"I what?"
"You know--and perhaps think well of."
"I don't know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a
syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I
consider some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others
young, dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at
liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my
feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me."
"You don't know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a
syllable with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the
house!"
"He is not at home."
"A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote
this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does
that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance--
blot him, as it were, out of existence?"
"No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the
theme you had introduced."
"I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of
late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester's eyes that
they overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never
remarked that?"
"Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests."
"No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of
all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been
favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?"
"The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator." I
said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk,
voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One
unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got
involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit
had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and
taking record of every pulse.
"Eagerness of a listener!" repeated she: "yes; Mr. Rochester has
sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took
such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was
so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given
him; you have noticed this?"
"Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face."
"Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if
not gratitude?"
I said nothing.
"You have seen love: have you not?--and, looking forward, you have
seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?"