What but a sham could be a man who consented to pretend to sit as one of a Board of Directors to manage an enormous enterprise with such colleagues as Lord Alfred Grendall and Sir Felix Carbury, under the absolute control of such a one as Mr Augustus Melmotte?
Was not this building a house upon the sand with a vengeance?
What a life it would be for Henrietta Carbury were she to marry a man striving to become rich without labour and without capital, and who might one day be wealthy and the next a beggar,--a city adventurer, who of all men was to him the vilest and most dishonest?
He strove to think well of Paul Montague, but such was the life which he feared the young man was preparing for himself.
Then he went into the house and wandered up through the rooms which the two ladies were to occupy.

As their host, a host without a wife or mother or sister, it was his duty to see that things were comfortable, but it may be doubted whether he would have been so careful had the mother been coming alone.

In the smaller room of the two the hangings were all white, and the room was sweet with May flowers; and he brought a white rose from the hot-house, and placed it in a glass on the dressing table.

Surely she would know who put it there.

Then he stood at the open window, looking down upon the lawn, gazing vacantly for half an hour, till he heard the wheels of the carriage before the front door.