The Way We Live Now

as 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

e 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

ld-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 Lad

-room. 'Have you seen Felix?' she said,

ght him in

unhappy a

eason. I think, you know, that yo

orships the very g

p away like that. The fact is that your br

can ma

en refuse to pay a sh

Felix do in

at be than what he does in town? You would n

you do not mean t

I have no influence over your mother; but you may have some. She asks my advice, but has not the slightest idea

sure y

r sake. You will ne

t ask me to t

r his sake you have already been take

njured by anything of that kind,'

if I seem t

is no interfer

he house of such a one as this man. Why does your mother seek his society? Not because she likes him;

goes there,

the road has become thronged and fashionable? Have you no feeling that you ought to choose your friends for certain reasons of your own? I admit there is one reason here. They have a great deal of mon

n't k

she thought of his own offer to herself. Of course, her mind at once conceived - not that the Melmotte connection could ever really affect him, for she felt sure that she would never accept his offer - but that he might think that he would be so affected. Of course he resented the feeling which sh

will take care that I am not take

opinion of your own as to

sorry you should th

-fashione

ave been always very kind, but I almost doubt whether you can change us, now.

nd I were - or possibly mi

elmottes I shall certainly go with her. If that is contamination, I suppose I must

t that you were bette

altered your opinion now. Indeed you have told me so. I am af

nderstand that there should be with her even that violet-coloured tinge of prevarication which women assume as an additional charm. Could

wish in the world; and that is, to travel the same road with you. I do not say that you ought to wish it too; but

- how sh

. Even were you in truth disgraced could disgrace touch one so pure as you it would be the same. I love you so well that I have already taken you for better or for worse. I cannot change. My

y well without

I am not doing at all well. I am becoming sour and moody, and ill at ease wit

you mean

t I am serious to the extent of ecstatic joy on the one side, and utter indifference to the world

I say, M

u will l

if I

t you wi

don't know how one person is to try to love another in that way.

be terrible

nd that I was too yo

e me of this - that if you promise your hand

e that,' she said, afte

s no one

s. I allow you to say things that nobody else could say because you are a cousin and because

angry w

N

you it is because I

ed by a gentleman. I don't think any girl would lik

her hand to him and allowed it to remain in his for a moment. 'When I walk about the old shrubberies at Carbury w

is no c

o hear you say so. Well; goo

re now wretched after a romantic fashion as have been those heroes and heroines of whose sufferings they have read in poetry. But there was nothing of this with Roger Carbury. He had, as he believed, found the woman that he really wanted, who was worthy of his love, and now, having fixed his heart upon her, he longed for her with an amazing longing. He had spoken the simple truth when he declared that life had become indifferent to him without her. No man in Engla

m, though the agony of his own disappointment should never depart from him? Should he do this and be blessed by them - or should he let Paul Montague know what deep resentment such ingratitude could produce? When had a father been kinder to a son, or a brother to a brother, than he had been to Paul? His home had been the young man's home, and his purse the young man's purse. What right could the young man have to come upon him just as he was perfecting his bliss and rob him of all that he had in the world? He was conscious all the while that there was a something wrong in his argument - that Paul when he commenced to love the girl knew nothing of his friend's love - that the girl, though Paul had never come in the way, migh