[The Professor by (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell]@TWC D-Link bookThe Professor CHAPTER X 10/11
Her glances were not given in full, but out of the corners, so quietly, so stealthily, yet I think I lost not one.
I watched her as keenly as she watched me; I perceived soon that she was feeling after my real character; she was searching for salient points, and weak; points, and eccentric points; she was applying now this test, now that, hoping in the end to find some chink, some niche, where she could put in her little firm foot and stand upon my neck--mistress of my nature, Do not mistake me, reader, it was no amorous influence she wished to gain--at that time it was only the power of the politician to which she aspired; I was now installed as a professor in her establishment, and she wanted to know where her mind was superior to mine--by what feeling or opinion she could lead me. I enjoyed the game much, and did not hasten its conclusion; sometimes I gave her hopes, beginning a sentence rather weakly, when her shrewd eye would light up--she thought she had me; having led her a little way, I delighted to turn round and finish with sound, hard sense, whereat her countenance would fall.
At last a servant entered to announce dinner; the conflict being thus necessarily terminated, we parted without having gained any advantage on either side: Mdlle.
Reuter had not even given me an opportunity of attacking her with feeling, and I had managed to baffle her little schemes of craft.
It was a regular drawn battle.
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