‘Gowan,’ quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost always devolved.
‘Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.’
‘Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,’ returned his partner. ‘I see him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old friend’s house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend’s face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face of his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the pretty and affectionate creature whom he will never make happy.’
‘We don’t know,’ said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, ‘that he will not make her happy.’
‘We don’t know,’ returned his partner, ‘that the earth will last another hundred years, but we think it highly probable.’
‘Well, well!’ said Clennam, ‘we must be hopeful, and we must at least try to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no opportunity of being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman, because he is successful in his addresses to the beautiful object of his ambition; and we will not question her natural right to bestow her love on one whom she finds worthy of it.’
‘Maybe, my friend,’ said Doyce. ‘Maybe also, that she is too young and petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well.’
‘That,’ said Clennam, ‘would be far beyond our power of correction.’
Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, ‘I fear so.’
‘Therefore, in a word,’ said Clennam, ‘we should make up our minds that it is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would be a poor thing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve, for my part, not to depreciate him.’