ost as soon have believed that I myself might have been
induced to ask them here.'

'I fancy, Roger, that Mr Longestaffe does want a little pecuniary
assistance.'

'And he condescends to get it in this way! I suppose it will make no
difference soon whom one knows, and whom one doesn't. Things aren't as
they were, of course, and never will be again. Perhaps it's all for
the better;--I won't say it isn't. But I should have thought that such a
man as Mr Longestaffe might have kept such another man as Mr Melmotte
out of his wife's drawing-room.' Henrietta became redder than ever.
Even Lady Carbury flushed up, as she remembered that Roger Carbury
knew that she had taken her daughter to Madame Melmotte's ball. He
thought of this himself as soon as the words were spoken, and then
tried to make some half apology. 'I don't approve of them in London,
you know; but I think they are very much worse in the country.'

Then there was a movement. The ladies were shown into their rooms, and
Roger again went out into the garden. He began to feel that he
understood it all. Lady Carbury had come down to his house in order
that she might be near the Melmottes! There was something in this
which he felt it difficult not to resent. It was for no love of him
that she was there. He had felt that Henrietta ought not to have been
brought to his house; but he could have forgiven that, because her
presence there was a charm to him. He could have forgiven that, even
while he was thinking that her mother had brought her there with the
object of disposing of her. If it were so, the mother's object would
be the same as his own, and such a manoeuvre he could pardon, though
he could not approve. His self-love had to some extent been gratified.
But now he saw that he and his house had been simply used in order
that a vile project of marrying two vile people to each other might be
furthered!

As he was thinking of all this, Lady Carbury came out to him in the
garden. She had changed her travelling dress, and made herself pretty,
as she well knew how to do. And now she dressed her face in her
sweetest smiles. Her mind, also, was full of the Melmottes, and she
wished to explain to her stern, unbending cousin all the good that
might come to her and hers by an alliance with the heiress. 'I can
understand, Roger,' she said, taking his arm, 'that you should not
like those people.'

'What people?'

'The Melmottes.'

'I don't dislike them. How should I di