Mr Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off the
three talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam startled by what
they said. Having as supreme a contempt for the class that had thrown
him off as for the class that had not taken him on, he had no personal
disquiet in anything that passed. His healthy state of mind appeared
even to derive a gratification from Clennam's position of embarrassment
and isolation among the good company; and if Clennam had been in that
condition with which Nobody was incessantly contending, he would have
suspected it, and would have struggled with the suspicion as a meanness,
even while he sat at the table.
In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time
less than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries
in arrears, and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that
epoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea for his own drinking,
and retiring at his lowest temperature. Then Mrs Gowan, who had been
accustomed in her days of a vacant arm-chair beside her to which
to summon state to retain her devoted slaves, one by one, for short
audiences as marks of her especial favour, invited Clennam with a turn
of her fan to approach the presence. He obeyed, and took the tripod
recently vacated by Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking.
'Mr Clennam,' said Mrs Gowan, 'apart from the happiness I have in
becoming known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place--a
mere barrack--there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to you. It
is the subject in connection with which my son first had, I believe, the
pleasure of cultivating your acquaintance.'
Clennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he did
not yet quite understand. 'First,' said Mrs Gowan, 'now, is she really pretty?'
In nobody's difficulties, he would have found it very difficult to
answer; very difficult indeed to smile, and say 'Who?'
'Oh! You know!' she returned. 'This flame of Henry's. This unfortunate
fancy. There! If it is a point of honour that I should originate the
name--Miss Mickles--Miggles.' 'Miss Meagles,' said Clennam, 'is very beautiful.'
'Men are so often mistaken on those points,' returned Mrs Gowan, shaking
her head, 'that I candidly confess to you I feel anything but sure of
it, even now; though it is something to have Henry corroborated with so
much gravity and emphasis. He picked the people up at Rome, I think?'
The phrase would have given nobody mortal offence. Clennam replied,
'Excuse me, I doubt if I understand your expression.'