"Are we to go without spoons and forks then?" said Rosamond, whose very
lips seemed to get thinner with the thinness of her utterance. She was
determined to make no further resistance or suggestions.
"Oh no, dear!" said Lydgate. "But look here," he continued, drawing a
paper from his pocket and opening it; "here is Dover's account. See, I
have marked a number of articles, which if we returned them would
reduce the amount by thirty pounds and more. I have not marked any
of the jewellery." Lydgate had really felt this point of the jewellery
very bitter to himself; but he had overcome the feeling by severe
argument. He could not propose to Rosamond that she should return any
particular present of his, but he had told himself that he was bound to
put Dover's offer before her, and her inward prompting might make the
affair easy.
"It is useless for me to look, Tertius," said Rosamond, calmly; "you
will return what you please." She would not turn her eyes on the
paper, and Lydgate, flushing up to the roots of his hair, drew it back
and let it fall on his knee. Meanwhile Rosamond quietly went out of
the room, leaving Lydgate helpless and wondering. Was she not coming
back? It seemed that she had no more identified herself with him than
if they had been creatures of different species and opposing interests.
He tossed his head and thrust his hands deep into his pockets with a
sort of vengeance. There was still science--there were still good
objects to work for. He must give a tug still--all the stronger
because other satisfactions were going.
But the door opened and Rosamond re-entered. She carried the leather
box containing the amethysts, and a tiny ornamental basket which
contained other boxes, and laying them on the chair where she had been
sitting, she said, with perfect propriety in her air--
"This is all the jewellery you ever gave me. You can return what you
like of it, and of the plate also. You will not, of course, expect me
to stay at home to-morrow. I shall go to papa's."
To many women the look Lydgate cast at her would have been more
terrible than one of anger: it had in it a despairing acceptance of the
distance she was placing between them.
"And when shall you come back again?" he said, with a bitter edge on
his accent.
"Oh, in the evening. Of course I shall not mention the subject to
mamma." Rosamond was convinced that no woman could behave more
irreproachably than she was behaving; and she went to sit down at her
work-table. Lydgate sat meditating a minute or two, and the result was
that he said, with some of the old emotion in his tone--