Part 25 (2/2)
”'Let it be right'--the very words: you have pronounced the it useless to continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which acco?”
”To put Adele to bed: it is past her bedtime”
”You are afraid of e is enigh I am bewildered, I am certainly not afraid”
”You _are_ afraid--your self-love dreads a blunder”
”In that sense I do feel apprehensive--I have no wish to talk nonsense”
”If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet h, Miss Eyre? Don't trouble yourself to answer--I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I as to you so your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother--or father, or aily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high You are still bent on going?”
”It has struck nine, sir”
”Never o to bed yet My position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, andto you, I have also occasionally watched Adele (I haveher a curious study,--reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you soo, a little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones 'Il faut que je l'essaie!' cried she, 'et a l'instant meme!' and she rushed out of the roo process: in a few minutes she will re-enter; and I knohat I shall see,--a miniature of Celine Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the rising of--But never s are about to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it will be realised”
Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall She entered, transforuardian had predicted A dress of rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk stockings and small white satin sandals
”Est-ce queforwards; ”et mes souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!”
And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the roohtly round before hi--
”Monsieur, je vous re, she added, ”C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?”
”Pre-cise-ly!” was the answer; ”and, 'coold out of reen, too, Miss Eyre,--ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you now than once freshened one, however, but it has left me that French floweret on my hands, which, in so now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust couldto the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now I keep it and rear it rather on the Roreat or sood work I'll explain all this soht”
CHAPTER XV
Mr Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it It was one afternoon, when he chanced to rounds: and while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked ht of her
He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Celine Varens, towards whorande passion_” This passion Celine had professed to return with even superior ardour He thought hily as he was: he believed, as he said, that she preferred his ”_taille d'athlete_” to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere
”And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic sylph for her British gnoave her a coe, cashan the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony I had not, it seeinality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre I had--as I deserved to have--the fate of all other spoonies Happening to call one evening when Celine did not expect ht, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air consecrated so lately by her presence No,--I exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of inning to stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself to open theand step out on to the balcony It was ht besides, and very still and serene The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,--I will take one now, if you will excuseand lighting of a cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on--
”I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was _croquant_--(overlook the barbaris alternately, watchingthe fashi+onable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the 'voiture' I had given Celine She was returning: of course ainst the iron rails I leant upon The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; hted: though muffed in a cloak--an unnecessary encu--I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping froe-step Bending over the balcony, I was about to e'--in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of love alone--when a figure jue after her; cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched _porte cochere_ of the hotel
”You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away Floating on with closed eyes andnot far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base But I tell you--and you y pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foa points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current--as I am now