"THE AMERICAN\n\nby Henry James\n\n1877\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nOn a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was reclining\nat his ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied\nthe centre of the Salon Carre, in the Museum of the Louvre. This\ncommodious ottoman has since been removed, to the extreme regret of all\nweak-kneed lovers of the fine arts, but the gentleman in question had\ntaken serene possession of its softest spot, and, with his head thrown\nback and his legs outstretched, was staring at Murillo's beautiful\nmoon-borne Madonna in profound enjoyment of his posture. He had removed\nhis hat, and flung down beside him a little red guide-book and an\nopera-glass. The day was warm; he was heated with walking, and he\nrepeatedly passed his handkerchief over his forehead, with a somewhat\nwearied gesture. And yet he was evidently not a man to whom fatigue was\nfamiliar; long, lean, and muscular, he suggested the sort of vigor that\nis commonly known as \"toughness.\" But his exertions on this particular\nday had been of an unwonted sort, and he had performed great physical\nfeats which left him less jaded than his tranquil stroll through the\nLouvre. He had looked out all the pictures to which an asterisk was\naffixed in those formidable pages of fine print in his Badeker; his\nattention had been strained and his eyes dazzled, and he had sat down\nwith an aesthetic headache. He had looked, moreover, not only at all the\npictures, but at all the copies that were going forward around them, in\nthe hands of those innumerable young women in irreproachable toilets who\ndevote themselves, in France, to the propagation of masterpieces, and if\nthe truth must be told, he had often admired the copy much more than the\noriginal. His physiognomy would have sufficiently indicated that he was\na shrewd and capable fellow, and in truth he had often sat up all night\nover a bristling bundle of accounts, and heard the cock crow without a\nyawn. But Raphael and Titian and Rubens were a new kind of arithmetic,\nand they inspired our friend, for the first time in his life, with a\nvague self-mistrust.\n\nAn observer with anything of an eye for national types would have had\nno difficulty in determining the local origin of this undeveloped\nconnoisseur, and indeed such an observer might have felt a certain\nhumorous relish of the almost ideal completeness with which he filled\nout the national mould. The gentleman on the divan was a powerful\nspecimen of an American. But he was not only a fine American; he was\nin the first place, physically, a fine man. He appeared to possess that\nkind of health and strength which, when found in perfection, are the\nmost impressive--the physical capital which the owner does nothing to\n\"keep up.\" If he was a muscular Christian, it was quite without knowing\nit. If it was necessary to walk to a remote spot, he walked, but he had\nnever known himself to \"exercise.\" He had no theory with regard to\ncold bathing or the use of Indian clubs; he was neither an oarsman, a\nrifleman, nor a fencer--he had never had time for these amusements--and\nhe was quite unaware that the saddle is recommended for certain forms\nof indigestion. He was by inclination a temperate man; but he had supped\nthe night before his visit to the Louvre at the Cafe Anglais--some one\nhad told him it was an experience not to be omitted--and he had slept\nnone the less the sleep of the just. His usual attitude and carriage\nwere of a rather relaxed and lounging kind, but when under a special\ninspiration, he straightened himself, he looked like a grenadier on\nparade. He never smoked. He had been assured--such things are said--that\ncigars were excellent for the health, and he was quite capable of\nbelieving it; but he knew as little about tobacco as about homeopathy.\nHe had a very well-formed head, with a shapely, symmetrical balance of\nthe frontal and the occipital development, and a good deal of straight,\nrather dry brown hair. His complexion was brown, and his nose had a\nbold well-marked arch. His eye was of a clear, cold gray, and save for\na rather abundant mustache he was clean-shaved. He had the flat jaw and\nsinewy neck which are frequent in the American type; but the traces of\nnational origin are a matter of expression even more than of feature,\nand it was in this respect that our friend's countenance was supremely\neloquent. The discriminating observer we have been supposing might,\nhowever, perfectly have measured its expressiveness, and yet have been\nat a loss to describe it. It had that typical vagueness which is not\nvacuity, that blankness which is not simplicity, that look of being\ncommitted to nothing in particular, of standing in an attitude of\ngeneral hospitality to the chances of life, of being very much at\none's own disposal so characteristic of many American faces. It was our\nfriend's eye that chiefly told his story; an eye in which innocence\nand experience were singularly blended. It was full of contradictory\nsuggestions, and though it was by no means the glowing orb of a hero of\nromance, you could find in it almost anything you looked for. Frigid\nand yet friendly, frank yet cautious, shrewd yet credulous, positive\nyet skeptical, confident yet shy, extremely intelligent and extremely\ngood-humored, there was something vaguely defiant in its concessions,\nand something profoundly reassuring in its reserve. The cut of this\ngentleman's mustache, with the two premature wrinkles in the cheek above\nit, and the fashion of his garments, in which an exposed shirt-front\nand a cerulean cravat played perhaps an obtrusive part, completed the\nconditions of his identity. We have approached him, perhaps, at a not\nespecially favorable moment; he is by no means sitting for his portrait.\nBut listless as he lounges there, rather baffled on the aesthetic\nquestion, and guilty of the damning fault (as we have lately discovered\nit to be) of confounding the merit of the artist with that of his work\n(for he admires the squinting Madonna of the young lady with the boyish\ncoiffure, because he thinks the young lady herself uncommonly taking),\nhe is a sufficiently promising acquaintance. Decision, salubrity,\njocosity, prosperity, seem to hover within his call; he is evidently a\npractical man, but the idea in his case, has undefined and mysterious\nboundaries, which invite the imagination to bestir itself on his behalf.\n\nAs the little copyist proceeded with her work, she sent every now and\nthen a responsive glance toward her admirer. The cultivation of the fine\narts appeared to necessitate, to her mind, a great deal of byplay, a\ngreat standing off with folded arms and head drooping from side to side,\nstroking of a dimpled chin with a dimpled hand, sighing and frowning\nand patting of the foot, fumbling in disordered tresses for wandering\nhair-pins. These performances were accompanied by a restless glance,\nwhich lingered longer than elsewhere upon the gentleman we have\ndescribed. At last he rose abruptly, put on his hat, and approached the\nyoung lady. He placed himself before her picture and looked at it for\nsome moments, during which she pretended to be quite unconscious of his\ninspection. Then, addressing her with the single word which constituted\nthe strength of his French vocabulary, and holding up one finger in a\nmanner which appeared to him to illuminate his meaning, \"Combien?\" he\nabruptly demanded.\n\nThe artist stared a moment, gave a little pout, shrugged her shoulders,\nput down her palette and brushes, and stood rubbing her hands.\n\n\"How much?\" said our friend, in English. \"Combien?\"\n\n\"Monsieur wishes to buy it?\" asked the young lady in French.\n\n\"Very pretty, splendide. Combien?\" repeated the American.\n\n\"It pleases monsieur, my little picture? It's a very beautiful subject,\"\nsaid the young lady.\n\n\"The Madonna, yes; I am not a Catholic, but I want to buy it. Combien?\nWrite it here.\" And he took a pencil from his pocket and showed her the\nfly-leaf of his guide-book. She stood looking at him and scratching her\nchin with the pencil. \"Is it not for sale?\" he asked. And as she still\nstood reflecting, and looking at him with an eye which, in spite of her\ndesire to treat this avidity of patronage as a very old story, betrayed\nan almost touching incredulity, he was afraid he had offended her. She\nsimply trying to look indifferent, and wondering how far she might go.\n\"I haven't made a mistake--pas insulte, no?\" her interlocutor continued.\n\"Don't you understand a little English?\"\n\nThe young lady's aptitude for playing a part at short notice was\nremarkable. She fixed him with her conscious, perceptive eye and asked\nhim if he spoke no French. Then, \"Donnez!\" she said briefly, and took\nthe open guide-book. In the upper corner of the fly-leaf she traced a\nnumber, in a minute and extremely neat hand. Then she handed back the\nbook and took up her palette again.\n\nOur friend read the number: \"2,000 francs.\" He said nothing for a time,\nbut stood looking at the picture, while the copyist began actively to\ndabble with her paint. \"For a copy, isn't that a good deal?\" he asked at\nlast. \"Pas beaucoup?\"\n\nThe young lady raised her eyes from her palette, scanned him from head\nto foot, and alighted with admirable sagacity upon exactly the right\nanswer. \"Yes, it's a good deal. But my copy has remarkable qualities, it\nis worth nothing less.\"\n\nThe gentleman in whom we are interested understood no French, but I\nhave said he was intelligent, and here is a good chance to prove it.\nHe apprehended, by a natural instinct, the meaning of the young woman's\nphrase, and it gratified him to think that she was so honest. Beauty,\ntalent, virtue; she combined everything! \"But you must finish it,\" he\nsaid. \"FINISH, you know;\" and he pointed to the unpainted hand of the\nfigure.\n\n\"Oh, it shall be finished in perfection; in the perfection of\nperfections!\" cried mademoiselle; and to confirm her promise, she\ndeposited a rosy blotch in the middle of the Madonna's cheek.\n\nBut the American frowned. \"Ah, too red, too red!\" he rejoined. \"Her\ncomplexion,\" pointing to the Murillo, \"is--more delicate.\"\n\n\"Delicate? Oh, it shall be delicate, monsieur; delicate as Sevres\nbiscuit. I am going to tone that down; I know all the secrets of my art.\nAnd where will you allow us to send it to you? Your address?\"\n\n\"My address? Oh yes!\" And the gentleman drew a card from his pocket-book\nand wrote something upon it. Then hesitating a moment he said, \"If I\ndon't like it when it it's finished, you know, I shall not be obliged to\ntake it.\"\n\nThe young lady seemed as good a guesser as himself. \"Oh, I am very sure\nthat monsieur is not capricious,\" she said with a roguish smile.\n\n\"Capricious?\" And at this monsieur began to laugh. \"Oh no, I'm not\ncapricious. I am very faithful. I am very constant. Comprenez?\"\n\n\"Monsieur is constant; I understand perfectly. It's a rare virtue. To\nrecompense you, you shall have your picture on the first possible day;\nnext week--as soon as it is dry. I will take the card of monsieur.\" And\nshe took it and read his name: \"Christopher Newman.\" Then she tried to\nrepeat it aloud, and laughed at her bad accent. \"Your English names are\nso droll!\"\n\n\"Droll?\" said Mr. Newman, laughing too. \"Did you ever hear of\nChristopher Columbus?\"\n\n\"Bien sur! He invented America; a very great man. And is he your\npatron?\"\n\n\"My patron?\"\n\n\"Your patron-saint, in the calendar.\"\n\n\"Oh, exactly; my parents named me for him.\"\n\n\"Monsieur is American?\"\n\n\"Don't you see it?\" monsieur inquired.\n\n\"And you mean to carry my little picture away over there?\" and she\nexplained her phrase with a gesture.\n\n\"Oh, I mean to buy a great many pictures--beaucoup, beaucoup,\" said\nChristopher Newman.\n\n\"The honor is not less for me,\" the young lady answered, \"for I am sure\nmonsieur has a great deal of taste.\"\n\n\"But you must give me your card,\" Newman said; \"your card, you know.\"\n\nThe young lady looked severe for an instant, and then said, \"My father\nwill wait upon you.\"\n\nBut this time Mr. Newman's powers of divination were at fault. \"Your\ncard, your address,\" he simply repeated.\n\n\"My address?\" said mademoiselle. Then with a little shrug, \"Happily for\nyou, you are an American! It is the first time I ever gave my card to a\ngentleman.\" And, taking from her pocket a rather greasy porte-monnaie,\nshe extracted from it a small glazed visiting card, and presented the\nlatter to her patron. It was neatly inscribed in pencil, with a great\nmany flourishes, \"Mlle. Noemie Nioche.\" But Mr. Newman, unlike his\ncompanion, read the name with perfect gravity; all French names to him\nwere equally droll.\n\n\"And precisely, here is my father, who has come to escort me home,\" said\nMademoiselle Noemie. \"He speaks English. He will arrange with you.\"\nAnd she turned to welcome a little old gentleman who came shuffling up,\npeering over his spectacles at Newman.\n\nM. Nioche wore a glossy wig, of an unnatural color which overhung his\nlittle meek, white, vacant face, and left it hardly more expressive\nthan the unfeatured block upon which these articles are displayed in\nthe barber's window. He was an exquisite image of shabby gentility. His\nscant ill-made coat, desperately brushed, his darned gloves, his highly\npolished boots, his rusty, shapely hat, told the story of a person who\nhad \"had losses\" and who clung to the spirit of nice habits even though\nthe letter had been hopelessly effaced. Among other things M. Nioche had\nlost courage. Adversity had not only ruined him, it had frightened him,\nand he was evidently going through his remnant of life on tiptoe, for\nfear of waking up the hostile fates. If this strange gentleman was\nsaying anything improper to his daughter, M. Nioche would entreat him\nhuskily, as a particular favor, to forbear; but he would admit at the\nsame time that he was very presumptuous to ask for particular favors.\n\n\"Monsieur has bought my picture,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie. \"When it's\nfinished you'll carry it to him in a cab.\"\n\n\"In a cab!\" cried M. Nioche; and he stared, in a bewildered way, as if\nhe had seen the sun rising at midnight.\n\n\"Are you the young lady's father?\" said Newman. \"I think she said you\nspeak English.\"\n\n\"Speak English--yes,\" said the old man slowly rubbing his hands. \"I will\nbring it in a cab.\"\n\n\"Say something, then,\" cried his daughter. \"Thank him a little--not too\nmuch.\"\n\n\"A little, my daughter, a little?\" said M. Nioche perplexed. \"How much?\"\n\n\"Two thousand!\" said Mademoiselle Noemie. \"Don't make a fuss or he'll\ntake back his word.\"\n\n\"Two thousand!\" cried the old man, and he began to fumble for his\nsnuff-box. He looked at Newman from head to foot; he looked at his\ndaughter and then at the picture. \"Take care you don't spoil it!\" he\ncried almost sublimely.\n\n\"We must go home,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie. \"This is a good day's work.\nTake care how you carry it!\" And she began to put up her utensils.\n\n\"How can I thank you?\" said M. Nioche. \"My English does not suffice.\"\n\n\"I wish I spoke French as well,\" said Newman, good-naturedly. \"Your\ndaughter is very clever.\"\n\n\"Oh, sir!\" and M. Nioche looked over his spectacles with tearful eyes\nand nodded several times with a world of sadness. \"She has had an\neducation--tres-superieure! Nothing was spared. Lessons in pastel at ten\nfrancs the lesson, lessons in oil at twelve francs. I didn't look at the\nfrancs then. She's an artiste, ah!\"\n\n\"Do I understand you to say that you have had reverses?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"Reverses? Oh, sir, misfortunes--terrible.\"\n\n\"Unsuccessful in business, eh?\"\n\n\"Very unsuccessful, sir.\"\n\n\"Oh, never fear, you'll get on your legs again,\" said Newman cheerily.\n\nThe old man drooped his head on one side and looked at him with an\nexpression of pain, as if this were an unfeeling jest.\n\n\"What does he say?\" demanded Mademoiselle Noemie.\n\nM. Nioche took a pinch of snuff. \"He says I will make my fortune again.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he will help you. And what else?\"\n\n\"He says thou art very clever.\"\n\n\"It is very possible. You believe it yourself, my father?\"\n\n\"Believe it, my daughter? With this evidence!\" And the old man turned\nafresh, with a staring, wondering homage, to the audacious daub on the\neasel.\n\n\"Ask him, then, if he would not like to learn French.\"\n\n\"To learn French?\"\n\n\"To take lessons.\"\n\n\"To take lessons, my daughter? From thee?\"\n\n\"From you!\"\n\n\"From me, my child? How should I give lessons?\"\n\n\"Pas de raisons! Ask him immediately!\" said Mademoiselle Noemie, with\nsoft brevity.\n\nM. Nioche stood aghast, but under his daughter's eye he collected his\nwits, and, doing his best to assume an agreeable smile, he executed her\ncommands. \"Would it please you to receive instruction in our beautiful\nlanguage?\" he inquired, with an appealing quaver.\n\n\"To study French?\" asked Newman, staring.\n\nM. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and slowly raised his\nshoulders. \"A little conversation!\"\n\n\"Conversation--that's it!\" murmured Mademoiselle Noemie, who had caught\nthe word. \"The conversation of the best society.\"\n\n\"Our French conversation is famous, you know,\" M. Nioche ventured to\ncontinue. \"It's a great talent.\"\n\n\"But isn't it awfully difficult?\" asked Newman, very simply.\n\n\"Not to a man of esprit, like monsieur, an admirer of beauty in every\nform!\" and M. Nioche cast a significant glance at his daughter's\nMadonna.\n\n\"I can't fancy myself chattering French!\" said Newman with a laugh. \"And\nyet, I suppose that the more a man knows the better.\"\n\n\"Monsieur expresses that very happily. Helas, oui!\"\n\n\"I suppose it would help me a great deal, knocking about Paris, to know\nthe language.\"\n\n\"Ah, there are so many things monsieur must want to say: difficult\nthings!\"\n\n\"Everything I want to say is difficult. But you give lessons?\"\n\nPoor M. Nioche was embarrassed; he smiled more appealingly. \"I am not a\nregular professor,\" he admitted. \"I can't nevertheless tell him that I'm\na professor,\" he said to his daughter.\n\n\"Tell him it's a very exceptional chance,\" answered Mademoiselle Noemie;\n\"an homme du monde--one gentleman conversing with another! Remember what\nyou are--what you have been!\"\n\n\"A teacher of languages in neither case! Much more formerly and much\nless to-day! And if he asks the price of the lessons?\"\n\n\"He won't ask it,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie.\n\n\"What he pleases, I may say?\"\n\n\"Never! That's bad style.\"\n\n\"If he asks, then?\"\n\nMademoiselle Noemie had put on her bonnet and was tying the ribbons.\nShe smoothed them out, with her soft little chin thrust forward. \"Ten\nfrancs,\" she said quickly.\n\n\"Oh, my daughter! I shall never dare.\"\n\n\"Don't dare, then! He won't ask till the end of the lessons, and then I\nwill make out the bill.\"\n\nM. Nioche turned to the confiding foreigner again, and stood rubbing\nhis hands, with an air of seeming to plead guilty which was not intenser\nonly because it was habitually so striking. It never occurred to Newman\nto ask him for a guarantee of his skill in imparting instruction; he\nsupposed of course M. Nioche knew his own language, and his appealing\nforlornness was quite the perfection of what the American, for vague\nreasons, had always associated with all elderly foreigners of the\nlesson-giving class. Newman had never reflected upon philological\nprocesses. His chief impression with regard to ascertaining those\nmysterious correlatives of his familiar English vocables which were\ncurrent in this extraordinary city of Paris was, that it was simply a\nmatter of a good deal of unwonted and rather ridiculous muscular effort\non his own part. \"How did you learn English?\" he asked of the old man.\n\n\"When I was young, before my miseries. Oh, I was wide awake, then.\nMy father was a great commercant; he placed me for a year in a\ncounting-house in England. Some of it stuck to me; but I have\nforgotten!\"\n\n\"How much French can I learn in a month?\"\n\n\"What does he say?\" asked Mademoiselle Noemie.\n\nM. Nioche explained.\n\n\"He will speak like an angel!\" said his daughter.\n\nBut the native integrity which had been vainly exerted to secure M.\nNioche's commercial prosperity flickered up again. \"Dame, monsieur!\" he\nanswered. \"All I can teach you!\" And then, recovering himself at a sign\nfrom his daughter, \"I will wait upon you at your hotel.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I should like to learn French,\" Newman went on, with democratic\nconfidingness. \"Hang me if I should ever have thought of it! I took for\ngranted it was impossible. But if you learned my language, why shouldn't\nI learn yours?\" and his frank, friendly laugh drew the sting from the\njest. \"Only, if we are going to converse, you know, you must think of\nsomething cheerful to converse about.\"\n\n\"You are very good, sir; I am overcome!\" said M. Nioche, throwing out\nhis hands. \"But you have cheerfulness and happiness for two!\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" said Newman more seriously. \"You must be bright and lively;\nthat's part of the bargain.\"\n\nM. Nioche bowed, with his hand on his heart. \"Very well, sir; you have\nalready made me lively.\"\n\n\"Come and bring me my picture then; I will pay you for it, and we will\ntalk about that. That will be a cheerful subject!\"\n\nMademoiselle Noemie had collected her accessories, and she gave the\nprecious Madonna in charge to her father, who retreated backwards out\nof sight, holding it at arm's-length and reiterating his obeisance. The\nyoung lady gathered her shawl about her like a perfect Parisienne, and\nit was with the smile of a Parisienne that she took leave of her patron.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nHe wandered back to the divan and seated himself on the other side,\nin view of the great canvas on which Paul Veronese had depicted\nthe marriage-feast of Cana. Wearied as he was he found the picture\nentertaining; it had an illusion for him; it satisfied his conception,\nwhich was ambitious, of what a splendid banquet should be. In the\nleft-hand corner of the picture is a young woman with yellow tresses\nconfined in a golden head-dress; she is bending forward and listening,\nwith the smile of a charming woman at a dinner-party, to her neighbor.\nNewman detected her in the crowd, admired her, and perceived that she\ntoo had her votive copyist--a young man with his hair standing on\nend. Suddenly he became conscious of the germ of the mania of the\n\"collector;\" he had taken the first step; why should he not go on? It\nwas only twenty minutes before that he had bought the first picture\nof his life, and now he was already thinking of art-patronage as a\nfascinating pursuit. His reflections quickened his good-humor, and he\nwas on the point of approaching the young man with another \"Combien?\"\nTwo or three facts in this relation are noticeable, although the logical\nchain which connects them may seem imperfect. He knew Mademoiselle\nNioche had asked too much; he bore her no grudge for doing so, and he\nwas determined to pay the young man exactly the proper sum. At this\nmoment, however, his attention was attracted by a gentleman who had come\nfrom another part of the room and whose manner was that of a stranger\nto the gallery, although he was equipped with neither guide-book nor\nopera-glass. He carried a white sun-umbrella, lined with blue silk, and\nhe strolled in front of the Paul Veronese, vaguely looking at it, but\nmuch too near to see anything but the grain of the canvas. Opposite to\nChristopher Newman he paused and turned, and then our friend, who had\nbeen observing him, had a chance to verify a suspicion aroused by an\nimperfect view of his face. The result of this larger scrutiny was that\nhe presently sprang to his feet, strode across the room, and, with an\noutstretched hand, arrested the gentleman with the blue-lined umbrella.\nThe latter stared, but put out his hand at a venture. He was corpulent\nand rosy, and though his countenance, which was ornamented with a\nbeautiful flaxen beard, carefully divided in the middle and brushed\noutward at the sides, was not remarkable for intensity of expression,\nhe looked like a person who would willingly shake hands with any one.\nI know not what Newman thought of his face, but he found a want of\nresponse in his grasp.\n\n\"Oh, come, come,\" he said, laughing; \"don't say, now, you don't know\nme--if I have NOT got a white parasol!\"\n\nThe sound of his voice quickened the other's memory, his face expanded\nto its fullest capacity, and he also broke into a laugh. \"Why,\nNewman--I'll be blowed! Where in the world--I declare--who would have\nthought? You know you have changed.\"\n\n\"You haven't!\" said Newman.\n\n\"Not for the better, no doubt. When did you get here?\"\n\n\"Three days ago.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you let me know?\"\n\n\"I had no idea YOU were here.\"\n\n\"I have been here these six years.\"\n\n\"It must be eight or nine since we met.\"\n\n\"Something of that sort. We were very young.\"\n\n\"It was in St. Louis, during the war. You were in the army.\"\n\n\"Oh no, not I! But you were.\"\n\n\"I believe I was.\"\n\n\"You came out all right?\"\n\n\"I came out with my legs and arms--and with satisfaction. All that seems\nvery far away.\"\n\n\"And how long have you been in Europe?\"\n\n\"Seventeen days.\"\n\n\"First time?\"\n\n\"Yes, very much so.\"\n\n\"Made your everlasting fortune?\"\n\nChristopher Newman was silent a moment, and then with a tranquil smile\nhe answered, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"And come to Paris to spend it, eh?\"\n\n\"Well, we shall see. So they carry those parasols here--the menfolk?\"\n\n\"Of course they do. They're great things. They understand comfort out\nhere.\"\n\n\"Where do you buy them?\"\n\n\"Anywhere, everywhere.\"\n\n\"Well, Tristram, I'm glad to get hold of you. You can show me the ropes.\nI suppose you know Paris inside out.\"\n\nMr. Tristram gave a mellow smile of self-gratulation. \"Well, I guess\nthere are not many men that can show me much. I'll take care of you.\"\n\n\"It's a pity you were not here a few minutes ago. I have just bought a\npicture. You might have put the thing through for me.\"\n\n\"Bought a picture?\" said Mr. Tristram, looking vaguely round at the\nwalls. \"Why, do they sell them?\"\n\n\"I mean a copy.\"\n\n\"Oh, I see. These,\" said Mr. Tristram, nodding at the Titians and\nVandykes, \"these, I suppose, are originals.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" cried Newman. \"I don't want a copy of a copy.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Mr. Tristram, mysteriously, \"you can never tell. They\nimitate, you know, so deucedly well. It's like the jewelers, with their\nfalse stones. Go into the Palais Royal, there; you see 'Imitation' on\nhalf the windows. The law obliges them to stick it on, you know; but you\ncan't tell the things apart. To tell the truth,\" Mr. Tristram continued,\nwith a wry face, \"I don't do much in pictures. I leave that to my wife.\"\n\n\"Ah, you have got a wife?\"\n\n\"Didn't I mention it? She's a very nice woman; you must know her. She's\nup there in the Avenue d'Iena.\"\n\n\"So you are regularly fixed--house and children and all.\"\n\n\"Yes, a tip-top house and a couple of youngsters.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Christopher Newman, stretching his arms a little, with a\nsigh, \"I envy you.\"\n\n\"Oh no! you don't!\" answered Mr. Tristram, giving him a little poke with\nhis parasol.\n\n\"I beg your pardon; I do!\"\n\n\"Well, you won't, then, when--when--\"\n\n\"You don't certainly mean when I have seen your establishment?\"\n\n\"When you have seen Paris, my boy. You want to be your own master here.\"\n\n\"Oh, I have been my own master all my life, and I'm tired of it.\"\n\n\"Well, try Paris. How old are you?\"\n\n\"Thirty-six.\"\n\n\"C'est le bel age, as they say here.\"\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\n\"It means that a man shouldn't send away his plate till he has eaten his\nfill.\"\n\n\"All that? I have just made arrangements to take French lessons.\"\n\n\"Oh, you don't want any lessons. You'll pick it up. I never took any.\"\n\n\"I suppose you speak French as well as English?\"\n\n\"Better!\" said Mr. Tristram, roundly. \"It's a splendid language. You can\nsay all sorts of bright things in it.\"\n\n\"But I suppose,\" said Christopher Newman, with an earnest desire for\ninformation, \"that you must be bright to begin with.\"\n\n\"Not a bit; that's just the beauty of it.\"\n\nThe two friends, as they exchanged these remarks, had remained standing\nwhere they met, and leaning against the rail which protected the\npictures. Mr. Tristram at last declared that he was overcome with\nfatigue and should be happy to sit down. Newman recommended in the\nhighest terms the great divan on which he had been lounging, and they\nprepared to seat themselves. \"This is a great place; isn't it?\" said\nNewman, with ardor.\n\n\"Great place, great place. Finest thing in the world.\" And then,\nsuddenly, Mr. Tristram hesitated and looked about him. \"I suppose they\nwon't let you smoke here.\"\n\nNewman stared. \"Smoke? I'm sure I don't know. You know the regulations\nbetter than I.\"\n\n\"I? I never was here before!\"\n\n\"Never! in six years?\"\n\n\"I believe my wife dragged me here once when we first came to Paris, but\nI never found my way back.\"\n\n\"But you say you know Paris so well!\"\n\n\"I don't call this Paris!\" cried Mr. Tristram, with assurance. \"Come;\nlet's go over to the Palais Royal and have a smoke.\"\n\n\"I don't smoke,\" said Newman.\n\n\"A drink, then.\"\n\nAnd Mr. Tristram led his companion away. They passed through the\nglorious halls of the Louvre, down the staircases, along the cool, dim\ngalleries of sculpture, and out into the enormous court. Newman looked\nabout him as he went, but he made no comments, and it was only when they\nat last emerged into the open air that he said to his friend, \"It seems\nto me that in your place I should have come here once a week.\"\n\n\"Oh, no you wouldn't!\" said Mr. Tristram. \"You think so, but you\nwouldn't. You wouldn't have had time. You would always mean to go, but\nyou never would go. There's better fun than that, here in Paris. Italy's\nthe place to see pictures; wait till you get there. There you have to\ngo; you can't do anything else. It's an awful country; you can't get a\ndecent cigar. I don't know why I went in there, to-day; I was strolling\nalong, rather hard up for amusement. I sort of noticed the Louvre as I\npassed, and I thought I would go in and see what was going on. But if I\nhadn't found you there I should have felt rather sold. Hang it, I don't\ncare for pictures; I prefer the reality!\" And Mr. Tristram tossed off\nthis happy formula with an assurance which the numerous class of persons\nsuffering from an overdose of \"culture\" might have envied him.\n\nThe two gentlemen proceeded along the Rue de Rivoli and into the\nPalais Royal, where they seated themselves at one of the little tables\nstationed at the door of the cafe which projects into the great open\nquadrangle. The place was filled with people, the fountains were\nspouting, a band was playing, clusters of chairs were gathered beneath\nall the lime-trees, and buxom, white-capped nurses, seated along the\nbenches, were offering to their infant charges the amplest facilities\nfor nutrition. There was an easy, homely gayety in the whole scene, and\nChristopher Newman felt that it was most characteristically Parisian.\n\n\"And now,\" began Mr. Tristram, when they had tested the decoction\nwhich he had caused to be served to them, \"now just give an account of\nyourself. What are your ideas, what are your plans, where have you\ncome from and where are you going? In the first place, where are you\nstaying?\"\n\n\"At the Grand Hotel,\" said Newman.\n\nMr. Tristram puckered his plump visage. \"That won't do! You must\nchange.\"\n\n\"Change?\" demanded Newman. \"Why, it's the finest hotel I ever was in.\"\n\n\"You don't want a 'fine' hotel; you want something small and quiet\nand elegant, where your bell is answered and you--your person is\nrecognized.\"\n\n\"They keep running to see if I have rung before I have touched the\nbell,\" said Newman \"and as for my person they are always bowing and\nscraping to it.\"\n\n\"I suppose you are always tipping them. That's very bad style.\"\n\n\"Always? By no means. A man brought me something yesterday, and then\nstood loafing in a beggarly manner. I offered him a chair and asked him\nif he wouldn't sit down. Was that bad style?\"\n\n\"Very!\"\n\n\"But he bolted, instantly. At any rate, the place amuses me. Hang your\nelegance, if it bores me. I sat in the court of the Grand Hotel last\nnight until two o'clock in the morning, watching the coming and going,\nand the people knocking about.\"\n\n\"You're easily pleased. But you can do as you choose--a man in your\nshoes. You have made a pile of money, eh?\"\n\n\"I have made enough\"\n\n\"Happy the man who can say that? Enough for what?\"\n\n\"Enough to rest awhile, to forget the confounded thing, to look about\nme, to see the world, to have a good time, to improve my mind, and,\nif the fancy takes me, to marry a wife.\" Newman spoke slowly, with\na certain dryness of accent and with frequent pauses. This was his\nhabitual mode of utterance, but it was especially marked in the words I\nhave just quoted.\n\n\"Jupiter! There's a programme!\" cried Mr. Tristram. \"Certainly, all that\ntakes money, especially the wife; unless indeed she gives it, as mine\ndid. And what's the story? How have you done it?\"\n\nNewman had pushed his hat back from his forehead, folded his arms, and\nstretched his legs. He listened to the music, he looked about him at the\nbustling crowd, at the plashing fountains, at the nurses and the babies.\n\"I have worked!\" he answered at last.\n\nTristram looked at him for some moments, and allowed his placid eyes to\nmeasure his friend's generous longitude and rest upon his comfortably\ncontemplative face. \"What have you worked at?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, at several things.\"\n\n\"I suppose you're a smart fellow, eh?\"\n\nNewman continued to look at the nurses and babies; they imparted to the\nscene a kind of primordial, pastoral simplicity. \"Yes,\" he said at last,\n\"I suppose I am.\" And then, in answer to his companion's inquiries,\nhe related briefly his history since their last meeting. It was an\nintensely Western story, and it dealt with enterprises which it will be\nneedless to introduce to the reader in detail. Newman had come out\nof the war with a brevet of brigadier-general, an honor which in this\ncase--without invidious comparisons--had lighted upon shoulders amply\ncompetent to bear it. But though he could manage a fight, when need was,\nNewman heartily disliked the business; his four years in the army\nhad left him with an angry, bitter sense of the waste of precious\nthings--life and time and money and \"smartness\" and the early freshness\nof purpose; and he had addressed himself to the pursuits of peace\nwith passionate zest and energy. He was of course as penniless when he\nplucked off his shoulder-straps as when he put them on, and the only\ncapital at his disposal was his dogged resolution and his lively\nperception of ends and means. Exertion and action were as natural to\nhim as respiration; a more completely healthy mortal had never trod the\nelastic soil of the West. His experience, moreover, was as wide as his\ncapacity; when he was fourteen years old, necessity had taken him by\nhis slim young shoulders and pushed him into the street, to earn that\nnight's supper. He had not earned it but he had earned the next night's,\nand afterwards, whenever he had had none, it was because he had gone\nwithout it to use the money for something else, a keener pleasure or\na finer profit. He had turned his hand, with his brain in it, to many\nthings; he had been enterprising, in an eminent sense of the term; he\nhad been adventurous and even reckless, and he had known bitter failure\nas well as brilliant success; but he was a born experimentalist, and he\nhad always found something to enjoy in the pressure of necessity, even\nwhen it was as irritating as the haircloth shirt of the mediaeval monk.\nAt one time failure seemed inexorably his portion; ill-luck became\nhis bed-fellow, and whatever he touched he turned, not to gold, but\nto ashes. His most vivid conception of a supernatural element in the\nworld's affairs had come to him once when this pertinacity of misfortune\nwas at its climax; there seemed to him something stronger in life than\nhis own will. But the mysterious something could only be the devil,\nand he was accordingly seized with an intense personal enmity to this\nimpertinent force. He had known what it was to have utterly exhausted\nhis credit, to be unable to raise a dollar, and to find himself\nat nightfall in a strange city, without a penny to mitigate its\nstrangeness. It was under these circumstances that he made his entrance\ninto San Francisco, the scene, subsequently, of his happiest strokes of\nfortune. If he did not, like Dr. Franklin in Philadelphia, march along\nthe street munching a penny-loaf, it was only because he had not the\npenny-loaf necessary to the performance. In his darkest days he had had\nbut one simple, practical impulse--the desire, as he would have phrased\nit, to see the thing through. He did so at last, buffeted his way into\nsmooth waters, and made money largely. It must be admitted, rather\nnakedly, that Christopher Newman's sole aim in life had been to\nmake money; what he had been placed in the world for was, to his own\nperception, simply to wrest a fortune, the bigger the better, from\ndefiant opportunity. This idea completely filled his horizon and\nsatisfied his imagination. Upon the uses of money, upon what one might\ndo with a life into which one had succeeded in injecting the golden\nstream, he had up to his thirty-fifth year very scantily reflected. Life\nhad been for him an open game, and he had played for high stakes. He had\nwon at last and carried off his winnings; and now what was he to do with\nthem? He was a man to whom, sooner or later, the question was sure to\npresent itself, and the answer to it belongs to our story. A vague sense\nthat more answers were possible than his philosophy had hitherto\ndreamt of had already taken possession of him, and it seemed softly and\nagreeably to deepen as he lounged in this brilliant corner of Paris with\nhis friend.\n\n\"I must confess,\" he presently went on, \"that here I don't feel at\nall smart. My remarkable talents seem of no use. I feel as simple as a\nlittle child, and a little child might take me by the hand and lead me\nabout.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll be your little child,\" said Tristram, jovially; \"I'll take you\nby the hand. Trust yourself to me.\"\n\n\"I am a good worker,\" Newman continued, \"but I rather think I am a poor\nloafer. I have come abroad to amuse myself, but I doubt whether I know\nhow.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's easily learned.\"\n\n\"Well, I may perhaps learn it, but I am afraid I shall never do it by\nrote. I have the best will in the world about it, but my genius doesn't\nlie in that direction. As a loafer I shall never be original, as I take\nit that you are.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Tristram, \"I suppose I am original; like all those immoral\npictures in the Louvre.\"\n\n\"Besides,\" Newman continued, \"I don't want to work at pleasure, any\nmore than I played at work. I want to take it easily. I feel deliciously\nlazy, and I should like to spend six months as I am now, sitting under\na tree and listening to a band. There's only one thing; I want to hear\nsome good music.\"\n\n\"Music and pictures! Lord, what refined tastes! You are what my wife\ncalls intellectual. I ain't, a bit. But we can find something better for\nyou to do than to sit under a tree. To begin with, you must come to the\nclub.\"\n\n\"What club?\"\n\n\"The Occidental. You will see all the Americans there; all the best of\nthem, at least. Of course you play poker?\"\n\n\"Oh, I say,\" cried Newman, with energy, \"you are not going to lock me up\nin a club and stick me down at a card-table! I haven't come all this way\nfor that.\"\n\n\"What the deuce HAVE you come for! You were glad enough to play poker in\nSt. Louis, I recollect, when you cleaned me out.\"\n\n\"I have come to see Europe, to get the best out of it I can. I want to\nsee all the great things, and do what the clever people do.\"\n\n\"The clever people? Much obliged. You set me down as a blockhead, then?\"\n\nNewman was sitting sidewise in his chair, with his elbow on the back and\nhis head leaning on his hand. Without moving he looked a while at his\ncompanion with his dry, guarded, half-inscrutable, and yet altogether\ngood-natured smile. \"Introduce me to your wife!\" he said at last.\n\nTristram bounced about in his chair. \"Upon my word, I won't. She doesn't\nwant any help to turn up her nose at me, nor do you, either!\"\n\n\"I don't turn up my nose at you, my dear fellow; nor at any one, or\nanything. I'm not proud, I assure you I'm not proud. That's why I am\nwilling to take example by the clever people.\"\n\n\"Well, if I'm not the rose, as they say here, I have lived near it. I\ncan show you some clever people, too. Do you know General Packard? Do\nyou know C. P. Hatch? Do you know Miss Kitty Upjohn?\"\n\n\"I shall be happy to make their acquaintance; I want to cultivate\nsociety.\"\n\nTristram seemed restless and suspicious; he eyed his friend askance,\nand then, \"What are you up to, any way?\" he demanded. \"Are you going to\nwrite a book?\"\n\nChristopher Newman twisted one end of his mustache a while, in silence,\nand at last he made answer. \"One day, a couple of months ago, something\nvery curious happened to me. I had come on to New York on some important\nbusiness; it was rather a long story--a question of getting ahead of\nanother party, in a certain particular way, in the stock-market. This\nother party had once played me a very mean trick. I owed him a grudge, I\nfelt awfully savage at the time, and I vowed that, when I got a chance,\nI would, figuratively speaking, put his nose out of joint. There was a\nmatter of some sixty thousand dollars at stake. If I put it out of his\nway, it was a blow the fellow would feel, and he really deserved no\nquarter. I jumped into a hack and went about my business, and it was\nin this hack--this immortal, historical hack--that the curious thing I\nspeak of occurred. It was a hack like any other, only a trifle dirtier,\nwith a greasy line along the top of the drab cushions, as if it had been\nused for a great many Irish funerals. It is possible I took a nap; I\nhad been traveling all night, and though I was excited with my errand,\nI felt the want of sleep. At all events I woke up suddenly, from a sleep\nor from a kind of a reverie, with the most extraordinary feeling in the\nworld--a mortal disgust for the thing I was going to do. It came upon\nme like THAT!\" and he snapped his fingers--\"as abruptly as an old wound\nthat begins to ache. I couldn't tell the meaning of it; I only felt that\nI loathed the whole business and wanted to wash my hands of it. The idea\nof losing that sixty thousand dollars, of letting it utterly slide and\nscuttle and never hearing of it again, seemed the sweetest thing in the\nworld. And all this took place quite independently of my will, and I sat\nwatching it as if it were a play at the theatre. I could feel it going\non inside of me. You may depend upon it that there are things going on\ninside of us that we understand mighty little about.\"\n\n\"Jupiter! you make my flesh creep!\" cried Tristram. \"And while you sat\nin your hack, watching the play, as you call it, the other man marched\nin and bagged your sixty thousand dollars?\"\n\n\"I have not the least idea. I hope so, poor devil! but I never found\nout. We pulled up in front of the place I was going to in Wall Street,\nbut I sat still in the carriage, and at last the driver scrambled down\noff his seat to see whether his carriage had not turned into a hearse.\nI couldn't have got out, any more than if I had been a corpse. What was\nthe matter with me? Momentary idiocy, you'll say. What I wanted to get\nout of was Wall Street. I told the man to drive down to the Brooklyn\nferry and to cross over. When we were over, I told him to drive me out\ninto the country. As I had told him originally to drive for dear life\ndown town, I suppose he thought me insane. Perhaps I was, but in that\ncase I am insane still. I spent the morning looking at the first green\nleaves on Long Island. I was sick of business; I wanted to throw it all\nup and break off short; I had money enough, or if I hadn't I ought to\nhave. I seemed to feel a new man inside my old skin, and I longed for\na new world. When you want a thing so very badly you had better treat\nyourself to it. I didn't understand the matter, not in the least; but\nI gave the old horse the bridle and let him find his way. As soon as I\ncould get out of the game I sailed for Europe. That is how I come to be\nsitting here.\"\n\n\"You ought to have bought up that hack,\" said Tristram; \"it isn't a\nsafe vehicle to have about. And you have really sold out, then; you have\nretired from business?\"\n\n\"I have made over my hand to a friend; when I feel disposed, I can take\nup the cards again. I dare say that a twelvemonth hence the operation\nwill be reversed. The pendulum will swing back again. I shall be sitting\nin a gondola or on a dromedary, and all of a sudden I shall want\nto clear out. But for the present I am perfectly free. I have even\nbargained that I am to receive no business letters.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's a real caprice de prince,\" said Tristram. \"I back out; a poor\ndevil like me can't help you to spend such very magnificent leisure as\nthat. You should get introduced to the crowned heads.\"\n\nNewman looked at him a moment, and then, with his easy smile, \"How does\none do it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Come, I like that!\" cried Tristram. \"It shows you are in earnest.\"\n\n\"Of course I am in earnest. Didn't I say I wanted the best? I know the\nbest can't be had for mere money, but I rather think money will do a\ngood deal. In addition, I am willing to take a good deal of trouble.\"\n\n\"You are not bashful, eh?\"\n\n\"I haven't the least idea. I want the biggest kind of entertainment a\nman can get. People, places, art, nature, everything! I want to see the\ntallest mountains, and the bluest lakes, and the finest pictures and the\nhandsomest churches, and the most celebrated men, and the most beautiful\nwomen.\"\n\n\"Settle down in Paris, then. There are no mountains that I know of, and\nthe only lake is in the Bois du Boulogne, and not particularly blue.\nBut there is everything else: plenty of pictures and churches, no end of\ncelebrated men, and several beautiful women.\"\n\n\"But I can't settle down in Paris at this season, just as summer is\ncoming on.\"\n\n\"Oh, for the summer go up to Trouville.\"\n\n\"What is Trouville?\"\n\n\"The French Newport. Half the Americans go.\"\n\n\"Is it anywhere near the Alps?\"\n\n\"About as near as Newport is to the Rocky Mountains.\"\n\n\"Oh, I want to see Mont Blanc,\" said Newman, \"and Amsterdam, and the\nRhine, and a lot of places. Venice in particular. I have great ideas\nabout Venice.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Mr. Tristram, rising, \"I see I shall have to introduce you to\nmy wife!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nHe performed this ceremony on the following day, when, by appointment,\nChristopher Newman went to dine with him. Mr. and Mrs. Tristram lived\nbehind one of those chalk-colored facades which decorate with their\npompous sameness the broad avenues manufactured by Baron Haussmann in\nthe neighborhood of the Arc de Triomphe. Their apartment was rich in the\nmodern conveniences, and Tristram lost no time in calling his visitor's\nattention to their principal household treasures, the gas-lamps and the\nfurnace-holes. \"Whenever you feel homesick,\" he said, \"you must come up\nhere. We'll stick you down before a register, under a good big burner,\nand--\"\n\n\"And you will soon get over your homesickness,\" said Mrs. Tristram.\n\nHer husband stared; his wife often had a tone which he found inscrutable\nhe could not tell for his life whether she was in jest or in earnest.\nThe truth is that circumstances had done much to cultivate in Mrs.\nTristram a marked tendency to irony. Her taste on many points differed\nfrom that of her husband, and though she made frequent concessions it\nmust be confessed that her concessions were not always graceful. They\nwere founded upon a vague project she had of some day doing something\nvery positive, something a trifle passionate. What she meant to do she\ncould by no means have told you; but meanwhile, nevertheless, she was\nbuying a good conscience, by installments.\n\nIt should be added, without delay, to anticipate misconception, that her\nlittle scheme of independence did not definitely involve the assistance\nof another person, of the opposite sex; she was not saving up virtue to\ncover the expenses of a flirtation. For this there were various reasons.\nTo begin with, she had a very plain face and she was entirely without\nillusions as to her appearance. She had taken its measure to a hair's\nbreadth, she knew the worst and the best, she had accepted herself. It\nhad not been, indeed, without a struggle. As a young girl she had spent\nhours with her back to her mirror, crying her eyes out; and later\nshe had from desperation and bravado adopted the habit of proclaiming\nherself the most ill-favored of women, in order that she might--as in\ncommon politeness was inevitable--be contradicted and reassured. It\nwas since she had come to live in Europe that she had begun to take the\nmatter philosophically. Her observation, acutely exercised here, had\nsuggested to her that a woman's first duty is not to be beautiful, but\nto be pleasing, and she encountered so many women who pleased without\nbeauty that she began to feel that she had discovered her mission. She\nhad once heard an enthusiastic musician, out of patience with a gifted\nbungler, declare that a fine voice is really an obstacle to singing\nproperly; and it occurred to her that it might perhaps be equally true\nthat a beautiful face is an obstacle to the acquisition of charming\nmanners. Mrs. Tristram, then, undertook to be exquisitely agreeable, and\nshe brought to the task a really touching devotion. How well she would\nhave succeeded I am unable to say; unfortunately she broke off in the\nmiddle. Her own excuse was the want of encouragement in her immediate\ncircle. But I am inclined to think that she had not a real genius for\nthe matter, or she would have pursued the charming art for itself. The\npoor lady was very incomplete. She fell back upon the harmonies of the\ntoilet, which she thoroughly understood, and contented herself with\ndressing in perfection. She lived in Paris, which she pretended to\ndetest, because it was only in Paris that one could find things to\nexactly suit one's complexion. Besides out of Paris it was always more\nor less of a trouble to get ten-button gloves. When she railed at this\nserviceable city and you asked her where she would prefer to reside, she\nreturned some very unexpected answer. She would say in Copenhagen, or\nin Barcelona; having, while making the tour of Europe, spent a couple\nof days at each of these places. On the whole, with her poetic furbelows\nand her misshapen, intelligent little face, she was, when you knew her,\na decidedly interesting woman. She was naturally shy, and if she had\nbeen born a beauty, she would (having no vanity) probably have remained\nshy. Now, she was both diffident and importunate; extremely reserved\nsometimes with her friends, and strangely expansive with strangers. She\ndespised her husband; despised him too much, for she had been perfectly\nat liberty not to marry him. She had been in love with a clever man\nwho had slighted her, and she had married a fool in the hope that\nthis thankless wit, reflecting on it, would conclude that she had no\nappreciation of merit, and that he had flattered himself in supposing\nthat she cared for his own. Restless, discontented, visionary, without\npersonal ambitions, but with a certain avidity of imagination, she was,\nas I have said before, eminently incomplete. She was full--both for\ngood and for ill--of beginnings that came to nothing; but she had\nnevertheless, morally, a spark of the sacred fire.\n\nNewman was fond, under all circumstances, of the society of women, and\nnow that he was out of his native element and deprived of his habitual\ninterests, he turned to it for compensation. He took a great fancy to\nMrs. Tristram; she frankly repaid it, and after their first meeting he\npassed a great many hours in her drawing-room. After two or three talks\nthey were fast friends. Newman's manner with women was peculiar, and\nit required some ingenuity on a lady's part to discover that he\nadmired her. He had no gallantry, in the usual sense of the term;\nno compliments, no graces, no speeches. Very fond of what is called\nchaffing, in his dealings with men, he never found himself on a sofa\nbeside a member of the softer sex without feeling extremely serious.\nHe was not shy, and so far as awkwardness proceeds from a struggle with\nshyness, he was not awkward; grave, attentive, submissive, often silent,\nhe was simply swimming in a sort of rapture of respect. This emotion was\nnot at all theoretic, it was not even in a high degree sentimental; he\nhad thought very little about the \"position\" of women, and he was\nnot familiar either sympathetically or otherwise, with the image of\na President in petticoats. His attitude was simply the flower of\nhis general good-nature, and a part of his instinctive and genuinely\ndemocratic assumption of every one's right to lead an easy life. If a\nshaggy pauper had a right to bed and board and wages and a vote, women,\nof course, who were weaker than paupers, and whose physical tissue was\nin itself an appeal, should be maintained, sentimentally, at the public\nexpense. Newman was willing to be taxed for this purpose, largely, in\nproportion to his means. Moreover, many of the common traditions with\nregard to women were with him fresh personal impressions; he had never\nread a novel! He had been struck with their acuteness, their subtlety,\ntheir tact, their felicity of judgment. They seemed to him exquisitely\norganized. If it is true that one must always have in one's work here\nbelow a religion, or at least an ideal, of some sort, Newman found his\nmetaphysical inspiration in a vague acceptance of final responsibility\nto some illumined feminine brow.\n\nHe spent a great deal of time in listening to advice from Mrs. Tristram;\nadvice, it must be added, for which he had never asked. He would\nhave been incapable of asking for it, for he had no perception of\ndifficulties, and consequently no curiosity about remedies. The complex\nParisian world about him seemed a very simple affair; it was an immense,\namazing spectacle, but it neither inflamed his imagination nor\nirritated his curiosity. He kept his hands in his pockets, looked on\ngood-humoredly, desired to miss nothing important, observed a great many\nthings narrowly, and never reverted to himself. Mrs. Tristram's \"advice\"\nwas a part of the show, and a more entertaining element, in her abundant\ngossip, than the others. He enjoyed her talking about himself; it seemed\na part of her beautiful ingenuity; but he never made an application\nof anything she said, or remembered it when he was away from her. For\nherself, she appropriated him; he was the most interesting thing she\nhad had to think about in many a month. She wished to do something with\nhim--she hardly knew what. There was so much of him; he was so rich\nand robust, so easy, friendly, well-disposed, that he kept her fancy\nconstantly on the alert. For the present, the only thing she could do\nwas to like him. She told him that he was \"horribly Western,\" but in\nthis compliment the adverb was tinged with insincerity. She led him\nabout with her, introduced him to fifty people, and took extreme\nsatisfaction in her conquest. Newman accepted every proposal, shook\nhands universally and promiscuously, and seemed equally unfamiliar\nwith trepidation or with elation. Tom Tristram complained of his wife's\navidity, and declared that he could never have a clear five minutes with\nhis friend. If he had known how things were going to turn out, he never\nwould have brought him to the Avenue d'Iena. The two men, formerly, had\nnot been intimate, but Newman remembered his earlier impression of his\nhost, and did Mrs. Tristram, who had by no means taken him into her\nconfidence, but whose secret he presently discovered, the justice to\nadmit that her husband was a rather degenerate mortal. At twenty-five he\nhad been a good fellow, and in this respect he was unchanged; but of a\nman of his age one expected something more. People said he was sociable,\nbut this was as much a matter of course as for a dipped sponge to\nexpand; and it was not a high order of sociability. He was a great\ngossip and tattler, and to produce a laugh would hardly have spared the\nreputation of his aged mother. Newman had a kindness for old memories,\nbut he found it impossible not to perceive that Tristram was nowadays\na very light weight. His only aspirations were to hold out at poker,\nat his club, to know the names of all the cocottes, to shake hands all\nround, to ply his rosy gullet with truffles and champagne, and to create\nuncomfortable eddies and obstructions among the constituent atoms of the\nAmerican colony. He was shamefully idle, spiritless, sensual, snobbish.\nHe irritated our friend by the tone of his allusions to their native\ncountry, and Newman was at a loss to understand why the United States\nwere not good enough for Mr. Tristram. He had never been a very\nconscious patriot, but it vexed him to see them treated as little better\nthan a vulgar smell in his friend's nostrils, and he finally broke out\nand swore that they were the greatest country in the world, that they\ncould put all Europe into their breeches' pockets, and that an American\nwho spoke ill of them ought to be carried home in irons and compelled\nto live in Boston. (This, for Newman was putting it very vindictively.)\nTristram was a comfortable man to snub, he bore no malice, and he\ncontinued to insist on Newman's finishing his evening at the Occidental\nClub.\n\nChristopher Newman dined several times in the Avenue d'Iena, and his\nhost always proposed an early adjournment to this institution. Mrs.\nTristram protested, and declared that her husband exhausted his\ningenuity in trying to displease her.\n\n\"Oh no, I never try, my love,\" he answered. \"I know you loathe me quite\nenough when I take my chance.\"\n\nNewman hated to see a husband and wife on these terms, and he was sure\none or other of them must be very unhappy. He knew it was not Tristram.