“Distasteful! and like you again!  I think I shall like you again, and yet again:  and I will make you confess I do not only like, but love you —­ with truth, fervour, constancy.”

“Yet are you not capricious, sir?”

“To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts —­ when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper:  but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break —­ at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent —­ I am ever tender and true.”

“Had you ever experience of such a character, sir?  Did you ever love such an one?”

“I love it now.”

“But before me:  if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult standard?”

“I never met your likeness.  Jane, you please me, and you master me —­ you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm to my heart.  I am influenced —­ conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win.  Why do you smile, Jane?  What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?”

“I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers —­ "

“You were, you little elfish —­ "

“Hush, sir!  You don’t talk very wisely just now; any more than those gentlemen acted very wisely.  However, had they been married, they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear.  I wonder how you will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favour it does not suit your convenience or pleasure to grant.”

“Ask me something now, Jane, —­ the least thing:  I desire to be entreated —­ "

“Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready.”

“Speak!  But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of me.”

“Not at all, sir; I ask only this:  don’t send for the jewels, and don’t crown me with roses:  you might as well put a border of gold lace round that plain pocket handkerchief you have there.”

“I might as well ‘gild refined gold.’  I know it:  your request is granted then —­ for the time.  I will remand the order I despatched to my banker.  But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a gift to be withdrawn:  try again.”

“Well then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is much piqued on one point.”

He looked disturbed.  “What? what?” he said hastily.  “Curiosity is a dangerous petition:  it is well I have not taken a vow to accord every request —­ "