"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."