'I'll be shot if I can understand you.'
'Perhaps not. And you never will understand me. Oh, goodness they're all going, and we must get out of the way. Is that Prince Frederic, who told you about the hay? He is handsome; isn't he? And who is that in the violet dress with all the pearls?'
'That's the Princess Dwarza.'
'Dear me;--isn't it odd, having a lot of people in one's own house, and not being able to speak a word to them? I don't think it's at all nice. Good night, my lord. I'm glad you like the Emperor.'
And then the people went, and when they had all gone Melmotte put his wife and daughter into his own carriage, telling them that he would follow them on foot to Bruton Street when he had given some last directions to the people who were putting out the lights, and extinguishing generally the embers of the entertainment. He had looked round for Lord Alfred, taking care to avoid the appearance of searching; but Lord Alfred had gone. Lord Alfred was one of those who knew when to leave a falling house. Melmotte at the moment thought of all that he had done for Lord Alfred, and it was something of the real venom of ingratitude that stung him at the moment rather than this additional sign of coming evil. He was more than ordinarily gracious as he put his wife into the carriage, and remarked that, considering all things, the party had gone off very well. 'I only wish it could have been done a little cheaper,' he said laughing. Then he went back into the house, and up into the drawing-rooms which were now utterly deserted. Some of the lights had been put out, but the men were busy in the rooms below, and he threw himself into the chair in which the Emperor had sat. It was wonderful that he should come to such a fate as this;--that he, the boy out of the gutter, should entertain at his own house, in London, a Chinese Emperor and English and German Royalty,--and that he should do so almost with a rope round his neck. Even if this were to be the end of it all, men would at any rate remember him. The grand dinner which he had given before he was put into prison would live in history. And it would be remembered, too, that he had been the Conservative candidate for the great borough of Westminster,--perhaps, even, the elected member. He, too, in his manner, assured himself that a great part of him would escape Oblivion. 'Non omnis moriar,' in some language of his own, was chanted by him within his own breast, as he sat there looking out on his own magnificent suite of rooms from the armchair which had been consecrated by the use of an Emperor.