Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/562

Rh turned as dull and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and listened, with his eyes cast down.

"Mrs. Dombey," said Mr. Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his arrogant composure, "you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any purpose, by this course of conduct."

"It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is within me," she replied. "But if I thought it would conciliate you, I would repress it, if it were repressible by any human effort. I will do nothing that you ask."

"I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs. Dombey," he observed; "I direct."

"I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence of to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave you purchased, such a time. If I kept my marriage day, I would keep it as a day of shame. Self-respect! appearances before the world! what are these to me? You have done all you can to make them nothing to me, and they are nothing."

"Carker," said Mr. Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a moment’s consideration, "Mrs. Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me in all this, and places me in a position so unsuited to my character, that I must bring this state of matters to a close."

"Release me, then," said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and bearing, as she had been throughout, "from the chain by which I am bound. Let me go."

"Madam?" exclaimed Mr. Dombey.

"Loose me. Set me free!"

"Madam?" he repeated, "Mrs. Dombey?"

"Tell him," said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, "that I wish for a separation between us, That there had better be one. That I recommend it to him, Tell him it may take place on his own terms—his wealth is nothing to me—but that it cannot be too soon."

"Good Heaven, Mrs. Dombey!" said her husband, with supreme amazement, "do you imagine it possible that I could ever listen to such a proposition? Do you know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I represent? Did you ever hear of Dombey and Son? People to say that Mr. Dombey—Mr. Dombey!—was separated from his wife! Common people to talk of Mr. Dombey and his domestic affairs! Do you seriously think, Mrs. Dombey, that I would permit my name to be banded about in such connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam! Fie for shame! You ’re absurd." Mr. Dombey absolutely laughed.

But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she did, in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have been dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.

"No, Mrs. Dombey," he resumed. "No, Madam. There is no possibility of separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you to be awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you—"

Mr. Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes, in which there was a bright unusual light.

"—As I was about to say to you," resumed Mr. Dombey, "I must beg you, now that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs. Dombey, that it is not the rule of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody—anybody, Carker—or to suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger motive