“It is not I who do so.” He was, or feigned to be, perplexed.
“Who then?”
“Can you not guess who then?”
“I do not choose to guess,” she answered.
“Madam,” he said after a little hesitation; meantime they had been, and still were, regarding each other as before; “I am in a difficulty here. You have told me you will receive no message, and you have forbidden me to return to that subject; but the two subjects are so closely entwined, I find, that unless you will accept this vague caution from one who has now the honour to possess your confidence, though the way to it has been through your displeasure, I must violate the injunction you have laid upon me.”
“You know that you are free to do so, Sir,” said Edith. “Do it.”
So pale, so trembling, so impassioned! He had not miscalculated the effect then!
“His instructions were,” he said, in a low voice, “that I should inform you that your demeanour towards Miss Dombey is not agreeable to him. That it suggests comparisons to him which are not favourable to himself. That he desires it may be wholly changed; and that if you are in earnest, he is confident it will be; for your continued show of affection will not benefit its object.”
“That is a threat,” she said.
“That is a threat,” he answered, in his voiceless manner of assent: adding aloud, “but not directed against you.”