“It is impossible that I should ever marry Sir James Chettam,” said Dorothea. “If he thinks of marrying me, he has made a great mistake.”
“That is it, you see. One never knows. I should have thought Chettam was just the sort of man a woman would like, now.”
“Pray do not mention him in that light again, uncle,” said Dorothea, feeling some of her late irritation revive.
Mr. Brooke wondered, and felt that women were an inexhaustible subject of study, since even he at his age was not in a perfect state of scientific prediction about them. Here was a fellow like Chettam with no chance at all.
“Well, but Casaubon, now. There is no hurry—I mean for you. It’s true, every year will tell upon him. He is over five-and-forty, you know. I should say a good seven-and-twenty years older than you. To be sure—if