"I hope you are as willing as I am to acknowledge that all our last winter's work was not good. We exchanged letters."
"Hardly, Mr. Carlisle."
"Will you allow me to say, that I am ashamed of my part in that transaction. Eleanor, I want you to forget it, and to receive me as if it had not happened."
Eleanor was in a mixture of astonishment and doubt, as to how far his words might be taken. In the doubt, she hesitated one instant. Another person, a lady, drew near, and Mr. Carlisle yielded to her the place he had been occupying. The opportunity for an answer was gone. And though he was often near her during the evening, he did not recur again to the subject, and Eleanor could not. But the little bit of dialogue left her something to think of.
She had occasion often to think of it. Mr. Carlisle was everywhere, of course, in Brighton; at least he was in Eleanor's everywhere; she saw him a great deal and was a little struck and puzzled by his manner. He was very often in her immediate company; often attending upon her; it constantly happened, she could not tell how, that his arm was the one to which she was consigned, in walks and evening escorts. In a measure, he assumed his old place beside her; his attentions were constant, gracefully and freely paid; they just lacked the expression which would have obliged and enabled her to throw them off. It was rather the manner of a brother than of a lover; but it was familiar and confidential beyond what those assume that are not brothers. Whatever it meant, it dissatisfied Eleanor. The world, perhaps the gentleman himself, might justly think if she permitted this state of things that she allowed the conclusions naturally to be drawn from it. She determined to withdraw herself. It was curiously and inexplicably difficult. Too easily, too gracefully, too much as a matter of course, things fell into train, for Eleanor often to do anything to alter the train. But she was determined.
"Eleanor, do you know everybody is waiting?" Mrs. Powle exclaimed one morning bursting into Eleanor's room. "There's the whole riding party—and you are not ready!"
"No, mamma. I am not going."
"Not going! Just put on your riding-habit as quick as you can—Julia, get her hat!—you said you would go, and I have no notion of disappointing people like that. Get yourself ready immediately—do you hear me?"
"But, mamma—"
"Put on your habit!—then talk if you like. It's all nonsense. What are you doing? studying? Nonsense! there's time enough for studying when you are at home. Now be quick!"