her
hand and her foot; and across this image of Felix Holt's indifference and
contempt there passed the vaguer image of a possible somebody who would admire
her hands and feet, and delight in looking at their beauty, and long, yet not
dare, to kiss them. Life would be much easier in the presence of such a love.
But it was precisely this longing after her own satisfaction that Felix had
reproached her with. Did he want her to be heroic? That seemed impossible
without some great occasion. Her life was a heap of fragments, and so were her
thoughts: some great energy was needed to bind them together. Esther was
beginning to lose her complacency at her own wit and criticism; to lose the
sense of superiority in an awakening need for reliance on one whose vision was
wider, whose nature was purer and stronger than her own. But then, she said to
herself, that one must be tender to her, not rude and predominating in his
manners. A man with any chivalry in him could never adopt a scolding tone
towards a woman - that is, towards a charming woman. But Felix had no chivalry
in him. He loved lecturing and opinion too well ever to love any woman.
    In this way Esther strove to see that Felix was thoroughly in the wrong - at
least, if he did not come again expressly to show that he was sorry.
 

                                   Chapter 16

            TRUEBLUE. These men have no votes. Why should I court them?
             GREYFOX. No votes, but power.
             TRUEBLUE. What! over charities?
             GREYFOX. No, over brains; which disturbs the canvass. In a natural
            state of things the average price of a vote at Paddle-brook is nine-
            and-sixpence, throwing the fifty-pound tenants, who cost nothing,
            into the divisor. But these talking men cause an artificial rise of
            prices.
 
The expected important knock at the door came about twelve o'clock, and Esther
could hear that there were two visitors. Immediately the parlour door was opened
and the shaggy-haired, cravatless image of Felix Holt, which was then just full
in the mirror of Esther's mind, was displaced by the highly-contrasted
appearance of a personage whose name she guessed before Mr Jermyn had announced
it. The perfect morning costume of that day differed much from our present
ideal: it was essential that a gentleman's chin should be well propped, that his
collar should have a voluminous roll, that his waistcoat should imply much
discrimination, and that his buttons should be arranged in a manner which would
now expose him to