ome as they can be,' she returned, with haughty
carelessness. 'They should be so, of' course. And I suppose they are.'

An expression of scorn was habitual to the proud face, and seemed
inseparable from it; but the contempt with which it received any appeal
to admiration, respect, or consideration on the ground of his riches,
no matter how slight or ordinary in itself, was a new and different
expression, unequalled in intensity by any other of which it was
capable. Whether Mr Dombey, wrapped in his own greatness, was at all
aware of this, or no, there had not been wanting opportunities already
for his complete enlightenment; and at that moment it might have been
effected by the one glance of the dark eye that lighted on him, after it
had rapidly and scornfully surveyed the theme of his self-glorification.
He might have read in that one glance that nothing that his wealth could
do, though it were increased ten thousand fold, could win him for its
own sake, one look of softened recognition from the defiant woman,
linked to him, but arrayed with her whole soul against him. He might
have read in that one glance that even for its sordid and mercenary
influence upon herself, she spurned it, while she claimed its utmost
power as her right, her bargain--as the base and worthless recompense
for which she had become his wife. He might have read in it that, ever
baring her own head for the lightning of her own contempt and pride to
strike, the most innocent allusion to the power of his riches degraded
her anew, sunk her deeper in her own respect, and made the blight and
waste within her more complete.

But dinner was announced, and Mr Dombey led down Cleopatra; Edith and
his daughter following. Sweeping past the gold and silver demonstration
on the sideboard as if it were heaped-up dirt, and deigning to bestow no
look upon the elegancies around her, she took her place at his board for
the first time, and sat, like a statue, at the feast.

Mr Dombey, being a good deal in the statue way himself, was well enough
pleased to see his handsome wife immovable and proud and cold. Her
deportment being always elegant and graceful, this as a general
behaviour was agreeable and congenial to him. Presiding, therefore, with
his accustomed dignity, and not at all reflecting on his wife by any
warmth or hilarity of his own, he performed his share of the honours of
the table with a cool satisfaction; and the installation dinner, though
not regard