“The house was small, and no matter how Victorian and decorous Cyrus and Elizabeth tried to be, Lockwood must have heard them making love and that must have tormented him. Then, Cyrus went off on the trip that was supposed to last two weeks but turned into six. Again, Lockwood and Elizabeth are alone. Two weeks pass, then three, and no word from Cyrus. There was the fear that he had been lost, but for Elizabeth there would be another fear. That he was with someone else or looking for someone else, a new broodmare. Now, let’s imagine this, not for the fun of it, but because it’s plausible. There is a dance in town, Lockwood and Elizabeth go to it to get out of the house, the Empress and the heir apparent. They drink a little punch, maybe they even dance together. Inhibitions are loosened, but Elizabeth’s mind is working clearly. Lockwood looks like Cyrus, he’s young, virile, and she needs to know, is it her or is it Cyrus? And, more than anything, she needs a baby. We can assume she must have felt some sexual tension from Lockwood, and I would guess that also put the idea of seducing him into her head. But how was she to do it? I mean, she must have been terrified by herself, she probably could not believe that she had such audacity. But I can picture her playing on his desires and his sympathies. That could have been when she told him that he was illegitmate, and learning that he’d been lied to all his life could have undermined whatever loyalties he felt toward his father. She tells Lockwood that she’s afraid his father will leave her if she dosen’t give him a baby. She starts to cry. Lockwood goes to comfort her, there is an embrace that starts off platonically but doesn’t end that way. She’s older, cleverer, she’s in control, but I would imagine the whole thing had been very difficult for her. She was doing something reprehensible to live. Like a prostitute. And for Lockwood? It could well have been his first time, and everything that implies. He would have fallen in love. Anyway, he would have thought it was love. Can’t tell the difference between heart and glands at that age. Afterward? She tutors Lockwood on how to act from now on, how to never give the least little hint that something is amiss, even though, in matters like this, Cyrus is thick as a plank, a human ironclad. This is a woman, don’t forget, who knew how to live a lie. Myles told me that his father told him that there was always a strange distance between Elizabeth and Lockwood, they were at arms’ length. It could be I’m all wet and nothing ever went on between them, but if I am right, then that distance, that coolness Eliot saw might have been a ruse. It was part of the camouflage.