第101页
were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for
none of these can talk. Adele is a degree better, but still far
below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me
if you will: you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here.
I have almost forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours
from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss
what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to
draw you out- to learn more of you- therefore speak.'
Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or
submissive smile either.
'Speak,' he urged.
'What about, sir?'
'Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the
manner of treating it entirely to yourself.'
Accordingly I sat and said nothing: 'If he expects me to talk for
the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has
addressed himself to the wrong person,' I thought.
'You are dumb, Miss Eyre.'
I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with
a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes.
'Stubborn?' he said, 'and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my
request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your
pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an
inferior: that is' (correcting himself), 'I claim only such
superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and
a century's advance in experience. This is legitimate, et j'y tiens,
as Adele would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and
this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a
little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling
on one point- cankering as a rusty nail.'
He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not
feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so.
'I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir- quite willing; but I
cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest
you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them.'
'Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right
to be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on
the grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your
father, and that I have battled through a varied experience with
many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you
have lived quietly with one set of people in one house?'
'Do as you please, sir.'
'That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a
very evasive one. Reply clearly.'
'I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because
you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world
than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have
made of your time and experience.'
'Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won't allow that, seeing that it
would never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say