'Why not?' asked Daniel, with a significant smile at Clennam.

'Oh! You have so many things to think about,' returned Mr Meagles,

clapping him on the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left to

itself on any account. 'Figures, and wheels, and cogs, and levers, and

screws, and cylinders, and a thousand things.'

'In my calling,' said Daniel, amused, 'the greater usually includes the

less. But never mind, never mind! Whatever pleases you, pleases me.'

Clennam could not help speculating, as he seated himself in his room

by the fire, whether there might be in the breast of this honest,

affectionate, and cordial Mr Meagles, any microscopic portion of

the mustard-seed that had sprung up into the great tree of the

Circumlocution Office. His curious sense of a general superiority to

Daniel Doyce, which seemed to be founded, not so much on anything

in Doyce's personal character as on the mere fact of his being an

originator and a man out of the beaten track of other men, suggested the

idea. It might have occupied him until he went down to dinner an hour

afterwards, if he had not had another question to consider, which

had been in his mind so long ago as before he was in quarantine at

Marseilles, and which had now returned to it, and was very urgent with

it.

No less a question than this: Whether he should allow himself to

fall in love with Pet? He was twice her age. (He changed the leg he had crossed over the other,

and tried the calculation again, but could not bring out the total at

less.) He was twice her age. Well! He was young in appearance, young

in health and strength, young in heart. A man was certainly not old

at forty; and many men were not in circumstances to marry, or did not

marry, until they had attained that time of life. On the other hand, the

question was, not what he thought of the point, but what she thought of

it.

He believed that Mr Meagles was disposed to entertain a ripe regard for

him, and he knew that he had a sincere regard for Mr Meagles and his

good wife. He could foresee that to relinquish this beautiful only

child, of whom they were so fond, to any husband, would be a trial

of their love which perhaps they never yet had had the fortitude to

contemplate. But the more beautiful and winning and charming she, the

nearer they must always be to the necessity of approaching it. And why

not in his favour, as well as in another's?




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