forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me to forget it.”

“If it was a light answer,” returned Darnay, “I beg your

forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight thing,

which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I

declare to you, on the faith of a gentleman, that I have long

dismissed it from my mind. Good Heaven, what was there to

dismiss! Have I had nothing more important to remember, in the

great service you rendered me that day?”

“As to the great service,” said Carton, “I am bound to avow to

you, when you speak of it in that way, that it was mere

professional claptrap. I don’t know that I cared what became of

you, when I rendered it.Mind! I say when I rendered it; I am

speaking of the past.”

“You make light of the obligation,” returned Darnay, “but I will

not quarrel with your light answer.”

“Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from

my purpose; I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you

know me; you know I am incapable of all the higher and better

flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and he’ll tell you so.”

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“I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his.”

“Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has

never done any good, and never will.”

“I don’t know that you ‘never will.’”

“But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could

endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such

indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask

that I might be permitted to come and go as a privileged person

here; that I might be regarded as a useless (and I would add, if it

were not for the resemblance I detected between you and me), an

unornamental, piece of furniture, tolerated for its old service, and

taken no notice of. I doubt if I should abuse the permission. It is a

hundred to one if I should avail myself of it four times in a year. It

would satisfy me, I daresay, to know that I had it.”

“Will you try?”

“That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I

have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with

your name?”

“I think so, Carton, by this time.”

They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a

minute afterwards, he was, to all outward appearance, as

unsubstantial as ever.

When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with

Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some

mention of this conversation in general terms, and spoke of

Sydney Carton as a problem of carelessness and recklessness. He

spoke of him, in short, not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon

him, but as anybody might who saw him as he showed himself.

He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair

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