As he was thinking of all this, Lady Carbury came out to him in the garden. She had changed her travelling dress, and made herself pretty, as she well knew how to do. And now she dressed her face in her sweetest smiles. Her mind, also, was full of the Melmottes, and she wished to explain to her stern, unbending cousin all the good that might come to her and hers by an alliance with the heiress. "I can understand, Roger," she said, taking his arm, "that you should not like those people." "What people?" "The Melmottes." "I don't dislike them. How should I dislike people that I never saw? I dislike those who seek their society simply because they have the reputation of being rich." "Meaning me." "No; not meaning you. I don't dislike you, as you know very well, though I do dislike the fact that you should run after these people. I was thinking of the Longestaffes then." "Do you suppose, my friend, that I run after them for my own gratification? Do you think that I go to their house because I find pleasure in their magnificence; or that I follow them down here for any good that they will do me?" "I would not follow them at all." "I will go back if you bid me, but I must first explain what I mean. You know my son's condition,--better, I fear, than he does himself." Roger nodded assent to this, but said nothing. "What is he to do? The only chance for a young man in his position is that he should marry a girl with money. He is good-looking; you can't deny that." "Nature has done enough for him." "We must take him as he is. He was put into the army very young, and was very young when he came into possession of his own small fortune. He might have done better; but how many young men placed in such temptations do well? As it is, he has nothing left." "I fear not." "And therefore is it not imperative that he should marry a girl with money?" "I call that stealing a girl's money, Lady Carbury." "Oh, Roger, how hard you are!" "A man must be hard or soft,--which is best?" "With women I think that a little softness has the most effect. I want to make you understand this about the Melmottes. It stands to reason that the girl will not marry Felix unless she loves him." "But does he love her?" "Why should he not? Is a girl to be debarred from being loved because she has money? Of course she looks to be married, and why should she not have Felix if she likes him best? Cannot you sympathize with my anxiety so to place him that he shall not be a disgrace to the name and to the family?" "We had better not talk about the family, Lady Carbury." "But I think so much about it."