osition was embarrassing and very odious to himself. Had he done
his duty properly, he would gently have pushed her from him, have
sprung to his legs, and have declared that, however faulty might have
been his previous conduct, he now found himself bound to make her
understand that he did not intend to become her husband. But he was
either too much of a man or too little of a man for conduct such as
that. He did make the avowal to himself, even at that moment as she
sat there. Let the matter go as it would, she should never be his
wife. He would marry no one unless it was Hetta Carbury. But he did
not at all know how to get this said with proper emphasis, and yet
with properly apologetic courtesy. 'I am engaged here about this
railway,' he said. 'You have heard, I suppose, of our projected
scheme?'

'Heard of it! San Francisco is full of it. Hamilton Fisker is the
great man of the day there, and, when I left, your uncle was buying a
villa for seventy-four thousand dollars. And yet they say that the
best of it all has been transferred to you Londoners. Many there are
very hard upon Fisker for coming here and doing as he did.'

'It's doing very well, I believe,' said Paul, with some feeling of
shame, as he thought how very little he knew about it.

'You are the manager here in England?'

'No,--I am a member of the firm that manages it at San Francisco; but
the real manager here is our chairman, Mr Melmotte.'

'Ah I have heard of him. He is a great man;--a Frenchman, is he not?
There was a talk of inviting him to California. You know him, of
course?'

'Yes,--I know him. I see him once a week.'

'I would sooner see that man than your Queen, or any of your dukes or
lords. They tell me that he holds the world of commerce in his right
hand. What power;--what grandeur!'

'Grand enough,' said Paul, 'if it all came honestly.'

'Such a man rises above honesty,' said Mrs Hurtle, 'as a great general
rises above humanity when he sacrifices an army to conquer a nation.
Such greatness is incompatible with small scruples. A pigmy man is
stopped by a little ditch, but a giant stalks over the rivers.'

'I prefer to be stopped by the ditches,' said Montague.

'Ah, Paul, you were not born for commerce. And I will grant you this,
that commerce is not noble unless it rises to great heights. To live
in plenty by sticking to your counter from nine in the morning to nine
at night, is not a fine life. But this man with a scratch of h