Middlemarch, Page 23

  CHAPTER XXII.

  "Nous causames longtemps; elle etait simple et bonne. Ne sachant pas le mal, elle faisait le bien; Des richesses du coeur elle me fit l'aumone, Et tout en ecoutant comme le coeur se donne, Sans oser y penser je lui donnai le mien; Elle emporta ma vie, et n'en sut jamais rien." --ALFRED DE MUSSET.

  Will Ladislaw was delightfully agreeable at dinner the next day, andgave no opportunity for Mr. Casaubon to show disapprobation. On thecontrary it seemed to Dorothea that Will had a happier way of drawingher husband into conversation and of deferentially listening to himthan she had ever observed in any one before. To be sure, thelisteners about Tipton were not highly gifted! Will talked a good dealhimself, but what he said was thrown in with such rapidity, and withsuch an unimportant air of saying something by the way, that it seemeda gay little chime after the great bell. If Will was not alwaysperfect, this was certainly one of his good days. He described touchesof incident among the poor people in Rome, only to be seen by one whocould move about freely; he found himself in agreement with Mr.Casaubon as to the unsound opinions of Middleton concerning therelations of Judaism and Catholicism; and passed easily to ahalf-enthusiastic half-playful picture of the enjoyment he got out ofthe very miscellaneousness of Rome, which made the mind flexible withconstant comparison, and saved you from seeing the world's ages as aset of box-like partitions without vital connection. Mr. Casaubon'sstudies, Will observed, had always been of too broad a kind for that,and he had perhaps never felt any such sudden effect, but for himselfhe confessed that Rome had given him quite a new sense of history as awhole: the fragments stimulated his imagination and made himconstructive. Then occasionally, but not too often, he appealed toDorothea, and discussed what she said, as if her sentiment were an itemto be considered in the final judgment even of the Madonna di Folignoor the Laocoon. A sense of contributing to form the world's opinionmakes conversation particularly cheerful; and Mr. Casaubon too was notwithout his pride in his young wife, who spoke better than most women,as indeed he had perceived in choosing her.

  Since things were going on so pleasantly, Mr. Casaubon's statement thathis labors in the Library would be suspended for a couple of days, andthat after a brief renewal he should have no further reason for stayingin Rome, encouraged Will to urge that Mrs. Casaubon should not go awaywithout seeing a studio or two. Would not Mr. Casaubon take her? Thatsort of thing ought not to be missed: it was quite special: it was aform of life that grew like a small fresh vegetation with itspopulation of insects on huge fossils. Will would be happy to conductthem--not to anything wearisome, only to a few examples.

  Mr. Casaubon, seeing Dorothea look earnestly towards him, could not butask her if she would be interested in such visits: he was now at herservice during the whole day; and it was agreed that Will should comeon the morrow and drive with them.

  Will could not omit Thorwaldsen, a living celebrity about whom even Mr.Casaubon inquired, but before the day was far advanced he led the wayto the studio of his friend Adolf Naumann, whom he mentioned as one ofthe chief renovators of Christian art, one of those who had not onlyrevived but expanded that grand conception of supreme events asmysteries at which the successive ages were spectators, and in relationto which the great souls of all periods became as it werecontemporaries. Will added that he had made himself Naumann's pupilfor the nonce.

  "I have been making some oil-sketches under him," said Will. "I hatecopying. I must put something of my own in. Naumann has been paintingthe Saints drawing the Car of the Church, and I have been making asketch of Marlowe's Tamburlaine Driving the Conquered Kings in hisChariot. I am not so ecclesiastical as Naumann, and I sometimes twithim with his excess of meaning. But this time I mean to outdo him inbreadth of intention. I take Tamburlaine in his chariot for thetremendous course of the world's physical history lashing on theharnessed dynasties. In my opinion, that is a good mythicalinterpretation." Will here looked at Mr. Casaubon, who received thisoffhand treatment of symbolism very uneasily, and bowed with a neutralair.

  "The sketch must be very grand, if it conveys so much," said Dorothea."I should need some explanation even of the meaning you give. Do youintend Tamburlaine to represent earthquakes and volcanoes?"

  "Oh yes," said Will, laughing, "and migrations of races and clearingsof forests--and America and the steam-engine. Everything you canimagine!"

  "What a difficult kind of shorthand!" said Dorothea, smiling towardsher husband. "It would require all your knowledge to be able to readit."

