Mr. Slope, as was his custom, asked for Mr. Stanhope, and was told, as was the servant’s custom, that the signora was in the drawing-room. Upstairs he accordingly went. He found her, as he always did, lying on her sofa with a French volume before her and a beautiful little inlaid writing-case open on her table. At the moment of his entrance she was in the act of writing.
“Ah, my friend,” said she, putting out her left hand to him across her desk, “I did not expect you to-day and was this very instant writing to you—”
Mr. Slope, taking the soft, fair, delicate hand in his—and very soft and fair and delicate it was—bowed over it his huge red head and kissed it. It was a sight to see, a deed to record if the author could fitly do it, a picture to put on canvas. Mr. Slope was big, awkward, cumbrous, and, having his heart in his pursuit, was ill at ease. The lady was fair, as we have said, and delicate; everything about her was fine and refined; her hand in his looked like a rose lying among carrots, and when he kissed it, he looked as a cow might do on finding such a flower among her food. She was graceful as a couchant goddess and, moreover, as self-possessed as Venus must have been when courting Adonis.
Oh, that such grace and such beauty should have condescended to waste itself on such a pursuit!
“I was in the act of writing to you,” said she, “but now my scrawl may go into the basket;” and she raised the sheet of gilded notepaper from off her desk as though to tear it.
“Indeed it shall not,” said he, laying the embargo of half a stone weight of human flesh and blood upon the devoted paper. “Nothing that you write for my eyes, signora, shall be so desecrated,” and he took up the letter, put that also among the carrots and fed on it, and then proceeded to read it.
“Gracious me! Mr. Slope,” said she, “I hope you don’t mean to say you keep all the trash I write to you. Half my time I don’t know what I write, and when I do, I know it is only fit for the back of the fire. I hope you have not that ugly trick of keeping letters.”
“At any rate, I don’t throw them into a waste-paper basket. If destruction is their doomed lot, they perish worthily, and are burnt on a pyre, as Dido was of old.”
“With a steel pen stuck through them, of course,” said she, “to make the simile more complete. Of all the ladies of my acquaintance I think Lady Dido was the most absurd. Why did she not do as Cleopatra did? Why did she not take out her ships and insist on going with him? She could not bear to lose the land she had got by a swindle, and then she could not bear the loss of her lover. So she fell between two stools. Mr. Slope, whatever you do, never mingle love and business.”
Mr. Slope blushed up to his eyes and over his mottled forehead to the very roots of his hair. He felt sure that the signora knew all about his intentions with reference to Mrs Bold. His conscience told him that he was detected. His doom was to be spoken; he was to be punished for his duplicity, and rejected by the beautiful creature before him. Poor man. He little dreamt that had all his intentions with reference to Mrs. Bold been known to the signora, it would only have added zest to that lady’s amusement. It was all very well to have Mr. Slope at her feet, to show her power by making an utter fool of a clergyman, to gratify her own infidelity by thus proving the little strength which religion had in controlling the passions even of a religious man; but it would be an increased gratification if she could be made to understand that she was at the same time alluring her victim away from another, whose love if secured would be in every way beneficent and salutary.
The Signora had indeed discovered, with the keen instinct of such a woman, that Mr. Slope was bent on matrimony with Mrs. Bold, but in alluding to Dido she had not thought of it. She instantly perceived, however, from her lover’s blushes, what was on his mind and was not slow in taking advantage of it.
She looked him full in the face, not angrily, nor yet with a smile, but with an intense and overpowering gaze; then, holding up her forefinger and slightly shaking her head, she said:—
“Whatever you do, my friend, do not mingle love and business. Either stick to your treasure and your city of wealth, or else follow your love like a true man. But never attempt both. If you do, you’ll have to die with a broken heart as did poor Dido. Which is it to be with you, Mr. Slope, love or money?”
Mr. Slope was not so ready with a pathetic answer as he usually was with touching episodes in his extempore sermons. He felt that he ought to say something pretty, something also that should remove the impression on the mind of his ladylove. But he was rather put about how to do it.
“Love,” said he, “true overpowering love, must be the strongest passion a man can feel; it must control every other wish, and put aside every other pursuit. But with me love will never act in that way unless it be returned;” and he threw upon the signora a look of tenderness which was intended to make up for all the deficiencies of his speech.
“Take my advice,” said she. “Never mind love. After all, what is it? The dream of a few weeks. That is all its joy. The disappointment of a life is its Nemesis. Who was ever successful in true love? Success in love argues that the love is false. True love is always despondent or tragical. Juliet loved, Haidee loved, Dido loved, and what came of it? Troilus loved and ceased to be a man.”
“Troilus loved and was fooled,” said the more manly chaplain. “A man may love and yet not be a Troilus. All women are not Cressidas.”
“No, all women are not Cressidas. The falsehood is not always on the woman’s side. Imogen was true, but how was she rewarded? Her lord believed her to be the paramour of the first he who came near her in his absence. Desdemona was true and was smothered. Ophelia was true and went mad. There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel. But in wealth, money, houses, lands, goods, and chattels, in the good things of this world, yes, in them there is something tangible, something that can be retained and enjoyed.”
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Slope, feeling himself bound to enter some protest against so very unorthodox a doctrine, “this world’s wealth will make no one happy.”
“And what will make you happy—you—you?” said she, raising herself up and speaking to him with energy across the table. “From what source do you look for happiness? Do not say that you look for none. I shall not believe you. It is a search in which every human being spends an existence.”
“And the search is always in vain,” said Mr. Slope. “We look for happiness on earth, while we ought to be content to hope for it in heaven.”
“Pshaw! You preach a doctrine which you know you don’t believe. It is the way with you all. If you know that there is no earthly happiness, why do you long to be a bishop or a dean? Why do you want lands and income?”
“I have the natural ambition of a man,” said he.
“Of course you have, and the natural passions; and therefore I say that you don’t believe the doctrine you preach. St. Paul was an enthusiast. He believed so that his ambition and passions did not war against his creed. So does the Eastern fanatic who passes half his life erect upon a pillar. As for me, I will believe in no belief that does not make itself manifest by outward signs. I will think no preaching sincere that is not recommended by the practice of the preacher.”
Mr. Slope was startled and horrified, but he felt that he could not answer. How could 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