“If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit,” said Will, with irrepressible quickness.  But through certain sensibilities Dorothea was as quick as he, and seeing her face change, he added, immediately, “But it is quite true that the best minds have been sometimes overstrained in working out their ideas.”

“You correct me,” said Dorothea.  “I expressed myself ill.  I should have said that those who have great thoughts get too much worn in working them out.  I used to feel about that, even when I was a little girl; and it always seemed to me that the use I should like to make of my life would be to help some one who did great works, so that his burthen might be lighter.”

Dorothea was led on to this bit of autobiography without any sense of making a revelation.  But she had never before said anything to Will which threw so strong a light on her marriage.  He did not shrug his shoulders; and for want of that muscular outlet he thought the more irritably of beautiful lips kissing holy skulls and other emptinesses ecclesiastically enshrined.  Also he had to take care that his speech should not betray that thought.

“But you may easily carry the help too far,” he said, “and get over-wrought yourself.  Are you not too much shut up?  You already look paler.  It would be better for Mr. Casaubon to have a secretary; he could easily get a man who would do half his work for him.  It would save him more effectually, and you need only help him in lighter ways.”

“How can you think of that?” said Dorothea, in a tone of earnest remonstrance.  “I should have no happiness if I did not help him in his work.  What could I do?  There is no good to be done in Lowick.  The only thing I desire is to help him more.  And he objects to a secretary:  please not to mention that again.”

“Certainly not, now I know your feeling.  But I have heard both Mr. Brooke and Sir James Chettam express the same wish.”

“Yes?” said Dorothea, “but they don’t understand—­they want me to be a great deal on horseback, and have the garden altered and new conservatories, to fill up my days.  I thought you could understand that one’s mind has other wants,” she added, rather impatiently—­ “besides, Mr. Casaubon cannot bear to hear of a secretary.”

“My mistake is excusable,” said Will.  “In old days I used to hear Mr. Casaubon speak as if he looked forward to having a secretary.  Indeed he held out the prospect of that office to me.  But I turned out to be—­not good enough for it.”

Dorothea was trying to extract out of this an excuse for her husband’s evident repulsion, as she said, with a playful smile, “You were not a steady worker enough.”

“No,” said Will, shaking his head backward somewhat after the manner of a spirited horse.  And then, the old irritable demon prompting him to give another good pinch at the moth-wings of poor Mr. Casaubon’s glory, he went on, “And I have seen since that Mr. Casaubon does not like any one to overlook his work and know thoroughly what he is doing.  He is too doubtful—­too uncertain of himself.  I may not be good for much, but he dislikes me because I disagree with him.”