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?’


  By PanEris using Melati.

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