“No,” said Mr. Dombey, with magnificent indifference.
“Not likely that a man like you would. Hardly possible,” murmured Carker. “But he is one of that family from whom you took a nurse. Perhaps you may remember having generously charged yourself with his education?”
“Is it that boy?” said Mr. Dombey, with a frown. “He does little credit to his education, I believe.”
“Why, he is a young rip, I am afraid,” returned Carker, with a shrug. “He bears that character. But the truth is, I took him into my service because, being able to get no other employment, he conceived (had been taught at home, I daresay) that he had some sort of claim upon you, and was constantly trying to dog your heels with his petition. And although my defined and recognised connection with your affairs is merely of a business character, still I have that spontaneous interest in everything belonging to you, that—”
He stopped again, as if to discover whether he had led Mr. Dombey far enough yet. And again, with his chin resting on his hand, he leered at the picture.
“Carker,” said Mr. Dombey, “I am sensible that you do not limit your—”
“Service,” suggested his smiling entertainer.
“No; I prefer to say your regard,” observed Mr. Dombey; very sensible, as he said so, that he was paying him a handsome and flattering compliment, “to our mere business relations. Your consideration for my feelings, hopes, and disappointments, in the little instance you have just now mentioned, is an example in point. I am obliged to you, Carker.”
Mr. Carker bent his head slowly, and very softly rubbed his hands, as if he were afraid by any action to disturb the current of Mr. Dombey’s confidence.
“Your allusion to it is opportune,” said Mr. Dombey, after a little hesitation; “for it prepares the way to what I was beginning to say to you, and reminds me that that involves no absolutely new relations between us, although it may involve more personal confidence on my part than I have hitherto—”
“Distinguished me with,” suggested Carker, bending his head again: “I will not say to you how honoured I am; for a man like you well knows how much honour he has in his power to bestow at pleasure.”
“Mrs. Dombey and myself,” said Mr. Dombey, passing this compliment with august self-denial, “are not quite agreed upon some points. We do not appear to understand each other yet. Mrs. Dombey has something to learn.”
“Mrs. Dombey is distinguished by many rare attractions; and has been accustomed, no doubt, to receive much adulation,” said the smooth, sleek watcher of his slightest look and tone. “But where there is affection, duty, and respect, any little mistakes engendered by such causes are soon set right.”
Mr. Dombey’s thoughts instinctively flew back to the face that had looked at him in his wife’s dressing-room when an imperious hand was stretched towards the door; and remembering the affection, duty, and respect, expressed in it, he felt the blood rush to his own face quite as plainly as the watchful eyes upon him saw it there.
“Mrs. Dombey and myself,” he went on to say, “had some discussion, before Mrs. Skewton’s death, upon the causes of my dissatisfaction; of which you will have formed a general understanding from having been a witness of what passed between Mrs. Dombey and myself on the evening when you were at our—at my house.”
“When I so much regretted being present,” said the smiling Carker. “Proud as a man in my position necessarily must be of your familiar notice—though I give you no credit for it; you may do anything you please without losing caste—and honoured as I was by an early presentation to Mrs. Dombey, before she was made eminent by bearing your name, I almost regretted that night, I assure you, that I had been the object of such especial good fortune.”
That any man could, under any possible circumstances, regret the being distinguished by his condescension and patronage, was a moral phenomenon which Mr. Dombey could not comprehend. He therefore responded, with a considerable accession of dignity. “Indeed! And why, Carker?”
“I fear,” returned the confidential agent, “that Mrs. Dombey, never very much disposed to regard me with favourable interest—one in my position could not expect that, from a lady naturally proud, and whose pride becomes her so well—may not easily forgive my innocent part in that conversation. Your displeasure is no light matter, you must remember; and to be visited with it before a third party—”
“Carker,” said Mr. Dombey, arrogantly; “I presume that I am the first consideration?”
“Oh! Can there be a doubt about it?” replied the other, with the impatience of a man admitting a notorious and incontrovertible fact.
“Mrs. Dombey becomes a secondary consideration, when we are both in question, I imagine,” said Mr. Dombey. “Is that so?”
“Is it so?” returned Carker. “Do you know better than anyone, that you have no need to ask?”
“Then I hope, Carker,” said Mr. Dombey, “that your regret in the acquisition of Mrs. Dombey’s displeasure, may be almost counterbalanced by your satisfaction in retaining my confidence and good opinion.”
“I have the misfortune, I find,” returned Carker, “to have incurred that displeasure. Mrs. Dombey has expressed it to you?”
“Mrs. Dombey has expressed various opinions,” said Mr. Dombey, with majestic coldness and indifference, “in which I do not participate, and which I am not inclined to discuss, or to recall. I made Mrs. Dombey acquainted, some time since, as I have already told you, with certain points of domestic deference and submission on which I felt it necessary to insist. I failed to convince Mrs. Dombey of the expediency of her immediately altering her conduct in those respects, with a view to her own peace and welfare, and my dignity; and I informed Mrs. Dombey that if
