“I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times. It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the room was empty. I beg your pardon!”
“Stay!” She negligently calls him back. “Remain here, I beg. I am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!”
The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well.
“Aye, aye?” says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent brows, though he has no need to look again—not he. “From Kenge and Carboy’s, surely?”
“Kenge and Carboy’s, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir.”
“To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!”
“Happy to hear it, sir. You can’t be too well, sir, for the credit of the profession.”
“Thank you, Mr. Guppy!”
Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his old-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock’s brightness, hands her down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.