CHAPTER XXI 285
I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said-
" Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it not plenty?"
" Yes, sir, but now you owe me five." " Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds."
" Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you while I have the opportunity."
" Matter of business? I am curious to hear it."
" You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be married?"
" Yes; what then?"
" In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school: I am sure you will perceive the necessity of it."
" To get her out of my bride ' s way, who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically? There ' s sense in the suggestion; not a doubt of it. Adele, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march straight to-- the devil?"
" I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere."
" In course!" he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes.
" And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?"