e would yet get a
fall,--that a man who had risen after such a fashion never could long
keep his head up. But he might keep his head up long enough to give
Marie her fortune. And then Felix wanted a fortune so badly;--was so
exactly the young man who ought to marry a fortune! To Lady Carbury
there was no second way of looking at the matter.

And to Roger Carbury also there was no second way of looking at it.
That condonation of antecedents which, in the hurry of the world, is
often vouchsafed to success, that growing feeling which induces
people to assert to themselves that they are not bound to go outside
the general verdict, and that they may shake hands with whomsoever the
world shakes hands with, had never reached him. The old-fashioned idea
that the touching of pitch will defile still prevailed with him. He
was a gentleman;--and would have felt himself disgraced to enter the
house of such a one as Augustus Melmotte. Not all the duchesses in the
peerage, or all the money in the city, could alter his notions or
induce him to modify his conduct. But he knew that it would be useless
for him to explain this to Lady Carbury. He trusted, however, that one
of the family might be taught to appreciate the difference between
honour and dishonour. Henrietta Carbury had, he thought, a higher turn
of mind than her mother, and had as yet been kept free from soil. As
for Felix,--he had so grovelled in the gutters as to be dirt all over.
Nothing short of the prolonged sufferings of half a life could cleanse
him.

He found Henrietta alone in the drawing-room. 'Have you seen Felix?'
she said, as soon as they had greeted each other.

'Yes. I caught him in the street.'

'We are so unhappy about him.'

'I cannot say but that you have reason. I think, you know, that your
mother indulges him foolishly.'

'Poor mamma! She worships the very ground he treads on.'

'Even a mother should not throw her worship away like that. The fact
is that your brother will ruin you both if this goes on.'

'What can mamma do?'

'Leave London, and then refuse to pay a shilling on his behalf.'

'What would Felix do in the country?'

'If he did nothing, how much better would that be than what he does in
town? You would not like him to become a professional gambler.'

'Oh, Mr Carbury; you do not mean that he does that!'

'It seems cruel to say such things to you,--but in a matter of such
importance one is bound to speak the truth. I have no influ