  Mr. Casaubon blinked furtively at Will. He had a suspicion that he wasbeing laughed at. But it was not possible to include Dorothea in thesuspicion.

  They found Naumann painting industriously, but no model was present;his pictures were advantageously arranged, and his own plain vivaciousperson set off by a dove-colored blouse and a maroon velvet cap, sothat everything was as fortunate as if he had expected the beautifulyoung English lady exactly at that time.

  The painter in his confident English gave little dissertations on hisfinished and unfinished subjects, seeming to observe Mr. Casaubon asmuch as he did Dorothea. Will burst in here and there with ardentwords of praise, marking out particular merits in his friend's work;and Dorothea felt that she was getting quite new notions as to thesignificance of Madonnas seated under inexplicable canopied throneswith the simple country as a background, and of saints witharchitectural models in their hands, or knives accidentally wedged intheir skulls. Some things which had seemed monstrous to her weregathering intelligibility and even a natural meaning: but all this wasapparently a branch of knowledge in which Mr. Casaubon had notinterested himself.

  "I think I would rather feel that painting is beautiful than have toread it as an enigma; but I should learn to understand these picturessooner than yours with the very wide meaning," said Dorothea, speakingto Will.

  "Don't speak of my painting before Naumann," said Will. "He will tellyou, it is all pfuscherei, which is his most opprobrious word!"

  "Is that true?" said Dorothea, turning her sincere eyes on Naumann, whomade a slight grimace and said--

  "Oh, he does not mean it seriously with painting. His walk must bebelles-lettres. That is wi-ide."

  Naumann's pronunciation of the vowel seemed to stretch the wordsatirically. Will did not half like it, but managed to laugh: and Mr.Casaubon, while he felt some disgust at the artist's German accent,began to entertain a little respect for his judicious severity.

  The respect was not diminished when Naumann, after drawing Will asidefor a moment and looking, first at a large canvas, then at Mr.Casaubon, came forward again and said--

  "My friend Ladislaw thinks you will pardon me, sir, if I say that asketch of your head would be invaluable to me for the St. ThomasAquinas in my picture there. It is too much to ask; but I so seldomsee just what I want--the idealistic in the real."

  "You astonish me greatly, sir," said Mr. Casaubon, his looks improvedwith a glow of delight; "but if my poor physiognomy, which I have beenaccustomed to regard as of the commonest order, can be of any use toyou in furnishing some traits for the angelical doctor, I shall feelhonored. That is to say, if the operation will not be a lengthy one;and if Mrs. Casaubon will not object to the delay."

  As for Dorothea, nothing could have pleased her more, unless it hadbeen a miraculous voice pronouncing Mr. Casaubon the wisest andworthiest among the sons of men. In that case her tottering faithwould have become firm again.

  Naumann's apparatus was at hand in wonderful completeness, and thesketch went on at once as well as the conversation. Dorothea sat downand subsided into calm silence, feeling happier than she had done for along while before. Every one about her seemed good, and she said toherself that Rome, if she had only been less ignorant, would have beenfull of beauty: its sadness would have been winged with hope. No naturecould be less suspicious than hers: when she was a child she believedin the gratitude of wasps and the honorable susceptibility of
sparrows,and was proportionately indignant when their baseness was made manifest.

  The adroit artist was asking Mr. Casaubon questions about Englishpolities, which brought long answers, and, Will meanwhile had perchedhimself on some steps in the background overlooking all.

  Presently Naumann said--"Now if I could lay this by for half an hourand take it up again--come and look, Ladislaw--I think it is perfect sofar."

  Will vented those adjuring interjections which imply that admiration istoo strong for syntax; and Naumann said in a tone of piteous regret--

  "Ah--now--if I could but have had more--but you have otherengagements--I could not ask it--or even to come again to-morrow."

  "Oh, let us stay!" said Dorothea. "We have nothing to do to-day exceptgo about, have we?" she added, looking entreatingly at Mr. Casaubon."It would be a pity not to make the head as good as possible."

  "I am at your service, sir, in the matter," said Mr. Casaubon, withpolite condescension. "Having given up the interior of my head toidleness, it is as well that the exterior should work in this way."

  "You are unspeakably good--now I am happy!" said Naumann, and then wenton in German to Will, pointing here and there to the sketch as if hewere considering that. Putting it aside for a moment, he looked roundvaguely, as if seeking some occupation for his visitors, and afterwardsturning to Mr. Casaubon, said--

  "Perhaps the beautiful bride, the gracious lady, would not be unwillingto let me fill up the time by trying to make a slight sketch ofher--not, of course, as you see, for that picture--only as a singlestudy."

