CHAPTER XV
Mr.Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it.

It was one afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adele in the grounds: and while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.
He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Celine Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a "_grande passion_." This passion Celine had professed to return with even superior ardour.

He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he believed, as he said, that she preferred his "_taille d'athlete_" to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.
"And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, &c.

In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony.

I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre.