"Really, I never thought about it," said Will, sulkily.
"That is just the answer Tertius gave me, when I first asked him if she
were handsome. What is it that you gentlemen are thinking of when you
are with Mrs. Casaubon?"
"Herself," said Will, not indisposed to provoke the charming Mrs.
Lydgate. "When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks of her
attributes--one is conscious of her presence."
"I shall be jealous when Tertius goes to Lowick," said Rosamond,
dimpling, and speaking with aery lightness. "He will come back and
think nothing of me."
"That does not seem to have been the effect on Lydgate hitherto. Mrs.
Casaubon is too unlike other women for them to be compared with her."
"You are a devout worshipper, I perceive. You often see her, I
suppose."
"No," said Will, almost pettishly. "Worship is usually a matter of
theory rather than of practice. But I am practising it to excess just
at this moment--I must really tear myself away."
"Pray come again some evening: Mr. Lydgate will like to hear the music,
and I cannot enjoy it so well without him."
When her husband was at home again, Rosamond said, standing in front of
him and holding his coat-collar with both her hands, "Mr. Ladislaw was
here singing with me when Mrs. Casaubon came in. He seemed vexed. Do
you think he disliked her seeing him at our house? Surely your
position is more than equal to his--whatever may be his relation to the
Casaubons."
"No, no; it must be something else if he were really vexed, Ladislaw is
a sort of gypsy; he thinks nothing of leather and prunella."
"Music apart, he is not always very agreeable. Do you like him?"
"Yes: I think he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and
bric-a-brac, but likable."
"Do you know, I think he adores Mrs. Casaubon."
"Poor devil!" said Lydgate, smiling and pinching his wife's ears.
Rosamond felt herself beginning to know a great deal of the world,
especially in discovering what when she was in her unmarried girlhood
had been inconceivable to her except as a dim tragedy in by-gone
costumes--that women, even after marriage, might make conquests and
enslave men. At that time young ladies in the country, even when
educated at Mrs. Lemon's, read little French literature later than
Racine, and public prints had not cast their present magnificent
illumination over the scandals of life. Still, vanity, with a woman's
whole mind and day to work in, can construct abundantly on slight
hints, especially on such a hint as the possibility of indefinite
conquests. How delightful to make captives from the throne of marriage
with a husband as crown-prince by your side--himself in fact a
subject--while the captives look up forever hopeless, losing their
rest probably, and if their appetite too, so much the better! But
Rosamond's romance turned at present chiefly on her crown-prince, and
it was enough to enjoy his assured subjection. When he said, "Poor
devil!" she asked, with playful curiosity--