"Pray excuse me," said Dorothea, coloring deeply. "I am aware, as you
say, that I am in fault in having introduced the subject. Indeed, I am
wrong altogether. Failure after long perseverance is much grander than
never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure."
"I quite agree with you," said Will, determined to change the
situation--"so much so that I have made up my mind not to run that
risk of never attaining a failure. Mr. Casaubon's generosity has
perhaps been dangerous to me, and I mean to renounce the liberty it has
given me. I mean to go back to England shortly and work my own
way--depend on nobody else than myself."
"That is fine--I respect that feeling," said Dorothea, with returning
kindness. "But Mr. Casaubon, I am sure, has never thought of anything
in the matter except what was most for your welfare."
"She has obstinacy and pride enough to serve instead of love, now she
has 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 so
glad we met in Rome. I wanted to know you."
"And I have made you angry," said Will. "I have made you think ill of
me."
"Oh no. My sister tells me I am always angry with people who do not
say 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 so
impatient."
"Still, you don't like me; I have made myself an unpleasant thought to
you."
"Not at all," said Dorothea, with the most open kindness. "I like you
very much."
Will was not quite contented, thinking that he would apparently have
been of more importance if he had been disliked. He said nothing, but
looked dull, not to say sulky.
"And I am quite interested to see what you will do," Dorothea went on
cheerfully. "I believe devoutly in a natural difference of vocation.
If it were not for that belief, I suppose I should be very narrow--there
are so many things, besides painting, that I am quite ignorant
of. You would hardly believe how little I have taken in of music and
literature, which you know so much of. I wonder what your vocation
will 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 that
no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment
is but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of
emotion--a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling,
and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may have
that condition by fits only."