\nMrs. Tristram had a balcony before her windows, upon which, during the\nJune evenings, she was fond of sitting, and Newman used frankly to say\nthat he preferred the balcony to the club. It had a fringe of perfumed\nplants in tubs, and enabled you to look up the broad street and see\nthe Arch of Triumph vaguely massing its heroic sculptures in the summer\nstarlight. Sometimes Newman kept his promise of following Mr. Tristram,\nin half an hour, to the Occidental, and sometimes he forgot it. His\nhostess asked him a great many questions about himself, but on this\nsubject he was an indifferent talker. He was not what is called\nsubjective, though when he felt that her interest was sincere, he made\nan almost heroic attempt to be. He told her a great many things he\nhad done, and regaled her with anecdotes of Western life; she was from\nPhiladelphia, and with her eight years in Paris, talked of herself as a\nlanguid Oriental. But some other person was always the hero of the tale,\nby no means always to his advantage; and Newman's own emotions were but\nscantily chronicled. She had an especial wish to know whether he had\never been in love--seriously, passionately--and, failing to gather\nany satisfaction from his allusions, she at last directly inquired. He\nhesitated a while, and at last he said, \"No!\" She declared that she was\ndelighted to hear it, as it confirmed her private conviction that he was\na man of no feeling.\n\n\"Really?\" he asked, very gravely. \"Do you think so? How do you recognize\na man of feeling?\"\n\n\"I can't make out,\" said Mrs. Tristram, \"whether you are very simple or\nvery deep.\"\n\n\"I'm very deep. That's a fact.\"\n\n\"I believe that if I were to tell you with a certain air that you have\nno feeling, you would implicitly believe me.\"\n\n\"A certain air?\" said Newman. \"Try it and see.\"\n\n\"You would believe me, but you would not care,\" said Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"You have got it all wrong. I should care immensely, but I shouldn't\nbelieve you. The fact is I have never had time to feel things. I have\nhad to DO them, to make myself felt.\"\n\n\"I can imagine that you may have done that tremendously, sometimes.\"\n\n\"Yes, there's no mistake about that.\"\n\n\"When you are in a fury it can't be pleasant.\"\n\n\"I am never in a fury.\"\n\n\"Angry, then, or displeased.\"\n\n\"I am never angry, and it is so long since I have been displeased that I\nhave quite forgotten it.\"\n\n\"I don't believe,\" said Mrs. Tristram, \"that you are never angry. A man\nought to be angry sometimes, and you are neither good enough nor bad\nenough always to keep your temper.\"\n\n\"I lose it perhaps once in five years.\"\n\n\"The time is coming round, then,\" said his hostess. \"Before I have known\nyou six months I shall see you in a fine fury.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to put me into one?\"\n\n\"I should not be sorry. You take things too coolly. It exasperates me.\nAnd then you are too happy. You have what must be the most agreeable\nthing in the world, the consciousness of having bought your pleasure\nbeforehand and paid for it. You have not a day of reckoning staring you\nin the face. Your reckonings are over.\"\n\n\"Well, I suppose I am happy,\" said Newman, meditatively.\n\n\"You have been odiously successful.\"\n\n\"Successful in copper,\" said Newman, \"only so-so in railroads, and a\nhopeless fizzle in oil.\"\n\n\"It is very disagreeable to know how Americans have made their money.\nNow you have the world before you. You have only to enjoy.\"\n\n\"Oh, I suppose I am very well off,\" said Newman. \"Only I am tired of\nhaving it thrown up at me. Besides, there are several drawbacks. I am\nnot intellectual.\"\n\n\"One doesn't expect it of you,\" Mrs. Tristram answered. Then in a\nmoment, \"Besides, you are!\"\n\n\"Well, I mean to have a good time, whether or no,\" said Newman. \"I am\nnot cultivated, I am not even educated; I know nothing about history,\nor art, or foreign tongues, or any other learned matters. But I am not\na fool, either, and I shall undertake to know something about Europe by\nthe time I have done with it. I feel something under my ribs here,\" he\nadded in a moment, \"that I can't explain--a sort of a mighty hankering,\na desire to stretch out and haul in.\"\n\n\"Bravo!\" said Mrs. Tristram, \"that is very fine. You are the great\nWestern Barbarian, stepping forth in his innocence and might, gazing a\nwhile at this poor effete Old World and then swooping down on it.\"\n\n\"Oh, come,\" said Newman. \"I am not a barbarian, by a good deal. I am\nvery much the reverse. I have seen barbarians; I know what they are.\"\n\n\"I don't mean that you are a Comanche chief, or that you wear a blanket\nand feathers. There are different shades.\"\n\n\"I am a highly civilized man,\" said Newman. \"I stick to that. If you\ndon't believe it, I should like to prove it to you.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram was silent a while. \"I should like to make you prove it,\"\nshe said, at last. \"I should like to put you in a difficult place.\"\n\n\"Pray do,\" said Newman.\n\n\"That has a little conceited sound!\" his companion rejoined.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Newman, \"I have a very good opinion of myself.\"\n\n\"I wish I could put it to the test. Give me time and I will.\" And Mrs.\nTristram remained silent for some time afterwards, as if she was trying\nto keep her pledge. It did not appear that evening that she succeeded;\nbut as he was rising to take his leave she passed suddenly, as she was\nvery apt to do, from the tone of unsparing persiflage to that of almost\ntremulous sympathy. \"Speaking seriously,\" she said, \"I believe in you,\nMr. Newman. You flatter my patriotism.\"\n\n\"Your patriotism?\" Christopher demanded.\n\n\"Even so. It would take too long to explain, and you probably would not\nunderstand. Besides, you might take it--really, you might take it for a\ndeclaration. But it has nothing to do with you personally; it's what you\nrepresent. Fortunately you don't know all that, or your conceit would\nincrease insufferably.\"\n\nNewman stood staring and wondering what under the sun he \"represented.\"\n\n\"Forgive all my meddlesome chatter and forget my advice. It is\nvery silly in me to undertake to tell you what to do. When you are\nembarrassed, do as you think best, and you will do very well. When you\nare in a difficulty, judge for yourself.\"\n\n\"I shall remember everything you have told me,\" said Newman. \"There are\nso many forms and ceremonies over here--\"\n\n\"Forms and ceremonies are what I mean, of course.\"\n\n\"Ah, but I want to observe them,\" said Newman. \"Haven't I as good a\nright as another? They don't scare me, and you needn't give me leave to\nviolate them. I won't take it.\"\n\n\"That is not what I mean. I mean, observe them in your own way. Settle\nnice questions for yourself. Cut the knot or untie it, as you choose.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am sure I shall never fumble over it!\" said Newman.\n\nThe next time that he dined in the Avenue d'Iena was a Sunday, a day on\nwhich Mr. Tristram left the cards unshuffled, so that there was a trio\nin the evening on the balcony. The talk was of many things, and at last\nMrs. Tristram suddenly observed to Christopher Newman that it was high\ntime he should take a wife.\n\n\"Listen to her; she has the audacity!\" said Tristram, who on Sunday\nevenings was always rather acrimonious.\n\n\"I don't suppose you have made up your mind not to marry?\" Mrs. Tristram\ncontinued.\n\n\"Heaven forbid!\" cried Newman. \"I am sternly resolved on it.\"\n\n\"It's very easy,\" said Tristram; \"fatally easy!\"\n\n\"Well, then, I suppose you do not mean to wait till you are fifty.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, I am in a great hurry.\"\n\n\"One would never suppose it. Do you expect a lady to come and propose to\nyou?\"\n\n\"No; I am willing to propose. I think a great deal about it.\"\n\n\"Tell me some of your thoughts.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, slowly, \"I want to marry very well.\"\n\n\"Marry a woman of sixty, then,\" said Tristram.\n\n\"'Well' in what sense?\"\n\n\"In every sense. I shall be hard to please.\"\n\n\"You must remember that, as the French proverb says, the most beautiful\ngirl in the world can give but what she has.\"\n\n\"Since you ask me,\" said Newman, \"I will say frankly that I want\nextremely to marry. It is time, to begin with: before I know it I shall\nbe forty. And then I'm lonely and helpless and dull. But if I marry now,\nso long as I didn't do it in hot haste when I was twenty, I must do it\nwith my eyes open. I want to do the thing in handsome style. I do not\nonly want to make no mistakes, but I want to make a great hit. I want to\ntake my pick. My wife must be a magnificent woman.\"\n\n\"Voila ce qui s'appelle parler!\" cried Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"Oh, I have thought an immense deal about it.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you think too much. The best thing is simply to fall in love.\"\n\n\"When I find the woman who pleases me, I shall love her enough. My wife\nshall be very comfortable.\"\n\n\"You are superb! There's a chance for the magnificent women.\"\n\n\"You are not fair.\" Newman rejoined. \"You draw a fellow out and put him\noff guard, and then you laugh at him.\"\n\n\"I assure you,\" said Mrs. Tristram, \"that I am very serious. To prove\nit, I will make you a proposal. Should you like me, as they say here, to\nmarry you?\"\n\n\"To hunt up a wife for me?\"\n\n\"She is already found. I will bring you together.\"\n\n\"Oh, come,\" said Tristram, \"we don't keep a matrimonial bureau. He will\nthink you want your commission.\"\n\n\"Present me to a woman who comes up to my notions,\" said Newman, \"and I\nwill marry her tomorrow.\"\n\n\"You have a strange tone about it, and I don't quite understand you. I\ndidn't suppose you would be so coldblooded and calculating.\"\n\nNewman was silent a while. \"Well,\" he said, at last, \"I want a great\nwoman. I stick to that. That's one thing I CAN treat myself to, and if\nit is to be had I mean to have it. What else have I toiled and struggled\nfor, all these years? I have succeeded, and now what am I to do with\nmy success? To make it perfect, as I see it, there must be a beautiful\nwoman perched on the pile, like a statue on a monument. She must be as\ngood as she is beautiful, and as clever as she is good. I can give my\nwife a good deal, so I am not afraid to ask a good deal myself. She\nshall have everything a woman can desire; I shall not even object to\nher being too good for me; she may be cleverer and wiser than I can\nunderstand, and I shall only be the better pleased. I want to possess,\nin a word, the best article in the market.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell a fellow all this at the outset?\" Tristram\ndemanded. \"I have been trying so to make you fond of ME!\"\n\n\"This is very interesting,\" said Mrs. Tristram. \"I like to see a man\nknow his own mind.\"\n\n\"I have known mine for a long time,\" Newman went on. \"I made up my mind\ntolerably early in life that a beautiful wife was the thing best worth\nhaving, here below. It is the greatest victory over circumstances. When\nI say beautiful, I mean beautiful in mind and in manners, as well as in\nperson. It is a thing every man has an equal right to; he may get it if\nhe can. He doesn't have to be born with certain faculties, on purpose;\nhe needs only to be a man. Then he needs only to use his will, and such\nwits as he has, and to try.\"\n\n\"It strikes me that your marriage is to be rather a matter of vanity.\"\n\n\"Well, it is certain,\" said Newman, \"that if people notice my wife and\nadmire her, I shall be mightily tickled.\"\n\n\"After this,\" cried Mrs. Tristram, \"call any man modest!\"\n\n\"But none of them will admire her so much as I.\"\n\n\"I see you have a taste for splendor.\"\n\nNewman hesitated a little; and then, \"I honestly believe I have!\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"And I suppose you have already looked about you a good deal.\"\n\n\"A good deal, according to opportunity.\"\n\n\"And you have seen nothing that satisfied you?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Newman, half reluctantly, \"I am bound to say in honesty that\nI have seen nothing that really satisfied me.\"\n\n\"You remind me of the heroes of the French romantic poets, Rolla and\nFortunio and all those other insatiable gentlemen for whom nothing in\nthis world was handsome enough. But I see you are in earnest, and I\nshould like to help you.\"\n\n\"Who the deuce is it, darling, that you are going to put upon him?\"\nTristram cried. \"We know a good many pretty girls, thank Heaven, but\nmagnificent women are not so common.\"\n\n\"Have you any objections to a foreigner?\" his wife continued, addressing\nNewman, who had tilted back his chair and, with his feet on a bar of the\nbalcony railing and his hands in his pockets, was looking at the stars.\n\n\"No Irish need apply,\" said Tristram.\n\nNewman meditated a while. \"As a foreigner, no,\" he said at last; \"I have\nno prejudices.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, you have no suspicions!\" cried Tristram. \"You don't\nknow what terrible customers these foreign women are; especially the\n'magnificent' ones. How should you like a fair Circassian, with a dagger\nin her belt?\"\n\nNewman administered a vigorous slap to his knee. \"I would marry a\nJapanese, if she pleased me,\" he affirmed.\n\n\"We had better confine ourselves to Europe,\" said Mrs. Tristram. \"The\nonly thing is, then, that the person be in herself to your taste?\"\n\n\"She is going to offer you an unappreciated governess!\" Tristram\ngroaned.\n\n\"Assuredly. I won't deny that, other things being equal, I should prefer\none of my own countrywomen. We should speak the same language, and\nthat would be a comfort. But I am not afraid of a foreigner. Besides, I\nrather like the idea of taking in Europe, too. It enlarges the field\nof selection. When you choose from a greater number, you can bring your\nchoice to a finer point!\"\n\n\"You talk like Sardanapalus!\" exclaimed Tristram.\n\n\"You say all this to the right person,\" said Newman's hostess. \"I happen\nto number among my friends the loveliest woman in the world. Neither\nmore nor less. I don't say a very charming person or a very estimable\nwoman or a very great beauty; I say simply the loveliest woman in the\nworld.\"\n\n\"The deuce!\" cried Tristram, \"you have kept very quiet about her. Were\nyou afraid of me?\"\n\n\"You have seen her,\" said his wife, \"but you have no perception of such\nmerit as Claire's.\"\n\n\"Ah, her name is Claire? I give it up.\"\n\n\"Does your friend wish to marry?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"Not in the least. It is for you to make her change her mind. It will\nnot be easy; she has had one husband, and he gave her a low opinion of\nthe species.\"\n\n\"Oh, she is a widow, then?\" said Newman.\n\n\"Are you already afraid? She was married at eighteen, by her parents, in\nthe French fashion, to a disagreeable old man. But he had the good taste\nto die a couple of years afterward, and she is now twenty-five.\"\n\n\"So she is French?\"\n\n\"French by her father, English by her mother. She is really more English\nthan French, and she speaks English as well as you or I--or rather much\nbetter. She belongs to the very top of the basket, as they say here.\nHer family, on each side, is of fabulous antiquity; her mother is the\ndaughter of an English Catholic earl. Her father is dead, and since her\nwidowhood she has lived with her mother and a married brother. There is\nanother brother, younger, who I believe is wild. They have an old hotel\nin the Rue de l'Universite, but their fortune is small, and they make a\ncommon household, for economy's sake. When I was a girl I was put into a\nconvent here for my education, while my father made the tour of Europe.\nIt was a silly thing to do with me, but it had the advantage that it\nmade me acquainted with Claire de Bellegarde. She was younger than I\nbut we became fast friends. I took a tremendous fancy to her, and she\nreturned my passion as far as she could. They kept such a tight rein on\nher that she could do very little, and when I left the convent she had\nto give me up. I was not of her monde; I am not now, either, but we\nsometimes meet. They are terrible people--her monde; all mounted upon\nstilts a mile high, and with pedigrees long in proportion. It is the\nskim of the milk of the old noblesse. Do you know what a Legitimist\nis, or an Ultramontane? Go into Madame de Cintre's drawing-room\nsome afternoon, at five o'clock, and you will see the best preserved\nspecimens. I say go, but no one is admitted who can't show his fifty\nquarterings.\"\n\n\"And this is the lady you propose to me to marry?\" asked Newman. \"A lady\nI can't even approach?\"\n\n\"But you said just now that you recognized no obstacles.\"\n\nNewman looked at Mrs. Tristram a while, stroking his mustache. \"Is she a\nbeauty?\" he demanded.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Oh, then it's no use--\"\n\n\"She is not a beauty, but she is beautiful, two very different things. A\nbeauty has no faults in her face, the face of a beautiful woman may have\nfaults that only deepen its charm.\"\n\n\"I remember Madame de Cintre, now,\" said Tristram. \"She is as plain as a\npike-staff. A man wouldn't look at her twice.\"\n\n\"In saying that HE would not look at her twice, my husband sufficiently\ndescribes her,\" Mrs. Tristram rejoined.\n\n\"Is she good; is she clever?\" Newman asked.\n\n\"She is perfect! I won't say more than that. When you are praising\na person to another who is to know her, it is bad policy to go into\ndetails. I won't exaggerate. I simply recommend her. Among all women I\nhave known she stands alone; she is of a different clay.\"\n\n\"I should like to see her,\" said Newman, simply.\n\n\"I will try to manage it. The only way will be to invite her to dinner.\nI have never invited her before, and I don't know that she will come.\nHer old feudal countess of a mother rules the family with an iron hand,\nand allows her to have no friends but of her own choosing, and to visit\nonly in a certain sacred circle. But I can at least ask her.\"\n\nAt this moment Mrs. Tristram was interrupted; a servant stepped out upon\nthe balcony and announced that there were visitors in the drawing-room.\nWhen Newman's hostess had gone in to receive her friends, Tom Tristram\napproached his guest.\n\n\"Don't put your foot into THIS, my boy,\" he said, puffing the last\nwhiffs of his cigar. \"There's nothing in it!\"\n\nNewman looked askance at him, inquisitive. \"You tell another story, eh?\"\n\n\"I say simply that Madame de Cintre is a great white doll of a woman,\nwho cultivates quiet haughtiness.\"\n\n\"Ah, she's haughty, eh?\"\n\n\"She looks at you as if you were so much thin air, and cares for you\nabout as much.\"\n\n\"She is very proud, eh?\"\n\n\"Proud? As proud as I'm humble.\"\n\n\"And not good-looking?\"\n\nTristram shrugged his shoulders: \"It's a kind of beauty you must be\nINTELLECTUAL to understand. But I must go in and amuse the company.\"\n\nSome time elapsed before Newman followed his friends into the\ndrawing-room. When he at last made his appearance there he remained but\na short time, and during this period sat perfectly silent, listening\nto a lady to whom Mrs. Tristram had straightway introduced him and who\nchattered, without a pause, with the full force of an extraordinarily\nhigh-pitched voice. Newman gazed and attended. Presently he came to bid\ngood-night to Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"Who is that lady?\" he asked.\n\n\"Miss Dora Finch. How do you like her?\"\n\n\"She's too noisy.\"\n\n\"She is thought so bright! Certainly, you are fastidious,\" said Mrs.\nTristram.\n\nNewman stood a moment, hesitating. Then at last \"Don't forget about your\nfriend,\" he said, \"Madame What's-her-name? the proud beauty. Ask her to\ndinner, and give me a good notice.\" And with this he departed.\n\nSome days later he came back; it was in the afternoon. He found Mrs.\nTristram in her drawing-room; with her was a visitor, a woman young and\npretty, dressed in white. The two ladies had risen and the visitor was\napparently taking her leave. As Newman approached, he received from\nMrs. Tristram a glance of the most vivid significance, which he was not\nimmediately able to interpret.\n\n\"This is a good friend of ours,\" she said, turning to her companion,\n\"Mr. Christopher Newman. I have spoken of you to him and he has an\nextreme desire to make your acquaintance. If you had consented to come\nand dine, I should have offered him an opportunity.\"\n\nThe stranger turned her face toward Newman, with a smile. He was not\nembarrassed, for his unconscious sang-froid was boundless; but as he\nbecame aware that this was the proud and beautiful Madame de Cintre,\nthe loveliest woman in the world, the promised perfection, the proposed\nideal, he made an instinctive movement to gather his wits together.\nThrough the slight preoccupation that it produced he had a sense of a\nlong, fair face, and of two eyes that were both brilliant and mild.\n\n\"I should have been most happy,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"Unfortunately,\nas I have been telling Mrs. Tristram, I go on Monday to the country.\"\n\nNewman had made a solemn bow. \"I am very sorry,\" he said.\n\n\"Paris is getting too warm,\" Madame de Cintre added, taking her friend's\nhand again in farewell.\n\nMrs. Tristram seemed to have formed a sudden and somewhat venturesome\nresolution, and she smiled more intensely, as women do when they take\nsuch resolution. \"I want Mr. Newman to know you,\" she said, dropping her\nhead on one side and looking at Madame de Cintre's bonnet ribbons.\n\nChristopher Newman stood gravely silent, while his native penetration\nadmonished him. Mrs. Tristram was determined to force her friend to\naddress him a word of encouragement which should be more than one of the\ncommon formulas of politeness; and if she was prompted by charity, it\nwas by the charity that begins at home. Madame de Cintre was her dearest\nClaire, and her especial admiration but Madame de Cintre had found it\nimpossible to dine with her and Madame de Cintre should for once be\nforced gently to render tribute to Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"It would give me great pleasure,\" she said, looking at Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"That's a great deal,\" cried the latter, \"for Madame de Cintre to say!\"\n\n\"I am very much obliged to you,\" said Newman. \"Mrs. Tristram can speak\nbetter for me than I can speak for myself.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre looked at him again, with the same soft brightness.\n\"Are you to be long in Paris?\" she asked.\n\n\"We shall keep him,\" said Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"But you are keeping ME!\" and Madame de Cintre shook her friend's hand.\n\n\"A moment longer,\" said Mrs. Tristram.\n\nMadame de Cintre looked at Newman again; this time without her smile.\nHer eyes lingered a moment. \"Will you come and see me?\" she asked.\n\nMrs. Tristram kissed her. Newman expressed his thanks, and she took her\nleave. Her hostess went with her to the door, and left Newman alone a\nmoment. Presently she returned, rubbing her hands. \"It was a fortunate\nchance,\" she said. \"She had come to decline my invitation. You triumphed\non the spot, making her ask you, at the end of three minutes, to her\nhouse.\"\n\n\"It was you who triumphed,\" said Newman. \"You must not be too hard upon\nher.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram stared. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"She did not strike me as so proud. I should say she was shy.\"\n\n\"You are very discriminating. And what do you think of her face?\"\n\n\"It's handsome!\" said Newman.\n\n\"I should think it was! Of course you will go and see her.\"\n\n\"To-morrow!\" cried Newman.\n\n\"No, not to-morrow; the next day. That will be Sunday; she leaves Paris\non Monday. If you don't see her; it will at least be a beginning.\" And\nshe gave him Madame de Cintre's address.\n\nHe walked across the Seine, late in the summer afternoon, and made his\nway through those gray and silent streets of the Faubourg St. Germain\nwhose houses present to the outer world a face as impassive and as\nsuggestive of the concentration of privacy within as the blank walls\nof Eastern seraglios. Newman thought it a queer way for rich people\nto live; his ideal of grandeur was a splendid facade diffusing its\nbrilliancy outward too, irradiating hospitality. The house to which he\nhad been directed had a dark, dusty, painted portal, which swung open\nin answer to his ring. It admitted him into a wide, graveled court,\nsurrounded on three sides with closed windows, and with a doorway facing\nthe street, approached by three steps and surmounted by a tin canopy.\nThe place was all in the shade; it answered to Newman's conception of\na convent. The portress could not tell him whether Madame de Cintre was\nvisible; he would please to apply at the farther door. He crossed the\ncourt; a gentleman was sitting, bareheaded, on the steps of the portico,\nplaying with a beautiful pointer. He rose as Newman approached, and, as\nhe laid his hand upon the bell, said with a smile, in English, that he\nwas afraid Newman would be kept waiting; the servants were scattered, he\nhimself had been ringing, he didn't know what the deuce was in them. He\nwas a young man, his English was excellent, and his smile very frank.\nNewman pronounced the name of Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"I think,\" said the young man, \"that my sister is visible. Come in, and\nif you will give me your card I will carry it to her myself.\"\n\nNewman had been accompanied on his present errand by a slight sentiment,\nI will not say of defiance--a readiness for aggression or defense, as\nthey might prove needful--but of reflection, good-humored suspicion. He\ntook from his pocket, while he stood on the portico, a card upon which,\nunder his name, he had written the words \"San Francisco,\" and while\nhe presented it he looked warily at his interlocutor. His glance was\nsingularly reassuring; he liked the young man's face; it strongly\nresembled that of Madame de Cintre. He was evidently her brother. The\nyoung man, on his side, had made a rapid inspection of Newman's person.\nHe had taken the card and was about to enter the house with it when\nanother figure appeared on the threshold--an older man, of a fine\npresence, wearing evening dress. He looked hard at Newman, and Newman\nlooked at him. \"Madame de Cintre,\" the younger man repeated, as an\nintroduction of the visitor. The other took the card from his hand,\nread it in a rapid glance, looked again at Newman from head to foot,\nhesitated a moment, and then said, gravely but urbanely, \"Madame de\nCintre is not at home.\"\n\nThe younger man made a gesture, and then, turning to Newman, \"I am very\nsorry, sir,\" he said.\n\nNewman gave him a friendly nod, to show that he bore him no malice, and\nretraced his steps. At the porter's lodge he stopped; the two men were\nstill standing on the portico.\n\n\"Who is the gentleman with the dog?\" he asked of the old woman who\nreappeared. He had begun to learn French.\n\n\"That is Monsieur le Comte.\"\n\n\"And the other?\"\n\n\"That is Monsieur le Marquis.\"\n\n\"A marquis?\" said Christopher in English, which the old woman\nfortunately did not understand. \"Oh, then he's not the butler!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nEarly one morning, before Christopher Newman was dressed, a little old\nman was ushered into his apartment, followed by a youth in a blouse,\nbearing a picture in a brilliant frame. Newman, among the distractions\nof Paris, had forgotten M. Nioche and his accomplished daughter; but\nthis was an effective reminder.\n\n\"I am afraid you had given me up, sir,\" said the old man, after many\napologies and salutations. \"We have made you wait so many days. You\naccused us, perhaps, of inconstancy of bad faith. But behold me at last!\nAnd behold also the pretty Madonna. Place it on a chair, my friend, in\na good light, so that monsieur may admire it.\" And M. Nioche, addressing\nhis companion, helped him to dispose the work of art.\n\nIt had been endued with a layer of varnish an inch thick and its frame,\nof an elaborate pattern, was at least a foot wide. It glittered and\ntwinkled in the morning light, and looked, to Newman's eyes, wonderfully\nsplendid and precious. It seemed to him a very happy purchase, and he\nfelt rich in the possession of it. He stood looking at it complacently,\nwhile he proceeded with his toilet, and M. Nioche, who had dismissed his\nown attendant, hovered near, smiling and rubbing his hands.\n\n\"It has wonderful finesse,\" he murmured, caressingly. \"And here and\nthere are marvelous touches, you probably perceive them, sir. It\nattracted great attention on the Boulevard, as we came along. And then a\ngradation of tones! That's what it is to know how to paint. I don't\nsay it because I am her father, sir; but as one man of taste addressing\nanother I cannot help observing that you have there an exquisite work.\nIt is hard to produce such things and to have to part with them. If our\nmeans only allowed us the luxury of keeping it! I really may say, sir--\"\nand M. Nioche gave a little feebly insinuating laugh--\"I really may\nsay that I envy you! You see,\" he added in a moment, \"we have taken the\nliberty of offering you a frame. It increases by a trifle the value of\nthe work, and it will save you the annoyance--so great for a person of\nyour delicacy--of going about to bargain at the shops.\"\n\nThe language spoken by M. Nioche was a singular compound, which I shrink\nfrom the attempt to reproduce in its integrity. He had apparently once\npossessed a certain knowledge of English, and his accent was oddly\ntinged with the cockneyism of the British metropolis. But his learning\nhad grown rusty with disuse, and his vocabulary was defective and\ncapricious. He had repaired it with large patches of French, with words\nanglicized by a process of his own, and with native idioms literally\ntranslated. The result, in the form in which he in all humility\npresented it, would be scarcely comprehensible to the reader, so that I\nhave ventured to trim and sift it. Newman only half understood it, but\nit amused him, and the old man's decent forlornness appealed to his\ndemocratic instincts. The assumption of a fatality in misery always\nirritated his strong good nature--it was almost the only thing that did\nso; and he felt the impulse to wipe it out, as it were, with the sponge\nof his own prosperity. The papa of Mademoiselle Noemie, however, had\napparently on this occasion been vigorously indoctrinated, and he showed\na certain tremulous eagerness to cultivate unexpected opportunities.\n\n\"How much do I owe you, then, with the frame?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"It will make in all three thousand francs,\" said the old man, smiling\nagreeably, but folding his hands in instinctive suppliance.\n\n\"Can you give me a receipt?\"\n\n\"I have brought one,\" said M. Nioche. \"I took the liberty of drawing it\nup, in case monsieur should happen to desire to discharge his debt.\" And\nhe drew a paper from his pocket-book and presented it to his patron.\nThe document was written in a minute, fantastic hand, and couched in the\nchoicest language.\n\nNewman laid down the money, and M. Nioche dropped the napoleons one by\none, solemnly and lovingly, into an old leathern purse.\n\n\"And how is your young lady?\" asked Newman. \"She made a great impression\non me.\"\n\n\"An impression? Monsieur is very good. Monsieur admires her appearance?\"\n\n\"She is very pretty, certainly.\"\n\n\"Alas, yes, she is very pretty!\"\n\n\"And what is the harm in her being pretty?\"\n\nM. Nioche fixed his eyes upon a spot on the carpet and shook his head.\nThen looking up at Newman with a gaze that seemed to brighten and\nexpand, \"Monsieur knows what Paris is. She is dangerous to beauty, when\nbeauty hasn't the sou.\"\n\n\"Ah, but that is not the case with your daughter. She is rich, now.\"\n\n\"Very true; we are rich for six months. But if my daughter were a plain\ngirl I should sleep better all the same.\"\n\n\"You are afraid of the young men?\"\n\n\"The young and the old!\"\n\n\"She ought to get a husband.\"\n\n\"Ah, monsieur, one doesn't get a husband for nothing. Her husband must\ntake her as she is: I can't give her a sou. But the young men don't see\nwith that eye.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Newman, \"her talent is in itself a dowry.\"\n\n\"Ah, sir, it needs first to be converted into specie!\" and M. Nioche\nslapped his purse tenderly before he stowed it away. \"The operation\ndoesn't take place every day.\"\n\n\"Well, your young men are very shabby,\" said Newman; \"that's all I can\nsay. They ought to pay for your daughter, and not ask money themselves.\"\n\n\"Those are very noble ideas, monsieur; but what will you have? They are\nnot the ideas of this country. We want to know what we are about when we\nmarry.\"\n\n\"How big a portion does your daughter want?\"\n\nM. Nioche stared, as if he wondered what was coming next; but he\npromptly recovered himself, at a venture, and replied that he knew a\nvery nice young man, employed by an insurance company, who would content\nhimself with fifteen thousand francs.\n\n\"Let your daughter paint half a dozen pictures for me, and she shall\nhave her dowry.\"\n\n\"Half a dozen pictures--her dowry! Monsieur is not speaking\ninconsiderately?\"\n\n\"If she will make me six or eight copies in the Louvre as pretty as that\nMadonna, I will pay her the same price,\" said Newman.\n\nPoor M. Nioche was speechless a moment, with amazement and gratitude,\nand then he seized Newman's hand, pressed it between his own ten\nfingers, and gazed at him with watery eyes. \"As pretty as that? They\nshall be a thousand times prettier--they shall be magnificent, sublime.\nAh, if I only knew how to paint, myself, sir, so that I might lend a\nhand! What can I do to thank you? Voyons!\" And he pressed his forehead\nwhile he tried to think of something.\n\n\"Oh, you have thanked me enough,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Ah, here it is, sir!\" cried M. Nioche. \"To express my gratitude, I will\ncharge you nothing for the lessons in French conversation.\"\n\n\"The lessons? I had quite forgotten them. Listening to your English,\"\nadded Newman, laughing, \"is almost a lesson in French.\"\n\n\"Ah, I don't profess to teach English, certainly,\" said M. Nioche. \"But\nfor my own admirable tongue I am still at your service.\"\n\n\"Since you are here, then,\" said Newman, \"we will begin. This is a very\ngood hour. I am going to have my coffee; come every morning at half-past\nnine and have yours with me.\"\n\n\"Monsieur offers me my coffee, also?\" cried M. Nioche. \"Truly, my beaux\njours are coming back.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said Newman, \"let us begin. The coffee is almighty hot. How do\nyou say that in French?\"\n\nEvery day, then, for the following three weeks, the minutely respectable\nfigure of M. Nioche made its appearance, with a series of little\ninquiring and apologetic obeisances, among the aromatic fumes of\nNewman's morning beverage. I don't know how much French our friend\nlearned, but, as he himself said, if the attempt did him no good, it\ncould at any rate do him no harm. And it amused him; it gratified that\nirregularly sociable side of his nature which had always expressed\nitself in a relish for ungrammatical conversation, and which often, even\nin his busy and preoccupied days, had made him sit on rail fences\nin young Western towns, in the twilight, in gossip hardly less than\nfraternal with humorous loafers and obscure fortune-seekers. He had\nnotions, wherever he went, about talking with the natives; he had been\nassured, and his judgment approved the advice, that in traveling abroad\nit was an excellent thing to look into the life of the country. M.\nNioche was very much of a native and, though his life might not be\nparticularly worth looking into, he was a palpable and smoothly-rounded\nunit in that picturesque Parisian civilization which offered our hero so\nmuch easy entertainment and propounded so many curious problems to his\ninquiring and practical mind. Newman was fond of statistics; he liked\nto know how things were done; it gratified him to learn what taxes were\npaid, what profits were gathered, what commercial habits prevailed, how\nthe battle of life was fought. M. Nioche, as a reduced capitalist, was\nfamiliar with these considerations, and he formulated his information,\nwhich he was proud to be able to impart, in the neatest possible\nterms and with a pinch of snuff between finger and thumb. As a\nFrenchman--quite apart from Newman's napoleons--M. Nioche loved\nconversation, and even in his decay his urbanity had not grown rusty. As\na Frenchman, too, he could give a clear account of things, and--still as\na Frenchman--when his knowledge was at fault he could supply its lapses\nwith the most convenient and ingenious hypotheses. The little shrunken\nfinancier was intensely delighted to have questions asked him, and he\nscraped together information, by frugal processes, and took notes, in\nhis little greasy pocket-book, of incidents which might interest his\nmunificent friend. He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays,\nand he began to frequent another cafe, where more newspapers were taken\nand his postprandial demitasse cost him a penny extra, and where he used\nto con the tattered sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and\nstrange coincidences. He would relate with solemnity the next morning\nthat a child of five years of age had lately died at Bordeaux, whose\nbrain had been found to weigh sixty ounces--the brain of a Napoleon or\na Washington! or that Madame P--, charcutiere in the Rue de Clichy, had\nfound in the wadding of an old petticoat the sum of three hundred and\nsixty francs, which she had lost five years before. He pronounced his\nwords with great distinctness and sonority, and Newman assured him\nthat his way of dealing with the French tongue was very superior to the\nbewildering chatter that he heard in other mouths. Upon this M. Nioche's\naccent became more finely trenchant than ever, he offered to read\nextracts from Lamartine, and he protested that, although he did endeavor\naccording to his feeble lights to cultivate refinement of diction,\nmonsieur, if he wanted the real thing, should go to the Theatre\nFrancais.\n\nNewman took an interest in French thriftiness and conceived a lively\nadmiration for Parisian economies. His own economic genius was so\nentirely for operations on a larger scale, and, to move at his ease, he\nneeded so imperatively the sense of great risks and great prizes, that\nhe found an ungrudging entertainment in the spectacle of fortunes made\nby the aggregation of copper coins, and in the minute subdivision of\nlabor and profit. He questioned M. Nioche about his own manner of life,\nand felt a friendly mixture of compassion and respect over the recital\nof his delicate frugalities. The worthy man told him how, at one period,\nhe and his daughter had supported existence comfortably upon the sum of\nfifteen sous per diem; recently, having succeeded in hauling ashore the\nlast floating fragments of the wreck of his fortune, his budget had\nbeen a trifle more ample. But they still had to count their sous very\nnarrowly, and M. Nioche intimated with a sigh that Mademoiselle Noemie\ndid not bring to this task that zealous cooperation which might have\nbeen desired.\n\n\"But what will you have?\"' he asked, philosophically. \"One is young, one\nis pretty, one needs new dresses and fresh gloves; one can't wear shabby\ngowns among the splendors of the Louvre.\"\n\n\"But your daughter earns enough to pay for her own clothes,\" said\nNewman.\n\nM. Nioche looked at him with weak, uncertain eyes. He would have liked\nto be able to say that his daughter's talents were appreciated, and that\nher crooked little daubs commanded a market; but it seemed a scandal\nto abuse the credulity of this free-handed stranger, who, without a\nsuspicion or a question, had admitted him to equal social rights. He\ncompromised, and declared that while it was obvious that Mademoiselle\nNoemie's reproductions of the old masters had only to be seen to be\ncoveted, the prices which, in consideration of their altogether peculiar\ndegree of finish, she felt obliged to ask for them had kept purchasers\nat a respectful distance. \"Poor little one!\" said M. Nioche, with a\nsigh; \"it is almost a pity that her work is so perfect! It would be in\nher interest to paint less well.\"\n\n\"But if Mademoiselle Noemie has this devotion to her art,\" Newman once\nobserved, \"why should you have those fears for her that you spoke of the\nother day?\"\n\nM. Nioche meditated: there was an inconsistency in his position; it made\nhim chronically uncomfortable. Though he had no desire to destroy the\ngoose with the golden eggs--Newman's benevolent confidence--he felt a\ntremulous impulse to speak out all his trouble. \"Ah, she is an artist,\nmy dear sir, most assuredly,\" he declared. \"But, to tell you the truth,\nshe is also a franche coquette. I am sorry to say,\" he added in a\nmoment, shaking his head with a world of harmless bitterness, \"that she\ncomes honestly by it. Her mother was one before her!\"\n\n\"You were not happy with your wife?\" Newman asked.\n\nM. Nioche gave half a dozen little backward jerks of his head. \"She was\nmy purgatory, monsieur!\"\n\n\"She deceived you?\"\n\n\"Under my nose, year after year. I was too stupid, and the temptation\nwas too great. But I found her out at last. I have only been once in my\nlife a man to be afraid of; I know it very well; it was in that hour!\nNevertheless I don't like to think of it. I loved her--I can't tell you\nhow much. She was a bad woman.\"\n\n\"She is not living?\"\n\n\"She has gone to her account.\"\n\n\"Her influence on your daughter, then,\" said Newman encouragingly, \"is\nnot to be feared.\"\n\n\"She cared no more for her daughter than for the sole of her shoe! But\nNoemie has no need of influence. She is sufficient to herself. She is\nstronger than I.\"\n\n\"She doesn't obey you, eh?\"\n\n\"She can't obey, monsieur, since I don't command. What would be the use?\nIt would only irritate her and drive her to some coup de tete. She is\nvery clever, like her mother; she would waste no time about it. As a\nchild--when I was happy, or supposed I was--she studied drawing and\npainting with first-class professors, and they assured me she had a\ntalent. I was delighted to believe it, and when I went into society I\nused to carry her pictures with me in a portfolio and hand them round\nto the company. I remember, once, a lady thought I was offering them for\nsale, and I took it very ill. We don't know what we may come to! Then\ncame my dark days, and my explosion with Madame Nioche. Noemie had no\nmore twenty-franc lessons; but in the course of time, when she grew\nolder, and it became highly expedient that she should do something that\nwould help to keep us alive, she bethought herself of her palette\nand brushes. Some of our friends in the quartier pronounced the idea\nfantastic: they recommended her to try bonnet making, to get a situation\nin a shop, or--if she was more ambitious--to advertise for a place of\ndame de compagnie. She did advertise, and an old lady wrote her a letter\nand bade her come and see her. The old lady liked her, and offered her\nher living and six hundred francs a year; but Noemie discovered that\nshe passed her life in her arm-chair and had only two visitors, her\nconfessor and her nephew: the confessor very strict, and the nephew\na man of fifty, with a broken nose and a government clerkship of two\nthousand francs. She threw her old lady over, bought a paint-box, a\ncanvas, and a new dress, and went and set up her easel in the Louvre.\nThere in one place and another, she has passed the last two years; I\ncan't say it has made us millionaires. But Noemie tells me that Rome was\nnot built in a day, that she is making great progress, that I must leave\nher to her own devices. The fact is, without prejudice to her genius,\nthat she has no idea of burying herself alive. She likes to see the\nworld, and to be seen. She says, herself, that she can't work in\nthe dark. With her appearance it is very natural. Only, I can't help\nworrying and trembling and wondering what may happen to her there all\nalone, day after day, amid all that coming and going of strangers. I\ncan't be always at her side. I go with her in the morning, and I come to\nfetch her away, but she won't have me near her in the interval; she says\nI make her nervous. As if it didn't make me nervous to wander about\nall day without her! Ah, if anything were to happen to her!\" cried\nM. Nioche, clenching his two fists and jerking back his head again,\nportentously.\n\n\"Oh, I guess nothing will happen,\" said Newman.\n\n\"I believe I should shoot her!\" said the old man, solemnly.\n\n\"Oh, we'll marry her,\" said Newman, \"since that's how you manage it; and\nI will go and see her tomorrow at the Louvre and pick out the pictures\nshe is to copy for me.\"\n\nM. Nioche had brought Newman a message from his daughter, in acceptance\nof his magnificent commission, the young lady declaring herself his most\ndevoted servant, promising her most zealous endeavor, and regretting\nthat the proprieties forbade her coming to thank him in person. The\nmorning after the conversation just narrated, Newman reverted to his\nintention of meeting Mademoiselle Noemie at the Louvre. M. Nioche\nappeared preoccupied, and left his budget of anecdotes unopened; he\ntook a great deal of snuff, and sent certain oblique, appealing glances\ntoward his stalwart pupil. At last, when he was taking his leave,\nhe stood a moment, after he had polished his hat with his calico\npocket-handkerchief, with his small, pale eyes fixed strangely upon\nNewman.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" our hero demanded.\n\n\"Excuse the solicitude of a father's heart!\" said M. Nioche. \"You\ninspire me with boundless confidence, but I can't help giving you a\nwarning. After all, you are a man, you are young and at liberty. Let me\nbeseech you, then, to respect the innocence of Mademoiselle Nioche!\"\n\nNewman had wondered what was coming, and at this he broke into a laugh.\nHe was on the point of declaring that his own innocence struck him as\nthe more exposed, but he contented himself with promising to treat the\nyoung girl with nothing less than veneration. He found her waiting for\nhim, seated upon the great divan in the Salon Carre. She was not in\nher working-day costume, but wore her bonnet and gloves and carried her\nparasol, in honor of the occasion. These articles had been selected with\nunerring taste, and a fresher, prettier image of youthful alertness\nand blooming discretion was not to be conceived. She made Newman a most\nrespectful curtsey and expressed her gratitude for his liberality in a\nwonderfully graceful little speech. It annoyed him to have a charming\nyoung girl stand there thanking him, and it made him feel uncomfortable\nto think that this perfect young lady, with her excellent manners and\nher finished intonation, was literally in his pay. He assured her, in\nsuch French as he could muster, that the thing was not worth mentioning,\nand that he considered her services a great favor.\n\n\"Whenever you please, then,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie, \"we will pass the\nreview.\"\n\nThey walked slowly round the room, then passed into the others and\nstrolled about for half an hour. Mademoiselle Noemie evidently relished\nher situation, and had no desire to bring her public interview with her\nstriking-looking patron to a close. Newman perceived that prosperity\nagreed with her. The little thin-lipped, peremptory air with which she\nhad addressed her father on the occasion of their former meeting had\ngiven place to the most lingering and caressing tones.\n\n\"What sort of pictures do you desire?\" she asked. \"Sacred, or profane?\"\n\n\"Oh, a few of each,\" said Newman. \"But I want something bright and gay.\"\n\n\"Something gay? There is nothing very gay in this solemn old Louvre. But\nwe will see what we can find. You speak French to-day like a charm. My\nfather has done wonders.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am a bad subject,\" said Newman. \"I am too old to learn a\nlanguage.\"\n\n\"Too old? Quelle folie!\" cried Mademoiselle Noemie, with a clear, shrill\nlaugh. \"You are a very young man. And how do you like my father?\"\n\n\"He is a very nice old gentleman. He never laughs at my blunders.\"\n\n\"He is very comme il faut, my papa,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie, \"and as\nhonest as the day. Oh, an exceptional probity! You could trust him with\nmillions.\"\n\n\"Do you always obey him?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"Obey him?\"\n\n\"Do you do what he bids you?\"\n\nThe young girl stopped and looked at him; she had a spot of color in\neither cheek, and in her expressive French eye, which projected too much\nfor perfect beauty, there was a slight gleam of audacity. \"Why do you\nask me that?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Because I want to know.\"\n\n\"You think me a bad girl?\" And she gave a strange smile.\n\nNewman looked at her a moment; he saw that she was pretty, but he was\nnot in the least dazzled. He remembered poor M. Nioche's solicitude for\nher \"innocence,\" and he laughed as his eyes met hers. Her face was the\noddest mixture of youth and maturity, and beneath her candid brow\nher searching little smile seemed to contain a world of ambiguous\nintentions. She was pretty enough, certainly to make her father nervous;\nbut, as regards her innocence, Newman felt ready on the spot to affirm\nthat she had never parted with it. She had simply never had any; she had\nbeen looking at the world since she was ten years old, and he would have\nbeen a wise man who could tell her any secrets. In her long mornings at\nthe Louvre she had not only studied Madonnas and St. Johns; she had kept\nan eye upon all the variously embodied human nature around her, and she\nhad formed her conclusions. In a certain sense, it seemed to Newman, M.\nNioche might be at rest; his daughter might do something very audacious,\nbut she would never do anything foolish. Newman, with his long-drawn,\nleisurely smile, and his even, unhurried utterance, was always,\nmentally, taking his time; and he asked himself, now, what she was\nlooking at him in that way for. He had an idea that she would like him\nto confess that he did think her a bad girl.\n\n\"Oh, no,\" he said at last; \"it would be very bad manners in me to judge\nyou that way. I don't know you.\"\n\n\"But my father has complained to you,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie.\n\n\"He says you are a coquette.\"\n\n\"He shouldn't go about saying such things to gentlemen! But you don't\nbelieve it.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Newman gravely, \"I don't believe it.\"\n\nShe looked at him again, gave a shrug and a smile, and then pointed to a\nsmall Italian picture, a Marriage of St. Catherine. \"How should you like\nthat?\" she asked.\n\n\"It doesn't please me,\" said Newman. \"The young lady in the yellow dress\nis not pretty.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are a great connoisseur,\" murmured Mademoiselle Noemie.\n\n\"In pictures? Oh, no; I know very little about them.\"\n\n\"In pretty women, then.\"\n\n\"In that I am hardly better.\"\n\n\"What do you say to that, then?\" the young girl asked, indicating a\nsuperb Italian portrait of a lady. \"I will do it for you on a smaller\nscale.\"\n\n\"On a smaller scale? Why not as large as the original?\"\n\nMademoiselle Noemie glanced at the glowing splendor of the Venetian\nmasterpiece and gave a little toss of her head. \"I don't like that\nwoman. She looks stupid.\"\n\n\"I do like her,\" said Newman. \"Decidedly, I must have her, as large as\nlife. And just as stupid as she is there.\"\n\nThe young girl fixed her eyes on him again, and with her mocking smile,\n\"It certainly ought to be easy for me to make her look stupid!\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Newman, puzzled.\n\nShe gave another little shrug. \"Seriously, then, you want that\nportrait--the golden hair, the purple satin, the pearl necklace, the two\nmagnificent arms?\"\n\n\"Everything--just as it is.\"\n\n\"Would nothing else do, instead?\"\n\n\"Oh, I want some other things, but I want that too.\"\n\nMademoiselle Noemie turned away a moment, walked to the other side of\nthe hall, and stood there, looking vaguely about her. At last she came\nback. \"It must be charming to be able to order pictures at such a rate.\nVenetian portraits, as large as life! You go at it en prince. And you\nare going to travel about Europe that way?\"\n\n\"Yes, I intend to travel,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Ordering, buying, spending money?\"\n\n\"Of course I shall spend some money.\"\n\n\"You are very happy to have it. And you are perfectly free?\"\n\n\"How do you mean, free?\"\n\n\"You have nothing to bother you--no family, no wife, no fiancee?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am tolerably free.\"\n\n\"You are very happy,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie, gravely.\n\n\"Je le veux bien!\" said Newman, proving that he had learned more French\nthan he admitted.\n\n\"And how long shall you stay in Paris?\" the young girl went on.\n\n\"Only a few days more.\"\n\n\"Why do you go away?\"\n\n\"It is getting hot, and I must go to Switzerland.\"\n\n\"To Switzerland? That's a fine country. I would give my new parasol\nto see it! Lakes and mountains, romantic valleys and icy peaks! Oh,\nI congratulate you. Meanwhile, I shall sit here through all the hot\nsummer, daubing at your pictures.\"\n\n\"Oh, take your time about it,\" said Newman. \"Do them at your\nconvenience.\"\n\nThey walked farther and looked at a dozen other things. Newman pointed\nout what pleased him, and Mademoiselle Noemie generally criticised it,\nand proposed something else. Then suddenly she diverged and began to\ntalk about some personal matter.\n\n\"What made you speak to me the other day in the Salon Carre?\" she\nabruptly asked.\n\n\"I admired your picture.\"\n\n\"But you hesitated a long time.\"\n\n\"Oh, I do nothing rashly,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Yes, I saw you watching me. But I never supposed you were going to\nspeak to me. I never dreamed I should be walking about here with you\nto-day. It's very curious.\"\n\n\"It is very natural,\" observed Newman.\n\n\"Oh, I beg your pardon; not to me. Coquette as you think me, I have\nnever walked about in public with a gentleman before. What was my father\nthinking of, when he consented to our interview?\"\n\n\"He was repenting of his unjust accusations,\" replied Newman.\n\nMademoiselle Noemie remained silent; at last she dropped into a seat.\n\"Well then, for those five it is fixed,\" she said. \"Five copies as\nbrilliant and beautiful as I can make them. We have one more to choose.\nShouldn't you like one of those great Rubenses--the marriage of Marie de\nMedicis? Just look at it and see how handsome it is.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; I should like that,\" said Newman. \"Finish off with that.\"\n\n\"Finish off with that--good!\" And she laughed. She sat a moment, looking\nat him, and then she suddenly rose and stood before him, with her hands\nhanging and clasped in front of her. \"I don't understand you,\" she said\nwith a smile. \"I don't understand how a man can be so ignorant.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am ignorant, certainly,\" said Newman, putting his hands into his\npockets.\n\n\"It's ridiculous! I don't know how to paint.\"\n\n\"You don't know how?\"\n\n\"I paint like a cat; I can't draw a straight line. I never sold a\npicture until you bought that thing the other day.\" And as she offered\nthis surprising information she continued to smile.\n\nNewman burst into a laugh. \"Why do you tell me this?\" he asked.\n\n\"Because it irritates me to see a clever man blunder so. My pictures are\ngrotesque.\"\n\n\"And the one I possess--\"\n\n\"That one is rather worse than usual.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, \"I like it all the same!\"\n\nShe looked at him askance. \"That is a very pretty thing to say,\" she\nanswered; \"but it is my duty to warn you before you go farther. This\norder of yours is impossible, you know. What do you take me for? It is\nwork for ten men. You pick out the six most difficult pictures in the\nLouvre, and you expect me to go to work as if I were sitting down to hem\na dozen pocket handkerchiefs. I wanted to see how far you would go.\"\n\nNewman looked at the young girl in some perplexity. In spite of the\nridiculous blunder of which he stood convicted, he was very far from\nbeing a simpleton, and he had a lively suspicion that Mademoiselle\nNoemie's sudden frankness was not essentially more honest than her\nleaving him in error would have been. She was playing a game; she\nwas not simply taking pity on his aesthetic verdancy. What was it she\nexpected to win? The stakes were high and the risk was great; the prize\ntherefore must have been commensurate. But even granting that the prize\nmight be great, Newman could not resist a movement of admiration for his\ncompanion's intrepidity. She was throwing away with one hand, whatever\nshe might intend to do with the other, a very handsome sum of money.\n\n\"Are you joking,\" he said, \"or are you serious?\"\n\n\"Oh, serious!\" cried Mademoiselle Noemie, but with her extraordinary\nsmile.\n\n\"I know very little about pictures or how they are painted. If you can't\ndo all that, of course you can't. Do what you can, then.\"\n\n\"It will be very bad,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Newman, laughing, \"if you are determined it shall be bad, of\ncourse it will. But why do you go on painting badly?\"\n\n\"I can do nothing else; I have no real talent.\"\n\n\"You are deceiving your father, then.\"\n\nThe young girl hesitated a moment. \"He knows very well!\"\n\n\"No,\" Newman declared; \"I am sure he believes in you.\"\n\n\"He is afraid of me. I go on painting badly, as you say, because I want\nto learn. I like it, at any rate. And I like being here; it is a place\nto come to, every day; it is better than sitting in a little dark, damp\nroom, on a court, or selling buttons and whalebones over a counter.\"\n\n\"Of course it is much more amusing,\" said Newman. \"But for a poor girl\nisn't it rather an expensive amusement?\"\n\n\"Oh, I am very wrong, there is no doubt about that,\" said Mademoiselle\nNoemie. \"But rather than earn my living as some girls do--toiling with\na needle, in little black holes, out of the world--I would throw myself\ninto the Seine.\"\n\n\"There is no need of that,\" Newman answered; \"your father told you my\noffer?\"\n\n\"Your offer?\"\n\n\"He wants you to marry, and I told him I would give you a chance to earn\nyour dot.\"\n\n\"He told me all about it, and you see the account I make of it! Why\nshould you take such an interest in my marriage?\"\n\n\"My interest was in your father. I hold to my offer; do what you can,\nand I will buy what you paint.\"\n\nShe stood for some time, meditating, with her eyes on the ground.\nAt last, looking up, \"What sort of a husband can you get for twelve\nthousand francs?\" she asked.\n\n\"Your father tells me he knows some very good young men.\"\n\n\"Grocers and butchers and little maitres de cafes! I will not marry at\nall if I can't marry well.\"\n\n\"I would advise you not to be too fastidious,\" said Newman. \"That's all\nthe advice I can give you.\"\n\n\"I am very much vexed at what I have said!\" cried the young girl. \"It\nhas done me no good. But I couldn't help it.\"\n\n\"What good did you expect it to do you?\"\n\n\"I couldn't help it, simply.\"\n\nNewman looked at her a moment. \"Well, your pictures may be bad,\" he\nsaid, \"but you are too clever for me, nevertheless. I don't understand\nyou. Good-by!\" And he put out his hand.\n\nShe made no response, and offered him no farewell. She turned away and\nseated herself sidewise on a bench, leaning her head on the back of her\nhand, which clasped the rail in front of the pictures. Newman stood a\nmoment and then turned on his heel and retreated. He had understood her\nbetter than he confessed; this singular scene was a practical commentary\nupon her father's statement that she was a frank coquette.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nWhen Newman related to Mrs. Tristram his fruitless visit to Madame de\nCintre, she urged him not to be discouraged, but to carry out his plan\nof \"seeing Europe\" during the summer, and return to Paris in the autumn\nand settle down comfortably for the winter. \"Madame de Cintre will\nkeep,\" she said; \"she is not a woman who will marry from one day to\nanother.\" Newman made no distinct affirmation that he would come back\nto Paris; he even talked about Rome and the Nile, and abstained from\nprofessing any especial interest in Madame de Cintre's continued\nwidowhood. This circumstance was at variance with his habitual\nfrankness, and may perhaps be regarded as characteristic of the\nincipient stage of that passion which is more particularly known as the\nmysterious one. The truth is that the expression of a pair of eyes that\nwere at once brilliant and mild had become very familiar to his memory,\nand he would not easily have resigned himself to the prospect of never\nlooking into them again. He communicated to Mrs. Tristram a number of\nother facts, of greater or less importance, as you choose; but on this\nparticular point he kept his own counsel. He took a kindly leave of\nM. Nioche, having assured him that, so far as he was concerned, the\nblue-cloaked Madonna herself might have been present at his\ninterview with Mademoiselle Noemie; and left the old man nursing his\nbreast-pocket, in an ecstasy which the acutest misfortune might have\nbeen defied to dissipate. Newman then started on his travels, with all\nhis usual appearance of slow-strolling leisure, and all his essential\ndirectness and intensity of aim. No man seemed less in a hurry, and\nyet no man achieved more in brief periods. He had certain practical\ninstincts which served him excellently in his trade of tourist. He found\nhis way in foreign cities by divination, his memory was excellent when\nonce his attention had been at all cordially given, and he emerged from\ndialogues in foreign tongues, of which he had, formally, not understood\na word, in full possession of the particular fact he had desired to\nascertain. His appetite for facts was capacious, and although many of\nthose which he noted would have seemed woefully dry and colorless to the\nordinary sentimental traveler, a careful inspection of the list would\nhave shown that he had a soft spot in his imagination. In the charming\ncity of Brussels--his first stopping-place after leaving Paris--he\nasked a great many questions about the street-cars, and took extreme\nsatisfaction in the reappearance of this familiar symbol of American\ncivilization; but he was also greatly struck with the beautiful Gothic\ntower of the Hotel de Ville, and wondered whether it would not be\npossible to \"get up\" something like it in San Francisco. He stood for\nhalf an hour in the crowded square before this edifice, in imminent\ndanger from carriage-wheels, listening to a toothless old cicerone\nmumble in broken English the touching history of Counts Egmont and Horn;\nand he wrote the names of these gentlemen--for reasons best known to\nhimself--on the back of an old letter.\n\nAt the outset, on his leaving Paris, his curiosity had not been intense;\npassive entertainment, in the Champs Elysees and at the theatres, seemed\nabout as much as he need expect of himself, and although, as he had said\nto Tristram, he wanted to see the mysterious, satisfying BEST, he had\nnot the Grand Tour in the least on his conscience, and was not given to\ncross-questioning the amusement of the hour. He believed that Europe\nwas made for him, and not he for Europe. He had said that he wanted\nto improve his mind, but he would have felt a certain embarrassment, a\ncertain shame, even--a false shame, possibly--if he had caught himself\nlooking intellectually into the mirror. Neither in this nor in any other\nrespect had Newman a high sense of responsibility; it was his prime\nconviction that a man's life should be easy, and that he should be able\nto resolve privilege into a matter of course. The world, to his sense,\nwas a great bazaar, where one might stroll about and purchase handsome\nthings; but he was no more conscious, individually, of social pressure\nthan he admitted the existence of such a thing as an obligatory\npurchase. He had not only a dislike, but a sort of moral mistrust,\nof uncomfortable thoughts, and it was both uncomfortable and slightly\ncontemptible to feel obliged to square one's self with a standard.\nOne's standard was the ideal of one's own good-humored prosperity, the\nprosperity which enabled one to give as well as take. To expand,\nwithout bothering about it--without shiftless timidity on one side, or\nloquacious eagerness on the other--to the full compass of what he\nwould have called a \"pleasant\" experience, was Newman's most definite\nprogramme of life. He had always hated to hurry to catch railroad\ntrains, and yet he had always caught them; and just so an undue\nsolicitude for \"culture\" seemed a sort of silly dawdling at the\nstation, a proceeding properly confined to women, foreigners, and other\nunpractical persons. All this admitted, Newman enjoyed his journey,\nwhen once he had fairly entered the current, as profoundly as the most\nzealous dilettante. One's theories, after all, matter little; it is\none's humor that is the great thing. Our friend was intelligent, and\nhe could not help that. He lounged through Belgium and Holland and\nthe Rhineland, through Switzerland and Northern Italy, planning about\nnothing, but seeing everything. The guides and valets de place found\nhim an excellent subject. He was always approachable, for he was much\naddicted to standing about in the vestibules and porticos of inns, and\nhe availed himself little of the opportunities for impressive seclusion\nwhich are so liberally offered in Europe to gentlemen who travel\nwith long purses. When an excursion, a church, a gallery, a ruin, was\nproposed to him, the first thing Newman usually did, after surveying\nhis postulant in silence, from head to foot, was to sit down at a little\ntable and order something to drink. The cicerone, during this process,\nusually retreated to a respectful distance; otherwise I am not sure that\nNewman would not have bidden him sit down and have a glass also, and\ntell him as an honest fellow whether his church or his gallery was\nreally worth a man's trouble. At last he rose and stretched his long\nlegs, beckoned to the man of monuments, looked at his watch, and\nfixed his eye on his adversary. \"What is it?\" he asked. \"How far?\" And\nwhatever the answer was, although he sometimes seemed to hesitate, he\nnever declined. He stepped into an open cab, made his conductor sit\nbeside him to answer questions, bade the driver go fast (he had a\nparticular aversion to slow driving) and rolled, in all probability\nthrough a dusty suburb, to the goal of his pilgrimage. If the goal was a\ndisappointment, if the church was meagre, or the ruin a heap of rubbish,\nNewman never protested or berated his cicerone; he looked with an\nimpartial eye upon great monuments and small, made the guide recite his\nlesson, listened to it religiously, asked if there was nothing else to\nbe seen in the neighborhood, and drove back again at a rattling pace.\nIt is to be feared that his perception of the difference between good\narchitecture and bad was not acute, and that he might sometimes have\nbeen seen gazing with culpable serenity at inferior productions. Ugly\nchurches were a part of his pastime in Europe, as well as beautiful\nones, and his tour was altogether a pastime. But there is sometimes\nnothing like the imagination of these people who have none, and Newman,\nnow and then, in an unguided stroll in a foreign city, before some\nlonely, sad-towered church, or some angular image of one who had\nrendered civic service in an unknown past, had felt a singular inward\ntremor. It was not an excitement or a perplexity; it was a placid,\nfathomless sense of diversion.\n\nHe encountered by chance in Holland a young American, with whom, for\na time, he formed a sort of traveler's partnership. They were men of a\nvery different cast, but each, in his way, was so good a fellow that,\nfor a few weeks at least, it seemed something of a pleasure to share\nthe chances of the road. Newman's comrade, whose name was Babcock, was\na young Unitarian minister, a small, spare, neatly-attired man, with\na strikingly candid physiognomy. He was a native of Dorchester,\nMassachusetts, and had spiritual charge of a small congregation in\nanother suburb of the New England metropolis. His digestion was weak and\nhe lived chiefly on Graham bread and hominy--a regimen to which he was\nso much attached that his tour seemed to him destined to be blighted\nwhen, on landing on the Continent, he found that these delicacies did\nnot flourish under the table d'hote system. In Paris he had purchased\na bag of hominy at an establishment which called itself an American\nAgency, and at which the New York illustrated papers were also to\nbe procured, and he had carried it about with him, and shown extreme\nserenity and fortitude in the somewhat delicate position of having his\nhominy prepared for him and served at anomalous hours, at the hotels he\nsuccessively visited. Newman had once spent a morning, in the course of\nbusiness, at Mr. Babcock's birthplace, and, for reasons too recondite\nto unfold, his visit there always assumed in his mind a jocular cast.\nTo carry out his joke, which certainly seems poor so long as it is\nnot explained, he used often to address his companion as \"Dorchester.\"\nFellow-travelers very soon grow intimate but it is highly improbable\nthat at home these extremely dissimilar characters would have found any\nvery convenient points of contact. They were, indeed, as different as\npossible. Newman, who never reflected on such matters, accepted the\nsituation with great equanimity, but Babcock used to meditate over\nit privately; used often, indeed, to retire to his room early in the\nevening for the express purpose of considering it conscientiously\nand impartially. He was not sure that it was a good thing for him to\nassociate with our hero, whose way of taking life was so little his own.\nNewman was an excellent, generous fellow; Mr. Babcock sometimes said to\nhimself that he was a NOBLE fellow, and, certainly, it was impossible\nnot to like him. But would it not be desirable to try to exert an\ninfluence upon him, to try to quicken his moral life and sharpen his\nsense of duty? He liked everything, he accepted everything, he found\namusement in everything; he was not discriminating, he had not a high\ntone. The young man from Dorchester accused Newman of a fault which he\nconsidered very grave, and which he did his best to avoid: what he would\nhave called a want of \"moral reaction.\" Poor Mr. Babcock was extremely\nfond of pictures and churches, and carried Mrs. Jameson's works about\nin his trunk; he delighted in aesthetic analysis, and received peculiar\nimpressions from everything he saw. But nevertheless in his secret soul\nhe detested Europe, and he felt an irritating need to protest against\nNewman's gross intellectual hospitality. Mr. Babcock's moral malaise, I\nam afraid, lay deeper than where any definition of mine can reach it.\nHe mistrusted the European temperament, he suffered from the European\nclimate, he hated the European dinner-hour; European life seemed to him\nunscrupulous and impure. And yet he had an exquisite sense of beauty;\nand as beauty was often inextricably associated with the above\ndispleasing conditions, as he wished, above all, to be just and\ndispassionate, and as he was, furthermore, extremely devoted to\n\"culture,\" he could not bring himself to decide that Europe was utterly\nbad. But he thought it was very bad indeed, and his quarrel with Newman\nwas that this unregulated epicure had a sadly insufficient perception\nof the bad. Babcock himself really knew as little about the bad, in any\nquarter of the world, as a nursing infant, his most vivid realization of\nevil had been the discovery that one of his college classmates, who was\nstudying architecture in Paris had a love affair with a young woman who\ndid not expect him to marry her. Babcock had related this incident to\nNewman, and our hero had applied an epithet of an unflattering sort to\nthe young girl. The next day his companion asked him whether he was\nvery sure he had used exactly the right word to characterize the young\narchitect's mistress. Newman stared and laughed. \"There are a great many\nwords to express that idea,\" he said; \"you can take your choice!\"\n\n\"Oh, I mean,\" said Babcock, \"was she possibly not to be considered in a\ndifferent light? Don't you think she really expected him to marry her?\"\n\n\"I am sure I don't know,\" said Newman. \"Very likely she did; I have no\ndoubt she is a grand woman.\" And he began to laugh again.\n\n\"I didn't mean that either,\" said Babcock, \"I was only afraid that I\nmight have seemed yesterday not to remember--not to consider; well, I\nthink I will write to Percival about it.\"\n\nAnd he had written to Percival (who answered him in a really impudent\nfashion), and he had reflected that it was somehow, raw and reckless in\nNewman to assume in that off-hand manner that the young woman in Paris\nmight be \"grand.\" The brevity of Newman's judgments very often shocked\nand discomposed him. He had a way of damning people without farther\nappeal, or of pronouncing them capital company in the face of\nuncomfortable symptoms, which seemed unworthy of a man whose conscience\nhad been properly cultivated. And yet poor Babcock liked him, and\nremembered that even if he was sometimes perplexing and painful, this\nwas not a reason for giving him up. Goethe recommended seeing human\nnature in the most various forms, and Mr. Babcock thought Goethe\nperfectly splendid. He often tried, in odd half-hours of conversation\nto infuse into Newman a little of his own spiritual starch, but Newman's\npersonal texture was too loose to admit of stiffening. His mind could no\nmore hold principles than a sieve can hold water. He admired principles\nextremely, and thought Babcock a mighty fine little fellow for having\nso many. He accepted all that his high-strung companion offered him,\nand put them away in what he supposed to be a very safe place; but poor\nBabcock never afterwards recognized his gifts among the articles that\nNewman had in daily use.\n\nThey traveled together through Germany and into Switzerland, where\nfor three or four weeks they trudged over passes and lounged upon blue\nlakes. At last they crossed the Simplon and made their way to Venice.\nMr. Babcock had become gloomy and even a trifle irritable; he seemed\nmoody, absent, preoccupied; he got his plans into a tangle, and talked\none moment of doing one thing and the next of doing another. Newman led\nhis usual life, made acquaintances, took his ease in the galleries and\nchurches, spent an unconscionable amount of time in strolling in the\nPiazza San Marco, bought a great many bad pictures, and for a fortnight\nenjoyed Venice grossly. One evening, coming back to his inn, he found\nBabcock waiting for him in the little garden beside it. The young man\nwalked up to him, looking very dismal, thrust out his hand, and said\nwith solemnity that he was afraid they must part. Newman expressed\nhis surprise and regret, and asked why a parting had became necessary.\n\"Don't be afraid I'm tired of you,\" he said.\n\n\"You are not tired of me?\" demanded Babcock, fixing him with his clear\ngray eye.\n\n\"Why the deuce should I be? You are a very plucky fellow. Besides, I\ndon't grow tired of things.\"\n\n\"We don't understand each other,\" said the young minister.\n\n\"Don't I understand you?\" cried Newman. \"Why, I hoped I did. But what if\nI don't; where's the harm?\"\n\n\"I don't understand YOU,\" said Babcock. And he sat down and rested his\nhead on his hand, and looked up mournfully at his immeasurable friend.\n\n\"Oh Lord, I don't mind that!\" cried Newman, with a laugh.\n\n\"But it's very distressing to me. It keeps me in a state of unrest. It\nirritates me; I can't settle anything. I don't think it's good for me.\"\n\n\"You worry too much; that's what's the matter with you,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Of course it must seem so to you. You think I take things too hard, and\nI think you take things too easily. We can never agree.\"\n\n\"But we have agreed very well all along.\"\n\n\"No, I haven't agreed,\" said Babcock, shaking his head. \"I am very\nuncomfortable. I ought to have separated from you a month ago.\"\n\n\"Oh, horrors! I'll agree to anything!\" cried Newman.\n\nMr. Babcock buried his head in both hands. At last looking up, \"I don't\nthink you appreciate my position,\" he said. \"I try to arrive at the\ntruth about everything. And then you go too fast. For me, you are too\npassionate, too extravagant. I feel as if I ought to go over all this\nground we have traversed again, by myself, alone. I am afraid I have\nmade a great many mistakes.\"\n\n\"Oh, you needn't give so many reasons,\" said Newman. \"You are simply\ntired of my company. You have a good right to be.\"\n\n\"No, no, I am not tired!\" cried the pestered young divine. \"It is very\nwrong to be tired.\"\n\n\"I give it up!\" laughed Newman. \"But of course it will never do to go\non making mistakes. Go your way, by all means. I shall miss you; but you\nhave seen I make friends very easily. You will be lonely, yourself;\nbut drop me a line, when you feel like it, and I will wait for you\nanywhere.\"\n\n\"I think I will go back to Milan. I am afraid I didn't do justice to\nLuini.\"\n\n\"Poor Luini!\" said Newman.\n\n\"I mean that I am afraid I overestimated him. I don't think that he is a\npainter of the first rank.\"\n\n\"Luini?\" Newman exclaimed; \"why, he's enchanting--he's magnificent!\nThere is something in his genius that is like a beautiful woman. It\ngives one the same feeling.\"\n\nMr. Babcock frowned and winced. And it must be added that this was, for\nNewman, an unusually metaphysical flight; but in passing through Milan\nhe had taken a great fancy to the painter. \"There you are again!\"\nsaid Mr. Babcock. \"Yes, we had better separate.\" And on the morrow he\nretraced his steps and proceeded to tone down his impressions of the\ngreat Lombard artist.\n\nA few days afterwards Newman received a note from his late companion\nwhich ran as follows:--\n\nMy Dear Mr. Newman,--I am afraid that my conduct at Venice, a week ago,\nseemed to you strange and ungrateful, and I wish to explain my position,\nwhich, as I said at the time, I do not think you appreciate. I had long\nhad it on my mind to propose that we should part company, and this step\nwas not really so abrupt as it seemed. In the first place, you know, I\nam traveling in Europe on funds supplied by my congregation, who kindly\noffered me a vacation and an opportunity to enrich my mind with the\ntreasures of nature and art in the Old World. I feel, therefore, as if I\nought to use my time to the very best advantage. I have a high sense of\nresponsibility. You appear to care only for the pleasure of the hour,\nand you give yourself up to it with a violence which I confess I am not\nable to emulate. I feel as if I must arrive at some conclusion and fix\nmy belief on certain points. Art and life seem to me intensely serious\nthings, and in our travels in Europe we should especially remember the\nimmense seriousness of Art. You seem to hold that if a thing amuses you\nfor the moment, that is all you need ask for it, and your relish for\nmere amusement is also much higher than mine. You put, however, a kind\nof reckless confidence into your pleasure which at times, I confess, has\nseemed to me--shall I say it?--almost cynical. Your way at any rate is\nnot my way, and it is unwise that we should attempt any longer to pull\ntogether. And yet, let me add that I know there is a great deal to be\nsaid for your way; I have felt its attraction, in your society, very\nstrongly. But for this I should have left you long ago. But I was so\nperplexed. I hope I have not done wrong. I feel as if I had a great deal\nof lost time to make up. I beg you take all this as I mean it, which,\nHeaven knows, is not invidiously. I have a great personal esteem for you\nand hope that some day, when I have recovered my balance, we shall meet\nagain. I hope you will continue to enjoy your travels, only DO remember\nthat Life and Art ARE extremely serious. Believe me your sincere friend\nand well-wisher,\n\nBENJAMIN BABCOCK\n\nP. S. I am greatly perplexed by Luini.\n\n\nThis letter produced in Newman's mind a singular mixture of exhilaration\nand awe. At first, Mr. Babcock's tender conscience seemed to him a\ncapital farce, and his traveling back to Milan only to get into a\ndeeper muddle appeared, as the reward of his pedantry, exquisitely and\nludicrously just. Then Newman reflected that these are mighty mysteries,\nthat possibly he himself was indeed that baleful and barely mentionable\nthing, a cynic, and that his manner of considering the treasures of art\nand the privileges of life was probably very base and immoral. Newman\nhad a great contempt for immorality, and that evening, for a good half\nhour, as he sat watching the star-sheen on the warm Adriatic, he felt\nrebuked and depressed. He was at a loss how to answer Babcock's letter.\nHis good nature checked his resenting the young minister's lofty\nadmonitions, and his tough, inelastic sense of humor forbade his taking\nthem seriously. He wrote no answer at all but a day or two afterward he\nfound in a curiosity shop a grotesque little statuette in ivory, of the\nsixteenth century, which he sent off to Babcock without a commentary. It\nrepresented a gaunt, ascetic-looking monk, in a tattered gown and cowl,\nkneeling with clasped hands and pulling a portentously long face. It was\na wonderfully delicate piece of carving, and in a moment, through one\nof the rents of his gown, you espied a fat capon hung round the monk's\nwaist. In Newman's intention what did the figure symbolize? Did it mean\nthat he was going to try to be as \"high-toned\" as the monk looked at\nfirst, but that he feared he should succeed no better than the friar, on\na closer inspection, proved to have done? It is not supposable that he\nintended a satire upon Babcock's own asceticism, for this would have\nbeen a truly cynical stroke. He made his late companion, at any rate, a\nvery valuable little present.\n\nNewman, on leaving Venice, went through the Tyrol to Vienna, and then\nreturned westward, through Southern Germany. The autumn found him at\nBaden-Baden, where he spent several weeks. The place was charming, and\nhe was in no hurry to depart; besides, he was looking about him and\ndeciding what to do for the winter. His summer had been very full, and\nhe sat under the great trees beside the miniature river that trickles\npast the Baden flower-beds, he slowly rummaged it over. He had seen and\ndone a great deal, enjoyed and observed a great deal; he felt older,\nand yet he felt younger too. He remembered Mr. Babcock and his desire\nto form conclusions, and he remembered also that he had profited very\nlittle by his friend's exhortation to cultivate the same respectable\nhabit. Could he not scrape together a few conclusions? Baden-Baden\nwas the prettiest place he had seen yet, and orchestral music in the\nevening, under the stars, was decidedly a great institution. This was\none of his conclusions! But he went on to reflect that he had done very\nwisely to pull up stakes and come abroad; this seeing of the world was\na very interesting thing. He had learned a great deal; he couldn't say\njust what, but he had it there under his hat-band. He had done what he\nwanted; he had seen the great things, and he had given his mind a chance\nto \"improve,\" if it would. He cheerfully believed that it had improved.\nYes, this seeing of the world was very pleasant, and he would willingly\ndo a little more of it. Thirty-six years old as he was, he had a\nhandsome stretch of life before him yet, and he need not begin to\ncount his weeks. Where should he take the world next? I have said he\nremembered the eyes of the lady whom he had found standing in Mrs.\nTristram's drawing-room; four months had elapsed, and he had not\nforgotten them yet. He had looked--he had made a point of looking--into\na great many other eyes in the interval, but the only ones he thought\nof now were Madame de Cintre's. If he wanted to see more of the world,\nshould he find it in Madame de Cintre's eyes? He would certainly find\nsomething there, call it this world or the next. Throughout these rather\nformless meditations he sometimes thought of his past life and the long\narray of years (they had begun so early) during which he had had nothing\nin his head but \"enterprise.\" They seemed far away now, for his present\nattitude was more than a holiday, it was almost a rupture. He had told\nTristram that the pendulum was swinging back and it appeared that the\nbackward swing had not yet ended. Still \"enterprise,\" which was over\nin the other quarter wore to his mind a different aspect at different\nhours. In its train a thousand forgotten episodes came trooping back\ninto his memory. Some of them he looked complacently enough in the face;\nfrom some he averted his head. They were old efforts, old exploits,\nantiquated examples of \"smartness\" and sharpness. Some of them, as he\nlooked at them, he felt decidedly proud of; he admired himself as if\nhe had been looking at another man. And, in fact, many of the qualities\nthat make a great deed were there: the decision, the resolution, the\ncourage, the celerity, the clear eye, and the strong hand. Of certain\nother achievements it would be going too far to say that he was ashamed\nof them for Newman had never had a stomach for dirty work. He was\nblessed with a natural impulse to disfigure with a direct, unreasoning\nblow the comely visage of temptation. And certainly, in no man could a\nwant of integrity have been less excusable. Newman knew the crooked from\nthe straight at a glance, and the former had cost him, first and last,\na great many moments of lively disgust. But none the less some of his\nmemories seemed to wear at present a rather graceless and sordid mien,\nand it struck him that if he had never done anything very ugly, he had\nnever, on the other hand, done anything particularly beautiful. He had\nspent his years in the unremitting effort to add thousands to thousands,\nand, now that he stood well outside of it, the business of money-getting\nappeared tolerably dry and sterile. It is very well to sneer at\nmoney-getting after you have filled your pockets, and Newman, it may be\nsaid, should have begun somewhat earlier to moralize thus delicately. To\nthis it may be answered that he might have made another fortune, if he\nchose; and we ought to add that he was not exactly moralizing. It had\ncome back to him simply that what he had been looking at all summer was\na very rich and beautiful world, and that it had not all been made by\nsharp railroad men and stock-brokers.\n\nDuring his stay at Baden-Baden he received a letter from Mrs. Tristram,\nscolding him for the scanty tidings he had sent to his friends of the\nAvenue d'Iena, and begging to be definitely informed that he had not\nconcocted any horrid scheme for wintering in outlying regions, but was\ncoming back sanely and promptly to the most comfortable city in the\nworld. Newman's answer ran as follows:--\n\n\"I supposed you knew I was a miserable letter-writer, and didn't expect\nanything of me. I don't think I have written twenty letters of pure\nfriendship in my whole life; in America I conducted my correspondence\naltogether by telegrams. This is a letter of pure friendship; you have\ngot hold of a curiosity, and I hope you will value it. You want to know\neverything that has happened to me these three months. The best way to\ntell you, I think, would be to send you my half dozen guide-books, with\nmy pencil-marks in the margin. Wherever you find a scratch or a cross,\nor a 'Beautiful!' or a 'So true!' or a 'Too thin!' you may know that\nI have had a sensation of some sort or other. That has been about my\nhistory, ever since I left you. Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany,\nItaly, I have been through the whole list, and I don't think I am any\nthe worse for it. I know more about Madonnas and church-steeples than I\nsupposed any man could. I have seen some very pretty things, and shall\nperhaps talk them over this winter, by your fireside. You see, my face\nis not altogether set against Paris. I have had all kinds of plans and\nvisions, but your letter has blown most of them away. 'L'appetit vient\nen mangeant,' says the French proverb, and I find that the more I see\nof the world the more I want to see. Now that I am in the shafts, why\nshouldn't I trot to the end of the course? Sometimes I think of the\nfar East, and keep rolling the names of Eastern cities under my tongue:\nDamascus and Bagdad, Medina and Mecca. I spent a week last month in the\ncompany of a returned missionary, who told me I ought to be ashamed to\nbe loafing about Europe when there are such big things to be seen out\nthere. I do want to explore, but I think I would rather explore over in\nthe Rue de l'Universite. Do you ever hear from that pretty lady? If you\ncan get her to promise she will be at home the next time I call, I will\ngo back to Paris straight. I am more than ever in the state of mind I\ntold you about that evening; I want a first-class wife. I have kept an\neye on all the pretty girls I have come across this summer, but none of\nthem came up to my notion, or anywhere near it. I should have enjoyed\nall this a thousand times more if I had had the lady just mentioned\nby my side. The nearest approach to her was a Unitarian minister from\nBoston, who very soon demanded a separation, for incompatibility of\ntemper. He told me I was low-minded, immoral, a devotee of 'art for\nart'--whatever that is: all of which greatly afflicted me, for he\nwas really a sweet little fellow. But shortly afterwards I met an\nEnglishman, with whom I struck up an acquaintance which at first seemed\nto promise well--a very bright man, who writes in the London papers\nand knows Paris nearly as well as Tristram. We knocked about for a week\ntogether, but he very soon gave me up in disgust. I was too virtuous by\nhalf; I was too stern a moralist. He told me, in a friendly way, that I\nwas cursed with a conscience; that I judged things like a Methodist and\ntalked about them like an old lady. This was rather bewildering. Which\nof my two critics was I to believe? I didn't worry about it and very\nsoon made up my mind they were both idiots. But there is one thing in\nwhich no one will ever have the impudence to pretend I am wrong, that\nis, in being your faithful friend,\n\n\"C. N.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nNewman gave up Damascus and Bagdad and returned to Paris before the\nautumn was over. He established himself in some rooms selected for him\nby Tom Tristram, in accordance with the latter's estimate of what he\ncalled his social position. When Newman learned that his social position\nwas to be taken into account, he professed himself utterly incompetent,\nand begged Tristram to relieve him of the care. \"I didn't know I had a\nsocial position,\" he said, \"and if I have, I haven't the smallest idea\nwhat it is. Isn't a social position knowing some two or three thousand\npeople and inviting them to dinner? I know you and your wife and little\nold Mr. Nioche, who gave me French lessons last spring. Can I invite you\nto dinner to meet each other? If I can, you must come to-morrow.\"\n\n\"That is not very grateful to me,\" said Mrs. Tristram, \"who introduced\nyou last year to every creature I know.\"\n\n\"So you did; I had quite forgotten. But I thought you wanted me to\nforget,\" said Newman, with that tone of simple deliberateness which\nfrequently marked his utterance, and which an observer would not have\nknown whether to pronounce a somewhat mysteriously humorous affection of\nignorance or a modest aspiration to knowledge; \"you told me you disliked\nthem all.\"\n\n\"Ah, the way you remember what I say is at least very flattering. But\nin future,\" added Mrs. Tristram, \"pray forget all the wicked things and\nremember only the good ones. It will be easily done, and it will not\nfatigue your memory. But I forewarn you that if you trust my husband to\npick out your rooms, you are in for something hideous.\"\n\n\"Hideous, darling?\" cried Tristram.\n\n\"To-day I must say nothing wicked; otherwise I should use stronger\nlanguage.\"\n\n\"What do you think she would say, Newman?\" asked Tristram. \"If she\nreally tried, now? She can express displeasure, volubly, in two or three\nlanguages; that's what it is to be intellectual. It gives her the start\nof me completely, for I can't swear, for the life of me, except in\nEnglish. When I get mad I have to fall back on our dear old mother\ntongue. There's nothing like it, after all.\"\n\nNewman declared that he knew nothing about tables and chairs, and that\nhe would accept, in the way of a lodging, with his eyes shut, anything\nthat Tristram should offer him. This was partly veracity on our hero's\npart, but it was also partly charity. He knew that to pry about and look\nat rooms, and make people open windows, and poke into sofas with his\ncane, and gossip with landladies, and ask who lived above and who\nbelow--he knew that this was of all pastimes the dearest to Tristram's\nheart, and he felt the more disposed to put it in his way as he was\nconscious that, as regards his obliging friend, he had suffered the\nwarmth of ancient good-fellowship somewhat to abate. Besides, he had no\ntaste for upholstery; he had even no very exquisite sense of comfort\nor convenience. He had a relish for luxury and splendor, but it was\nsatisfied by rather gross contrivances. He scarcely knew a hard chair\nfrom a soft one, and he possessed a talent for stretching his legs which\nquite dispensed with adventitious facilities. His idea of comfort was to\ninhabit very large rooms, have a great many of them, and be conscious of\ntheir possessing a number of patented mechanical devices--half of which\nhe should never have occasion to use. The apartments should be light and\nbrilliant and lofty; he had once said that he liked rooms in which you\nwanted to keep your hat on. For the rest, he was satisfied with the\nassurance of any respectable person that everything was \"handsome.\"\nTristram accordingly secured for him an apartment to which this epithet\nmight be lavishly applied. It was situated on the Boulevard Haussmann,\non the first floor, and consisted of a series of rooms, gilded from\nfloor to ceiling a foot thick, draped in various light shades of satin,\nand chiefly furnished with mirrors and clocks. Newman thought them\nmagnificent, thanked Tristram heartily, immediately took possession, and\nhad one of his trunks standing for three months in his drawing-room.\n\nOne day Mrs. Tristram told him that her beautiful friend, Madame de\nCintre, had returned from the country; that she had met her three days\nbefore, coming out of the Church of St. Sulpice; she herself having\njourneyed to that distant quarter in quest of an obscure lace-mender, of\nwhose skill she had heard high praise.\n\n\"And how were those eyes?\" Newman asked.\n\n\"Those eyes were red with weeping, if you please!\" said Mrs. Tristram.\n\"She had been to confession.\"\n\n\"It doesn't tally with your account of her,\" said Newman, \"that she\nshould have sins to confess.\"\n\n\"They were not sins; they were sufferings.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"She asked me to come and see her; I went this morning.\"\n\n\"And what does she suffer from?\"\n\n\"I didn't ask her. With her, somehow, one is very discreet. But I\nguessed, easily enough. She suffers from her wicked old mother and her\nGrand Turk of a brother. They persecute her. But I can almost forgive\nthem, because, as I told you, she is a saint, and a persecution is all\nthat she needs to bring out her saintliness and make her perfect.\"\n\n\"That's a comfortable theory for her. I hope you will never impart it\nto the old folks. Why does she let them bully her? Is she not her own\nmistress?\"\n\n\"Legally, yes, I suppose; but morally, no. In France you must never say\nnay to your mother, whatever she requires of you. She may be the most\nabominable old woman in the world, and make your life a purgatory; but,\nafter all, she is ma mere, and you have no right to judge her. You have\nsimply to obey. The thing has a fine side to it. Madame de Cintre bows\nher head and folds her wings.\"\n\n\"Can't she at least make her brother leave off?\"\n\n\"Her brother is the chef de la famille, as they say; he is the head of\nthe clan. With those people the family is everything; you must act, not\nfor your own pleasure, but for the advantage of the family.\"\n\n\"I wonder what my family would like me to do!\" exclaimed Tristram.\n\n\"I wish you had one!\" said his wife.\n\n\"But what do they want to get out of that poor lady?\" Newman asked.\n\n\"Another marriage. They are not rich, and they want to bring more money\ninto the family.\"\n\n\"There's your chance, my boy!\" said Tristram.\n\n\"And Madame de Cintre objects,\" Newman continued.\n\n\"She has been sold once; she naturally objects to being sold again.\nIt appears that the first time they made rather a poor bargain; M. de\nCintre left a scanty property.\"\n\n\"And to whom do they want to marry her now?\"\n\n\"I thought it best not to ask; but you may be sure it is to some horrid\nold nabob, or to some dissipated little duke.\"\n\n\"There's Mrs. Tristram, as large as life!\" cried her husband. \"Observe\nthe richness of her imagination. She has not a single question--it's\nvulgar to ask questions--and yet she knows everything. She has the\nhistory of Madame de Cintre's marriage at her fingers' ends. She has\nseen the lovely Claire on her knees, with loosened tresses and streaming\neyes, and the rest of them standing over her with spikes and goads and\nred-hot irons, ready to come down on her if she refuses the tipsy duke.\nThe simple truth is that they made a fuss about her milliner's bill or\nrefused her an opera-box.\"\n\nNewman looked from Tristram to his wife with a certain mistrust in each\ndirection. \"Do you really mean,\" he asked of Mrs. Tristram, \"that your\nfriend is being forced into an unhappy marriage?\"\n\n\"I think it extremely probable. Those people are very capable of that\nsort of thing.\"\n\n\"It is like something in a play,\" said Newman; \"that dark old house over\nthere looks as if wicked things had been done in it, and might be done\nagain.\"\n\n\"They have a still darker old house in the country Madame de Cintre\ntells me, and there, during the summer this scheme must have been\nhatched.\"\n\n\"MUST have been; mind that!\" said Tristram.\n\n\"After all,\" suggested Newman, after a silence, \"she may be in trouble\nabout something else.\"\n\n\"If it is something else, then it is something worse,\" said Mrs.\nTristram, with rich decision.\n\nNewman was silent a while, and seemed lost in meditation. \"Is it\npossible,\" he asked at last, \"that they do that sort of thing over here?\nthat helpless women are bullied into marrying men they hate?\"\n\n\"Helpless women, all over the world, have a hard time of it,\" said Mrs.\nTristram. \"There is plenty of bullying everywhere.\"\n\n\"A great deal of that kind of thing goes on in New York,\" said Tristram.\n\"Girls are bullied or coaxed or bribed, or all three together, into\nmarrying nasty fellows. There is no end of that always going on in the\nFifth Avenue, and other bad things besides. The Mysteries of the Fifth\nAvenue! Some one ought to show them up.\"\n\n\"I don't believe it!\" said Newman, very gravely. \"I don't believe that,\nin America, girls are ever subjected to compulsion. I don't believe\nthere have been a dozen cases of it since the country began.\"\n\n\"Listen to the voice of the spread eagle!\" cried Tristram.\n\n\"The spread eagle ought to use his wings,\" said Mrs. Tristram. \"Fly to\nthe rescue of Madame de Cintre!\"\n\n\"To her rescue?\"\n\n\"Pounce down, seize her in your talons, and carry her off. Marry her\nyourself.\"\n\nNewman, for some moments, answered nothing; but presently, \"I should\nsuppose she had heard enough of marrying,\" he said. \"The kindest way to\ntreat her would be to admire her, and yet never to speak of it. But that\nsort of thing is infamous,\" he added; \"it makes me feel savage to hear\nof it.\"\n\nHe heard of it, however, more than once afterward. Mrs. Tristram again\nsaw Madame de Cintre, and again found her looking very sad. But on these\noccasions there had been no tears; her beautiful eyes were clear and\nstill. \"She is cold, calm, and hopeless,\" Mrs. Tristram declared, and\nshe added that on her mentioning that her friend Mr. Newman was again\nin Paris and was faithful in his desire to make Madame de Cintre's\nacquaintance, this lovely woman had found a smile in her despair, and\ndeclared that she was sorry to have missed his visit in the spring and\nthat she hoped he had not lost courage. \"I told her something about\nyou,\" said Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"That's a comfort,\" said Newman, placidly. \"I like people to know about\nme.\"\n\nA few days after this, one dusky autumn afternoon, he went again to the\nRue de l'Universite. The early evening had closed in as he applied for\nadmittance at the stoutly guarded Hotel de Bellegarde. He was told that\nMadame de Cintre was at home; he crossed the court, entered the farther\ndoor, and was conducted through a vestibule, vast, dim, and cold, up a\nbroad stone staircase with an ancient iron balustrade, to an apartment\non the second floor. Announced and ushered in, he found himself in a\nsort of paneled boudoir, at one end of which a lady and gentleman were\nseated before the fire. The gentleman was smoking a cigarette; there was\nno light in the room save that of a couple of candles and the glow from\nthe hearth. Both persons rose to welcome Newman, who, in the firelight,\nrecognized Madame de Cintre. She gave him her hand with a smile which\nseemed in itself an illumination, and, pointing to her companion, said\nsoftly, \"My brother.\" The gentleman offered Newman a frank, friendly\ngreeting, and our hero then perceived him to be the young man who had\nspoken to him in the court of the hotel on his former visit and who had\nstruck him as a good fellow.\n\n\"Mrs. Tristram has spoken to me a great deal of you,\" said Madame de\nCintre gently, as she resumed her former place.\n\nNewman, after he had seated himself, began to consider what, in truth,\nwas his errand. He had an unusual, unexpected sense of having wandered\ninto a strange corner of the world. He was not given, as a general\nthing, to anticipating danger, or forecasting disaster, and he had had\nno social tremors on this particular occasion. He was not timid and he\nwas not impudent. He felt too kindly toward himself to be the one, and\ntoo good-naturedly toward the rest of the world to be the other. But his\nnative shrewdness sometimes placed his ease of temper at its mercy; with\nevery disposition to take things simply, it was obliged to perceive that\nsome things were not so simple as others. He felt as one does in missing\na step, in an ascent, where one expected to find it. This strange,\npretty woman, sitting in fire-side talk with her brother, in the gray\ndepths of her inhospitable-looking house--what had he to say to her? She\nseemed enveloped in a sort of fantastic privacy; on what grounds had he\npulled away the curtain? For a moment he felt as if he had plunged into\nsome medium as deep as the ocean, and as if he must exert himself to\nkeep from sinking. Meanwhile he was looking at Madame de Cintre, and\nshe was settling herself in her chair and drawing in her long dress and\nturning her face towards him. Their eyes met; a moment afterwards she\nlooked away and motioned to her brother to put a log on the fire. But\nthe moment, and the glance which traversed it, had been sufficient to\nrelieve Newman of the first and the last fit of personal embarrassment\nhe was ever to know. He performed the movement which was so frequent\nwith him, and which was always a sort of symbol of his taking mental\npossession of a scene--he extended his legs. The impression Madame de\nCintre had made upon him on their first meeting came back in an instant;\nit had been deeper than he knew. She was pleasing, she was interesting;\nhe had opened a book and the first lines held his attention.\n\nShe asked him several questions: how lately he had seen Mrs. Tristram,\nhow long he had been in Paris, how long he expected to remain there, how\nhe liked it. She spoke English without an accent, or rather with that\ndistinctively British accent which, on his arrival in Europe, had struck\nNewman as an altogether foreign tongue, but which, in women, he had come\nto like extremely. Here and there Madame de Cintre's utterance had a\nfaint shade of strangeness but at the end of ten minutes Newman found\nhimself waiting for these soft roughnesses. He enjoyed them, and he\nmarveled to see that gross thing, error, brought down to so fine a\npoint.\n\n\"You have a beautiful country,\" said Madame de Cintre, presently.\n\n\"Oh, magnificent!\" said Newman. \"You ought to see it.\"\n\n\"I shall never see it,\" said Madame de Cintre with a smile.\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"I don't travel; especially so far.\"\n\n\"But you go away sometimes; you are not always here?\"\n\n\"I go away in summer, a little way, to the country.\"\n\nNewman wanted to ask her something more, something personal, he hardly\nknew what. \"Don't you find it rather--rather quiet here?\" he said;\n\"so far from the street?\" Rather \"gloomy,\" he was going to say, but he\nreflected that that would be impolite.\n\n\"Yes, it is very quiet,\" said Madame de Cintre; \"but we like that.\"\n\n\"Ah, you like that,\" repeated Newman, slowly.\n\n\"Besides, I have lived here all my life.\"\n\n\"Lived here all your life,\" said Newman, in the same way.\n\n\"I was born here, and my father was born here before me, and my\ngrandfather, and my great-grandfathers. Were they not, Valentin?\" and\nshe appealed to her brother.\n\n\"Yes, it's a family habit to be born here!\" the young man said with a\nlaugh, and rose and threw the remnant of his cigarette into the fire,\nand then remained leaning against the chimney-piece. An observer would\nhave perceived that he wished to take a better look at Newman, whom he\ncovertly examined, while he stood stroking his mustache.\n\n\"Your house is tremendously old, then,\" said Newman.\n\n\"How old is it, brother?\" asked Madame de Cintre.\n\nThe young man took the two candles from the mantel-shelf, lifted one\nhigh in each hand, and looked up toward the cornice of the room, above\nthe chimney-piece. This latter feature of the apartment was of white\nmarble, and in the familiar rococo style of the last century; but above\nit was a paneling of an earlier date, quaintly carved, painted white,\nand gilded here and there. The white had turned to yellow, and the\ngilding was tarnished. On the top, the figures ranged themselves into\na sort of shield, on which an armorial device was cut. Above it, in\nrelief, was a date--1627. \"There you have it,\" said the young man. \"That\nis old or new, according to your point of view.\"\n\n\"Well, over here,\" said Newman, \"one's point of view gets shifted round\nconsiderably.\" And he threw back his head and looked about the room.\n\"Your house is of a very curious style of architecture,\" he said.\n\n\"Are you interested in architecture?\" asked the young man at the\nchimney-piece.\n\n\"Well, I took the trouble, this summer,\" said Newman, \"to examine--as\nwell as I can calculate--some four hundred and seventy churches. Do you\ncall that interested?\"\n\n\"Perhaps you are interested in theology,\" said the young man.\n\n\"Not particularly. Are you a Roman Catholic, madam?\" And he turned to\nMadame de Cintre.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" she answered, gravely.\n\nNewman was struck with the gravity of her tone; he threw back his head\nand began to look round the room again. \"Had you never noticed that\nnumber up there?\" he presently asked.\n\nShe hesitated a moment, and then, \"In former years,\" she said.\n\nHer brother had been watching Newman's movement. \"Perhaps you would like\nto examine the house,\" he said.\n\nNewman slowly brought down his eyes and looked at him; he had a vague\nimpression that the young man at the chimney-piece was inclined to\nirony. He was a handsome fellow, his face wore a smile, his mustaches\nwere curled up at the ends, and there was a little dancing gleam in his\neye. \"Damn his French impudence!\" Newman was on the point of saying to\nhimself. \"What the deuce is he grinning at?\" He glanced at Madame de\nCintre; she was sitting with her eyes fixed on the floor. She raised\nthem, they met his, and she looked at her brother. Newman turned again\nto this young man and observed that he strikingly resembled his sister.\nThis was in his favor, and our hero's first impression of the Count\nValentin, moreover, had been agreeable. His mistrust expired, and he\nsaid he would be very glad to see the house.\n\nThe young man gave a frank laugh, and laid his hand on one of the\ncandlesticks. \"Good, good!\" he exclaimed. \"Come, then.\"\n\nBut Madame de Cintre rose quickly and grasped his arm, \"Ah, Valentin!\"\nshe said. \"What do you mean to do?\"\n\n\"To show Mr. Newman the house. It will be very amusing.\"\n\nShe kept her hand on his arm, and turned to Newman with a smile. \"Don't\nlet him take you,\" she said; \"you will not find it amusing. It is a\nmusty old house, like any other.\"\n\n\"It is full of curious things,\" said the count, resisting. \"Besides, I\nwant to do it; it is a rare chance.\"\n\n\"You are very wicked, brother,\" Madame de Cintre answered.\n\n\"Nothing venture, nothing have!\" cried the young man. \"Will you come?\"\n\nMadame de Cintre stepped toward Newman, gently clasping her hands and\nsmiling softly. \"Would you not prefer my society, here, by my fire, to\nstumbling about dark passages after my brother?\"\n\n\"A hundred times!\" said Newman. \"We will see the house some other day.\"\n\nThe young man put down his candlestick with mock solemnity, and, shaking\nhis head, \"Ah, you have defeated a great scheme, sir!\" he said.\n\n\"A scheme? I don't understand,\" said Newman.\n\n\"You would have played your part in it all the better. Perhaps some day\nI shall have a chance to explain it.\"\n\n\"Be quiet, and ring for the tea,\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\nThe young man obeyed, and presently a servant brought in the tea, placed\nthe tray on a small table, and departed. Madame de Cintre, from her\nplace, busied herself with making it. She had but just begun when the\ndoor was thrown open and a lady rushed in, making a loud rustling sound.\nShe stared at Newman, gave a little nod and a \"Monsieur!\" and then\nquickly approached Madame de Cintre and presented her forehead to be\nkissed. Madame de Cintre saluted her, and continued to make tea. The\nnew-comer was young and pretty, it seemed to Newman; she wore her bonnet\nand cloak, and a train of royal proportions. She began to talk rapidly\nin French. \"Oh, give me some tea, my beautiful one, for the love of God!\nI'm exhausted, mangled, massacred.\" Newman found himself quite unable to\nfollow her; she spoke much less distinctly than M. Nioche.\n\n\"That is my sister-in-law,\" said the Count Valentin, leaning towards\nhim.\n\n\"She is very pretty,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Exquisite,\" answered the young man, and this time, again, Newman\nsuspected him of irony.\n\nHis sister-in-law came round to the other side of the fire with her cup\nof tea in her hand, holding it out at arm's-length, so that she might\nnot spill it on her dress, and uttering little cries of alarm. She\nplaced the cup on the mantel-shelf and begun to unpin her veil and pull\noff her gloves, looking meanwhile at Newman.\n\n\"Is there any thing I can do for you, my dear lady?\" the Count Valentin\nasked, in a sort of mock-caressing tone.\n\n\"Present monsieur,\" said his sister-in-law.\n\nThe young man answered, \"Mr. Newman!\"\n\n\"I can't courtesy to you, monsieur, or I shall spill my tea,\" said the\nlady. \"So Claire receives strangers, like that?\" she added, in a low\nvoice, in French, to her brother-in-law.\n\n\"Apparently!\" he answered with a smile. Newman stood a moment, and then\nhe approached Madame de Cintre. She looked up at him as if she were\nthinking of something to say. But she seemed to think of nothing; so she\nsimply smiled. He sat down near her and she handed him a cup of tea. For\na few moments they talked about that, and meanwhile he looked at her.\nHe remembered what Mrs. Tristram had told him of her \"perfection\" and of\nher having, in combination, all the brilliant things that he dreamed\nof finding. This made him observe her not only without mistrust, but\nwithout uneasy conjectures; the presumption, from the first moment he\nlooked at her, had been in her favor. And yet, if she was beautiful, it\nwas not a dazzling beauty. She was tall and moulded in long lines;\nshe had thick fair hair, a wide forehead, and features with a sort of\nharmonious irregularity. Her clear gray eyes were strikingly expressive;\nthey were both gentle and intelligent, and Newman liked them immensely;\nbut they had not those depths of splendor--those many-colored\nrays--which illumine the brows of famous beauties. Madame de Cintre was\nrather thin, and she looked younger than probably she was. In her whole\nperson there was something both youthful and subdued, slender and\nyet ample, tranquil yet shy; a mixture of immaturity and repose, of\ninnocence and dignity. What had Tristram meant, Newman wondered, by\ncalling her proud? She was certainly not proud now, to him; or if she\nwas, it was of no use, it was lost upon him; she must pile it up higher\nif she expected him to mind it. She was a beautiful woman, and it was\nvery easy to get on with her. Was she a countess, a marquise, a kind of\nhistorical formation? Newman, who had rarely heard these words used,\nhad never been at pains to attach any particular image to them; but they\noccurred to him now and seemed charged with a sort of melodious meaning.\nThey signified something fair and softly bright, that had easy motions\nand spoke very agreeably.\n\n\"Have you many friends in Paris; do you go out?\" asked Madame de Cintre,\nwho had at last thought of something to say.\n\n\"Do you mean do I dance, and all that?\"\n\n\"Do you go dans le monde, as we say?\"\n\n\"I have seen a good many people. Mrs. Tristram has taken me about. I do\nwhatever she tells me.\"\n\n\"By yourself, you are not fond of amusements?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, of some sorts. I am not fond of dancing, and that sort of\nthing; I am too old and sober. But I want to be amused; I came to Europe\nfor that.\"\n\n\"But you can be amused in America, too.\"\n\n\"I couldn't; I was always at work. But after all, that was my\namusement.\"\n\nAt this moment Madame de Bellegarde came back for another cup of tea,\naccompanied by the Count Valentin. Madame de Cintre, when she had served\nher, began to talk again with Newman, and recalling what he had last\nsaid, \"In your own country you were very much occupied?\" she asked.\n\n\"I was in business. I have been in business since I was fifteen years\nold.\"\n\n\"And what was your business?\" asked Madame de Bellegarde, who was\ndecidedly not so pretty as Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"I have been in everything,\" said Newman. \"At one time I sold leather;\nat one time I manufactured wash-tubs.\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde made a little grimace. \"Leather? I don't like that.\nWash-tubs are better. I prefer the smell of soap. I hope at least they\nmade your fortune.\" She rattled this off with the air of a woman who had\nthe reputation of saying everything that came into her head, and with a\nstrong French accent.\n\nNewman had spoken with cheerful seriousness, but Madame de Bellegarde's\ntone made him go on, after a meditative pause, with a certain light\ngrimness of jocularity. \"No, I lost money on wash-tubs, but I came out\npretty square on leather.\"\n\n\"I have made up my mind, after all,\" said Madame de Bellegarde, \"that\nthe great point is--how do you call it?--to come out square. I am on my\nknees to money; I don't deny it. If you have it, I ask no questions. For\nthat I am a real democrat--like you, monsieur. Madame de Cintre is very\nproud; but I find that one gets much more pleasure in this sad life if\none doesn't look too close.\"\n\n\"Just Heaven, dear madam, how you go at it,\" said the Count Valentin,\nlowering his voice.\n\n\"He's a man one can speak to, I suppose, since my sister receives him,\"\nthe lady answered. \"Besides, it's very true; those are my ideas.\"\n\n\"Ah, you call them ideas,\" murmured the young man.\n\n\"But Mrs. Tristram told me you had been in the army--in your war,\" said\nMadame de Cintre.\n\n\"Yes, but that is not business!\" said Newman.\n\n\"Very true!\" said M. de Bellegarde. \"Otherwise perhaps I should not be\npenniless.\"\n\n\"Is it true,\" asked Newman in a moment, \"that you are so proud? I had\nalready heard it.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre smiled. \"Do you find me so?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Newman, \"I am no judge. If you are proud with me, you will\nhave to tell me. Otherwise I shall not know it.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre began to laugh. \"That would be pride in a sad\nposition!\" she said.\n\n\"It would be partly,\" Newman went on, \"because I shouldn't want to know\nit. I want you to treat me well.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre, whose laugh had ceased, looked at him with her head\nhalf averted, as if she feared what he was going to say.\n\n\"Mrs. Tristram told you the literal truth,\" he went on; \"I want very\nmuch to know you. I didn't come here simply to call to-day; I came in\nthe hope that you might ask me to come again.\"\n\n\"Oh, pray come often,\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"But will you be at home?