CHAPTER XVIII 232
my eyes , erewhile fixed on the arch , were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs . What charade Colonel Dent and his party played , what word they chose , how they acquitted themselves , I no longer remember ; but I still see the consultation which followed each scene : I see Mr . Rochester turn to Miss Ingram , and Miss Ingram to him ; I see her incline her head towards him , till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek ; I hear their mutual whisperings ; I recall their interchanged glances ; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this moment .
I have told you , reader , that I had learnt to love Mr . Rochester : I could not unlove him now , merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me -- because I might pass hours in his presence , and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction -- because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady , who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed ; who , if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance , would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation . I could not unlove him , because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady -- because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her -- because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which , if careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek , was yet , in its very carelessness , captivating , and in its very pride , irresistible .
There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances , though much to create despair . Much too , you will think , reader , to engender jealousy : if a woman , in my position , could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram ' s . But I was not jealous : or very rarely ; -- the nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word . Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy : she was too inferior to excite the feeling . Pardon the seeming paradox ; I mean what I say . She was very showy , but she was not genuine : she had a fine person , many brilliant attainments ; but her mind was poor , her heart barren by nature : nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil ; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness . She was not good ; she was not original : she used to repeat sounding phrases from books : she never offered , nor had , an opinion of her own . She advocated a