The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope [good story books to read .txt] 📗

Pallados generally did not agree with him. Under such an interpretation, what had been the meaning of that paragraph in which the writer had declared that the work of joining one ocean to another was worthy of the nearest approach to divinity that had been granted to men? Old Splinter chuckled and gabbled as he heard this, and declared that there was not wit enough left now even among the Paides Pallados to understand a shaft of irony. There could be no doubt, however, at the time, that the world did not go with old Splinter, and that the article served to enhance the value of shares in the great railway enterprise.

Lady Carbury was sure that the article was intended to write up the railway, and took great joy in it. She entertained in her brain a somewhat confused notion that if she could only bestir herself in the right direction and could induce her son to open his eyes to his own advantage, very great things might be achieved, so that wealth might become his handmaid and luxury the habit and the right of his life. He was the beloved and the accepted suitor of Marie Melmotte. He was a Director of this great company, sitting at the same board with the great commercial hero. He was the handsomest young man in London. And he was a baronet. Very wild ideas occurred to her. Should she take Mr. Alf into her entire confidence? If Melmotte and Alf could be brought together what might they not do? Alf could write up Melmotte, and Melmotte could shower shares upon Alf. And if Melmotte would come and be smiled upon by herself, be flattered as she thought that she could flatter him, be told that he was a god, and have that passage about the divinity of joining ocean to ocean construed to him as she could construe it, would not the great man become plastic under her hands? And if, while this was a-doing, Felix would run away with Marie, could not forgiveness be made easy? And her creative mind ranged still farther. Mr. Broune might help, and even Mr. Booker. To such a one as Melmotte, a man doing great things through the force of the confidence placed in him by the world at large, the freely-spoken support of the Press would be everything. Who would not buy shares in a railway as to which Mr. Broune and Mr. Alf would combine in saying that it was managed by “divinity”? Her thoughts were rather hazy, but from day to day she worked hard to make them clear to herself.

On the Sunday afternoon Mr. Booker called on her and talked to her about the article. She did not say much to Mr. Booker as to her own connection with Mr. Melmotte, telling herself that prudence was essential in the present emergency. But she listened with all her ears. It was Mr. Booker’s idea that the man was going “to make a spoon or spoil a horn.” “You think him honest;⁠—don’t you?” asked Lady Carbury. Mr. Booker smiled and hesitated. “Of course, I mean honest as men can be in such very large transactions.”

“Perhaps that is the best way of putting it,” said Mr. Booker.

“If a thing can be made great and beneficent, a boon to humanity, simply by creating a belief in it, does not a man become a benefactor to his race by creating that belief?”

“At the expense of veracity?” suggested Mr. Booker.

“At the expense of anything?” rejoined Lady Carbury with energy. “One cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule.”

“You would do evil to produce good?” asked Mr. Booker.

“I do not call it doing evil. You have to destroy a thousand living creatures every time you drink a glass of water, but you do not think of that when you are athirst. You cannot send a ship to sea without endangering lives. You do send ships to sea though men perish yearly. You tell me this man may perhaps ruin hundreds, but then again he may create a new world in which millions will be rich and happy.”

“You are an excellent casuist, Lady Carbury.”

“I am an enthusiastic lover of beneficent audacity,” said Lady Carbury, picking her words slowly, and showing herself to be quite satisfied with herself as she picked them. “Did I hold your place, Mr. Booker, in the literature of my country⁠—”

“I hold no place, Lady Carbury.”

“Yes;⁠—and a very distinguished place. Were I circumstanced as you are I should have no hesitation in lending the whole weight of my periodical, let it be what it might, to the assistance of so great a man and so great an object as this.”

“I should be dismissed tomorrow,” said Mr. Booker, getting up and laughing as he took his departure. Lady Carbury felt that, as regarded Mr. Booker, she had only thrown out a chance word that could not do any harm. She had not expected to effect much through Mr. Booker’s instrumentality. On the Tuesday evening⁠—her regular Tuesday as she called it⁠—all her three editors came to her drawing-room; but there came also a greater man than either of them. She had taken the bull by the horns, and without saying anything to anybody had written to Mr. Melmotte himself, asking him to honour her poor house with his presence. She had written a very pretty note to him, reminding him of their meeting at Caversham, telling him that on a former occasion Madame Melmotte and his daughter had been so kind as to come to her, and giving him to understand that of all the potentates now on earth he was the one to whom she could bow the knee with the purest satisfaction. He wrote back⁠—or Miles Grendall did for him⁠—a very plain note, accepting the honour of Lady Carbury’s invitation.

The great man came, and Lady Carbury took him under her immediate wing with a grace that was all her own. She said a word about their dear friends at Caversham, expressed her sorrow that her son’s engagements did not admit of his being there,