But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the door and look toward him; and he saw no more.
“Come in,” he said, “come in; what is the child afraid of?”
She came in, and after glancing round her for a moment with an uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close within the door.
“Come here, Florence,” said her father coldly. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, papa.”
“Have you nothing to say to me?”
The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his face were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again and put out her trembling hand.
Mr. Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon her for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child what to say or do.
“There! Be a good girl,” he said, patting her on the head, and regarding her, as it were, by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful look. “Go to Richards. Go!”
His little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she would have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might raise her in his arms and kiss her. She looked up in his face once more. He thought how like her expression was then to what it had been when she looked round at the doctor—that night—and instinctively dropped her hand and turned away.