Page 939 - middlemarch

talking the ‘little language’ of affection, which Rosamond,
though not returning it, accepted as if she had been a serene
and lovely image, now and then miraculously dimpling to-
wards her votary. With such fibres still astir in him, the
shock he received could not at once be distinctly anger; it
was confused pain. He laid down the knife and fork with
which he was carving, and throwing himself back in his
chair, said at last, with a cool irony in his tone—
‘May I ask when and why you did so?’
‘When I knew that the Plymdales had taken a house, I
called to tell him not to mention ours to them; and at the
same time I told him not to let the affair go on any further. I
knew that it would be very injurious to you if it were known
that you wished to part with your house and furniture, and
I had a very strong objection to it. I think that was reason
enough.’
‘It was of no consequence then that I had told you imper-
ative reasons of another kind; of no consequence that I had
come to a different conclusion, and given an order accord-
ingly?’ said Lydgate, bitingly, the thunder and lightning
gathering about his brow and eyes.
The effect of any one’s anger on Rosamond had always
been to make her shrink in cold dislike, and to become all
the more calmly correct, in the conviction that she was not
the person to misbehave whatever others might do. She
replied—
‘I think I had a perfect right to speak on a subject which
concerns me at least as much as you.’
‘Clearly—you had a right to speak, but only to me. You

Middlemarch