The Way We Live Now

'Nor with it,' said Marie, holding her head.

'I don't know how that may be. There was some hitch somewhere,--I don't quite know where.' The hitch had been with himself, as he demanded ready money. 'But it's all right now. The old fellows are agreed. Can't we make a match of it, Miss Melmotte?'

'No, Lord Nidderdale; I don't think we can.'

'Do you mean that?'

'I do mean it. When that was going on before I knew nothing about it. I have seen more of things since then.'

'And you've seen somebody you like better than me?'

'I say nothing about that, Lord Nidderdale. I don't think you ought to blame me, my lord.'

'Oh dear no.'

'There was something before, but it was you that was off first. Wasn't it now?'

'The governors were off, I think.'

'The governors have a right to be off, I suppose. But I don't think any governor has a right to make anybody marry any one.'

'I agree with you there;--I do indeed,' said Lord Nidderdale.

'And no governor shall make me marry. I've thought a great deal about it since that other time, and that's what I've come to determine.'

'But I don't know why you shouldn't--just marry me--because you--like me.'

'Only,--just because I don't. Well; I do like you, Lord Nidderdale.'

'Thanks;--so much!'

'I like you ever so,--only marrying a person is different.'

'There's something in that, to be sure.'

'And I don't mind telling you,' said Marie with an almost solemn expression on her countenance, 'because you are good-natured and won't get me into a scrape if you can help it, that I do like somebody else;--oh, so much.'

'I supposed that was it.'

'That is it.'

'It's a deuced pity. The governors had settled everything, and we should have been awfully jolly. I'd have gone in for all the things you go in for; and though your governor was screwing us up a bit, there would have been plenty of tin to go on with. You couldn't think of it again?'

'I tell you, my lord, I'm--in love.'

'Oh, ah;--yes. So you were saying. It's an awful bore. That's all. I shall come to the party all the same if you send me a ticket.' And so Nidderdale took his dismissal, and went away,--not however without an idea that the marriage would still come off. There was always,--so he thought,--such a bother about things before they would get themselves fixed. This happened some days after Mr Broune's proposal to Lady Carbury, more than a week since Marie had seen Sir Felix. As soon as Lord Nidderdale was gone she wrote again to Sir Felix begging that she might hear from him,--and entrusted her letter to Didon.