eature seemed to bear him down, and put him by--these, he had
no resource against; and he left her, with her whole overbearing beauty
concentrated on despising him.

Was he coward enough to watch her, an hour afterwards, on the old well
staircase, where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight, toiling up
with Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident, when, looking up, he saw
her coming, with a light, from the room where Florence lay, and marked
again the face so changed, which he could not subdue?

But it could never alter as his own did. It never, in its uttermost
pride and passion, knew the shadow that had fallen on his, in the dark
corner, on the night of the return; and often since; and which deepened
on it now, as he looked up.

CHAPTER 37. More Warnings than One

Florence, Edith, and Mrs Skewton were together next day, and the
carriage was waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had
her galley again now, and Withers, no longer the-wan, stood upright in
a pigeon-breasted jacket and military trousers, behind her wheel-less
chair at dinner-time and butted no more. The hair of Withers was radiant
with pomatum, in these days of down, and he wore kid gloves and smelt of
the water of Cologne.

They were assembled in Cleopatra's room The Serpent of old Nile (not
to mention her disrespectfully) was reposing on her sofa, sipping her
morning chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Flowers the
Maid was fastening on her youthful cuffs and frills, and performing a
kind of private coronation ceremony on her, with a peach-coloured velvet
bonnet; the artificial roses in which nodded to uncommon advantage, as
the palsy trifled with them, like a breeze.

'I think I am a little nervous this morning, Flowers,' said Mrs Skewton.
'My hand quite shakes.'

'You were the life of the party last night, Ma'am, you know,' returned
Flowers, 'and you suffer for it, to-day, you see.'

Edith, who had beckoned Florence to the window, and was looking out,
with her back turned on the toilet of her esteemed mother, suddenly
withdrew from it, as if it had lightened.

'My darling child,' cried Cleopatra, languidly, 'you are not nervous?
Don't tell me, my dear Edith, that you, so enviably self-possessed,
are beginning to be a martyr too, like your unfortunately constituted
mother! Withers, someone at the door.'

'Card, Ma'am,' said Withers, taking it towards Mrs Dombey.

'I am going out,' she said without looking