“Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship,” Mr. Guppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the carpet at his feet, “that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I formerly mentioned to your ladyship, was at one period of my life imprinted on my ’eart until erased by circumstances over which I had no control, communicated to me, after I had the pleasure of waiting on your ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps whatever in any manner at all relating to her. And Miss Summerson’s wishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over which I have no control), I consequently never 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