Roger Carbury said well that it was very improbable that he and his cousin, the widow, should agree in their opinions as to the expedience of fortune-hunting by marriage.

It was impossible that they should ever understand each other.

To Lady Carbury the prospect of a union between her son and Miss Melmotte was one of unmixed joy and triumph.

Could it have been possible that Marie Melmotte should be rich and her father be a man doomed to a deserved sentence in a penal settlement, there might perhaps be a doubt about it.

The wealth even in that case would certainly carry the day, against the disgrace, and Lady Carbury would find reasons why poor Marie should not be punished for her father's sins even while enjoying the money which those sins had produced.