"I have just the two hundred pounds which your father paid me, and not a shilling more. I don't see why he should keep my money, and not let me have it back."
"Look here," said Marie, and she put her hand into her pocket. "I told you I thought I could get some. There is a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds. I had money of my own enough for the tickets."
"And whose is this?" said Felix, taking the bit of paper with much trepidation.
"It is papa's cheque. Mamma gets ever so many of them to carry on the house and pay for things. But she gets so muddled about it that she doesn't know what she pays and what she doesn't." Felix looked at the cheque and saw that it was payable to House or Bearer, and that it was signed by Augustus Melmotte. "If you take it to the bank you'll get the money," said Marie. "Or shall I send Didon, and give you the money on board the ship?"
Felix thought over the matter very anxiously. If he did go on the journey he would much prefer to have the money in his own pocket. He liked the feeling of having money in his pocket. Perhaps if Didon were entrusted with the cheque she also would like the feeling. But then might it not be possible that if he presented the cheque himself he might be arrested for stealing Melmotte's money? "I think Didon had better get the money," he said, "and bring it to me to-morrow, at four o'clock in the afternoon, to the club." If the money did not come he would not go down to Liverpool, nor would he be at the expense of his ticket for New York. "You see," he said, "I'm so much in the City that they might know me at the bank." To this arrangement Marie assented and took back the cheque. "And then I'll come on board on Thursday morning," he said, "without looking for you."
"Oh dear, yes;—without looking for us. And don't know us even till we are out at sea. Won't it be fun when we shall be walking about on the deck and not speaking to one another! And, Felix;—what do you think? Didon has found out that there is to be an American clergyman on board. I wonder whether he'd marry us."
"Of course he will."
"Won't that be jolly? I wish it was all done. Then, directly it's done, and when we get to New York, we'll telegraph and write to papa, and we'll be ever so penitent and good; won't we? Of course he'll make the best of it."
"But he's so savage; isn't he?"
"When there's anything to get;—or just at the moment. But I don't think he minds afterwards. He's always for making the best of everything;—misfortunes and all. Things go wrong so often that if he was to go on thinking of them always they'd be too many for anybody. It'll be all right in a month's time. I wonder how Lord Nidderdale will look when he hears that we've gone off. I should so like to see him. He never can say that I've behaved bad to him. We were engaged, but it was he broke it. Do you know, Felix, that though we were engaged to be married, and everybody knew it, he never once kissed me!" Felix at this moment almost wished that he had never done so. As to what the other man had done, he cared nothing at all.