ll; you're just living on your mother, and I'm
afraid she's not very well off. How can you suppose that I shall give
my girl to you?' Felix still looked at him but did not dare to
contradict a single statement made. Yet when the man told him that he
had not a brass farthing he thought of his own thousand pounds which
were now in the man's pocket. 'You're a baronet, and that's about all,
you know,' continued Melmotte. 'The Carbury property, which is a very
small thing, belongs to a distant cousin who may leave it to me if he
pleases;--and who isn't very much older than you are yourself.'

'Oh, come, Mr Melmotte; he's a great deal older than me.'

'It wouldn't matter if he were as old as Adam. The thing is out of the
question, and you must drop it.' Then the look on his brow became a
little heavier. 'You hear what I say. She is going to marry Lord
Nidderdale. She was engaged to him before you ever saw her. What do
you expect to get by it?'

Sir Felix had not the courage to say that he expected to get the girl
he loved. But as the man waited for an answer he was obliged to say
something. 'I suppose it's the old story,' he said.

'Just so;--the old story. You want my money, and she wants you, just
because she has been told to take somebody else. You want something to
live on;--that's what you want. Come;--out with it. Is not that it? When
we understand each other I'll put you in the way of making money.'

'Of course I'm not very well off,' said Felix.

'About as badly as any young man that I can hear of. You give me your
written promise that you'll drop this affair with Marie, and you
shan't want for money.'

'A written promise!'

'Yes;--a written promise. I give nothing for nothing. I'll put you in
the way of doing so well with these shares that you shall be able to
marry any other girl you please;--or to live without marrying, which
you'll find to be better.'

There was something worthy of consideration in Mr Melmotte's
proposition. Marriage of itself, simply as a domestic institution, had
not specially recommended itself to Sir Felix Carbury. A few horses at
Leighton, Ruby Ruggles or any other beauty, and life at the Beargarden
were much more to his taste. And then he was quite alive to the fact
that it was possible that he might find himself possessed of the wife
without the money. Marie, indeed, had a grand plan of her own, with
reference to that settled income; but then Marie might be mistaken,--or
she migh