As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my
strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came
quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I
had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him.
"Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?"
Mr. Jaggers shook his head,--not in negativing the question, but in
altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer
it,--and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when
my eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their
suspended attention, and were going to sneeze.
"Come!" said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs
of his warmed hands, "I'll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That's a
question I must not be asked. You'll understand that better, when I tell
you it's a question that might compromise me. Come! I'll go a little
further with you; I'll say something more."
He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the
calves of his legs in the pause he made.
"When that person discloses," said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself,
"you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person
discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that
person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about
it. And that's all I have got to say."
We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked
thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion
that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him
into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he resented
this, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he really did object to
that scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I raised my eyes
again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me all the time, and
was doing so still.
"If that is all you have to say, sir," I remarked, "there can be nothing
left for me to say."
He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and asked me
where I was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert.
As a necessary sequence, I asked him if he would favor us with his
company, and he promptly accepted the invitation. But he insisted on
walking home with me, in order that I might make no extra preparation
for him, and first he had a letter or two to write, and (of course) had
his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the outer office and talk
to Wemmick.