and can't be without my leave. He is very angry about
you this morning, for I told him I would never give you up. He says
he won't give me anything if I marry without his leave. But I am
sure he cannot take it away. I tell you, because I think I ought to
tell you everything.'

M.

Sir Felix as he read this could not but think that he had become
engaged to a very enterprising young lady. It was evident that she did
not care to what extent she braved her father on behalf of her lover,
and now she coolly proposed to rob him. But Sir Felix saw no reason
why he should not take advantage of the money made over to the girl's
name, if he could lay his bands on it. He did not know much of such
transactions, but he knew more than Marie Melmotte, and could
understand that a man in Melmotte's position should want to secure a
portion of his fortune against accidents, by settling it on his
daughter. Whether, having so settled it, he could again resume it
without the daughter's assent, Sir Felix did not know. Marie, who had
no doubt been regarded as an absolutely passive instrument when the
thing was done, was now quite alive to the benefit which she might
possibly derive from it. Her proposition, put into plain English,
amounted to this: 'Take me and marry me without my father's consent,--
and then you and I together can rob my father of the money which, for
his own purposes, he has settled upon me.' He had looked upon the lady
of his choice as a poor weak thing, without any special character of
her own, who was made worthy of consideration only by the fact that
she was a rich man's daughter; but now she began to loom before his
eyes as something bigger than that. She had had a will of her own when
the mother had none. She had not been afraid of her brutal father when
he, Sir Felix, had trembled before him. She had offered to be beaten,
and killed, and chopped to pieces on behalf of her lover. There could
be no doubt about her running away if she were asked.

It seemed to him that within the last month he had gained a great deal
of experience, and that things which heretofore had been troublesome
to him, or difficult, or perhaps impossible, were now coming easily
within his reach. He had won two or three thousand pounds at cards,
whereas invariable loss had been the result of the small play in which
he had before indulged. He had been set to marry this heiress, having
at first no great liking for the attempt, bec