she happened to approach her;
sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with
coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these
manifestations of character--watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly. Yes;
the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended
a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity--this guardedness
of his--this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one's defects--this
obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, that my ever-
torturing pain arose.

I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons,
because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given her
his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from him
that treasure. This was the point--this was where the nerve was touched
and teased--this was where the fever was sustained and fed: _she could
not charm him_.

If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely
laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, turned to the
wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss Ingram had been a
good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, kindness, sense, I
should have had one vital struggle with two tigers--jealousy and despair:
then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired
her--acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days:
and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my
admiration--the more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as matters really
stood, to watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to
witness their repeated failure--herself unconscious that they did fail;
vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly
pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled
further and further what she wished to allure--to witness _this_, was to
be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.

Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows
that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell
harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have
quivered keen in his proud heart--have called love into his stern eye,
and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a
silent conquest might have been won.

"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so
near to him?