Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope [top business books of all time .txt] 📗

he stand up and preach the lessons of his Master, being there, as he was, on the devil’s business? He was a true believer, otherwise this would have been nothing to him. He had audacity for most things, but he had not audacity to make a plaything of the Lord’s word. All this the signora understood, and felt much interest as she saw her cockchafer whirl round upon her pin.

“Your wit delights in such arguments,” said he, “but your heart and your reason do not go along with them.”

“My heart!” said she; “you quite mistake the principles of my composition if you imagine that there is such a thing about me.” After all, there was very little that was false in anything that the signora said. If Mr. Slope allowed himself to be deceived, it was his own fault. Nothing could have been more open than her declarations about herself.

The little writing-table with her desk was still standing before her, a barrier, as it were, against the enemy. She was sitting as nearly upright as she ever did, and he had brought a chair close to the sofa, so that there was only the corner of the table between him and her. It so happened that as she spoke her hand lay upon the table, and as Mr. Slope answered her he put his hand upon hers.

“No heart!” said he. “That is a heavy charge which you bring against yourself, and one of which I cannot find you guilty⁠—”

She withdrew her hand, not quickly and angrily, as though insulted by his touch, but gently and slowly.

“You are in no condition to give a verdict on the matter,” said she, “as you have not tried me. No, don’t say that you intend doing so, for you know you have no intention of the kind; nor indeed have I, either. As for you, you will take your vows where they will result in something more substantial than the pursuit of such a ghostlike, ghastly love as mine⁠—”

“Your love should be sufficient to satisfy the dream of a monarch,” said Mr. Slope, not quite clear as to the meaning of his words.

“Say an archbishop, Mr. Slope,” said she. Poor fellow! She was very cruel to him. He went round again upon his cork on this allusion to his profession. He tried, however, to smile and gently accused her of joking on a matter, which was, he said, to him of such vital moment.

“Why⁠—what gulls do you men make of us,” she replied. “How you fool us to the top of our bent; and of all men you clergymen are the most fluent of your honeyed, caressing words. Now look me in the face, Mr. Slope, boldly and openly.”

Mr. Slope did look at her with a languishing loving eye, and as he did so he again put forth his hand to get hold of hers.

“I told you to look at me boldly, Mr. Slope, but confine your boldness to your eyes.”

“Oh, Madeline!” he sighed.

“Well, my name is Madeline,” said she, “but none except my own family usually call me so. Now look me in the face, Mr. Slope. Am I to understand that you say you love me?”

Mr. Slope never had said so. If he had come there with any formed plan at all, his intention was to make love to the lady without uttering any such declaration. It was, however, quite impossible that he should now deny his love. He had, therefore, nothing for it but to go down on his knees distractedly against the sofa and swear that he did love her with a love passing the love of man.

The signora received the assurance with very little palpitation or appearance of surprise. “And now answer me another question,” said she. “When are you to be married to my dear friend Eleanor Bold?”

Poor Mr. Slope went round and round in mortal agony. In such a condition as his it was really very hard for him to know what answer to give. And yet no answer would be his surest condemnation. He might as well at once plead guilty to the charge brought against him.

“And why do you accuse me of such dissimulation?” said he.

“Dissimulation! I said nothing of dissimulation. I made no charge against you, and make none. Pray don’t defend yourself to me. You swear that you are devoted to my beauty, and yet you are on the eve of matrimony with another. I feel this to be rather a compliment. It is to Mrs. Bold that you must defend yourself. That you may find difficult; unless, indeed, you can keep her in the dark. You clergymen are cleverer than other men.”

“Signora, I have told you that I loved you, and now you rail at me.”

“Rail at you. God bless the man; what would he have? Come, answer me this at your leisure⁠—not without thinking now, but leisurely and with consideration⁠—are you not going to be married to Mrs. Bold?”

“I am not,” said he. And as he said it he almost hated, with an exquisite hatred, the woman whom he could not help loving with an exquisite love.

“But surely you are a worshipper of hers?”

“I am not,” said Mr. Slope, to whom the word worshipper was peculiarly distasteful. The signora had conceived that it would be so.

“I wonder at that,” said she. “Do you not admire her? To my eye she is the perfection of English beauty. And then she is rich, too. I should have thought she was just the person to attract you. Come, Mr. Slope, let me give you advice on this matter. Marry the charming widow; she will be a good mother to your children and an excellent mistress of a clergyman’s household.”

“Oh, signora, how can you be so cruel?”

“Cruel,” said she, changing the voice of banter which she had been using for one which was expressively earnest in its tone; “is that cruelty?”

“How can I love another while my heart is entirely your own?”

“If that were cruelty, Mr. Slope, what might you say of me if I were to declare that I