Page 343 - jane-eyre
P. 343
I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled
at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said—
‘Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, per-
haps, stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There
are ten; is it not plenty?’
‘Yes, sir, but now you owe me five.’
‘Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty
pounds.’
‘Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of
business to you while I have the opportunity.’
‘Matter of business? I am curious to hear it.’
‘You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going
shortly to be married?’
‘Yes; what then?’
‘In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school: I am sure
you will perceive the necessity of it.’
‘To get her out of my bride’s way, who might otherwise
walk over her rather too emphatically? There’s sense in the
suggestion; not a doubt of it. Adele, as you say, must go to
school; and you, of course, must march straight to—the
devil?’
‘I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation some-
where.’
‘In course!’ he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a
distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He
looked at me some minutes.
‘And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will
be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?’
‘No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as
Jane Eyre