Great Expectations

"You must know," said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and

beautiful woman might, "that I have no heart,--if that has anything to

do with my memory."

I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of

doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty

without it.

"Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt," said

Estella, "and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease

to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there,

no--sympathy--sentiment--nonsense."

What was it that was borne in upon my mind when she stood still and

looked attentively at me? Anything that I had seen in Miss Havisham? No.

In some of her looks and gestures there was that tinge of resemblance

to Miss Havisham which may often be noticed to have been acquired by

children, from grown person with whom they have been much associated and

secluded, and which, when childhood is passed, will produce a remarkable

occasional likeness of expression between faces that are otherwise quite

different. And yet I could not trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked

again, and though she was still looking at me, the suggestion was gone.

What was it?

"I am serious," said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow was

smooth) as with a darkening of her face; "if we are to be thrown much

together, you had better believe it at once. No!" imperiously stopping

me as I opened my lips. "I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I

have never had any such thing."

In another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused, and she

pointed to the high gallery where I had seen her going out on that same

first day, and told me she remembered to have been up there, and to have

seen me standing scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again

the same dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp crossed me. My

involuntary start occasioned her to lay her hand upon my arm. Instantly

the ghost passed once more and was gone.

What was it?

"What is the matter?" asked Estella. "Are you scared again?"

"I should be, if I believed what you said just now," I replied, to turn

it off.

"Then you don't? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Havisham will

soon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be

laid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round

of the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my

cruelty to-day; you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder."