old Grendall and young Carbury. I've been thinking a good deal about
it, and I can't make it out.'

'I have been thinking about it too,' said Paul.

'I suppose old Melmotte is all right?' asked Nidderdale. This was a
question which Montague found it difficult to answer. How could he be
justified in whispering suspicions to the man who was known to be at
any rate one of the competitors for Marie Melmotte's hand? 'You can
speak out to me, you know,' said Nidderdale, nodding his head.

'I've got nothing to speak. People say that he is about the richest
man alive.'

'He lives as though he were.'

'I don't see why it shouldn't be all true. Nobody, I take it, knows
very much about him.'

When his companion had left him, Nidderdale sat down, thinking of it
all. It occurred to him that he would 'be coming a cropper rather,'
were he to marry Melmotte's daughter for her money, and then find that
she had got none.

A little later in the evening he invited Montague to go up to the
card-room. 'Carbury, and Grasslough, and Dolly Longestaffe are there
waiting,' he said. But Paul declined. He was too full of his troubles
for play. 'Poor Miles isn't there, if you're afraid of that,' said
Nidderdale.

'Miles Grendall wouldn't hinder me,' said Montague.

'Nor me either. Of course it's a confounded shame. I know that as well
as anybody. But, God bless me, I owe a fellow down in Leicestershire
heaven knows how much for keeping horses, and that's a shame.'

'You'll pay him some day.'

'I suppose I shall,--if I don't die first. But I should have gone on
with the horses just the same if there had never been anything to
come;--only they wouldn't have given me tick, you know. As far as I'm
concerned it's just the same. I like to live whether I've got money or
not. And I fear I don't have many scruples about paying. But then I
like to let live too. There's Carbury always saying nasty things about
poor Miles. He's playing himself without a rap to back him. If he were
to lose, Vossner wouldn't stand him a L10 note. But because he has
won, he goes on as though he were old Melmotte himself. You'd better
come up.'

But Montague wouldn't go up. Without any fixed purpose he left the
club, and slowly sauntered northwards through the streets till he
found himself in Welbeck Street. He hardly knew why he went there, and
certainly had not determined to call on Lady Carbury when he left the
Beargarden. His mind was full of Mrs Hurtle. As lo