just going home, and came up
here to see how the empty rooms would look after they were all gone.
What became of your father?'

'I suppose he went away.'

'I suppose he did,' said Melmotte, unable to hinder himself from
throwing a certain tone of scorn into his voice,--as though proclaiming
the fate of his own house and the consequent running away of the rat.
'It went off very well, I think.'

'Very well,' said Miles, still standing at the door. There had been a
few words of consultation between him and his father,--only a very
few words. 'You'd better see it out to-night, as you've had a regular
salary, and all that. I shall hook it. I sha'n't go near him to-morrow
till I find out how things are going. By G----, I've had about enough
of him.' But hardly enough of his money or it may be presumed that Lord
Alfred would have 'hooked it' sooner.

'Why don't you come in, and not stand there?' said Melmotte. 'There's
no Emperor here now for you to be afraid of.'

'I'm afraid of nobody,' said Miles, walking into the middle of the
room.

'Nor am I. What's one man that another man should be afraid of him?
We've got to die, and there'll be an end of it, I suppose.'

'That's about it,' said Miles, hardly following the working of his
master's mind.

'I shouldn't care how soon. When a man has worked as I have done, he
gets about tired at my age. I suppose I'd better be down at the
committee-room about ten to-morrow?'

'That's the best, I should say.'

'You'll be there by that time?' Miles Grendall assented slowly, and
with imperfect assent. 'And tell your father he might as well be there
as early as convenient.'

'All right,' said Miles as he took his departure.

'Curs!' said Melmotte almost aloud. 'They neither of them will be
there. If any evil can be done to me by treachery and desertion, they
will do it.' Then it occurred to him to think whether the Grendall
article had been worth all the money that he had paid for it. 'Curs!'
he said again. He walked down into the hall, and through the
banqueting-room, and stood at the place where he himself had sat. What
a scene it had been, and how frightfully low his heart had sunk within
him! It had been the defection of the Lord Mayor that had hit him
hardest. 'What cowards they are!' The men went on with their work, not
noticing him, and probably not knowing him. The dinner had been done
by contract, and the contractor's foreman was there. The care of the
house and the