"But if there is, what has that to do with a railway in the city? And why should Carbury be there? And, heaven and earth, why should old Grendall be a Director? I'm impecunious; but if you were to pick out the two most hopeless men in London in regard to money, they would be old Grendall and young Carbury. I've been thinking a good deal about it, and I can't make it out."
"I have been thinking about it too," said Paul.
"I suppose old Melmotte is all right?" asked Nidderdale. This was a question which Montague found it difficult to answer. How could he be justified in whispering suspicions to the man who was known to be at any rate one of the competitors for Marie Melmotte's hand? "You can speak out to me, you know," said Nidderdale, nodding his head.
"I've got nothing to speak. People say that he is about the richest man alive."
"He lives as though he were."
"I don't see why it shouldn't be all true. Nobody, I take it, knows very much about him." When his companion had left him, Nidderdale sat down, thinking of it all. It occurred to him that he would "be coming a cropper rather," were he to marry Melmotte's daughter for her money, and then find that she had got none.
A little later in the evening he invited Montague to go up to the card-room. "Carbury, and Grasslough, and Dolly Longestaffe are there waiting," he said. But Paul declined. He was too full of his troubles for play. "Poor Miles isn't there, if you're afraid of that," said Nidderdale.
"Miles Grendall wouldn't hinder me," said Montague.
"Nor me either. Of course it's a confounded shame. I know that as well as any body. But, God bless me, I owe a fellow down in Leicestershire heaven knows how much for keeping horses, and that's a shame."
"You'll pay him some day."