Chapter 32 - Page 2

Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared
for at least a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some
little while before he spoke again.

'I cannot bear,' he said then, 'to see you weep; but I hope this is
a relief to an overcharged heart.'

'Yes it is, sir. Nothing but that.'

'Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here
just now. It is of no moment; not the least. I am only
unfortunate to have come in the way. Let it go by with these
tears. It is not worth one of them. One of them? Such an idle
thing should be repeated, with my glad consent, fifty times a day,
to save you a moment's heart-ache, Little Dorrit.'

She had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual
manner, 'You are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it
to be sorry for and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you--'

'Hush!' said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand.
'Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be
new indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never
was, anything but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You
remember it, don't you?'

'I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when
my mistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in
this place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!'
In raising her eyes with these words, she observed his face more
nearly than she had done yet, and said, with a quick change of
tone, 'You have not been ill, Mr Clennam?'

'No.'

'Nor tried? Nor hurt?' she asked him, anxiously.

It fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He
said in reply:

'To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over.

Do I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-
command than that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you.
Who could teach me better!'

He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see.
He never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes
that looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers.

'But it brings me to something that I wish to say,' he continued,
'and therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling
tales and being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and
pleasure to confide in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess then,
that, forgetting how grave I was, and how old I was, and how the
time for such things had gone by me with the many years of sameness
and little happiness that made up my long life far away, without
marking it--that, forgetting all this, I fancied I loved some one.'

'Do I know her, sir?' asked Little Dorrit.

'No, my child.'