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

meat from her hand and would be humble. At present he had money in his pocket, and would eat and drink of the best, and be free from inconvenience for the moment. While this prosperity remained it would be impossible to touch him. “You will ruin your sister, and break your mother’s heart,” said Roger, firing a last harmless shot after the young reprobate.

When Lady Carbury came into the room, which she did as soon as the front door was closed behind her son, she seemed to think that a great success had been achieved because the £20 had been recovered. “I knew he would give it me back, if he had it,” she said.

“Why did he not bring it to you of his own accord?”

“I suppose he did not like to talk about it. Has he said that he got it by⁠—playing?”

“No⁠—he did not speak a word of truth while he was here. You may take it for granted that he did get it by gambling. How else should he have it? And you may take it for granted also that he will lose all that he has got. He talked in the wildest way⁠—saying that he would soon have a home for you and Hetta.”

“Did he;⁠—dear boy!”

“Had he any meaning?”

“Oh; yes. And it is quite on the cards that it should be so. You have heard of Miss Melmotte.”

“I have heard of the great French swindler who has come over here, and who is buying his way into society.”

“Everybody visits them now, Roger.”

“More shame for everybody. Who knows anything about him⁠—except that he left Paris with the reputation of a specially prosperous rogue? But what of him?”

“Some people think that Felix will marry his only child. Felix is handsome; isn’t he? What young man is there nearly so handsome? They say she’ll have half a million of money.”

“That’s his game;⁠—is it?”

“Don’t you think he is right?”

“No; I think he’s wrong. But we shall hardly agree with each other about that. Can I see Henrietta for a few minutes?”

VIII Lovesick

Roger Carbury said well that it was very improbable that he and his cousin, the widow, should agree in their opinions as to the expedience of fortune-hunting by marriage. It was impossible that they should ever understand each other. To Lady Carbury the prospect of a union between her son and Miss Melmotte was one of unmixed joy and triumph. Could it have been possible that Marie Melmotte should be rich and her father be a man doomed to a deserved sentence in a penal settlement, there might perhaps be a doubt about it. The wealth even in that case would certainly carry the day against the disgrace, and Lady Carbury would find reasons why “poor Marie” should not be punished for her father’s sins, even while enjoying the money which those sins had produced. But how different were the existing facts? Mr. Melmotte was not at the galleys, but was entertaining duchesses in Grosvenor Square. People said that Mr. Melmotte had a reputation throughout Europe as a gigantic swindler⁠—as one who in the dishonest and successful pursuit of wealth had stopped at nothing. People said of him that he had framed and carried out long premeditated and deeply laid schemes for the ruin of those who had trusted him, that he had swallowed up the property of all who had come in contact with him, that he was fed with the blood of widows and children;⁠—but what was all this to Lady Carbury? If the duchesses condoned it all, did it become her to be prudish? People also said that Melmotte would yet get a fall⁠—that a man who had risen after such a fashion never could long keep his head up. But he might keep his head up long enough to give Marie her fortune. And then Felix wanted a fortune so badly;⁠—was so exactly the young man who ought to marry a fortune! To Lady Carbury there was no second way of looking at the matter.

And to Roger Carbury also there was no second way of looking at it. That condonation of antecedents which, in the hurry of the world, is often vouchsafed to success, that growing feeling which induces people to assert to themselves that they are not bound to go outside the general verdict, and that they may shake hands with whomsoever the world shakes hands with, had never reached him. The old-fashioned idea that the touching of pitch will defile still prevailed with him. He was a gentleman;⁠—and would have felt himself disgraced to enter the house of such a one as Augustus Melmotte. Not all the duchesses in the peerage, or all the money in the city, could alter his notions or induce him to modify his conduct. But he knew that it would be useless for him to explain this to Lady Carbury. He trusted, however, that one of the family might be taught to appreciate the difference between honour and dishonour. Henrietta Carbury had, he thought, a higher turn of mind than her mother, and had as yet been kept free from soil. As for Felix⁠—he had so grovelled in the gutters as to be dirt all over. Nothing short of the prolonged sufferings of half a life could cleanse him.

He found Henrietta alone in the drawing-room. “Have you seen Felix?” she said, as soon as they had greeted each other.

“Yes. I caught him in the street.”

“We are so unhappy about him.”

“I cannot say but that you have reason. I think, you know, that your mother indulges him foolishly.”

“Poor mamma! She worships the very ground he treads on.”

“Even a mother should not throw her worship away like that. The fact is that your brother will ruin you both if this goes on.”

“What can mamma do?”

“Leave London, and then refuse to pay a shilling on his behalf.”

“What would Felix do in the country?”

“If he did nothing, how much better would that be than what he does in town?