d with all her
ears. It was Mr Booker's idea that the man was going 'to make a spoon
or spoil a horn.' 'You think him honest;--don't you?' asked Lady
Carbury. Mr Booker smiled and hesitated. 'Of course, I mean honest as
men can be in such very large transactions.'

'Perhaps that is the best way of putting it,' said Mr Booker.

'If a thing can be made great and beneficent, a boon to humanity,
simply by creating a belief in it, does not a man become a benefactor
to his race by creating that belief?'

'At the expense of veracity?' suggested Mr Booker.

'At the expense of anything?' rejoined Lady Carbury with energy. 'One
cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule.'

'You would do evil to produce good?' asked Mr Booker.

'I do not call it doing evil. You have to destroy a thousand living
creatures every time you drink a glass of water, but you do not think
of that when you are athirst. You cannot send a ship to sea without
endangering lives. You do send ships to sea though men perish yearly.
You tell me this man may perhaps ruin hundreds, but then again he may
create a new world in which millions will be rich and happy.'

'You are an excellent casuist, Lady Carbury.'

'I am an enthusiastic lover of beneficent audacity,' said Lady Carbury,
picking her words slowly, and showing herself to be quite satisfied
with herself as she picked them. 'Did I hold your place, Mr Booker, in
the literature of my country--'

'I hold no place, Lady Carbury.'

'Yes;--and a very distinguished place. Were I circumstanced as you are I
should have no hesitation in lending the whole weight of my
periodical, let it be what it might, to the assistance of so great a
man and so great an object as this.'

'I should be dismissed to-morrow,' said Mr Booker, getting up and
laughing as he took his departure. Lady Carbury felt that, as regarded
Mr Booker, she had only thrown out a chance word that could not do any
harm. She had not expected to effect much through Mr Booker's
instrumentality. On the Tuesday evening,--her regular Tuesday as she
called it,--all her three editors came to her drawing-room; but there
came also a greater man than either of them. She had taken the bull by
the horns, and without saying anything to anybody had written to Mr
Melmotte himself, asking him to honour her poor house with his
presence. She had written a very pretty note to him, reminding him of
their meeting at Caversham, telling him that on a former occasion