"
And Lydgate assented, thinking that he fully understood this wish.
He led her down to the drawing-room door, and then turned away,
observing to himself that he was rather a blundering husband
to be dependent for his wife's trust in him on the influence of
another woman.
Rosamond, wrapping her soft shawl around her as she walked
towards Dorothea, was inwardly wrapping her soul in cold reserve.
Had Mrs. Casaubon come to say anything to her about Will? If so,
it was a liberty that Rosamond resented; and she prepared herself
to meet every word with polite impassibility. Will had bruised
her pride too sorely for her to feel any compunction towards
him and Dorothea: her own injury seemed much the greater.
Dorothea was not only the "preferred" woman, but had also a
formidable advantage in being Lydgate's benefactor; and to poor
Rosamond's pained confused vision it seemed that this Mrs. Casaubon--
this woman who predominated in all things concerning her--must have
come now with the sense of having the advantage, and with animosity
prompting her to use it. Indeed, not Rosamond only, but any one else,
knowing the outer facts of the case, and not the simple inspiration
on which Dorothea acted, might well have wondered why she came.
Looking like the lovely ghost of herself, her graceful slimness
wrapped in her soft white shawl, the rounded infantine mouth
and cheek inevitably suggesting mildness and innocence, Rosamond
paused at three yards' distance from her visitor and bowed.
Pages:
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203