第31章

Nell was none the slower in going away, for this remark.Quilp looked after her with an admiring leer, and when she had closed the door, fell to complimenting the old man upon her charms.

'Such a fresh, blooming, modest little bud, neighbour,' said Quilp, nursing his short leg, and making his eyes twinkle very much; 'such a chubby, rosy, cosy, little Nell!'

The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling with a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience.It was not lost upon Quilp, who delighted in torturing him, or indeed anybody else, when he could.

'She's so,' said Quilp, speaking very slowly, and feigning to be quite absorbed in the subject, 'so small, so compact, so beautifully modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin, and such little feet, and such winning ways--but bless me, you're nervous! Why neighbour, what's the matter? Iswear to you,' continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up unheard, 'Iswear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast or kept so warm.I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite cool.I am pretty sure it ought to be.Yours must be out of order, neighbour.'

'I believe it is,' groaned the old man, clasping his head with both hands.'There's burning fever here, and something now and then to which I fear to give a name.'

The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat.Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time, and then suddenly raising it, said,'Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?'

'No!' returned Quilp.

'Then,' said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and looking upwards, 'the child and I are lost!'

'Neighbour,' said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his hand twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering attention, 'let me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than when you held all the cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing more.You have no secret from me now.'

The old man looked up, trembling.

'You are surprised,' said Quilp.'Well, perhaps that's natural.You have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one.For now, I know, that all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and supplies that you have had from me, have found their way to--shall I say the word?'

'Aye!' replied the old man, 'say it, if you will.'

'To the gaming-table,' rejoined Quilp, 'your nightly haunt.This was the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the secret certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my money (if I had been the fool you took me for); this was your inexhaustible mine of gold, your El Dorado, eh?'

'Yes,' cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, 'it was.It is.It will be, till I die.'

'That I should have been blinded,' said Quilp looking contemptuously at him, 'by a mere shallow gambler!'

'I am no gambler,' cried the old man fiercely.'I call Heaven to witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that at every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan's name and called on Heaven to bless the venture;--which it never did.

Whom did it prosper? Who were those with whom I played? Men who lived by plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in doing ill, and propagating vice and evil.My winnings would have been from them, my winnings would have been bestowed to the last farthing on a young sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made happy.What would they have contracted? The means of corruption, wretchedness, and misery.Who would not have hoped in such a cause? Tell me that! Who would not have hoped as Idid?'

'When did you first begin this mad career?' asked Quilp, his taunting inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man's grief and wildness.

'When did I first begin?' he rejoined, passing his hand across his brow.'When was it, that I first began? When should it be, but when I began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and how she would be left to the rough mercies of the world, with barely enough to keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty;then it was that I began to think about it.'

'After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to sea?' said Quilp.