er, with a yawning
show of teeth.

'Yes; if you please to adopt that form of words,' said Mr Dombey, in his
tone of state; 'and at present I do not conceive that Mrs Dombey does
that credit to it, to which it is entitled. There is a principle of
opposition in Mrs Dombey that must be eradicated; that must be overcome:
Mrs Dombey does not appear to understand,' said Mr Dombey, forcibly,
'that the idea of opposition to Me is monstrous and absurd.'

'We, in the City, know you better,' replied Carker, with a smile from
ear to ear.

'You know me better,' said Mr Dombey. 'I hope so. Though, indeed, I am
bound to do Mrs Dombey the justice of saying, however inconsistent it
may seem with her subsequent conduct (which remains unchanged), that
on my expressing my disapprobation and determination to her, with
some severity, on the occasion to which I have referred, my admonition
appeared to produce a very powerful effect.' Mr Dombey delivered himself
of those words with most portentous stateliness. 'I wish you to have
the goodness, then, to inform Mrs Dombey, Carker, from me, that I must
recall our former conversation to her remembrance, in some surprise that
it has not yet had its effect. That I must insist upon her regulating
her conduct by the injunctions laid upon her in that conversation. That
I am not satisfied with her conduct. That I am greatly dissatisfied with
it. And that I shall be under the very disagreeable necessity of making
you the bearer of yet more unwelcome and explicit communications, if
she has not the good sense and the proper feeling to adapt herself to
my wishes, as the first Mrs Dombey did, and, I believe I may add, as any
other lady in her place would.'

'The first Mrs Dombey lived very happily,' said Carker.

'The first Mrs Dombey had great good sense,' said Mr Dombey, in a
gentlemanly toleration of the dead, 'and very correct feeling.'

'Is Miss Dombey like her mother, do you think?' said Carker.

Swiftly and darkly, Mr Dombey's face changed. His confidential agent
eyed it keenly.

'I have approached a painful subject,' he said, in a soft regretful tone
of voice, irreconcilable with his eager eye. 'Pray forgive me. I forget
these chains of association in the interest I have. Pray forgive me.'

But for all he said, his eager eye scanned Mr Dombey's downcast face
none the less closely; and then it shot a strange triumphant look at the
picture, as appealing to it to bear witness how he led him on