\" Newman insisted. Even to himself he seemed a\ntrifle \"pushing,\" but he was, in truth, a trifle excited.\n\n\"I hope so!\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\nNewman got up. \"Well, we shall see,\" he said smoothing his hat with his\ncoat-cuff.\n\n\"Brother,\" said Madame de Cintre, \"invite Mr. Newman to come again.\"\n\nThe Count Valentin looked at our hero from head to foot with his\npeculiar smile, in which impudence and urbanity seemed perplexingly\ncommingled. \"Are you a brave man?\" he asked, eying him askance.\n\n\"Well, I hope so,\" said Newman.\n\n\"I rather suspect so. In that case, come again.\"\n\n\"Ah, what an invitation!\" murmured Madame de Cintre, with something\npainful in her smile.\n\n\"Oh, I want Mr. Newman to come--particularly,\" said the young man. \"It\nwill give me great pleasure. I shall be desolate if I miss one of his\nvisits. But I maintain he must be brave. A stout heart, sir!\" And he\noffered Newman his hand.\n\n\"I shall not come to see you; I shall come to see Madame de Cintre,\"\nsaid Newman.\n\n\"You will need all the more courage.\"\n\n\"Ah, Valentin!\" said Madame de Cintre, appealingly.\n\n\"Decidedly,\" cried Madame de Bellegarde, \"I am the only person here\ncapable of saying something polite! Come to see me; you will need no\ncourage,\" she said.\n\nNewman gave a laugh which was not altogether an assent, and took his\nleave. Madame de Cintre did not take up her sister's challenge to be\ngracious, but she looked with a certain troubled air at the retreating\nguest.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nOne evening very late, about a week after his visit to Madame de\nCintre, Newman's servant brought him a card. It was that of young M. de\nBellegarde. When, a few moments later, he went to receive his visitor,\nhe found him standing in the middle of his great gilded parlor and eying\nit from cornice to carpet. M. de Bellegarde's face, it seemed to\nNewman, expressed a sense of lively entertainment. \"What the devil is\nhe laughing at now?\" our hero asked himself. But he put the question\nwithout acrimony, for he felt that Madame de Cintre's brother was a good\nfellow, and he had a presentiment that on this basis of good fellowship\nthey were destined to understand each other. Only, if there was anything\nto laugh at, he wished to have a glimpse of it too.\n\n\"To begin with,\" said the young man, as he extended his hand, \"have I\ncome too late?\"\n\n\"Too late for what?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"To smoke a cigar with you.\"\n\n\"You would have to come early to do that,\" said Newman. \"I don't smoke.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are a strong man!\"\n\n\"But I keep cigars,\" Newman added. \"Sit down.\"\n\n\"Surely, I may not smoke here,\" said M. de Bellegarde.\n\n\"What is the matter? Is the room too small?\"\n\n\"It is too large. It is like smoking in a ball-room, or a church.\"\n\n\"That is what you were laughing at just now?\" Newman asked; \"the size of\nmy room?\"\n\n\"It is not size only,\" replied M. de Bellegarde, \"but splendor, and\nharmony, and beauty of detail. It was the smile of admiration.\"\n\nNewman looked at him a moment, and then, \"So it IS very ugly?\" he\ninquired.\n\n\"Ugly, my dear sir? It is magnificent.\"\n\n\"That is the same thing, I suppose,\" said Newman. \"Make yourself\ncomfortable. Your coming to see me, I take it, is an act of friendship.\nYou were not obliged to. Therefore, if anything around here amuses you,\nit will be all in a pleasant way. Laugh as loud as you please; I like\nto see my visitors cheerful. Only, I must make this request: that you\nexplain the joke to me as soon as you can speak. I don't want to lose\nanything, myself.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde stared, with a look of unresentful perplexity. He laid\nhis hand on Newman's sleeve and seemed on the point of saying something,\nbut he suddenly checked himself, leaned back in his chair, and puffed\nat his cigar. At last, however, breaking silence,--\"Certainly,\" he said,\n\"my coming to see you is an act of friendship. Nevertheless I was in a\nmeasure obliged to do so. My sister asked me to come, and a request from\nmy sister is, for me, a law. I was near you, and I observed lights\nin what I supposed were your rooms. It was not a ceremonious hour for\nmaking a call, but I was not sorry to do something that would show I was\nnot performing a mere ceremony.\"\n\n\"Well, here I am as large as life,\" said Newman, extending his legs.\n\n\"I don't know what you mean,\" the young man went on \"by giving me\nunlimited leave to laugh. Certainly I am a great laugher, and it is\nbetter to laugh too much than too little. But it is not in order that we\nmay laugh together--or separately--that I have, I may say, sought your\nacquaintance. To speak with almost impudent frankness, you interest me!\"\nAll this was uttered by M. de Bellegarde with the modulated smoothness\nof the man of the world, and in spite of his excellent English, of\nthe Frenchman; but Newman, at the same time that he sat noting its\nharmonious flow, perceived that it was not mere mechanical urbanity.\nDecidedly, there was something in his visitor that he liked. M. de\nBellegarde was a foreigner to his finger-tips, and if Newman had met him\non a Western prairie he would have felt it proper to address him with a\n\"How-d'ye-do, Mosseer?\" But there was something in his physiognomy which\nseemed to cast a sort of aerial bridge over the impassable gulf produced\nby difference of race. He was below the middle height, and robust and\nagile in figure. Valentin de Bellegarde, Newman afterwards learned, had\na mortal dread of the robustness overtaking the agility; he was afraid\nof growing stout; he was too short, as he said, to afford a belly. He\nrode and fenced and practiced gymnastics with unremitting zeal, and if\nyou greeted him with a \"How well you are looking\" he started and turned\npale. In your WELL he read a grosser monosyllable. He had a round head,\nhigh above the ears, a crop of hair at once dense and silky, a broad,\nlow forehead, a short nose, of the ironical and inquiring rather than of\nthe dogmatic or sensitive cast, and a mustache as delicate as that of\na page in a romance. He resembled his sister not in feature, but in the\nexpression of his clear, bright eye, completely void of introspection,\nand in the way he smiled. The great point in his face was that it was\nintensely alive--frankly, ardently, gallantly alive. The look of it\nwas like a bell, of which the handle might have been in the young man's\nsoul: at a touch of the handle it rang with a loud, silver sound. There\nwas something in his quick, light brown eye which assured you that he\nwas not economizing his consciousness. He was not living in a corner of\nit to spare the furniture of the rest. He was squarely encamped in the\ncentre and he was keeping open house. When he smiled, it was like the\nmovement of a person who in emptying a cup turns it upside down: he gave\nyou the last drop of his jollity. He inspired Newman with something of\nthe same kindness that our hero used to feel in his earlier years\nfor those of his companions who could perform strange and clever\ntricks--make their joints crack in queer places or whistle at the back\nof their mouths.\n\n\"My sister told me,\" M. de Bellegarde continued, \"that I ought to come\nand remove the impression that I had taken such great pains to produce\nupon you; the impression that I am a lunatic. Did it strike you that I\nbehaved very oddly the other day?\"\n\n\"Rather so,\" said Newman.\n\n\"So my sister tells me.\" And M. de Bellegarde watched his host for a\nmoment through his smoke-wreaths. \"If that is the case, I think we had\nbetter let it stand. I didn't try to make you think I was a lunatic, at\nall; on the contrary, I wanted to produce a favorable impression.\nBut if, after all, I made a fool of myself, it was the intention of\nProvidence. I should injure myself by protesting too much, for I\nshould seem to set up a claim for wisdom which, in the sequel of our\nacquaintance, I could by no means justify. Set me down as a lunatic with\nintervals of sanity.\"\n\n\"Oh, I guess you know what you are about,\" said Newman.\n\n\"When I am sane, I am very sane; that I admit,\" M. de Bellegarde\nanswered. \"But I didn't come here to talk about myself. I should like to\nask you a few questions. You allow me?\"\n\n\"Give me a specimen,\" said Newman.\n\n\"You live here all alone?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. With whom should I live?\"\n\n\"For the moment,\" said M. de Bellegarde with a smile \"I am asking\nquestions, not answering them. You have come to Paris for your\npleasure?\"\n\nNewman was silent a while. Then, at last, \"Every one asks me that!\" he\nsaid with his mild slowness. \"It sounds so awfully foolish.\"\n\n\"But at any rate you had a reason.\"\n\n\"Oh, I came for my pleasure!\" said Newman. \"Though it is foolish, it is\ntrue.\"\n\n\"And you are enjoying it?\"\n\nLike any other good American, Newman thought it as well not to truckle\nto the foreigner. \"Oh, so-so,\" he answered.\n\nM. de Bellegarde puffed his cigar again in silence. \"For myself,\" he\nsaid at last, \"I am entirely at your service. Anything I can do for you\nI shall be very happy to do. Call upon me at your convenience. Is there\nany one you desire to know--anything you wish to see? It is a pity you\nshould not enjoy Paris.\"\n\n\"Oh, I do enjoy it!\" said Newman, good-naturedly. \"I'm much obligated to\nyou.\"\n\n\"Honestly speaking,\" M. de Bellegarde went on, \"there is something\nabsurd to me in hearing myself make you these offers. They represent\na great deal of goodwill, but they represent little else. You are a\nsuccessful man and I am a failure, and it's a turning of the tables to\ntalk as if I could lend you a hand.\"\n\n\"In what way are you a failure?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"Oh, I'm not a tragical failure!\" cried the young man with a laugh.\n\"I have fallen from a height, and my fiasco has made no noise. You,\nevidently, are a success. You have made a fortune, you have built up an\nedifice, you are a financial, commercial power, you can travel about\nthe world until you have found a soft spot, and lie down in it with\nthe consciousness of having earned your rest. Is not that true? Well,\nimagine the exact reverse of all that, and you have me. I have done\nnothing--I can do nothing!\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"It's a long story. Some day I will tell you. Meanwhile, I'm right, eh?\nYou are a success? You have made a fortune? It's none of my business,\nbut, in short, you are rich?\"\n\n\"That's another thing that it sounds foolish to say,\" said Newman. \"Hang\nit, no man is rich!\"\n\n\"I have heard philosophers affirm,\" laughed M. de Bellegarde, \"that\nno man was poor; but your formula strikes me as an improvement. As a\ngeneral thing, I confess, I don't like successful people, and I find\nclever men who have made great fortunes very offensive. They tread on\nmy toes; they make me uncomfortable. But as soon as I saw you, I said\nto myself. 'Ah, there is a man with whom I shall get on. He has\nthe good-nature of success and none of the morgue; he has not our\nconfoundedly irritable French vanity.' In short, I took a fancy to you.\nWe are very different, I'm sure; I don't believe there is a subject on\nwhich we think or feel alike. But I rather think we shall get on, for\nthere is such a thing, you know, as being too different to quarrel.\"\n\n\"Oh, I never quarrel,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Never! Sometimes it's a duty--or at least it's a pleasure. Oh, I have\nhad two or three delicious quarrels in my day!\" and M. de Bellegarde's\nhandsome smile assumed, at the memory of these incidents, an almost\nvoluptuous intensity.\n\nWith the preamble embodied in his share of the foregoing fragment of\ndialogue, he paid our hero a long visit; as the two men sat with their\nheels on Newman's glowing hearth, they heard the small hours of the\nmorning striking larger from a far-off belfry. Valentin de Bellegarde\nwas, by his own confession, at all times a great chatterer, and on this\noccasion he was evidently in a particularly loquacious mood. It was a\ntradition of his race that people of its blood always conferred a favor\nby their smiles, and as his enthusiasms were as rare as his civility was\nconstant, he had a double reason for not suspecting that his friendship\ncould ever be importunate. Moreover, the flower of an ancient stem as\nhe was, tradition (since I have used the word) had in his temperament\nnothing of disagreeable rigidity. It was muffled in sociability and\nurbanity, as an old dowager in her laces and strings of pearls. Valentin\nwas what is called in France a gentilhomme, of the purest source, and\nhis rule of life, so far as it was definite, was to play the part of a\ngentilhomme. This, it seemed to him, was enough to occupy comfortably a\nyoung man of ordinary good parts. But all that he was he was by instinct\nand not by theory, and the amiability of his character was so great that\ncertain of the aristocratic virtues, which in some aspects seem rather\nbrittle and trenchant, acquired in his application of them an extreme\ngeniality. In his younger years he had been suspected of low tastes,\nand his mother had greatly feared he would make a slip in the mud of the\nhighway and bespatter the family shield. He had been treated, therefore,\nto more than his share of schooling and drilling, but his instructors\nhad not succeeded in mounting him upon stilts. They could not spoil his\nsafe spontaneity, and he remained the least cautious and the most lucky\nof young nobles. He had been tied with so short a rope in his youth that\nhe had now a mortal grudge against family discipline. He had been known\nto say, within the limits of the family, that, light-headed as he was,\nthe honor of the name was safer in his hands than in those of some of\nit's other members, and that if a day ever came to try it, they should\nsee. His talk was an odd mixture of almost boyish garrulity and of the\nreserve and discretion of the man of the world, and he seemed to Newman,\nas afterwards young members of the Latin races often seemed to him,\nnow amusingly juvenile and now appallingly mature. In America, Newman\nreflected, lads of twenty-five and thirty have old heads and young\nhearts, or at least young morals; here they have young heads and very\naged hearts, morals the most grizzled and wrinkled.\n\n\"What I envy you is your liberty,\" observed M. de Bellegarde, \"your wide\nrange, your freedom to come and go, your not having a lot of people, who\ntake themselves awfully seriously, expecting something of you. I live,\"\nhe added with a sigh, \"beneath the eyes of my admirable mother.\"\n\n\"It is your own fault; what is to hinder your ranging?\" said Newman.\n\n\"There is a delightful simplicity in that remark! Everything is to\nhinder me. To begin with, I have not a penny.\"\n\n\"I had not a penny when I began to range.\"\n\n\"Ah, but your poverty was your capital. Being an American, it was\nimpossible you should remain what you were born, and being born poor--do\nI understand it?--it was therefore inevitable that you should become\nrich. You were in a position that makes one's mouth water; you looked\nround you and saw a world full of things you had only to step up to and\ntake hold of. When I was twenty, I looked around me and saw a world with\neverything ticketed 'Hands off!' and the deuce of it was that the ticket\nseemed meant only for me. I couldn't go into business, I couldn't make\nmoney, because I was a Bellegarde. I couldn't go into politics, because\nI was a Bellegarde--the Bellegardes don't recognize the Bonapartes. I\ncouldn't go into literature, because I was a dunce. I couldn't marry a\nrich girl, because no Bellegarde had ever married a roturiere, and it\nwas not proper that I should begin. We shall have to come to it, yet.\nMarriageable heiresses, de notre bord, are not to be had for nothing; it\nmust be name for name, and fortune for fortune. The only thing I could\ndo was to go and fight for the Pope. That I did, punctiliously, and\nreceived an apostolic flesh-wound at Castlefidardo. It did neither the\nHoly Father nor me any good, that I could see. Rome was doubtless a\nvery amusing place in the days of Caligula, but it has sadly fallen off\nsince. I passed three years in the Castle of St. Angelo, and then came\nback to secular life.\"\n\n\"So you have no profession--you do nothing,\" said Newman.\n\n\"I do nothing! I am supposed to amuse myself, and, to tell the truth, I\nhave amused myself. One can, if one knows how. But you can't keep it up\nforever. I am good for another five years, perhaps, but I foresee that\nafter that I shall lose my appetite. Then what shall I do? I think I\nshall turn monk. Seriously, I think I shall tie a rope round my waist\nand go into a monastery. It was an old custom, and the old customs were\nvery good. People understood life quite as well as we do. They kept\nthe pot boiling till it cracked, and then they put it on the shelf\naltogether.\"\n\n\"Are you very religious?\" asked Newman, in a tone which gave the inquiry\na grotesque effect.\n\nM. de Bellegarde evidently appreciated the comical element in the\nquestion, but he looked at Newman a moment with extreme soberness. \"I am\na very good Catholic. I respect the Church. I adore the blessed Virgin.\nI fear the Devil.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Newman, \"you are very well fixed. You have got\npleasure in the present and religion in the future; what do you complain\nof?\"\n\n\"It's a part of one's pleasure to complain. There is something in your\nown circumstances that irritates me. You are the first man I have ever\nenvied. It's singular, but so it is. I have known many men who, besides\nany factitious advantages that I may possess, had money and brains into\nthe bargain; but somehow they have never disturbed my good-humor. But\nyou have got something that I should have liked to have. It is not\nmoney, it is not even brains--though no doubt yours are excellent. It is\nnot your six feet of height, though I should have rather liked to be a\ncouple of inches taller. It's a sort of air you have of being thoroughly\nat home in the world. When I was a boy, my father told me that it was\nby such an air as that that people recognized a Bellegarde. He called my\nattention to it. He didn't advise me to cultivate it; he said that as we\ngrew up it always came of itself. I supposed it had come to me, because\nI think I have always had the feeling. My place in life was made for me,\nand it seemed easy to occupy it. But you who, as I understand it,\nhave made your own place, you who, as you told us the other day, have\nmanufactured wash-tubs--you strike me, somehow, as a man who stands at\nhis ease, who looks at things from a height. I fancy you going about the\nworld like a man traveling on a railroad in which he owns a large amount\nof stock. You make me feel as if I had missed something. What is it?\"\n\n\"It is the proud consciousness of honest toil--of having manufactured a\nfew wash-tubs,\" said Newman, at once jocose and serious.\n\n\"Oh no; I have seen men who had done even more, men who had made not\nonly wash-tubs, but soap--strong-smelling yellow soap, in great bars;\nand they never made me the least uncomfortable.\"\n\n\"Then it's the privilege of being an American citizen,\" said Newman.\n\"That sets a man up.\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" rejoined M. de Bellegarde. \"But I am forced to say that I\nhave seen a great many American citizens who didn't seem at all set up\nor in the least like large stock-holders. I never envied them. I rather\nthink the thing is an accomplishment of your own.\"\n\n\"Oh, come,\" said Newman, \"you will make me proud!\"\n\n\"No, I shall not. You have nothing to do with pride, or with\nhumility--that is a part of this easy manner of yours. People are\nproud only when they have something to lose, and humble when they have\nsomething to gain.\"\n\n\"I don't know what I have to lose,\" said Newman, \"but I certainly have\nsomething to gain.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" asked his visitor.\n\nNewman hesitated a while. \"I will tell you when I know you better.\"\n\n\"I hope that will be soon! Then, if I can help you to gain it, I shall\nbe happy.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you may,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Don't forget, then, that I am your servant,\" M. de Bellegarde answered;\nand shortly afterwards he took his departure.\n\nDuring the next three weeks Newman saw Bellegarde several times, and\nwithout formally swearing an eternal friendship the two men established\na sort of comradeship. To Newman, Bellegarde was the ideal Frenchman,\nthe Frenchman of tradition and romance, so far as our hero was concerned\nwith these mystical influences. Gallant, expansive, amusing, more\npleased himself with the effect he produced than those (even when\nthey were well pleased) for whom he produced it; a master of all the\ndistinctively social virtues and a votary of all agreeable sensations;\na devotee of something mysterious and sacred to which he occasionally\nalluded in terms more ecstatic even than those in which he spoke of the\nlast pretty woman, and which was simply the beautiful though somewhat\nsuperannuated image of HONOR; he was irresistibly entertaining and\nenlivening, and he formed a character to which Newman was as capable of\ndoing justice when he had once been placed in contact with it, as he was\nunlikely, in musing upon the possible mixtures of our human ingredients,\nmentally to have foreshadowed it. Bellegarde did not in the least cause\nhim to modify his needful premise that all Frenchmen are of a frothy and\nimponderable substance; he simply reminded him that light materials may\nbe beaten up into a most agreeable compound. No two companions could\nbe more different, but their differences made a capital basis for a\nfriendship of which the distinctive characteristic was that it was\nextremely amusing to each.\n\nValentin de Bellegarde lived in the basement of an old house in the Rue\nd'Anjou St. Honore, and his small apartments lay between the court of\nthe house and an old garden which spread itself behind it--one of those\nlarge, sunless humid gardens into which you look unexpectingly in Paris\nfrom back windows, wondering how among the grudging habitations they\nfind their space. When Newman returned Bellegarde's visit, he hinted\nthat HIS lodging was at least as much a laughing matter as his own. But\nits oddities were of a different cast from those of our hero's\ngilded saloons on the Boulevard Haussmann: the place was low, dusky,\ncontracted, and crowded with curious bric-a-brac. Bellegarde, penniless\npatrician as he was, was an insatiable collector, and his walls were\ncovered with rusty arms and ancient panels and platters, his doorways\ndraped in faded tapestries, his floors muffled in the skins of beasts.\nHere and there was one of those uncomfortable tributes to elegance in\nwhich the upholsterer's art, in France, is so prolific; a curtain recess\nwith a sheet of looking-glass in which, among the shadows, you could see\nnothing; a divan on which, for its festoons and furbelows, you could not\nsit; a fireplace draped, flounced, and frilled to the complete exclusion\nof fire. The young man's possessions were in picturesque disorder, and\nhis apartment was pervaded by the odor of cigars, mingled with perfumes\nmore inscrutable. Newman thought it a damp, gloomy place to live in,\nand was puzzled by the obstructive and fragmentary character of the\nfurniture.\n\nBellegarde, according to the custom of his country talked very\ngenerously about himself, and unveiled the mysteries of his private\nhistory with an unsparing hand. Inevitably, he had a vast deal to\nsay about women, and he used frequently to indulge in sentimental and\nironical apostrophes to these authors of his joys and woes. \"Oh, the\nwomen, the women, and the things they have made me do!\" he would exclaim\nwith a lustrous eye. \"C'est egal, of all the follies and stupidities I\nhave committed for them I would not have missed one!\" On this subject\nNewman maintained an habitual reserve; to expatiate largely upon it had\nalways seemed to him a proceeding vaguely analogous to the cooing of\npigeons and the chattering of monkeys, and even inconsistent with a\nfully developed human character. But Bellegarde's confidences greatly\namused him, and rarely displeased him, for the generous young Frenchman\nwas not a cynic. \"I really think,\" he had once said, \"that I am not more\ndepraved than most of my contemporaries. They are tolerably depraved,\nmy contemporaries!\" He said wonderfully pretty things about his female\nfriends, and, numerous and various as they had been, declared that on\nthe whole there was more good in them than harm. \"But you are not\nto take that as advice,\" he added. \"As an authority I am very\nuntrustworthy. I'm prejudiced in their favor; I'm an IDEALIST!\" Newman\nlistened to him with his impartial smile, and was glad, for his own\nsake, that he had fine feelings; but he mentally repudiated the idea\nof a Frenchman having discovered any merit in the amiable sex which he\nhimself did not suspect. M. de Bellegarde, however, did not confine his\nconversation to the autobiographical channel; he questioned our hero\nlargely as to the events of his own life, and Newman told him some\nbetter stories than any that Bellegarde carried in his budget. He\nnarrated his career, in fact, from the beginning, through all its\nvariations, and whenever his companion's credulity, or his habits of\ngentility, appeared to protest, it amused him to heighten the color\nof the episode. Newman had sat with Western humorists in knots, round\ncast-iron stoves, and seen \"tall\" stories grow taller without toppling\nover, and his own imagination had learned the trick of piling up\nconsistent wonders. Bellegarde's regular attitude at last became that\nof laughing self-defense; to maintain his reputation as an all-knowing\nFrenchman, he doubted of everything, wholesale. The result of this was\nthat Newman found it impossible to convince him of certain time-honored\nverities.\n\n\"But the details don't matter,\" said M. de Bellegarde. \"You have\nevidently had some surprising adventures; you have seen some strange\nsides of life, you have revolved to and fro over a whole continent as\nI walked up and down the Boulevard. You are a man of the world with a\nvengeance! You have spent some deadly dull hours, and you have done some\nextremely disagreeable things: you have shoveled sand, as a boy, for\nsupper, and you have eaten roast dog in a gold-diggers' camp. You have\nstood casting up figures for ten hours at a time, and you have sat\nthrough Methodist sermons for the sake of looking at a pretty girl in\nanother pew. All that is rather stiff, as we say. But at any rate you\nhave done something and you are something; you have used your will\nand you have made your fortune. You have not stupified yourself\nwith debauchery and you have not mortgaged your fortune to social\nconveniences. You take things easily, and you have fewer prejudices even\nthan I, who pretend to have none, but who in reality have three or\nfour. Happy man, you are strong and you are free. But what the deuce,\"\ndemanded the young man in conclusion, \"do you propose to do with such\nadvantages? Really to use them you need a better world than this. There\nis nothing worth your while here.\"\n\n\"Oh, I think there is something,\" said Newman.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Well,\" murmured Newman, \"I will tell you some other time!\"\n\nIn this way our hero delayed from day to day broaching a subject\nwhich he had very much at heart. Meanwhile, however, he was growing\npractically familiar with it; in other words, he had called again, three\ntimes, on Madame de Cintre. On only two of these occasions had he found\nher at home, and on each of them she had other visitors. Her visitors\nwere numerous and extremely loquacious, and they exacted much of their\nhostess's attention. She found time, however, to bestow a little of it\non Newman, in an occasional vague smile, the very vagueness of which\npleased him, allowing him as it did to fill it out mentally, both at the\ntime and afterwards, with such meanings as most pleased him. He sat by\nwithout speaking, looking at the entrances and exits, the greetings and\nchatterings, of Madame de Cintre's visitors. He felt as if he were at\nthe play, and as if his own speaking would be an interruption; sometimes\nhe wished he had a book, to follow the dialogue; he half expected to see\na woman in a white cap and pink ribbons come and offer him one for two\nfrancs. Some of the ladies looked at him very hard--or very soft, as you\nplease; others seemed profoundly unconscious of his presence. The men\nlooked only at Madame de Cintre. This was inevitable; for whether one\ncalled her beautiful or not she entirely occupied and filled one's\nvision, just as an agreeable sound fills one's ear. Newman had but\ntwenty distinct words with her, but he carried away an impression to\nwhich solemn promises could not have given a higher value. She was part\nof the play that he was seeing acted, quite as much as her companions;\nbut how she filled the stage and how much better she did it! Whether she\nrose or seated herself; whether she went with her departing friends to\nthe door and lifted up the heavy curtain as they passed out, and stood\nan instant looking after them and giving them the last nod; or whether\nshe leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed and her eyes resting,\nlistening and smiling; she gave Newman the feeling that he should like\nto have her always before him, moving slowly to and fro along the whole\nscale of expressive hospitality. If it might be TO him, it would be\nwell; if it might be FOR him, it would be still better! She was so tall\nand yet so light, so active and yet so still, so elegant and yet so\nsimple, so frank and yet so mysterious! It was the mystery--it was what\nshe was off the stage, as it were--that interested Newman most of\nall. He could not have told you what warrant he had for talking about\nmysteries; if it had been his habit to express himself in poetic figures\nhe might have said that in observing Madame de Cintre he seemed to see\nthe vague circle which sometimes accompanies the partly-filled disk of\nthe moon. It was not that she was reserved; on the contrary, she was\nas frank as flowing water. But he was sure she had qualities which she\nherself did not suspect.\n\nHe had abstained for several reasons from saying some of these things\nto Bellegarde. One reason was that before proceeding to any act he was\nalways circumspect, conjectural, contemplative; he had little eagerness,\nas became a man who felt that whenever he really began to move he\nwalked with long steps. And then, it simply pleased him not to speak--it\noccupied him, it excited him. But one day Bellegarde had been dining\nwith him, at a restaurant, and they had sat long over their dinner. On\nrising from it, Bellegarde proposed that, to help them through the\nrest of the evening, they should go and see Madame Dandelard. Madame\nDandelard was a little Italian lady who had married a Frenchman who\nproved to be a rake and a brute and the torment of her life. Her husband\nhad spent all her money, and then, lacking the means of obtaining more\nexpensive pleasures, had taken, in his duller hours, to beating her.\nShe had a blue spot somewhere, which she showed to several persons,\nincluding Bellegarde. She had obtained a separation from her husband,\ncollected the scraps of her fortune (they were very meagre) and come to\nlive in Paris, where she was staying at a hotel garni. She was always\nlooking for an apartment, and visiting, inquiringly, those of other\npeople. She was very pretty, very childlike, and she made very\nextraordinary remarks. Bellegarde had made her acquaintance, and the\nsource of his interest in her was, according to his own declaration, a\ncuriosity as to what would become of her. \"She is poor, she is pretty,\nand she is silly,\" he said, \"it seems to me she can go only one way.\nIt's a pity, but it can't be helped. I will give her six months. She has\nnothing to fear from me, but I am watching the process. I am curious to\nsee just how things will go. Yes, I know what you are going to say: this\nhorrible Paris hardens one's heart. But it quickens one's wits, and it\nends by teaching one a refinement of observation! To see this little\nwoman's little drama play itself out, now, is, for me, an intellectual\npleasure.\"\n\n\"If she is going to throw herself away,\" Newman had said, \"you ought to\nstop her.\"\n\n\"Stop her? How stop her?\"\n\n\"Talk to her; give her some good advice.\"\n\nBellegarde laughed. \"Heaven deliver us both! Imagine the situation! Go\nand advise her yourself.\"\n\nIt was after this that Newman had gone with Bellegarde to see Madame\nDandelard. When they came away, Bellegarde reproached his companion.\n\"Where was your famous advice?\" he asked. \"I didn't hear a word of it.\"\n\n\"Oh, I give it up,\" said Newman, simply.\n\n\"Then you are as bad as I!\" said Bellegarde.\n\n\"No, because I don't take an 'intellectual pleasure' in her prospective\nadventures. I don't in the least want to see her going down hill. I had\nrather look the other way. But why,\" he asked, in a moment, \"don't you\nget your sister to go and see her?\"\n\nBellegarde stared. \"Go and see Madame Dandelard--my sister?\"\n\n\"She might talk to her to very good purpose.\"\n\nBellegarde shook his head with sudden gravity. \"My sister can't see that\nsort of person. Madame Dandelard is nothing at all; they would never\nmeet.\"\n\n\"I should think,\" said Newman, \"that your sister might see whom she\npleased.\" And he privately resolved that after he knew her a little\nbetter he would ask Madame de Cintre to go and talk to the foolish\nlittle Italian lady.\n\nAfter his dinner with Bellegarde, on the occasion I have mentioned,\nhe demurred to his companion's proposal that they should go again and\nlisten to Madame Dandelard describe her sorrows and her bruises.\n\n\"I have something better in mind,\" he said; \"come home with me and\nfinish the evening before my fire.\"\n\nBellegarde always welcomed the prospect of a long stretch of\nconversation, and before long the two men sat watching the great blaze\nwhich scattered its scintillations over the high adornments of Newman's\nball-room.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\n\"Tell me something about your sister,\" Newman began abruptly.\n\nBellegarde turned and gave him a quick look. \"Now that I think of it,\nyou have never yet asked me a question about her.\"\n\n\"I know that very well.\"\n\n\"If it is because you don't trust me, you are very right,\" said\nBellegarde. \"I can't talk of her rationally. I admire her too much.\"\n\n\"Talk of her as you can,\" rejoined Newman. \"Let yourself go.\"\n\n\"Well, we are very good friends; we are such a brother and sister as\nhave not been seen since Orestes and Electra. You have seen her; you\nknow what she is: tall, thin, light, imposing, and gentle, half a grande\ndame and half an angel; a mixture of pride and humility, of the eagle\nand the dove. She looks like a statue which had failed as stone,\nresigned itself to its grave defects, and come to life as flesh and\nblood, to wear white capes and long trains. All I can say is that she\nreally possesses every merit that her face, her glance, her smile, the\ntone of her voice, lead you to expect; it is saying a great deal. As a\ngeneral thing, when a woman seems very charming, I should say 'Beware!'\nBut in proportion as Claire seems charming you may fold your arms and\nlet yourself float with the current; you are safe. She is so good!\nI have never seen a woman half so perfect or so complete. She has\neverything; that is all I can say about her. There!\" Bellegarde\nconcluded; \"I told you I should rhapsodize.\"\n\nNewman was silent a while, as if he were turning over his companion's\nwords. \"She is very good, eh?\" he repeated at last.\n\n\"Divinely good!\"\n\n\"Kind, charitable, gentle, generous?\"\n\n\"Generosity itself; kindness double-distilled!\"\n\n\"Is she clever?\"\n\n\"She is the most intelligent woman I know. Try her, some day, with\nsomething difficult, and you will see.\"\n\n\"Is she fond of admiration?\"\n\n\"Parbleu!\" cried Bellegarde; \"what woman is not?\"\n\n\"Ah, when they are too fond of admiration they commit all kinds of\nfollies to get it.\"\n\n\"I did not say she was too fond!\" Bellegarde exclaimed. \"Heaven forbid\nI should say anything so idiotic. She is not too anything! If I were\nto say she was ugly, I should not mean she was too ugly. She is fond\nof pleasing, and if you are pleased she is grateful. If you are not\npleased, she lets it pass and thinks the worst neither of you nor of\nherself. I imagine, though, she hopes the saints in heaven are, for I\nam sure she is incapable of trying to please by any means of which they\nwould disapprove.\"\n\n\"Is she grave or gay?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"She is both; not alternately, for she is always the same. There is\ngravity in her gayety, and gayety in her gravity. But there is no reason\nwhy she should be particularly gay.\"\n\n\"Is she unhappy?\"\n\n\"I won't say that, for unhappiness is according as one takes things, and\nClaire takes them according to some receipt communicated to her by the\nBlessed Virgin in a vision. To be unhappy is to be disagreeable, which,\nfor her, is out of the question. So she has arranged her circumstances\nso as to be happy in them.\"\n\n\"She is a philosopher,\" said Newman.\n\n\"No, she is simply a very nice woman.\"\n\n\"Her circumstances, at any rate, have been disagreeable?\"\n\nBellegarde hesitated a moment--a thing he very rarely did. \"Oh, my dear\nfellow, if I go into the history of my family I shall give you more than\nyou bargain for.\"\n\n\"No, on the contrary, I bargain for that,\" said Newman.\n\n\"We shall have to appoint a special seance, then, beginning early.\nSuffice it for the present that Claire has not slept on roses. She\nmade at eighteen a marriage that was expected to be brilliant, but that\nturned out like a lamp that goes out; all smoke and bad smell. M. de\nCintre was sixty years old, and an odious old gentleman. He lived,\nhowever, but a short time, and after his death his family pounced upon\nhis money, brought a lawsuit against his widow, and pushed things very\nhard. Their case was a good one, for M. de Cintre, who had been trustee\nfor some of his relatives, appeared to have been guilty of some very\nirregular practices. In the course of the suit some revelations were\nmade as to his private history which my sister found so displeasing that\nshe ceased to defend herself and washed her hands of the property. This\nrequired some pluck, for she was between two fires, her husband's family\nopposing her and her own family forcing her. My mother and my brother\nwished her to cleave to what they regarded as her rights. But she\nresisted firmly, and at last bought her freedom--obtained my mother's\nassent to dropping the suit at the price of a promise.\"\n\n\"What was the promise?\"\n\n\"To do anything else, for the next ten years, that was asked of\nher--anything, that is, but marry.\"\n\n\"She had disliked her husband very much?\"\n\n\"No one knows how much!\"\n\n\"The marriage had been made in your horrible French way,\" Newman\ncontinued, \"made by the two families, without her having any voice?\"\n\n\"It was a chapter for a novel. She saw M. de Cintre for the first time a\nmonth before the wedding, after everything, to the minutest detail,\nhad been arranged. She turned white when she looked at him, and white\nremained till her wedding-day. The evening before the ceremony she\nswooned away, and she spent the whole night in sobs. My mother sat\nholding her two hands, and my brother walked up and down the room. I\ndeclared it was revolting and told my sister publicly that if she would\nrefuse, downright, I would stand by her. I was told to go about my\nbusiness, and she became Comtesse de Cintre.\"\n\n\"Your brother,\" said Newman, reflectively, \"must be a very nice young\nman.\"\n\n\"He is very nice, though he is not young. He is upward of fifty, fifteen\nyears my senior. He has been a father to my sister and me. He is a\nvery remarkable man; he has the best manners in France. He is extremely\nclever; indeed he is very learned. He is writing a history of The\nPrincesses of France Who Never Married.\" This was said by Bellegarde\nwith extreme gravity, looking straight at Newman, and with an eye that\nbetokened no mental reservation; or that, at least, almost betokened\nnone.\n\nNewman perhaps discovered there what little there was, for he presently\nsaid, \"You don't love your brother.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said Bellegarde, ceremoniously; \"well-bred people\nalways love their brothers.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't love him, then!\" Newman answered.\n\n\"Wait till you know him!\" rejoined Bellegarde, and this time he smiled.\n\n\"Is your mother also very remarkable?\" Newman asked, after a pause.\n\n\"For my mother,\" said Bellegarde, now with intense gravity, \"I have\nthe highest admiration. She is a very extraordinary woman. You cannot\napproach her without perceiving it.\"\n\n\"She is the daughter, I believe, of an English nobleman.\"\n\n\"Of the Earl of St. Dunstan's.\"\n\n\"Is the Earl of St. Dunstan's a very old family?\"\n\n\"So-so; the sixteenth century. It is on my father's side that we go\nback--back, back, back. The family antiquaries themselves lose breath.\nAt last they stop, panting and fanning themselves, somewhere in the\nninth century, under Charlemagne. That is where we begin.\"\n\n\"There is no mistake about it?\" said Newman.\n\n\"I'm sure I hope not. We have been mistaken at least for several\ncenturies.\"\n\n\"And you have always married into old families?\"\n\n\"As a rule; though in so long a stretch of time there have been some\nexceptions. Three or four Bellegardes, in the seventeenth and\neighteenth centuries, took wives out of the bourgoisie--married lawyers'\ndaughters.\"\n\n\"A lawyer's daughter; that's very bad, is it?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"Horrible! one of us, in the middle ages, did better: he married a\nbeggar-maid, like King Cophetua. That was really better; it was like\nmarrying a bird or a monkey; one didn't have to think about her family\nat all. Our women have always done well; they have never even gone into\nthe petite noblesse. There is, I believe, not a case on record of a\nmisalliance among the women.\"\n\nNewman turned this over for a while, and, then at last he said, \"You\noffered, the first time you came to see me to render me any service you\ncould. I told you that some time I would mention something you might do.\nDo you remember?\"\n\n\"Remember? I have been counting the hours.\"\n\n\"Very well; here's your chance. Do what you can to make your sister\nthink well of me.\"\n\nBellegarde stared, with a smile. \"Why, I'm sure she thinks as well of\nyou as possible, already.\"\n\n\"An opinion founded on seeing me three or four times? That is putting me\noff with very little. I want something more. I have been thinking of it\na good deal, and at last I have decided to tell you. I should like very\nmuch to marry Madame de Cintre.\"\n\nBellegarde had been looking at him with quickened expectancy, and with\nthe smile with which he had greeted Newman's allusion to his promised\nrequest. At this last announcement he continued to gaze; but his\nsmile went through two or three curious phases. It felt, apparently, a\nmomentary impulse to broaden; but this it immediately checked. Then it\nremained for some instants taking counsel with itself, at the end of\nwhich it decreed a retreat. It slowly effaced itself and left a look of\nseriousness modified by the desire not to be rude. Extreme surprise had\ncome into the Count Valentin's face; but he had reflected that it would\nbe uncivil to leave it there. And yet, what the deuce was he to do with\nit? He got up, in his agitation, and stood before the chimney-piece,\nstill looking at Newman. He was a longer time thinking what to say than\none would have expected.\n\n\"If you can't render me the service I ask,\" said Newman, \"say it out!\"\n\n\"Let me hear it again, distinctly,\" said Bellegarde. \"It's very\nimportant, you know. I shall plead your cause with my sister, because\nyou want--you want to marry her? That's it, eh?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't say plead my cause, exactly; I shall try and do that\nmyself. But say a good word for me, now and then--let her know that you\nthink well of me.\"\n\nAt this, Bellegarde gave a little light laugh.\n\n\"What I want chiefly, after all,\" Newman went on, \"is just to let you\nknow what I have in mind. I suppose that is what you expect, isn't it? I\nwant to do what is customary over here. If there is any thing particular\nto be done, let me know and I will do it. I wouldn't for the world\napproach Madame de Cintre without all the proper forms. If I ought to\ngo and tell your mother, why I will go and tell her. I will go and tell\nyour brother, even. I will go and tell any one you please. As I don't\nknow any one else, I begin by telling you. But that, if it is a social\nobligation, is a pleasure as well.\"\n\n\"Yes, I see--I see,\" said Bellegarde, lightly stroking his chin. \"You\nhave a very right feeling about it, but I'm glad you have begun with\nme.\" He paused, hesitated, and then turned away and walked slowly\nthe length of the room. Newman got up and stood leaning against the\nmantel-shelf, with his hands in his pockets, watching Bellegarde's\npromenade. The young Frenchman came back and stopped in front of him.\n\"I give it up,\" he said; \"I will not pretend I am not surprised. I\nam--hugely! Ouf! It's a relief.\"\n\n\"That sort of news is always a surprise,\" said Newman. \"No matter what\nyou have done, people are never prepared. But if you are so surprised, I\nhope at least you are pleased.\"\n\n\"Come!\" said Bellegarde. \"I am going to be tremendously frank. I don't\nknow whether I am pleased or horrified.\"\n\n\"If you are pleased, I shall be glad,\" said Newman, \"and I shall\nbe--encouraged. If you are horrified, I shall be sorry, but I shall not\nbe discouraged. You must make the best of it.\"\n\n\"That is quite right--that is your only possible attitude. You are\nperfectly serious?\"\n\n\"Am I a Frenchman, that I should not be?\" asked Newman. \"But why is it,\nby the bye, that you should be horrified?\"\n\nBellegarde raised his hand to the back of his head and rubbed his hair\nquickly up and down, thrusting out the tip of his tongue as he did so.\n\"Why, you are not noble, for instance,\" he said.\n\n\"The devil I am not!\" exclaimed Newman.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Bellegarde a little more seriously, \"I did not know you had a\ntitle.\"\n\n\"A title? What do you mean by a title?\" asked Newman. \"A count, a duke,\na marquis? I don't know anything about that, I don't know who is and who\nis not. But I say I am noble. I don't exactly know what you mean by it,\nbut it's a fine word and a fine idea; I put in a claim to it.\"\n\n\"But what have you to show, my dear fellow, what proofs?\"\n\n\"Anything you please! But you don't suppose I am going to undertake to\nprove that I am noble. It is for you to prove the contrary.\"\n\n\"That's easily done. You have manufactured wash-tubs.\"\n\nNewman stared a moment. \"Therefore I am not noble? I don't see it. Tell\nme something I have NOT done--something I cannot do.\"\n\n\"You cannot marry a woman like Madame de Cintre for the asking.\"\n\n\"I believe you mean,\" said Newman slowly, \"that I am not good enough.\"\n\n\"Brutally speaking--yes!\"\n\nBellegarde had hesitated a moment, and while he hesitated Newman's\nattentive glance had grown somewhat eager. In answer to these last words\nhe for a moment said nothing. He simply blushed a little. Then he raised\nhis eyes to the ceiling and stood looking at one of the rosy cherubs\nthat was painted upon it. \"Of course I don't expect to marry any\nwoman for the asking,\" he said at last; \"I expect first to make myself\nacceptable to her. She must like me, to begin with. But that I am not\ngood enough to make a trial is rather a surprise.\"\n\nBellegarde wore a look of mingled perplexity, sympathy, and amusement.\n\"You should not hesitate, then, to go up to-morrow and ask a duchess to\nmarry you?\"\n\n\"Not if I thought she would suit me. But I am very fastidious; she might\nnot at all.\"\n\nBellegarde's amusement began to prevail. \"And you should be surprised if\nshe refused you?\"\n\nNewman hesitated a moment. \"It sounds conceited to say yes, but\nnevertheless I think I should. For I should make a very handsome offer.\"\n\n\"What would it be?\"\n\n\"Everything she wishes. If I get hold of a woman that comes up to my\nstandard, I shall think nothing too good for her. I have been a long\ntime looking, and I find such women are rare. To combine the qualities I\nrequire seems to be difficult, but when the difficulty is vanquished\nit deserves a reward. My wife shall have a good position, and I'm not\nafraid to say that I shall be a good husband.\"\n\n\"And these qualities that you require--what are they?\"\n\n\"Goodness, beauty, intelligence, a fine education, personal\nelegance--everything, in a word, that makes a splendid woman.\"\n\n\"And noble birth, evidently,\" said Bellegarde.\n\n\"Oh, throw that in, by all means, if it's there. The more the better!\"\n\n\"And my sister seems to you to have all these things?\"\n\n\"She is exactly what I have been looking for. She is my dream realized.\"\n\n\"And you would make her a very good husband?\"\n\n\"That is what I wanted you to tell her.\"\n\nBellegarde laid his hand on his companion's arm a moment, looked at\nhim with his head on one side, from head to foot, and then, with a loud\nlaugh, and shaking the other hand in the air, turned away. He walked\nagain the length of the room, and again he came back and stationed\nhimself in front of Newman. \"All this is very interesting--it is very\ncurious. In what I said just now I was speaking, not for myself, but\nfor my tradition, my superstitions. For myself, really, your proposal\ntickles me. It startled me at first, but the more I think of it the\nmore I see in it. It's no use attempting to explain anything; you won't\nunderstand me. After all, I don't see why you need; it's no great loss.\"\n\n\"Oh, if there is anything more to explain, try it! I want to proceed\nwith my eyes open. I will do my best to understand.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Bellegarde, \"it's disagreeable to me; I give it up. I liked\nyou the first time I saw you, and I will abide by that. It would be\nquite odious for me to come talking to you as if I could patronize you.\nI have told you before that I envy you; vous m'imposez, as we say. I\ndidn't know you much until within five minutes. So we will let things\ngo, and I will say nothing to you that, if our positions were reversed,\nyou would not say to me.\"\n\nI do not know whether in renouncing the mysterious opportunity to which\nhe alluded, Bellegarde felt that he was doing something very generous.\nIf so, he was not rewarded; his generosity was not appreciated. Newman\nquite failed to recognize the young Frenchman's power to wound his\nfeelings, and he had now no sense of escaping or coming off easily.\nHe did not thank his companion even with a glance. \"My eyes are open,\nthough,\" he said, \"so far as that you have practically told me that your\nfamily and your friends will turn up their noses at me. I have never\nthought much about the reasons that make it proper for people to turn up\ntheir noses, and so I can only decide the question off-hand. Looking at\nit in that way I can't see anything in it. I simply think, if you want\nto know, that I'm as good as the best. Who the best are, I don't pretend\nto say. I have never thought much about that either. To tell the\ntruth, I have always had rather a good opinion of myself; a man who is\nsuccessful can't help it. But I will admit that I was conceited. What\nI don't say yes to is that I don't stand high--as high as any one else.\nThis is a line of speculation I should not have chosen, but you must\nremember you began it yourself. I should never have dreamed that I was\non the defensive, or that I had to justify myself; but if your people\nwill have it so, I will do my best.\"\n\n\"But you offered, a while ago, to make your court as we say, to my\nmother and my brother.\"\n\n\"Damn it!\" cried Newman, \"I want to be polite.\"\n\n\"Good!\" rejoined Bellegarde; \"this will go far, it will be very\nentertaining. Excuse my speaking of it in that cold-blooded fashion, but\nthe matter must, of necessity, be for me something of a spectacle. It's\npositively exciting. But apart from that I sympathize with you, and I\nshall be actor, so far as I can, as well as spectator. You are a capital\nfellow; I believe in you and I back you. The simple fact that you\nappreciate my sister will serve as the proof I was asking for. All men\nare equal--especially men of taste!\"\n\n\"Do you think,\" asked Newman presently, \"that Madame de Cintre is\ndetermined not to marry?\"\n\n\"That is my impression. But that is not against you; it's for you to\nmake her change her mind.\"\n\n\"I am afraid it will be hard,\" said Newman, gravely.\n\n\"I don't think it will be easy. In a general way I don't see why a\nwidow should ever marry again. She has gained the benefits of\nmatrimony--freedom and consideration--and she has got rid of the\ndrawbacks. Why should she put her head into the noose again? Her usual\nmotive is ambition: if a man can offer her a great position, make her a\nprincess or an ambassadress she may think the compensation sufficient.\"\n\n\"And--in that way--is Madame de Cintre ambitious?\"\n\n\"Who knows?\" said Bellegarde, with a profound shrug. \"I don't pretend to\nsay all that she is or all that she is not. I think she might be touched\nby the prospect of becoming the wife of a great man. But in a certain\nway, I believe, whatever she does will be the IMPROBABLE. Don't be too\nconfident, but don't absolutely doubt. Your best chance for success will\nbe precisely in being, to her mind, unusual, unexpected, original. Don't\ntry to be any one else; be simply yourself, out and out. Something or\nother can't fail to come of it; I am very curious to see what.\"\n\n\"I am much obliged to you for your advice,\" said Newman. \"And,\" he added\nwith a smile, \"I am glad, for your sake, I am going to be so amusing.\"\n\n\"It will be more than amusing,\" said Bellegarde; \"it will be inspiring.\nI look at it from my point of view, and you from yours. After all,\nanything for a change! And only yesterday I was yawning so as to\ndislocate my jaw, and declaring that there was nothing new under the\nsun! If it isn't new to see you come into the family as a suitor, I am\nvery much mistaken. Let me say that, my dear fellow; I won't call it\nanything else, bad or good; I will simply call it NEW\" And overcome with\na sense of the novelty thus foreshadowed, Valentin de Bellegarde threw\nhimself into a deep arm-chair before the fire, and, with a fixed,\nintense smile, seemed to read a vision of it in the flame of the logs.\nAfter a while he looked up. \"Go ahead, my boy; you have my good wishes,\"\nhe said. \"But it is really a pity you don't understand me, that you\ndon't know just what I am doing.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Newman, laughing, \"don't do anything wrong. Leave me to\nmyself, rather, or defy me, out and out. I wouldn't lay any load on your\nconscience.\"\n\nBellegarde sprang up again; he was evidently excited; there was a warmer\nspark even than usual in his eye. \"You never will understand--you never\nwill know,\" he said; \"and if you succeed, and I turn out to have helped\nyou, you will never be grateful, not as I shall deserve you should be.\nYou will be an excellent fellow always, but you will not be grateful.\nBut it doesn't matter, for I shall get my own fun out of it.\" And he\nbroke into an extravagant laugh. \"You look puzzled,\" he added; \"you look\nalmost frightened.\"\n\n\"It IS a pity,\" said Newman, \"that I don't understand you. I shall lose\nsome very good jokes.\"\n\n\"I told you, you remember, that we were very strange people,\" Bellegarde\nwent on. \"I give you warning again. We are! My mother is strange, my\nbrother is strange, and I verily believe that I am stranger than either.\nYou will even find my sister a little strange. Old trees have crooked\nbranches, old houses have queer cracks, old races have odd secrets.\nRemember that we are eight hundred years old!\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said Newman; \"that's the sort of thing I came to Europe\nfor. You come into my programme.\"\n\n\"Touchez-la, then,\" said Bellegarde, putting out his hand. \"It's a\nbargain: I accept you; I espouse your cause. It's because I like you, in\na great measure; but that is not the only reason!\" And he stood holding\nNewman's hand and looking at him askance.\n\n\"What is the other one?\"\n\n\"I am in the Opposition. I dislike some one else.\"\n\n\"Your brother?\" asked Newman, in his unmodulated voice.\n\nBellegarde laid his fingers upon his lips with a whispered HUSH! \"Old\nraces have strange secrets!\" he said. \"Put yourself into motion, come\nand see my sister, and be assured of my sympathy!\" And on this he took\nhis leave.\n\nNewman dropped into a chair before his fire, and sat a long time staring\ninto the blaze.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nHe went to see Madame de Cintre the next day, and was informed by the\nservant that she was at home. He passed as usual up the large, cold\nstaircase and through a spacious vestibule above, where the walls seemed\nall composed of small door panels, touched with long-faded gilding;\nwhence he was ushered into the sitting-room in which he had already been\nreceived. It was empty, and the servant told him that Madame la Comtesse\nwould presently appear. He had time, while he waited, to wonder whether\nBellegarde had seen his sister since the evening before, and whether\nin this case he had spoken to her of their talk. In this case Madame\nde Cintre's receiving him was an encouragement. He felt a certain\ntrepidation as he reflected that she might come in with the knowledge\nof his supreme admiration and of the project he had built upon it in her\neyes; but the feeling was not disagreeable. Her face could wear no\nlook that would make it less beautiful, and he was sure beforehand that\nhowever she might take the proposal he had in reserve, she would not\ntake it in scorn or in irony. He had a feeling that if she could only\nread the bottom of his heart and measure the extent of his good will\ntoward her, she would be entirely kind.