No policemen had come to trouble him yet. No hint that he would be 'wanted' had been made to him. There was no tangible sign that things were not to go on as they went before. Things would be exactly as they were before, but for the absence of those guests from the dinner-table, and for the words which Miles Grendall had spoken. Had he not allowed himself to be terrified by shadows? Of course he had known that there must be such shadows. His life had been made dark by similar clouds before now, and he had lived through the storms which had followed them. He was thoroughly ashamed of the weakness which had overcome him at the dinner-table, and of that palsy of fear which he had allowed himself to exhibit. There should be no more shrinking such as that. When people talked of him they should say that he was at least a man.
As this was passing through his mind a head was pushed in through one of the doors, and immediately withdrawn. It was his Secretary. 'Is that you, Miles?' he said. 'Come in. I'm just going home, and came up here to see how the empty rooms would look after they were all gone. What became of your father?'
'I suppose he went away.'
'I suppose he did,' said Melmotte, unable to hinder himself from throwing a certain tone of scorn into his voice,--as though proclaiming the fate of his own house and the consequent running away of the rat. 'It went off very well, I think.'
'Very well,' said Miles, still standing at the door. There had been a few words of consultation between him and his father,--only a very few words. 'You'd better see it out to-night, as you've had a regular salary, and all that. I shall hook it. I sha'n't go near him to-morrow till I find out how things are going. By G----, I've had about enough of him.' But hardly enough of his money or it may be presumed that Lord Alfred would have 'hooked it' sooner.
'Why don't you come in, and not stand there?' said Melmotte. 'There's no Emperor here now for you to be afraid of.'
'I'm afraid of nobody,' said Miles, walking into the middle of the room.
'Nor am I. What's one man that another man should be afraid of him? We've got to die, and there'll be an end of it, I suppose.'
'That's about it,' said Miles, hardly following the working of his master's mind.
'I shouldn't care how soon. When a man has worked as I have done, he gets about tired at my age. I suppose I'd better be down at the committee-room about ten to-morrow?'