Arthur Clennam moved to attract his attention, and the grey eyebrows
turned towards him. 'I beg your pardon,' said Clennam, 'I fear you did not hear me
announced?' 'No, sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, sir?'
'I wished to pay my respects.' Mr Casby seemed a feather's weight disappointed by the last words,
having perhaps prepared himself for the visitor's wishing to pay
something else. 'Have I the pleasure, sir,' he proceeded--'take a chair,
if you please--have I the pleasure of knowing--? Ah! truly, yes, I think
I have! I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that I am acquainted
with those features? I think I address a gentleman of whose return to
this country I was informed by Mr Flintwinch?' 'That is your present visitor.'
'Really! Mr Clennam?' 'No other, Mr Casby.' 'Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. How have you been since we met?' Without thinking it worth while to explain that in the course of some
quarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight fluctuations
in his health and spirits, Clennam answered generally that he had never
been better, or something equally to the purpose; and shook hands with
the possessor of 'that head' as it shed its patriarchal light upon him.'We are older, Mr Clennam,' said Christopher Casby.
'We are--not younger,' said Clennam. After this wise remark he felt that
he was scarcely shining with brilliancy, and became aware that he was
nervous. 'And your respected father,' said Mr Casby, 'is no more! I was grieved
to hear it, Mr Clennam, I was grieved.' Arthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to him. 'There was a time,' said Mr Casby, 'when your parents and myself were
not on friendly terms. There was a little family misunderstanding among
us. Your respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe; when I
say her son, I mean your worthy self, your worthy self.'
His smooth face had a bloom upon it like ripe wall-fruit. What with
his blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be
delivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like manner, his
physiognomical expression seemed to teem with benignity. Nobody could
have said where the wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the
benignity was; but they all seemed to be somewhere about him. 'Those
times, however,' pursued Mr Casby, 'are past and gone, past and gone.
I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected mother
occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind with
which she bears her trials, bears her trials.' When he made one of these
little repetitions, sitting with his hands crossed before him, he did it
with his head on one side, and a gentle smile, as if he had something in
his thoughts too sweetly profound to be put into words. As if he denied
himself the pleasure of uttering it, lest he should soar too high; and
his meekness therefore preferred to be unmeaning.