With such fibres still astir in him, the shock he received could
not at once be distinctly anger; it was confused pain. He laid
down the knife and fork with which he was carving, and throwing
himself back in his chair, said at last, with a cool irony in his tone--
"May I ask when and why you did so?"
"When I knew that the Plymdales had taken a house, I called to tell
him not to mention ours to them; and at the same time I told him
not to let the affair go on any further. I knew that it would be
very injurious to you if it were known that you wished to part with
your house and furniture, and I had a very strong objection to it.
I think that was reason enough."
"It was of no consequence then that I had told you imperative
reasons of another kind; of no consequence that I had come to a
different conclusion, and given an order accordingly?" said Lydgate,
bitingly, the thunder and lightning gathering about his brow and eyes.
The effect of any one's anger on Rosamond had always been to make
her shrink in cold dislike, and to become all the more calmly correct,
in the conviction that she was not the person to misbehave whatever
others might do. She replied--
"I think I had a perfect right to speak on a subject which concerns
me at least as much as you."
"Clearly--you had a right to speak, but only to me.
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