"Tell Mr. Bennet, George," said Ross, in answer to the look, for he knew that the butler wished the conventions observed on every occasion, and he was half smiling as he said it, "Tell Mr. Bennet that Miss Arethusa wishes to be excused."
George bowed,—this was much better—and disappeared.
Arethusa waited, standing poised with a queer little expression of strained attention, until she heard the front door close; then she sighed, a soft sigh unmistakably of relief.
Mr. Bennet turned away from the Worthington House uncertainly. He was half of a mind to go right straight back and try to see Arethusa once more. He was very sorry about last night. He was remorsefully sorry, when the day had fully come. He would not have thought that Arethusa would be inclined to view such an episode as she so very evidently had. And yet, on further intensive consideration, he realized that if he had stopped beforehand to give any real thought to it, at all, he might have known that she would take it in just the way she had.
There was nothing really horrid about Mr. Bennet. It is to be doubted if he had ever had a really horrid thought in all his life; but he could not help looking like a man in a collar advertisement and he was born with his manner. He was not himself to blame if young and impressionable things feminine insisted upon falling in love with him. Who could blame him for accepting such admiration and attempting, at times, what might be considered as a slight return? Most of us like to be admired. Mr. Bennet's biggest fault was that he was a little selfish; right now, it was no larger cloud on the horizon of his perfection than might be compared to the palm of one's hand, but owing to all this admiration he so constantly received, and the fact that he did not have to exert himself very much to make a cause for popularity, the little cloud was growing.
But Mr. Bennet was really almost as unhappy over this affair as Arethusa herself, after he went over it again very carefully, in the garish light of perspective. Yet he had thought of course he would be permitted to explain at his call this afternoon; that is, explain in so far as he could explain. Which would surely make it all right. He was even prepared to explain to Ross, if it was necessary, and although Mr. Bennet realized that it would not put him in such a very good light in the eyes of Arethusa's father, he felt that Mr. Worthington might understand. And to explain to Ross and to appear so undignified as he was bound to appear, would have been a very hard thing for Mr. Bennet to do, but he was quite prepared to do it; so anxious he was to straighten out this very Miserable Business.
Then Mr. Bennet, as he sorrowfully walked in all the bravery of a most careful toilette made especially for this important call, remembered the little air of dignity with which Arethusa had mentioned marriage. He was genuinely fond of Arethusa. If it had not been for that little cloud of selfishness, no bigger than the palm of one's hand, which was keeping him so much in love with Mr. Bennet, he might have been really in love with her. But there was not quite enough room for Arethusa, although she had crowded into his heart enough for him to give a great deal of thought to her.
"She's a dear," he said aloud, "a perfect dear! And I'm just as sorry as the deuce! But any other girl...."
And he poked his slender cane so deep in between the bricks of the old-fashioned sidewalk of this conservative neighborhood that it was wrenched out of his hand and stood there quivering, and in his pre-occupation with the idea of Arethusa he had gone on without it before he realized.
But then ... Arethusa was not any other girl, and she had had an Aunt Eliza.