Trumbull was mounted with
desk and hammer; but the rows chiefly of masculine faces behind were
often varied by incomings and outgoings both from the door and the
large bow-window opening on to the lawn.

"Everybody" that day did not include Mr. Bulstrode, whose health could
not well endure crowds and draughts. But Mrs. Bulstrode had
particularly wished to have a certain picture--a "Supper at Emmaus,"
attributed in the catalogue to Guido; and at the last moment before the
day of the sale Mr. Bulstrode had called at the office of the
"Pioneer," of which he was now one of the proprietors, to beg of Mr.
Ladislaw as a great favor that he would obligingly use his remarkable
knowledge of pictures on behalf of Mrs. Bulstrode, and judge of the
value of this particular painting--"if," added the scrupulously polite
banker, "attendance at the sale would not interfere with the
arrangements for your departure, which I know is imminent."

This proviso might have sounded rather satirically in Will's ear if he
had been in a mood to care about such satire. It referred to an
understanding entered into many weeks before with the proprietors of
the paper, that he should be at liberty any day he pleased to hand over
the management to the subeditor whom he had been training; since he
wished finally to quit Middlemarch. But indefinite visions of ambition
are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly
agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve
when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary. In such
states of mind the most incredulous person has a private leaning
towards miracle: impossible to conceive how our wish could be
fulfilled, still--very wonderful things have happened! Will did not
confess this weakness to himself, but he lingered. What was the use of
going to London at that time of the year? The Rugby men who would
remember him were not there; and so far as political writing was
concerned, he would rather for a few weeks go on with the "Pioneer."
At the present moment, however, when Mr. Bulstrode was speaking to him,
he had both a strengthened resolve to go and an equally strong resolve
not to go till he had once more seen Dorothea. Hence he replied that
he had reasons for deferring his departure a little, and would be happy
to go to the sale.

Will was in a defiant mood, his consciousness being deeply stung with
the thought that the people who looked at him probably