“Nothing that you would call anything has been done to-day,” replies Mr. Tulkinghorn.

“Nor ever will be,” says my Lady.

Sir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit.  It is a slow, expensive, British, constitutional kind of thing.  To be sure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question, her part in which was the only property my Lady brought him; and he has a shadowy impression that for his name—­the name of Dedlock—­to be in a cause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most ridiculous accident.  But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if it should involve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling amount of confusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a variety of other somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for the eternal settlement (humanly speaking) of everything.  And he is upon the whole of a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his countenance to any complaints respecting it would be to encourage some person in the lower classes to rise up somewhere—­like Wat Tyler.

“As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn, “and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the troublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any new proceedings in a cause”—­cautious man Mr. Tulkinghorn, taking no more responsibility than necessary—­“and further, as I see you are going to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket.”

(Sir Leicester was going to Paris too, by the by, but the delight of the fashionable intelligence was in his Lady.)

Mr. Tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them on a golden talisman of a table at my Lady’s elbow, puts on his spectacles, and begins to read by the light of a shaded lamp.

“‘In Chancery.  Between John Jarndyce—­’”

My Lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal horrors as he can.

Mr. Tulkinghorn glances over his spectacles and begins again lower down.  My Lady carelessly and scornfully abstracts her attention.  Sir Leicester in a great chair looks at the file and appears to have a stately liking for the legal repetitions and prolixities as ranging among the national bulwarks.  It happens that the fire is hot where my Lady sits and that the hand-screen is more beautiful than useful, being priceless but small.  My Lady, changing her position, sees the papers on the table—­looks at them nearer—­looks at them nearer still—­asks impulsively, “Who copied that?”

Mr. Tulkinghorn stops short, surprised by my Lady’s animation and her unusual tone.

“Is it what you people call law-hand?” she asks, looking full at him in her careless way again and toying with her screen.

“Not quite.  Probably”—­Mr. Tulkinghorn examines it as he speaks—­ “the legal character which it has was acquired after the original hand was formed.  Why do you ask?”

“Anything to vary this detestable monotony.  Oh, go on, do!”