'Your father will not hear of it. He dislikes them especially.'
'And I dislike the Melmottes. I dislike the Primeros of course, but they are not so bad as the Melmottes. That would be dreadful.'
'You must judge for yourself; Georgiana.'
'It is that,--or staying here?'
'I think so, my dear.'
'If papa chooses I don't know why I am to mind. It will be awfully disagreeable,--absolutely disgusting!'
'She seemed to be very quiet.'
'Pooh, mamma! Quiet! She was quiet here because she was afraid of us. She isn't yet used to be with people like us. She'll get over that if I'm in the house with her. And then she is, oh! so frightfully vulgar! She must have been the very sweeping of the gutters. Did you not see it, mamma? She could not even open her mouth, she was so ashamed of herself. I shouldn't wonder if they turned out to be something quite horrid. They make me shudder. Was there ever anything so dreadful to look at as he is?'
'Everybody goes to them,' said Lady Pomona. 'The Duchess of Stevenage has been there over and over again, and so has Lady Auld Reekie. Everybody goes to their house.'
'But everybody doesn't go and live with them. Oh, mamma,--to have to sit down to breakfast every day for ten weeks with that man and that woman!'
'Perhaps they'll let you have your breakfast upstairs.'
'But to have to go out with them;--walking into the room after her! Only think of it!'
'But you are so anxious to be in London, my dear.'
'Of course I am anxious. What other chance have I, mamma? And, oh dear, I am so tired of it! Pleasure, indeed! Papa talks of pleasure. If papa had to work half as hard as I do, I wonder what he'd think of it. I suppose I must do it. I know it will make me so ill that I shall almost die under it. Horrid, horrid people! And papa to propose it, who has always been so proud of everything,--who used to think so much of being with the right set'
'Things are changed, Georgiana,' said the anxious mother.
'Indeed they are when papa wants me to go and stay with people like that. Why, mamma, the apothecary in Bungay is a fine gentleman compared with Mr Melmotte, and his wife is a fine lady compared with Madame Melmotte. But I'll go. If papa chooses me to be seen with such people it is not my fault. There will be no disgracing one's self after that. I don't believe in the least that any decent man would propose to a girl in such a house, and you and papa must not be surprised if I take some horrid creature from the Stock Exchange. Papa has altered his ideas; and so, I suppose, I had better alter mine.'