wristbands and stealthily
adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short duration, being
speedily broken up by coffee, and the desertion of the room.

There was a throng in the state-rooms upstairs, increasing every minute;
but still Mr Dombey's list of visitors appeared to have some native
impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs Dombey's list, and no one could
have doubted which was which. The single exception to this rule perhaps
was Mr Carker, who now smiled among the company, and who, as he stood in
the circle that was gathered about Mrs Dombey--watchful of her, of
them, his chief, Cleopatra and the Major, Florence, and everything
around--appeared at ease with both divisions of guests, and not marked
as exclusively belonging to either.

Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a
nightmare to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her
eyes were drawn towards him every now and then, by an attraction of
dislike and distrust that she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were
busy with other things; for as she sat apart--not unadmired or unsought,
but in the gentleness of her quiet spirit--she felt how little part her
father had in what was going on, and saw, with pain, how ill at ease he
seemed to be, and how little regarded he was as he lingered about
near the door, for those visitors whom he wished to distinguish with
particular attention, and took them up to introduce them to his wife,
who received them with proud coldness, but showed no interest or wish to
please, and never, after the bare ceremony of reception, in consultation
of his wishes, or in welcome of his friends, opened her lips. It was
not the less perplexing or painful to Florence, that she who acted thus,
treated her so kindly and with such loving consideration, that it almost
seemed an ungrateful return on her part even to know of what was passing
before her eyes.

Happy Florence would have been, might she have ventured to bear her
father company, by so much as a look; and happy Florence was, in little
suspecting the main cause of his uneasiness. But afraid of seeming
to know that he was placed at any did advantage, lest he should be
resentful of that knowledge; and divided between her impulse towards
him, and her grateful affection for Edith; she scarcely dared to raise
her eyes towards either. Anxious and unhappy for them both, the thought
stole on her through the crowd, that it might have been better for th