  Mr. Casaubon, bowing, doubted not that Mrs. Casaubon would oblige him,and Dorothea said, at once, "Where shall I put myself?"

  Naumann was all apologies in asking her to stand, and allow him toadjust her attitude, to which she submitted without any of the affectedairs and laughs frequently thought necessary on such occasions, whenthe painter said, "It is as Santa Clara that I want you tostand--leaning so, with your cheek against your hand--so--looking atthat stool, please, so!"

  Will was divided between the inclination to fall at the Saint's feetand kiss her robe, and the temptation to knock Naumann down while hewas adjusting her arm. All this was impudence and desecration, and herepented that he had brought her.

  The artist was diligent, and Will recovering himself moved about andoccupied Mr. Casaubon as ingeniously as he could; but he did not in theend prevent the time from seeming long to that gentleman, as was clearfrom his expressing a fear that Mrs. Casaubon would be tired. Naumanntook the hint and said--

  "Now, sir, if you can oblige me again; I will release the lady-wife."

  So Mr. Casaubon's patience held out further, and when after all itturned out that the head of Saint Thomas Aquinas would be more perfectif another sitting could be had, it was granted for the morrow. On themorrow Santa Clara too was retouched more than once. The result of allwas so far from displeasing to Mr. Casaubon, that he arranged for thepurchase of the picture in which Saint Thomas Aquinas sat among thedoctors of the Church in a disputation too abstract to be represented,but listened to with more or less attention by an audience above. TheSanta Clara, which was spoken of in the second place, Naumann declaredhimself to be dissatisfied with--he could not, in conscience, engageto make a worthy picture of it; so about the Santa Clara thearrangement was conditional.

  I will not dwell on Naumann's jokes at the expense of Mr. Casaubon thatevening, or on his dithyrambs about Dorothea's charm, in all which Willjoined, but with a difference. No sooner did Naumann mention anydetail of Dorothea's beauty, than Will got exasperated at hispresumption: there was grossness in his choice of the most ordinarywords, and what business had he to talk of her lips? She was not awoman to be spoken of as other women were. Will could not say justwhat he thought, but he became irritable. And yet, when after someresistance he had consented to take the Casaubons to his friend'sstudio, he had been allured by the gratification of his pride in beingthe person who could grant Naumann such an opportunity of studying herloveliness--or rather her divineness, for the ordinary phrases whichmight apply to mere bodily prettiness were not applicable to her.(Certainly all Tipton and its neighborhood, as well as Dorotheaherself, would have been surprised at her beauty being made so much of.In that part of the world Miss Brooke had been only a "fine youngwoman.")

  "Oblige me by letting the subject drop, Naumann. Mrs. Casaubon is notto be talked of as if she were a model," said Will. Naumann stared athim.

  "Schon! I will talk of my Aquinas. The head is not a bad type, afterall. I dare say the great scholastic himself would have been flatteredto have his portrait asked for. Nothing like these starchy doctors forvanity! It was as I thought: he cared much less for her portrait thanhis own."

  "He's a cursed white-blooded pedantic coxcomb," said Will, withgnashing impetuosity. His obligations to Mr. Casaubon were not knownto his hearer, but Will himself was thinking of them, and wishing thathe could discharge them all by a check.

  Naumann gave a shrug and said, "It is good they go away soon, my dear.They are spoiling your fine temper."

  All Will's hope and contrivance were now concentrated on seeingDorothea when she was alone. He only wanted her to take more emphaticnotice of him; he only wanted to be something more special in herremembrance than he could yet believe himself likely to be. He wasrather impatient under that open ardent good-will, which he saw was herusual state of feeling. The remote worship of a woman throned out oftheir reach plays a great part in men's lives, but in most cases theworshipper longs for some queenly recognition, some approving sign bywhich his soul's sovereign may cheer him without descending from herhigh place. That was precisely what Will wanted. But there wereplenty of contradictions in his imaginative demands. It was beautifulto see how Dorothea's eyes turned with wifely anxiety and beseeching toMr. Casaubon: she would have lost some of her halo if she had beenwithout that duteous preoccupation; and yet at the next moment thehusband's sandy absorption of such nectar was too intolerable; andWill's longing to say damaging things about him was perhaps not theless tormenting because he felt the strongest reasons for restrainingit.

