s her nature to see that he required
charming, and it was her province to charm him. As the Eastern idler
swallows his dose of opium, as the London reprobate swallows his
dose of gin, so with similar desires and for similar reasons did Mr.
Arabin prepare to swallow the charms of the Signora Neroni.

"Why an't you shooting with bows and arrows, Mr. Arabin?" said she,
when they were nearly alone together in the drawing-room, "or talking
with young ladies in shady bowers, or turning your talents to account
in some way? What was a bachelor like you asked here for? Don't you
mean to earn your cold chicken and champagne? Were I you, I should
be ashamed to be so idle."

Mr. Arabin murmured some sort of answer. Though he wished to be
charmed, he was hardly yet in a mood to be playful in return.

"Why what ails you, Mr. Arabin?" said she. "Here you are in your own
parish--Miss Thorne tells me that her party is given expressly in
your honour--and yet you are the only dull man at it. Your friend
Mr. Slope was with me a few minutes since, full of life and spirits;
why don't you rival him?"

It was not difficult for so acute an observer as Madeline Neroni to
see that she had hit the nail on the head and driven the bolt home.
Mr. Arabin winced visibly before her attack, and she knew at once
that he was jealous of Mr. Slope.

"But I look on you and Mr. Slope as the very antipodes of men," said
she. "There is nothing in which you are not each the reverse of the
other, except in belonging to the same profession--and even in that
you are so unlike as perfectly to maintain the rule. He is gregarious;
you are given to solitude. He is active; you are passive. He works;
you think. He likes women; you despise them. He is fond of position
and power; and so are you, but for directly different reasons. He
loves to be praised; you very foolishly abhor it. He will gain his
rewards, which will be an insipid, useful wife, a comfortable income,
and a reputation for sanctimony; you will also gain yours."

"Well, and what will they be?" said Mr. Arabin, who knew that he was
being flattered and yet suffered himself to put up with it. "What will
be my rewards?"

"The heart of some woman whom you will be too austere to own that you
love, and the respect of some few friends which you will be too proud
to own that you value."

"Rich rewards," said he; "but of little worth, if they are to be so
treated."

"Oh, you are not to look for such success