 she could but
have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.
    It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night, that
I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had said, there
was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the narrative
itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to
him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was
something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized
him, when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood,
and his newly revived pleasure in the old Hall and its environs. I meditated
wonderingly on this incident: but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the
present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master's manner to
myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to my
discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for some
weeks been more uniform towards me than at the first. I never seemed in his way;
he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the
encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me:
when summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a
cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse
him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as
for my benefit.
    I, indeed, talked comparatively little; but I heard him talk with relish. It
was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind unacquainted with
the world, glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not mean its corrupt scenes and
wicked ways, but such as derived their interest from the great scale on which
they were acted, the strange novelty by which they were characterized); and I
had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new
pictures he portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he
disclosed; never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.
    The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly
frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I
felt at times, as if he were my relation, rather than my master: yet he was
imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way. So
happy,
