lso that he will lose all that he
has got. He talked in the wildest way,--saying that he would soon have a
home for you and Hetta.'

'Did he,--dear boy!'

'Had he any meaning?'

'Oh; yes. And it is quite on the cards that it should be so. You have
heard of Miss Melmotte.'

'I have heard of the great French swindler who has come over here, and
who is buying his way into society.'

'Everybody visits them now, Roger.'

'More shame for everybody. Who knows anything about him,--except that he
left Paris with the reputation of a specially prosperous rogue? But
what of him?'

'Some people think that Felix will marry his only child. Felix is
handsome; isn't he? What young man is there nearly so handsome? They
say she'll have half a million of money.'

'That's his game;--is it?'

'Don't you think he is right?'

'No; I think he's wrong. But we shall hardly agree with each other
about that. Can I see Henrietta for a few minutes?'

CHAPTER VIII - LOVE-SICK

Roger Carbury said well that it was very improbable that he and his
cousin, the widow, should agree in their opinions as to the
expedience of fortune-hunting by marriage. It was impossible that they
should ever understand each other. To Lady Carbury the prospect of a
union between her son and Miss Melmotte was one of unmixed joy and
triumph. Could it have been possible that Marie Melmotte should be
rich and her father be a man doomed to a deserved sentence in a penal
settlement, there might perhaps be a doubt about it. The wealth even
in that case would certainly carry the day, against the disgrace, and
Lady Carbury would find reasons why poor Marie should not be punished
for her father's sins even while enjoying the money which those sins
had produced. But how different were the existing facts? Mr Melmotte
was not at the galleys, but was entertaining duchesses in Grosvenor
Square. People said that Mr Melmotte had a reputation throughout
Europe as a gigantic swindler,--as one who in the dishonest and
successful pursuit of wealth had stopped at nothing. People said of
him that he had framed and carried out long premeditated and
deeply-laid schemes for the ruin of those who had trusted him, that he
had swallowed up the property of all who had come in contact with him,
that he was fed with the blood of widows and children;--but what was all
this to Lady Carbury? If the duchesses condoned it all, did it become
her to be prudish? People also said that Melmott