  Will had not been invited to dine the next day. Hence he persuadedhimself that he was bound to call, and that the only eligible time wasthe middle of the day, when Mr. Casaubon would not be at home.

  Dorothea, who had not been made aware that her former reception of Willhad displeased her husband, had no hesitation about seeing him,especially as he might be come to pay a farewell visit. When heentered she was looking at some cameos which she had been buying forCelia. She greeted Will as if his visit were quite a matter of course,and said at once, having a cameo bracelet in her hand--

  "I am so glad you are come. Perhaps you understand all about cameos,and can tell me if these are really good. I wished to have you with usin choosing them, but Mr. Casaubon objected: he thought there was nottime. He will finish his work to-morrow, and we shall go away in threedays. I have been uneasy about these cameos. Pray sit down and lookat them."

  "I am not particularly knowing, but there can be no great mistake aboutthese little Homeric bits: they are exquisitely neat. And the color isfine: it will just suit you."

  "Oh, they are for my sister, who has quite a different complexion. Yousaw her with me at Lowick: she is light-haired and very pretty--atleast I think so. We were never so long away from each other in ourlives before. She is a great pet and never was naughty in her life. Ifound out before I came away that she wanted me to buy her some cameos,and I should be sorry for them not to be good--after their kind."Dorothea added the last words with a smile.

  "You seem not to care about cameos," said Will, seating himself at somedistance from her, and observing her while she closed the cases.

  "No, frankly, I don't think them a great object in life," said Dorothea

  "I fear you are a heretic about art generally. How is that? I shouldhave expected you to be very sensitive to the beautiful everywhere."

  "I suppose I a
m dull about many things," said Dorothea, simply. "Ishould like to make life beautiful--I mean everybody's life. And thenall this immense expense of art, that seems somehow to lie outside lifeand make it no better for the world, pains one. It spoils my enjoymentof anything when I am made to think that most people are shut out fromit."

  "I call that the fanaticism of sympathy," said Will, impetuously. "Youmight say the same of landscape, of poetry, of all refinement. If youcarried it out you ought to be miserable in your own goodness, and turnevil that you might have no advantage over others. The best piety isto enjoy--when you can. You are doing the most then to save theearth's character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates. Itis of no use to try and take care of all the world; that is being takencare of when you feel delight--in art or in anything else. Would youturn all the youth of the world into a tragic chorus, wailing andmoralizing over misery? I suspect that you have some false belief inthe virtues of misery, and want to make your life a martyrdom." Willhad gone further than he intended, and checked himself. But Dorothea'sthought was not taking just the same direction as his own, and sheanswered without any special emotion--

  "Indeed you mistake me. I am not a sad, melancholy creature. I amnever unhappy long together. I am angry and naughty--not like Celia: Ihave a great outburst, and then all seems glorious again. I cannothelp believing in glorious things in a blind sort of way. I should bequite willing to enjoy the art here, but there is so much that I don'tknow the reason of--so much that seems to me a consecration of uglinessrather than beauty. The painting and sculpture may be wonderful, butthe feeling is often low and brutal, and sometimes even ridiculous.Here and there I see what takes me at once as noble--something that Imight compare with the Alban Mountains or the sunset from the PincianHill; but that makes it the greater pity that there is so little of thebest kind among all that mass of things over which men have toiled so."

  "Of course there is always a great deal of poor work: the rarer thingswant that soil to grow in."

  "Oh dear," said Dorothea, taking up that thought into the chief currentof her anxiety; "I see it must be very difficult to do anything good.I have often felt since I have been in Rome that most of our liveswould look much uglier and more bungling than the pictures, if theycould be put on the wall."

  Dorothea parted her lips again as if she were going to say more, butchanged her mind and paused.

  "You are too young--it is an anachronism for you to have suchthoughts," said Will, energetically, with a quick shake of the headhabitual to him. "You talk as if you had never known any youth. It ismonstrous--as if you had had a vision of Hades in your childhood, likethe boy in the legend. You have been brought up in some of thosehorrible notions that choose the sweetest women to devour--likeMinotaurs. And now you will go and be shut up in that stone prison atLowick: you will be buried alive. It makes me savage to think of it!I would rather never have seen you than think of you with such aprospect."

