 us to those who are fond of us, and disinclines us to those
who are indifferent, and also a good grateful nature, the mere idea that a woman
had a kindness towards him spun little threads of tenderness from out his heart
towards hers.
    Thus it happened, that after Sir James had ridden rather fast for half an
hour in a direction away from Tipton Grange, he slackened his pace, and at last
turned into a road which would lead him back by a shorter cut. Various feelings
wrought in him the determination after all to go to the Grange to-day as if
nothing new had happened. He could not help rejoicing that he had never made the
offer and been rejected; mere friendly politeness required that he should call
to see Dorothea about the cottages, and now happily Mrs. Cadwallader had
prepared him to offer his congratulations, if necessary, without showing too
much awkwardness. He really did not like it: giving up Dorothea was very painful
to him; but there was something in the resolve to make this visit forthwith and
conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of file-biting and
counter-irritant. And without his distinctly recognising the impulse, there
certainly was present in him the sense that Celia would be there, and that he
should pay her more attention than he had done before.
    We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast
and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and
in answer to inquiries say, »Oh, nothing!« Pride helps us; and pride is not a
bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts - not to hurt others.
 

                                  Chapter VII

 »Piacer e popone
 Vuol la sua stagione.«
                                                                Italian Proverb.
 
Mr. Casaubon, as might be expected, spent a great deal of his time at the Grange
in these weeks, and the hindrance which courtship occasioned to the progress of
his great work - the Key to all Mythologies - naturally made him look forward
the more eagerly to the happy termination of courtship. But he had deliberately
incurred the hindrance, having made up his mind that it was now time for him to
adorn his life with the graces of female companionship, to irradiate the gloom
which fatigue was apt to hang over the intervals of studious labour with the
play of female fancy, and to secure in this, his culminating age, the solace of
female tendance for his declining years. Hence he determined to abandon himself
to the stream of feeling, and perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly
shallow rill it was.
