nominal,--so that selling was out of the question.
Cohenlupe and I between us had about 8,000 of these shares. Think what
that comes to!' Nidderdale tried to calculate what it did come to, but
failed altogether. 'That's what I call a blow;--a terrible blow. When
a man is concerned as I am with money interests, and concerned largely
with them all, he is of course exchanging one property for another
every day of his life,--according as the markets go. I don't keep such
a sum as that in one concern as an investment. Nobody does. Then when
a panic comes, don't you see how it hits?'

'Will they never go up again?'

'Oh yes,--perhaps higher than ever. But it will take time. And in the
meantime I am driven to fall back upon property intended for other
purposes. That's the meaning of what you hear about that place down in
Sussex which I bought for Marie. I was so driven that I was obliged to
raise forty or fifty thousand wherever I could. But that will be all
right in a week or two. And as for Marie's money,--that, you know, is
settled.'

He quite succeeded in making Nidderdale believe every word that he
spoke, and he produced also a friendly feeling in the young man's
bosom, with something approaching to a desire that he might be of
service to his future father-in-law. Hazily, as through a thick fog,
Lord Nidderdale thought that he did see something of the troubles, as
he had long seen something of the glories, of commerce on an extended
scale, and an idea occurred to him that it might be almost more
exciting than whist or unlimited loo. He resolved too that whatever
the man might tell him should never be divulged. He was on this
occasion somewhat captivated by Melmotte, and went away from the
interview with a conviction that the financier was a big man;--one with
whom he could sympathise, and to whom in a certain way he could become
attached.

And Melmotte himself had derived positive pleasure even from a
simulated confidence in his son-in-law. It had been pleasant to him
to talk as though he were talking to a young friend whom he trusted.
It was impossible that he could really admit any one to a
participation in his secrets. It was out of the question that he
should ever allow himself to be betrayed into speaking the truth of
his own affairs. Of course every word he had said to Nidderdale had
been a lie, or intended to corroborate lies. But it had not been only
on behalf of the lies that he had talked after this fashion