  Will again feared that he had gone too far; but the meaning we attachto words depends on our feeling, and his tone of angry regret had somuch kindness in it for Dorothea's heart, which had always been givingout ardor and had never been fed with much from the living beingsaround her, that she felt a new sense of gratitude and answered with agentle smile--

  "It is very good of you to be anxious about me. It is because you didnot like Lowick yourself: you had set your heart on another kind oflife. But Lowick is my chosen home."

  The last sentence was spoken with an almost solemn cadence, and Willdid not know what to say, since it would not be useful for him toembrace her slippers, and tell her that he would die for her: it wasclear that she required nothing of the sort; and they were both silentfor a moment or two, when Dorothea began again with an air of saying atlast what had been in her mind beforehand.

  "I wanted to ask you again about something you said the other day.Perhaps it was half of it your lively way of speaking: I notice thatyou like to put things strongly; I myself often exaggerate when I speakhastily."

  "What was it?" said Will, observing that she spoke with a timidityquite new in her. "I have a hyperbolical tongue: it catches fire as itgoes. I dare say I shall have to retract."

  "I mean what you said about the necessity of knowing German--I mean,for the subjects that Mr. Casaubon is engaged in. I have been thinkingabout it; and it seems to me that with Mr. Casaubon's learning he musthave before him the same materials as German scholars--has he not?"Dorothea's timidity was due to an indistinct consciousness that she wasin the strange situation of consulting a third person about theadequacy of Mr. Casaubon's learning.

  "Not exactly the same materials," said Will, thinking that he would beduly reserved. "He is not an Orientalist, you know. He does notprofess to have more than second-hand knowledge there."

  "But there are very valuable books about antiquities which were writtena long while ago by scholars who knew nothing about these modernthings; and they are still used. Why should Mr. Casaubon's not bevaluable, like theirs?" said Dorothea, with more remonstrant energy.She was impelled to have the argument aloud, which she had been havingin her own mind.

  "That depends on the line of study taken," said Will, also getting atone of rejoinder. "The subject Mr. Casaubon has chosen is as changingas chemistry: new discoveries are constantly making new points of view.Who wants a system on the basis of the four elements, or a book torefute Paracelsus? Do you not see that it is no use now to be crawlinga little way after men of the last century--men like Bryant--andcorrecting their mistakes?--living in a lumber-room and furbishing upbroken-legged theories about Chus and Mizraim?"

  "How can you bear to speak so lightly?" said Dorothea, with a lookbetween sorrow and anger. "If it were as you say, what could be sadderthan so much ardent labor all in vain? I wonder it does not affect youmore painfully, if you really think that a man like Mr. Casaubon, of somuch goodness, power, and learning, should in any way fail in what hasbeen the labor of his best years." She was beginning to be shocked thatshe had got to such a point of supposition, and indignant with Will forhaving led her to it.

  "You questioned me about the matter of fact, not of feeling," saidWill. "But if you wish to punish me for the fact, I submit. I am notin a position to express my feeling toward Mr. Casaubon: it would be atbest a pensioner's eulogy."

  "Pray excuse me," said Dorothea, coloring deeply. "I am aware, as yousay, that I am in fault in having introduced the subject. Indeed, I amwrong altogether. Failure after long perseverance is much grander thannever to have a striving good enough to be called a failure."

  "I quite agree with you," said Will, determined to change thesituation--"so much so that I have made up my mind not to run thatrisk of never attaining a failure. Mr. Casaubon's generosity hasperhaps been dangerous to me, and I mean to renounce the liberty it hasgiven me. I mean to go back to England shortly and work my ownway--depend on nobody else than myself."

  "That is fine--I respect that feeling," said Dorothea, with returningkindness. "But Mr. Casaubon, I am sure, has never thought of anythingin the matter except what was most for your welfare."

  "She has obstinacy and pride enough to serve instead of love, now shehas married him," said Will to himself. Aloud he said, rising--

  "I shall not see you again."

  "Oh, stay till Mr. Casaubon comes," said Dorothea, earnestly. "I am soglad we met in Rome. I wanted to know you."

  "And I have made you angry," said Will. "I have made you think ill ofme."

  "Oh no. My sister tells me I am always angry with people who do notsay just what I like. But I hope I am not given to think ill of them.In the end I am usually obliged to think ill of myself for being soimpatient."

  "Still, you don't like me; I have made myself an unpleasant thought toyou."

  "Not at all," said Dorothea, with the most open kindness. "I like youvery much."

  Will was not quite contented, thinking that he would apparently havebeen of more importance if he had been dis
liked. He said nothing, butlooked dull, not to say sulky.

