CHAPTER XXXVII 549
" You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make you care-- but-- a sightless block!"
He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of conversation.
" It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; " for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a ' faux air ' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles ' feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds ' claws or not, I have not yet noticed."
" On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. " It is a mere stump-- a ghastly sight! Don ' t you think so, Jane?"
" It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes-- and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you."
" I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my cicatrised visage."
" Did you? Don ' t tell me so-- lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?"
" Yes; with the right eye I see a glow-- a ruddy haze." " And you see the candles?" " Very dimly-- each is a luminous cloud."