\n\nShe came in at last, after so long an interval that he wondered whether\nshe had been hesitating. She smiled with her usual frankness, and held\nout her hand; she looked at him straight with her soft and luminous\neyes, and said, without a tremor in her voice, that she was glad to see\nhim and that she hoped he was well. He found in her what he had found\nbefore--that faint perfume of a personal shyness worn away by contact\nwith the world, but the more perceptible the more closely you approached\nher. This lingering diffidence seemed to give a peculiar value to\nwhat was definite and assured in her manner; it made it seem like an\naccomplishment, a beautiful talent, something that one might compare\nto an exquisite touch in a pianist. It was, in fact, Madame de Cintre's\n\"authority,\" as they say of artists, that especially impressed and\nfascinated Newman; he always came back to the feeling that when he\nshould complete himself by taking a wife, that was the way he should\nlike his wife to interpret him to the world. The only trouble, indeed,\nwas that when the instrument was so perfect it seemed to interpose too\nmuch between you and the genius that used it. Madame de Cintre gave\nNewman the sense of an elaborate education, of her having passed through\nmysterious ceremonies and processes of culture in her youth, of her\nhaving been fashioned and made flexible to certain exalted social needs.\nAll this, as I have affirmed, made her seem rare and precious--a very\nexpensive article, as he would have said, and one which a man with an\nambition to have everything about him of the best would find it highly\nagreeable to possess. But looking at the matter with an eye to private\nfelicity, Newman wondered where, in so exquisite a compound, nature and\nart showed their dividing line. Where did the special intention separate\nfrom the habit of good manners? Where did urbanity end and sincerity\nbegin? Newman asked himself these questions even while he stood ready to\naccept the admired object in all its complexity; he felt that he could\ndo so in profound security, and examine its mechanism afterwards, at\nleisure.\n\n\"I am very glad to find you alone,\" he said. \"You know I have never had\nsuch good luck before.\"\n\n\"But you have seemed before very well contented with your luck,\" said\nMadame de Cintre. \"You have sat and watched my visitors with an air of\nquiet amusement. What have you thought of them?\"\n\n\"Oh, I have thought the ladies were very elegant and very graceful, and\nwonderfully quick at repartee. But what I have chiefly thought has\nbeen that they only helped me to admire you.\" This was not gallantry on\nNewman's part--an art in which he was quite unversed. It was simply the\ninstinct of the practical man, who had made up his mind what he wanted,\nand was now beginning to take active steps to obtain it.\n\nMadame de Cintre started slightly, and raised her eyebrows; she had\nevidently not expected so fervid a compliment. \"Oh, in that case,\" she\nsaid with a laugh, \"your finding me alone is not good luck for me. I\nhope some one will come in quickly.\"\n\n\"I hope not,\" said Newman. \"I have something particular to say to you.\nHave you seen your brother?\"\n\n\"Yes, I saw him an hour ago.\"\n\n\"Did he tell you that he had seen me last night?\"\n\n\"He said so.\"\n\n\"And did he tell you what we had talked about?\"\n\nMadame de Cintre hesitated a moment. As Newman asked these questions\nshe had grown a little pale, as if she regarded what was coming as\nnecessary, but not as agreeable. \"Did you give him a message to me?\" she\nasked.\n\n\"It was not exactly a message--I asked him to render me a service.\"\n\n\"The service was to sing your praises, was it not?\" And she accompanied\nthis question with a little smile, as if to make it easier to herself.\n\n\"Yes, that is what it really amounts to,\" said Newman. \"Did he sing my\npraises?\"\n\n\"He spoke very well of you. But when I know that it was by your special\nrequest, of course I must take his eulogy with a grain of salt.\"\n\n\"Oh, that makes no difference,\" said Newman. \"Your brother would not\nhave spoken well of me unless he believed what he was saying. He is too\nhonest for that.\"\n\n\"Are you very deep?\" said Madame de Cintre. \"Are you trying to please me\nby praising my brother? I confess it is a good way.\"\n\n\"For me, any way that succeeds will be good. I will praise your brother\nall day, if that will help me. He is a noble little fellow. He has made\nme feel, in promising to do what he can to help me, that I can depend\nupon him.\"\n\n\"Don't make too much of that,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"He can help you\nvery little.\"\n\n\"Of course I must work my way myself. I know that very well; I only want\na chance to. In consenting to see me, after what he told you, you almost\nseem to be giving me a chance.\"\n\n\"I am seeing you,\" said Madame de Cintre, slowly and gravely, \"because I\npromised my brother I would.\"\n\n\"Blessings on your brother's head!\" cried Newman. \"What I told him last\nevening was this: that I admired you more than any woman I had ever\nseen, and that I should like immensely to make you my wife.\" He uttered\nthese words with great directness and firmness, and without any sense of\nconfusion. He was full of his idea, he had completely mastered it,\nand he seemed to look down on Madame de Cintre, with all her gathered\nelegance, from the height of his bracing good conscience. It is probable\nthat this particular tone and manner were the very best he could have\nhit upon. Yet the light, just visibly forced smile with which his\ncompanion had listened to him died away, and she sat looking at him\nwith her lips parted and her face as solemn as a tragic mask. There was\nevidently something very painful to her in the scene to which he was\nsubjecting her, and yet her impatience of it found no angry voice.\nNewman wondered whether he was hurting her; he could not imagine why the\nliberal devotion he meant to express should be disagreeable. He got up\nand stood before her, leaning one hand on the chimney-piece. \"I know I\nhave seen you very little to say this,\" he said, \"so little that it may\nmake what I say seem disrespectful. That is my misfortune! I could have\nsaid it the first time I saw you. Really, I had seen you before; I had\nseen you in imagination; you seemed almost an old friend. So what I say\nis not mere gallantry and compliments and nonsense--I can't talk that\nway, I don't know how, and I wouldn't, to you, if I could. It's as\nserious as such words can be. I feel as if I knew you and knew what a\nbeautiful, admirable woman you are. I shall know better, perhaps, some\nday, but I have a general notion now. You are just the woman I have\nbeen looking for, except that you are far more perfect. I won't make any\nprotestations and vows, but you can trust me. It is very soon, I know,\nto say all this; it is almost offensive. But why not gain time if one\ncan? And if you want time to reflect--of course you do--the sooner you\nbegin, the better for me. I don't know what you think of me; but there\nis no great mystery about me; you see what I am. Your brother told me\nthat my antecedents and occupations were against me; that your family\nstands, somehow, on a higher level than I do. That is an idea which of\ncourse I don't understand and don't accept. But you don't care anything\nabout that. I can assure you that I am a very solid fellow, and that if\nI give my mind to it I can arrange things so that in a very few years I\nshall not need to waste time in explaining who I am and what I am. You\nwill decide for yourself whether you like me or not. What there is\nyou see before you. I honestly believe I have no hidden vices or nasty\ntricks. I am kind, kind, kind! Everything that a man can give a woman I\nwill give you. I have a large fortune, a very large fortune; some day,\nif you will allow me, I will go into details. If you want brilliancy,\neverything in the way of brilliancy that money can give you, you shall\nhave. And as regards anything you may give up, don't take for granted\ntoo much that its place cannot be filled. Leave that to me; I'll take\ncare of you; I shall know what you need. Energy and ingenuity can\narrange everything. I'm a strong man! There, I have said what I had\non my heart! It was better to get it off. I am very sorry if it's\ndisagreeable to you; but think how much better it is that things should\nbe clear. Don't answer me now, if you don't wish it. Think about it,\nthink about it as slowly as you please. Of course I haven't said, I\ncan't say, half I mean, especially about my admiration for you. But take\na favorable view of me; it will only be just.\"\n\nDuring this speech, the longest that Newman had ever made, Madame de\nCintre kept her gaze fixed upon him, and it expanded at the last into a\nsort of fascinated stare. When he ceased speaking she lowered her eyes\nand sat for some moments looking down and straight before her. Then she\nslowly rose to her feet, and a pair of exceptionally keen eyes would\nhave perceived that she was trembling a little in the movement. She\nstill looked extremely serious. \"I am very much obliged to you for\nyour offer,\" she said. \"It seems very strange, but I am glad you\nspoke without waiting any longer. It is better the subject should be\ndismissed. I appreciate all you say; you do me great honor. But I have\ndecided not to marry.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't say that!\" cried Newman, in a tone absolutely naif from its\npleading and caressing cadence. She had turned away, and it made her\nstop a moment with her back to him. \"Think better of that. You are\ntoo young, too beautiful, too much made to be happy and to make others\nhappy. If you are afraid of losing your freedom, I can assure you that\nthis freedom here, this life you now lead, is a dreary bondage to what\nI will offer you. You shall do things that I don't think you have ever\nthought of. I will take you anywhere in the wide world that you propose.\nAre you unhappy? You give me a feeling that you are unhappy. You have no\nright to be, or to be made so. Let me come in and put an end to it.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre stood there a moment longer, looking away from him.\nIf she was touched by the way he spoke, the thing was conceivable. His\nvoice, always very mild and interrogative, gradually became as soft\nand as tenderly argumentative as if he had been talking to a much-loved\nchild. He stood watching her, and she presently turned round again, but\nthis time she did not look at him, and she spoke in a quietness in which\nthere was a visible trace of effort.\n\n\"There are a great many reasons why I should not marry,\" she said, \"more\nthan I can explain to you. As for my happiness, I am very happy. Your\noffer seems strange to me, for more reasons also than I can say. Of\ncourse you have a perfect right to make it. But I cannot accept it--it\nis impossible. Please never speak of this matter again. If you cannot\npromise me this, I must ask you not to come back.\"\n\n\"Why is it impossible?\" Newman demanded. \"You may think it is, at first,\nwithout its really being so. I didn't expect you to be pleased at first,\nbut I do believe that if you will think of it a good while, you may be\nsatisfied.\"\n\n\"I don't know you,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"Think how little I know\nyou.\"\n\n\"Very little, of course, and therefore I don't ask for your ultimatum on\nthe spot. I only ask you not to say no, and to let me hope. I will wait\nas long as you desire. Meanwhile you can see more of me and know me\nbetter, look at me as a possible husband--as a candidate--and make up\nyour mind.\"\n\nSomething was going on, rapidly, in Madame de Cintre's thoughts; she\nwas weighing a question there, beneath Newman's eyes, weighing it and\ndeciding it. \"From the moment I don't very respectfully beg you to leave\nthe house and never return,\" she said, \"I listen to you, I seem to give\nyou hope. I HAVE listened to you--against my judgment. It is because you\nare eloquent. If I had been told this morning that I should consent to\nconsider you as a possible husband, I should have thought my informant\na little crazy. I AM listening to you, you see!\" And she threw her hands\nout for a moment and let them drop with a gesture in which there was\njust the slightest expression of appealing weakness.\n\n\"Well, as far as saying goes, I have said everything,\" said Newman. \"I\nbelieve in you, without restriction, and I think all the good of you\nthat it is possible to think of a human creature. I firmly believe that\nin marrying me you will be SAFE. As I said just now,\" he went on with\na smile, \"I have no bad ways. I can DO so much for you. And if you are\nafraid that I am not what you have been accustomed to, not refined\nand delicate and punctilious, you may easily carry that too far. I AM\ndelicate! You shall see!\"\n\nMadame de Cintre walked some distance away, and paused before a great\nplant, an azalea, which was flourishing in a porcelain tub before her\nwindow. She plucked off one of the flowers and, twisting it in her\nfingers, retraced her steps. Then she sat down in silence, and her\nattitude seemed to be a consent that Newman should say more.\n\n\"Why should you say it is impossible you should marry?\" he continued.\n\"The only thing that could make it really impossible would be your being\nalready married. Is it because you have been unhappy in marriage? That\nis all the more reason! Is it because your family exert a pressure upon\nyou, interfere with you, annoy you? That is still another reason; you\nought to be perfectly free, and marriage will make you so. I don't say\nanything against your family--understand that!\" added Newman, with\nan eagerness which might have made a perspicacious observer smile.\n\"Whatever way you feel toward them is the right way, and anything that\nyou should wish me to do to make myself agreeable to them I will do as\nwell as I know how. Depend upon that!\"\n\nMadame de Cintre rose again and came toward the fireplace, near which\nNewman was standing. The expression of pain and embarrassment had passed\nout of her face, and it was illuminated with something which, this time\nat least, Newman need not have been perplexed whether to attribute to\nhabit or to intention, to art or to nature. She had the air of a woman\nwho has stepped across the frontier of friendship and, looking around\nher, finds the region vast. A certain checked and controlled exaltation\nseemed mingled with the usual level radiance of her glance. \"I will not\nrefuse to see you again,\" she said, \"because much of what you have said\nhas given me pleasure. But I will see you only on this condition: that\nyou say nothing more in the same way for a long time.\"\n\n\"For how long?\"\n\n\"For six months. It must be a solemn promise.\"\n\n\"Very well, I promise.\"\n\n\"Good-by, then,\" she said, and extended her hand.\n\nHe held it a moment, as if he were going to say something more. But he\nonly looked at her; then he took his departure.\n\nThat evening, on the Boulevard, he met Valentin de Bellegarde. After\nthey had exchanged greetings, Newman told him that he had seen Madame de\nCintre a few hours before.\n\n\"I know it,\" said Bellegarde. \"I dined in the Rue de l'Universite.\"\nAnd then, for some moments, both men were silent. Newman wished to ask\nBellegarde what visible impression his visit had made and the Count\nValentin had a question of his own. Bellegarde spoke first.\n\n\"It's none of my business, but what the deuce did you say to my sister?\"\n\n\"I am willing to tell you,\" said Newman, \"that I made her an offer of\nmarriage.\"\n\n\"Already!\" And the young man gave a whistle. \"'Time is money!' Is\nthat what you say in America? And Madame de Cintre?\" he added, with an\ninterrogative inflection.\n\n\"She did not accept my offer.\"\n\n\"She couldn't, you know, in that way.\"\n\n\"But I'm to see her again,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Oh, the strangeness of woman!\" exclaimed Bellegarde. Then he stopped,\nand held Newman off at arms'-length. \"I look at you with respect!\"\nhe exclaimed. \"You have achieved what we call a personal success!\nImmediately, now, I must present you to my brother.\"\n\n\"Whenever you please!\" said Newman.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n\nNewman continued to see his friends the Tristrams with a good deal of\nfrequency, though if you had listened to Mrs. Tristram's account of the\nmatter you would have supposed that they had been cynically repudiated\nfor the sake of grander acquaintance. \"We were all very well so long\nas we had no rivals--we were better than nothing. But now that you have\nbecome the fashion, and have your pick every day of three invitations to\ndinner, we are tossed into the corner. I am sure it is very good of you\nto come and see us once a month; I wonder you don't send us your cards\nin an envelope. When you do, pray have them with black edges; it will be\nfor the death of my last illusion.\" It was in this incisive strain that\nMrs. Tristram moralized over Newman's so-called neglect, which was in\nreality a most exemplary constancy. Of course she was joking, but\nthere was always something ironical in her jokes, as there was always\nsomething jocular in her gravity.\n\n\"I know no better proof that I have treated you very well,\" Newman\nhad said, \"than the fact that you make so free with my character.\nFamiliarity breeds contempt; I have made myself too cheap. If I had a\nlittle proper pride I would stay away a while, and when you asked me to\ndinner say I was going to the Princess Borealska's. But I have not any\npride where my pleasure is concerned, and to keep you in the humor to\nsee me--if you must see me only to call me bad names--I will agree to\nanything you choose; I will admit that I am the biggest snob in Paris.\"\nNewman, in fact, had declined an invitation personally given by the\nPrincess Borealska, an inquiring Polish lady to whom he had been\npresented, on the ground that on that particular day he always dined\nat Mrs. Tristram's; and it was only a tenderly perverse theory of\nhis hostess of the Avenue d'Iena that he was faithless to his early\nfriendships. She needed the theory to explain a certain moral irritation\nby which she was often visited; though, if this explanation was unsound,\na deeper analyst than I must give the right one. Having launched our\nhero upon the current which was bearing him so rapidly along, she\nappeared but half-pleased at its swiftness. She had succeeded too well;\nshe had played her game too cleverly and she wished to mix up the cards.\nNewman had told her, in due season, that her friend was \"satisfactory.\"\nThe epithet was not romantic, but Mrs. Tristram had no difficulty in\nperceiving that, in essentials, the feeling which lay beneath it was.\nIndeed, the mild, expansive brevity with which it was uttered, and\na certain look, at once appealing and inscrutable, that issued from\nNewman's half-closed eyes as he leaned his head against the back of his\nchair, seemed to her the most eloquent attestation of a mature sentiment\nthat she had ever encountered. Newman was, according to the French\nphrase, only abounding in her own sense, but his temperate raptures\nexerted a singular effect upon the ardor which she herself had so freely\nmanifested a few months before. She now seemed inclined to take a purely\ncritical view of Madame de Cintre, and wished to have it understood that\nshe did not in the least answer for her being a compendium of all the\nvirtues. \"No woman was ever so good as that woman seems,\" she said.\n\"Remember what Shakespeare calls Desdemona; 'a supersubtle Venetian.'\nMadame de Cintre is a supersubtle Parisian. She is a charming woman, and\nshe has five hundred merits; but you had better keep that in mind.\" Was\nMrs. Tristram simply finding out that she was jealous of her dear friend\non the other side of the Seine, and that in undertaking to provide\nNewman with an ideal wife she had counted too much on her own\ndisinterestedness? We may be permitted to doubt it. The inconsistent\nlittle lady of the Avenue d'Iena had an insuperable need of changing\nher place, intellectually. She had a lively imagination, and she was\ncapable, at certain times, of imagining the direct reverse of her\nmost cherished beliefs, with a vividness more intense than that of\nconviction. She got tired of thinking aright; but there was no serious\nharm in it, as she got equally tired of thinking wrong. In the midst of\nher mysterious perversities she had admirable flashes of justice. One\nof these occurred when Newman related to her that he had made a formal\nproposal to Madame de Cintre. He repeated in a few words what he had\nsaid, and in a great many what she had answered. Mrs. Tristram listened\nwith extreme interest.\n\n\"But after all,\" said Newman, \"there is nothing to congratulate me upon.\nIt is not a triumph.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said Mrs. Tristram; \"it is a great triumph. It is\na great triumph that she did not silence you at the first word, and\nrequest you never to speak to her again.\"\n\n\"I don't see that,\" observed Newman.\n\n\"Of course you don't; Heaven forbid you should! When I told you to go on\nyour own way and do what came into your head, I had no idea you would go\nover the ground so fast. I never dreamed you would offer yourself after\nfive or six morning-calls. As yet, what had you done to make her like\nyou? You had simply sat--not very straight--and stared at her. But she\ndoes like you.\"\n\n\"That remains to be seen.\"\n\n\"No, that is proved. What will come of it remains to be seen. That you\nshould propose to marry her, without more ado, could never have come\ninto her head. You can form very little idea of what passed through her\nmind as you spoke; if she ever really marries you, the affair will be\ncharacterized by the usual justice of all human beings towards women.\nYou will think you take generous views of her; but you will never begin\nto know through what a strange sea of feeling she passed before she\naccepted you. As she stood there in front of you the other day, she\nplunged into it. She said 'Why not?' to something which, a few hours\nearlier, had been inconceivable. She turned about on a thousand gathered\nprejudices and traditions as on a pivot, and looked where she had never\nlooked hitherto. When I think of it--when I think of Claire de Cintre\nand all that she represents, there seems to me something very fine in\nit. When I recommended you to try your fortune with her I of course\nthought well of you, and in spite of your sins I think so still. But I\nconfess I don't see quite what you are and what you have done, to make\nsuch a woman do this sort of thing for you.\"\n\n\"Oh, there is something very fine in it!\" said Newman with a laugh,\nrepeating her words. He took an extreme satisfaction in hearing that\nthere was something fine in it. He had not the least doubt of it\nhimself, but he had already begun to value the world's admiration of\nMadame de Cintre, as adding to the prospective glory of possession.\n\nIt was immediately after this conversation that Valentin de Bellegarde\ncame to conduct his friend to the Rue de l'Universite to present him to\nthe other members of his family. \"You are already introduced,\" he said,\n\"and you have begun to be talked about. My sister has mentioned your\nsuccessive visits to my mother, and it was an accident that my mother\nwas present at none of them. I have spoken of you as an American of\nimmense wealth, and the best fellow in the world, who is looking for\nsomething very superior in the way of a wife.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose,\" asked Newman, \"that Madame de Cintre has related to\nyour mother the last conversation I had with her?\"\n\n\"I am very certain that she has not; she will keep her own counsel.\nMeanwhile you must make your way with the rest of the family. Thus much\nis known about you: you have made a great fortune in trade, you are\na little eccentric, and you frankly admire our dear Claire. My\nsister-in-law, whom you remember seeing in Madame de Cintre's\nsitting-room, took, it appears, a fancy to you; she has described you as\nhaving beaucoup de cachet. My mother, therefore, is curious to see you.\"\n\n\"She expects to laugh at me, eh?\" said Newman.\n\n\"She never laughs. If she does not like you, don't hope to purchase\nfavor by being amusing. Take warning by me!\"\n\nThis conversation took place in the evening, and half an hour later\nValentin ushered his companion into an apartment of the house of the Rue\nde l'Universite into which he had not yet penetrated, the salon of the\ndowager Marquise de Bellegarde. It was a vast, high room, with elaborate\nand ponderous mouldings, painted a whitish gray, along the upper portion\nof the walls and the ceiling; with a great deal of faded and carefully\nrepaired tapestry in the doorways and chair-backs; a Turkey carpet in\nlight colors, still soft and deep, in spite of great antiquity, on the\nfloor, and portraits of each of Madame de Bellegarde's children, at the\nage of ten, suspended against an old screen of red silk. The room was\nillumined, exactly enough for conversation, by half a dozen candles,\nplaced in odd corners, at a great distance apart. In a deep armchair,\nnear the fire, sat an old lady in black; at the other end of the room\nanother person was seated at the piano, playing a very expressive\nwaltz. In this latter person Newman recognized the young Marquise de\nBellegarde.\n\nValentin presented his friend, and Newman walked up to the old lady by\nthe fire and shook hands with her. He received a rapid impression of a\nwhite, delicate, aged face, with a high forehead, a small mouth, and a\npair of cold blue eyes which had kept much of the freshness of youth.\nMadame de Bellegarde looked hard at him, and returned his hand-shake\nwith a sort of British positiveness which reminded him that she was\nthe daughter of the Earl of St. Dunstan's. Her daughter-in-law stopped\nplaying and gave him an agreeable smile. Newman sat down and looked\nabout him, while Valentin went and kissed the hand of the young\nmarquise.\n\n\"I ought to have seen you before,\" said Madame de Bellegarde. \"You have\npaid several visits to my daughter.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Newman, smiling; \"Madame de Cintre and I are old friends\nby this time.\"\n\n\"You have gone fast,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\n\"Not so fast as I should like,\" said Newman, bravely.\n\n\"Oh, you are very ambitious,\" answered the old lady.\n\n\"Yes, I confess I am,\" said Newman, smiling.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde looked at him with her cold fine eyes, and he\nreturned her gaze, reflecting that she was a possible adversary and\ntrying to take her measure. Their eyes remained in contact for some\nmoments. Then Madame de Bellegarde looked away, and without smiling, \"I\nam very ambitious, too,\" she said.\n\nNewman felt that taking her measure was not easy; she was a formidable,\ninscrutable little woman. She resembled her daughter, and yet she was\nutterly unlike her. The coloring in Madame de Cintre was the same, and\nthe high delicacy of her brow and nose was hereditary. But her face was\na larger and freer copy, and her mouth in especial a happy divergence\nfrom that conservative orifice, a little pair of lips at once plump and\npinched, that looked, when closed, as if they could not open wider than\nto swallow a gooseberry or to emit an \"Oh, dear, no!\" which probably had\nbeen thought to give the finishing touch to the aristocratic prettiness\nof the Lady Emmeline Atheling as represented, forty years before, in\nseveral Books of Beauty. Madame de Cintre's face had, to Newman's eye,\na range of expression as delightfully vast as the wind-streaked,\ncloud-flecked distance on a Western prairie. But her mother's white,\nintense, respectable countenance, with its formal gaze, and its\ncircumscribed smile, suggested a document signed and sealed; a thing\nof parchment, ink, and ruled lines. \"She is a woman of conventions and\nproprieties,\" he said to himself as he looked at her; \"her world is the\nworld of things immutably decreed. But how she is at home in it, and\nwhat a paradise she finds it. She walks about in it as if it were a\nblooming park, a Garden of Eden; and when she sees 'This is genteel,' or\n'This is improper,' written on a mile-stone she stops ecstatically, as\nif she were listening to a nightingale or smelling a rose.\" Madame de\nBellegarde wore a little black velvet hood tied under her chin, and she\nwas wrapped in an old black cashmere shawl.\n\n\"You are an American?\" she said presently. \"I have seen several\nAmericans.\"\n\n\"There are several in Paris,\" said Newman jocosely.\n\n\"Oh, really?\" said Madame de Bellegarde. \"It was in England I saw\nthese, or somewhere else; not in Paris. I think it must have been in the\nPyrenees, many years ago. I am told your ladies are very pretty. One of\nthese ladies was very pretty! such a wonderful complexion! She presented\nme a note of introduction from some one--I forgot whom--and she sent\nwith it a note of her own. I kept her letter a long time afterwards, it\nwas so strangely expressed. I used to know some of the phrases by heart.\nBut I have forgotten them now, it is so many years ago. Since then I\nhave seen no more Americans. I think my daughter-in-law has; she is a\ngreat gad-about, she sees every one.\"\n\nAt this the younger lady came rustling forward, pinching in a very\nslender waist, and casting idly preoccupied glances over the front\nof her dress, which was apparently designed for a ball. She was, in a\nsingular way, at once ugly and pretty; she had protuberant eyes, and\nlips strangely red. She reminded Newman of his friend, Mademoiselle\nNioche; this was what that much-obstructed young lady would have liked\nto be. Valentin de Bellegarde walked behind her at a distance, hopping\nabout to keep off the far-spreading train of her dress.\n\n\"You ought to show more of your shoulders behind,\" he said very gravely.\n\"You might as well wear a standing ruff as such a dress as that.\"\n\nThe young woman turned her back to the mirror over the chimney-piece,\nand glanced behind her, to verify Valentin's assertion. The mirror\ndescended low, and yet it reflected nothing but a large unclad flesh\nsurface. The young marquise put her hands behind her and gave a downward\npull to the waist of her dress. \"Like that, you mean?\" she asked.\n\n\"That is a little better,\" said Bellegarde in the same tone, \"but it\nleaves a good deal to be desired.\"\n\n\"Oh, I never go to extremes,\" said his sister-in-law. And then, turning\nto Madame de Bellegarde, \"What were you calling me just now, madame?\"\n\n\"I called you a gad-about,\" said the old lady. \"But I might call you\nsomething else, too.\"\n\n\"A gad-about? What an ugly word! What does it mean?\"\n\n\"A very beautiful person,\" Newman ventured to say, seeing that it was in\nFrench.\n\n\"That is a pretty compliment but a bad translation,\" said the young\nmarquise. And then, looking at him a moment, \"Do you dance?\"\n\n\"Not a step.\"\n\n\"You are very wrong,\" she said, simply. And with another look at her\nback in the mirror she turned away.\n\n\"Do you like Paris?\" asked the old lady, who was apparently wondering\nwhat was the proper way to talk to an American.\n\n\"Yes, rather,\" said Newman. And then he added with a friendly\nintonation, \"Don't you?\"\n\n\"I can't say I know it. I know my house--I know my friends--I don't know\nParis.\"\n\n\"Oh, you lose a great deal,\" said Newman, sympathetically.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde stared; it was presumably the first time she had\nbeen condoled with on her losses.\n\n\"I am content with what I have,\" she said with dignity.\n\nNewman's eyes, at this moment, were wandering round the room, which\nstruck him as rather sad and shabby; passing from the high casements,\nwith their small, thickly-framed panes, to the sallow tints of two or\nthree portraits in pastel, of the last century, which hung between\nthem. He ought, obviously, to have answered that the contentment of his\nhostess was quite natural--she had a great deal; but the idea did not\noccur to him during the pause of some moments which followed.\n\n\"Well, my dear mother,\" said Valentin, coming and leaning against the\nchimney-piece, \"what do you think of my dear friend Newman? Is he not\nthe excellent fellow I told you?\"\n\n\"My acquaintance with Mr. Newman has not gone very far,\" said Madame de\nBellegarde. \"I can as yet only appreciate his great politeness.\"\n\n\"My mother is a great judge of these matters,\" said Valentin to Newman.\n\"If you have satisfied her, it is a triumph.\"\n\n\"I hope I shall satisfy you, some day,\" said Newman, looking at the old\nlady. \"I have done nothing yet.\"\n\n\"You must not listen to my son; he will bring you into trouble. He is a\nsad scatterbrain.\"\n\n\"Oh, I like him--I like him,\" said Newman, genially.\n\n\"He amuses you, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes, perfectly.\"\n\n\"Do you hear that, Valentin?\" said Madame de Bellegarde. \"You amuse Mr.\nNewman.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we shall all come to that!\" Valentin exclaimed.\n\n\"You must see my other son,\" said Madame de Bellegarde. \"He is much\nbetter than this one. But he will not amuse you.\"\n\n\"I don't know--I don't know!\" murmured Valentin, reflectively. \"But we\nshall very soon see. Here comes Monsieur mon frere.\"\n\nThe door had just opened to give ingress to a gentleman who stepped\nforward and whose face Newman remembered. He had been the author of our\nhero's discomfiture the first time he tried to present himself to Madame\nde Cintre. Valentin de Bellegarde went to meet his brother, looked at\nhim a moment, and then, taking him by the arm, led him up to Newman.\n\n\"This is my excellent friend Mr. Newman,\" he said very blandly. \"You\nmust know him.\"\n\n\"I am delighted to know Mr. Newman,\" said the marquis with a low bow,\nbut without offering his hand.\n\n\"He is the old woman at second-hand,\" Newman said to himself, as he\nreturned M. de Bellegarde's greeting. And this was the starting-point of\na speculative theory, in his mind, that the late marquis had been a very\namiable foreigner, with an inclination to take life easily and a sense\nthat it was difficult for the husband of the stilted little lady by the\nfire to do so. But if he had taken little comfort in his wife he had\ntaken much in his two younger children, who were after his own heart,\nwhile Madame de Bellegarde had paired with her eldest-born.\n\n\"My brother has spoken to me of you,\" said M. de Bellegarde; \"and as\nyou are also acquainted with my sister, it was time we should meet.\" He\nturned to his mother and gallantly bent over her hand, touching it with\nhis lips, and then he assumed an attitude before the chimney-piece. With\nhis long, lean face, his high-bridged nose and his small, opaque eye he\nlooked much like an Englishman. His whiskers were fair and glossy, and\nhe had a large dimple, of unmistakably British origin, in the middle of\nhis handsome chin. He was \"distinguished\" to the tips of his polished\nnails, and there was not a movement of his fine, perpendicular person\nthat was not noble and majestic. Newman had never yet been confronted\nwith such an incarnation of the art of taking one's self seriously; he\nfelt a sort of impulse to step backward, as you do to get a view of a\ngreat facade.\n\n\"Urbain,\" said young Madame de Bellegarde, who had apparently been\nwaiting for her husband to take her to her ball, \"I call your attention\nto the fact that I am dressed.\"\n\n\"That is a good idea,\" murmured Valentin.\n\n\"I am at your orders, my dear friend,\" said M. de Bellegarde. \"Only,\nyou must allow me first the pleasure of a little conversation with Mr.\nNewman.\"\n\n\"Oh, if you are going to a party, don't let me keep you,\" objected\nNewman. \"I am very sure we shall meet again. Indeed, if you would like\nto converse with me I will gladly name an hour.\" He was eager to make\nit known that he would readily answer all questions and satisfy all\nexactions.\n\nM. de Bellegarde stood in a well-balanced position before the fire,\ncaressing one of his fair whiskers with one of his white hands, and\nlooking at Newman, half askance, with eyes from which a particular ray\nof observation made its way through a general meaningless smile. \"It is\nvery kind of you to make such an offer,\" he said. \"If I am not mistaken,\nyour occupations are such as to make your time precious. You are\nin--a--as we say, dans les affaires.\"\n\n\"In business, you mean? Oh no, I have thrown business overboard for the\npresent. I am 'loafing,' as WE say. My time is quite my own.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are taking a holiday,\" rejoined M. de Bellegarde. \"'Loafing.'\nYes, I have heard that expression.\"\n\n\"Mr. Newman is American,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\n\"My brother is a great ethnologist,\" said Valentin.\n\n\"An ethnologist?\" said Newman. \"Ah, you collect negroes' skulls, and\nthat sort of thing.\"\n\nThe marquis looked hard at his brother, and began to caress his other\nwhisker. Then, turning to Newman, with sustained urbanity, \"You are\ntraveling for your pleasure?\" he asked.'\n\n\"Oh, I am knocking about to pick up one thing and another. Of course I\nget a good deal of pleasure out of it.\"\n\n\"What especially interests you?\" inquired the marquis.\n\n\"Well, everything interests me,\" said Newman. \"I am not particular.\nManufactures are what I care most about.\"\n\n\"That has been your specialty?\"\n\n\"I can't say I have any specialty. My specialty has been to make the\nlargest possible fortune in the shortest possible time.\" Newman made\nthis last remark very deliberately; he wished to open the way, if it\nwere necessary, to an authoritative statement of his means.\n\nM. de Bellegarde laughed agreeably. \"I hope you have succeeded,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"Yes, I have made a fortune in a reasonable time. I am not so old, you\nsee.\"\n\n\"Paris is a very good place to spend a fortune. I wish you great\nenjoyment of yours.\" And M. de Bellegarde drew forth his gloves and\nbegan to put them on.\n\nNewman for a few moments watched him sliding his white hands into the\nwhite kid, and as he did so his feelings took a singular turn. M. de\nBellegarde's good wishes seemed to descend out of the white expanse of\nhis sublime serenity with the soft, scattered movement of a shower of\nsnow-flakes. Yet Newman was not irritated; he did not feel that he was\nbeing patronized; he was conscious of no especial impulse to introduce\na discord into so noble a harmony. Only he felt himself suddenly in\npersonal contact with the forces with which his friend Valentin had\ntold him that he would have to contend, and he became sensible of their\nintensity. He wished to make some answering manifestation, to stretch\nhimself out at his own length, to sound a note at the uttermost end\nof HIS scale. It must be added that if this impulse was not vicious or\nmalicious, it was by no means void of humorous expectancy. Newman was\nquite as ready to give play to that loosely-adjusted smile of his, if\nhis hosts should happen to be shocked, as he was far from deliberately\nplanning to shock them.\n\n\"Paris is a very good place for idle people,\" he said, \"or it is a very\ngood place if your family has been settled here for a long time, and you\nhave made acquaintances and got your relations round you; or if you have\ngot a good big house like this, and a wife and children and mother and\nsister, and everything comfortable. I don't like that way of living all\nin rooms next door to each other. But I am not an idler. I try to be,\nbut I can't manage it; it goes against the grain. My business habits are\ntoo deep-seated. Then, I haven't any house to call my own, or anything\nin the way of a family. My sisters are five thousand miles away, my\nmother died when I was a youngster, and I haven't any wife; I wish I\nhad! So, you see, I don't exactly know what to do with myself. I am not\nfond of books, as you are, sir, and I get tired of dining out and going\nto the opera. I miss my business activity. You see, I began to earn my\nliving when I was almost a baby, and until a few months ago I have never\nhad my hand off the plow. Elegant leisure comes hard.\"\n\nThis speech was followed by a profound silence of some moments, on the\npart of Newman's entertainers. Valentin stood looking at him fixedly,\nwith his hands in his pockets, and then he slowly, with a half-sidling\nmotion, went out of the door. The marquis continued to draw on his\ngloves and to smile benignantly.\n\n\"You began to earn your living when you were a mere baby?\" said the\nmarquise.\n\n\"Hardly more--a small boy.\"\n\n\"You say you are not fond of books,\" said M. de Bellegarde; \"but\nyou must do yourself the justice to remember that your studies were\ninterrupted early.\"\n\n\"That is very true; on my tenth birthday I stopped going to school. I\nthought it was a grand way to keep it. But I picked up some information\nafterwards,\" said Newman, reassuringly.\n\n\"You have some sisters?\" asked old Madame de Bellegarde.\n\n\"Yes, two sisters. Splendid women!\"\n\n\"I hope that for them the hardships of life commenced less early.\"\n\n\"They married very early, if you call that a hardship, as girls do in\nour Western country. One of them is married to the owner of the largest\nindia-rubber house in the West.\"\n\n\"Ah, you make houses also of india-rubber?\" inquired the marquise.\n\n\"You can stretch them as your family increases,\" said young Madame de\nBellegarde, who was muffling herself in a long white shawl.\n\nNewman indulged in a burst of hilarity, and explained that the house in\nwhich his brother-in-law lived was a large wooden structure, but that he\nmanufactured and sold india-rubber on a colossal scale.\n\n\"My children have some little india-rubber shoes which they put on\nwhen they go to play in the Tuileries in damp weather,\" said the young\nmarquise. \"I wonder whether your brother-in-law made them.\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" said Newman; \"if he did, you may be very sure they are\nwell made.\"\n\n\"Well, you must not be discouraged,\" said M. de Bellegarde, with vague\nurbanity.\n\n\"Oh, I don't mean to be. I have a project which gives me plenty to think\nabout, and that is an occupation.\" And then Newman was silent a moment,\nhesitating, yet thinking rapidly; he wished to make his point, and yet\nto do so forced him to speak out in a way that was disagreeable to\nhim. Nevertheless he continued, addressing himself to old Madame de\nBellegarde, \"I will tell you my project; perhaps you can help me. I want\nto take a wife.\"\n\n\"It is a very good project, but I am no matchmaker,\" said the old lady.\n\nNewman looked at her an instant, and then, with perfect sincerity, \"I\nshould have thought you were,\" he declared.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde appeared to think him too sincere. She murmured\nsomething sharply in French, and fixed her eyes on her son. At this\nmoment the door of the room was thrown open, and with a rapid step\nValentin reappeared.\n\n\"I have a message for you,\" he said to his sister-in-law. \"Claire bids\nme to request you not to start for your ball. She will go with you.\"\n\n\"Claire will go with us!\" cried the young marquise. \"En voila, du\nnouveau!\"\n\n\"She has changed her mind; she decided half an hour ago, and she is\nsticking the last diamond into her hair,\" said Valentin.\n\n\"What has taken possession of my daughter?\" demanded Madame de\nBellegarde, sternly. \"She has not been into the world these three\nyears. Does she take such a step at half an hour's notice, and without\nconsulting me?\"\n\n\"She consulted me, dear mother, five minutes since,\" said Valentin,\n\"and I told her that such a beautiful woman--she is beautiful, you will\nsee--had no right to bury herself alive.\"\n\n\"You should have referred Claire to her mother, my brother,\" said M. de\nBellegarde, in French. \"This is very strange.\"\n\n\"I refer her to the whole company!\" said Valentin. \"Here she comes!\" And\nhe went to the open door, met Madame de Cintre on the threshold, took\nher by the hand, and led her into the room. She was dressed in white;\nbut a long blue cloak, which hung almost to her feet, was fastened\nacross her shoulders by a silver clasp. She had tossed it back, however,\nand her long white arms were uncovered. In her dense, fair hair there\nglittered a dozen diamonds. She looked serious and, Newman thought,\nrather pale; but she glanced round her, and, when she saw him, smiled\nand put out her hand. He thought her tremendously handsome. He had a\nchance to look at her full in the face, for she stood a moment in the\ncentre of the room, hesitating, apparently, what she should do, without\nmeeting his eyes. Then she went up to her mother, who sat in her deep\nchair by the fire, looking at Madame de Cintre almost fiercely. With her\nback turned to the others, Madame de Cintre held her cloak apart to show\nher dress.\n\n\"What do you think of me?\" she asked.\n\n\"I think you are audacious,\" said the marquise. \"It was but three days\nago, when I asked you, as a particular favor to myself, to go to the\nDuchess de Lusignan's, that you told me you were going nowhere and\nthat one must be consistent. Is this your consistency? Why should you\ndistinguish Madame Robineau? Who is it you wish to please to-night?\"\n\n\"I wish to please myself, dear mother,\" said Madame de Cintre. And she\nbent over and kissed the old lady.\n\n\"I don't like surprises, my sister,\" said Urbain de Bellegarde;\n\"especially when one is on the point of entering a drawing-room.\"\n\nNewman at this juncture felt inspired to speak. \"Oh, if you are going\ninto a room with Madame de Cintre, you needn't be afraid of being\nnoticed yourself!\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde turned to his sister with a smile too intense to be\neasy. \"I hope you appreciate a compliment that is paid you at your\nbrother's expense,\" he said. \"Come, come, madame.\" And offering Madame\nde Cintre his arm he led her rapidly out of the room. Valentin rendered\nthe same service to young Madame de Bellegarde, who had apparently been\nreflecting on the fact that the ball dress of her sister-in-law was\nmuch less brilliant than her own, and yet had failed to derive absolute\ncomfort from the reflection. With a farewell smile she sought the\ncomplement of her consolation in the eyes of the American visitor, and\nperceiving in them a certain mysterious brilliancy, it is not improbable\nthat she may have flattered herself she had found it.\n\nNewman, left alone with old Madame de Bellegarde, stood before her a few\nmoments in silence. \"Your daughter is very beautiful,\" he said at last.\n\n\"She is very strange,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\n\"I am glad to hear it,\" Newman rejoined, smiling. \"It makes me hope.\"\n\n\"Hope what?\"\n\n\"That she will consent, some day, to marry me.\"\n\nThe old lady slowly rose to her feet. \"That really is your project,\nthen?\"\n\n\"Yes; will you favor it?\"\n\n\"Favor it?\" Madame de Bellegarde looked at him a moment and then shook\nher head. \"No!\" she said, softly.\n\n\"Will you suffer it, then? Will you let it pass?\"\n\n\"You don't know what you ask. I am a very proud and meddlesome old\nwoman.\"\n\n\"Well, I am very rich,\" said Newman.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde fixed her eyes on the floor, and Newman thought\nit probable she was weighing the reasons in favor of resenting the\nbrutality of this remark. But at last, looking up, she said simply, \"How\nrich?\"\n\nNewman expressed his income in a round number which had the magnificent\nsound that large aggregations of dollars put on when they are translated\ninto francs. He added a few remarks of a financial character, which\ncompleted a sufficiently striking presentment of his resources.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde listened in silence. \"You are very frank,\" she said\nfinally. \"I will be the same. I would rather favor you, on the whole,\nthan suffer you. It will be easier.\"\n\n\"I am thankful for any terms,\" said Newman. \"But, for the present, you\nhave suffered me long enough. Good night!\" And he took his leave.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nNewman, on his return to Paris, had not resumed the study of French\nconversation with M. Nioche; he found that he had too many other uses\nfor his time. M. Nioche, however, came to see him very promptly, having\nlearned his whereabouts by a mysterious process to which his patron\nnever obtained the key. The shrunken little capitalist repeated his\nvisit more than once. He seemed oppressed by a humiliating sense of\nhaving been overpaid, and wished apparently to redeem his debt by the\noffer of grammatical and statistical information in small installments.\nHe wore the same decently melancholy aspect as a few months before; a\nfew months more or less of brushing could make little difference in the\nantique lustre of his coat and hat. But the poor old man's spirit was a\ntrifle more threadbare; it seemed to have received some hard rubs during\nthe summer. Newman inquired with interest about Mademoiselle Noemie;\nand M. Nioche, at first, for answer, simply looked at him in lachrymose\nsilence.\n\n\"Don't ask me, sir,\" he said at last. \"I sit and watch her, but I can do\nnothing.\"\n\n\"Do you mean that she misconducts herself?\"\n\n\"I don't know, I am sure. I can't follow her. I don't understand her.\nShe has something in her head; I don't know what she is trying to do.\nShe is too deep for me.\"\n\n\"Does she continue to go to the Louvre? Has she made any of those copies\nfor me?\"\n\n\"She goes to the Louvre, but I see nothing of the copies. She has\nsomething on her easel; I suppose it is one of the pictures you ordered.\nSuch a magnificent order ought to give her fairy-fingers. But she is\nnot in earnest. I can't say anything to her; I am afraid of her. One\nevening, last summer, when I took her to walk in the Champs Elysees, she\nsaid some things to me that frightened me.\"\n\n\"What were they?\"\n\n\"Excuse an unhappy father from telling you,\" said M. Nioche, unfolding\nhis calico pocket-handkerchief.\n\nNewman promised himself to pay Mademoiselle Noemie another visit at the\nLouvre. He was curious about the progress of his copies, but it must\nbe added that he was still more curious about the progress of the young\nlady herself. He went one afternoon to the great museum, and wandered\nthrough several of the rooms in fruitless quest of her. He was bending\nhis steps to the long hall of the Italian masters, when suddenly he\nfound himself face to face with Valentin de Bellegarde. The young\nFrenchman greeted him with ardor, and assured him that he was a\ngodsend. He himself was in the worst of humors and he wanted some one to\ncontradict.\n\n\"In a bad humor among all these beautiful things?\" said Newman. \"I\nthought you were so fond of pictures, especially the old black ones.\nThere are two or three here that ought to keep you in spirits.\"\n\n\"Oh, to-day,\" answered Valentin, \"I am not in a mood for pictures, and\nthe more beautiful they are the less I like them. Their great staring\neyes and fixed positions irritate me. I feel as if I were at some big,\ndull party, in a room full of people I shouldn't wish to speak to. What\nshould I care for their beauty? It's a bore, and, worse still, it's a\nreproach. I have a great many ennuis; I feel vicious.\"\n\n\"If the Louvre has so little comfort for you, why in the world did you\ncome here?\" Newman asked.\n\n\"That is one of my ennuis. I came to meet my cousin--a dreadful English\ncousin, a member of my mother's family--who is in Paris for a week for\nher husband, and who wishes me to point out the 'principal beauties.'\nImagine a woman who wears a green crape bonnet in December and has\nstraps sticking out of the ankles of her interminable boots! My mother\nbegged I would do something to oblige them. I have undertaken to play\nvalet de place this afternoon. They were to have met me here at two\no'clock, and I have been waiting for them twenty minutes. Why doesn't\nshe arrive? She has at least a pair of feet to carry her. I don't know\nwhether to be furious at their playing me false, or delighted to have\nescaped them.\"\n\n\"I think in your place I would be furious,\" said Newman, \"because they\nmay arrive yet, and then your fury will still be of use to you. Whereas\nif you were delighted and they were afterwards to turn up, you might not\nknow what to do with your delight.\"\n\n\"You give me excellent advice, and I already feel better. I will be\nfurious; I will let them go to the deuce and I myself will go with\nyou--unless by chance you too have a rendezvous.\"\n\n\"It is not exactly a rendezvous,\" said Newman. \"But I have in fact come\nto see a person, not a picture.\"\n\n\"A woman, presumably?\"\n\n\"A young lady.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Valentin, \"I hope for you with all my heart that she is not\nclothed in green tulle and that her feet are not too much out of focus.\"\n\n\"I don't know much about her feet, but she has very pretty hands.\"\n\nValentin gave a sigh. \"And on that assurance I must part with you?\"\n\n\"I am not certain of finding my young lady,\" said Newman, \"and I am not\nquite prepared to lose your company on the chance. It does not strike\nme as particularly desirable to introduce you to her, and yet I should\nrather like to have your opinion of her.\"\n\n\"Is she pretty?\"\n\n\"I guess you will think so.\"\n\nBellegarde passed his arm into that of his companion. \"Conduct me to her\non the instant! I should be ashamed to make a pretty woman wait for my\nverdict.\"\n\nNewman suffered himself to be gently propelled in the direction in\nwhich he had been walking, but his step was not rapid. He was turning\nsomething over in his mind. The two men passed into the long gallery of\nthe Italian masters, and Newman, after having scanned for a moment its\nbrilliant vista, turned aside into the smaller apartment devoted to\nthe same school, on the left. It contained very few persons, but at the\nfarther end of it sat Mademoiselle Nioche, before her easel. She was\nnot at work; her palette and brushes had been laid down beside her, her\nhands were folded in her lap, and she was leaning back in her chair and\nlooking intently at two ladies on the other side of the hall, who, with\ntheir backs turned to her, had stopped before one of the pictures. These\nladies were apparently persons of high fashion; they were dressed with\ngreat splendor, and their long silken trains and furbelows were spread\nover the polished floor. It was at their dresses Mademoiselle Noemie was\nlooking, though what she was thinking of I am unable to say. I hazard\nthe supposition that she was saying to herself that to be able to drag\nsuch a train over a polished floor was a felicity worth any price. Her\nreflections, at any rate, were disturbed by the advent of Newman and\nhis companion. She glanced at them quickly, and then, coloring a little,\nrose and stood before her easel.\n\n\"I came here on purpose to see you,\" said Newman in his bad French,\noffering to shake hands. And then, like a good American, he introduced\nValentin formally: \"Allow me to make you acquainted with the Comte\nValentin de Bellegarde.\"\n\nValentin made a bow which must have seemed to Mademoiselle Noemie\nquite in harmony with the impressiveness of his title, but the graceful\nbrevity of her own response made no concession to underbred surprise.\nShe turned to Newman, putting up her hands to her hair and smoothing its\ndelicately-felt roughness. Then, rapidly, she turned the canvas that was\non her easel over upon its face. \"You have not forgotten me?\" she asked.\n\n\"I shall never forget you,\" said Newman. \"You may be sure of that.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said the young girl, \"there are a great many different ways\nof remembering a person.\" And she looked straight at Valentin de\nBellegarde, who was looking at her as a gentleman may when a \"verdict\"\nis expected of him.\n\n\"Have you painted anything for me?\" said Newman. \"Have you been\nindustrious?\"\n\n\"No, I have done nothing.\" And taking up her palette, she began to mix\nher colors at hazard.\n\n\"But your father tells me you have come here constantly.\"\n\n\"I have nowhere else to go! Here, all summer, it was cool, at least.\"\n\n\"Being here, then,\" said Newman, \"you might have tried something.\"\n\n\"I told you before,\" she answered, softly, \"that I don't know how to\npaint.\"\n\n\"But you have something charming on your easel, now,\" said Valentin, \"if\nyou would only let me see it.\"\n\nShe spread out her two hands, with the fingers expanded, over the back\nof the canvas--those hands which Newman had called pretty, and which, in\nspite of several paint-stains, Valentin could now admire. \"My painting\nis not charming,\" she said.\n\n\"It is the only thing about you that is not, then, mademoiselle,\" quoth\nValentin, gallantly.\n\nShe took up her little canvas and silently passed it to him. He looked\nat it, and in a moment she said, \"I am sure you are a judge.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered, \"I am.\"\n\n\"You know, then, that that is very bad.\"\n\n\"Mon Dieu,\" said Valentin, shrugging his shoulders \"let us distinguish.\"\n\n\"You know that I ought not to attempt to paint,\" the young girl\ncontinued.\n\n\"Frankly, then, mademoiselle, I think you ought not.\"\n\nShe began to look at the dresses of the two splendid ladies again--a\npoint on which, having risked one conjecture, I think I may risk\nanother. While she was looking at the ladies she was seeing Valentin\nde Bellegarde. He, at all events, was seeing her. He put down the\nroughly-besmeared canvas and addressed a little click with his tongue,\naccompanied by an elevation of the eyebrows, to Newman.\n\n\"Where have you been all these months?\" asked Mademoiselle Noemie of our\nhero. \"You took those great journeys, you amused yourself well?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Newman. \"I amused myself well enough.\"\n\n\"I am very glad,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie with extreme gentleness, and\nshe began to dabble in her colors again. She was singularly pretty, with\nthe look of serious sympathy that she threw into her face.\n\nValentin took advantage of her downcast eyes to telegraph again to his\ncompanion. He renewed his mysterious physiognomical play, making at the\nsame time a rapid tremulous movement in the air with his fingers. He was\nevidently finding Mademoiselle Noemie extremely interesting; the blue\ndevils had departed, leaving the field clear.\n\n\"Tell me something about your travels,\" murmured the young girl.\n\n\"Oh, I went to Switzerland,--to Geneva and Zermatt and Zurich and all\nthose places you know; and down to Venice, and all through Germany, and\ndown the Rhine, and into Holland and Belgium--the regular round. How do\nyou say that, in French--the regular round?\" Newman asked of Valentin.\n\nMademoiselle Nioche fixed her eyes an instant on Bellegarde, and then\nwith a little smile, \"I don't understand monsieur,\" she said, \"when he\nsays so much at once. Would you be so good as to translate?\"\n\n\"I would rather talk to you out of my own head,\" Valentin declared.\n\n\"No,\" said Newman, gravely, still in his bad French, \"you must not talk\nto Mademoiselle Nioche, because you say discouraging things. You ought\nto tell her to work, to persevere.\"\n\n\"And we French, mademoiselle,\" said Valentin, \"are accused of being\nfalse flatterers!\"\n\n\"I don't want any flattery, I want only the truth. But I know the\ntruth.\"\n\n\"All I say is that I suspect there are some things that you can do\nbetter than paint,\" said Valentin.\n\n\"I know the truth--I know the truth,\" Mademoiselle Noemie repeated. And,\ndipping a brush into a clot of red paint, she drew a great horizontal\ndaub across her unfinished picture.\n\n\"What is that?\" asked Newman.\n\nWithout answering, she drew another long crimson daub, in a vertical\ndirection, down the middle of her canvas, and so, in a moment, completed\nthe rough indication of a cross. \"It is the sign of the truth,\" she said\nat last.\n\nThe two men looked at each other, and Valentin indulged in another\nflash of physiognomical eloquence. \"You have spoiled your picture,\" said\nNewman.\n\n\"I know that very well. It was the only thing to do with it. I had sat\nlooking at it all day without touching it. I had begun to hate it. It\nseemed to me something was going to happen.\"\n\n\"I like it better that way than as it was before,\" said Valentin. \"Now\nit is more interesting. It tells a story. Is it for sale?\"\n\n\"Everything I have is for sale,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie.\n\n\"How much is this thing?\"\n\n\"Ten thousand francs,\" said the young girl, without a smile.\n\n\"Everything that Mademoiselle Nioche may do at present is mine in\nadvance,\" said Newman. \"It makes part of an order I gave her some months\nago. So you can't have this.\"\n\n\"Monsieur will lose nothing by it,\" said the young girl, looking at\nValentin. And she began to put up her utensils.\n\n\"I shall have gained a charming memory,\" said Valentin. \"You are going\naway? your day is over?\"\n\n\"My father is coming to fetch me,\" said Mademoiselle Noemie.\n\nShe had hardly spoken when, through the door behind her, which opens on\none of the great white stone staircases of the Louvre, M. Nioche made\nhis appearance. He came in with his usual even, patient shuffle, and\nhe made a low salute to the two gentlemen who were standing before his\ndaughter's easel. Newman shook his hands with muscular friendliness, and\nValentin returned his greeting with extreme deference. While the old man\nstood waiting for Noemie to make a parcel of her implements, he let\nhis mild, oblique gaze hover toward Bellegarde, who was watching\nMademoiselle Noemie put on her bonnet and mantle. Valentin was at no\npains to disguise his scrutiny. He looked at a pretty girl as he would\nhave listened to a piece of music. Attention, in each case, was simple\ngood manners. M. Nioche at last took his daughter's paint-box in one\nhand and the bedaubed canvas, after giving it a solemn, puzzled stare,\nin the other, and led the way to the door. Mademoiselle Noemie made the\nyoung men the salute of a duchess, and followed her father.\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, \"what do you think of her?\"\n\n\"She is very remarkable. Diable, diable, diable!\" repeated M. de\nBellegarde, reflectively; \"she is very remarkable.\"\n\n\"I am afraid she is a sad little adventuress,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Not a little one--a great one. She has the material.\" And Valentin\nbegan to walk away slowly, looking vaguely at the pictures on the walls,\nwith a thoughtful illumination in his eye. Nothing could have appealed\nto his imagination more than the possible adventures of a young lady\nendowed with the \"material\" of Mademoiselle Nioche. \"She is very\ninteresting,\" he went on. \"She is a beautiful type.\"\n\n\"A beautiful type? What the deuce do you mean?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"I mean from the artistic point of view. She is an artist,--outside of\nher painting, which obviously is execrable.\"\n\n\"But she is not beautiful. I don't even think her very pretty.\"\n\n\"She is quite pretty enough for her purposes, and it is a face and\nfigure on which everything tells. If she were prettier she would be less\nintelligent, and her intelligence is half of her charm.\"\n\n\"In what way,\" asked Newman, who was much amused at his companion's\nimmediate philosophization of Mademoiselle Nioche, \"does her\nintelligence strike you as so remarkable?\"\n\n\"She has taken the measure of life, and she has determined to BE\nsomething--to succeed at any cost. Her painting, of course, is a mere\ntrick to gain time. She is waiting for her chance; she wishes to launch\nherself, and to do it well. She knows her Paris. She is one of fifty\nthousand, so far as the mere ambition goes; but I am very sure that\nin the way of resolution and capacity she is a rarity. And in one\ngift--perfect heartlessness--I will warrant she is unsurpassed. She\nhas not as much heart as will go on the point of a needle. That is an\nimmense virtue. Yes, she is one of the celebrities of the future.\"\n\n\"Heaven help us!\" said Newman, \"how far the artistic point of view may\ntake a man! But in this case I must request that you don't let it take\nyou too far. You have learned a wonderful deal about Mademoiselle\nNoemie in a quarter of an hour. Let that suffice; don't follow up your\nresearches.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" cried Bellegarde with warmth, \"I hope I have too good\nmanners to intrude.\"\n\n\"You are not intruding. The girl is nothing to me. In fact, I rather\ndislike her. But I like her poor old father, and for his sake I beg you\nto abstain from any attempt to verify your theories.\"\n\n\"For the sake of that seedy old gentleman who came to fetch her?\"\ndemanded Valentin, stopping short. And on Newman's assenting, \"Ah no, ah\nno,\" he went on with a smile. \"You are quite wrong, my dear fellow; you\nneedn't mind him.\"\n\n\"I verily believe that you are accusing the poor gentleman of being\ncapable of rejoicing in his daughter's dishonor.\"\n\n\"Voyons,\" said Valentin; \"who is he? what is he?\"\n\n\"He is what he looks like: as poor as a rat, but very high-toned.\"\n\n\"Exactly. I noticed him perfectly; be sure I do him justice. He has\nhad losses, des malheurs, as we say. He is very low-spirited, and his\ndaughter is too much for him. He is the pink of respectability, and he\nhas sixty years of honesty on his back. All this I perfectly appreciate.\nBut I know my fellow-men and my fellow-Parisians, and I will make a\nbargain with you.\" Newman gave ear to his bargain and he went on. \"He\nwould rather his daughter were a good girl than a bad one, but if the\nworst comes to the worst, the old man will not do what Virginius did.\nSuccess justifies everything. If Mademoiselle Noemie makes a figure,\nher papa will feel--well, we will call it relieved. And she will make a\nfigure. The old gentleman's future is assured.\"\n\n\"I don't know what Virginius did, but M. Nioche will shoot Miss Noemie,\"\nsaid Newman. \"After that, I suppose his future will be assured in some\nsnug prison.\"\n\n\"I am not a cynic; I am simply an observer,\" Valentin rejoined.\n\"Mademoiselle Noemie interests me; she is extremely remarkable. If\nthere is a good reason, in honor or decency, for dismissing her from my\nthoughts forever, I am perfectly willing to do it. Your estimate of the\npapa's sensibilities is a good reason until it is invalidated. I promise\nyou not to look at the young girl again until you tell me that you have\nchanged your mind about the papa. When he has given distinct proof of\nbeing a philosopher, you will raise your interdict. Do you agree to\nthat?\"\n\n\"Do you mean to bribe him?\"\n\n\"Oh, you admit, then, that he is bribable? No, he would ask too much,\nand it would not be exactly fair. I mean simply to wait. You will\ncontinue, I suppose, to see this interesting couple, and you will give\nme the news yourself.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, \"if the old man turns out a humbug, you may do what\nyou please. I wash my hands of the matter. For the girl herself, you\nmay be at rest. I don't know what harm she may do to me, but I certainly\ncan't hurt her. It seems to me,\" said Newman, \"that you are very well\nmatched. You are both hard cases, and M. Nioche and I, I believe, are\nthe only virtuous men to be found in Paris.\"\n\nSoon after this M. de Bellegarde, in punishment for his levity, received\na stern poke in the back from a pointed instrument. Turning quickly\nround he found the weapon to be a parasol wielded by a lady in green\ngauze bonnet. Valentin's English cousins had been drifting about\nunpiloted, and evidently deemed that they had a grievance. Newman left\nhim to their mercies, but with a boundless faith in his power to plead\nhis cause.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n\nThree days after his introduction to the family of Madame de Cintre,\nNewman, coming in toward evening, found upon his table the card of the\nMarquis de Bellegarde. On the following day he received a note informing\nhim that the Marquise de Bellegarde would be grateful for the honor of\nhis company at dinner.\n\nHe went, of course, though he had to break another engagement to do it.\nHe was ushered into the room in which Madame de Bellegarde had received\nhim before, and here he found his venerable hostess, surrounded by her\nentire family. The room was lighted only by the crackling fire, which\nilluminated the very small pink slippers of a lady who, seated in a low\nchair, was stretching out her toes before it. This lady was the younger\nMadame de Bellegarde. Madame de Cintre was seated at the other end\nof the room, holding a little girl against her knee, the child of her\nbrother Urbain, to whom she was apparently relating a wonderful story.\nValentin was sitting on a puff, close to his sister-in-law, into whose\near he was certainly distilling the finest nonsense. The marquis was\nstationed before the fire, with his head erect and his hands behind him,\nin an attitude of formal expectancy.\n\nOld Madame de Bellegarde stood up to give Newman her greeting, and there\nwas that in the way she did so which seemed to measure narrowly the\nextent of her condescension. \"We are all alone, you see, we have asked\nno one else,\" she said, austerely.\n\n\"I am very glad you didn't; this is much more sociable,\" said Newman.\n\"Good evening, sir,\" and he offered his hand to the marquis.\n\nM. de Bellegarde was affable, but in spite of his dignity he was\nrestless. He began to pace up and down the room, he looked out of the\nlong windows, he took up books and laid them down again. Young Madame\nde Bellegarde gave Newman her hand without moving and without looking at\nhim.\n\n\"You may think that is coldness,\" exclaimed Valentin; \"but it is not, it\nis warmth. It shows she is treating you as an intimate. Now she detests\nme, and yet she is always looking at me.\"\n\n\"No wonder I detest you if I am always looking at you!\" cried the lady.\n\"If Mr. Newman does not like my way of shaking hands, I will do it\nagain.\"\n\nBut this charming privilege was lost upon our hero, who was already\nmaking his way across the room to Madame de Cintre. She looked at him\nas she shook hands, but she went on with the story she was telling her\nlittle niece. She had only two or three phrases to add, but they were\napparently of great moment. She deepened her voice, smiling as she did\nso, and the little girl gazed at her with round eyes.\n\n\"But in the end the young prince married the beautiful Florabella,\" said\nMadame de Cintre, \"and carried her off to live with him in the Land of\nthe Pink Sky. There she was so happy that she forgot all her troubles,\nand went out to drive every day of her life in an ivory coach drawn by\nfive hundred white mice. Poor Florabella,\" she exclaimed to Newman, \"had\nsuffered terribly.\"\n\n\"She had had nothing to eat for six months,\" said little Blanche.\n\n\"Yes, but when the six months were over, she had a plum-cake as big as\nthat ottoman,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"That quite set her up again.\"\n\n\"What a checkered career!\" said Newman. \"Are you very fond of children?\"\nHe was certain that she was, but he wished to make her say it.\n\n\"I like to talk with them,\" she answered; \"we can talk with them so much\nmore seriously than with grown persons. That is great nonsense that I\nhave been telling Blanche, but it is a great deal more serious than most\nof what we say in society.\"\n\n\"I wish you would talk to me, then, as if I were Blanche's age,\" said\nNewman, laughing. \"Were you happy at your ball, the other night?\"\n\n\"Ecstatically!\"\n\n\"Now you are talking the nonsense that we talk in society,\" said Newman.\n\"I don't believe that.\"\n\n\"It was my own fault if I was not happy. The ball was very pretty, and\nevery one very amiable.\"\n\n\"It was on your conscience,\" said Newman, \"that you had annoyed your\nmother and your brother.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre looked at him a moment without answering. \"That is\ntrue,\" she replied at last. \"I had undertaken more than I could carry\nout. I have very little courage; I am not a heroine.\" She said this with\na certain soft emphasis; but then, changing her tone, \"I could never\nhave gone through the sufferings of the beautiful Florabella,\" she\nadded, not even for her prospective rewards.\n\nDinner was announced, and Newman betook himself to the side of the old\nMadame de Bellegarde. The dining-room, at the end of a cold corridor,\nwas vast and sombre; the dinner was simple and delicately excellent.\nNewman wondered whether Madame de Cintre had had something to do with\nordering the repast and greatly hoped she had. Once seated at table,\nwith the various members of the ancient house of Bellegarde around\nhim, he asked himself the meaning of his position. Was the old lady\nresponding to his advances? Did the fact that he was a solitary guest\naugment his credit or diminish it? Were they ashamed to show him to\nother people, or did they wish to give him a sign of sudden adoption\ninto their last reserve of favor? Newman was on his guard; he was\nwatchful and conjectural; and yet at the same time he was vaguely\nindifferent. Whether they gave him a long rope or a short one he was\nthere now, and Madame de Cintre was opposite to him. She had a tall\ncandlestick on each side of her; she would sit there for the next hour,\nand that was enough. The dinner was extremely solemn and measured; he\nwondered whether this was always the state of things in \"old families.\"\nMadame de Bellegarde held her head very high, and fixed her eyes, which\nlooked peculiarly sharp in her little, finely-wrinkled white face, very\nintently upon the table-service. The marquis appeared to have decided\nthat the fine arts offered a safe subject of conversation, as not\nleading to startling personal revelations. Every now and then, having\nlearned from Newman that he had been through the museums of Europe, he\nuttered some polished aphorism upon the flesh-tints of Rubens and the\ngood taste of Sansovino. His manners seemed to indicate a fine, nervous\ndread that something disagreeable might happen if the atmosphere were\nnot purified by allusions of a thoroughly superior cast. \"What under\nthe sun is the man afraid of?\" Newman asked himself. \"Does he think I am\ngoing to offer to swap jack-knives with him?\" It was useless to shut his\neyes to the fact that the marquis was profoundly disagreeable to him.\nHe had never been a man of strong personal aversions; his nerves had not\nbeen at the mercy of the mystical qualities of his neighbors. But here\nwas a man towards whom he was irresistibly in opposition; a man of\nforms and phrases and postures; a man full of possible impertinences\nand treacheries. M. de Bellegarde made him feel as if he were standing\nbare-footed on a marble floor; and yet, to gain his desire, Newman felt\nperfectly able to stand. He wondered what Madame de Cintre thought of\nhis being accepted, if accepted it was. There was no judging from her\nface, which expressed simply the desire to be gracious in a manner which\nshould require as little explicit recognition as possible. Young Madame\nde Bellegarde had always the same manners; she was always preoccupied,\ndistracted, listening to everything and hearing nothing, looking at\nher dress, her rings, her finger-nails, seeming rather bored, and yet\npuzzling you to decide what was her ideal of social diversion. Newman\nwas enlightened on this point later. Even Valentin did not quite seem\nmaster of his wits; his vivacity was fitful and forced, yet Newman\nobserved that in the lapses of his talk he appeared excited. His eyes\nhad an intenser spark than usual. The effect of all this was that\nNewman, for the first time in his life, was not himself; that he\nmeasured his movements, and counted his words, and resolved that if the\noccasion demanded that he should appear to have swallowed a ramrod, he\nwould meet the emergency.\n\nAfter dinner M. de Bellegarde proposed to his guest that they should go\ninto the smoking-room, and he led the way toward a small, somewhat\nmusty apartment, the walls of which were ornamented with old hangings of\nstamped leather and trophies of rusty arms. Newman refused a cigar, but\nhe established himself upon one of the divans, while the marquis puffed\nhis own weed before the fire-place, and Valentin sat looking through the\nlight fumes of a cigarette from one to the other.\n\n\"I can't keep quiet any longer,\" said Valentin, at last. \"I must tell\nyou the news and congratulate you. My brother seems unable to come to\nthe point; he revolves around his announcement like the priest around\nthe altar. You are accepted as a candidate for the hand of our sister.\"\n\n\"Valentin, be a little proper!\" murmured the marquis, with a look of the\nmost delicate irritation contracting the bridge of his high nose.\n\n\"There has been a family council,\" the young man continued; \"my mother\nand Urbain have put their heads together, and even my testimony has\nnot been altogether excluded. My mother and the marquis sat at a table\ncovered with green cloth; my sister-in-law and I were on a bench against\nthe wall. It was like a committee at the Corps Legislatif. We were\ncalled up, one after the other, to testify. We spoke of you very\nhandsomely. Madame de Bellegarde said that if she had not been told who\nyou were, she would have taken you for a duke--an American duke, the\nDuke of California. I said that I could warrant you grateful for the\nsmallest favors--modest, humble, unassuming. I was sure that you would\nknow your own place, always, and never give us occasion to remind you of\ncertain differences. After all, you couldn't help it if you were not\na duke. There were none in your country; but if there had been, it was\ncertain that, smart and active as you are, you would have got the pick\nof the titles. At this point I was ordered to sit down, but I think I\nmade an impression in your favor.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde looked at his brother with dangerous coldness, and\ngave a smile as thin as the edge of a knife. Then he removed a spark of\ncigar-ash from the sleeve of his coat; he fixed his eyes for a while on\nthe cornice of the room, and at last he inserted one of his white hands\ninto the breast of his waistcoat. \"I must apologize to you for the\ndeplorable levity of my brother,\" he said, \"and I must notify you that\nthis is probably not the last time that his want of tact will cause you\nserious embarrassment.\"\n\n\"No, I confess I have no tact,\" said Valentin. \"Is your embarrassment\nreally painful, Newman? The marquis will put you right again; his own\ntouch is deliciously delicate.\"\n\n\"Valentin, I am sorry to say,\" the marquis continued, \"has never\npossessed the tone, the manner, that belongs to a young man in his\nposition. It has been a great affliction to his mother, who is very fond\nof the old traditions. But you must remember that he speaks for no one\nbut himself.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't mind him, sir,\" said Newman, good-humoredly. \"I know what\nhe amounts to.\"\n\n\"In the good old times,\" said Valentin, \"marquises and counts used\nto have their appointed fools and jesters, to crack jokes for them.\nNowadays we see a great strapping democrat keeping a count about him\nto play the fool. It's a good situation, but I certainly am very\ndegenerate.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde fixed his eyes for some time on the floor. \"My mother\ninformed me,\" he said presently, \"of the announcement that you made to\nher the other evening.\"\n\n\"That I desired to marry your sister?\" said Newman.\n\n\"That you wished to arrange a marriage,\" said the marquis, slowly,\n\"with my sister, the Comtesse de Cintre. The proposal was serious, and\nrequired, on my mother's part, a great deal of reflection. She naturally\ntook me into her counsels, and I gave my most zealous attention to the\nsubject. There was a great deal to be considered; more than you appear\nto imagine. We have viewed the question on all its faces, we have\nweighed one thing against another. Our conclusion has been that we favor\nyour suit. My mother has desired me to inform you of our decision.\nShe will have the honor of saying a few words to you on the subject,\nherself. Meanwhile, by us, the heads of the family, you are accepted.\"\n\nNewman got up and came nearer to the marquis. \"You will do nothing to\nhinder me, and all you can to help me, eh?\"\n\n\"I will recommend my sister to accept you.\"\n\nNewman passed his hand over his face, and pressed it for a moment upon\nhis eyes. This promise had a great sound, and yet the pleasure he took\nin it was embittered by his having to stand there so and receive his\npassport from M. de Bellegarde. The idea of having this gentleman mixed\nup with his wooing and wedding was more and more disagreeable to him.\nBut Newman had resolved to go through the mill, as he imagined it, and\nhe would not cry out at the first turn of the wheel. He was silent a\nwhile, and then he said, with a certain dryness which Valentin told him\nafterwards had a very grand air, \"I am much obliged to you.\"\n\n\"I take note of the promise,\" said Valentin, \"I register the vow.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde began to gaze at the cornice again; he apparently had\nsomething more to say. \"I must do my mother the justice,\" he resumed, \"I\nmust do myself the justice, to say that our decision was not easy. Such\nan arrangement was not what we had expected. The idea that my sister\nshould marry a gentleman--ah--in business was something of a novelty.\"\n\n\"So I told you, you know,\" said Valentin raising his finger at Newman.\n\n\"The novelty has not quite worn away, I confess,\" the marquis went on;\n\"perhaps it never will, entirely. But possibly that is not altogether\nto be regretted,\" and he gave his thin smile again. \"It may be that the\ntime has come when we should make some concession to novelty. There\nhad been no novelties in our house for a great many years. I made the\nobservation to my mother, and she did me the honor to admit that it was\nworthy of attention.\"\n\n\"My dear brother,\" interrupted Valentin, \"is not your memory just\nhere leading you the least bit astray? Our mother is, I may say,\ndistinguished for her small respect of abstract reasoning. Are you\nvery sure that she replied to your striking proposition in the gracious\nmanner you describe? You know how terribly incisive she is sometimes.\nDidn't she, rather, do you the honor to say, 'A fiddlestick for your\nphrases! There are better reasons than that'?\"\n\n\"Other reasons were discussed,\" said the marquis, without looking\nat Valentin, but with an audible tremor in his voice; \"some of them\npossibly were better. We are conservative, Mr. Newman, but we are not\nalso bigots. We judged the matter liberally. We have no doubt that\neverything will be comfortable.\"\n\nNewman had stood listening to these remarks with his arms folded and his\neyes fastened upon M. de Bellegarde, \"Comfortable?\" he said, with a sort\nof grim flatness of intonation. \"Why shouldn't we be comfortable? If you\nare not, it will be your own fault; I have everything to make ME so.\"\n\n\"My brother means that with the lapse of time you may get used to the\nchange\"--and Valentin paused, to light another cigarette.\n\n\"What change?\" asked Newman in the same tone.\n\n\"Urbain,\" said Valentin, very gravely, \"I am afraid that Mr. Newman does\nnot quite realize the change. We ought to insist upon that.\"\n\n\"My brother goes too far,\" said M. de Bellegarde. \"It is his fatal want\nof tact again. It is my mother's wish, and mine, that no such allusions\nshould be made. Pray never make them yourself. We prefer to assume\nthat the person accepted as the possible husband of my sister is one\nof ourselves, and that he should have no explanations to make. With a\nlittle discretion on both sides, everything, I think, will be easy. That\nis exactly what I wished to say--that we quite understand what we\nhave undertaken, and that you may depend upon our adhering to our\nresolution.\"\n\nValentin shook his hands in the air and then buried his face in them. \"I\nhave less tact than I might have, no doubt; but oh, my brother, if you\nknew what you yourself were saying!\" And he went off into a long laugh.\n\nM. de Bellegarde's face flushed a little, but he held his head higher,\nas if to repudiate this concession to vulgar perturbability. \"I am sure\nyou understand me,\" he said to Newman.\n\n\"Oh no, I don't understand you at all,\" said Newman. \"But you needn't\nmind that. I don't care. In fact, I think I had better not understand\nyou. I might not like it. That wouldn't suit me at all, you know. I want\nto marry your sister, that's all; to do it as quickly as possible, and\nto find fault with nothing. I don't care how I do it. I am not marrying\nyou, you know, sir. I have got my leave, and that is all I want.\"\n\n\"You had better receive the last word from my mother,\" said the marquis.\n\n\"Very good; I will go and get it,\" said Newman; and he prepared to\nreturn to the drawing-room.\n\nM. de Bellegarde made a motion for him to pass first, and when Newman\nhad gone out he shut himself into the room with Valentin. Newman had\nbeen a trifle bewildered by the audacious irony of the younger brother,\nand he had not needed its aid to point the moral of M. de Bellegarde's\ntranscendent patronage. He had wit enough to appreciate the force\nof that civility which consists in calling your attention to the\nimpertinences it spares you. But he had felt warmly the delicate\nsympathy with himself that underlay Valentin's fraternal irreverence,\nand he was most unwilling that his friend should pay a tax upon it.\nHe paused a moment in the corridor, after he had gone a few steps,\nexpecting to hear the resonance of M. de Bellegarde's displeasure; but\nhe detected only a perfect stillness. The stillness itself seemed a\ntrifle portentous; he reflected however that he had no right to stand\nlistening, and he made his way back to the salon. In his absence several\npersons had come in. They were scattered about the room in groups,\ntwo or three of them having passed into a small boudoir, next to the\ndrawing-room, which had now been lighted and opened. Old Madame de\nBellegarde was in her place by the fire, talking to a very old gentleman\nin a wig and a profuse white neck cloth of the fashion of 1820. Madame\nde Cintre was bending a listening head to the historic confidences of\nan old lady who was presumably the wife of the old gentleman in the\nneckcloth, an old lady in a red satin dress and an ermine cape, who\nwore across her forehead a band with a topaz set in it. Young Madame\nde Bellegarde, when Newman came in, left some people among whom she was\nsitting, and took the place that she had occupied before dinner. Then\nshe gave a little push to the puff that stood near her, and by a glance\nat Newman seemed to indicate that she had placed it in position for him.\nHe went and took possession of it; the marquis's wife amused and puzzled\nhim.\n\n\"I know your secret,\" she said, in her bad but charming English; \"you\nneed make no mystery of it. You wish to marry my sister-in-law. C'est un\nbeau choix. A man like you ought to marry a tall, thin woman. You must\nknow that I have spoken in your favor; you owe me a famous taper!\"\n\n\"You have spoken to Madame de Cintre?\" said Newman.\n\n\"Oh no, not that. You may think it strange, but my sister-in-law and\nI are not so intimate as that. No; I spoke to my husband and my\nmother-in-law; I said I was sure we could do what we chose with you.\"\n\n\"I am much, obliged to you,\" said Newman, laughing; \"but you can't.\"\n\n\"I know that very well; I didn't believe a word of it. But I wanted you\nto come into the house; I thought we should be friends.\"\n\n\"I am very sure of it,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Don't be too sure. If you like Madame de Cintre so much, perhaps you\nwill not like me. We are as different as blue and pink. But you and I\nhave something in common. I have come into this family by marriage; you\nwant to come into it in the same way.\"\n\n\"Oh no, I don't!\" interrupted Newman. \"I only want to take Madame de\nCintre out of it.\"\n\n\"Well, to cast your nets you have to go into the water. Our positions\nare alike; we shall be able to compare notes. What do you think of my\nhusband? It's a strange question, isn't it? But I shall ask you some\nstranger ones yet.\"\n\n\"Perhaps a stranger one will be easier to answer,\" said Newman. \"You\nmight try me.\"\n\n\"Oh, you get off very well; the old Comte de la Rochefidele, yonder,\ncouldn't do it better. I told them that if we only gave you a chance you\nwould be a perfect talon rouge. I know something about men. Besides, you\nand I belong to the same camp. I am a ferocious democrat. By birth I am\nvieille roche; a good little bit of the history of France is the history\nof my family. Oh, you never heard of us, of course! Ce que c'est que\nla gloire! We are much better than the Bellegardes, at any rate. But\nI don't care a pin for my pedigree; I want to belong to my time. I'm a\nrevolutionist, a radical, a child of the age! I am sure I go beyond you.\nI like clever people, wherever they come from, and I take my amusement\nwherever I find it. I don't pout at the Empire; here all the world pouts\nat the Empire. Of course I have to mind what I say; but I expect to\ntake my revenge with you.\" Madame de Bellegarde discoursed for some time\nlonger in this sympathetic strain, with an eager abundance which seemed\nto indicate that her opportunities for revealing her esoteric philosophy\nwere indeed rare. She hoped that Newman would never be afraid of her,\nhowever he might be with the others, for, really, she went very far\nindeed. \"Strong people\"--le gens forts--were in her opinion equal,\nall the world over. Newman listened to her with an attention at once\nbeguiled and irritated. He wondered what the deuce she, too, was\ndriving at, with her hope that he would not be afraid of her and her\nprotestations of equality. In so far as he could understand her, she was\nwrong; a silly, rattling woman was certainly not the equal of a sensible\nman, preoccupied with an ambitious passion. Madame de Bellegarde stopped\nsuddenly, and looked at him sharply, shaking her fan. \"I see you don't\nbelieve me,\" she said, \"you are too much on your guard. You will not\nform an alliance, offensive or defensive? You are very wrong; I could\nhelp you.\"\n\nNewman answered that he was very grateful and that he would certainly\nask for help; she should see. \"But first of all,\" he said, \"I must help\nmyself.\" And he went to join Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"I have been telling Madame de la Rochefidele that you are an American,\"\nshe said, as he came up. \"It interests her greatly. Her father went over\nwith the French troops to help you in your battles in the last century,\nand she has always, in consequence, wanted greatly to see an American.\nBut she has never succeeded till to-night. You are the first--to her\nknowledge--that she has ever looked at.\"\n\nMadame de la Rochefidele had an aged, cadaverous face, with a falling of\nthe lower jaw which prevented her from bringing her lips together, and\nreduced her conversations to a series of impressive but inarticulate\ngutturals. She raised an antique eyeglass, elaborately mounted in chased\nsilver, and looked at Newman from head to foot. Then she said something\nto which he listened deferentially, but which he completely failed to\nunderstand.\n\n\"Madame de la Rochefidele says that she is convinced that she must have\nseen Americans without knowing it,\" Madame de Cintre explained. Newman\nthought it probable she had seen a great many things without knowing it;\nand the old lady, again addressing herself to utterance, declared--as\ninterpreted by Madame de Cintre--that she wished she had known it.\n\nAt this moment the old gentleman who had been talking to the elder\nMadame de Bellegarde drew near, leading the marquise on his arm. His\nwife pointed out Newman to him, apparently explaining his remarkable\norigin. M. de la Rochefidele, whose old age was rosy and rotund, spoke\nvery neatly and clearly, almost as prettily, Newman thought, as M.\nNioche. When he had been enlightened, he turned to Newman with an\ninimitable elderly grace.\n\n\"Monsieur is by no means the first American that I have seen,\" he said.\n\"Almost the first person I ever saw--to notice him--was an American.\"\n\n\"Ah?\" said Newman, sympathetically.\n\n\"The great Dr. Franklin,\" said M. de la Rochefidele. \"Of course I was\nvery young. He was received very well in our monde.\"\n\n\"Not better than Mr. Newman,\" said Madame de Bellegarde. \"I beg he\nwill offer his arm into the other room. I could have offered no higher\nprivilege to Dr. Franklin.\"\n\nNewman, complying with Madame de Bellegarde's request, perceived that\nher two sons had returned to the drawing-room. He scanned their faces\nan instant for traces of the scene that had followed his separation from\nthem, but the marquise seemed neither more nor less frigidly grand than\nusual, and Valentin was kissing ladies' hands with at least his habitual\nair of self-abandonment to the act. Madame de Bellegarde gave a glance\nat her eldest son, and by the time she had crossed the threshold of\nher boudoir he was at her side. The room was now empty and offered\na sufficient degree of privacy. The old lady disengaged herself from\nNewman's arm and rested her hand on the arm of the marquis; and in this\nposition she stood a moment, holding her head high and biting her small\nunder-lip. I am afraid the picture was lost upon Newman, but Madame de\nBellegarde was, in fact, at this moment a striking image of the dignity\nwhich--even in the case of a little time-shrunken old lady--may reside\nin the habit of unquestioned authority and the absoluteness of a social\ntheory favorable to yourself.\n\n\"My son has spoken to you as I desired,\" she said, \"and you understand\nthat we shall not interfere. The rest will lie with yourself.\"\n\n\"M. de Bellegarde told me several things I didn't understand,\" said\nNewman, \"but I made out that. You will leave me open field. I am much\nobliged.\"\n\n\"I wish to add a word that my son probably did not feel at liberty to\nsay,\" the marquise rejoined. \"I must say it for my own peace of mind. We\nare stretching a point; we are doing you a great favor.\"\n\n\"Oh, your son said it very well; didn't you?\" said Newman.\n\n\"Not so well as my mother,\" declared the marquis.\n\n\"I can only repeat--I am much obliged.\"\n\n\"It is proper I should tell you,\" Madame de Bellegarde went on, \"that I\nam very proud, and that I hold my head very high. I may be wrong, but\nI am too old to change. At least I know it, and I don't pretend to\nanything else. Don't flatter yourself that my daughter is not proud. She\nis proud in her own way--a somewhat different way from mine. You will\nhave to make your terms with that. Even Valentin is proud, if you touch\nthe right spot--or the wrong one. Urbain is proud; that you see for\nyourself. Sometimes I think he is a little too proud; but I wouldn't\nchange him. He is the best of my children; he cleaves to his old mother.\nBut I have said enough to show you that we are all proud together. It is\nwell that you should know the sort of people you have come among.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, \"I can only say, in return, that I am NOT proud;\nI shan't mind you! But you speak as if you intended to be very\ndisagreeable.\"\n\n\"I shall not enjoy having my daughter marry you, and I shall not pretend\nto enjoy it. If you don't mind that, so much the better.\"\n\n\"If you stick to your own side of the contract we shall not quarrel;\nthat is all I ask of you,\" said Newman. \"Keep your hands off, and\ngive me an open field. I am very much in earnest, and there is not the\nslightest danger of my getting discouraged or backing out. You will have\nme constantly before your eyes; if you don't like it, I am sorry for\nyou. I will do for your daughter, if she will accept me everything that\na man can do for a woman. I am happy to tell you that, as a promise--a\npledge. I consider that on your side you make me an equal pledge. You\nwill not back out, eh?\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean by 'backing out,'\" said the marquise.\n\"It suggests a movement of which I think no Bellegarde has ever been\nguilty.\"\n\n\"Our word is our word,\" said Urbain. \"We have given it.\"\n\n\"Well, now,\" said Newman, \"I am very glad you are so proud. It makes me\nbelieve that you will keep it.\"\n\nThe marquise was silent a moment, and then, suddenly, \"I shall always be\npolite to you, Mr. Newman,\" she declared, \"but, decidedly, I shall never\nlike you.\"\n\n\"Don't be too sure,\" said Newman, laughing.\n\n\"I am so sure that I will ask you to take me back to my arm-chair\nwithout the least fear of having my sentiments modified by the service\nyou render me.\" And Madame de Bellegarde took his arm, and returned to\nthe salon and to her customary place.\n\nM. de la Rochefidele and his wife were preparing to take their leave,\nand Madame de Cintre's interview with the mumbling old lady was at an\nend. She stood looking about her, asking herself, apparently to whom she\nshould next speak, when Newman came up to her.\n\n\"Your mother has given me leave--very solemnly--to come here often,\" he\nsaid. \"I mean to come often.\"\n\n\"I shall be glad to see you,\" she answered, simply. And then, in a\nmoment. \"You probably think it very strange that there should be such a\nsolemnity--as you say--about your coming.\"\n\n\"Well, yes; I do, rather.\"\n\n\"Do you remember what my brother Valentin said, the first time you came\nto see me--that we were a strange, strange family?\"\n\n\"It was not the first time I came, but the second,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Very true. Valentin annoyed me at the time, but now I know you better,\nI may tell you he was right. If you come often, you will see!\" and\nMadame de Cintre turned away.\n\nNewman watched her a while, talking with other people, and then he took\nhis leave. He shook hands last with Valentin de Bellegarde, who came out\nwith him to the top of the staircase. \"Well, you have got your permit,\"\nsaid Valentin. \"I hope you liked the process.\"\n\n\"I like your sister, more than ever. But don't worry your brother any\nmore for my sake,\" Newman added. \"I don't mind him. I am afraid he came\ndown on you in the smoking-room, after I went out.\"\n\n\"When my brother comes down on me,\" said Valentin, \"he falls hard. I\nhave a peculiar way of receiving him. I must say,\" he continued, \"that\nthey came up to the mark much sooner than I expected. I don't understand\nit, they must have had to turn the screw pretty tight. It's a tribute to\nyour millions.\"\n\n\"Well, it's the most precious one they have ever received,\" said Newman.\n\nHe was turning away when Valentin stopped him, looking at him with a\nbrilliant, softly-cynical glance. \"I should like to know whether, within\na few days, you have seen your venerable friend M. Nioche.\"\n\n\"He was yesterday at my rooms,\" Newman answered.\n\n\"What did he tell you?\"\n\n\"Nothing particular.\"\n\n\"You didn't see the muzzle of a pistol sticking out of his pocket?\"\n\n\"What are you driving at?\" Newman demanded. \"I thought he seemed rather\ncheerful for him.\"\n\nValentin broke into a laugh. \"I am delighted to hear it! I win my bet.\nMademoiselle Noemie has thrown her cap over the mill, as we say. She\nhas left the paternal domicile. She is launched! And M. Nioche is rather\ncheerful--FOR HIM! Don't brandish your tomahawk at that rate; I have\nnot seen her nor communicated with her since that day at the Louvre.\nAndromeda has found another Perseus than I. My information is exact;\non such matters it always is. I suppose that now you will raise your\nprotest.\"\n\n\"My protest be hanged!\" murmured Newman, disgustedly.\n\nBut his tone found no echo in that in which Valentin, with his hand on\nthe door, to return to his mother's apartment, exclaimed, \"But I shall\nsee her now! She is very remarkable--she is very remarkable!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n\nNewman kept his promise, or his menace, of going often to the Rue de\nl'Universite, and during the next six weeks he saw Madame de Cintre more\ntimes than he could have numbered. He flattered himself that he was not\nin love, but his biographer may be supposed to know better. He claimed,\nat least, none of the exemptions and emoluments of the romantic passion.\nLove, he believed, made a fool of a man, and his present emotion was not\nfolly but wisdom; wisdom sound, serene, well-directed. What he felt\nwas an intense, all-consuming tenderness, which had for its object an\nextraordinarily graceful and delicate, and at the same time impressive,\nwoman who lived in a large gray house on the left bank of the Seine.\nThis tenderness turned very often into a positive heart-ache; a sign\nin which, certainly, Newman ought to have read the appellation which\nscience has conferred upon his sentiment. When the heart has a heavy\nweight upon it, it hardly matters whether the weight be of gold or of\nlead; when, at any rate, happiness passes into that place in which it\nbecomes identical with pain, a man may admit that the reign of wisdom\nis temporarily suspended. Newman wished Madame de Cintre so well that\nnothing he could think of doing for her in the future rose to the high\nstandard which his present mood had set itself. She seemed to him so\nfelicitous a product of nature and circumstance that his invention,\nmusing on future combinations, was constantly catching its breath with\nthe fear of stumbling into some brutal compression or mutilation of her\nbeautiful personal harmony. This is what I mean by Newman's tenderness:\nMadame de Cintre pleased him so, exactly as she was, that his desire\nto interpose between her and the troubles of life had the quality of a\nyoung mother's eagerness to protect the sleep of her first-born child.\nNewman was simply charmed, and he handled his charm as if it were a\nmusic-box which would stop if one shook it. There can be no better proof\nof the hankering epicure that is hidden in every man's temperament,\nwaiting for a signal from some divine confederate that he may safely\npeep out. Newman at last was enjoying, purely, freely, deeply. Certain\nof Madame de Cintre's personal qualities--the luminous sweetness of\nher eyes, the delicate mobility of her face, the deep liquidity of her\nvoice--filled all his consciousness. A rose-crowned Greek of old, gazing\nat a marble goddess with his whole bright intellect resting satisfied\nin the act, could not have been a more complete embodiment of the wisdom\nthat loses itself in the enjoyment of quiet harmonies.\n\nHe made no violent love to her--no sentimental speeches. He never\ntrespassed on what she had made him understand was for the present\nforbidden ground. But he had, nevertheless, a comfortable sense that she\nknew better from day to day how much he admired her. Though in general\nhe was no great talker, he talked much, and he succeeded perfectly in\nmaking her say many things. He was not afraid of boring her, either by\nhis discourse or by his silence; and whether or no he did occasionally\nbore her, it is probable that on the whole she liked him only the better\nfor his absense of embarrassed scruples. Her visitors, coming in\noften while Newman sat there, found a tall, lean, silent man in a\nhalf-lounging attitude, who laughed out sometimes when no one had\nmeant to be droll, and remained grave in the presence of calculated\nwitticisms, for appreciation of which he had apparently not the proper\nculture.\n\nIt must be confessed that the number of subjects upon which Newman had\nno ideas was extremely large, and it must be added that as regards those\nsubjects upon which he was without ideas he was also perfectly without\nwords. He had little of the small change of conversation, and his stock\nof ready-made formulas and phrases was the scantiest. On the other hand\nhe had plenty of attention to bestow, and his estimate of the importance\nof a topic did not depend upon the number of clever things he could say\nabout it. He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with\nwhom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence\nmeant displeasure. What it was that entertained him during some of his\nspeechless sessions I must, however, confess myself unable to determine.\nWe know in a general way that a great many things which were old stories\nto a great many people had the charm of novelty to him, but a complete\nlist of his new impressions would probably contain a number of surprises\nfor us. He told Madame de Cintre a hundred long stories; he explained\nto her, in talking of the United States, the working of various local\ninstitutions and mercantile customs. Judging by the sequel she was\ninterested, but one would not have been sure of it beforehand. As\nregards her own talk, Newman was very sure himself that she herself\nenjoyed it: this was as a sort of amendment to the portrait that Mrs.\nTristram had drawn of her. He discovered that she had naturally an\nabundance of gayety. He had been right at first in saying she was shy;\nher shyness, in a woman whose circumstances and tranquil beauty afforded\nevery facility for well-mannered hardihood, was only a charm the more.\nFor Newman it had lasted some time, and even when it went it left\nsomething behind it which for a while performed the same office. Was\nthis the tearful secret of which Mrs. Tristram had had a glimpse, and\nof which, as of her friend's reserve, her high-breeding, and her\nprofundity, she had given a sketch of which the outlines were, perhaps,\nrather too heavy? Newman supposed so, but he found himself wondering\nless every day what Madame de Cintre's secrets might be, and more\nconvinced that secrets were, in themselves, hateful things to her. She\nwas a woman for the light, not for the shade; and her natural line was\nnot picturesque reserve and mysterious melancholy, but frank, joyous,\nbrilliant action, with just so much meditation as was necessary, and\nnot a grain more. To this, apparently, he had succeeded in bringing her\nback. He felt, himself, that he was an antidote to oppressive secrets;\nwhat he offered her was, in fact, above all things a vast, sunny\nimmunity from the need of having any.\n\nHe often passed his evenings, when Madame de Cintre had so appointed it,\nat the chilly fireside of Madame de Bellegarde, contenting himself with\nlooking across the room, through narrowed eyelids, at his mistress, who\nalways made a point, before her family, of talking to some one else.\nMadame de Bellegarde sat by the fire conversing neatly and coldly\nwith whomsoever approached her, and glancing round the room with her\nslowly-restless eye, the effect of which, when it lighted upon him, was\nto Newman's sense identical with that of a sudden spurt of damp air.\nWhen he shook hands with her he always asked her with a laugh whether\nshe could \"stand him\" another evening, and she replied, without a laugh,\nthat thank God she had always been able to do her duty. Newman, talking\nonce of the marquise to Mrs. Tristram, said that after all it was very\neasy to get on with her; it always was easy to get on with out-and-out\nrascals.\n\n\"And is it by that elegant term,\" said Mrs. Tristram, \"that you\ndesignate the Marquise de Bellegarde?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, \"she is wicked, she is an old sinner.\"\n\n\"What is her crime?\" asked Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"I shouldn't wonder if she had murdered some one--all from a sense of\nduty, of course.\"\n\n\"How can you be so dreadful?\" sighed Mrs. Tristram.\n\n\"I am not dreadful. I am speaking of her favorably.\"\n\n\"Pray what will you say when you want to be severe?\"\n\n\"I shall keep my severity for some one else--for the marquis. There's a\nman I can't swallow, mix the drink as I will.\"\n\n\"And what has HE done?\"\n\n\"I can't quite make out; it is something dreadfully bad, something\nmean and underhand, and not redeemed by audacity, as his mother's\nmisdemeanors may have been. If he has never committed murder, he has at\nleast turned his back and looked the other way while some one else was\ncommitting it.\"\n\nIn spite of this invidious hypothesis, which must be taken for nothing\nmore than an example of the capricious play of \"American humor,\" Newman\ndid his best to maintain an easy and friendly style of communication\nwith M. de Bellegarde. So long as he was in personal contact with people\nhe disliked extremely to have anything to forgive them, and he was\ncapable of a good deal of unsuspected imaginative effort (for the sake\nof his own personal comfort) to assume for the time that they were\ngood fellows. He did his best to treat the marquis as one; he believed\nhonestly, moreover, that he could not, in reason, be such a confounded\nfool as he seemed. Newman's familiarity was never importunate; his sense\nof human equality was not an aggressive taste or an aesthetic theory,\nbut something as natural and organic as a physical appetite which had\nnever been put on a scanty allowance and consequently was innocent of\nungraceful eagerness. His tranquil unsuspectingness of the relativity\nof his own place in the social scale was probably irritating to M.\nde Bellegarde, who saw himself reflected in the mind of his potential\nbrother-in-law in a crude and colorless form, unpleasantly dissimilar\nto the impressive image projected upon his own intellectual mirror. He\nnever forgot himself for an instant, and replied to what he must have\nconsidered Newman's \"advances\" with mechanical politeness. Newman, who\nwas constantly forgetting himself, and indulging in an unlimited amount\nof irresponsible inquiry and conjecture, now and then found himself\nconfronted by the conscious, ironical smile of his host. What the\ndeuce M. de Bellegarde was smiling at he was at a loss to divine. M.\nde Bellegarde's smile may be supposed to have been, for himself, a\ncompromise between a great many emotions. So long as he smiled he\nwas polite, and it was proper he should be polite. A smile, moreover,\ncommitted him to nothing more than politeness, and left the degree of\npoliteness agreeably vague. A smile, too, was neither dissent--which\nwas too serious--nor agreement, which might have brought on terrible\ncomplications. And then a smile covered his own personal dignity, which\nin this critical situation he was resolved to keep immaculate; it was\nquite enough that the glory of his house should pass into eclipse.\nBetween him and Newman, his whole manner seemed to declare there could\nbe no interchange of opinion; he was holding his breath so as not\nto inhale the odor of democracy. Newman was far from being versed in\nEuropean politics, but he liked to have a general idea of what was going\non about him, and he accordingly asked M. de Bellegarde several times\nwhat he thought of public affairs. M. de Bellegarde answered with suave\nconcision that he thought as ill of them as possible, that they were\ngoing from bad to worse, and that the age was rotten to its core. This\ngave Newman, for the moment, an almost kindly feeling for the marquis;\nhe pitied a man for whom the world was so cheerless a place, and the\nnext time he saw M. de Bellegarde he attempted to call his attention\nto some of the brilliant features of the time. The marquis presently\nreplied that he had but a single political conviction, which was enough\nfor him: he believed in the divine right of Henry of Bourbon, Fifth\nof his name, to the throne of France. Newman stared, and after this he\nceased to talk politics with M. de Bellegarde. He was not horrified nor\nscandalized, he was not even amused; he felt as he should have felt if\nhe had discovered in M. de Bellegarde a taste for certain oddities of\ndiet; an appetite, for instance, for fishbones or nutshells. Under these\ncircumstances, of course, he would never have broached dietary questions\nwith him.\n\nOne afternoon, on his calling on Madame de Cintre, Newman was requested\nby the servant to wait a few moments, as his hostess was not at liberty.\nHe walked about the room a while, taking up her books, smelling her\nflowers, and looking at her prints and photographs (which he thought\nprodigiously pretty), and at last he heard the opening of a door to\nwhich his back was turned. On the threshold stood an old woman whom he\nremembered to have met several times in entering and leaving the house.\nShe was tall and straight and dressed in black, and she wore a cap\nwhich, if Newman had been initiated into such mysteries, would have been\na sufficient assurance that she was not a Frenchwoman; a cap of pure\nBritish composition. She had a pale, decent, depressed-looking face, and\na clear, dull, English eye. She looked at Newman a moment, both intently\nand timidly, and then she dropped a short, straight English curtsey.\n\n\"Madame de Cintre begs you will kindly wait,\" she said. \"She has just\ncome in; she will soon have finished dressing.\"\n\n\"Oh, I will wait as long as she wants,\" said Newman. \"Pray tell her not\nto hurry.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said the woman, softly; and then, instead of retiring\nwith her message, she advanced into the room. She looked about her for a\nmoment, and presently went to a table and began to arrange certain books\nand knick-knacks. Newman was struck with the high respectability of\nher appearance; he was afraid to address her as a servant. She busied\nherself for some moments with putting the table in order and pulling the\ncurtains straight, while Newman walked slowly to and fro. He perceived\nat last from her reflection in the mirror, as he was passing that her\nhands were idle and that she was looking at him intently. She evidently\nwished to say something, and Newman, perceiving it, helped her to begin.\n\n\"You are English?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, sir, please,\" she answered, quickly and softly; \"I was born in\nWiltshire.\"\n\n\"And what do you think of Paris?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't think of Paris, sir,\" she said in the same tone. \"It is so\nlong since I have been here.\"\n\n\"Ah, you have been here very long?\"\n\n\"It is more than forty years, sir. I came over with Lady Emmeline.\"\n\n\"You mean with old Madame de Bellegarde?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I came with her when she was married. I was my lady's own\nwoman.\"\n\n\"And you have been with her ever since?\"\n\n\"I have been in the house ever since. My lady has taken a younger\nperson. You see I am very old. I do nothing regular now. But I keep\nabout.\"\n\n\"You look very strong and well,\" said Newman, observing the erectness of\nher figure, and a certain venerable rosiness in her cheek.\n\n\"Thank God I am not ill, sir; I hope I know my duty too well to go\npanting and coughing about the house. But I am an old woman, sir, and it\nis as an old woman that I venture to speak to you.\"\n\n\"Oh, speak out,\" said Newman, curiously. \"You needn't be afraid of me.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I think you are kind. I have seen you before.\"\n\n\"On the stairs, you mean?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. When you have been coming to see the countess. I have taken\nthe liberty of noticing that you come often.\"\n\n\"Oh yes; I come very often,\" said Newman, laughing. \"You need not have\nbeen wide-awake to notice that.\"\n\n\"I have noticed it with pleasure, sir,\" said the ancient tire-woman,\ngravely. And she stood looking at Newman with a strange expression of\nface. The old instinct of deference and humility was there; the habit\nof decent self-effacement and knowledge of her \"own place.\" But there\nmingled with it a certain mild audacity, born of the occasion and of a\nsense, probably, of Newman's unprecedented approachableness, and, beyond\nthis, a vague indifference to the old proprieties; as if my lady's own\nwoman had at last begun to reflect that, since my lady had taken another\nperson, she had a slight reversionary property in herself.\n\n\"You take a great interest in the family?\" said Newman.\n\n\"A deep interest, sir. Especially in the countess.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that,\" said Newman. And in a moment he added, smiling, \"So\ndo I!\"\n\n\"So I suppose, sir. We can't help noticing these things and having our\nideas; can we, sir?\"\n\n\"You mean as a servant?\" said Newman.\n\n\"Ah, there it is, sir. I am afraid that when I let my thoughts meddle\nwith such matters I am no longer a servant. But I am so devoted to the\ncountess; if she were my own child I couldn't love her more. That is how\nI come to be so bold, sir. They say you want to marry her.\"\n\nNewman eyed his interlocutress and satisfied himself that she was not\na gossip, but a zealot; she looked anxious, appealing, discreet. \"It is\nquite true,\" he said. \"I want to marry Madame de Cintre.\"\n\n\"And to take her away to America?\"\n\n\"I will take her wherever she wants to go.\"\n\n\"The farther away the better, sir!\" exclaimed the old woman, with sudden\nintensity. But she checked herself, and, taking up a paper-weight in\nmosaic, began to polish it with her black apron. \"I don't mean anything\nagainst the house or the family, sir. But I think a great change would\ndo the poor countess good. It is very sad here.\"\n\n\"Yes, it's not very lively,\" said Newman. \"But Madame de Cintre is gay\nherself.\"\n\n\"She is everything that is good. You will not be vexed to hear that she\nhas been gayer for a couple of months past than she had been in many a\nday before.\"\n\nNewman was delighted to gather this testimony to the prosperity of his\nsuit, but he repressed all violent marks of elation. \"Has Madame de\nCintre been in bad spirits before this?\" he asked.\n\n\"Poor lady, she had good reason. M. de Cintre was no husband for a sweet\nyoung lady like that. And then, as I say, it has been a sad house. It is\nbetter, in my humble opinion, that she were out of it. So, if you will\nexcuse me for saying so, I hope she will marry you.\"\n\n\"I hope she will!\" said Newman.\n\n\"But you must not lose courage, sir, if she doesn't make up her mind at\nonce. That is what I wanted to beg of you, sir. Don't give it up, sir.\nYou will not take it ill if I say it's a great risk for any lady at any\ntime; all the more when she has got rid of one bad bargain. But if she\ncan marry a good, kind, respectable gentleman, I think she had better\nmake up her mind to it. They speak very well of you, sir, in the house,\nand, if you will allow me to say so, I like your face. You have a very\ndifferent appearance from the late count, he wasn't five feet high. And\nthey say your fortune is beyond everything. There's no harm in that. So\nI beseech you to be patient, sir, and bide your time. If I don't say\nthis to you, sir, perhaps no one will. Of course it is not for me to\nmake any promises. I can answer for nothing. But I think your chance is\nnot so bad, sir. I am nothing but a weary old woman in my quiet corner,\nbut one woman understands another, and I think I make out the countess.\nI received her in my arms when she came into the world and her first\nwedding day was the saddest of my life. She owes it to me to show me\nanother and a brighter one. If you will hold firm, sir--and you look as\nif you would--I think we may see it.\"\n\n\"I am much obliged to you for your encouragement,\" said Newman,\nheartily. \"One can't have too much. I mean to hold firm. And if Madame\nde Cintre marries me you must come and live with her.\"\n\nThe old woman looked at him strangely, with her soft, lifeless eyes. \"It\nmay seem a heartless thing to say, sir, when one has been forty years in\na house, but I may tell you that I should like to leave this place.\"\n\n\"Why, it's just the time to say it,\" said Newman, fervently. \"After\nforty years one wants a change.\"\n\n\"You are very kind, sir;\" and this faithful servant dropped another\ncurtsey and seemed disposed to retire. But she lingered a moment and\ngave a timid, joyless smile. Newman was disappointed, and his fingers\nstole half shyly half irritably into his waistcoat-pocket. His informant\nnoticed the movement. \"Thank God I am not a Frenchwoman,\" she said. \"If\nI were, I would tell you with a brazen simper, old as I am, that if you\nplease, monsieur, my information is worth something. Let me tell you so\nin my own decent English way. It IS worth something.\"\n\n\"How much, please?\" said Newman.\n\n\"Simply this: a promise not to hint to the countess that I have said\nthese things.\"\n\n\"If that is all, you have it,\" said Newman.\n\n\"That is all, sir. Thank you, sir. Good day, sir.\" And having once\nmore slid down telescope-wise into her scanty petticoats, the old woman\ndeparted. At the same moment Madame de Cintre came in by an opposite\ndoor. She noticed the movement of the other portiere and asked Newman\nwho had been entertaining him.\n\n\"The British female!\" said Newman. \"An old lady in a black dress and a\ncap, who curtsies up and down, and expresses herself ever so well.\"\n\n\"An old lady who curtsies and expresses herself?... Ah, you mean poor\nMrs. Bread. I happen to know that you have made a conquest of her.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Cake, she ought to be called,\" said Newman. \"She is very sweet.\nShe is a delicious old woman.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre looked at him a moment. \"What can she have said to you?\nShe is an excellent creature, but we think her rather dismal.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" Newman answered presently, \"that I like her because she has\nlived near you so long. Since your birth, she told me.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Madame de Cintre, simply; \"she is very faithful; I can trust\nher.\"\n\nNewman had never made any reflections to this lady upon her mother and\nher brother Urbain; had given no hint of the impression they made upon\nhim. But, as if she had guessed his thoughts, she seemed careful to\navoid all occasion for making him speak of them. She never alluded to\nher mother's domestic decrees; she never quoted the opinions of the\nmarquis. They had talked, however, of Valentin, and she had made no\nsecret of her extreme affection for her younger brother. Newman listened\nsometimes with a certain harmless jealousy; he would have liked to\ndivert some of her tender allusions to his own credit. Once Madame\nde Cintre told him with a little air of triumph about something that\nValentin had done which she thought very much to his honor. It was a\nservice he had rendered to an old friend of the family; something more\n\"serious\" than Valentin was usually supposed capable of being. Newman\nsaid he was glad to hear of it, and then began to talk about something\nwhich lay upon his own heart. Madame de Cintre listened, but after a\nwhile she said, \"I don't like the way you speak of my brother Valentin.\"\nHereupon Newman, surprised, said that he had never spoken of him but\nkindly.\n\n\"It is too kindly,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"It is a kindness that costs\nnothing; it is the kindness you show to a child. It is as if you didn't\nrespect him.\"\n\n\"Respect him? Why I think I do.\"\n\n\"You think? If you are not sure, it is no respect.\"\n\n\"Do you respect him?\" said Newman. \"If you do, I do.\"\n\n\"If one loves a person, that is a question one is not bound to answer,\"\nsaid Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"You should not have asked it of me, then. I am very fond of your\nbrother.\"\n\n\"He amuses you. But you would not like to resemble him.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't like to resemble any one. It is hard enough work resembling\none's self.\"\n\n\"What do you mean,\" asked Madame de Cintre, \"by resembling one's self?\"\n\n\"Why, doing what is expected of one. Doing one's duty.\"\n\n\"But that is only when one is very good.\"\n\n\"Well, a great many people are good,\" said Newman. \"Valentin is quite\ngood enough for me.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre was silent for a short time. \"He is not good enough for\nme,\" she said at last. \"I wish he would do something.\"\n\n\"What can he do?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"Nothing. Yet he is very clever.\"\n\n\"It is a proof of cleverness,\" said Newman, \"to be happy without doing\nanything.\"\n\n\"I don't think Valentin is happy, in reality. He is clever, generous,\nbrave; but what is there to show for it? To me there is something sad in\nhis life, and sometimes I have a sort of foreboding about him. I don't\nknow why, but I fancy he will have some great trouble--perhaps an\nunhappy end.\"\n\n\"Oh, leave him to me,\" said Newman, jovially. \"I will watch over him and\nkeep harm away.\"\n\nOne evening, in Madame de Bellegarde's salon, the conversation had\nflagged most sensibly. The marquis walked up and down in silence, like a\nsentinel at the door of some smooth-fronted citadel of the proprieties;\nhis mother sat staring at the fire; young Madame de Bellegarde worked at\nan enormous band of tapestry. Usually there were three or four visitors,\nbut on this occasion a violent storm sufficiently accounted for the\nabsence of even the most devoted habitues. In the long silences the\nhowling of the wind and the beating of the rain were distinctly audible.\nNewman sat perfectly still, watching the clock, determined to stay till\nthe stroke of eleven, but not a moment longer. Madame de Cintre had\nturned her back to the circle, and had been standing for some time\nwithin the uplifted curtain of a window, with her forehead against the\npane, gazing out into the deluged darkness. Suddenly she turned round\ntoward her sister-in-law.\n\n\"For Heaven's sake,\" she said, with peculiar eagerness, \"go to the piano\nand play something.\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde held up her tapestry and pointed to a little white\nflower. \"Don't ask me to leave this. I am in the midst of a masterpiece.\nMy flower is going to smell very sweet; I am putting in the smell with\nthis gold-colored silk. I am holding my breath; I can't leave off. Play\nsomething yourself.\"\n\n\"It is absurd for me to play when you are present,\" said Madame de\nCintre. But the next moment she went to the piano and began to\nstrike the keys with vehemence. She played for some time, rapidly and\nbrilliantly; when she stopped, Newman went to the piano and asked her\nto begin again. She shook her head, and, on his insisting, she said, \"I\nhave not been playing for you; I have been playing for myself.\" She went\nback to the window again and looked out, and shortly afterwards left the\nroom. When Newman took leave, Urbain de Bellegarde accompanied him, as\nhe always did, just three steps down the staircase. At the bottom stood\na servant with his overcoat. He had just put it on when he saw Madame de\nCintre coming towards him across the vestibule.\n\n\"Shall you be at home on Friday?\" Newman asked.\n\nShe looked at him a moment before answering his question. \"You don't\nlike my mother and my brother,\" she said.\n\nHe hesitated a moment, and then he said softly, \"No.\"\n\nShe laid her hand on the balustrade and prepared to ascend the stairs,\nfixing her eyes on the first step.\n\n\"Yes, I shall be at home on Friday,\" and she passed up the wide dusky\nstaircase.\n\nOn the Friday, as soon as he came in, she asked him to please to tell\nher why he disliked her family.\n\n\"Dislike your family?\" he exclaimed. \"That has a horrid sound. I didn't\nsay so, did I? I didn't mean it, if I did.\"\n\n\"I wish you would tell me what you think of them,\" said Madame de\nCintre.\n\n\"I don't think of any of them but you.\"\n\n\"That is because you dislike them. Speak the truth; you can't offend\nme.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't exactly love your brother,\" said Newman. \"I remember now.\nBut what is the use of my saying so? I had forgotten it.\"\n\n\"You are too good-natured,\" said Madame de Cintre gravely. Then, as if\nto avoid the appearance of inviting him to speak ill of the marquis, she\nturned away, motioning him to sit down.\n\nBut he remained standing before her and said presently, \"What is of much\nmore importance is that they don't like me.\"\n\n\"No--they don't,\" she said.\n\n\"And don't you think they are wrong?\" Newman asked. \"I don't believe I\nam a man to dislike.\"\n\n\"I suppose that a man who may be liked may also be disliked. And my\nbrother--my mother,\" she added, \"have not made you angry?\"\n\n\"Yes, sometimes.\"\n\n\"You have never shown it.\"\n\n\"So much the better.\"\n\n\"Yes, so much the better. They think they have treated you very well.\"\n\n\"I have no doubt they might have handled me much more roughly,\" said\nNewman. \"I am much obliged to them. Honestly.\"\n\n\"You are generous,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"It's a disagreeable\nposition.\"\n\n\"For them, you mean. Not for me.\"\n\n\"For me,\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"Not when their sins are forgiven!\" said Newman. \"They don't think I am\nas good as they are. I do. But we shan't quarrel about it.\"\n\n\"I can't even agree with you without saying something that has a\ndisagreeable sound. The presumption was against you. That you probably\ndon't understand.\"\n\nNewman sat down and looked at her for some time. \"I don't think I really\nunderstand it. But when you say it, I believe it.\"\n\n\"That's a poor reason,\" said Madame de Cintre, smiling.\n\n\"No, it's a very good one. You have a high spirit, a high standard; but\nwith you it's all natural and unaffected; you don't seem to have stuck\nyour head into a vise, as if you were sitting for the photograph of\npropriety. You think of me as a fellow who has had no idea in life but\nto make money and drive sharp bargains. That's a fair description of me,\nbut it is not the whole story. A man ought to care for something else,\nthough I don't know exactly what. I cared for money-making, but I never\ncared particularly for the money. There was nothing else to do, and\nit was impossible to be idle. I have been very easy to others, and to\nmyself. I have done most of the things that people asked me--I don't\nmean rascals. As regards your mother and your brother,\" Newman added,\n\"there is only one point upon which I feel that I might quarrel with\nthem. I don't ask them to sing my praises to you, but I ask them to let\nyou alone. If I thought they talked ill of me to you, I should come down\nupon them.\"\n\n\"They have let me alone, as you say. They have not talked ill of you.\"\n\n\"In that case,\" cried Newman, \"I declare they are only too good for this\nworld!\"\n\nMadame de Cintre appeared to find something startling in his\nexclamation. She would, perhaps, have replied, but at this moment\nthe door was thrown open and Urbain de Bellegarde stepped across the\nthreshold. He appeared surprised at finding Newman, but his surprise\nwas but a momentary shadow across the surface of an unwonted joviality.\nNewman had never seen the marquis so exhilarated; his pale, unlighted\ncountenance had a sort of thin transfiguration. He held open the\ndoor for some one else to enter, and presently appeared old Madame de\nBellegarde, leaning on the arm of a gentleman whom Newman had not seen\nbefore. He had already risen, and Madame de Cintre rose, as she always\ndid before her mother. The marquis, who had greeted Newman almost\ngenially, stood apart, slowly rubbing his hands. His mother came forward\nwith her companion. She gave a majestic little nod at Newman, and then\nshe released the strange gentleman, that he might make his bow to her\ndaughter.\n\n\"My daughter,\" she said, \"I have brought you an unknown relative, Lord\nDeepmere. Lord Deepmere is our cousin, but he has done only to-day what\nhe ought to have done long ago--come to make our acquaintance.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre smiled, and offered Lord Deepmere her hand. \"It is very\nextraordinary,\" said this noble laggard, \"but this is the first time\nthat I have ever been in Paris for more than three or four weeks.\"\n\n\"And how long have you been here now?\" asked Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"Oh, for the last two months,\" said Lord Deepmere.\n\nThese two remarks might have constituted an impertinence; but a glance\nat Lord Deepmere's face would have satisfied you, as it apparently\nsatisfied Madame de Cintre, that they constituted only a naivete. When\nhis companions were seated, Newman, who was out of the conversation,\noccupied himself with observing the newcomer. Observation, however,\nas regards Lord Deepmere's person; had no great range. He was a small,\nmeagre man, of some three and thirty years of age, with a bald head,\na short nose and no front teeth in the upper jaw; he had round, candid\nblue eyes, and several pimples on his chin. He was evidently very shy,\nand he laughed a great deal, catching his breath with an odd, startling\nsound, as the most convenient imitation of repose. His physiognomy\ndenoted great simplicity, a certain amount of brutality, and probable\nfailure in the past to profit by rare educational advantages. He\nremarked that Paris was awfully jolly, but that for real, thorough-paced\nentertainment it was nothing to Dublin. He even preferred Dublin to\nLondon. Had Madame de Cintre ever been to Dublin? They must all come\nover there some day, and he would show them some Irish sport. He always\nwent to Ireland for the fishing, and he came to Paris for the new\nOffenbach things. They always brought them out in Dublin, but he\ncouldn't wait. He had been nine times to hear La Pomme de Paris. Madame\nde Cintre, leaning back, with her arms folded, looked at Lord Deepmere\nwith a more visibly puzzled face than she usually showed to society.\nMadame de Bellegarde, on the other hand, wore a fixed smile. The marquis\nsaid that among light operas his favorite was the Gazza Ladra. The\nmarquise then began a series of inquiries about the duke and the\ncardinal, the old countess and Lady Barbara, after listening to which,\nand to Lord Deepmere's somewhat irreverent responses, for a quarter of\nan hour, Newman rose to take his leave. The marquis went with him three\nsteps into the hall.\n\n\"Is he Irish?\" asked Newman, nodding in the direction of the visitor.\n\n\"His mother was the daughter of Lord Finucane,\" said the marquis; \"he\nhas great Irish estates. Lady Bridget, in the complete absence of\nmale heirs, either direct or collateral--a most extraordinary\ncircumstance--came in for everything. But Lord Deepmere's title is\nEnglish and his English property is immense. He is a charming young\nman.\"\n\nNewman answered nothing, but he detained the marquis as the latter was\nbeginning gracefully to recede. \"It is a good time for me to thank you,\"\nhe said, \"for sticking so punctiliously to our bargain, for doing so\nmuch to help me on with your sister.\"\n\nThe marquis stared. \"Really, I have done nothing that I can boast of,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"Oh don't be modest,\" Newman answered, laughing. \"I can't flatter myself\nthat I am doing so well simply by my own merit. And thank your mother\nfor me, too!\" And he turned away, leaving M. de Bellegarde looking after\nhim.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n\nThe next time Newman came to the Rue de l'Universite he had the good\nfortune to find Madame de Cintre alone. He had come with a definite\nintention, and he lost no time in executing it. She wore, moreover, a\nlook which he eagerly interpreted as expectancy.\n\n\"I have been coming to see you for six months, now,\" he said, \"and I\nhave never spoken to you a second time of marriage. That was what you\nasked me; I obeyed. Could any man have done better?\"\n\n\"You have acted with great delicacy,\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"Well, I'm going to change, now,\" said Newman. \"I don't mean that I am\ngoing to be indelicate; but I'm going to go back to where I began. I AM\nback there. I have been all round the circle. Or rather, I have never\nbeen away from here. I have never ceased to want what I wanted then.\nOnly now I am more sure of it, if possible; I am more sure of myself,\nand more sure of you. I know you better, though I don't know anything\nI didn't believe three months ago. You are everything--you are beyond\neverything--I can imagine or desire. You know me now; you MUST know me.\nI won't say that you have seen the best--but you have seen the worst.\nI hope you have been thinking all this while. You must have seen that I\nwas only waiting; you can't suppose that I was changing. What will you\nsay to me, now? Say that everything is clear and reasonable, and that I\nhave been very patient and considerate, and deserve my reward. And then\ngive me your hand. Madame de Cintre do that. Do it.\"\n\n\"I knew you were only waiting,\" she said; \"and I was very sure this day\nwould come. I have thought about it a great deal. At first I was half\nafraid of it. But I am not afraid of it now.\" She paused a moment, and\nthen she added, \"It's a relief.\"\n\nShe was sitting on a low chair, and Newman was on an ottoman, near her.\nHe leaned a little and took her hand, which for an instant she let him\nkeep. \"That means that I have not waited for nothing,\" he said. She\nlooked at him for a moment, and he saw her eyes fill with tears. \"With\nme,\" he went on, \"you will be as safe--as safe\"--and even in his ardor\nhe hesitated a moment for a comparison--\"as safe,\" he said, with a kind\nof simple solemnity, \"as in your father's arms.\"\n\nStill she looked at him and her tears increased. Then, abruptly, she\nburied her face on the cushioned arm of the sofa beside her chair, and\nbroke into noiseless sobs. \"I am weak--I am weak,\" he heard her say.\n\n\"All the more reason why you should give yourself up to me,\" he\nanswered. \"Why are you troubled? There is nothing but happiness. Is that\nso hard to believe?\"\n\n\"To you everything seems so simple,\" she said, raising her head. \"But\nthings are not so. I like you extremely. I liked you six months ago, and\nnow I am sure of it, as you say you are sure. But it is not easy, simply\nfor that, to decide to marry you. There are a great many things to think\nabout.\"\n\n\"There ought to be only one thing to think about--that we love each\nother,\" said Newman. And as she remained silent he quickly added, \"Very\ngood, if you can't accept that, don't tell me so.\"\n\n\"I should be very glad to think of nothing,\" she said at last; \"not to\nthink at all; only to shut both my eyes and give myself up. But I can't.\nI'm cold, I'm old, I'm a coward; I never supposed I should marry again,\nand it seems to me very strange I should ever have listened to you.\nWhen I used to think, as a girl, of what I should do if I were to marry\nfreely, by my own choice, I thought of a very different man from you.\"\n\n\"That's nothing against me,\" said Newman with an immense smile; \"your\ntaste was not formed.\"\n\nHis smile made Madame de Cintre smile. \"Have you formed it?\" she asked.\nAnd then she said, in a different tone, \"Where do you wish to live?\"\n\n\"Anywhere in the wide world you like. We can easily settle that.\"\n\n\"I don't know why I ask you,\" she presently continued. \"I care very\nlittle. I think if I were to marry you I could live almost anywhere.\nYou have some false ideas about me; you think that I need a great many\nthings--that I must have a brilliant, worldly life. I am sure you are\nprepared to take a great deal of trouble to give me such things. But\nthat is very arbitrary; I have done nothing to prove that.\" She paused\nagain, looking at him, and her mingled sound and silence were so sweet\nto him that he had no wish to hurry her, any more than he would have\nhad a wish to hurry a golden sunrise. \"Your being so different, which\nat first seemed a difficulty, a trouble, began one day to seem to me a\npleasure, a great pleasure. I was glad you were different. And yet if I\nhad said so, no one would have understood me; I don't mean simply to my\nfamily.\"\n\n\"They would have said I was a queer monster, eh?\" said Newman.\n\n\"They would have said I could never be happy with you--you were too\ndifferent; and I would have said it was just BECAUSE you were so\ndifferent that I might be happy. But they would have given better\nreasons than I. My only reason\"--and she paused again.\n\nBut this time, in the midst of his golden sunrise, Newman felt the\nimpulse to grasp at a rosy cloud. \"Your only reason is that you love\nme!\" he murmured with an eloquent gesture, and for want of a better\nreason Madame de Cintre reconciled herself to this one.\n\nNewman came back the next day, and in the vestibule, as he entered the\nhouse, he encountered his friend Mrs. Bread. She was wandering about in\nhonorable idleness, and when his eyes fell upon her she delivered him\none of her curtsies. Then turning to the servant who had admitted him,\nshe said, with the combined majesty of her native superiority and of\na rugged English accent, \"You may retire; I will have the honor of\nconducting monsieur.\" In spite of this combination, however, it appeared\nto Newman that her voice had a slight quaver, as if the tone of command\nwere not habitual to it. The man gave her an impertinent stare, but he\nwalked slowly away, and she led Newman up-stairs. At half its course the\nstaircase gave a bend, forming a little platform. In the angle of\nthe wall stood an indifferent statue of an eighteenth-century nymph,\nsimpering, sallow, and cracked. Here Mrs. Bread stopped and looked with\nshy kindness at her companion.\n\n\"I know the good news, sir,\" she murmured.\n\n\"You have a good right to be first to know it,\" said Newman. \"You have\ntaken such a friendly interest.\"\n\nMrs. Bread turned away and began to blow the dust off the statue, as if\nthis might be mockery.\n\n\"I suppose you want to congratulate me,\" said Newman. \"I am greatly\nobliged.\" And then he added, \"You gave me much pleasure the other day.\"\n\nShe turned around, apparently reassured. \"You are not to think that I\nhave been told anything,\" she said; \"I have only guessed. But when I\nlooked at you, as you came in, I was sure I had guessed aright.\"\n\n\"You are very sharp,\" said Newman. \"I am sure that in your quiet way you\nsee everything.\"\n\n\"I am not a fool, sir, thank God. I have guessed something else beside,\"\nsaid Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"I needn't tell you that, sir; I don't think you would believe it. At\nany rate it wouldn't please you.\"\n\n\"Oh, tell me nothing but what will please me,\" laughed Newman. \"That is\nthe way you began.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, I suppose you won't be vexed to hear that the sooner\neverything is over the better.\"\n\n\"The sooner we are married, you mean? The better for me, certainly.\"\n\n\"The better for every one.\"\n\n\"The better for you, perhaps. You know you are coming to live with us,\"\nsaid Newman.\n\n\"I'm extremely obliged to you, sir, but it is not of myself I was\nthinking. I only wanted, if I might take the liberty, to recommend you\nto lose no time.\"\n\n\"Whom are you afraid of?\"\n\nMrs. Bread looked up the staircase and then down and then she looked at\nthe undusted nymph, as if she possibly had sentient ears. \"I am afraid\nof every one,\" she said.\n\n\"What an uncomfortable state of mind!\" said Newman. \"Does 'every one'\nwish to prevent my marriage?\"\n\n\"I am afraid of already having said too much,\" Mrs. Bread replied. \"I\nwon't take it back, but I won't say any more.\" And she took her way up\nthe staircase again and led him into Madame de Cintre's salon.\n\nNewman indulged in a brief and silent imprecation when he found that\nMadame de Cintre was not alone. With her sat her mother, and in the\nmiddle of the room stood young Madame de Bellegarde, in her bonnet and\nmantle. The old marquise, who was leaning back in her chair with a hand\nclasping the knob of each arm, looked at him fixedly without moving.\nShe seemed barely conscious of his greeting; she appeared to be musing\nintently. Newman said to himself that her daughter had been announcing\nher engagement and that the old lady found the morsel hard to swallow.\nBut Madame de Cintre, as she gave him her hand gave him also a look by\nwhich she appeared to mean that he should understand something. Was it\na warning or a request? Did she wish to enjoin speech or silence? He\nwas puzzled, and young Madame de Bellegarde's pretty grin gave him no\ninformation.\n\n\"I have not told my mother,\" said Madame de Cintre abruptly, looking at\nhim.\n\n\"Told me what?\" demanded the marquise. \"You tell me too little; you\nshould tell me everything.\"\n\n\"That is what I do,\" said Madame Urbain, with a little laugh.\n\n\"Let ME tell your mother,\" said Newman.\n\nThe old lady stared at him again, and then turned to her daughter. \"You\nare going to marry him?\" she cried, softly.\n\n\"Oui ma mere,\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"Your daughter has consented, to my great happiness,\" said Newman.\n\n\"And when was this arrangement made?\" asked Madame de Bellegarde. \"I\nseem to be picking up the news by chance!\"\n\n\"My suspense came to an end yesterday,\" said Newman.\n\n\"And how long was mine to have lasted?\" said the marquise to her\ndaughter. She spoke without irritation; with a sort of cold, noble\ndispleasure.\n\nMadame de Cintre stood silent, with her eyes on the ground. \"It is over\nnow,\" she said.\n\n\"Where is my son--where is Urbain?\" asked the marquise. \"Send for your\nbrother and inform him.\"\n\nYoung Madame de Bellegarde laid her hand on the bell-rope. \"He was to\nmake some visits with me, and I was to go and knock--very softly, very\nsoftly--at the door of his study. But he can come to me!\" She pulled\nthe bell, and in a few moments Mrs. Bread appeared, with a face of calm\ninquiry.\n\n\"Send for your brother,\" said the old lady.\n\nBut Newman felt an irresistible impulse to speak, and to speak in a\ncertain way. \"Tell the marquis we want him,\" he said to Mrs. Bread, who\nquietly retired.\n\nYoung Madame de Bellegarde went to her sister-in-law and embraced her.\nThen she turned to Newman, with an intense smile. \"She is charming. I\ncongratulate you.\"\n\n\"I congratulate you, sir,\" said Madame de Bellegarde, with extreme\nsolemnity. \"My daughter is an extraordinarily good woman. She may have\nfaults, but I don't know them.\"\n\n\"My mother does not often make jokes,\" said Madame de Cintre; \"but when\nshe does they are terrible.\"\n\n\"She is ravishing,\" the Marquise Urbain resumed, looking at her\nsister-in-law, with her head on one side. \"Yes, I congratulate you.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre turned away, and, taking up a piece of tapestry,\nbegan to ply the needle. Some minutes of silence elapsed, which were\ninterrupted by the arrival of M. de Bellegarde. He came in with his\nhat in his hand, gloved, and was followed by his brother Valentin, who\nappeared to have just entered the house. M. de Bellegarde looked around\nthe circle and greeted Newman with his usual finely-measured courtesy.\nValentin saluted his mother and his sisters, and, as he shook hands with\nNewman, gave him a glance of acute interrogation.\n\n\"Arrivez donc, messieurs!\" cried young Madame de Bellegarde. \"We have\ngreat news for you.\"\n\n\"Speak to your brother, my daughter,\" said the old lady.\n\nMadame de Cintre had been looking at her tapestry. She raised her eyes\nto her brother. \"I have accepted Mr. Newman.\"\n\n\"Your sister has consented,\" said Newman. \"You see after all, I knew\nwhat I was about.\"\n\n\"I am charmed!\" said M. de Bellegarde, with superior benignity.\n\n\"So am I,\" said Valentin to Newman. \"The marquis and I are charmed. I\ncan't marry, myself, but I can understand it. I can't stand on my head,\nbut I can applaud a clever acrobat. My dear sister, I bless your union.\"\n\nThe marquis stood looking for a while into the crown of his hat. \"We\nhave been prepared,\" he said at last \"but it is inevitable that in face\nof the event one should experience a certain emotion.\" And he gave a\nmost unhilarious smile.\n\n\"I feel no emotion that I was not perfectly prepared for,\" said his\nmother.\n\n\"I can't say that for myself,\" said Newman, smiling but differently from\nthe marquis. \"I am happier than I expected to be. I suppose it's the\nsight of your happiness!\"\n\n\"Don't exaggerate that,\" said Madame de Bellegarde, getting up and\nlaying her hand upon her daughter's arm. \"You can't expect an honest old\nwoman to thank you for taking away her beautiful, only daughter.\"\n\n\"You forgot me, dear madame,\" said the young marquise demurely.\n\n\"Yes, she is very beautiful,\" said Newman.\n\n\"And when is the wedding, pray?\" asked young Madame de Bellegarde; \"I\nmust have a month to think over a dress.\"\n\n\"That must be discussed,\" said the marquise.\n\n\"Oh, we will discuss it, and let you know!\" Newman exclaimed.\n\n\"I have no doubt we shall agree,\" said Urbain.\n\n\"If you don't agree with Madame de Cintre, you will be very\nunreasonable.\"\n\n\"Come, come, Urbain,\" said young Madame de Bellegarde, \"I must go\nstraight to my tailor's.\"\n\nThe old lady had been standing with her hand on her daughter's arm,\nlooking at her fixedly. She gave a little sigh, and murmured, \"No, I did\nNOT expect it! You are a fortunate man,\" she added, turning to Newman,\nwith an expressive nod.\n\n\"Oh, I know that!\" he answered. \"I feel tremendously proud. I feel like\ncrying it on the housetops,--like stopping people in the street to tell\nthem.\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde narrowed her lips. \"Pray don't,\" she said.\n\n\"The more people that know it, the better,\" Newman declared. \"I haven't\nyet announced it here, but I telegraphed it this morning to America.\"\n\n\"Telegraphed it to America?\" the old lady murmured.\n\n\"To New York, to St. Louis, and to San Francisco; those are the\nprincipal cities, you know. To-morrow I shall tell my friends here.\"\n\n\"Have you many?\" asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone of which I am\nafraid that Newman but partly measured the impertinence.\n\n\"Enough to bring me a great many hand-shakes and congratulations. To\nsay nothing,\" he added, in a moment, \"of those I shall receive from your\nfriends.\"\n\n\"They will not use the telegraph,\" said the marquise, taking her\ndeparture.\n\nM. de Bellegarde, whose wife, her imagination having apparently taken\nflight to the tailor's, was fluttering her silken wings in emulation,\nshook hands with Newman, and said with a more persuasive accent than the\nlatter had ever heard him use, \"You may count upon me.\" Then his wife\nled him away.\n\nValentin stood looking from his sister to our hero. \"I hope you both\nreflected seriously,\" he said.\n\nMadame de Cintre smiled. \"We have neither your powers of reflection nor\nyour depth of seriousness; but we have done our best.\"\n\n\"Well, I have a great regard for each of you,\" Valentin continued. \"You\nare charming young people. But I am not satisfied, on the whole, that\nyou belong to that small and superior class--that exquisite group\ncomposed of persons who are worthy to remain unmarried. These are rare\nsouls; they are the salt of the earth. But I don't mean to be invidious;\nthe marrying people are often very nice.\"\n\n\"Valentin holds that women should marry, and that men should not,\" said\nMadame de Cintre. \"I don't know how he arranges it.\"\n\n\"I arrange it by adoring you, my sister,\" said Valentin ardently.\n\"Good-by.\"\n\n\"Adore some one whom you can marry,\" said Newman. \"I will arrange that\nfor you some day. I foresee that I am going to turn apostle.\"\n\nValentin was on the threshold; he looked back a moment with a face that\nhad turned grave. \"I adore some one I can't marry!\" he said. And he\ndropped the portiere and departed.\n\n\"They don't like it,\" said Newman, standing alone before Madame de\nCintre.\n\n\"No,\" she said, after a moment; \"they don't like it.\"\n\n\"Well, now, do you mind that?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"Yes!\" she said, after another interval.\n\n\"That's a mistake.\"\n\n\"I can't help it. I should prefer that my mother were pleased.\"\n\n\"Why the deuce,\" demanded Newman, \"is she not pleased? She gave you\nleave to marry me.\"\n\n\"Very true; I don't understand it. And yet I do 'mind it,' as you say.\nYou will call it superstitious.\"\n\n\"That will depend upon how much you let it bother you. Then I shall call\nit an awful bore.\"\n\n\"I will keep it to myself,\" said Madame de Cintre, \"It shall not bother\nyou.\" And then they talked of their marriage-day, and Madame de Cintre\nassented unreservedly to Newman's desire to have it fixed for an early\ndate.\n\nNewman's telegrams were answered with interest. Having dispatched but\nthree electric missives, he received no less than eight gratulatory\nbulletins in return. He put them into his pocket-book, and the next time\nhe encountered old Madame de Bellegarde drew them forth and displayed\nthem to her. This, it must be confessed, was a slightly malicious\nstroke; the reader must judge in what degree the offense was venial.\nNewman knew that the marquise disliked his telegrams, though he could\nsee no sufficient reason for it. Madame de Cintre, on the other hand,\nliked them, and, most of them being of a humorous cast, laughed at them\nimmoderately, and inquired into the character of their authors. Newman,\nnow that his prize was gained, felt a peculiar desire that his triumph\nshould be manifest. He more than suspected that the Bellegardes were\nkeeping quiet about it, and allowing it, in their select circle, but a\nlimited resonance; and it pleased him to think that if he were to take\nthe trouble he might, as he phrased it, break all the windows. No man\nlikes being repudiated, and yet Newman, if he was not flattered, was\nnot exactly offended. He had not this good excuse for his somewhat\naggressive impulse to promulgate his felicity; his sentiment was of\nanother quality. He wanted for once to make the heads of the house of\nBellegarde FEEL him; he knew not when he should have another chance.\nHe had had for the past six months a sense of the old lady and her son\nlooking straight over his head, and he was now resolved that they should\ntoe a mark which he would give himself the satisfaction of drawing.\n\n\"It is like seeing a bottle emptied when the wine is poured too slowly,\"\nhe said to Mrs. Tristram. \"They make me want to joggle their elbows and\nforce them to spill their wine.\"\n\nTo this Mrs. Tristram answered that he had better leave them alone\nand let them do things in their own way. \"You must make allowances for\nthem,\" she said. \"It is natural enough that they should hang fire a\nlittle. They thought they accepted you when you made your application;\nbut they are not people of imagination, they could not project\nthemselves into the future, and now they will have to begin again. But\nthey are people of honor, and they will do whatever is necessary.\"\n\nNewman spent a few moments in narrow-eyed meditation. \"I am not hard on\nthem,\" he presently said, \"and to prove it I will invite them all to a\nfestival.\"\n\n\"To a festival?\"\n\n\"You have been laughing at my great gilded rooms all winter; I will show\nyou that they are good for something. I will give a party. What is the\ngrandest thing one can do here? I will hire all the great singers from\nthe opera, and all the first people from the Theatre Francais, and I\nwill give an entertainment.\"\n\n\"And whom will you invite?\"\n\n\"You, first of all. And then the old lady and her son. And then every\none among her friends whom I have met at her house or elsewhere, every\none who has shown me the minimum of politeness, every duke of them and\nhis wife. And then all my friends, without exception: Miss Kitty Upjohn,\nMiss Dora Finch, General Packard, C. P Hatch, and all the rest.\nAnd every one shall know what it is about, that is, to celebrate my\nengagement to the Countess de Cintre. What do you think of the idea?\"\n\n\"I think it is odious!\" said Mrs. Tristram. And then in a moment: \"I\nthink it is delicious!\"\n\nThe very next evening Newman repaired to Madame de Bellegarde's salon.\nwhere he found her surrounded by her children, and invited her to honor\nhis poor dwelling by her presence on a certain evening a fortnight\ndistant.\n\nThe marquise stared a moment. \"My dear sir,\" she cried, \"what do you\nwant to do to me?\"\n\n\"To make you acquainted with a few people, and then to place you in a\nvery easy chair and ask you to listen to Madame Frezzolini's singing.\"\n\n\"You mean to give a concert?\"\n\n\"Something of that sort.\"\n\n\"And to have a crowd of people?\"\n\n\"All my friends, and I hope some of yours and your daughter's. I want to\ncelebrate my engagement.\"\n\nIt seemed to Newman that Madame de Bellegarde turned pale. She opened\nher fan, a fine old painted fan of the last century, and looked at\nthe picture, which represented a fete champetre--a lady with a guitar,\nsinging, and a group of dancers round a garlanded Hermes.\n\n\"We go out so little,\" murmured the marquis, \"since my poor father's\ndeath.\"\n\n\"But MY dear father is still alive, my friend,\" said his wife. \"I am\nonly waiting for my invitation to accept it,\" and she glanced with\namiable confidence at Newman. \"It will be magnificent; I am very sure of\nthat.\"\n\nI am sorry to say, to the discredit of Newman's gallantry, that this\nlady's invitation was not then and there bestowed; he was giving all his\nattention to the old marquise. She looked up at last, smiling. \"I can't\nthink of letting you offer me a fete,\" she said, \"until I have offered\nyou one. We want to present you to our friends; we will invite them all.\nWe have it very much at heart. We must do things in order. Come to me\nabout the 25th; I will let you know the exact day immediately. We shall\nnot have any one so fine as Madame Frezzolini, but we shall have some\nvery good people. After that you may talk of your own fete.\" The old\nlady spoke with a certain quick eagerness, smiling more agreeably as she\nwent on.\n\nIt seemed to Newman a handsome proposal, and such proposals always\ntouched the sources of his good-nature. He said to Madame de Bellegarde\nthat he should be glad to come on the 25th or any other day, and that it\nmattered very little whether he met his friends at her house or at his\nown. I have said that Newman was observant, but it must be admitted that\non this occasion he failed to notice a certain delicate glance which\npassed between Madame de Bellegarde and the marquis, and which we may\npresume to have been a commentary upon the innocence displayed in that\nlatter clause of his speech.\n\nValentin de Bellegarde walked away with Newman that evening, and when\nthey had left the Rue de l'Universite some distance behind them he said\nreflectively, \"My mother is very strong--very strong.\" Then in answer to\nan interrogative movement of Newman's he continued, \"She was driven to\nthe wall, but you would never have thought it. Her fete of the 25th was\nan invention of the moment. She had no idea whatever of giving a fete,\nbut finding it the only issue from your proposal, she looked straight\nat the dose--excuse the expression--and bolted it, as you saw, without\nwinking. She is very strong.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Newman, divided between relish and compassion. \"I don't\ncare a straw for her fete, I am willing to take the will for the deed.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said Valentin, with a little inconsequent touch of family\npride. \"The thing will be done now, and done handsomely.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\n\nValentin de Bellegarde's announcement of the secession of Mademoiselle\nNioche from her father's domicile and his irreverent reflections upon\nthe attitude of this anxious parent in so grave a catastrophe, received\na practical commentary in the fact that M. Nioche was slow to seek\nanother interview with his late pupil. It had cost Newman some disgust\nto be forced to assent to Valentin's somewhat cynical interpretation of\nthe old man's philosophy, and, though circumstances seemed to indicate\nthat he had not given himself up to a noble despair, Newman thought it\nvery possible he might be suffering more keenly than was apparent. M.\nNioche had been in the habit of paying him a respectful little visit\nevery two or three weeks and his absence might be a proof quite as much\nof extreme depression as of a desire to conceal the success with which\nhe had patched up his sorrow. Newman presently learned from Valentin\nseveral details touching this new phase of Mademoiselle Noemie's career.\n\n\"I told you she was remarkable,\" this unshrinking observer declared,\n\"and the way she has managed this performance proves it. She has had\nother chances, but she was resolved to take none but the best. She did\nyou the honor to think for a while that you might be such a chance. You\nwere not; so she gathered up her patience and waited a while longer. At\nlast her occasion came along, and she made her move with her eyes wide\nopen. I am very sure she had no innocence to lose, but she had all her\nrespectability. Dubious little damsel as you thought her, she had kept\na firm hold of that; nothing could be proved against her, and she was\ndetermined not to let her reputation go till she had got her equivalent.\nAbout her equivalent she had high ideas. Apparently her ideal has been\nsatisfied. It is fifty years old, bald-headed, and deaf, but it is very\neasy about money.\"\n\n\"And where in the world,\" asked Newman, \"did you pick up this valuable\ninformation?\"\n\n\"In conversation. Remember my frivolous habits. In conversation with a\nyoung woman engaged in the humble trade of glove-cleaner, who keeps a\nsmall shop in the Rue St. Roch. M. Nioche lives in the same house, up\nsix pair of stairs, across the court, in and out of whose ill-swept\ndoorway Miss Noemie has been flitting for the last five years. The\nlittle glove-cleaner was an old acquaintance; she used to be the friend\nof a friend of mine, who has married and dropped such friends. I often\nsaw her in his society. As soon as I espied her behind her clear little\nwindow-pane, I recollected her. I had on a spotlessly fresh pair of\ngloves, but I went in and held up my hands, and said to her, 'Dear\nmademoiselle, what will you ask me for cleaning these?' 'Dear count,'\nshe answered immediately, 'I will clean them for you for nothing.' She\nhad instantly recognized me, and I had to hear her history for the last\nsix years. But after that, I put her upon that of her neighbors. She\nknows and admires Noemie, and she told me what I have just repeated.\"\n\nA month elapsed without M. Nioche reappearing, and Newman, who every\nmorning read two or three suicides in the \"Figaro,\" began to suspect\nthat, mortification proving stubborn, he had sought a balm for his\nwounded pride in the waters of the Seine. He had a note of M. Nioche's\naddress in his pocket-book, and finding himself one day in the quartier,\nhe determined in so far as he might to clear up his doubts. He repaired\nto the house in the Rue St. Roch which bore the recorded number, and\nobserved in a neighboring basement, behind a dangling row of neatly\ninflated gloves, the attentive physiognomy of Bellegarde's informant--a\nsallow person in a dressing-gown--peering into the street as if she were\nexpecting that amiable nobleman to pass again. But it was not to her\nthat Newman applied; he simply asked of the portress if M. Nioche were\nat home. The portress replied, as the portress invariably replies, that\nher lodger had gone out barely three minutes before; but then, through\nthe little square hole of her lodge-window taking the measure of\nNewman's fortunes, and seeing them, by an unspecified process, refresh\nthe dry places of servitude to occupants of fifth floors on courts, she\nadded that M. Nioche would have had just time to reach the Cafe de la\nPatrie, round the second corner to the left, at which establishment he\nregularly spent his afternoons. Newman thanked her for the information,\ntook the second turning to the left, and arrived at the Cafe de la\nPatrie. He felt a momentary hesitation to go in; was it not rather mean\nto \"follow up\" poor old Nioche at that rate? But there passed across his\nvision an image of a haggard little septuagenarian taking measured sips\nof a glass of sugar and water and finding them quite impotent to sweeten\nhis desolation. He opened the door and entered, perceiving nothing at\nfirst but a dense cloud of tobacco smoke. Across this, however, in a\ncorner, he presently descried the figure of M. Nioche, stirring the\ncontents of a deep glass, with a lady seated in front of him. The\nlady's back was turned to Newman, but M. Nioche very soon perceived and\nrecognized his visitor. Newman had gone toward him, and the old man rose\nslowly, gazing at him with a more blighted expression even than usual.\n\n\"If you are drinking hot punch,\" said Newman, \"I suppose you are not\ndead. That's all right. Don't move.\"\n\nM. Nioche stood staring, with a fallen jaw, not daring to put out\nhis hand. The lady, who sat facing him, turned round in her place\nand glanced upward with a spirited toss of her head, displaying the\nagreeable features of his daughter. She looked at Newman sharply, to see\nhow he was looking at her, then--I don't know what she discovered--she\nsaid graciously, \"How d' ye do, monsieur? won't you come into our little\ncorner?\"\n\n\"Did you come--did you come after ME?\" asked M. Nioche very softly.\n\n\"I went to your house to see what had become of you. I thought you might\nbe sick,\" said Newman.\n\n\"It is very good of you, as always,\" said the old man. \"No, I am not\nwell. Yes, I am SEEK.\"\n\n\"Ask monsieur to sit down,\" said Mademoiselle Nioche. \"Garcon, bring a\nchair.\"\n\n\"Will you do us the honor to SEAT?\" said M. Nioche, timorously, and with\na double foreignness of accent.\n\nNewman said to himself that he had better see the thing out and he took\na chair at the end of the table, with Mademoiselle Nioche on his left\nand her father on the other side. \"You will take something, of course,\"\nsaid Miss Noemie, who was sipping a glass of madeira. Newman said that\nhe believed not, and then she turned to her papa with a smile. \"What an\nhonor, eh? he has come only for us.\" M. Nioche drained his pungent\nglass at a long draught, and looked out from eyes more lachrymose in\nconsequence. \"But you didn't come for me, eh?\" Mademoiselle Noemie went\non. \"You didn't expect to find me here?\"\n\nNewman observed the change in her appearance. She was very elegant\nand prettier than before; she looked a year or two older, and it was\nnoticeable that, to the eye, she had only gained in respectability.\nShe looked \"lady-like.\" She was dressed in quiet colors, and wore her\nexpensively unobtrusive toilet with a grace that might have come from\nyears of practice. Her present self-possession and aplomb struck Newman\nas really infernal, and he inclined to agree with Valentin de Bellegarde\nthat the young lady was very remarkable. \"No, to tell the truth, I\ndidn't come for you,\" he said, \"and I didn't expect to find you. I was\ntold,\" he added in a moment \"that you had left your father.\"\n\n\"Quelle horreur!\" cried Mademoiselle Nioche with a smile. \"Does one\nleave one's father? You have the proof of the contrary.\"\n\n\"Yes, convincing proof,\" said Newman glancing at M. Nioche. The old man\ncaught his glance obliquely, with his faded, deprecating eye, and then,\nlifting his empty glass, pretended to drink again.\n\n\"Who told you that?\" Noemie demanded. \"I know very well. It was M. de\nBellegarde. Why don't you say yes? You are not polite.\"\n\n\"I am embarrassed,\" said Newman.\n\n\"I set you a better example. I know M. de Bellegarde told you. He knows\na great deal about me--or he thinks he does. He has taken a great deal\nof trouble to find out, but half of it isn't true. In the first place,\nI haven't left my father; I am much too fond of him. Isn't it so, little\nfather? M. de Bellegarde is a charming young man; it is impossible to be\ncleverer. I know a good deal about him too; you can tell him that when\nyou next see him.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Newman, with a sturdy grin; \"I won't carry any messages for\nyou.\"\n\n\"Just as you please,\" said Mademoiselle Nioche, \"I don't depend upon\nyou, nor does M. de Bellegarde either. He is very much interested in me;\nhe can be left to his own devices. He is a contrast to you.\"\n\n\"Oh, he is a great contrast to me, I have no doubt\" said Newman. \"But I\ndon't exactly know how you mean it.\"\n\n\"I mean it in this way. First of all, he never offered to help me to a\ndot and a husband.\" And Mademoiselle Nioche paused, smiling. \"I won't\nsay that is in his favor, for I do you justice. What led you, by the\nway, to make me such a queer offer? You didn't care for me.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I did,\" said Newman.\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"It would have given me real pleasure to see you married to a\nrespectable young fellow.\"\n\n\"With six thousand francs of income!\" cried Mademoiselle Nioche. \"Do\nyou call that caring for me? I'm afraid you know little about women. You\nwere not galant; you were not what you might have been.\"\n\nNewman flushed a trifle fiercely. \"Come!\" he exclaimed \"that's rather\nstrong. I had no idea I had been so shabby.\"\n\nMademoiselle Nioche smiled as she took up her muff. \"It is something, at\nany rate, to have made you angry.\"\n\nHer father had leaned both his elbows on the table, and his head, bent\nforward, was supported in his hands, the thin white fingers of which\nwere pressed over his ears. In his position he was staring fixedly at\nthe bottom of his empty glass, and Newman supposed he was not hearing.\nMademoiselle Noemie buttoned her furred jacket and pushed back her\nchair, casting a glance charged with the consciousness of an expensive\nappearance first down over her flounces and then up at Newman.\n\n\"You had better have remained an honest girl,\" Newman said, quietly.\n\nM. Nioche continued to stare at the bottom of his glass, and his\ndaughter got up, still bravely smiling. \"You mean that I look so much\nlike one? That's more than most women do nowadays. Don't judge me yet a\nwhile,\" she added. \"I mean to succeed; that's what I mean to do. I leave\nyou; I don't mean to be seen in cafes, for one thing. I can't think\nwhat you want of my poor father; he's very comfortable now. It isn't his\nfault, either. Au revoir, little father.\" And she tapped the old man on\nthe head with her muff. Then she stopped a minute, looking at Newman.\n\"Tell M. de Bellegarde, when he wants news of me, to come and get it\nfrom ME!\" And she turned and departed, the white-aproned waiter, with a\nbow, holding the door wide open for her.\n\nM. Nioche sat motionless, and Newman hardly knew what to say to him. The\nold man looked dismally foolish. \"So you determined not to shoot her,\nafter all,\" Newman said, presently.\n\nM. Nioche, without moving, raised his eyes and gave him a long, peculiar\nlook. It seemed to confess everything, and yet not to ask for pity, nor\nto pretend, on the other hand, to a rugged ability to do without it. It\nmight have expressed the state of mind of an innocuous insect, flat\nin shape and conscious of the impending pressure of a boot-sole, and\nreflecting that he was perhaps too flat to be crushed. M. Nioche's gaze\nwas a profession of moral flatness. \"You despise me terribly,\" he said,\nin the weakest possible voice.\n\n\"Oh no,\" said Newman, \"it is none of my business. It's a good plan to\ntake things easily.\"\n\n\"I made you too many fine speeches,\" M. Nioche added. \"I meant them at\nthe time.\"\n\n\"I am sure I am very glad you didn't shoot her,\" said Newman. \"I was\nafraid you might have shot yourself. That is why I came to look you up.\"\nAnd he began to button his coat.\n\n\"Neither,\" said M. Nioche. \"You despise me, and I can't explain to you.\nI hoped I shouldn't see you again.\"\n\n\"Why, that's rather shabby,\" said Newman. \"You shouldn't drop your\nfriends that way. Besides, the last time you came to see me I thought\nyou particularly jolly.\"\n\n\"Yes, I remember,\" said M. Nioche, musingly; \"I was in a fever. I didn't\nknow what I said, what I did. It was delirium.\"\n\n\"Ah, well, you are quieter now.\"\n\nM. Nioche was silent a moment. \"As quiet as the grave,\" he whispered\nsoftly.\n\n\"Are you very unhappy?\"\n\nM. Nioche rubbed his forehead slowly, and even pushed back his wig a\nlittle, looking askance at his empty glass. \"Yes--yes. But that's an old\nstory. I have always been unhappy. My daughter does what she will with\nme. I take what she gives me, good or bad. I have no spirit, and when\nyou have no spirit you must keep quiet. I shan't trouble you any more.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, rather disgusted at the smooth operation of the old\nman's philosophy, \"that's as you please.\"\n\nM. Nioche seemed to have been prepared to be despised but nevertheless\nhe made a feeble movement of appeal from Newman's faint praise. \"After\nall,\" he said, \"she is my daughter, and I can still look after her. If\nshe will do wrong, why she will. But there are many different\npaths, there are degrees. I can give her the benefit--give her the\nbenefit\"--and M. Nioche paused, staring vaguely at Newman, who began to\nsuspect that his brain had softened--\"the benefit of my experience,\" M.\nNioche added.\n\n\"Your experience?\" inquired Newman, both amused and amazed.\n\n\"My experience of business,\" said M. Nioche, gravely.\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" said Newman, laughing, \"that will be a great advantage to\nher!\" And then he said good-by, and offered the poor, foolish old man\nhis hand.\n\nM. Nioche took it and leaned back against the wall, holding it a moment\nand looking up at him. \"I suppose you think my wits are going,\" he\nsaid. \"Very likely; I have always a pain in my head. That's why I can't\nexplain, I can't tell you. And she's so strong, she makes me walk as she\nwill, anywhere! But there's this--there's this.\" And he stopped, still\nstaring up at Newman. His little white eyes expanded and glittered for a\nmoment like those of a cat in the dark. \"It's not as it seems. I haven't\nforgiven her. Oh, no!\"\n\n\"That's right; don't,\" said Newman. \"She's a bad case.\"\n\n\"It's horrible, it's horrible,\" said M. Nioche; \"but do you want to know\nthe truth? I hate her! I take what she gives me, and I hate her\nmore. To-day she brought me three hundred francs; they are here in my\nwaistcoat pocket. Now I hate her almost cruelly. No, I haven't forgiven\nher.\"\n\n\"Why did you accept the money?\" Newman asked.\n\n\"If I hadn't,\" said M. Nioche, \"I should have hated her still more.\nThat's what misery is. No, I haven't forgiven her.\"\n\n\"Take care you don't hurt her!\" said Newman, laughing again. And with\nthis he took his leave. As he passed along the glazed side of the cafe,\non reaching the street, he saw the old man motioning the waiter, with a\nmelancholy gesture, to replenish his glass.\n\nOne day, a week after his visit to the Cafe de la Patrie, he called upon\nValentin de Bellegarde, and by good fortune found him at home. Newman\nspoke of his interview with M. Nioche and his daughter, and said he\nwas afraid Valentin had judged the old man correctly. He had found the\ncouple hobnobbing together in all amity; the old gentleman's rigor was\npurely theoretic. Newman confessed that he was disappointed; he should\nhave expected to see M. Nioche take high ground.\n\n\"High ground, my dear fellow,\" said Valentin, laughing; \"there is\nno high ground for him to take. The only perceptible eminence in M.\nNioche's horizon is Montmartre, which is not an edifying quarter. You\ncan't go mountaineering in a flat country.\"\n\n\"He remarked, indeed,\" said Newman, \"that he has not forgiven her. But\nshe'll never find it out.\"\n\n\"We must do him the justice to suppose he doesn't like the thing,\"\nValentin rejoined. \"Mademoiselle Nioche is like the great artists whose\nbiographies we read, who at the beginning of their career have\nsuffered opposition in the domestic circle. Their vocation has not\nbeen recognized by their families, but the world has done it justice.\nMademoiselle Nioche has a vocation.\"\n\n\"Oh, come,\" said Newman, impatiently, \"you take the little baggage too\nseriously.\"\n\n\"I know I do; but when one has nothing to think about, one must think of\nlittle baggages. I suppose it is better to be serious about light things\nthan not to be serious at all. This little baggage entertains me.\"\n\n\"Oh, she has discovered that. She knows you have been hunting her up\nand asking questions about her. She is very much tickled by it. That's\nrather annoying.\"\n\n\"Annoying, my dear fellow,\" laughed Valentin; \"not the least!\"\n\n\"Hanged if I should want to have a greedy little adventuress like that\nknow I was giving myself such pains about her!\" said Newman.\n\n\"A pretty woman is always worth one's pains,\" objected Valentin.\n\"Mademoiselle Nioche is welcome to be tickled by my curiosity, and to\nknow that I am tickled that she is tickled. She is not so much tickled,\nby the way.\"\n\n\"You had better go and tell her,\" Newman rejoined. \"She gave me a\nmessage for you of some such drift.\"\n\n\"Bless your quiet imagination,\" said Valentin, \"I have been to see\nher--three times in five days. She is a charming hostess; we talk of\nShakespeare and the musical glasses. She is extremely clever and a very\ncurious type; not at all coarse or wanting to be coarse; determined not\nto be. She means to take very good care of herself. She is extremely\nperfect; she is as hard and clear-cut as some little figure of a\nsea-nymph in an antique intaglio, and I will warrant that she has not\na grain more of sentiment or heart than if she was scooped out of a\nbig amethyst. You can't scratch her even with a diamond.\nExtremely pretty,--really, when you know her, she is wonderfully\npretty,--intelligent, determined, ambitious, unscrupulous, capable of\nlooking at a man strangled without changing color, she is upon my honor,\nextremely entertaining.