"None at all," said Felix, remembering Ruby Ruggles. "I just rode home quietly. I go to town to-morrow."
"And we go on Wednesday. Mind you come and see us before long." This she said bringing her voice down to a whisper.
"Of course I shall. I suppose I'd better go to your father in the city. Does he go every day?"
"Oh yes, every day. He's back always about seven. Sometimes he's good-natured enough when he comes back, but sometimes he's very cross. He's best just after dinner. But it's so hard to get to him then. Lord Alfred is almost always there; and then other people come, and they play cards. I think the city will be best."
"You'll stick to it?" he asked.
"Oh, yes;—indeed I will. Now that I've once said it nothing will ever turn me. I think papa knows that." Felix looked at her as she said this, and thought that he saw more in her countenance than he had ever read there before. Perhaps she would consent to run away with him; and, if so, being the only child, she would certainly,—almost certainly,—be forgiven. But if he were to run away with her and marry her, and then find that she were not forgiven, and that Melmotte allowed her to starve without a shilling of fortune, where would he be then? Looking at the matter in all its bearings, considering among other things the trouble and the expense of such a measure, he thought that he could not afford to run away with her.
After dinner he hardly spoke to her; indeed, the room itself,—the same big room in which they had been assembled before the feast,—seemed to be ill-adapted for conversation. Again nobody talked to anybody, and the minutes went very heavily till at last the carriages were there to take them all home. "They arranged that you should sit next to her," said Lady Carbury to her son, as they were in the carriage.
"Oh, I suppose that came naturally;—one young man and one young woman, you know."
"Those things are always arranged, and they would not have done it unless they had thought that it would please Mr. Melmotte. Oh, Felix! if you can bring it about."
"I shall if I can, mother; you needn't make a fuss about it."