Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

27. CHAPTER XXVII: A LOVE SCENE (continued)

'Oh, Madeline, I will only love you,' and again he caught her hand and devoured it with kisses. Now she did not draw from him, but sat there as he kissed it, looking at him with her great eyes, just as a great spider would look at a great fly that was quite securely caught.

'Suppose Signor Neroni were to come to Barchester,' said she, 'would you make his acquaintance?'

'Signor Neroni!' said he.

'Would you introduce him to the bishop, and Mrs Proudie, and the young ladies?' said she, again having recourse to that horrid quizzing voice which Mr Slope so particularly hated.

'Why do you ask me such a question?' said he.

'Because it is necessary that you should know that there is a Signor Neroni. I think you had forgotten it.'

'If I thought that you retained for that wretch one particle of the love of which he was never worthy, I would die before I would distract you by telling you what I feel. No! were your husband the master of your heart, I might perhaps love you; but you should never know it.'

'My heart again! How you talk. And you consider then, that if a husband be not master of his wife's heart, he has not right to her fealty; if a wife ceases to love, she may cease to be true. Is that your doctrine on this matter, as a minister of the Church of England?'