Great Expectations

Throughout this part of our intercourse,--and it lasted, as will

presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,--she habitually

reverted to that tone which expressed that our association was forced

upon us. There were other times when she would come to a sudden check in

this tone and in all her many tones, and would seem to pity me.

"Pip, Pip," she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we sat

apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; "will you never

take warning?"

"Of what?"

"Of me."

"Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?"

"Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are blind."

I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for the

reason that I always was restrained--and this was not the least of my

miseries--by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself upon her,

when she knew that she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My

dread always was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy

disadvantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a rebellious

struggle in her bosom.

"At any rate," said I, "I have no warning given me just now, for you

wrote to me to come to you, this time."

"That's true," said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always

chilled me.

After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went on

to say:-"The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a day

at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you will. She

would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid,

for she has a sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can

you take me?"

"Can I take you, Estella!"

"You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to pay

all charges out of my purse, You hear the condition of your going?"

"And must obey," said I.

This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for others

like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so much as seen

her handwriting. We went down on the next day but one, and we found her

in the room where I had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that

there was no change in Satis House.