Will Ladislaw on his side felt that his dislike was flourishing at the expense of his gratitude, and spent much inward discourse in justifying the dislike.
Casaubon hated him—he knew that very well; on his first entrance he could discern a bitterness in the mouth and a venom in the glance which would almost justify declaring war in spite of past benefits.
He was much obliged to Casaubon in the past, but really the act of marrying this wife was a set-off against the obligation.
It was a question whether gratitude which refers to what is done for one's self ought not to give way to indignation at what is done against another.
And Casaubon had done a wrong to Dorothea in marrying her.
A man was bound to know himself better than that, and if he chose to grow gray crunching bones in a cavern, he had no business to be luring a girl into his companionship.
"It is the most horrible of virgin-sacrifices," said Will; and he painted to himself what were Dorothea's inward sorrows as if he had been writing a choric wail.
But he would never lose sight of her: he would watch over her—if he gave up everything else in life he would watch over her, and she should know that she had one slave in the world, Will had—to use Sir Thomas Browne's phrase—a "passionate prodigality" of statement both to himself and others.
The simple truth was that nothing then invited him so strongly as the presence of Dorothea.
Invitations of the formal kind had been wanting, however, for Will had never been asked to go to Lowick.
Mr. Brooke, indeed, confident of doing everything agreeable which Casaubon, poor fellow, was too much absorbed to think of, had arranged to bring Ladislaw to Lowick several times (not neglecting meanwhile to introduce him elsewhere on every opportunity as "a young relative of Casaubon's").
And though Will had not seen Dorothea alone, their interviews had been enough to restore her former sense of young companionship with one who was cleverer than herself, yet seemed ready to be swayed by her.
Poor Dorothea before her marriage had never found much room in other minds for what she cared most to say; and she had not, as we know, enjoyed her husband's superior instruction so much as she had expected.
If she spoke with any keenness of interest to Mr. Casaubon, he heard her with an air of patience as if she had given a quotation from the Delectus familiar to him from his tender years, and sometimes mentioned curtly what ancient sects or personages had held similar ideas, as if there were too much of that sort in stock already; at other times he would inform her that she was mistaken, and reassert what her remark had questioned.
But Will Ladislaw always seemed to see more in what she said than she herself saw.
Dorothea had little vanity, but she had the ardent woman's need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul.
Hence the mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette opened in the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny air; and this pleasure began to nullify her original alarm at what her husband might think about the introduction of Will as her uncle's guest.
On this subject Mr. Casaubon had remained dumb.
But Will wanted to talk with Dorothea alone, and was impatient of slow circumstance.
However slight the terrestrial intercourse between Dante and Beatrice or Petrarch and Laura, time changes the proportion of things, and in later days it is preferable to have fewer sonnets and more conversation.
Necessity excused stratagem, but stratagem was limited by the dread of offending Dorothea.
He found out at last that he wanted to take a particular sketch at Lowick; and one morning when Mr. Brooke had to drive along the Lowick road on his way to the county town, Will asked to be set down with his sketch-book and camp-stool at Lowick, and without announcing himself at the Manor settled himself to sketch in a position where he must see Dorothea if she came out to walk—and he knew that she usually walked an hour in the morning.
But the stratagem was defeated by the weather.
Clouds gathered with treacherous quickness, the rain came down, and Will was obliged to take shelter in the house.
He intended, on the strength of relationship, to go into the drawing-room and wait there without being announced; and seeing his old acquaintance the butler in the hall, he said,
"Don't mention that I am here, Pratt; I will wait till luncheon; I know Mr. Casaubon does not like to be disturbed when he is in the library."
"Master is out, sir; there's only Mrs. Casaubon in the library. I'd better tell her you're here, sir," said Pratt, a red-cheeked man given to lively converse with Tantripp, and often agreeing with her that it must be dull for Madam.
"Oh, very well; this confounded rain has hindered me from sketching," said Will, feeling so happy that he affected indifference with delightful ease.
In another minute he was in the library, and Dorothea was meeting him with her sweet unconstrained smile.
"Mr. Casaubon has gone to the Archdeacon's," she said, at once.
"I don't know whether he will be at home again long before dinner.
He was uncertain how long he should be.
Did you want to say anything particular to him?"
"No; I came to sketch, but the rain drove me in.
Else I would not have disturbed you yet. I supposed that Mr. Casaubon was here, and I know he dislikes interruption at this hour."
"I am indebted to the rain, then.
I am so glad to see you."
Dorothea uttered these common words with the simple sincerity of an unhappy child, visited at school.
"I really came for the chance of seeing you alone," said Will, mysteriously forced to be just as simple as she was. He could not stay to ask himself, why not?
"I wanted to talk about things, as we did in Rome.
It always makes a difference when other people are present."
"Yes," said Dorothea, in her clear full tone of assent.
"Sit down."
She seated herself on a dark ottoman with the brown books behind her, looking in her plain dress of some thin woollen-white material, without a single ornament on her besides her wedding-ring, as if she were under a vow to be different from all other women; and Will sat down opposite her at two yards' distance, the light falling on his bright curls and delicate but rather petulant profile, with its defiant curves of lip and chin.
Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there.
Dorothea for the moment forgot her husband's mysterious irritation against Will: it seemed fresh water at her thirsty lips to speak without fear to the one person whom she had found receptive; for in looking backward through sadness she exaggerated a past solace.
"I have often thought that I should like to talk to you again," she said, immediately.
"It seems strange to me how many things I said to you."
"I remember them all," said Will, with the unspeakable content in his soul of feeling that he was in the presence of a creature worthy to be perfectly loved.
I think his own feelings at that moment were perfect, for we mortals have our divine moments, when love is satisfied in the completeness of the beloved object.