said Mrs. Proudie, returning; "always the same—always equally adverse to impropriety of conduct of every description;" and she stalked back through the room again, following Mr. Slope out of the door.
The signora couldn't follow her, or she certainly would have done so. But she laughed loud, and sent the sound of it ringing through the lobby and down the stairs after Mrs. Proudie's feet. Had she been as active as Grimaldi, she could probably have taken no better revenge.
"Mr. Slope," said Mrs. Proudie, catching the delinquent at the door, "I am surprised you should leave my company to attend on such a painted Jezebel as that."
"But she's lame, Mrs. Proudie, and cannot move. Somebody must have waited upon her."
"Lame," said Mrs. Proudie; "I'd lame her if she belonged to me. What business had she here at all?—such impertinence—such affectation."
In the hall and adjacent rooms all manner of cloaking and shawling was going on, and the Barchester folk were getting themselves gone. Mrs. Proudie did her best to smirk at each and every one as they made their adieux, but she was hardly successful. Her temper had been tried fearfully. By slow degrees the guests went.
"Send back the carriage quick," said Ethelbert, as Dr. and Mrs. Stanhope took their departure.
The younger Stanhopes were left to the very last, and an uncomfortable party they made with the bishop's family. They all went into the dining-room, and then the bishop observing that "the lady" was alone in the drawing-room, they followed him up. Mrs. Proudie kept Mr. Slope and her daughters in close conversation, resolving that he should not be indulged, nor they polluted. The bishop, in mortal dread of Bertie and the Jews, tried to converse with Charlotte Stanhope about the climate of Italy. Bertie and the signora had no resource but in each other.
"Did you get your supper at last, Madeline?" said the impudent or else mischievous young man.
"Oh, yes," said Madeline; "Mr. Slope was so very kind as to bring it me. I fear, however, he put himself to more inconvenience than I wished."
Mrs. Proudie looked at her but said nothing. The meaning of her look might have been thus translated; "If ever you find yourself within these walls again, I'll give you leave to be as impudent and affected and as mischievous as you please."
At last the carriage returned with the three Italian servants, and La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni was carried out, as she had been carried in.
The lady of the palace retired to her chamber by no means contented with the result of her first grand party at Barchester.
CHAPTER XII
SLOPE VERSUS HARDING
Two or three days after the party, Mr. Harding received a note begging him to call on Mr. Slope, at the palace, at an early hour on the following morning. There was nothing uncivil in the communication, and yet the tone of it was thoroughly displeasing. It was as follows:
My dear Mr. Harding,
Will you favour me by calling on me at the palace to-morrow morning at 9:30 a.m. The bishop wishes me to speak to you touching the hospital. I hope you will excuse my naming so early an hour. I do so as my time is greatly occupied. If, however, it is positively inconvenient to you, I will change it to 10. You will, perhaps, be kind enough to let me have a note in reply.
Believe me to be,
My dear Mr. Harding,
Your assured friend,
Obh. Slope
The Palace, Monday morning,
20th August, 185––
Mr. Harding neither could nor would believe anything of the sort, and he thought, moreover, that Mr. Slope was rather impertinent to call himself by such a name. His assured friend, indeed! How many assured friends generally fall to the lot of a man in this world? And by what process are they made? And how much of such process had taken place as yet between Mr. Harding and Mr. Slope? Mr. Harding could not help asking himself these questions as he read and re-read the note before him. He answered it, however, as follows:
Dear Sir,
I will call at the palace to-morrow at 9:30 a.m. as you desire.
Truly yours,
S. Harding
High Street, Barchester, Monday
And on the following morning, punctually at half-past nine, he knocked at the palace door and asked for Mr. Slope.
The bishop had one small room allotted to him on the ground-floor, and Mr. Slope had another. Into this latter Mr. Harding was shown and asked to sit down. Mr. Slope was not yet there. The ex-warden stood up at the window looking into the garden, and could not help thinking how very short a time had passed since the whole of that house had been open to him, as though he had been a child of the family, born and bred in it. He remembered how the old servants used to smile as they opened the door to him; how the familiar butler would say, when he had been absent a few hours longer than usual, "A sight of you, Mr. Harding, is good for sore eyes;" how the fussy housekeeper would swear that he couldn't have dined, or couldn't have breakfasted, or couldn't have lunched. And then, above all, he remembered the pleasant gleam of inward satisfaction which always spread itself over the old bishop's face whenever his friend entered his room.
A tear came into each eye as he reflected that all this was gone. What use would the hospital be to him now? He was alone in the world, and getting old; he would soon, very soon have to go and leave it all, as his dear old friend had gone; go, and leave the hospital, and his accustomed place in the cathedral, and his haunts and pleasures, to younger and perhaps wiser men. That chanting of his! Perhaps, in truth, the time for it was gone by. He felt as though the world were sinking from his feet; as though this, this was the time for him to turn with confidence to those hopes which he had preached with confidence to others. "What," said he to himself, "can a man's religion be worth if it does not support him against the natural melancholy of declining years?" And as he looked out through his dimmed eyes into the bright parterres of the bishop's garden, he felt that he had the support which he wanted.
Nevertheless, he did not like to be thus kept waiting. If Mr. Slope did not really wish to see him at half-past nine o'clock, why force him to come away from his lodgings with his breakfast in his throat? To tell the truth, it was policy on the part of Mr. Slope. Mr. Slope had made up his mind that Mr. Harding should either accept the hospital with abject submission, or else refuse it altogether, and had calculated that he would probably be more quick to do the latter, if he could be got to enter upon the subject in an ill-humour. Perhaps Mr. Slope was not altogether wrong in his calculation.
It was nearly ten when Mr. Slope hurried into the room and, muttering something about the bishop and diocesan duties, shook Mr. Harding's hand ruthlessly and begged him to be seated.
Now the air of superiority which this man assumed did go against the grain with Mr. Harding, and yet he did not know how to resent it. The whole tendency of his mind and disposition was opposed to any contra-assumption of grandeur on his own part, and he hadn't the worldly spirit or quickness necessary to put down insolent pretensions by downright and open rebuke, as the archdeacon would
