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expected to have the distinguished honour of waiting on
your ladyship again.’
And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds
him.
‘And yet I am here now,’ Mr. Guppy admits. ‘My object
being to communicate to your ladyship, under the seal of
confidence, why I am here.’
He cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly.
‘Nor can I,’ Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon
him, ‘too particularly request your ladyship to take particu-
lar notice that it’s no personal affair of mine that brings me
here. I have no interested views of my own to serve in com-
ing here. If it was not for my promise to Miss Summerson
and my keeping of it sacred—I, in point of fact, shouldn’t
have darkened these doors again, but should have seen ‘em
further first.’
Mr. Guppy considers this a favourable moment for stick-
ing up his hair with both hands.
‘Your ladyship will remember when I mention it that
the last time I was here I run against a party very eminent
in our profession and whose loss we all deplore. That par-
ty certainly did from that time apply himself to cutting in
against me in a way that I will call sharp practice, and did
make it, at every turn and point, extremely difficult for me
to be sure that I hadn’t inadvertently led up to something
contrary to Miss Summerson’s wishes. Self-praise is no rec-
ommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad
a man of business neither.’
Lady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr. Gup-

1124 Bleak House