Who could help it, being in daily intercourse with such a woman?
Smirke was madly in love (as far as such a mild flame as Mr.Smirke's may be called madness) with Mrs.Pendennis.That honest lady, sitting down below stairs teaching little Laura to play the piano, or devising flannel petticoats for the poor round about her, or otherwise busied with the calm routine of her modest and spotless Christian life, was little aware what storms were brewing in two bosoms upstairs in the study--in Pen's, as he sate in his shooting jacket, with his elbows on the green study-table, and his hands clutching his curly brown hair, Homer under his nose,--and in worthy Mr.Smirke's, with whom he was reading.

Here they would talk about Helen and Andromache.

"Andromache's like my mother," Pen used to avouch; "but I say, Smirke, by Jove I'd cut off my nose to see Helen;" and he would spout certain favourite lines which the reader will find in their proper place in the third book.

He drew portraits of her--they are extant still--with straight noses and enormous eyes, and 'Arthur Pendennis delineavit et pinxit' gallantly written underneath.
As for Mr.Smirke he naturally preferred Andromache.

And in consequence he was uncommonly kind to Pen.