CHAPTER XXXIV 499
Thus engaged , he appeared , sitting in his own recess , quiet and absorbed enough ; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-looking grammar , and wandering over , and sometimes fixing upon us , his fellow-students , with a curious intensity of observation : if caught , it would be instantly withdrawn ; yet ever and anon , it returned searchingly to our table . I wondered what it meant : I wondered , too , at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment , namely , my weekly visit to Morton school ; and still more was I puzzled when , if the day was unfavourable , if there was snow , or rain , or high wind , and his sisters urged me not to go , he would invariably make light of their solicitude , and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements .
" Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her ," he would say : " she can bear a mountain blast , or a shower , or a few flakes of snow , as well as any of us . Her constitution is both sound and elastic ; -- better calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust ."
And when I returned , sometimes a good deal tired , and not a little weather-beaten , I never dared complain , because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him : on all occasions fortitude pleased him ; the reverse was a special annoyance .
One afternoon , however , I got leave to stay at home , because I really had a cold . His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead : I sat reading Schiller ; he , deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls . As I exchanged a translation for an exercise , I happened to look his way : there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye . How long it had been searching me through and through , and over and over , I cannot tell : so keen was it , and yet so cold , I felt for the moment superstitious -- as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny .
" Jane , what are you doing ?" " Learning German ."