'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?