A few days before that period in our story which we have now reached, Miss Longestaffe was seated in Lady Monogram’s back drawing-room, discussing the terms on which the two tickets for Madame Melmotte’s grand reception had been transferred to Lady Monogram — the place on the cards for the names of the friends whom Madame Melmotte had the honour of inviting to meet the Emperor and the Princes, having been left blank; and the terms also on which Miss Longestaffe had been asked to spend two or three days with her dear friend Lady Monogram. Each lady was disposed to get as much and to give as little as possible — in which desire the ladies carried out the ordinary practice of all parties to a bargain. It had of course been settled that Lady Monogram was to have the two tickets — for herself and her husband — such tickets at that moment standing very high in the market. In payment for these valuable considerations, Lady Monogram was to undertake to chaperon Miss Longestaffe at the entertainment, to take Miss Longestaffe as a visitor for three days, and to have one party at her own house during the time, so that it might be seen that Miss Longestaffe had other friends in London besides the Melmottes on whom to depend for her London gaieties. At this moment Miss Longestaffe felt herself justified in treating the matter as though she were hardly receiving a fair equivalent. The Melmotte tickets were certainly ruling very high. They had just culminated. They fell a little soon afterwards, and at ten p.m. on the night of the entertainment were hardly worth anything. At the moment which we have now in hand, there was a rush for them. Lady Monogram had already secured the tickets. They were in her desk. But, as will sometimes be the case in a bargain, the seller was complaining that as she had parted with her goods too cheap, some make-weight should be added to the stipulated price.

‘As for that, my dear,’ said Miss Longestaffe, who, since the rise in Melmotte stock generally, had endeavoured to resume something of her old manners, ‘I don’t see what you mean at all. You meet Lady Julia Goldsheiner everywhere, and her father-in-law is Mr Brehgert’s junior partner.’

‘Lady Julia is Lady Julia, my dear, and young Mr Goldsheiner has, in some sort of way, got himself in. He hunts, and Damask says that he is one of the best shots at Hurlingham. I never met old Mr Goldsheiner anywhere.’

‘I have.’

‘Oh, yes, I dare say. Mr Melmotte, of course, entertains all the City people. I don’t think Sir Damask would like me to ask Mr Brehgert to dine here.’ Lady Monogram managed everything herself with reference to her own parties; invited all her own guests, and never troubled Sir Damask — who, again, on his side, had his own set of friends; but she was very clever in the use which she made of her husband. There were some aspirants who really were taught to think that Sir Damask was very particular as to the guests whom he welcomed to his own house.

‘May I speak to Sir Damask about it?’ asked Miss Longestaffe, who was very urgent on the occasion.

‘Well, my dear, I really don’t think you ought to do that. There are little things which a man and his wife must manage together without interference.’

‘Nobody can ever say that I interfered in any family. But really, Julia, when you tell me that Sir Damask cannot receive Mr Brehgert, it does sound odd. As for City people, you know as well as I do, that that kind of thing is all over now. City people are just as good as West End people.’

‘A great deal better, I dare say. I’m not arguing about that. I don’t make the lines; but there they are; and one gets to know in a sort of way what they are. I don’t pretend to be a bit better than my neighbours. I like to see people come here whom other people who come here will like to meet. I’m big enough to hold my own, and so is Sir Damask. But we ain’t big enough to introduce newcomers. I don’t suppose there’s anybody in London understands it better than you do, Georgiana, and therefore it’s absurd my pretending to teach you. I go pretty well everywhere, as you are aware; and I shouldn’t know Mr Brehgert if I were to see him.’

‘You’ll meet him at the Melmottes’, and, in spite of all you said once, you’re glad enough to go there.’

