It was impossible to see her, to talk to her with any pleasure in the public drawing-room.  Lucia could not come into his study as long as it was his; but if he gave it up to her and her friend, it was just possible that he might be permitted to call on her there.  That she accepted him as a friend he could not any longer doubt.  There were so many things that he had to say to her, such long arrears of explanation and understanding to make up.  He could see that, unlike the Lucia he used to know, she had misunderstood him; indeed she had owned as much.  And for this he had to thank Horace Jewdwine.

Jewdwine’s behaviour gave him much matter for reflection, painful, but instructive.  Jewdwine had not lied to him about Lucia’s movements; but he had allowed him to remain in error.  He had kept his cousin regularly posted in the news she had asked for, as concerning an unfortunate young man in whom they were both interested; but he had contrived that no sign of her solicitude should reach the object of it.  It was as if he had been merely anxious to render an account of his stewardship; to assure her that the unfortunate young man was now prospering under his protection, was indeed doing so well that there was no occasion for Lucia to worry herself about him any more.  Apparently he had even gone so far as to admit that there was friendship between Rickman and himself, while taking care that there should never be anything of the sort between Rickman and Lucia.  He had constituted himself a way by which news of Rickman might reach Lucia; but he had sternly closed every path from Lucia to Rickman.  That meant that Lucia might be depended upon; but that Rickman must be allowed no footing lest he should advance too far.  In other words it meant that they acknowledged, and always would acknowledge, the genius while they judged it expedient to ignore the man.

But she had not always ignored him.  Did it not rather mean, then, that Jewdwine would not trust her there; that, knowing her nature and how defenceless it lay before the impulses of its own kindness, he feared for her any personal communication with his friend?  It did not occur to Rickman that what Jewdwine dreaded more than anything for Lucia was the influence of a unique and irresistible personal charm.  As far as he could see, Jewdwine was merely desperately anxious to protect his kinswoman from what he considered an undesirable acquaintance.  And five years ago his fears and his behaviour would have been justifiable; for Rickman owned that at that period he had not been fit to sit in the same room with Lucia Harden, far less, if it came to that, than poor Soper.  But his life since he had known her was judged even by Jewdwine to be irreproachable.  As Rickman understood the situation, he had been sacrificed to a prejudice, a convention, an ineradicable class-feeling on the part of the distinguished and fastidious don.  It was not the class-feeling itself that he resented;