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

for him in which he might live with comparative safety would now be to her a heaven-sent comfort. “My son is upstairs,” she said. “I will go up and speak to him.”

“Tell him I am here and that I have said that I will forgive him everything, and that I love him still, and that if he will be true to me, I will be true to him.”

“I couldn’t go down to her,” said Sir Felix, “with my face all in this way.”

“I don’t think she would mind that.”

“I couldn’t do it. Besides, I don’t believe about her money. I never did believe it. That was the real reason why I didn’t go to Liverpool.”

“I think I would see her if I were you, Felix. We could find out to a certainty about her fortune. It is evident at any rate that she is very fond of you.”

“What’s the use of that, if he is ruined?” He would not go down to see the girl⁠—because he could not endure to expose his face, and was ashamed of the wounds which he had received in the street. As regarded the money he half-believed and half-disbelieved Marie’s story. But the fruition of the money, if it were within his reach, would be far off and to be attained with much trouble; whereas the nuisance of a scene with Marie would be immediate. How could he kiss his future bride, with his nose bound up with a bandage?

“What shall I say to her?” asked his mother.

“She oughtn’t to have come. I should tell her just that. You might send the maid to her to tell her that you couldn’t see her again.”

But Lady Carbury could not treat the girl after that fashion. She returned to the drawing-room, descending the stairs very slowly, and thinking what answer she would make. “Miss Melmotte,” she said, “my son feels that everything has been so changed since he and you last met, that nothing can be gained by a renewal of your acquaintance.”

“That is his message;⁠—is it?” Lady Carbury remained silent. “Then he is indeed all that they have told me; and I am ashamed that I should have loved him. I am ashamed;⁠—not of coming here, although you will think that I have run after him. I don’t see why a girl should not run after a man if they have been engaged together. But I’m ashamed of thinking so much of so mean a person. Goodbye, Lady Carbury.”

“Goodbye, Miss Melmotte. I don’t think you should be angry with me.”

“No;⁠—no. I am not angry with you. You can forget me now as soon as you please, and I will try to forget him.”

Then with a rapid step she walked back to Bruton Street, going round by Grosvenor Square and in front of her old house on the way. What should she now do with herself? What sort of life should she endeavour to prepare for herself? The life that she had led for the last year had been thoroughly wretched. The poverty and hardship which she remembered in her early days had been more endurable. The servitude to which she had been subjected before she had learned by intercourse with the world to assert herself, had been preferable. In these days of her grandeur, in which she had danced with princes, and seen an emperor in her father’s house, and been affianced to lords, she had encountered degradation which had been abominable to her. She had really loved;⁠—but had found out that her golden idol was made of the basest clay. She had then declared to herself that bad as the clay was she would still love it;⁠—but even the clay had turned away from her and had refused her love!

She was well aware that some catastrophe was about to happen to her father. Catastrophes had happened before, and she had been conscious of their coming. But now the blow would be a very heavy blow. They would again be driven to pack up and move and seek some other city⁠—probably in some very distant part. But go where she might, she would now be her own mistress. That was the one resolution she succeeded in forming before she re-entered the house in Bruton Street.

LXXXIII Melmotte Again at the House

On that Thursday afternoon it was known everywhere that there was to be a general ruin of all the Melmotte affairs. As soon as Cohenlupe had gone, no man doubted. The City men who had not gone to the dinner prided themselves on their foresight, as did also the politicians who had declined to meet the Emperor of China at the table of the suspected financier. They who had got up the dinner and had been instrumental in taking the Emperor to the house in Grosvenor Square, and they also who had brought him forward at Westminster and had fought his battle for him, were aware that they would have to defend themselves against heavy attacks. No one now had a word to say in his favour, or a doubt as to his guilt. The Grendalls had retired altogether out of town, and were no longer even heard of. Lord Alfred had not been seen since the day of the dinner. The Duchess of Albury, too, went into the country some weeks earlier than usual, quelled, as the world said, by the general Melmotte failure. But this departure had not as yet taken place at the time at which we have now arrived.

When the Speaker took his seat in the House, soon after four o’clock, there were a great many members present, and a general feeling prevailed that the world was more than ordinarily alive because of Melmotte and his failures. It had been confidently asserted throughout the morning that he would be put upon his trial for forgery in reference to the purchase of the Pickering property from Mr. Longestaffe, and it was known that he had not as yet shown