has a small property there, and he might give it to me to-morrow. I
wish he would, though there isn't much of it. That young fellow has
nothing to do with it whatever.'

'Hasn't he now!' Mr Melmotte, as he speculated upon it, almost admired
the young man's impudence.




CHAPTER XXIV - MILES GRENDALL'S TRIUMPH


Sir Felix as he walked down to his club felt that he had been
checkmated,--and was at the same time full of wrath at the insolence of
the man who had so easily beaten him out of the field. As far as he
could see, the game was over. No doubt he might marry Marie Melmotte.
The father had told him so much himself, and he perfectly believed the
truth of that oath which Marie had sworn. He did not doubt but that
she'd stick to him close enough. She was in love with him, which was
natural; and was a fool,--which was perhaps also natural. But romance
was not the game which he was playing. People told him that when girls
succeeded in marrying without their parents' consent, fathers were
always constrained to forgive them at last. That might be the case
with ordinary fathers. But Melmotte was decidedly not an ordinary
father. He was,--so Sir Felix declared to himself,--perhaps the greatest
brute ever created. Sir Felix could not but remember that elevation of
the eyebrows, and the brazen forehead, and the hard mouth. He had
found himself quite unable to stand up against Melmotte, and now he
cursed and swore at the man as he was carried down to the Beargarden