'I have asked the Longestaffes for Monday,' said Roger.
'They are down here then?'
'I think they arrived yesterday. There is always a flustering breeze in the air and a perturbation generally through the county when they come or go, and I think I perceived the effects about four in the afternoon. They won't come, I dare say.'
'Why not?'
'They never do. They have probably a house full of guests, and they know that my accommodation is limited. I've no doubt they'll ask us on Tuesday or Wednesday, and if you like we will go.'
'I know they are to have guests,' said Lady Carbury.
'What guests?'
'The Melmottes are coming to them.' Lady Carbury, as she made the announcement, felt that her voice and countenance and self-possession were failing her, and that she could not mention the thing as she would any matter that was indifferent to her.
'The Melmottes coming to Caversham!' said Roger, looking at Henrietta, who blushed with shame as she remembered that she had been brought into her lover's house solely in order that her brother might have an opportunity of seeing Marie Melmotte in the country.
'Oh yes,--Madame Melmotte told me. I take it they are very intimate.'
'Mr Longestaffe ask the Melmottes to visit him at Caversham!'
'Why not?'
'I should almost 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!