"Whatever their efficiency may be," she returned, "you know them all now. I have no more."
"May I hope to prove them all?" said Mr. Dombey, with solemn gallantry, laying down a drawing he had held, and motioning towards the harp.
"Oh certainly! If you desire it!"
She rose as she spoke, and crossing by her mother’s couch, and directing a stately look towards her, which was instantaneous in its duration, but inclusive (if anyone had seen it) of a multitude of expressions, among which that of the twilight smile, without the smile itself, overshadowed all the rest, went out of the room.
The Major, who was quite forgiven by this time, had wheeled a little table up to Cleopatra, and was sitting down to play picquet with her. Mr. Dombey, not knowing the game, sat down to watch them for his edification until Edith should return.
"We are going to have some music, Mr. Dombey, I hope?" said Cleopatra.
"Mrs. Granger has been kind enough to promise so," said Mr. Dombey.
"Ah! That’s very nice. Do you propose, Major?"
"No, Ma’am," said the Major. "Couldn’t do it."
"You ’re a barbarous being," replied the lady, "and my hand’s destroyed. You are fond of music, Mr. Dombey?"
"Eminently so," was Mr. Dombey’s answer.
"Yes. It’s very nice," said Cleopatra, looking at her cards. "So much heart in it—undeveloped recollections of a previous state of existence—and all that—which is so truly charming. Do you know," simpered Cleopatra, reversing the knave of clubs, who had come into her game with his heels uppermost, "that if anything could tempt me to put a period to my life, it would be curiosity to find out what it’s all about, and what it means; there are so many provoking mysteries, really, that are hidden from us. Major, you to play!"
The Major played; and Mr. Dombey, looking on for his instruction, would soon have been in a state of dire confusion, but that he gave no attention to the game whatever, and sat wondering instead when Edith would come back.
She came at last, and sat down to her harp, and Mr. Dombey rose and stood beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no knowledge of the strain she played, but he saw her bending over it, and perhaps he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of his own, that tamed the monster of the iron road, and made it less inexorable.
Cleopatra had a sharp eye, verily, at picquet. It glistened like a bird’s, and did not fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room from end to end, and gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything.
When the haughty beauty had concluded, she arose, and receiving Mr. Dombey’s thanks and compliments in exactly the same manner as before, went with scarcely any pause to the piano, and began there.
Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very handsome, and your touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is deep and rich; but not the air that his neglected daughter sang to his dead son!
Alas, he knows it not; and if he did, what air of hers would stir him,
