'Is Mr. Thornton coming to tea, papa?' asked Margaret in a low

voice.

'Either to tea or soon after. He could not tell. He told us not

to wait.' Mr. Thornton had determined that he would make no inquiry of his

mother as to how far she had put her project into execution of

speaking to Margaret about the impropriety of her conduct. He

felt pretty sure that, if this interview took place, his mother's

account of what passed at it would only annoy and chagrin him,

though he would all the time be aware of the colouring which it

received by passing through her mind. He shrank from hearing

Margaret's very name mentioned; he, while he blamed her--while he

was jealous of her--while he renounced her--he loved her sorely,

in spite of himself. He dreamt of her; he dreamt she came dancing

towards him with outspread arms, and with a lightness and gaiety

which made him loathe her, even while it allured him. But the

impression of this figure of Margaret--with all Margaret's

character taken out of it, as completely as if some evil spirit

had got possession of her form--was so deeply stamped upon his

imagination, that when he wakened he felt hardly able to separate

the Una from the Duessa; and the dislike he had to the latter

seemed to envelope and disfigure the former Yet he was too proud

to acknowledge his weakness by avoiding the sight of her. He

would neither seek an opportunity of being in her company nor

avoid it. To convince himself of his power of self-control, he

lingered over every piece of business this afternoon; he forced

every movement into unnatural slowness and deliberation; and it

was consequently past eight o'clock before he reached Mr. Hale's.

Then there were business arrangements to be transacted in the

study with Mr. Bell; and the latter kept on, sitting over the

fire, and talking wearily, long after all business was

transacted, and when they might just as well have gone upstairs.

But Mr. Thornton would not say a word about moving their

quarters; he chafed and chafed, and thought Mr. Bell a most prosy

companion; while Mr. Bell returned the compliment in secret, by

considering Mr. Thornton about as brusque and curt a fellow as he

had ever met with, and terribly gone off both in intelligence and

manner. At last, some slight noise in the room above suggested

the desirableness of moving there. They found Margaret with a

letter open before her, eagerly discussing its contents with her

father. On the entrance of the gentlemen, it was immediately put

aside; but Mr. Thornton's eager senses caught some few words of

Mr. Hale's to Mr. Bell.




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