'I don't know what there is to explain,' said Felix to his mother. She had asked him why he had not gone to Liverpool, whether he had been interrupted by Melmotte himself, whether news had reached him from Marie that she had been stopped, or whether,--as might have been possible,--Marie had changed her own mind. But he could not bring himself to tell the truth, or any story bordering on the truth. 'It didn't come off,' he said, 'and of course that knocked me off my legs. Well; yes. I did take some champagne when I found how it was. A fellow does get cut up by that kind of thing. Oh, I heard it at the club,--that the whole thing was off. I can't explain anything more. And then I was so mad, I can't tell what I was after. I did get the ticket. There it is. That shows I was in earnest. I spent the £30 in getting it. I suppose the change is there. Don't take it, for I haven't another shilling in the world.' Of course he said nothing of Marie's money, or of that which he had himself received from Melmotte. And as his mother had heard nothing of these sums she could not contradict what he said. She got from him no further statement, but she was sure that there was a story to be told which would reach her ears sooner or later.
That evening, about nine o'clock, Mr Broune called in Welbeck Street. He very often did call now, coming up in a cab, staying for a cup of tea, and going back in the same cab to the office of his newspaper. Since Lady Carbury had, so devotedly, abstained from accepting his offer, Mr Broune had become almost sincerely attached to her. There was certainly between them now more of the intimacy of real friendship than had ever existed in earlier days. He spoke to her more freely about his own affairs, and even she would speak to him with some attempt at truth. There was never between them now even a shade of love-making. She did not look into his eyes, nor did he hold her hand. As for kissing her,--he thought no more of it than of kissing the maid-servant. But he spoke to her of the things that worried him,--the unreasonable exactions of proprietors, and the perilous inaccuracy of contributors. He told her of the exceeding weight upon his shoulders, under which an Atlas would have succumbed. And he told her something too of his triumphs;--how he had had this fellow bowled over in punishment for some contradiction, and that man snuffed out for daring to be an enemy. And he expatiated on his own virtues, his justice and clemency. Ah,--if men and women only knew his good nature and his patriotism;--how he had spared the rod here, how he had made the fortune of a man there, how he had saved the country millions by the steadiness of his adherence to some grand truth! Lady Carbury delighted in all this and repaid him by flattery, and little confidences of her own. Under his teaching she had almost made up her mind to give up Mr Alf. Of nothing was Mr Broune more certain than that Mr Alf was making a fool of himself in regard to the Westminster election and those attacks on Melmotte. 'The world of London generally knows what it is about,' said Mr Broune, 'and the London world believes Mr Melmotte to be sound. I don't pretend to say that he has never done anything that he ought not to do. I am not going into his antecedents. But he is a man of wealth, power, and genius, and Alf will get the worst of it.' Under such teaching as this, Lady Carbury was almost obliged to give up Mr Alf.