The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

was unable to pay debts of honour to the amount of £200;⁠—but that if such was the case he would have no alternative but to apply to the Duke himself. The reader need hardly be told that to this letter Mr. Grendall vouchsafed no answer whatever. In his letter to Mr. Melmotte he confined himself to one matter of business in hand. He made no allusion whatever to Marie, or to the great man’s anger, or to his seat at the board. He simply reminded Mr. Melmotte that there was a sum of £600 still due to him, and requested that a cheque might be sent to him for that amount. Melmotte’s answer to this was not altogether unsatisfactory, though it was not exactly what Sir Felix had wished. A clerk from Mr. Melmotte’s office called at the house in Welbeck Street, and handed to Felix railway scrip in the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway to the amount of the sum claimed⁠—insisting on a full receipt for the money before he parted with the scrip. The clerk went on to explain, on behalf of his employer, that the money had been left in Mr. Melmotte’s hands for the purpose of buying these shares. Sir Felix, who was glad to get anything, signed the receipt and took the scrip. This took place on the day after the balloting at Westminster, when the result was not yet known⁠—and when the shares in the railway were very low indeed. Sir Felix had asked as to the value of the shares at the time. The clerk professed himself unable to quote the price⁠—but there were the shares if Sir Felix liked to take them. Of course he took them;⁠—and hurrying off into the City found that they might perhaps be worth about half the money due to him. The broker to whom he showed them could not quite answer for anything. Yes;⁠—the scrip had been very high; but there was a panic. They might recover⁠—or, more probably, they might go to nothing. Sir Felix cursed the Great Financier aloud, and left the scrip for sale. That was the first time that he had been out of the house before dark since his little accident.

But he was chiefly tormented in these days by the want of amusement. He had so spent his life hitherto that he did not know how to get through a day in which no excitement was provided for him. He never read. Thinking was altogether beyond him. And he had never done a day’s work in his life. He could lie in bed. He could eat and drink. He could smoke and sit idle. He could play cards; and could amuse himself with women⁠—the lower the culture of the women, the better the amusement. Beyond these things the world had nothing for him. Therefore he again took himself to the pursuit of Ruby Ruggles.

Poor Ruby had endured a very painful incarceration at her aunt’s house. She had been wrathful and had stormed, swearing that she would be free to come and go as she pleased. Free to go, Mrs. Pipkin told her that she was;⁠—but not free to return if she went out otherwise than as she, Mrs. Pipkin, chose. “Am I to be a slave?” Ruby asked, and almost upset the perambulator which she had just dragged in at the hall door. Then Mrs. Hurtle had taken upon herself to talk to her, and poor Ruby had been quelled by the superior strength of the American lady. But she was very unhappy, finding that it did not suit her to be nursemaid to her aunt. After all John Crumb couldn’t have cared for her a bit, or he would have come to look after her. While she was in this condition Sir Felix came to Mrs. Pipkin’s house, and asked for her at the door. It happened that Mrs. Pipkin herself had opened the door⁠—and, in her fright and dismay at the presence of so pernicious a young man in her own passage, had denied that Ruby was in the house. But Ruby had heard her lover’s voice, and had rushed up and thrown herself into his arms. Then there had been a great scene. Ruby had sworn that she didn’t care for her aunt, didn’t care for her grandfather, or for Mrs. Hurtle, or for John Crumb⁠—or for any person or anything. She cared only for her lover. Then Mrs. Hurtle had asked the young man his intentions. Did he mean to marry Ruby? Sir Felix had said that he “supposed he might as well some day.” “There,” said Ruby, “there!”⁠—shouting in triumph as though an offer had been made to her with the completest ceremony of which such an event admits. Mrs. Pipkin had been very weak. Instead of calling in the assistance of her strong-minded lodger, she had allowed the lovers to remain together for half-an-hour in the dining-room. I do not know that Sir Felix in any way repeated his promise during that time, but Ruby was probably too blessed with the word that had been spoken to ask for such renewal. “There must be an end of this,” said Mrs. Pipkin, coming in when the half-hour was over. Then Sir Felix had gone, promising to come again on the following evening. “You must not come here, Sir Felix,” said Mrs. Pipkin, “unless you puts it in writing.” To this, of course, Sir Felix made no answer. As he went home he congratulated himself on the success of his adventure. Perhaps the best thing he could do when he had realised the money for the shares would be to take Ruby for a tour abroad. The money would last for three or four months⁠—and three or four months ahead was almost an eternity.

That afternoon before dinner he found his sister alone in the drawing-room. Lady Carbury had gone to her own room after hearing the distressing story of Paul Montague’s love, and had not seen Hetta since. Hetta was melancholy, thinking of her mother’s hard words⁠—thinking perhaps of Paul’s poverty