'

'I don't know what you mean by working day and night. I don't want you
to work day and night.'

'There is hardly a young man in London that is not thinking of this
girl, and you have chances that none of them have. I am told they are
going out of town at Whitsuntide, and that she's to meet Lord
Nidderdale down in the country.'

'She can't endure Nidderdale. She says so herself.'

'She will do as she is told,--unless she can be made to be downright in
love with some one like yourself. Why not ask her at once on
Tuesday?'

'If I'm to do it at all I must do it after my own fashion. I'm not
going to be driven.'

'Of course if you will not take the trouble to be here to see her when
she comes to your own house, you cannot expect her to think that you
really love her.'

'Love her! what a bother there is about loving! Well;--I'll look in.
What time do the animals come to feed?'

'There will be no feeding. Felix, you are so heartless and so cruel
that I sometimes think I will make up my mind to let you go your own
way and never to speak to you again. My friends will be here about
ten;--I should say from ten till twelve. I think you should be here to
receive her, not later than ten.'

'If I can get my dinner out of my throat by that time, I will come.'

When the Tuesday came, the over-driven young man did contrive to get
his dinner eaten, and his glass of brandy sipped, and his cigar
smoked, and perhaps his game of billiards played, so as to present
himself in his mother's drawing-room not long after half-past ten.
Madame Melmotte and her daughter were already there,--and many others,
of whom the majority were devoted to literature. Among them Mr Alf was
in the room, and was at this very moment discussing Lady Carbury's
book with Mr Booker. He had been quite graciously received, as though
he had not authorised the crushing. Lady Carbury had given him her
hand with that energy of affection with which she was wont to welcome
her literary friends, and had simply thrown one glance of appeal into
his eyes as she looked into his face,--as though asking him how he had
found it in his heart to be so cruel to one so tender, so unprotected,
so innocent as herself. 'I cannot stand this kind of thing,' said Mr
Alf, to Mr Booker. 'There's a regular system of touting got abroad,
and I mean to trample it down.'

'If you're strong enough,' said Mr Booker.

'Well, I think I am. I'm strong enough, at any rate, to show that I'm