on you.'

'Not at all. She's of age. If she chooses to marry you she can marry
you. If that's all you want, her consent is enough. You're a baronet,
I believe?'

'Oh, yes, I'm a baronet.'

'And therefore you've come to your own property. You haven't to wait
for your father to die, and I dare say you are indifferent about
money.'

This was a view of things which Sir Felix felt that he was bound to
dispel, even at the risk of offending the father. 'Not exactly that,'
he said. 'I suppose you will give your daughter a fortune, of course.'

'Then I wonder you didn't come to me before you went to her. If my
daughter marries to please me, I shall give her money, no doubt. How
much is neither here nor there. If she marries to please herself,
without considering me, I shan't give her a farthing.'

'I had hoped that you might consent, Mr Melmotte.'

'I've said nothing about that. It is possible. You're a man of fashion
and have a title of your own,--and no doubt a property. If you'll show
me that you've an income fit to maintain her, I'll think about it at
any rate. What is your property, Sir Felix?'

What could three or four thousand a year, or even five or six, matter
to a man like Melmotte? It was thus that Sir Felix looked at it. When