“Has he asked to see me?”
“He leaves it entirely to you.”
For a moment, and a moment only, Emily was undecided. “Show him in,” she said.
Mirabel’s embarrassment was visible the moment he entered the room. For the first time in his life—in the presence of a woman—the popular preacher was shy. He who had taken hundreds of fair hands with sympathetic pressure—he who had offered fluent consolation, abroad and at home, to beauty in distress—was conscious of a rising color, and was absolutely at a loss for words when Emily received him. And yet, though he appeared at disadvantage—and, worse still, though he was aware of it himself—there was nothing contemptible in his look and manner. His silence and confusion revealed a change in him which inspired respect. Love had developed this spoiled darling of foolish congregations, this effeminate pet of drawing-rooms and boudoirs, into the likeness of a Man—and no woman, in Emily’s position, could have failed to see that it was love which she herself had inspired.
Equally ill at ease, they both took refuge in the commonplace phrases suggested by the occasion. These exhausted there was a pause. Mirabel alluded to Cecilia, as a means of continuing the conversation.
“Have you seen Miss Wyvil?” he inquired.
“She was here last night; and I expect to see her again to-day before she returns to Monksmoor with her father. Do you go back with them?”
“Yes—if you do.”
“I remain in London.”
“Then I remain in London, too.”