The Way We Live Now

reached the room hardly made a reference to his daughter⁠—merely saying that nothing would overcome her wicked obstinacy. He made no allusion to his own violence, nor had Croll the courage to expostulate with him now that the immediate danger was over. The Great Financier again arranged the papers, just as they had been laid out before⁠—as though he thought that the girl might be brought down to sign them there. And then he went on to explain to Croll what he had wanted to have done⁠—how necessary it was that the thing should be done, and how terribly cruel it was to him that in such a crisis of his life he should be hampered, impeded⁠—he did not venture to his clerk to say ruined⁠—by the ill-conditioned obstinacy of a girl! He explained very fully how absolutely the property was his own, how totally the girl was without any right to withhold it from him! How monstrous in its injustice was the present position of things! In all this Croll fully agreed. Then Melmotte went on to declare that he would not feel the slightest scruple in writing Marie’s signature to the papers himself. He was the girl’s father and was justified in acting for her. The property was his own property, and he was justified in doing with it as he pleased. Of course he would have no scruple in writing his daughter’s name. Then he looked up at the clerk. The clerk again assented⁠—after a fashion, not by any means with the comfortable certainty with which he had signified his accordance with his employer’s first propositions. But he did not, at any rate, hint any disapprobation of the step which Melmotte proposed to take. Then Melmotte went a step farther, and explained that the only difficulty in reference to such a transaction would be that the signature of his daughter would be required to be corroborated by that of a witness before he could use it. Then he again looked up at Croll;⁠—but on this occasion Croll did not move a muscle of his face. There certainly was no assent. Melmotte continued to look at him; but then came upon the old clerk’s countenance a stern look which amounted to very strong dissent. And yet Croll had been conversant with some irregular doings in his time, and Melmotte knew well the extent of Croll’s experience. Then Melmotte made a little remark to himself. “He knows that the game is pretty well over.” “You had better return to the city now,” he said aloud. “I shall follow you in half an hour. It is quite possible that I may bring my daughter with me. If I can make her understand this thing I shall do so. In that case I shall want you to be ready.” Croll again smiled, and again assented, and went his way.

But Melmotte made no further attempt upon his daughter. As soon as Croll was gone he searched among various papers in his desk and drawers, and having found two signatures, those of his daughter and of this German clerk, set to work tracing them with some thin tissue paper. He commenced his present operation by bolting his door and pulling down the blinds. He practised the two signatures for the best part of an hour. Then he forged them on the various documents;⁠—and, having completed the operation, refolded them, placed them in a little locked bag of which he had always kept the key in his purse, and then, with the bag in his hand, was taken in his brougham into the city.

LXXVIII

Miss Longestaffe Again at Caversham

All this time Mr. Longestaffe was necessarily detained in London while the three ladies of his family were living forlornly at Caversham. He had taken his younger daughter home on the day after his visit to Lady Monogram, and in all his intercourse with her had spoken of her suggested marriage with Mr. Brehgert as a thing utterly out of the question. Georgiana had made one little fight for her independence at the Jermyn Street Hotel. “Indeed, papa, I think it’s very hard,” she said.

“What’s hard? I think a great many things are hard; but I have to bear them.”

“You can do nothing for me.”

“Do nothing for you! Haven’t you got a home to live in, and clothes to wear, and a carriage to go about in⁠—and books to read if you choose to read them? What do you expect?”

“You know, papa, that’s nonsense.”

“How do you dare to tell me that what I say is nonsense?”

“Of course there’s a house to live in and clothes to wear; but what’s to be the end of it? Sophia, I suppose, is going to be married.”

“I am happy to say she is⁠—to a most respectable young man and a thorough gentleman.”

“And Dolly has his own way of going on.”

“You have nothing to do with Adolphus.”

“Nor will he have anything to do with me. If I don’t marry what’s to become of me? It isn’t that Mr. Brehgert is the sort of man I should choose.”

“Do not mention his name to me.”

“But what am I to do? You give up the house in town, and how am I to see people? It was you sent me to Mr. Melmotte.”

“I didn’t send you to Mr. Melmotte.”

“It was at your suggestion I went there, papa. And of course I could only see the people he had there. I like nice people as well as anybody.”

“There’s no use talking any more about it.”

“I don’t see that. I must talk about it, and think about it too. If I can put up with Mr. Brehgert I don’t see why you and mamma should complain.”

“A Jew!”

“People don’t think about that as they used to, papa. He has a very fine income, and I should always have a house in⁠—”

Then Mr. Longestaffe became so furious and loud, that he stopped her for that time. “Look here,” he said, “if you mean to tell me that you will