'If a thing can be made great and beneficent, a boon to humanity, simply by creating a belief in it, does not a man become a benefactor to his race by creating that belief?'
'At the expense of veracity?' suggested Mr Booker.
'At the expense of anything?' rejoined Lady Carbury with energy. 'One cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule.'
'You would do evil to produce good?' asked Mr Booker.
'I do not call it doing evil. You have to destroy a thousand living creatures every time you drink a glass of water, but you do not think of that when you are athirst. You cannot send a ship to sea without endangering lives. You do send ships to sea though men perish yearly. You tell me this man may perhaps ruin hundreds, but then again he may create a new world in which millions will be rich and happy.'
'You are an excellent casuist, Lady Carbury.'
'I am an enthusiastic lover of beneficent audacity,' said Lady Carbury, picking her words slowly, and showing herself to be quite satisfied with herself as she picked them. 'Did I hold your place, Mr Booker, in the literature of my country--'
'I hold no place, Lady Carbury.'
'Yes;--and a very distinguished place. Were I circumstanced as you are I should have no hesitation in lending the whole weight of my periodical, let it be what it might, to the assistance of so great a man and so great an object as this.'
'I should be dismissed to-morrow,' said Mr Booker, getting up and laughing as he took his departure. Lady Carbury felt that, as regarded Mr Booker, she had only thrown out a chance word that could not do any harm. She had not expected to effect much through Mr Booker's instrumentality. On the Tuesday evening,--her regular Tuesday as she called it,--all her three editors came to her drawing-room; but there came also a greater man than either of them. She had taken the bull by the horns, and without saying anything to anybody had written to Mr Melmotte himself, asking him to honour her poor house with his presence. She had written a very pretty note to him, reminding him of their meeting at Caversham, telling him that on a former occasion Madame Melmotte and his daughter had been so kind as to come to her, and giving him to understand that of all the potentates now on earth he was the one to whom she could bow the knee with the purest satisfaction. He wrote back,--or Miles Grendall did for him,--a very plain note, accepting the honour of Lady Carbury's invitation.