dogs! All making the same show, all
canting the same story, all whining the same professions, all harbouring
the same transparent secret.'

His brother withdrew, without saying more, and shut the door as he
concluded. Mr Carker the Manager drew a chair close before the fire, and
fell to beating the coals softly with the poker.

'The faint-hearted, fawning knaves,' he muttered, with his two shining
rows of teeth laid bare. 'There's not one among them, who wouldn't feign
to be so shocked and outraged--! Bah! There's not one among them, but
if he had at once the power, and the wit and daring to use it, would
scatter Dombey's pride and lay it low, as ruthlessly as I rake out these
ashes.'

As he broke them up and strewed them in the grate, he looked on with a
thoughtful smile at what he was doing. 'Without the same queen
beckoner too!' he added presently; 'and there is pride there, not to
be forgotten--witness our own acquaintance!' With that he fell into a
deeper reverie, and sat pondering over the blackening grate, until he
rose up like a man who had been absorbed in a book, and looking round
him took his hat and gloves, went to where his horse was waiting,
mounted, and rode away through the lighted streets, for it was evening.

He rode near Mr Dombey's house; and falling into a walk as he approached
it, looked up at the windows The window where he had once seen Florence
sitting with her dog attracted his attention first, though there was no
light in it; but he smiled as he carried his eyes up the tall front of
the house, and seemed to leave that object superciliously behind.

'Time was,' he said, 'when it was well to watch even your rising little
star, and know in what quarter there were clouds, to shadow you if
needful. But a planet has arisen, and you are lost in its light.'

He turned the white-legged horse round the street corner, and sought
one shining window from among those at the back of the house. Associated
with it was a certain stately presence, a gloved hand, the remembrance
how the feathers of a beautiful bird's wing had been showered down upon
the floor, and how the light white down upon a robe had stirred and
rustled, as in the rising of a distant storm. These were the things he
carried with him as he turned away again, and rode through the darkening
and deserted Parks at a quick rate.

In fatal truth, these were associated with a woman, a proud woman,
who hated him, but who by slow and sure degrees