“However,” pursued Mr. Grewgious, “it is not of her that I came to speak. It is of my ward. I have a communication to make that will surprise you. At least, it has surprised me.”
Jasper, with a groaning sigh, turned wearily in his chair.
“Shall I put it off till tomorrow?” said Mr. Grewgious. “Mind! I warn you, that I think it will surprise you!”
More attention and concentration came into John Jasper’s eyes as they caught sight of Mr. Grewgious smoothing his head again, and again looking at the fire; but now, with a compressed and determined mouth.
“What is it?” demanded Jasper, becoming upright in his chair.
“To be sure,” said Mr. Grewgious, provokingly slowly and internally, as he kept his eyes on the fire: “I might have known it sooner; she gave me the opening; but I am such an exceedingly Angular man, that it never occurred to me; I took all for granted.”
“What is it?” demanded Jasper once more.
Mr. Grewgious, alternately opening and shutting the palms of his hands as he warmed them at the fire, and looking fixedly at him sideways, and never changing either his action or his look in all that followed, went on to reply.
“This young couple, the lost youth and Miss Rosa, my ward, though so long betrothed, and so long recognising their betrothal, and so near being married—”
Mr. Grewgious saw a staring white face, and two quivering white lips, in the easy-chair, and saw two muddy hands gripping its sides. But for the hands, he might have thought he had never seen the face.