 should speak of your cousin so contemptuously,«
said Rosamond, her fingers moving at her work while she spoke with a mild
gravity which had a touch of disdain in it.
    »Ask Ladislaw if he doesn't think your Captain the greatest bore he ever met
with. Ladislaw has almost forsaken the house since he came.«
    Rosamond thought she knew perfectly well why Mr. Ladislaw disliked the
Captain: he was jealous, and she liked his being jealous.
    »It is impossible to say what will suit eccentric persons,« she answered,
»but in my opinion Captain Lydgate is a thorough gentleman, and I think you
ought not, out of respect to Sir Godwin, to treat him with neglect.«
    »No, dear; but we have had dinners for him. And he comes in and goes out as
he likes. He doesn't want me.«
    »Still, when he is in the room, you might show him more attention. He may
not be a phoenix of cleverness in your sense; his profession is different; but
it would be all the better for you to talk a little on his subjects. I think his
conversation is quite agreeable. And he is anything but an unprincipled man.«
    »The fact is, you would wish me to be a little more like him, Rosy,« said
Lydgate, in a sort of resigned murmur, with a smile which was not exactly
tender, and certainly not merry. Rosamond was silent and did not smile again;
but the lovely curves of her face looked good-tempered enough without smiling.
    Those words of Lydgate's were like a sad milestone marking how far he had
travelled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincy appeared to be that
perfect piece of womanhood who would reverence her husband's mind after the
fashion of an accomplished mermaid, using her comb and looking-glass and singing
her song for the relaxation of his adored wisdom alone. He had begun to
distinguish between that imagined adoration and the attraction towards a man's
talent because it gives him prestige, and is like an order in his button-hole or
an Honourable before his name.
    It might have been supposed that Rosamond had travelled too, since she had
found the pointless conversation of Mr. Ned Plymdale perfectly wearisome; but to
most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is
altogether acceptable - else, indeed, what would become of social bonds? Captain
Lydgate's stupidity was delicately scented, carried itself with »style,« talked
with a good accent, and was closely related
