With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm on the marble mantelpiece:  in that attitude his shape was seen plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost to his length of limb.  I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence.

“I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night,” he repeated, “and that is why I sent for you:  the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these can talk.  Adele is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will:  you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here.  I have almost forgotten you since:  other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases.  It would please me now to draw you out —­ to learn more of you —­ therefore speak.”

Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either.

“Speak,” he urged.

“What about, sir?”

“Whatever you like.  I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of treating it entirely to yourself.”

Accordingly I sat and said nothing:  “If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed himself to the wrong person,” I thought.

“You are dumb, Miss Eyre.”

I was dumb still.  He bent his head a little towards me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes.

“Stubborn?” he said, “and annoyed.  Ah! it is consistent.  I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form.  Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon.  The fact is, once for all, I don’t wish to treat you like an inferior:  that is” (correcting himself), “I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years’ difference in age and a century’s advance in experience.  This is legitimate, et j’y tiens, as Adele would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point —­ cankering as a rusty nail.”

He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so.

“I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir —­ quite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you?  Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them.”