'In three months' time everybody will have forgotten it.'
'To tell you the truth, sir, I think Miss Melmotte has got a will of her own stronger than you give her credit for. She has never given me the slightest encouragement. Ever so long ago, about Christmas, she did once say that she would do as you bade her. But she is very much changed since then. The thing was off.'
'She had nothing to do with that.'
'No;--but she has taken advantage of it, and I have no right to complain.'
'You just come to the house, and ask her again to-morrow. Or come on Sunday morning. Don't let us be done out of all our settled arrangements by the folly of an idle girl. Will you come on Sunday morning about noon?' Lord Nidderdale thought of his position for a few moments and then said that perhaps he would come on Sunday morning. After that Melmotte proposed that they two should go and 'get a bit of lunch' at a certain Conservative club in the City. There would be time before the meeting of the Railway Board. Nidderdale had no objection to the lunch, but expressed a strong opinion that the Board was 'rot'. 'That's all very well for you, young man,' said the chairman, 'but I must go there in order that you may be able to enjoy a splendid fortune.' Then he touched the young man on the shoulder and drew him back as he was passing out by the front stairs. 'Come this way, Nidderdale;--come this way. I must get out without being seen. There are people waiting for me there who think that a man can attend to business from morning to night without ever having a bit in his mouth.' And so they escaped by the back stairs.
At the club, the City Conservative world,--which always lunches well,--welcomed Mr Melmotte very warmly. The election was coming on, and there was much to be said. He played the part of the big City man to perfection, standing about the room with his hat on, and talking loudly to a dozen men at once. And he was glad to show the club that Lord Nidderdale had come there with him. The club of course knew that Lord Nidderdale was the accepted suitor of the rich man's daughter,-- accepted, that is, by the rich man himself,--and the club knew also that the rich man's daughter had tried but had failed to run away with Sir Felix Carbury. There is nothing like wiping out a misfortune and having done with it. The presence of Lord Nidderdale was almost an assurance to the club that the misfortune had been wiped out, and, as it were, abolished. A little before three Mr Melmotte returned to Abchurch Lane, intending to regain his room by the back way; while Lord Nidderdale went westward, considering within his own mind whether it was expedient that he should continue to show himself as a suitor for Miss Melmotte's hand. He had an idea that a few years ago a man could not have done such a thing--that he would be held to show a poor spirit should he attempt it; but that now it did not much matter what a man did,--if only he were successful. 'After all, it's only an affair of money,' he said to himself.