rld,--which always lunches
well,--welcomed Mr Melmotte very warmly. The election was coming on,
and there was much to be said. He played the part of the big City man
to perfection, standing about the room with his hat on, and talking
loudly to a dozen men at once. And he was glad to show the club that
Lord Nidderdale had come there with him. The club of course knew that
Lord Nidderdale was the accepted suitor of the rich man's daughter,--
accepted, that is, by the rich man himself,--and the club knew also
that the rich man's daughter had tried but had failed to run away with
Sir Felix Carbury. There is nothing like wiping out a misfortune and
having done with it. The presence of Lord Nidderdale was almost an
assurance to the club that the misfortune had been wiped out, and, as
it were, abolished. A little before three Mr Melmotte returned to
Abchurch Lane, intending to regain his room by the back way; while
Lord Nidderdale went westward, considering within his own mind whether
it was expedient that he should continue to show himself as a suitor
for Miss Melmotte's hand. He had an idea that a few years ago a man
could not have done such a thing--that he would be held to show a poor
spirit should he attempt it; but that now it did not much matter what
a man did,--if only he were successful. 'After all, it's only an
affair of money,' he said to himself.

Mr Longestaffe in the meantime had progressed from weariness to
impatience, from impatience to ill-humour, and from ill-humour to
indignation. More than once he saw Miles Grendall, but Miles Grendall
was always ready with an answer. That Canadian Deputation was
determined to settle the whole business this morning, and would not
take itself away. And Sir Gregory Gribe had been obstinate, beyond the
ordinary obstinacy of a bank director. The rate of discount at the
bank could not be settled for to-morrow without communication with Mr
Melmotte, and that was a matter on which the details were always most
oppressive. At first Mr Longestaffe was somewhat stunned by the
Deputation and Sir Gregory Gribe; but as he waxed wroth the potency of
those institutions dwindled away, and as, at last, he waxed hungry,
they became as nothing to him. Was he not Mr Longestaffe of Caversham,
a Deputy-Lieutenant of his County, and accustomed to lunch punctually
at two o'clock? When he had been in that waiting-room for two hours,
it occurred to him that he only wanted his own, and that he would no