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- It's Friday morning now, and Arthur is "under an engagement with himself to go and see Mr. Irwine" (16.1). He sure picked a good time to do it. As Eliot's narrator explains, breakfast is a time when you can discuss unpleasant matters in an "easy and cheerful" way (16.2). Take the whole Hetty and Arthur forbidden love thing. Unpleasant, sure, but it'll go down better with coffee and muffins.
- While Arthur is riding along, whom should he see but our old friend Adam Bede? And he's Arthur's old friend, too. As Adam sees the young aristocrat approach, he thinks back on their past contact and feels a surge of pride. After all, he taught Arthur all about carpentry back in the day.
- Arthur, for his part, "never shook hands with any of the farmers" (16.8). Yet he gladly shakes Adam's. The two men talk about Adam's prospects—his work for Jonathan Burge, his studies at Bartle Massey's night school. But Adam wasn't always such a put-together guy. He used to "fight for fun" and tells Arthur how much he regrets knocking the daylights out of people (16.21).
- With some kind words about Adam's practicality and self-control, Arthur departs. Mr. Irwine awaits.
- Arthur finds everyone's favorite clergyman lounging "in a crimson damask easy-chair" (16.28), surrounded by books and lapdogs and everything else that says "Yeah, this dude's living the good life."
- Arthur isn't at total ease (Hetty, Hetty…) but he does a really good job hiding the real purpose of his visit. Instead, he and Irwine launch into an easygoing discussion of Arthur's college years, the classics, and the state of Arthur's estate.
- And somehow, they wind up talking about women anyway. "Fall in love in the right place," says Mr. Irwine, "and don't get a wife who will drain your purse and make you niggardly in spite of yourself" (16.36).
- Vocab lesson: "niggardly" means stingy. It is not a slur, although dang if it doesn't sound like one.
- Arthur still doesn't want to approach the Hetty subject. He trusts himself to handle it now, and Mr. Irwine can't tell him anything new. Supposedly.
- Instead, Arthur makes a passing reference to "moods that one can't calculate on beforehand" (16.39). Irwine, never slow on the uptake, asks him if he's talking about one of his own "moods." And right then and there, Arthur almost confesses the whole Hetty infatuation. Almost.
- It only takes a few more mental gymnastics for Arthur to feel certain that "the goodwill and respect of everybody about him was a safeguard even against foolish romance" (16.49).
- So Arthur passes up his chance to confess, and maybe nip the Hetty affair in the bud?