want to marry him, there's no reason I should snub him.'

'Smithson is not a man to be trifled with. You will find yourself
entangled in a web which you won't easily break through.'

'I am not afraid of webs. By-the-bye, is it true that Mr. Smithson is
likely to get a peerage?'

'I have heard people say as much. Smithson has spent no end of money on
electioneering, and is a power in the House, though he very rarely
speaks. His Berkshire estate gives him a good deal of influence in that
county; at the last general election he subscribed twenty thou to the
Conservative cause; for, like most men who have risen from nothing, your
friend Smithson is a fine old Tory. He was specially elected at the
Carlton six years ago, and has made himself uncommonly useful to his
party. He is supposed to be great on financial questions, and comes out
tremendously on colonial railways or drainage schemes, about which the
House in general is in profound ignorance. On those occasions Smithson
scores high. A man with immense wealth has always chances. No doubt, if
you were to marry him, the peerage would be easily managed. Smithson's
money, backed by the Maulevrier influence, would go a long way. My
grandmother would move heaven and earth in a case of that kind. You had
better take pity on Smithson.'

Lesbia laughed. That idea of a possible peerage elevated Smithson in her
eyes. She knew nothing of his political career, as she lived in a set
which ignored politics altogether. Mr. Smithson had never talked to her
of his parliamentary duties; and it was a new thing for her to hear that
he had some kind of influence in public affairs.

'Suppose I were inclined to accept him, would you like him as a
brother-in-law?' she asked lightly. 'I thought from your manner last
night that you rather disliked him.'

'I don't quite like him or any of his breed, the newly rich, who go
about in society swelling with the sense of their own importance,
perspiring gold, as it were. And one has always a faint suspicion of men
who have got rich very quickly, an idea that there must be some kind of
juggling. Not in the case of a great contractor, perhaps, who can point
to a viaduct and docks and railways, and say, "I built that, and that,
and that. These are the sources of my wealth." But a man who gets
enormously rich by mere ciphering! Where can his money come from, except
out of other people's pockets? I know nothing against your Mr. Smithson,
but I always s