Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adele: pushing her away with some contumelious epithet if 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.