CHAPTER XXXIII 483
" Another time."
" No; to-night!-- to-night!" and as he turned from the door, I placed myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed.
" You certainly shall not go till you have told me all," I said. " I would rather not just now." " You shall!-- you must!" " I would rather Diana or Mary informed you."
Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.
" But I apprised you that I was a hard man," said he, " difficult to persuade." " And I am a hard woman,-- impossible to put off." " And then," he pursued, " I am cold: no fervour infects me."
" Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know."
" Well, then," he said, " I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must know some day,-- as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre?"
" Of course: that was all settled before."
" You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?-- that I was christened St. John Eyre Rivers?"