o be very clear about your own circumstances, Sir Felix. Perhaps
you will get your lawyer to write to me.'

'Perhaps that will be best,' said the lover.

'Either that, or to give it up. My daughter, no doubt, will have
money; but money expects money.' At this moment Lord Alfred entered
the room. 'You're very late to-day, Alfred. Why didn't you come as you
said you would?'

'I was here more than an hour ago, and they said you were out.'

'I haven't been out of this room all day,--except to lunch. Good
morning, Sir Felix. Ring the bell, Alfred, and we'll have a little
soda and brandy.' Sir Felix had gone through some greeting with his
fellow Director Lord Alfred, and at last succeeded in getting Melmotte
to shake hands with him before he went. 'Do you know anything about
that young fellow?' Melmotte asked as soon as the door was closed.

'He's a baronet without a shilling;--was in the army and had to leave
it,' said Lord Alfred as he buried his face in a big tumbler.

'Without a shilling! I supposed so. But he's heir to a place down in
Suffolk;--eh?'

'Not a bit of it. It's the same name, and that's about all. Mr Carbury
has a small property there, and he might give it to me to-morrow. I
wish he would, though there isn't much of it. That young fellow has
nothing to do with it whatever.'

'Hasn't he now!' Mr Melmotte, as he speculated upon it, almost admired
the young man's impudence.

CHAPTER XXIV - MILES GRENDALL'S TRIUMPH

Sir Felix as he walked down to his club felt that he had been
checkmated,--and was at the same time full of wrath at the insolence of
the man who had so easily beaten him out of the field. As far as he
could see, the game was over. No doubt he might marry Marie Melmotte.
The father had told him so much himself, and he perfectly believed the
truth of that oath which Marie had sworn. He did not doubt but that
she'd stick to him close enough. She was in love with him, which was
natural; and was a fool,--which was perhaps also natural. But romance
was not the game which he was playing. People told him that when girls
succeeded in marrying without their parents' consent, fathers were
always constrained to forgive them at last. That might be the case
with ordinary fathers. But Melmotte was decidedly not an ordinary
father. He was,--so Sir Felix declared to himself,--perhaps the greatest
brute ever created. Sir Felix could not but remember that elevation of
the eyebrows, and the brazen fo