‘I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield, said Uriah, ‘to point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked about. Hows’ever, at last I have made up my mind to speak plain; and I have mentioned to Doctor Strong (…) that Mr. Maldon, and the lovely and agreeable lady as is Doctor Strong’s wife, are too sweet on one another. Really the time is come (we being at present all mixing ourselves up with what oughtn’t to be), when Doctor Strong must be told that this was full as plain to everybody as the sun, before Mr. Maldon went to India; that Mr. Maldon made excuses to come back, for nothing else; and that he’s always here, for nothing else. When you come in, sir, I was just putting it to my fellow-partner,’ towards whom he turned, ‘to say to Doctor Strong upon his word and honour, whether he’d ever been of this opinion long ago, or not. Come, Mr. Wickfield, sir! Would you be so good as tell us? Yes or no, sir? Come, partner!’

‘For God’s sake, my dear Doctor,’ said Mr. Wickfield again laying his irresolute hand upon the Doctor’s arm, ‘don’t attach too much weight to any suspicions I may have entertained.’

‘There!’ cried Uriah, shaking his head. ‘What a melancholy confirmation: ain’t it’ Him! Such an old friend!’

(…)

‘Well, Master Copperfield!’ said Uriah, meekly turning to me. ‘The thing hasn’t took quite the turn that might have been expected, for the old Scholar – what an excellent man! – is as blind as a brickbat; but this family’s out of the cart, I think!’ (…)

‘You villain,’ said I, ‘what do you mean by entrapping me into your schemes? How dare you appeal to me just now, you false rascal, as if we had been in discussion together?’

As we stood, front to front, I saw so plainly, in the stealthy exultation of his face, what I already so plainly knew; I mean that he forced his confidence upon me, expressly to make me miserable, and had set a deliberate trap for me in this very matter; that I couldn’t bear it. The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck it with my open hand with that force that my fingers tingled as if I had burnt them.

He caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connexion, looking at each other. We stood so, a long time; long enough for me to see the white marks of my fingers die out of the deep red of his cheek, and leave it a deeper red.

‘Copperfield,’ he said at length, in a breathless voice, ‘have you taken leave of your senses?’

‘I have taken leave of you,’ said I, wresting my hand away. ‘You dog, I’ll know no more of you.’

‘Won’t you?’ said he, constrained by the pain of his cheek to put his hand there. ‘Perhaps you won’t be able to help it. Isn’t this ungrateful of you, now?’

‘I have shown you often enough,’ said I, ‘that I despise you. I have shown you now, more plainly, that I do. Why should I dread your doing your worst to all about you? What else do you ever do?’

He perfectly understood this allusion to the considerations that had hitherto restrained me in my communications with him. I rather think that neither the blow, nor the allusion, would have escaped me, but for the assurance I had had from Agnes that night. It is no matter. (…)

‘Copperfield,’ he said, removing his hand from his cheek, ‘you have always gone against me. I know you always used to be against me at Mr. Wickfield’s.’

‘You may think what you like,’ said I, still in a towering rage. ‘If it is not true, so much the worthier you.’

‘And yet I always liked you, Copperfield!’ he rejoined.

I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going out to bed, when he came between me and the door.

‘Copperfield,’ he said, ‘there must be two parties to a quarrel. I won’t be one.’

‘You may go to the devil!’ said I.

‘Don’t say that!’ he replied. ‘I know you’ll be sorry afterwards. How can you make yourself so inferior to me, as to show such a bad spirit? But I forgive you.’

‘You forgive me!’ I repeated disdainfully.

‘I do, and you can’t help yourself,’ replied Uriah. ‘To think of your going and attacking me, that have always been a friend to you! But there can’t be a quarrel without two parties, and I won’t be one. I will be a friend to you, in spite of you. So now you know what you’ve got to expect.’ (…)

Merely telling him that I should expect from him what I always had expected, and had never yet been disappointed in, I opened the door upon him, as if he had been a great walnut put there to be cracked, and went out of the house. But he slept out of the house too, at his mother’s lodging; and before I had gone many hundred yards, came up with me.

‘You know, Copperfield,’ he said, in my ear (I did not turn my head), ‘you’re in quite a wrong position’; which I felt to be true, and that made me chafe the more; ‘you can’t make this a brave thing, and you can’t help being forgiven. I don’t intend to mention it to mother, nor to any living soul. I’m determined to forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so umble!’

I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. If he had retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief and a justification; but he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay tormented half the night.

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