They are spoiling your fine temper."

All Will's hope and contrivance were now concentrated on seeing
Dorothea when she was alone. He only wanted her to take more
emphatic notice of him; he only wanted to be something more special
in her remembrance than he could yet believe himself likely to be.
He was rather impatient under that open ardent good-will, reach he
saw was her usual state of feeling. The remote worship of a woman
throned out of their reach plays a great part in men's lives,
but in most cases the worshipper longs for some queenly recognition,
some approving sign by which his soul's sovereign may cheer him without
descending from her high place. That was precisely what Will wanted.
But there were plenty of contradictions in his imaginative demands.
It was beautiful to see how Dorothea's eyes turned with wifely
anxiety and beseeching to Mr. Casaubon: she would have lost some
of her halo if she had been without that duteous preoccupation;
and yet at the next moment the husband's sandy absorption of such
nectar was too intolerable; and Will's longing to say damaging things
about him was perhaps not the less tormenting because he felt the
strongest reasons for restraining it.

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,