"Bulstrode is nothing to me," said Lydgate, carelessly, "except on
public grounds. As to getting very closely united to him, I am not
fond enough of him for that. But what was the other thing you meant?"
said Lydgate, who was nursing his leg as comfortably as possible, and
feeling in no great need of advice.
"Why, this. Take care--experto crede--take care not to get hampered
about money matters. I know, by a word you let fall one day, that you
don't like my playing at cards so much for money. You are right enough
there. But try and keep clear of wanting small sums that you haven't
got. I am perhaps talking rather superfluously; but a man likes to
assume superiority over himself, by holding up his bad example and
sermonizing on it."
Lydgate took Mr. Farebrother's hints very cordially, though he would
hardly have borne them from another man. He could not help remembering
that he had lately made some debts, but these had seemed inevitable,
and he had no intention now to do more than keep house in a simple way.
The furniture for which he owed would not want renewing; nor even the
stock of wine for a long while.
Many thoughts cheered him at that time--and justly. A man conscious of
enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the
memory of great workers who had to fight their way not without wounds,
and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping. At
home, that same evening when he had been chatting with Mr. Farebrother,
he had his long legs stretched on the sofa, his head thrown back, and
his hands clasped behind it according to his favorite ruminating
attitude, while Rosamond sat at the piano, and played one tune after
another, of which her husband only knew (like the emotional elephant he
was!) that they fell in with his mood as if they had been melodious
sea-breezes.
There was something very fine in Lydgate's look just then, and any one
might have been encouraged to bet on his achievement. In his dark eyes
and on his mouth and brow there was that placidity which comes from the
fulness of contemplative thought--the mind not searching, but
beholding, and the glance seeming to be filled with what is behind it.
Presently Rosamond left the piano and seated herself on a chair close
to the sofa and opposite her husband's face.
"Is that enough music for you, my lord?" she said, folding her hands
before her and putting on a little air of meekness.
"Yes, dear, if you are tired," said Lydgate, gently, turning his eyes
and resting them on her, but not otherwise moving. Rosamond's presence
at that moment was perhaps no more than a spoonful brought to the lake,
and her woman's instinct in this matter was not dull.