第100页
pointed repartee: it was only a blunder.'
'Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise
me: does my forehead not please you?'
He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over
his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but
an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have
risen.
'Now, ma'am, am I a fool?'
'Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I
inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?'
'There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended
to pat my head: and that is because I said I did not like the
society of children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady,
I am not a general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience'; and he
pointed to the prominences which are said to indicate that faculty,
and which, fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving,
indeed, a marked breadth to the upper part of his head: 'and, besides,
I once had a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as
you, I was a feeling fellow enough; partial to the unfledged,
unfostered, and unlucky; but Fortune has knocked me about since: she
has even kneaded me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am
hard and tough as an India-rubber ball; pervious, though, through a
chink or two still, and with one sentient point in the middle of the
lump. Yes: does that leave hope for me?'
'Hope of what, sir?'
'Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?'
'Decidedly he has had too much wine,' I thought; and I did not know
what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he
was capable of being re-transformed?
'You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not
pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you;
besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of
yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted
flowers of the rug; so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be
gregarious and communicative tonight.'
With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning
his arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen
plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest,
disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people
would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much
unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a
look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so
haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or
adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness,
that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference,
and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence.
'I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative tonight,' he
repeated, 'and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier