'Have you been thinking any more about it?' Lord Nidderdale said to the girl as soon as Madame Melmotte had succeeded in leaving them alone together.
'I have thought ever so much more about it,' said Marie.
'And what's the result?'
'Oh,--I'll have you.'
'That's right,' said Nidderdale, throwing himself on the sofa close to her, so that he might put his arm round her waist.
'Wait a moment, Lord Nidderdale,' she said.
'You might as well call me John.'
'Then wait a moment,--John. You think you might as well marry me, though you don't love me a bit.'
'That's not true, Marie.'
'Yes it is;--it's quite true. And I think just the same,--that I might as well marry you, though I don't love you a bit.'
'But you will.'
'I don't know. I don't feel like it just at present. You had better know the exact truth, you know. I have told my father that I did not think you'd ever come again, but that if you did I would accept you. But I'm not going to tell any stories about it. You know who I've been in love with.'
'But you can't be in love with him now.'
'Why not? I can't marry him. I know that. And if he were to come to me, I don't think that I would. He has behaved bad.'
'Have I behaved bad?'
'Not like him. You never did care, and you never said you cared.'
'Oh yes,--I have.'
'Not at first. You say it now because you think that I shall like it. But it makes no difference now. I don't mind about your arm being there if we are to be married, only it's just as well for both of us to look on it as business.'
'How very hard you are, Marie.'
'No, I ain't. I wasn't hard to Sir Felix Carbury, and so I tell you. I did love him.'
'Surely you have found him out now.'
'Yes, I have,' said Marie. 'He's a poor creature.'
'He has just been thrashed, you know, in the streets,--most horribly.' Marie had not been told of this, and started back from her lover's arms. 'You hadn't heard it?'
'Who has thrashed him?'
'I don't want to tell the story against him, but they say he has been cut about in a terrible manner.'
'Why should anybody beat him? Did he do anything?'
'There was a young lady in the question, Marie.'