Chapter 40 - Page 2

drink tea with
us to-night, and he is as proud of Milton as you of Oxford. You
two must try and make each other a little more liberal-minded.'

'I don't want to be more liberal-minded, thank you,' said Mr.
Bell.

'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;