"Pardon me then if I am rough. To me it seems that an injury is done to you if you are made to go to the house of such a one as this man. Why does your mother seek his society? Not because she likes him; not because she has any sympathy with him or his family;—but simply because there is a rich daughter."
"Everybody goes there, Mr. Carbury."
"Yes,—that is the excuse which everybody makes. Is that sufficient reason for you to go to a man's house? Is there not another place to which we are told that a great many are going, simply because the road has become thronged and fashionable? Have you no feeling that you ought to choose your friends for certain reasons of your own? I admit there is one reason here. They have a great deal of money, and it is thought possible that he may get some of it by falsely swearing to a girl that he loves her. After what you have heard, are the Melmottes people with whom you would wish to be connected?"
"I don't know."
"I do. I know very well. They are absolutely disgraceful. A social connection with the first crossing-sweeper would be less objectionable." He spoke with a degree of energy of which he was himself altogether unaware. He knit his brows, and his eyes flashed, and his nostrils were extended. Of course she thought of his own offer to herself. Of course her mind at once conceived,—not that the Melmotte connection could ever really affect him, for she felt sure that she would never accept his offer,—but that he might think that he would be so affected. Of course she resented the feeling which she thus attributed to him. But, in truth, he was much too simple-minded for any such complex idea. "Felix," he continued, "has already descended so far that I cannot pretend to be anxious as to what houses he may frequent. But I should be sorry to think that you should often be seen at Mr. Melmotte's."
"I think, Mr. Carbury, that mamma will take care that I am not taken where I ought not to be taken."
"I wish you to have some opinion of your own as to what is proper for you."
"I hope I have. I am sorry you should think that I have not."
"I am old-fashioned, Hetta."
"And we belong to a newer and worse sort of world. I dare say it is so. You have been always very kind, but I almost doubt whether you can change us now. I have sometimes thought that you and mamma were hardly fit for each other."