Page:Eliot - Middlemarch, vol. III, 1872.djvu/22

12 "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 aëry 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, Rosa-