‘Quite true, my dear. I don’t think that you are just the person to throw that in my teeth; but never mind that. There’s the butcher round the corner in Bond Street, or the man who comes to do my hair. I don’t at all think of asking them to my house. But if they were suddenly to turn out wonderful men, and go everywhere, no doubt I should be glad to have them here. That’s the way we live, and you are as well used to it as I am. Mr Brehgert at present to me is like the butcher round the corner.’ Lady Monogram had the tickets safe under lock and key, or I think she would hardly have said this.

‘He is not a bit like a butcher,’ said Miss Longestaffe, blazing up in real wrath.

‘I did not say that he was.’

‘Yes, you did; and it was the unkindest thing you could possibly say. It was meant to be unkind. It was monstrous. How would you like it if I said that Sir Damask was like a hair-dresser?’

‘You can say so if you please. Sir Damask drives four in hand, rides as though he meant to break his neck every winter, is one of the best shots going, and is supposed to understand a yacht as well as any other gentleman out. And I’m rather afraid that before he was married he used to box with all the prize-fighters, and to be a little too free behind the scenes. If that makes a man like a hair-dresser, well, there he is.’

‘How proud you are of his vices.’

‘He’s very good-natured, my dear, and as he does not interfere with me, I don’t interfere with him. I hope you’ll do as well. I dare say Mr Brehgert is good-natured.’

‘He’s an excellent man of business, and is making a very large fortune.’

‘And has five or six grown-up children, who, no doubt, will be a comfort.’

‘If I don’t mind them, why need you? You have none at all, and you find it lonely enough.’

‘Not at all lonely. I have everything that I desire. How hard you are trying to be ill-natured, Georgiana.’

‘Why did you say that he was a — butcher?’

‘I said nothing of the kind. I didn’t even say that he was like a butcher. What I did say was this — that I don’t feel inclined to risk my own reputation on the appearance of new people at my table. Of course, I go in for what you call fashion. Some people can dare to ask anybody they meet in the streets. I can’t. I’ve my own line, and I mean to follow it. It’s hard work, I can tell you; and it would be harder still if I wasn’t particular. If you like Mr Brehgert to come here on Tuesday evening, when the rooms will be full, you can ask him; but as for having him to dinner, I— won’t — do — it.’ So the matter was at last settled. Miss Longestaffe did ask Mr Brehgert for the Tuesday evening, and the two ladies were again friends.

Perhaps Lady Monogram, when she illustrated her position by an allusion to a butcher and a hair-dresser, had been unaware that Mr Brehgert had some resemblance to the form which men in that trade are supposed to bear. Let us at least hope that she was so. He was a fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about fifty, with hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark purple colour. The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very bright black eyes, which were, however, set too near together in his face for the general delight of Christians. He was stout; — fat all over rather than corpulent — and had that look of command in his face which has become common to master-butchers, probably by long intercourse with sheep and oxen. But Mr Brehgert was considered to be a very good man of business, and was now regarded as being, in a commercial point of view, the leading member of the great financial firm of which he was the second partner. Mr Todd’s day was nearly done. He walked about constantly between Lombard Street, the Exchange, and the Bank, and talked much to merchants; he had an opinion too of his own on particular cases; but the business had almost got beyond him, and Mr Brehgert was now supposed to be the moving spirit of the firm. He was a widower, living in a luxurious villa at Fulham with a family, not indeed grown up, as Lady Monogram had ill-naturedly said, but which would be grown up before long, varying from an eldest son of eighteen, who had just been placed at a desk in the office, to the youngest girl of twelve, who was at school at Brighton. He was a man who always asked for what he wanted; and having made up his mind that he wanted a second wife, had asked Miss Georgiana Longestaffe to fill that situation. He had met her at the Melmottes’, had entertained her, with Madame Melmotte and Marie, at Beaudesert, as he called his villa, had then proposed in the square, and two days after had received an assenting answer in Bruton Street.

Poor Miss Longestaffe! Although she had acknowledged the fact to Lady Monogram in her desire to pave the way for the reception of herself into society as a married woman, she had not as yet found courage to tell her family. The man was abso............