Page 811 - middlemarch

‘I hope you will not object to my remaining at home, sir?’
he said, after rising to go; ‘I shall have a sufficient salary to
pay for my board, as of course I should wish to do.’
‘Board be hanged!’ said Mr. Vincy, recovering himself in
his disgust at the notion that Fred’s keep would be missed
at his table. ‘Of course your mother will want you to stay.
But I shall keep no horse for you, you understand; and you
will pay your own tailor. You will do with a suit or two less,
I fancy, when you have to pay for ‘em.’
Fred lingered; there was still something to be said. At
last it came.
‘I hope you will shake hands with me, father, and forgive
me the vexation I have caused you.’
Mr. Vincy from his chair threw a quick glance upward at
his son, who had advanced near to him, and then gave his
hand, saying hurriedly, ‘Yes, yes, let us say no more.’
Fred went through much more narrative and explanation
with his mother, but she was inconsolable, having before
her eyes what perhaps her husband had never thought of,
the certainty that Fred would marry Mary Garth, that her
life would henceforth be spoiled by a perpetual infusion of
Garths and their ways, and that her darling boy, with his
beautiful face and stylish air ‘beyond anybody else’s son
in Middlemarch,’ would be sure to get like that family in
plainness of appearance and carelessness about his clothes.
To her it seemed that there was a Garth conspiracy to get
possession of the desirable Fred, but she dared not enlarge
on this opinion, because a slight hint of it had made him ‘fly
out’ at her as he had never done before. Her temper was too

10 Middlemarch