t I would
permit my name to be banded about in such connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam!
Fie for shame! You're absurd.' Mr Dombey absolutely laughed.

But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she did,
in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have been
dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.

'No, Mrs Dombey,' he resumed. 'No, Madam. There is no possibility of
separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you to be
awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you--

Mr Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes,
in which there was a bright unusual light.

As I was about to say to you, resumed Mr Dombey, 'I must beg you, now
that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs Dombey, that it is not
the rule of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody--anybody,
Carker--or to suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger motive for
obedience in those who owe obedience to me than I am my self. The
mention that has been made of my daughter, and the use that is made of
my daughter, in opposition to me, are unnatural. Whether my daughter is
in actual concert with Mrs Dombey, I do not know, and do not care; but
after what Mrs Dombey has said today, and my daughter has heard to-day,
I beg you to make known to Mrs Dombey, that if she continues to make
this house the scene of contention it has become, I shall consider my
daughter responsible in some degree, on that lady's own avowal, and
shall visit her with my severe displeasure. Mrs Dombey has asked
"whether it is not enough," that she had done this and that. You will
please to answer no, it is not enough.'

'A moment!' cried Carker, interposing, 'permit me! painful as my
position is, at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to entertain
a different opinion from you,' addressing Mr Dombey, 'I must ask, had
you not better reconsider the question of a separation. I know how
incompatible it appears with your high public position, and I know how
determined you are when you give Mrs Dombey to understand'--the light
in his eyes fell upon her as he separated his words each from each, with
the distinctness of so many bells--'that nothing but death can ever part
you. Nothing else. But when you consider that Mrs Dombey, by living in
this house, and making it as you have said, a scene of contention, not
only has her part in that contention, but compromises Miss Do