She does more. She snatches a partial victory out of the jaws of a crushing defeat. The stanchest fighter expects some backing from fate, some good cards to lay on the table. But Becky’s fortunes are in Thackeray’s hands, and he rules against her at every turn. Life and death are her inexorable opponents. Miss Crawley recovers (which she has no business to do) from a surfeit of lobster, when by dying she would have enriched Rawdon, already in love with Rebecca. Lady Crawley lives just long enough to spoil Becky’s chance of marrying Sir Pitt. It is all very hard and very wrong. The little governess had richly earned Miss Crawley’s money by her patient care of that ungrateful invalid. She would have been kind and good-tempered to Sir Pitt, whereas his virtuous son and daughter-in-law (the lady Jane whom Thackeray never ceases to praise) leave the poor old paralytic to the care of a coarse, untrained and cruel servant. Becky is not the only sufferer by the bad luck which makes her from start to finish, “a fighter against fate.” Sir Sidney is by no means content with the somewhat murky twilight in which we take leave of this great little adventuress, with the atmosphere of charity lists, bazaars and works of piety which depressingly surrounds her. He is sure she made a most charming and witty old lady, and that she eventually won over Colonel Dobbin (in spite of Amelia’s misgivings) by judicious praise of the “History of the Punjaub.” And I am equally sure that she never suffered herself to lose so valuable an asset as young Rawdon. Becky’s indifference to her son is the strongest card that Thackeray plays. By throwing into high relief the father’s proud affection for the boy (who is an uncommonly nice little lad), he deepens and darkens the mother’s unconcern. Becky is impervious to the charm of childhood, and she is not affectionate. Once in a while she is moved by a generous impulse; but the crowded cares and sordid scheming of her life leave no room for sensibility. Nevertheless, if the Reverend Bute Crawley and his household look upon little Rawdon with deep respect as the possible heir of Queen’s Crawley, “between whom and the title there was only the sickly pale child, Pitt Binkie,” it is unlikely that Rebecca the farseeing would ignore the potential greatness of her son. She cannot afford to lose any chance, or any combination of chances, in the hazardous game she plays. There is nothing like the spectacle of this game in English letters. To watch Becky manipulate her brother-in-law, Sir Pitt, is a never-ending delight. He is dull, pompous, vain, ungenerous. He has inherited the fortune which should have been her husband’s. Yet there is no hatred in her heart, nor any serious malice. Hatred, like love, is an emotional extravagance, and Becky’s accounts are very strictly kept.