“You see, Humphrey!” said Mrs Cadwallader, waving her arm towards her husband. “Another time you will admit that I have some foresight; or rather you will contradict me and be just as blind as ever. You supposed that the young gentleman was gone out of the country.”
“So he might be, and yet come back,” said the Rector, quietly.
“When did you learn this?” said Sir James, not liking to hear any one else speak, though finding it difficult to speak himself.
“Yesterday,” said Mr Brooke, meekly. “I went to Lowick. Dorothea sent for me, you know. It had come about quite suddenly—neither of them had any idea two days ago—not any idea, you know. There’s something singular in things. But Dorothea is quite determined—it is no use opposing. I put it strongly to her. I did my duty, Chettam. But she can act as she likes, you know.”
“It would have been better if I had called him out and shot him a year ago,” said Sir James, not from bloody-mindedness, but because he needed something strong to say.
“Really, James, that would have been very disagreeable,” said Celia.
“Be reasonable, Chettam. Look at the affair more quietly,” said Mr Cadwallader, sorry to see his good-natured friend so overmastered by anger.
“That is not so very easy for a man of any dignity—with any sense of right—when the affair happens to be in his own family,” said Sir James, still in his white indignation. “It is perfectly scandalous. If Ladislaw had had a spark of honour he would have gone out of the country at once, and never shown his face in it again. However, I am not surprised. The day after Casaubon’s funeral I said what ought to be done. But I was not listened to.”
“You wanted what was impossible, you know, Chettam,” said Mr Brooke. “You wanted him shipped off. I told you Ladislaw was not to be done as we liked with: he had his ideas. He was a remarkable fellow—I always said he was a remarkable fellow.”
“Yes,” said Sir James, unable to repress a retort, “it is rather a pity you formed that high opinion of him. We are indebted to that for his being lodged in this neighbourhood. We are indebted to that for seeing a woman like Dorothea degrading herself by marrying him.” Sir James made little stoppages between his clauses, the words not coming easily. “A man so marked out by her husband’s will, that delicacy ought to have forbidden her from seeing him again—who takes her out of her proper rank—into poverty—has the meanness to accept such a sacrifice—has always had an objectionable position—a bad origin—and, I believe, is a man of little principle and light character. That is my opinion,” Sir James ended emphatically, turning aside and crossing his leg.
“I pointed everything out to her,” said Mr Brooke, apologetically—“I mean the poverty, and abandoning her position. I said, ‘My dear, you don’t know what it is to live on seven hundred a-year, and have no carriage, and that kind of thing, and go amongst people who
