CHAPTER XXXVII 556
" His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste?-- priggish and parsonic?"
" I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste, they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike."
" His appearance,-- I forget what description you gave of his appearance;-- a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?"
" St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue eyes, and a Grecian profile."
( Aside.) " Damn him!"--( To me.) " Did you like him, Jane?" " Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before."
I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately charm the snake.
" Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?" was the next somewhat unexpected observation.
" Why not, Mr. Rochester?"
" The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,-- tall, fair, blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan,-- a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into the bargain."
" I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like Vulcan, sir."