CHAPTER VIII.

"Oh, rescue her! I am her brother now,
And you her father. Every gentle maid
Should have a guardian in each gentleman."


It was wonderful to Sir James Chettam how well he continued to like
going to the Grange after he had once encountered the difficulty
of seeing Dorothea for the first time in the light of a woman who was
engaged to another man. Of course the forked lightning seemed to pass
through him when he first approached her, and he remained conscious
throughout the interview of hiding uneasiness; but, good as he was,
it must be owned that his uneasiness was less than it would have
been if he had thought his rival a brilliant and desirable match.
He had no sense of being eclipsed by Mr. Casaubon; he was only shocked
that Dorothea was under a melancholy illusion, and his mortification
lost some of its bitterness by being mingled with compassion.

Nevertheless, while Sir James said to himself that he had
completely resigned her, since with the perversity of a Desdemona
she had not affected a proposed match that was clearly suitable
and according to nature; he could not yet be quite passive under
the idea of her engagement to Mr. Casaubon. On the day when he
first saw them together in the light of his present knowledge,
it seemed to him that he had not taken the affair seriously enough.
Brooke was really culpable; he ought to have hindered it. Who could