`Are you tired, Estella?'
`Rather, Pip.'
`You should be.'
`Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House to write, before I go to sleep.'
`Recounting to-night's triumph?' said I. `Surely a very poor one, Estella.'
`What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any.'
`Estella,' said I, `do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is looking over here at us.'
`Why should I look at him?' returned Estella, with her eyes on me instead. `What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder - to use your words - that I need look at?'
`Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you,' said I. `For he has been hovering about you all night.'
`Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures,' replied Estella, with a glance towards him, `hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?'
`No,' I returned; `but cannot the Estella help it?'
`Well!' said she, laughing, after a moment, `perhaps. Yes. Anything you like.'
`But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is despised.'
`Well?' said she.
`You know he is as ungainly within, as without. A deficient, illtempered, lowering, stupid fellow.'
`Well?' said she.
`You know he has nothing to recommend him but money, and a ridiculous roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don't you?'
`Well?' said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely eyes the wider.
To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, `Well!Then, that is why it makes me wretched.'
Now, if I could have believed that she favoured Drummle with any idea of making me - me - wretched, I should have been in better heart about it; but in that habitual way of hers, she put me so entirely out of the question, that I could believe nothing of the kind.
`Pip,' said Estella, casting her glance over the room, `don't be foolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others, and may be meant to have. It's not worth discussing.'
`Yes it is,' said I, `because I cannot bear that people should say, "she throws away her graces and attractions on a mere boor, the lowest in the crowd."'
`I can bear it,' said Estella.
`Oh! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible.'