 have been by this time
back again to Paris in some business or other. I can understand objections to
the diamond trade - I really was thinking that it might be inadequate to the
life of a man like you even though it might have made you a millionaire. But now
I see how mistaken you are about this girl I doubt if you could be correct about
other things.«
    »How am I mistaken in her?«
    »She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing her to
be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is not, why do you
wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?«
    »Well, there are practical reasons,« Clym began, and then almost broke off
under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could be brought
against his statement. »If I take a school an educated woman would be invaluable
as a help to me.«
    »What! you really mean to marry her?«
    »It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what obvious
advantages there would be in doing it. She -«
    »Don't suppose she has any money. She hasn't a farthing.«
    »She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a
boarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a little, in
deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer adhere to my intention
of giving with my own mouth rudimentary education to the lowest class. I can do
better. I can establish a good private school for farmers' sons, and without
stopping the school I can manage to pass examinations. By this means, and by the
assistance of a wife like her -«
    »O, Clym!«
    »I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools in
the county.«
    Yeobright had enunciated the word her with a fervour which, in conversation
with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a maternal heart within the four
seas could, in such circumstances, have helped being irritated at that ill-timed
betrayal of feeling for a new woman.
    »You are blinded, Clym,« she said warmly. »It was a bad day for you when you
first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in the air built on
purpose to justify this folly which has seized you, and to salve your conscience
on the irrational situation you are in.«
    »Mother, that's not true,« he firmly