  "And I am quite interested to see what you will do," Dorothea went oncheerfully. "I believe devoutly in a natural difference of vocation.If it were not for that belief, I suppose I should be very narrow--thereare so many things, besides painting, that I am quite ignorantof. You would hardly believe how little I have taken in of music andliterature, which you know so much of. I wonder what your vocationwill turn out to be: perhaps you will be a poet?"

  "That depends. To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern thatno shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernmentis but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords ofemotion--a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling,and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may havethat condition by fits only."

  "But you leave out the poems," said Dorothea. "I think they are wantedto complete the poet. I understand what you mean about knowledgepassing into feeling, for that seems to be just what I experience. ButI am sure I could never produce a poem."

  "You _are_ a poem--and that is to be the best part of a poet--whatmakes up the poet's consciousness in his best moods," said Will,showing such originality as we all share with the morning and thespring-time and other endless renewals.

  "I am very glad to hear it," said Dorothea, laughing out her words in abird-like modulation, and looking at Will with playful gratitude in hereyes. "What very kind things you say to me!"

  "I wish I could ever do anything that would be what you call kind--thatI could ever be of the slightest service to you. I fear I shall neverhave the opportunity." Will spoke with fervor.

  "Oh yes," said Dorothea, cordially. "It will come; and I shallremember how well you wish me. I quite hoped that we should be friendswhen I first saw you--because of your relationship to Mr. Casaubon."There was a certain liquid brightness in her eyes, and Will wasconscious that his own were obeying a law of nature and filling too.The allusion to Mr. Casaubon would have spoiled all if anything at thatmoment could have spoiled the subduing power, the sweet dignity, of hernoble unsuspicious inexperience.

  "And there is one thing even now that you can do," said Dorothea,rising and walking a little way under the strength of a recurringimpulse. "Promise me that you will not again, to any one, speak ofthat subject--I mean about Mr. Casaubon's writings--I mean in thatkind of way. It was I who led to it. It was my fault. But promiseme."

  She had returned from her brief pacing and stood opposite Will, lookinggravely at him.

  "Certainly, I will promise you," said Will, reddening however. If henever said a cutting word about Mr. Casaubon again and left offreceiving favors from him, it would clearly be permissible to hate himthe more. The poet must know how to hate, says Goethe; and Will was atleast ready with that accomplishment. He said that he must go nowwithout waiting for Mr. Casaubon, whom he would come to take leave ofat the last moment. Dorothea gave him her hand, and they exchanged asimple "Good-by."

  But going out of the porte cochere he met Mr. Casaubon, and thatgentleman, expressing the best wishes for his cousin, politely waivedthe pleasure of any further leave-taking on the morrow, which would besufficiently crowded with the preparations for departure.

  "I have something to tell you about our cousin Mr. Ladislaw, which Ithink will heighten your opinion of him," said Dorothea to her husbandin the coarse of the evening. She had mentioned immediately on hisentering that Will had just gone away, and would come again, but Mr.Casaubon had said, "I met him outside, and we made our final adieux, Ibelieve," saying this with the air and tone by which we imply that anysubject, whether private or public, does not interest us enough to wishfor a further remark upon it. So Dorothea had waited.

  "What is that, my love?" said Mr Casaubon (he always said "my love"when his manner was the coldest).

  "He has made up his mind to leave off wandering at once, and to give uphis dependence on your generosity. He means soon to go back toEngland, and work his own way. I thought you would consider that agood sign," said Dorothea, with an appealing look into her husband'sneutral face.

  "Did he mention the precise order of occupation to which he wouldaddict himself?"

  "No. But he said that he felt the danger which lay for him in yourgenerosity. Of course he will write to you about it. Do you not thinkbetter of him for his resolve?"

  "I shall await his communication on the subject," said Mr. Casaubon.

  "I told him I was sure that the thing you considered in all you did forhim was his own welfare. I remembered your goodness in what you saidabout him when I first saw him at Lowick," said Dorothea, putting herhand on her husband's.

  "I had a duty towards him," said Mr. Casaubon, laying his other hand onDorothea's in conscientious acceptance of her caress, but with a glancewhich he could not hinder from being uneasy. "The young man, Iconfess, is not otherwise an object of interest to me, nor need we, Ithink, discuss his future course, which it is not ours to determinebeyond the limits which I have sufficiently indicated." Dorothea didnot mention Will again.

  BOOK III.

  WAITING FOR DEATH.