those definite things to say or to show which give the way-marks of
a patient uninterrupted pursuit, such as he used himself to insist on, saying
that »there must be a systole and diastole in all inquiry,« and that »a man's
mind must be continually expanding and shrinking between the whole human horizon
and the horizon of an object-glass.« That evening he seemed to be talking widely
for the sake of resisting any personal bearing; and before long they went into
the drawing-room, where Lydgate, having asked Rosamond to give them music, sank
back in his chair in silence, but with a strange light in his eyes. »He may have
been taking an opiate,« was a thought that crossed Mr. Farebrother's mind -
»tic-douloureux perhaps - or medical worries.«
    It did not occur to him that Lydgate's marriage was not delightful: he
believed, as the rest did, that Rosamond was an amiable, docile creature, though
he had always thought her rather uninteresting - a little too much the
pattern-card of the finishing-school; and his mother could not forgive Rosamond
because she never seemed to see that Henrietta Noble was in the room. »However,
Lydgate fell in love with her,« said the Vicar to himself, »and she must be to
his taste.«
    Mr. Farebrother was aware that Lydgate was a proud man, but having very
little corresponding fibre in himself, and perhaps too little care about
personal dignity, except the dignity of not being mean or foolish, he could
hardly allow enough for the way in which Lydgate shrank, as from a burn, from
the utterance of any word about his private affairs. And soon after that
conversation at Mr. Toller's, the Vicar learned something which made him watch
the more eagerly for an opportunity of indirectly letting Lydgate know that if
he wanted to open himself about any difficulty there was a friendly ear ready.
    The opportunity came at Mr. Vincy's, where, on New Year's Day, there was a
party, to which Mr. Farebrother was irresistibly invited, on the plea that he
must not forsake his old friends on the first new year of his being a greater
man, and Rector as well as Vicar. And this party was thoroughly friendly: all
the ladies of the Farebrother family were present; the Vincy children all dined
at the table, and Fred had persuaded his mother that if she did not invite Mary
Garth, the Farebrothers would regard it as a slight to themselves, Mary being
their