at it would be to find one's self there without the means of
doing anything, and to feel that one had been sent there merely that
one might be out of the way'

'I would make the means of doing something.'

'Means are money. How can I make that?'

'There is money going. There must be money where there is all this
buying and selling of shares. Where does your uncle get the money with
which he is living like a prince at San Francisco? Where does Fisker
get the money with which he is speculating in New York? Where does
Melmotte get the money which makes him the richest man in the world?
Why should not you get it as well as the others?'

'If I were anxious to rob on my own account perhaps I might do it.'

'Why should it be robbery? I do not want you to live in a palace and
spend millions of dollars on yourself. But I want you to have
ambition. Go to Mexico, and chance it. Take San Francisco in your way,
and get across the country. I will go every yard with you. Make people
there believe that you are in earnest, and there will be no difficulty
about the money.'

He felt that he was taking no steps to approach the subject which he
should have to discuss before he left her,--or rather the statement
which he had resolved that he would make. Indeed every word which he
allowed her to say respecting this Mexican project carried him farther
away from it. He was giving reasons why the journey should not be
made; but was tacitly admitting that if it were to be made she might
be one of the travellers. The very offer on her part implied an
understanding that his former abnegation of the engagement had been
withdrawn, and yet he shrunk from the cruelty of telling her, in a
sideway fashion, that he would not submit to her companionship either
for the purpose of such a journey or for any other purpose. The thing
must be said in a solemn manner, and must be introduced on its own
basis. But such preliminary conversation as this made the introduction
of it infinitely more difficult.

'You are not in a hurry?' she said.

'Oh no.'

'You're going to spend the evening with me like a good man? Then I'll
ask them to let us have tea.' She rang the bell and Ruby came in, and
the tea was ordered. 'That young lady tells me that you are an old
friend of hers.'

'I've known about her down in the country, and was astonished to find
her here yesterday.'

'There's some lover, isn't there;--some would-be husband whom she does
not like?'

'An