Chapter 34 - Page 2

that he might not be invited. 'For,' said he, 'as my business with
this set of gentlemen was to do a public duty and a public service,
and as their business with me was to prevent it by wearing my soul
out, I think we had better not eat and drink together with a show
of being of one mind.' Mr Meagles was much amused by his friend's
oddity; and patronised him with a more protecting air of allowance
than usual, when he rejoined: 'Well, well, Dan, you shall have your
own crotchety way.'

To Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey
by all quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and
disinterestedly desirous of tendering him any friendship he would
accept. Mr Gowan treated him in return with his usual ease, and
with his usual show of confidence, which was no confidence at all.

'You see, Clennam,' he happened to remark in the course of
conversation one day, when they were walking near the Cottage
within a week of the marriage, 'I am a disappointed man. That you
know already.'

'Upon my word,' said Clennam, a little embarrassed, 'I scarcely
know how.'

'Why,' returned Gowan, 'I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a
family, or a connection, or whatever you like to call it, that
might have provided for me in any one of fifty ways, and that took
it into its head not to do it at all. So here I am, a poor devil
of an artist.'

Clennam was beginning, 'But on the other hand--' when Gowan took
him up.

'Yes, yes, I know. I have the good fortune of being beloved by a
beautiful and charming girl whom I love with all my heart.'
('Is there much of it?' Clennam thought. And as he thought it,
felt ashamed of himself.)

'And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a
liberal good old boy. Still, I had other prospects washed and
combed into my childish head when it was washed and combed for me,
and I took them to a public school when I washed and combed it for
myself, and I am here without them, and thus I am a disappointed
man.'

Clennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of
himself), was this notion of being disappointed in life, an
assertion of station which the bridegroom brought into the family
as his property, having already carried it detrimentally into his
pursuit? And was it a hopeful or a promising thing anywhere?

'Not bitterly disappointed, I think,' he said aloud.
'Hang it, no; not bitterly,' laughed Gowan. 'My people are not
worth that--though they are charming fellows, and I have the
greatest affection for them. Besides, it's pleasant to show them
that I can do without them, and that they may all go to the Devil.
And besides, again, most men are disappointed in life, somehow or