The Way We Live Now

infinitely less importance than her brother, who was a baronet, the head of that branch of the Carburys, and her mother’s darling; and, therefore, a few words should suffice. She also was very lovely, being like her brother; but somewhat less dark and with features less absolutely regular. But she had in her countenance a full measure of that sweetness of expression which seems to imply that consideration of self is subordinated to consideration for others. This sweetness was altogether lacking to her brother. And her face was a true index of her character. Again, who shall say why the brother and sister had become so opposite to each other; whether they would have been thus different had both been taken away as infants from their father’s and mother’s training, or whether the girl’s virtues were owing altogether to the lower place which she had held in her parent’s heart? She, at any rate, had not been spoilt by a title, by the command of money, and by the temptations of too early acquaintance with the world. At the present time she was barely twenty-one years old, and had not seen much of London society. Her mother did not frequent balls, and during the last two years there had grown upon them a necessity for economy which was inimical to many gloves and costly dresses. Sir Felix went out of course, but Hetta Carbury spent most of her time at home with her mother in Welbeck Street. Occasionally the world saw her, and when the world did see her the world declared that she was a charming girl. The world was so far right.

But for Henrietta Carbury the romance of life had already commenced in real earnest. There was another branch of the Carburys, the head branch, which was now represented by one Roger Carbury, of Carbury Hall. Roger Carbury was a gentleman of whom much will have to be said, but here, at this moment, it need only be told that he was passionately in love with his cousin Henrietta. He was, however, nearly forty years old, and there was one Paul Montague whom Henrietta had seen.

III

The Beargarden

Lady Carbury’s house in Welbeck Street was a modest house enough⁠—with no pretensions to be a mansion, hardly assuming even to be a residence; but, having some money in her hands when she first took it, she had made it pretty and pleasant, and was still proud to feel that in spite of the hardness of her position she had comfortable belongings around her when her literary friends came to see her on her Tuesday evenings. Here she was now living with her son and daughter. The back drawing-room was divided from the front by doors that were permanently closed, and in this she carried on her great work. Here she wrote her books and contrived her system for the inveigling of editors and critics. Here she was rarely disturbed by her daughter, and admitted no visitors except editors and critics. But her son was controlled by no household laws, and would break in upon her privacy without remorse. She had hardly finished two galloping notes after completing her letter to Mr. Ferdinand Alf, when Felix entered the room with a cigar in his mouth and threw himself upon the sofa.

“My dear boy,” she said, “pray leave your tobacco below when you come in here.”

“What affectation it is, mother,” he said, throwing, however, the half-smoked cigar into the fireplace. “Some women swear they like smoke, others say they hate it like the devil. It depends altogether on whether they wish to flatter or snub a fellow.”

“You don’t suppose that I wish to snub you?”

“Upon my word I don’t know. I wonder whether you can let me have twenty pounds?”

“My dear Felix!”

“Just so, mother;⁠—but how about the twenty pounds?”

“What is it for, Felix?”

“Well;⁠—to tell the truth, to carry on the game for the nonce till something is settled. A fellow can’t live without some money in his pocket. I do with as little as most fellows. I pay for nothing that I can help. I even get my hair cut on credit, and as long as it was possible I had a brougham, to save cabs.”

“What is to be the end of it, Felix?”

“I never could see the end of anything, mother. I never could nurse a horse when the hounds were going well in order to be in at the finish. I never could pass a dish that I liked in favour of those that were to follow. What’s the use?” The young man did not say “carpe diem,” but that was the philosophy which he intended to preach.

“Have you been at the Melmottes’ today?” It was now five o’clock on a winter afternoon, the hour at which ladies are drinking tea, and idle men playing whist at the clubs⁠—at which young idle men are sometimes allowed to flirt, and at which, as Lady Carbury thought, her son might have been paying his court to Marie Melmotte the great heiress.

“I have just come away.”

“And what do you think of her?”

“To tell the truth, mother, I have thought very little about her. She is not pretty, she is not plain; she is not clever, she is not stupid; she is neither saint nor sinner.”

“The more likely to make a good wife.”

“Perhaps so. I am at any rate quite willing to believe that as wife she would be ‘good enough for me.’ ”

“What does the mother say?”

“The mother is a caution. I cannot help speculating whether, if I marry the daughter, I shall ever find out where the mother came from. Dolly Longestaffe says that somebody says that she was a Bohemian Jewess; but I think she’s too fat for that.”

“What does it matter, Felix?”

“Not in the least.”

“Is she civil to you?”

“Yes, civil enough.”

“And the father?”

“Well, he does not turn me out, or anything of that sort. Of course there are half-a-dozen after her, and I think