'What do I think, Mrs Bold?' and then he rumbled his money with his hand in his trousers pockets, and looked and spoke very little like a thriving lover. 'It is the bane of my life that on important subjects I acquire no fixed opinion. I think, and think, and go on thinking; and yet my thoughts are running over in different directions. I hardly know whether or no we do lead more confidently than our fathers did on those high hopes to which we profess to aspire.'
'I think the world grows more worldly every day,' said Eleanor.
'That is because you see more of it than when you were younger. But we should hardly judge by what we see,--we see so very very little.' There was then a pause for a while, during which Mr Arabin continued to turn over his shillings and half-crowns. 'If we believe in Scripture, we can hardly think that mankind in general will now be allowed to retrograde.'
Eleanor, whose mind was certainly engaged otherwise than on the general state of mankind, made no answer to this. She felt thoroughly dissatisfied with herself. She could not force her thoughts away from the topic on which the signora had spoken to her in so strange a way, and yet she knew that she could not converse with Mr Arabin in an unrestrained natural tone till she did so. She was most anxious not to show to him any special emotion, and yet she felt that if he looked at her he would at once see that she was not at ease.
But he did not look at her. Instead of doing so, he left the fire-place and began walking up and down the room. Eleanor took up her book resolutely; but she could not read, for there was a tear in her eye, and do what she would it fell on her cheek. When Mr Arabin's back was turned to her she wiped it away; but another was soon coming down her face in its place. They would come; not a deluge of tears that would have betrayed her at once, but one by one, single monitors. Mr Arabin did not observe her closely, and they passed unseen.
Mr Arabin, thus passing up and down the room, took four of five turns before he spoke another word, and Eleanor sat equally silent with her face bent over her book. She was afraid that her tears would get the better of her, and was preparing for an escape from the room, when Mr Arabin in his walk stood opposite to her. He did not come close up, but stood exactly on the spot to which his course brought him, and then, with his hands under his coat tails, thus made a confession.
'Mrs Bold,' said he, 'I owe you retribution for a great offence of which I have been guilty towards you.' Eleanor's heart beat so that she could not trust herself to say that he had never been guilty of any offence. So Mr Arabin then went on.
'I have thought much of it since, and I am now aware that I was wholly unwarranted in putting to you a question which I once asked you. It was indelicate on my part, and perhaps unmanly. No intimacy which may exist between myself and your connection, Dr Grantly, could justify it. Nor could the acquaintance which existed between ourselves.' The word acquaintance struck cold on Eleanor's heart.
Was this to her doom after all? 'I therefore think it right to beg your pardon in a humble spirit, and I now do so.'
What was Eleanor to say to this? She could not say much, because she was crying, and yet she must say something. She was most anxious to say that something graciously, kindly, and yet not in such a manner as to betray herself. She had never felt herself so much at a loss for words.
'Indeed I took no offence, Mr Arabin.'
'Oh, but you did! And had you not done so, you would not have been yourself. You were as right to be offended, as I was wrong to so offend you. I have not forgiven myself, but I hope to hear that you forgive me.'
She was now past speaking calmly, though she still continued to hide her tears, and Mr Arabin, after pausing a moment in vain for her reply, was walking off towards the door. She felt that she could not allow him to go unanswered without grievously sinning against all charity; so, rising from her seat, she gently touched his arm and said: 'Oh, Mr Arabin, do not go till I speak to you! Ido forgive you. You know that I forgive you.'
He took the hand that had so gently touched his arm, and then gazed into her face as if he would peruse there, as though written in a book, the whole future destiny of his life; and as he did so, there was a sober and seriousness in his own countenance, which Eleanor found herself unable to sustain. She could only look down upon the carpet, let her tears trickle as they would, and leave her hand within his.
It was but for a minute that they stood so, but the duration of that minute was sufficient to make it ever memorable to both.
Eleanor was sure now that she was loved. No words, be their eloquence what it might, could be more impressive than that eager, melancholy gaze.
Why did he look into her eyes? Why did he not speak to her?
Could it be that he looked for her to make the first sign?