I suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have
been what-you-may-called it to Estella.'

'What's that?' I asked with sudden gravity.

He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, which
divided his attention, and was the cause of his having made this
lapse of a word. 'Affianced,' he explained, still busy with the fruit.
'Betrothed. Engaged. What's-his-named. Any word of that sort.'

'How did you bear your disappointment?' I asked.

'Pooh!' said he, 'I didn't care much for it. She's a Tarter.'

'Miss Havisham?'

'I don't say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl's hard
and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been
brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak vengeance on all the male
sex.'

'What relation is she to Miss Havisham?'

'None,' said he. 'Only adopted.'

'Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What re-
venge?'

'Lord, Mr. Pip!' said he. 'Don't you know?'

'No,' said I.

'Dear me! It's quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time.
And now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How
did you come there, that day?'

I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then
burst out laughing again, and asked me if I was sore afterwards?
I didn't ask him if he was, for my conviction on that point was
perfectly established.

' Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?' he went on.

'Yes.'

'You know he is Miss Havisham's man of business and solicitor,
and has her confidence when nobody else has?'

This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous ground. I
answered with a constraint I made no attempt to disguise, that
I had seen Mr. Jaggers in Miss Havisham's house on the very day
of our combat, but never at any other time, and that I believed he
had no recollection of having ever seen me there.

'He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your tutor, and
he called on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about

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