Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated. 'Yes. He
was there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his dog. He was there
too.' 'Miss Meagles is quite attached to--the--dog,' observed Clennam.
'Quite so,' assented his partner. 'More attached to the dog than I am to
the man.' 'You mean Mr--?' 'I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly,' said Daniel Doyce.
There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to winding up
his watch. 'Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment,' he said. 'Our
judgments--I am supposing a general case--' 'Of course,' said Doyce.
'Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which, almost
without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to keep a guard
upon them. For instance, Mr--'
'Gowan,' quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost
always devolved. 'Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a
good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an
unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.'
'Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,' returned his partner. 'I see
him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old
friend's house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend's
face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face
of his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the pretty and
affectionate creature whom he will never make happy.' 'We don't know,'
said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, 'that he will not
make her happy.' 'We don't know,' returned his partner, 'that the earth will last another
hundred years, but we think it highly probable.'
'Well, well!' said Clennam, 'we must be hopeful, and we must at least
try to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no opportunity
of being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman, because he is
successful in his addresses to the beautiful object of his ambition; and
we will not question her natural right to bestow her love on one whom
she finds worthy of it.' 'Maybe, my friend,' said Doyce. 'Maybe also, that she is too young and
petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well.'
'That,' said Clennam, 'would be far beyond our power of correction.' Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, 'I fear so.'
'Therefore, in a word,' said Clennam, 'we should make up our minds that
it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would be a poor
thing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve, for my part,
not to depreciate him.'