第151章

The work was half done before she came to Ullathorne, and when could she have a better opportunity of completing it? She had had almost enough of Mr Slope, though she could not quite resist the fun of driving a very sanctimonious clergyman to madness by a desperate and ruinous passion. Mr Thorne had fallen too easily to give much pleasure in the chase. His position as a man of wealth might make his alliance of value, but as a lover he was very second-rate. We may say that she regarded him somewhat as a sportsman does a pheasant. The bird is so easily shot, that he would not be worth the shooting were it not for the very respectable appearance that he makes in a larder. The signora would not waste much time in shooting Mr Thorne, but still he was worth bagging for family uses.

But Mr Arabin was game of another sort. The signora was herself possessed of quite sufficient intelligence to know that Mr Arabin was a man more than usually intellectual. She knew also, that as a clergyman he was of a much higher stamp than Mr Slope, and that as gentleman he was better educated than Mr Thorne. She would never have attempted to drive Mr Arabin into ridiculous misery as she did Mr Slope, nor would she think it possible to dispose of him in ten minutes as she had done with Mr Thorne.

Such were her reflections about Mr Arabin. As to Mr Arabin, it cannot be said that he reflected at all about the signora.

He knew that she was beautiful, and he felt that she was able to charm him. He required charming in his present misery, and therefore he went and stood at the head of her couch. She knew all about it. Such were her peculiar gifts.

It was her nature to see that he required charming, and it was her province to charm him. As the Easter idler swallows his dose of opium, as the London reprobate swallows his dose of gin, so with similar desire and for similar reasons did Mr Arabin prepare to swallow the charms of the Signora Neroni.

'Why aren't you shooting with bows and arrows, Mr Arabin?' said she, when they were nearly alone together in the sitting-room; 'or talking with young ladies in shady bowers, or turning your talents to account in some way? What was a bachelor like you asked here for? Don't you mean to earn your cold chicken and champagne? Were Iyou, I should be ashamed to be so idle.'

Mr Arabin murmured some sort of answer. Though he wished to be charmed, he as hardly yet in a mood to be playful in return.

'Why, what ails you, Mr Arabin?' said she, 'here you are in your own parish; Miss Thorne tells me that her party is given expressly in your honour; and yet you are the only dull man in it. Your friend Mr Slope was with me a few minutes since, full of life and spirits' why don't you rival him?'

It was not difficult for so acute an observer as Madeline Neroni to see that she had hit the nail on the head and driven the bolt home.

Mr Arabin winced visibly before her attack, and she knew at once that he was jealous of Mr Slope.

'But I look on you and Mr Slope as the very antipodes of men,' said she. 'There is nothing in which you are not each the reverse of the other, except in belonging to the same profession; and even in that you are so unlike as perfectly to maintain the rule. He is gregarious, you are given to solitude. He is active, you are passive. He works, you think. He likes women, you despise them. He is fond of position and power, and so are you, but for directly different reasons. He loves to be praised, you very foolishly abhor it. He will gain his rewards, which will be an insipid useful wife, a comfortable income, and a reputation for sanctimony. You will also gain yours.'

'Well, and what will they be?' said Mr Arabin, who knew that he was being flattered, and yet suffered himself to put up with it. 'What will be my rewards?'

'The heart of some woman whom you will be too austere to own that you love, and the respect of some few friends which you will be too proud to own that you value.'

'Rich rewards,' said he; 'but of little worth if they are to be so treated.'

'Oh, you are not to look for such success as awaits Mr Slope. He is born to be a successful man. He suggests to himself an object, and then starts for it with eager intention. Nothing will deter him from his pursuit. He will have no scruples, no fears, no hesitation. His desire is to be a bishop with a rising family, the wife will come first, and in due time the apron. You will see all this, and then--'

'Well, and what then?'

'Then you will begin to wish that you had done the same.'

Mr Arabin look placidly out at the lawn, and resting his shoulder on the head of the sofa, rubbed his chin with his hand. It was a trick he had when he was thinking deeply; and what the signora said made him think. Was it not all true? Would he not hereafter look back, if not at Mr Slope, at some others, people not equally gifted with himself, who had risen in the world while he had lagged behind, and then wish that he had done the same?

'Is not such the doom of all speculative men of talent?' said she.

'Do they not all sit rapt as you now are, cutting imaginary silken cords with their fine edges, while those not so highly tempered sever the every-day Gordian knots of the world's struggle, and win wealth and renown? Steel too highly polished, edges too sharp, do not do for this world's work, Mr Arabin.'

Who was this woman that thus read the secrets of his heart, and re-uttered to him the unwelcome bodings of his own soul? He looked full into her face when she had done speaking, and said, 'Am I one of those foolish blades, too sharp and too fine to do a useful day's work?'

'Why do you let the Slopes of the world out-distance you?' said she. 'It not the blood in your veins as warm as his? does not your pulse beat as fast? Has not God made you a man, and intended you to do a man's work here, ay, and to take a man's wages also?'