"Celia, dear, come and kiss me," holding her arms open as she spoke.
Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly
kiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her
lips gravely on each cheek in turn.
"Don't sit up, Dodo, you are so pale to-night: go to bed soon," said
Celia, in a comfortable way, without any touch of pathos.
"No, dear, I am very, very happy," said Dorothea, fervently.
"So much the better," thought Celia. "But how strangely Dodo goes from
one extreme to the other."
The next day, at luncheon, the butler, handing something to Mr. Brooke,
said, "Jonas is come back, sir, and has brought this letter."
Mr. Brooke read the letter, and then, nodding toward Dorothea, said,
"Casaubon, my dear: he will be here to dinner; he didn't wait to write
more--didn't wait, you know."
It could not seem remarkable to Celia that a dinner guest should be
announced to her sister beforehand, but, her eyes following the same
direction as her uncle's, she was struck with the peculiar effect of
the announcement on Dorothea. It seemed as if something like the
reflection of a white sunlit wing had passed across her features,
ending in one of her rare blushes. For the first time it entered into
Celia's mind that there might be something more between Mr. Casaubon
and her sister than his delight in bookish talk and her delight in
listening. Hitherto she had classed the admiration for this "ugly" and
learned acquaintance with the admiration for Monsieur Liret at
Lausanne, also ugly and learned. Dorothea had never been tired of
listening to old Monsieur Liret when Celia's feet were as cold as
possible, and when it had really become dreadful to see the skin of his
bald head moving about. Why then should her enthusiasm not extend to
Mr. Casaubon simply in the same way as to Monsieur Liret? And it
seemed probable that all learned men had a sort of schoolmaster's view
of young people.
But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted
into her mind. She was seldom taken by surprise in this way, her
marvellous quickness in observing a certain order of signs generally
preparing her to expect such outward events as she had an interest in.
Not that she now imagined Mr. Casaubon to be already an accepted lover:
she had only begun to feel disgust at the possibility that anything in
Dorothea's mind could tend towards such an issue. Here was something
really to vex her about Dodo: it was all very well not to accept Sir
James Chettam, but the idea of marrying Mr. Casaubon! Celia felt a
sort of shame mingled with a sense of the ludicrous. But perhaps Dodo,
if she were really bordering on such an extravagance, might be turned
away from it: experience had often shown that her impressibility might
be calculated on. The day was damp, and they were not going to walk
out, so they both went up to their sitting-room; and there Celia
observed that Dorothea, instead of settling down with her usual
diligent interest to some occupation, simply leaned her elbow on an
open book and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered with
the damp. She herself had taken up the making of a toy for the
curate's children, and was not going to enter on any subject too
precipitately.