Middlemarch - Page 147/561

"How is she to be called then?"

"Mrs. Casaubon."

"Good. Suppose I get acquainted with her in spite of you, and find

that she very much wishes to be painted?"

"Yes, suppose!" said Will Ladislaw, in a contemptuous undertone,

intended to dismiss the subject. He was conscious of being irritated

by ridiculously small causes, which were half of his own creation. Why

was he making any fuss about Mrs. Casaubon? And yet he felt as if

something had happened to him with regard to her. There are characters

which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in

dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their

susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently

quiet.