rosamond. "But I am sure
you admit that the interruption was a very beautiful one. I quite
envy your acquaintance with Mrs. Casaubon. Is she very clever?
She looks as if she were."
"Really, I never thought about it," said Will, sulkily.
"That is just the answer Tertius gave me, when I first asked him
if she were handsome. What is it that you gentlemen are thinking
of when you are with Mrs. Casaubon?"
"Herself," said Will, not indisposed to provoke the charming
Mrs. Lydgate. "When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks
of her attributes--one is conscious of her presence."
"I shall be jealous when Tertius goes to Lowick," said Rosamond,
dimpling, and speaking with aery lightness. "He will come back
and think nothing of me."
"That does not seem to have been the effect on Lydgate hitherto.
Mrs. Casaubon is too unlike other women for them to be compared
with her.
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