In the meantime both Mr Broune and Lord Nidderdale came to the office, and both were received without delay. Mr Broune was the first. Miles knew who he was, and made no attempt to seat him in the same room with Mr Longestaffe. 'I'll just send him a note,' said Mr Broune, and he scrawled a few words at the office counter. 'I'm commissioned to pay you some money on behalf of Miss Melmotte.' Those were the words, and they at once procured him admission to the sanctum. The Canadian Deputation must have taken its leave, and Sir Gregory could hardly have as yet arrived. Lord Nidderdale, who had presented himself almost at the same moment with the Editor, was shown into a little private room which was, indeed, Miles Grendall's own retreat. 'What's up with the Governor?' asked the young lord.
'Anything particular do you mean?' said Miles. 'There are always so many things up here.'
'He has sent for me.'
'Yes,--you'll go in directly. There's that fellow who does the "Breakfast Table" in with him. I don't know what he's come about. You know what he has sent for you for?'
Lord Nidderdale answered this question by another. 'I suppose all this about Miss Melmotte is true?'
'She did go off yesterday morning,' said Miles, in a whisper.
'But Carbury wasn't with her.'
'Well, no;--I suppose not. He seems to have mulled it. He's such a d---- brute, he'd be sure to go wrong whatever he had in hand.'
'You don't like him, of course, Miles. For that matter I've no reason to love him. He couldn't have gone. He staggered out of the club yesterday morning at four o'clock as drunk as Cloe. He'd lost a pot of money, and had been kicking up a row about you for the last hour.'
'Brute!' exclaimed Miles, with honest indignation.
'I dare say. But though he was able to make a row, I'm sure he couldn't get himself down to Liverpool. And I saw all his things lying about the club hall late last night;--no end of portmanteaux and bags; just what a fellow would take to New York. By George! Fancy taking a girl to New York! It was plucky.'
'It was all her doing,' said Miles, who was of course intimate with Mr Melmotte's whole establishment, and had had means therefore of hearing the true story.
'What a fiasco!' said the young lord. 'I wonder what the old boy means to say to me about it.' Then there was heard the clear tingle of a little silver bell, and Miles told Lord Nidderdale that his time had come.