Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

41. CHAPTER XLI: MRS BOLD CONFIDES HER SORROW TO HER FRIEND MISS STANHOPE (continued)

They first went into the dining-room, looking for their champion, and from thence to the drawing-room. Here they found Mr Arabin, still hanging over the signora's sofa; or, rather, they found him sitting near her head, as a physician might have sat, had the lady been his patient. There was no other person in the room. The guests were some in the tent, some few still in the dining-room, some at the bows and arrows, but most of them walking with Miss Thorne through the park, and looking at the games that were going on.

All that had passed, and was passing between Mr Arabin and the lady, it is unnecessary to give in detail. She was doing with him as she did with all others. It was her mission to make fools of men, and she was pursuing her mission with Mr Arabin. She had almost got him to own his love for Mrs Bold, and had subsequently almost induced him to acknowledge a passion for herself. He, poor man, was hardly aware what he was doing or saying, hardly conscious whether he was in heaven or hell. So little had he known of female attractions of that peculiar class which the signora owned, that he became affected with a temporary delirium, when first subjected to its power. He lost his head rather than his heart, and toppled about mentally, reeling in his ideas as a drunken man does on his legs. She had whispered to him words that really meant nothing, but which coming from such beautiful lips, and accompanied by such lustrous glances, seemed to have a mysterious significance, which he felt though he could not understand.

In being thus be-sirened, Mr Arabin behaved himself very differently from Mr Slope. The signora had said truly, that the two men were the contrasts of each other; that the one was all for action, the other all for thought. Mr Slope, when this lady laid upon his senses the overpowering breath of her charms, immediately attempted to obtain some fruition, to achieve some mighty triumph. He began by catching at her hand, and progressed by kissing it. He made vows of love, and asked for vows in return. He promised everlasting devotion, knelt before her, and swore that had she been on Mount Ida, Juno would have no cause to hate the offspring of Venus. But Mr Arabin uttered no oaths, kept his hand mostly in his trousers pocket, and had no more thought of kissing Madam Neroni than of kissing the Countess De Courcy.