CHAPTER XXVII 393
was their beauty to me in a few weeks ? Giacinta was unprincipled and violent : I tired of her in three months . Clara was honest and quiet ; but heavy , mindless , and unimpressible : not one whit to my taste . I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good line of business , and so get decently rid of her . But , Jane , I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable opinion of me just now . You think me an unfeeling , loose-principled rake : don ' t you ?"
" I don ' t like you so well as I have done sometimes , indeed , sir . Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way , first with one mistress and then another ? You talk of it as a mere matter of course ."
" It was with me ; and I did not like it . It was a grovelling fashion of existence : I should never like to return to it . Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave : both are often by nature , and always by position , inferior : and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading . I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Celine , Giacinta , and Clara ."
I felt the truth of these words ; and I drew from them the certain inference , that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me , as -- under any pretext -- with any justification -- through any temptation -- to become the successor of these poor girls , he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory . I did not give utterance to this conviction : it was enough to feel it . I impressed it on my heart , that it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial .
" Now , Jane , why don ' t you say ' Well , sir ?' I have not done . You are looking grave . You disapprove of me still , I see . But let me come to the point . Last January , rid of all mistresses -- in a harsh , bitter frame of mind , the result of a useless , roving , lonely life -- corroded with disappointment , sourly disposed against all men , and especially against all womankind ( for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual , faithful , loving woman as a mere dream ), recalled by business , I came back to England .