Sir James was getting warm.
"Of course, my dear Chettam, of course. But you and I have different
ideas--different--"
"Not about this action of Casaubon's, I should hope," interrupted Sir
James. "I say that he has most unfairly compromised Dorothea. I say
that there never was a meaner, more ungentlemanly action than this--a
codicil of this sort to a will which he made at the time of his
marriage with the knowledge and reliance of her family--a positive
insult to Dorothea!"
"Well, you know, Casaubon was a little twisted about Ladislaw.
Ladislaw has told me the reason--dislike of the bent he took, you
know--Ladislaw didn't think much of Casaubon's notions, Thoth and
Dagon--that sort of thing: and I fancy that Casaubon didn't like the
independent position Ladislaw had taken up. I saw the letters between
them, you know. Poor Casaubon was a little buried in books--he didn't
know the world."
"It's all very well for Ladislaw to put that color on it," said Sir
James. "But I believe Casaubon was only jealous of him on Dorothea's
account, and the world will suppose that she gave him some reason; and
that is what makes it so abominable--coupling her name with this young
fellow's."
"My dear Chettam, it won't lead to anything, you know," said Mr.
Brooke, seating himself and sticking on his eye-glass again. "It's all
of a piece with Casaubon's oddity. This paper, now, 'Synoptical
Tabulation' and so on, 'for the use of Mrs. Casaubon,' it was locked up
in the desk with the will. I suppose he meant Dorothea to publish his
researches, eh? and she'll do it, you know; she has gone into his
studies uncommonly."
"My dear sir," said Sir James, impatiently, "that is neither here nor
there. The question is, whether you don't see with me the propriety of
sending young Ladislaw away?"
"Well, no, not the urgency of the thing. By-and-by, perhaps, it may
come round. As to gossip, you know, sending him away won't hinder
gossip. People say what they like to say, not what they have chapter
and verse for," said Mr Brooke, becoming acute about the truths that
lay on the side of his own wishes. "I might get rid of Ladislaw up to
a certain point--take away the 'Pioneer' from him, and that sort of
thing; but I couldn't send him out of the country if he didn't choose
to go--didn't choose, you know."
Mr. Brooke, persisting as quietly as if he were only discussing the
nature of last year's weather, and nodding at the end with his usual
amenity, was an exasperating form of obstinacy.
"Good God!" said Sir James, with as much passion as he ever showed,
"let us get him a post; let us spend money on him. If he could go in
the suite of some Colonial Governor! Grampus might take him--and I
could write to Fulke about it."