le he looked up into his friend's face.

'Don't you trouble your head about Longestaffe, or his money either,'
said Melmotte, getting into his brougham; 'do you leave Mr Longestaffe
and his money to me. I hope you are not such a fool as to be scared by
what the other fools say. When men play such a game as you and I are
concerned in, they ought to know better than to be afraid of every
word that is spoken.'

'Oh, dear; yes,' said Cohenlupe apologetically. 'You don't suppose
that I am afraid of anything.' But at that moment Mr Cohenlupe was
meditating his own escape from the dangerous shores of England, and
was trying to remember what happy country still was left in which an
order from the British police would have no power to interfere with
the comfort of a retired gentleman such as himself.

That evening Madame Melmotte told her husband that Marie was now
willing to marry Lord Nidderdale;--but she did not say anything as
to the crossing-sweeper or the black footman, nor did she allude to
Marie's threat of the sort of life she would lead her husband.

CHAPTER LXX - SIR FELIX MEDDLES WITH MANY MATTERS

There is no duty more certain or fixed in the world than that which
calls upon a brother to defend his sister from ill-usage; but, at the
same time, in the way we live now, no duty is more difficult, and we
may say generally more indistinct. The ill-usage to which men's
sisters are most generally exposed is one which hardly admits of
either protection or vengeance,--although the duty of protecting and
avenging is felt and acknowledged. We are not allowed to fight duels,
and that banging about of another man with a stick is always
disagreeable and seldom successful. A John Crumb can do it, perhaps,
and come out of the affair exulting; but not a Sir Felix Carbury, even
if the Sir Felix of the occasion have the requisite courage. There is
a feeling, too, when a girl has been jilted,--thrown over, perhaps, is
the proper term,--after the gentleman has had the fun of making love to
her for an entire season, and has perhaps even been allowed privileges
as her promised husband, that the less said the better. The girl does
not mean to break her heart for love of the false one, and become the
tragic heroine of a tale for three months. It is her purpose again to

--trick her beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flame in the forehead of the morning sky.

Though this one has been false, as were perhaps two or