Will had not been invited to dine the next day.  Hence he persuaded himself that he was bound to call, and that the only eligible time was the middle of the day, when Mr. Casaubon would not be at home.

Dorothea, who had not been made aware that her former reception of Will had displeased her husband, had no hesitation about seeing him, especially as he might be come to pay a farewell visit.  When he entered she was looking at some cameos which she had been buying for Celia.  She greeted Will as if his visit were quite a matter of course, and said at once, having a cameo bracelet in her hand—­

“I am so glad you are come.  Perhaps you understand all about cameos, and can tell me if these are really good.  I wished to have you with us in choosing them, but Mr. Casaubon objected:  he thought there was not time.  He will finish his work to-morrow, and we shall go away in three days.  I have been uneasy about these cameos.  Pray sit down and look at them.”

“I am not particularly knowing, but there can be no great mistake about these little Homeric bits:  they are exquisitely neat.  And the color is fine:  it will just suit you.”

“Oh, they are for my sister, who has quite a different complexion.  You saw her with me at Lowick:  she is light-haired and very pretty—­ at least I think so.  We were never so long away from each other in our lives before.  She is a great pet and never was naughty in her life.  I found out before I came away that she wanted me to buy her some cameos, and I should be sorry for them not to be good—­after their kind.”  Dorothea added the last words with a smile.

“You seem not to care about cameos,” said Will, seating himself at some distance from her, and observing her while she closed the cases.

“No, frankly, I don’t think them a great object in life,” said Dorothea

“I fear you are a heretic about art generally.  How is that?  I should have expected you to be very sensitive to the beautiful everywhere.”

“I suppose I am dull about many things,” said Dorothea, simply.  “I should like to make life beautiful—­I mean everybody’s life.  And then all this immense expense of art, that seems somehow to lie outside life and make it no better for the world, pains one.  It spoils my enjoyment of anything when I am made to think that most people are shut out from it.”

“I call that the fanaticism of sympathy,” said Will, impetuously.  “You might say the same of landscape, of poetry, of all refinement.  If you carried it out you ought to be miserable in your own goodness, and turn evil that you might have no advantage over others.  The best piety is to enjoy—­when you can.  You are doing the most then to save the earth’s character as an agreeable planet.  And enjoyment radiates.  It is of no use to try and take care of all the world; that is being taken care of when you feel delight—­ in art or in anything else.  Would you turn all the youth of the world into a tragic chorus, wailing and moralizing over misery?  I suspect that you have some false belief in the virtues of misery, and want to make your life a martyrdom.”  Will had gone further than he intended, and checked himself.  But Dorothea’s thought was not taking just the same direction as his own, and she answered without any special emotion—­