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'
Where have they gone?' asked Trent.
Quilp shook his head, and said that point remained to be discovered,
which it might be, easily. When it was, they would begin their
preliminary advances. He would visit the old man, or even Richard
Swiveller might visit him, and by affecting a deep concern in his
behalf, and imploring him to settle in some worthy home, lead to the
child's remembering him with gratitude and favour. Once impressed
to this extent, it would be easy, he said, to win her in a year or two,
for she supposed the old man to be poor, as it was a part of his
jealous policy (in common with many other misers) to feign to be so, to
those about him.
'He has feigned it often enough to me, of late,' said Trent.
'
Oh! and to me too!' replied the dwarf. 'Which is more extraordinary,
as I know how rich he really is.'
'I suppose you should,' said Trent.
'
I think I should indeed,' rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at least, he
spoke the truth.
After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and the
young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was
waiting to depart. This was welcome news to Dick, who started up
directly. After a few words of confidence in the result of their project
had been exchanged, they bade the grinning Quilp good night.
Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and
listened. Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they
were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to
marry such a misshapen wretch as he. The dwarf after watching their
retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet displayed,
stole softly in the dark to bed. In this hatching of their scheme,
neither Trent nor Quilp had had one thought about the happiness or
misery of poor innocent Nell. It would have been strange if the careless
profligate, who was the butt of both, had been harassed by any such
consideration; for his high opinion of his own merits and deserts
rendered the project rather a laudable one than otherwise; and if he
had been visited by so unwonted a guest as reflection, he would -
being a brute only in the gratification of his appetites - have soothed
his conscience with the plea that he did not mean to beat or kill his
wife, and would therefore, after all said and done, be a very tolerable,
average husband.
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