Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

42. CHAPTER XLII: ULLATHORNE SPORTS--ACT III (continued)

She lifted up her face when she had finished, and looking at him with much dignity, even through her tears, she said--

'I regret to say it, Mr Stanhope; but after what has passed, I believe that all intercourse between your family and myself had better cease.'

'Well, perhaps it had,' said Bertie naively; 'perhaps that will be better, at any rate for a time; and then Charlotte will think you are offended at what I have done.'

'And now I will go back to the house, if you please,' said Eleanor. 'I can find my way by myself, Mr Stanhope: after what has passed,' she added, 'I would rather go alone.'

'But I must find the carriage for you, Mrs Bold, and I must tell my father that you will return with him alone, and I must make some excuse to him for not going with you; and I must bid the servant put you down at your own house, for I suppose you will not now choose to see them again in the close.'

There was a truth about this, and a perspicuity in making arrangements for lessening her immediate embarrassment, which had some effect in softening Eleanor's anger. So she suffered herself to walk by his side over the now deserted lawn, till they came to the drawing-room window. There was something about Bertie Stanhope which gave him in the estimation of every one, a different standing from that which any other man would occupy under similar circumstances. Angry as Eleanor was, and great as was her cause for anger, she was not half as angry with him as she would have been with any one else. He was apparently so simple, so good- natured, so unaffected and easy to talk to, that she had already half-forgiven him before he was at the drawing-room window. When they arrived there, Dr Stanhope was sitting nearly alone with Mr and Miss Thorne; one or two other unfortunates were there, who from one cause or another were still delayed in getting away; but they were every moment getting fewer in number.