CHAPTER XVII 218 to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain .
And where is Mr . Rochester ?
He comes in last : I am not looking at the arch , yet I see him enter . I try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles , on the meshes of the purse I am forming -- I wish to think only of the work I have in my hands , to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my lap ; whereas , I distinctly behold his figure , and I inevitably recall the moment when I last saw it ; just after I had rendered him , what he deemed , an essential service , and he , holding my hand , and looking down on my face , surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager to overflow ; in whose emotions I had a part . How near had I approached him at that moment ! What had occurred since , calculated to change his and my relative positions ? Yet now , how distant , how far estranged we were ! So far estranged , that I did not expect him to come and speak to me . I did not wonder , when , without looking at me , he took a seat at the other side of the room , and began conversing with some of the ladies .
No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them , and that I might gaze without being observed , than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face ; I could not keep their lids under control : they would rise , and the irids would fix on him . I looked , and had an acute pleasure in looking , -- a precious yet poignant pleasure ; pure gold , with a steely point of agony : a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned , yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless .
Most true is it that " beauty is in the eye of the gazer ." My master ' s colourless , olive face , square , massive brow , broad and jetty eyebrows , deep eyes , strong features , firm , grim mouth , -- all energy , decision , will , -- were not beautiful , according to rule ; but they were more than beautiful to me ; they were full of an interest , an influence that quite mastered me , -- that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his . I had not intended to love him ; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected ; and now , at the first