'But I wish,' said Mr Dombey, without heeding the interruption, 'he had never gone on board that ship. I wish he had never been sent out.
'It is a pity you didn't say so, in good time, is it not?' retorted Carker, coolly. 'However, I think it's all for the best. I really, think it's all for the best. Did I mention that there was something like a little confidence between Miss Dombey and myself?'
'No,' said Mr Dombey, sternly.
'I have no doubt,' returned Mr Carker, after an impressive pause, 'that wherever Gay is, he is much better where he is, than at home here. If I were, or could be, in your place, I should be satisfied of that. I am quite satisfied of it myself. Miss Dombey is confiding and young - perhaps hardly proud enough, for your daughter - if she have a fault. Not that that is much though, I am sure. Will you check these balances with me?'
Mr Dombey leaned back in his chair, instead of bending over the papers that were laid before him, and looked the Manager steadily in the face. The Manager, with his eyelids slightly raised, affected to be glancing at his figures, and to await the leisure of his principal. He showed that he affected this, as if from great delicacy, and with a design to spare Mr Dombey's feelings; and the latter, as he looked at him, was cognizant of his intended consideration, and felt that but for it, this confidential Carker would have said a great deal more, which he, Mr Dombey, was too proud to ask for. It was his way in business, often. Little by little, Mr Dombey's gaze relaxed, and his attention became diverted to the papers before him; but while busy with the occupation they afforded him, he frequently stopped, and looked at Mr Carker again. Whenever he did so, Mr Carker was demonstrative, as before, in his delicacy, and impressed it on his great chief more and more.
While they were thus engaged; and under the skilful culture of the Manager, angry thoughts in reference to poor Florence brooded and bred in Mr Dombey's breast, usurping the place of the cold dislike that generally reigned there; Major Bagstock, much admired by the old ladies of Leamington, and followed by the Native, carrying the usual amount of light baggage, straddled along the shady side of the way, to make a morning call on Mrs Skewton. It being midday when the Major reached the bower of Cleopatra, he had the good fortune to find his Princess on her usual sofa, languishing over a cup of coffee, with the room so darkened and shaded for her more luxurious repose, that Withers, who was in attendance on her, loomed like a phantom page.
'What insupportable creature is this, coming in?' said Mrs Skewton, 'I cannot hear it. Go away, whoever you are!'
'You have not the heart to banish J. B., Ma'am!' said the Major halting midway, to remonstrate, with his cane over his shoulder.
'Oh it's you, is it? On second thoughts, you may enter,' observed Cleopatra.
The Major entered accordingly, and advancing to the sofa pressed her charming hand to his lips.
'Sit down,' said Cleopatra, listlessly waving her fan, 'a long way off. Don't come too near me, for I am frightfully faint and sensitive this morning, and you smell of the Sun. You are absolutely tropical.'
'By George, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'the time has been when Joseph Bagstock has been grilled and blistered by the Sun; then time was, when he was forced, Ma'am, into such full blow, by high hothouse heat in the West Indies, that he was known as the Flower. A man never heard of Bagstock, Ma'am, in those days; he heard of the Flower - the Flower of Ours. The Flower may have faded, more or less, Ma'am,' observed the Major, dropping into a much nearer chair than had been indicated by his cruel Divinity, 'but it is a tough plant yet, and constant as the evergreen.'
Here the Major, under cover of the dark room, shut up one eye, rolled his head like a Harlequin, and, in his great self-satisfaction, perhaps went nearer to the confines of apoplexy than he had ever gone before.
'Where is Mrs Granger?' inquired Cleopatra of her page.
Withers believed she was in her own room.