“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.”
“Well, you can leave me, ma’am: but before you go” (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), “you will be pleased just to answer me a question or two.”
He paused.
“What questions, Mr. Rochester?”
Then followed this cross-examination.
“ St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his