"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?"




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