There was nothing
to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers. He made a steeple of his
fingers and assumed an air of being in possession of a confidence with which he
was most unwilling to part. Three or four times Mr. Headstone feebly thought he
would start conversation, but on each occasion the lawyer’s basilisk stare
answered him before he could begin. As he sat waiting for the lawyer to speak,
the schoolmaster became acutely cognisant of the passage of time, as marked by
the ticking of the clock on the wall, and the slow adjustment made to the angle
of the sun by the waning afternoon, which he observed through the grimy skylight. It
was but one quarter of an hour before Mr. Jaggers spoke, but to Mr. Headstone
it seemed as if one whole year had passed.
