A second pause.

“Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindustani be to you?”

“He intended me to go with him to India.”

“Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?”

“He asked me to marry him.”

“That is a fiction⁠—an impudent invention to vex me.”

“I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be.”

“Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?”

“Because I am comfortable there.”