CHAPTER XIX 250
" A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance-- blot him, as it were, out of existence?"
" No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme you had introduced."
" I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester ' s eyes that they overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked that?"
" Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests."
" No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?"
" The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator." I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk, voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every pulse.
" Eagerness of a listener!" repeated she: " yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?"
" Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face."
" Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not gratitude?"
I said nothing.