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

longer. She was in love with Sir Felix, and had told her love. Whatever difficulties there might be, she intended to be true. If necessary, she would run away. Sir Felix was her idol, and she abandoned herself to its worship. But she desired that her idol should be of flesh and blood, and not of wood. She was at first half-inclined to be angry; but as she sat with his letter in her hand, she remembered that he did not know Didon as well as she did, and that he might be afraid to trust his raptures to such custody. She could write to him at his club, and having no such fear, she could write warmly.

⸻, Grosvenor Square. Early Monday Morning.

Dearest, Dearest Felix,

I have just got your note;⁠—such a scrap! Of course papa would talk about money because he never thinks of anything else. I don’t know anything about money, and I don’t care in the least how much you have got. Papa has got plenty, and I think he would give us some if we were once married. I have told mamma, but mamma is always afraid of everything. Papa is very cross to her sometimes;⁠—more so than to me. I will try to tell him, though I can’t always get at him. I very often hardly see him all day long. But I don’t mean to be afraid of him, and will tell him that on my word and honour I will never marry anyone except you. I don’t think he will beat me, but if he does, I’ll bear it⁠—for your sake. He does beat mamma sometimes, I know.

You can write to me quite safely through Didon. I think if you would call some day and give her something, it would help, as she is very fond of money. Do write and tell me that you love me. I love you better than anything in the world, and I will never⁠—never give you up. I suppose you can come and call⁠—unless papa tells the man in the hall not to let you in. I’ll find that out from Didon, but I can’t do it before sending this letter. Papa dined out yesterday somewhere with that Lord Alfred, so I haven’t seen him since you were here. I never see him before he goes into the city in the morning. Now I am going downstairs to breakfast with mamma and that Miss Longestaffe. She is a stuck-up thing. Didn’t you think so at Caversham?

Goodbye. You are my own, own, own darling Felix,

And I am your own, own affectionate ladylove,

Marie.

Sir Felix when he read this letter at his club in the afternoon of the Monday, turned up his nose and shook his head. He thought if there were much of that kind of thing to be done, he could not go on with it, even though the marriage were certain, and the money secure. “What an infernal little ass!” he said to himself as he crumpled the letter up.

Marie having entrusted her letter to Didon, together with a little present of gloves and shoes, went down to breakfast. Her mother was the first there, and Miss Longestaffe soon followed. That lady, when she found that she was not expected to breakfast with the master of the house, abandoned the idea of having her meal sent to her in her own room. Madame Melmotte she must endure. With Madame Melmotte she had to go out in the carriage every day. Indeed she could only go to those parties to which Madame Melmotte accompanied her. If the London season was to be of any use at all, she must accustom herself to the companionship of Madame Melmotte. The man kept himself very much apart from her. She met him only at dinner, and that not often. Madame Melmotte was very bad; but she was silent, and seemed to understand that her guest was only her guest as a matter of business.

But Miss Longestaffe already perceived that her old acquaintances were changed in their manner to her. She had written to her dear friend Lady Monogram, whom she had known intimately as Miss Triplex, and whose marriage with Sir Damask Monogram had been splendid preferment, telling how she had been kept down in Suffolk at the time of her friend’s last party, and how she had been driven to consent to return to London as the guest of Madame Melmotte. She hoped her friend would not throw her off on that account. She had been very affectionate, with a poor attempt at fun, and rather humble. Georgiana Longestaffe had never been humble before; but the Monograms were people so much thought of and in such an excellent set! She would do anything rather than lose the Monograms. But it was of no use. She had been humble in vain, for Lady Monogram had not even answered her note. “She never really cared for anybody but herself,” Georgiana said in her wretched solitude. Then, too, she had found that Lord Nidderdale’s manner to her had been quite changed. She was not a fool, and could read these signs with sufficient accuracy. There had been little flirtations between her and Nidderdale⁠—meaning nothing, as everyone knew that Nidderdale must marry money; but in none of them had he spoken to her as he spoke when he met her in Madame Melmotte’s drawing-room. She could see it in the faces of people as they greeted her in the park⁠—especially in the faces of the men. She had always carried herself with a certain high demeanour, and had been able to maintain it. All that was now gone from her, and she knew it. Though the thing was as yet but a few days old she understood that others understood that she had degraded herself. “What’s all this about?” Lord Grasslough had said to her, seeing her come into a room behind Madame Melmotte. She had simpered, had tried to