\"\n\n\"It's a fine list of attractions,\" said Newman; \"they would serve as a\npolice-detective's description of a favorite criminal. I should sum them\nup by another word than 'entertaining.'\"\n\n\"Why, that is just the word to use. I don't say she is laudable or\nlovable. I don't want her as my wife or my sister. But she is a\nvery curious and ingenious piece of machinery; I like to see it in\noperation.\"\n\n\"Well, I have seen some very curious machines too,\" said Newman; \"and\nonce, in a needle factory, I saw a gentleman from the city, who had\nstopped too near one of them, picked up as neatly as if he had been\nprodded by a fork, swallowed down straight, and ground into small\npieces.\"\n\nReentering his domicile, late in the evening, three days after Madame de\nBellegarde had made her bargain with him--the expression is sufficiently\ncorrect--touching the entertainment at which she was to present him to\nthe world, he found on his table a card of goodly dimensions bearing an\nannouncement that this lady would be at home on the 27th of the month,\nat ten o'clock in the evening. He stuck it into the frame of his mirror\nand eyed it with some complacency; it seemed an agreeable emblem of\ntriumph, documentary evidence that his prize was gained. Stretched out\nin a chair, he was looking at it lovingly, when Valentin de Bellegarde\nwas shown into the room. Valentin's glance presently followed the\ndirection of Newman's, and he perceived his mother's invitation.\n\n\"And what have they put into the corner?\" he asked. \"Not the customary\n'music,' 'dancing,' or 'tableaux vivants'? They ought at least to put\n'An American.'\"\n\n\"Oh, there are to be several of us,\" said Newman. \"Mrs. Tristram told me\nto-day that she had received a card and sent an acceptance.\"\n\n\"Ah, then, with Mrs. Tristram and her husband you will have support. My\nmother might have put on her card 'Three Americans.' But I suspect you\nwill not lack amusement. You will see a great many of the best people in\nFrance. I mean the long pedigrees and the high noses, and all that. Some\nof them are awful idiots; I advise you to take them up cautiously.\"\n\n\"Oh, I guess I shall like them,\" said Newman. \"I am prepared to like\nevery one and everything in these days; I am in high good-humor.\"\n\nValentin looked at him a moment in silence and then dropped himself into\na chair with an unwonted air of weariness.\n\n\"Happy man!\" he said with a sigh. \"Take care you don't become\noffensive.\"\n\n\"If any one chooses to take offense, he may. I have a good conscience,\"\nsaid Newman.\n\n\"So you are really in love with my sister.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir!\" said Newman, after a pause.\n\n\"And she also?\"\n\n\"I guess she likes me,\" said Newman.\n\n\"What is the witchcraft you have used?\" Valentin asked. \"How do YOU make\nlove?\"\n\n\"Oh, I haven't any general rules,\" said Newman. \"In any way that seems\nacceptable.\"\n\n\"I suspect that, if one knew it,\" said Valentin, laughing, \"you are a\nterrible customer. You walk in seven-league boots.\"\n\n\"There is something the matter with you to-night,\" Newman said in\nresponse to this. \"You are vicious. Spare me all discordant sounds until\nafter my marriage. Then, when I have settled down for life, I shall be\nbetter able to take things as they come.\"\n\n\"And when does your marriage take place?\"\n\n\"About six weeks hence.\"\n\nValentin was silent a while, and then he said, \"And you feel very\nconfident about the future?\"\n\n\"Confident. I knew what I wanted, exactly, and I know what I have got.\"\n\n\"You are sure you are going to be happy?\"\n\n\"Sure?\" said Newman. \"So foolish a question deserves a foolish answer.\nYes!\"\n\n\"You are not afraid of anything?\"\n\n\"What should I be afraid of? You can't hurt me unless you kill me by\nsome violent means. That I should indeed consider a tremendous sell.\nI want to live and I mean to live. I can't die of illness, I am too\nridiculously tough; and the time for dying of old age won't come round\nyet a while. I can't lose my wife, I shall take too good care of her. I\nmay lose my money, or a large part of it; but that won't matter, for I\nshall make twice as much again. So what have I to be afraid of?\"\n\n\"You are not afraid it may be rather a mistake for an American man of\nbusiness to marry a French countess?\"\n\n\"For the countess, possibly; but not for the man of business, if you\nmean me! But my countess shall not be disappointed; I answer for\nher happiness!\" And as if he felt the impulse to celebrate his happy\ncertitude by a bonfire, he got up to throw a couple of logs upon the\nalready blazing hearth. Valentin watched for a few moments the quickened\nflame, and then, with his head leaning on his hand, gave a melancholy\nsigh. \"Got a headache?\" Newman asked.\n\n\"Je suis triste,\" said Valentin, with Gallic simplicity.\n\n\"You are sad, eh? It is about the lady you said the other night that you\nadored and that you couldn't marry?\"\n\n\"Did I really say that? It seemed to me afterwards that the words had\nescaped me. Before Claire it was bad taste. But I felt gloomy as I\nspoke, and I feel gloomy still. Why did you ever introduce me to that\ngirl?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's Noemie, is it? Lord deliver us! You don't mean to say you are\nlovesick about her?\"\n\n\"Lovesick, no; it's not a grand passion. But the cold-blooded little\ndemon sticks in my thoughts; she has bitten me with those even little\nteeth of hers; I feel as if I might turn rabid and do something crazy\nin consequence. It's very low, it's disgustingly low. She's the most\nmercenary little jade in Europe. Yet she really affects my peace of\nmind; she is always running in my head. It's a striking contrast to your\nnoble and virtuous attachment--a vile contrast! It is rather pitiful\nthat it should be the best I am able to do for myself at my present\nrespectable age. I am a nice young man, eh, en somme? You can't warrant\nmy future, as you do your own.\"\n\n\"Drop that girl, short,\" said Newman; \"don't go near her again, and your\nfuture will do. Come over to America and I will get you a place in a\nbank.\"\n\n\"It is easy to say drop her,\" said Valentin, with a light laugh. \"You\ncan't drop a pretty woman like that. One must be polite, even with\nNoemie. Besides, I'll not have her suppose I am afraid of her.\"\n\n\"So, between politeness and vanity, you will get deeper into the mud?\nKeep them both for something better. Remember, too, that I didn't want\nto introduce you to her: you insisted. I had a sort of uneasy feeling\nabout it.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't reproach you,\" said Valentin. \"Heaven forbid! I wouldn't\nfor the world have missed knowing her. She is really extraordinary. The\nway she has already spread her wings is amazing. I don't know when a\nwoman has amused me more. But excuse me,\" he added in an instant; \"she\ndoesn't amuse you, at second hand, and the subject is an impure one.\nLet us talk of something else.\" Valentin introduced another topic, but\nwithin five minutes Newman observed that, by a bold transition, he had\nreverted to Mademoiselle Nioche, and was giving pictures of her manners\nand quoting specimens of her mots. These were very witty, and, for a\nyoung woman who six months before had been painting the most artless\nmadonnas, startlingly cynical. But at last, abruptly, he stopped, became\nthoughtful, and for some time afterwards said nothing. When he rose to\ngo it was evident that his thoughts were still running upon Mademoiselle\nNioche. \"Yes, she's a frightful little monster!\" he said.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\n\nThe next ten days were the happiest that Newman had ever known. He\nsaw Madame de Cintre every day, and never saw either old Madame de\nBellegarde or the elder of his prospective brothers-in-law. Madame de\nCintre at last seemed to think it becoming to apologize for their never\nbeing present. \"They are much taken up,\" she said, \"with doing the\nhonors of Paris to Lord Deepmere.\" There was a smile in her gravity\nas she made this declaration, and it deepened as she added, \"He is our\nseventh cousin, you know, and blood is thicker than water. And then, he\nis so interesting!\" And with this she laughed.\n\nNewman met young Madame de Bellegarde two or three times, always roaming\nabout with graceful vagueness, as if in search of an unattainable ideal\nof amusement. She always reminded him of a painted perfume-bottle with a\ncrack in it; but he had grown to have a kindly feeling for her, based\non the fact of her owing conjugal allegiance to Urbain de Bellegarde.\nHe pitied M. de Bellegarde's wife, especially since she was a silly,\nthirstily-smiling little brunette, with a suggestion of an unregulated\nheart. The small marquise sometimes looked at him with an intensity\ntoo marked not to be innocent, for coquetry is more finely shaded.\nShe apparently wanted to ask him something or tell him something; he\nwondered what it was. But he was shy of giving her an opportunity,\nbecause, if her communication bore upon the aridity of her matrimonial\nlot, he was at a loss to see how he could help her. He had a fancy,\nhowever, of her coming up to him some day and saying (after looking\naround behind her) with a little passionate hiss, \"I know you detest my\nhusband; let me have the pleasure of assuring you for once that you\nare right. Pity a poor woman who is married to a clock-image in\npapier-mache!\" Possessing, however, in default of a competent knowledge\nof the principles of etiquette, a very downright sense of the \"meanness\"\nof certain actions, it seemed to him to belong to his position to keep\non his guard; he was not going to put it into the power of these people\nto say that in their house he had done anything unpleasant. As it was,\nMadame de Bellegarde used to give him news of the dress she meant to\nwear at his wedding, and which had not yet, in her creative imagination,\nin spite of many interviews with the tailor, resolved itself into its\ncomposite totality. \"I told you pale blue bows on the sleeves, at the\nelbows,\" she said. \"But to-day I don't see my blue bows at all. I don't\nknow what has become of them. To-day I see pink--a tender pink. And then\nI pass through strange, dull phases in which neither blue nor pink says\nanything to me. And yet I must have the bows.\"\n\n\"Have them green or yellow,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Malheureux!\" the little marquise would cry. \"Green bows would break\nyour marriage--your children would be illegitimate!\"\n\nMadame de Cintre was calmly happy before the world, and Newman had the\nfelicity of fancying that before him, when the world was absent, she\nwas almost agitatedly happy. She said very tender things. \"I take no\npleasure in you. You never give me a chance to scold you, to correct\nyou. I bargained for that, I expected to enjoy it. But you won't do\nanything dreadful; you are dismally inoffensive. It is very stupid;\nthere is no excitement for me; I might as well be marrying some one\nelse.\"\n\n\"I am afraid it's the worst I can do,\" Newman would say in answer to\nthis. \"Kindly overlook the deficiency.\" He assured her that he, at\nleast, would never scold her; she was perfectly satisfactory. \"If you\nonly knew,\" he said, \"how exactly you are what I coveted! And I am\nbeginning to understand why I coveted it; the having it makes all the\ndifference that I expected. Never was a man so pleased with his good\nfortune. You have been holding your head for a week past just as I\nwanted my wife to hold hers. You say just the things I want her to say.\nYou walk about the room just as I want her to walk. You have just the\ntaste in dress that I want her to have. In short, you come up to the\nmark, and, I can tell you, my mark was high.\"\n\nThese observations seemed to make Madame de Cintre rather grave. At last\nshe said, \"Depend upon it, I don't come up to the mark; your mark is too\nhigh. I am not all that you suppose; I am a much smaller affair. She\nis a magnificent woman, your ideal. Pray, how did she come to such\nperfection?\"\n\n\"She was never anything else,\" Newman said.\n\n\"I really believe,\" Madame de Cintre went on, \"that she is better than\nmy own ideal. Do you know that is a very handsome compliment? Well, sir,\nI will make her my own!\"\n\nMrs. Tristram came to see her dear Claire after Newman had announced his\nengagement, and she told our hero the next day that his good fortune was\nsimply absurd. \"For the ridiculous part of it is,\" she said, \"that you\nare evidently going to be as happy as if you were marrying Miss Smith\nor Miss Thompson. I call it a brilliant match for you, but you get\nbrilliancy without paying any tax upon it. Those things are usually a\ncompromise, but here you have everything, and nothing crowds anything\nelse out. You will be brilliantly happy as well.\" Newman thanked her for\nher pleasant, encouraging way of saying things; no woman could encourage\nor discourage better. Tristram's way of saying things was different; he\nhad been taken by his wife to call upon Madame de Cintre, and he gave an\naccount of the expedition.\n\n\"You don't catch me giving an opinion on your countess this time,\" he\nsaid; \"I put my foot in it once. That's a d--d underhand thing to do, by\nthe way--coming round to sound a fellow upon the woman you are going to\nmarry. You deserve anything you get. Then of course you rush and tell\nher, and she takes care to make it pleasant for the poor spiteful wretch\nthe first time he calls. I will do you the justice to say, however,\nthat you don't seem to have told Madame de Cintre; or if you have she's\nuncommonly magnanimous. She was very nice; she was tremendously polite.\nShe and Lizzie sat on the sofa, pressing each other's hands and calling\neach other chere belle, and Madame de Cintre sent me with every third\nword a magnificent smile, as if to give me to understand that I too was\na handsome dear. She quite made up for past neglect, I assure you; she\nwas very pleasant and sociable. Only in an evil hour it came into her\nhead to say that she must present us to her mother--her mother wished\nto know your friends. I didn't want to know her mother, and I was on the\npoint of telling Lizzie to go in alone and let me wait for her outside.\nBut Lizzie, with her usual infernal ingenuity, guessed my purpose and\nreduced me by a glance of her eye. So they marched off arm in arm, and\nI followed as I could. We found the old lady in her arm-chair, twiddling\nher aristocratic thumbs. She looked at Lizzie from head to foot; but at\nthat game Lizzie, to do her justice, was a match for her. My wife told\nher we were great friends of Mr. Newman. The marquise started a moment,\nand then said, 'Oh, Mr. Newman! My daughter has made up her mind to\nmarry a Mr. Newman.' Then Madame de Cintre began to fondle Lizzie again,\nand said it was this dear lady that had planned the match and\nbrought them together. 'Oh, 'tis you I have to thank for my American\nson-in-law,' the old lady said to Mrs. Tristram. 'It was a very clever\nthought of yours. Be sure of my gratitude.' And then she began to look\nat me and presently said, 'Pray, are you engaged in some species of\nmanufacture?' I wanted to say that I manufactured broom-sticks for old\nwitches to ride on, but Lizzie got in ahead of me. 'My husband, Madame\nla Marquise,' she said, 'belongs to that unfortunate class of persons\nwho have no profession and no business, and do very little good in\nthe world.' To get her poke at the old woman she didn't care where she\nshoved me. 'Dear me,' said the marquise, 'we all have our duties.' 'I am\nsorry mine compel me to take leave of you,' said Lizzie. And we bundled\nout again. But you have a mother-in-law, in all the force of the term.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Newman, \"my mother-in-law desires nothing better than to let\nme alone.\"\n\nBetimes, on the evening of the 27th, he went to Madame de Bellegarde's\nball. The old house in the Rue de l'Universite looked strangely\nbrilliant. In the circle of light projected from the outer gate a\ndetachment of the populace stood watching the carriages roll in; the\ncourt was illumined with flaring torches and the portico carpeted with\ncrimson. When Newman arrived there were but a few people present. The\nmarquise and her two daughters were at the top of the staircase, where\nthe sallow old nymph in the angle peeped out from a bower of plants.\nMadame de Bellegarde, in purple and fine laces, looked like an old lady\npainted by Vandyke; Madame de Cintre was dressed in white. The old lady\ngreeted Newman with majestic formality, and looking round her, called\nseveral of the persons who were standing near. They were elderly\ngentlemen, of what Valentin de Bellegarde had designated as the\nhigh-nosed category; two or three of them wore cordons and stars. They\napproached with measured alertness, and the marquise said that she\nwished to present them to Mr. Newman, who was going to marry her\ndaughter. Then she introduced successively three dukes, three counts,\nand a baron. These gentlemen bowed and smiled most agreeably, and Newman\nindulged in a series of impartial hand-shakes, accompanied by a \"Happy\nto make your acquaintance, sir.\" He looked at Madame de Cintre, but she\nwas not looking at him. If his personal self-consciousness had been of\na nature to make him constantly refer to her, as the critic before whom,\nin company, he played his part, he might have found it a flattering\nproof of her confidence that he never caught her eyes resting upon him.\nIt is a reflection Newman did not make, but we nevertheless risk it,\nthat in spite of this circumstance she probably saw every movement\nof his little finger. Young Madame de Bellegarde was dressed in an\naudacious toilet of crimson crape, bestrewn with huge silver moons--thin\ncrescent and full disks.\n\n\"You don't say anything about my dress,\" she said to Newman.\n\n\"I feel,\" he answered, \"as if I were looking at you through a telescope.\nIt is very strange.\"\n\n\"If it is strange it matches the occasion. But I am not a heavenly\nbody.\"\n\n\"I never saw the sky at midnight that particular shade of crimson,\" said\nNewman.\n\n\"That is my originality; any one could have chosen blue. My\nsister-in-law would have chosen a lovely shade of blue, with a dozen\nlittle delicate moons. But I think crimson is much more amusing. And I\ngive my idea, which is moonshine.\"\n\n\"Moonshine and bloodshed,\" said Newman.\n\n\"A murder by moonlight,\" laughed Madame de Bellegarde. \"What a delicious\nidea for a toilet! To make it complete, there is the silver dagger, you\nsee, stuck into my hair. But here comes Lord Deepmere,\" she added in a\nmoment. \"I must find out what he thinks of it.\" Lord Deepmere came up,\nlooking very red in the face, and laughing. \"Lord Deepmere can't decide\nwhich he prefers, my sister-in-law or me,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\"He likes Claire because she is his cousin, and me because I am not.\nBut he has no right to make love to Claire, whereas I am perfectly\ndisponible. It is very wrong to make love to a woman who is engaged, but\nit is very wrong not to make love to a woman who is married.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's very jolly making love to married women,\" said Lord Deepmere,\n\"because they can't ask you to marry them.\"\n\n\"Is that what the others do, the spinsters?\" Newman inquired.\n\n\"Oh dear, yes,\" said Lord Deepmere; \"in England all the girls ask a\nfellow to marry them.\"\n\n\"And a fellow brutally refuses,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\n\"Why, really, you know, a fellow can't marry any girl that asks him,\"\nsaid his lordship.\n\n\"Your cousin won't ask you. She is going to marry Mr. Newman.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's a very different thing!\" laughed Lord Deepmere.\n\n\"You would have accepted HER, I suppose. That makes me hope that after\nall you prefer me.\"\n\n\"Oh, when things are nice I never prefer one to the other,\" said the\nyoung Englishman. \"I take them all.\"\n\n\"Ah, what a horror! I won't be taken in that way; I must be kept apart,\"\ncried Madame de Bellegarde. \"Mr. Newman is much better; he knows how\nto choose. Oh, he chooses as if he were threading a needle. He prefers\nMadame de Cintre to any conceivable creature or thing.\"\n\n\"Well, you can't help my being her cousin,\" said Lord Deepmere to\nNewman, with candid hilarity.\n\n\"Oh, no, I can't help that,\" said Newman, laughing back; \"neither can\nshe!\"\n\n\"And you can't help my dancing with her,\" said Lord Deepmere, with\nsturdy simplicity.\n\n\"I could prevent that only by dancing with her myself,\" said Newman.\n\"But unfortunately I don't know how to dance.\"\n\n\"Oh, you may dance without knowing how; may you not, milord?\" said\nMadame de Bellegarde. But to this Lord Deepmere replied that a fellow\nought to know how to dance if he didn't want to make an ass of himself;\nand at this moment Urbain de Bellegarde joined the group, slow-stepping\nand with his hands behind him.\n\n\"This is a very splendid entertainment,\" said Newman, cheerfully. \"The\nold house looks very bright.\"\n\n\"If YOU are pleased, we are content,\" said the marquis, lifting his\nshoulders and bending them forward.\n\n\"Oh, I suspect every one is pleased,\" said Newman. \"How can they help\nbeing pleased when the first thing they see as they come in is your\nsister, standing there as beautiful as an angel?\"\n\n\"Yes, she is very beautiful,\" rejoined the marquis, solemnly. \"But that\nis not so great a source of satisfaction to other people, naturally, as\nto you.\"\n\n\"Yes, I am satisfied, marquis, I am satisfied,\" said Newman, with his\nprotracted enunciation. \"And now tell me,\" he added, looking round, \"who\nsome of your friends are.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde looked about him in silence, with his head bent and his\nhand raised to his lower lip, which he slowly rubbed. A stream of people\nhad been pouring into the salon in which Newman stood with his host,\nthe rooms were filling up and the spectacle had become brilliant. It\nborrowed its splendor chiefly from the shining shoulders and profuse\njewels of the women, and from the voluminous elegance of their dresses.\nThere were no uniforms, as Madame de Bellegarde's door was inexorably\nclosed against the myrmidons of the upstart power which then ruled the\nfortunes of France, and the great company of smiling and chattering\nfaces was not graced by any very frequent suggestions of harmonious\nbeauty. It is a pity, nevertheless, that Newman had not been a\nphysiognomist, for a great many of the faces were irregularly agreeable,\nexpressive, and suggestive. If the occasion had been different they\nwould hardly have pleased him; he would have thought the women not\npretty enough and the men too smirking; but he was now in a humor to\nreceive none but agreeable impressions, and he looked no more narrowly\nthan to perceive that every one was brilliant, and to feel that the sun\nof their brilliancy was a part of his credit. \"I will present you to\nsome people,\" said M. de Bellegarde after a while. \"I will make a point\nof it, in fact. You will allow me?\"\n\n\"Oh, I will shake hands with any one you want,\" said Newman. \"Your\nmother just introduced me to half a dozen old gentlemen. Take care you\ndon't pick up the same parties again.\"\n\n\"Who are the gentlemen to whom my mother presented you?\"\n\n\"Upon my word, I forgot them,\" said Newman, laughing. \"The people here\nlook very much alike.\"\n\n\"I suspect they have not forgotten you,\" said the marquis. And he began\nto walk through the rooms. Newman, to keep near him in the crowd, took\nhis arm; after which for some time, the marquis walked straight\nalong, in silence. At last, reaching the farther end of the suite of\nreception-rooms, Newman found himself in the presence of a lady of\nmonstrous proportions, seated in a very capacious arm-chair, with\nseveral persons standing in a semicircle round her. This little group\nhad divided as the marquis came up, and M. de Bellegarde stepped forward\nand stood for an instant silent and obsequious, with his hat raised to\nhis lips, as Newman had seen some gentlemen stand in churches as soon as\nthey entered their pews. The lady, indeed, bore a very fair likeness to\na reverend effigy in some idolatrous shrine. She was monumentally stout\nand imperturbably serene. Her aspect was to Newman almost formidable; he\nhad a troubled consciousness of a triple chin, a small piercing eye, a\nvast expanse of uncovered bosom, a nodding and twinkling tiara of plumes\nand gems, and an immense circumference of satin petticoat. With her\nlittle circle of beholders this remarkable woman reminded him of the Fat\nLady at a fair. She fixed her small, unwinking eyes at the new-comers.\n\n\"Dear duchess,\" said the marquis, \"let me present you our good friend\nMr. Newman, of whom you have heard us speak. Wishing to make Mr. Newman\nknown to those who are dear to us, I could not possibly fail to begin\nwith you.\"\n\n\"Charmed, dear friend; charmed, monsieur,\" said the duchess in a voice\nwhich, though small and shrill, was not disagreeable, while Newman\nexecuted his obeisance. \"I came on purpose to see monsieur. I hope he\nappreciates the compliment. You have only to look at me to do so, sir,\"\nshe continued, sweeping her person with a much-encompassing glance.\nNewman hardly knew what to say, though it seemed that to a duchess who\njoked about her corpulence one might say almost anything. On hearing\nthat the duchess had come on purpose to see Newman, the gentlemen\nwho surrounded her turned a little and looked at him with sympathetic\ncuriosity. The marquis with supernatural gravity mentioned to him the\nname of each, while the gentleman who bore it bowed; they were all what\nare called in France beaux noms. \"I wanted extremely to see you,\" the\nduchess went on. \"C'est positif. In the first place, I am very fond of\nthe person you are going to marry; she is the most charming creature in\nFrance. Mind you treat her well, or you shall hear some news of me. But\nyou look as if you were good. I am told you are very remarkable. I have\nheard all sorts of extraordinary things about you. Voyons, are they\ntrue?\"\n\n\"I don't know what you can have heard,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Oh, you have your legende. We have heard that you have had a career the\nmost checkered, the most bizarre. What is that about your having founded\na city some ten years ago in the great West, a city which contains\nto-day half a million of inhabitants? Isn't it half a million,\nmessieurs? You are exclusive proprietor of this flourishing settlement,\nand are consequently fabulously rich, and you would be richer still if\nyou didn't grant lands and houses free of rent to all newcomers who will\npledge themselves never to smoke cigars. At this game, in three years,\nwe are told, you are going to be made president of America.\"\n\nThe duchess recited this amazing \"legend\" with a smooth self-possession\nwhich gave the speech to Newman's mind, the air of being a bit of\namusing dialogue in a play, delivered by a veteran comic actress. Before\nshe had ceased speaking he had burst into loud, irrepressible laughter.\n\"Dear duchess, dear duchess,\" the marquis began to murmur, soothingly.\nTwo or three persons came to the door of the room to see who was\nlaughing at the duchess. But the lady continued with the soft, serene\nassurance of a person who, as a duchess, was certain of being listened\nto, and, as a garrulous woman, was independent of the pulse of her\nauditors. \"But I know you are very remarkable. You must be, to have\nendeared yourself to this good marquis and to his admirable world. They\nare very exacting. I myself am not very sure at this hour of really\npossessing it. Eh, Bellegarde? To please you, I see, one must be an\nAmerican millionaire. But your real triumph, my dear sir, is pleasing\nthe countess; she is as difficult as a princess in a fairy tale. Your\nsuccess is a miracle. What is your secret? I don't ask you to reveal it\nbefore all these gentlemen, but come and see me some day and give me a\nspecimen of your talents.\"\n\n\"The secret is with Madame de Cintre,\" said Newman. \"You must ask her\nfor it. It consists in her having a great deal of charity.\"\n\n\"Very pretty!\" said the duchess. \"That's a very nice specimen, to begin\nwith. What, Bellegarde, are you already taking monsieur away?\"\n\n\"I have a duty to perform, dear friend,\" said the marquis, pointing to\nthe other groups.\n\n\"Ah, for you I know what that means. Well, I have seen monsieur; that\nis what I wanted. He can't persuade me that he isn't very clever.\nFarewell.\"\n\nAs Newman passed on with his host, he asked who the duchess was. \"The\ngreatest lady in France,\" said the marquis. M. de Bellegarde then\npresented his prospective brother-in-law to some twenty other persons of\nboth sexes, selected apparently for their typically august character.\nIn some cases this character was written in good round hand upon the\ncountenance of the wearer; in others Newman was thankful for such help\nas his companion's impressively brief intimation contributed to the\ndiscovery of it. There were large, majestic men, and small demonstrative\nmen; there were ugly ladies in yellow lace and quaint jewels, and pretty\nladies with white shoulders from which jewels and every thing else were\nabsent. Every one gave Newman extreme attention, every one smiled, every\none was charmed to make his acquaintance, every one looked at him with\nthat soft hardness of good society which puts out its hand but keeps\nits fingers closed over the coin. If the marquis was going about as a\nbear-leader, if the fiction of Beauty and the Beast was supposed to have\nfound its companion-piece, the general impression appeared to be\nthat the bear was a very fair imitation of humanity. Newman found his\nreception among the marquis's friends very \"pleasant;\" he could not have\nsaid more for it. It was pleasant to be treated with so much explicit\npoliteness; it was pleasant to hear neatly turned civilities, with a\nflavor of wit, uttered from beneath carefully-shaped mustaches; it was\npleasant to see clever Frenchwomen--they all seemed clever--turn their\nbacks to their partners to get a good look at the strange American whom\nClaire de Cintre was to marry, and reward the object of the exhibition\nwith a charming smile. At last, as he turned away from a battery of\nsmiles and other amenities, Newman caught the eye of the marquis looking\nat him heavily; and thereupon, for a single instant, he checked himself.\n\"Am I behaving like a d--d fool?\" he asked himself. \"Am I stepping\nabout like a terrier on his hind legs?\" At this moment he perceived\nMrs. Tristram at the other side of the room, and he waved his hand in\nfarewell to M. de Bellegarde and made his way toward her.\n\n\"Am I holding my head too high?\" he asked. \"Do I look as if I had the\nlower end of a pulley fastened to my chin?\"\n\n\"You look like all happy men, very ridiculous,\" said Mrs. Tristram.\n\"It's the usual thing, neither better nor worse. I have been watching\nyou for the last ten minutes, and I have been watching M. de Bellegarde.\nHe doesn't like it.\"\n\n\"The more credit to him for putting it through,\" replied Newman. \"But I\nshall be generous. I shan't trouble him any more. But I am very happy.\nI can't stand still here. Please to take my arm and we will go for a\nwalk.\"\n\nHe led Mrs. Tristram through all the rooms. There were a great many of\nthem, and, decorated for the occasion and filled with a stately crowd,\ntheir somewhat tarnished nobleness recovered its lustre. Mrs. Tristram,\nlooking about her, dropped a series of softly-incisive comments upon her\nfellow-guests. But Newman made vague answers; he hardly heard her, his\nthoughts were elsewhere. They were lost in a cheerful sense of success,\nof attainment and victory. His momentary care as to whether he looked\nlike a fool passed away, leaving him simply with a rich contentment.\nHe had got what he wanted. The savor of success had always been highly\nagreeable to him, and it had been his fortune to know it often. But it\nhad never before been so sweet, been associated with so much that was\nbrilliant and suggestive and entertaining. The lights, the flowers, the\nmusic, the crowd, the splendid women, the jewels, the strangeness even\nof the universal murmur of a clever foreign tongue were all a vivid\nsymbol and assurance of his having grasped his purpose and forced along\nhis groove. If Newman's smile was larger than usual, it was not tickled\nvanity that pulled the strings; he had no wish to be shown with the\nfinger or to achieve a personal success. If he could have looked down at\nthe scene, invisible, from a hole in the roof, he would have enjoyed it\nquite as much. It would have spoken to him about his own prosperity and\ndeepened that easy feeling about life to which, sooner or later, he made\nall experience contribute. Just now the cup seemed full.\n\n\"It is a very pretty party,\" said Mrs. Tristram, after they had walked\na while. \"I have seen nothing objectionable except my husband leaning\nagainst the wall and talking to an individual whom I suppose he takes\nfor a duke, but whom I more than suspect to be the functionary who\nattends to the lamps. Do you think you could separate them? Knock over a\nlamp!\"\n\nI doubt whether Newman, who saw no harm in Tristram's conversing with an\ningenious mechanic, would have complied with this request; but at this\nmoment Valentin de Bellegarde drew near. Newman, some weeks previously,\nhad presented Madame de Cintre's youngest brother to Mrs. Tristram, for\nwhose merits Valentin professed a discriminating relish and to whom he\nhad paid several visits.\n\n\"Did you ever read Keats's Belle Dame sans Merci?\" asked Mrs. Tristram.\n\"You remind me of the hero of the ballad:--\n\n 'Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,\n Alone and palely loitering?'\"\n\n\"If I am alone, it is because I have been deprived of your society,\"\nsaid Valentin. \"Besides it is good manners for no man except Newman to\nlook happy. This is all to his address. It is not for you and me to go\nbefore the curtain.\"\n\n\"You promised me last spring,\" said Newman to Mrs. Tristram, \"that six\nmonths from that time I should get into a monstrous rage. It seems to\nme the time's up, and yet the nearest I can come to doing anything rough\nnow is to offer you a cafe glace.\"\n\n\"I told you we should do things grandly,\" said Valentin. \"I don't allude\nto the cafes glaces. But every one is here, and my sister told me just\nnow that Urbain had been adorable.\"\n\n\"He's a good fellow, he's a good fellow,\" said Newman. \"I love him as a\nbrother. That reminds me that I ought to go and say something polite to\nyour mother.\"\n\n\"Let it be something very polite indeed,\" said Valentin. \"It may be the\nlast time you will feel so much like it!\"\n\nNewman walked away, almost disposed to clasp old Madame de Bellegarde\nround the waist. He passed through several rooms and at last found\nthe old marquise in the first saloon, seated on a sofa, with her young\nkinsman, Lord Deepmere, beside her. The young man looked somewhat bored;\nhis hands were thrust into his pockets and his eyes were fixed upon the\ntoes of his shoes, his feet being thrust out in front of him. Madame de\nBellegarde appeared to have been talking to him with some intensity and\nto be waiting for an answer to what she had said, or for some sign of\nthe effect of her words. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was\nlooking at his lordship's simple physiognomy with an air of politely\nsuppressed irritation.\n\nLord Deepmere looked up as Newman approached, met his eyes, and changed\ncolor.\n\n\"I am afraid I disturb an interesting interview,\" said Newman.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde rose, and her companion rising at the same time,\nshe put her hand into his arm. She answered nothing for an instant, and\nthen, as he remained silent, she said with a smile, \"It would be polite\nfor Lord Deepmere to say it was very interesting.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm not polite!\" cried his lordship. \"But it was interesting.\"\n\n\"Madame de Bellegarde was giving you some good advice, eh?\" said Newman;\n\"toning you down a little?\"\n\n\"I was giving him some excellent advice,\" said the marquise, fixing her\nfresh, cold eyes upon our hero. \"It's for him to take it.\"\n\n\"Take it, sir--take it,\" Newman exclaimed. \"Any advice the marquise\ngives you to-night must be good. For to-night, marquise, you must speak\nfrom a cheerful, comfortable spirit, and that makes good advice. You see\neverything going on so brightly and successfully round you. Your party\nis magnificent; it was a very happy thought. It is much better than that\nthing of mine would have been.\"\n\n\"If you are pleased I am satisfied,\" said Madame de Bellegarde. \"My\ndesire was to please you.\"\n\n\"Do you want to please me a little more?\" said Newman. \"Just drop\nour lordly friend; I am sure he wants to be off and shake his heels a\nlittle. Then take my arm and walk through the rooms.\"\n\n\"My desire was to please you,\" the old lady repeated. And she liberated\nLord Deepmere, Newman rather wondering at her docility. \"If this young\nman is wise,\" she added, \"he will go and find my daughter and ask her to\ndance.\"\n\n\"I have been indorsing your advice,\" said Newman, bending over her and\nlaughing, \"I suppose I must swallow that!\"\n\nLord Deepmere wiped his forehead and departed, and Madame de Bellegarde\ntook Newman's arm. \"Yes, it's a very pleasant, sociable entertainment,\"\nthe latter declared, as they proceeded on their circuit. \"Every one\nseems to know every one and to be glad to see every one. The marquis has\nmade me acquainted with ever so many people, and I feel quite like\none of the family. It's an occasion,\" Newman continued, wanting to\nsay something thoroughly kind and comfortable, \"that I shall always\nremember, and remember very pleasantly.\"\n\n\"I think it is an occasion that we shall none of us forget,\" said the\nmarquise, with her pure, neat enunciation.\n\nPeople made way for her as she passed, others turned round and looked at\nher, and she received a great many greetings and pressings of the hand,\nall of which she accepted with the most delicate dignity. But though she\nsmiled upon every one, she said nothing until she reached the last of\nthe rooms, where she found her elder son. Then, \"This is enough,\nsir,\" she declared with measured softness to Newman, and turned to the\nmarquis. He put out both his hands and took both hers, drawing her to a\nseat with an air of the tenderest veneration. It was a most harmonious\nfamily group, and Newman discreetly retired. He moved through the rooms\nfor some time longer, circulating freely, overtopping most people by\nhis great height, renewing acquaintance with some of the groups to which\nUrbain de Bellegarde had presented him, and expending generally the\nsurplus of his equanimity. He continued to find it all extremely\nagreeable; but the most agreeable things have an end, and the revelry\non this occasion began to deepen to a close. The music was sounding its\nultimate strains and people were looking for the marquise, to make their\nfarewells. There seemed to be some difficulty in finding her, and Newman\nheard a report that she had left the ball, feeling faint. \"She has\nsuccumbed to the emotions of the evening,\" he heard a lady say. \"Poor,\ndear marquise; I can imagine all that they may have been for her!\" But\nhe learned immediately afterwards that she had recovered herself and was\nseated in an armchair near the doorway, receiving parting compliments\nfrom great ladies who insisted upon her not rising. He himself set out\nin quest of Madame de Cintre. He had seen her move past him many times\nin the rapid circles of a waltz, but in accordance with her explicit\ninstructions he had exchanged no words with her since the beginning of\nthe evening. The whole house having been thrown open, the apartments\nof the rez-de-chaussee were also accessible, though a smaller number of\npersons had gathered there. Newman wandered through them, observing\na few scattered couples to whom this comparative seclusion appeared\ngrateful and reached a small conservatory which opened into the garden.\nThe end of the conservatory was formed by a clear sheet of glass,\nunmasked by plants, and admitting the winter starlight so directly that\na person standing there would seem to have passed into the open air. Two\npersons stood there now, a lady and a gentleman; the lady Newman, from\nwithin the room and although she had turned her back to it, immediately\nrecognized as Madame de Cintre. He hesitated as to whether he would\nadvance, but as he did so she looked round, feeling apparently that he\nwas there. She rested her eyes on him a moment and then turned again to\nher companion.\n\n\"It is almost a pity not to tell Mr. Newman,\" she said softly, but in a\ntone that Newman could hear.\n\n\"Tell him if you like!\" the gentleman answered, in the voice of Lord\nDeepmere.\n\n\"Oh, tell me by all means!\" said Newman advancing.\n\nLord Deepmere, he observed, was very red in the face, and he had twisted\nhis gloves into a tight cord as if he had been squeezing them dry.\nThese, presumably, were tokens of violent emotion, and it seemed to\nNewman that the traces of corresponding agitation were visible in Madame\nde Cintre's face. The two had been talking with much vivacity. \"What\nI should tell you is only to my lord's credit,\" said Madame de Cintre,\nsmiling frankly enough.\n\n\"He wouldn't like it any better for that!\" said my lord, with his\nawkward laugh.\n\n\"Come; what's the mystery?\" Newman demanded. \"Clear it up. I don't like\nmysteries.\"\n\n\"We must have some things we don't like, and go without some we do,\"\nsaid the ruddy young nobleman, laughing still.\n\n\"It's to Lord Deepmere's credit, but it is not to every one's,\" said\nMadam de Cintre. \"So I shall say nothing about it. You may be sure,\"\nshe added; and she put out her hand to the Englishman, who took it half\nshyly, half impetuously. \"And now go and dance!\" she said.\n\n\"Oh yes, I feel awfully like dancing!\" he answered. \"I shall go and get\ntipsy.\" And he walked away with a gloomy guffaw.\n\n\"What has happened between you?\" Newman asked.\n\n\"I can't tell you--now,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"Nothing that need make\nyou unhappy.\"\n\n\"Has the little Englishman been trying to make love to you?\"\n\nShe hesitated, and then she uttered a grave \"No! he's a very honest\nlittle fellow.\"\n\n\"But you are agitated. Something is the matter.\"\n\n\"Nothing, I repeat, that need make you unhappy. My agitation is over.\nSome day I will tell you what it was; not now. I can't now!\"\n\n\"Well, I confess,\" remarked Newman, \"I don't want to hear anything\nunpleasant. I am satisfied with everything--most of all with you. I\nhave seen all the ladies and talked with a great many of them; but I am\nsatisfied with you.\" Madame de Cintre covered him for a moment with her\nlarge, soft glance, and then turned her eyes away into the starry night.\nSo they stood silent a moment, side by side. \"Say you are satisfied with\nme,\" said Newman.\n\nHe had to wait a moment for the answer; but it came at last, low yet\ndistinct: \"I am very happy.\"\n\nIt was presently followed by a few words from another source, which made\nthem both turn round. \"I am sadly afraid Madame de Cintre will take a\nchill. I have ventured to bring a shawl.\" Mrs. Bread stood there softly\nsolicitous, holding a white drapery in her hand.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Madame de Cintre, \"the sight of those cold stars gives\none a sense of frost. I won't take your shawl, but we will go back into\nthe house.\"\n\nShe passed back and Newman followed her, Mrs. Bread standing\nrespectfully aside to make way for them. Newman paused an instant before\nthe old woman, and she glanced up at him with a silent greeting. \"Oh,\nyes,\" he said, \"you must come and live with us.\"\n\n\"Well then, sir, if you will,\" she answered, \"you have not seen the last\nof me!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\n\nNewman was fond of music and went often to the opera. A couple of\nevenings after Madame de Bellegarde's ball he sat listening to \"Don\nGiovanni,\" having in honor of this work, which he had never yet seen\nrepresented, come to occupy his orchestra-chair before the rising of\nthe curtain. Frequently he took a large box and invited a party of\nhis compatriots; this was a mode of recreation to which he was much\naddicted. He liked making up parties of his friends and conducting them\nto the theatre, and taking them to drive on high drags or to dine at\nremote restaurants. He liked doing things which involved his paying for\npeople; the vulgar truth is that he enjoyed \"treating\" them. This was\nnot because he was what is called purse-proud; handling money in public\nwas on the contrary positively disagreeable to him; he had a sort of\npersonal modesty about it, akin to what he would have felt about making\na toilet before spectators. But just as it was a gratification to him to\nbe handsomely dressed, just so it was a private satisfaction to him (he\nenjoyed it very clandestinely) to have interposed, pecuniarily, in\na scheme of pleasure. To set a large group of people in motion and\ntransport them to a distance, to have special conveyances, to charter\nrailway-carriages and steamboats, harmonized with his relish for\nbold processes, and made hospitality seem more active and more to the\npurpose. A few evenings before the occasion of which I speak he had\ninvited several ladies and gentlemen to the opera to listen to Madame\nAlboni--a party which included Miss Dora Finch. It befell, however, that\nMiss Dora Finch, sitting near Newman in the box, discoursed brilliantly,\nnot only during the entr'actes, but during many of the finest portions\nof the performance, so that Newman had really come away with an\nirritated sense that Madame Alboni had a thin, shrill voice, and that\nher musical phrase was much garnished with a laugh of the giggling\norder. After this he promised himself to go for a while to the opera\nalone.\n\nWhen the curtain had fallen upon the first act of \"Don Giovanni\" he\nturned round in his place to observe the house. Presently, in one of\nthe boxes, he perceived Urbain de Bellegarde and his wife. The little\nmarquise was sweeping the house very busily with a glass, and Newman,\nsupposing that she saw him, determined to go and bid her good evening.\nM. de Bellegarde was leaning against a column, motionless, looking\nstraight in front of him, with one hand in the breast of his white\nwaistcoat and the other resting his hat on his thigh. Newman was about\nto leave his place when he noticed in that obscure region devoted to the\nsmall boxes which in France are called, not inaptly, \"bathing-tubs,\"\na face which even the dim light and the distance could not make wholly\nindistinct. It was the face of a young and pretty woman, and it was\nsurmounted with a coiffure of pink roses and diamonds. This person was\nlooking round the house, and her fan was moving to and fro with the most\npracticed grace; when she lowered it, Newman perceived a pair of plump\nwhite shoulders and the edge of a rose-colored dress. Beside her, very\nclose to the shoulders and talking, apparently with an earnestness which\nit pleased her scantily to heed, sat a young man with a red face and a\nvery low shirt-collar. A moment's gazing left Newman with no doubts; the\npretty young woman was Noemie Nioche. He looked hard into the depths of\nthe box, thinking her father might perhaps be in attendance, but from\nwhat he could see the young man's eloquence had no other auditor.\nNewman at last made his way out, and in doing so he passed beneath the\nbaignoire of Mademoiselle Noemie. She saw him as he approached and gave\nhim a nod and smile which seemed meant as an assurance that she was\nstill a good-natured girl, in spite of her enviable rise in the world.\nNewman passed into the foyer and walked through it. Suddenly he paused\nin front of a gentleman seated on one of the divans. The gentleman's\nelbows were on his knees; he was leaning forward and staring at the\npavement, lost apparently in meditations of a somewhat gloomy cast. But\nin spite of his bent head Newman recognized him, and in a moment\nsat down beside him. Then the gentleman looked up and displayed the\nexpressive countenance of Valentin de Bellegarde.\n\n\"What in the world are you thinking of so hard?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"A subject that requires hard thinking to do it justice,\" said Valentin.\n\"My immeasurable idiocy.\"\n\n\"What is the matter now?\"\n\n\"The matter now is that I am a man again, and no more a fool than usual.\nBut I came within an inch of taking that girl au serieux.\"\n\n\"You mean the young lady below stairs, in a baignoire in a pink dress?\"\nsaid Newman.\n\n\"Did you notice what a brilliant kind of pink it was?\" Valentin\ninquired, by way of answer. \"It makes her look as white as new milk.\"\n\n\"White or black, as you please. But you have stopped going to see her?\"\n\n\"Oh, bless you, no. Why should I stop? I have changed, but she hasn't,\"\nsaid Valentin. \"I see she is a vulgar little wretch, after all. But she\nis as amusing as ever, and one MUST be amused.\"\n\n\"Well, I am glad she strikes you so unpleasantly,\" Newman rejoiced. \"I\nsuppose you have swallowed all those fine words you used about her\nthe other night. You compared her to a sapphire, or a topaz, or an\namethyst--some precious stone; what was it?\"\n\n\"I don't remember,\" said Valentin, \"it may have been to a carbuncle! But\nshe won't make a fool of me now. She has no real charm. It's an awfully\nlow thing to make a mistake about a person of that sort.\"\n\n\"I congratulate you,\" Newman declared, \"upon the scales having fallen\nfrom your eyes. It's a great triumph; it ought to make you feel better.\"\n\n\"Yes, it makes me feel better!\" said Valentin, gayly. Then, checking\nhimself, he looked askance at Newman. \"I rather think you are laughing\nat me. If you were not one of the family I would take it up.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, I'm not laughing, any more than I am one of the family. You\nmake me feel badly. You are too clever a fellow, you are made of too\ngood stuff, to spend your time in ups and downs over that class of\ngoods. The idea of splitting hairs about Miss Nioche! It seems to me\nawfully foolish. You say you have given up taking her seriously; but you\ntake her seriously so long as you take her at all.\"\n\nValentin turned round in his place and looked a while at Newman,\nwrinkling his forehead and rubbing his knees. \"Vous parlez d'or. But\nshe has wonderfully pretty arms. Would you believe I didn't know it till\nthis evening?\"\n\n\"But she is a vulgar little wretch, remember, all the same,\" said\nNewman.\n\n\"Yes; the other day she had the bad taste to begin to abuse her father,\nto his face, in my presence. I shouldn't have expected it of her; it was\na disappointment; heigho!\"\n\n\"Why, she cares no more for her father than for her door-mat,\" said\nNewman. \"I discovered that the first time I saw her.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's another affair; she may think of the poor old beggar what\nshe pleases. But it was low in her to call him bad names; it quite threw\nme off. It was about a frilled petticoat that he was to have fetched\nfrom the washer-woman's; he appeared to have neglected this graceful\nduty. She almost boxed his ears. He stood there staring at her with his\nlittle blank eyes and smoothing his old hat with his coat-tail. At last\nhe turned round and went out without a word. Then I told her it was\nin very bad taste to speak so to one's papa. She said she should be so\nthankful to me if I would mention it to her whenever her taste was at\nfault; she had immense confidence in mine. I told her I couldn't have\nthe bother of forming her manners; I had had an idea they were already\nformed, after the best models. She had disappointed me. But I shall get\nover it,\" said Valentin, gayly.\n\n\"Oh, time's a great consoler!\" Newman answered with humorous sobriety.\nHe was silent a moment, and then he added, in another tone, \"I wish you\nwould think of what I said to you the other day. Come over to America\nwith us, and I will put you in the way of doing some business. You have\na very good head, if you will only use it.\"\n\nValentin made a genial grimace. \"My head is much obliged to you. Do you\nmean the place in a bank?\"\n\n\"There are several places, but I suppose you would consider the bank the\nmost aristocratic.\"\n\nValentin burst into a laugh. \"My dear fellow, at night all cats are\ngray! When one derogates there are no degrees.\"\n\nNewman answered nothing for a minute. Then, \"I think you will find there\nare degrees in success,\" he said with a certain dryness.\n\nValentin had leaned forward again, with his elbows on his knees, and he\nwas scratching the pavement with his stick. At last he said, looking up,\n\"Do you really think I ought to do something?\"\n\nNewman laid his hand on his companion's arm and looked at him a moment\nthrough sagaciously-narrowed eyelids. \"Try it and see. You are not good\nenough for it, but we will stretch a point.\"\n\n\"Do you really think I can make some money? I should like to see how it\nfeels to have a little.\"\n\n\"Do what I tell you, and you shall be rich,\" said Newman. \"Think of it.\"\nAnd he looked at his watch and prepared to resume his way to Madame de\nBellegarde's box.\n\n\"Upon my word I will think of it,\" said Valentin. \"I will go and listen\nto Mozart another half hour--I can always think better to music--and\nprofoundly meditate upon it.\"\n\nThe marquis was with his wife when Newman entered their box; he was\nbland, remote, and correct as usual; or, as it seemed to Newman, even\nmore than usual.\n\n\"What do you think of the opera?\" asked our hero. \"What do you think of\nthe Don?\"\n\n\"We all know what Mozart is,\" said the marquis; \"our impressions\ndon't date from this evening. Mozart is youth, freshness, brilliancy,\nfacility--a little too great facility, perhaps. But the execution is\nhere and there deplorably rough.\"\n\n\"I am very curious to see how it ends,\" said Newman.\n\n\"You speak as if it were a feuilleton in the 'Figaro,'\" observed the\nmarquis. \"You have surely seen the opera before?\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Newman. \"I am sure I should have remembered it.\nDonna Elvira reminds me of Madame de Cintre; I don't mean in her\ncircumstances, but in the music she sings.\"\n\n\"It is a very nice distinction,\" laughed the marquis lightly. \"There is\nno great possibility, I imagine, of Madame de Cintre being forsaken.\"\n\n\"Not much!\" said Newman. \"But what becomes of the Don?\"\n\n\"The devil comes down--or comes up,\" said Madame de Bellegarde, \"and\ncarries him off. I suppose Zerlina reminds you of me.\"\n\n\"I will go to the foyer for a few moments,\" said the marquis, \"and give\nyou a chance to say that the commander--the man of stone--resembles me.\"\nAnd he passed out of the box.\n\nThe little marquise stared an instant at the velvet ledge of the\nbalcony, and then murmured, \"Not a man of stone, a man of wood.\" Newman\nhad taken her husband's empty chair. She made no protest, and then she\nturned suddenly and laid her closed fan upon his arm. \"I am very glad\nyou came in,\" she said. \"I want to ask you a favor. I wanted to do so on\nThursday, at my mother-in-law's ball, but you would give me no chance.\nYou were in such very good spirits that I thought you might grant my\nlittle favor then; not that you look particularly doleful now. It is\nsomething you must promise me; now is the time to take you; after you\nare married you will be good for nothing. Come, promise!\"\n\n\"I never sign a paper without reading it first,\" said Newman. \"Show me\nyour document.\"\n\n\"No, you must sign with your eyes shut; I will hold your hand. Come,\nbefore you put your head into the noose. You ought to be thankful to me\nfor giving you a chance to do something amusing.\"\n\n\"If it is so amusing,\" said Newman, \"it will be in even better season\nafter I am married.\"\n\n\"In other words,\" cried Madame de Bellegarde, \"you will not do it at\nall. You will be afraid of your wife.\"\n\n\"Oh, if the thing is intrinsically improper,\" said Newman, \"I won't go\ninto it. If it is not, I will do it after my marriage.\"\n\n\"You talk like a treatise on logic, and English logic into the bargain!\"\nexclaimed Madame de Bellegarde. \"Promise, then, after you are married.\nAfter all, I shall enjoy keeping you to it.\"\n\n\"Well, then, after I am married,\" said Newman serenely.\n\nThe little marquise hesitated a moment, looking at him, and he wondered\nwhat was coming. \"I suppose you know what my life is,\" she presently\nsaid. \"I have no pleasure, I see nothing, I do nothing. I live in Paris\nas I might live at Poitiers. My mother-in-law calls me--what is the\npretty word?--a gad-about? accuses me of going to unheard-of places, and\nthinks it ought to be joy enough for me to sit at home and count over my\nancestors on my fingers. But why should I bother about my ancestors?\nI am sure they never bothered about me. I don't propose to live with\na green shade on my eyes; I hold that things were made to look at. My\nhusband, you know, has principles, and the first on the list is that\nthe Tuileries are dreadfully vulgar. If the Tuileries are vulgar, his\nprinciples are tiresome. If I chose I might have principles quite as\nwell as he. If they grew on one's family tree I should only have to give\nmine a shake to bring down a shower of the finest. At any rate, I prefer\nclever Bonapartes to stupid Bourbons.\"\n\n\"Oh, I see; you want to go to court,\" said Newman, vaguely conjecturing\nthat she might wish him to appeal to the United States legation to\nsmooth her way to the imperial halls.\n\nThe marquise gave a little sharp laugh. \"You are a thousand miles away.\nI will take care of the Tuileries myself; the day I decide to go they\nwill be very glad to have me. Sooner or later I shall dance in an\nimperial quadrille. I know what you are going to say: 'How will you\ndare?' But I SHALL dare. I am afraid of my husband; he is soft,\nsmooth, irreproachable; everything that you know; but I am afraid of\nhim--horribly afraid of him. And yet I shall arrive at the Tuileries.\nBut that will not be this winter, nor perhaps next, and meantime I must\nlive. For the moment, I want to go somewhere else; it's my dream. I want\nto go to the Bal Bullier.\"\n\n\"To the Bal Bullier?\" repeated Newman, for whom the words at first meant\nnothing.\n\n\"The ball in the Latin Quarter, where the students dance with their\nmistresses. Don't tell me you have not heard of it.\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Newman; \"I have heard of it; I remember now. I have even\nbeen there. And you want to go there?\"\n\n\"It is silly, it is low, it is anything you please. But I want to go.\nSome of my friends have been, and they say it is awfully drole. My\nfriends go everywhere; it is only I who sit moping at home.\"\n\n\"It seems to me you are not at home now,\" said Newman, \"and I shouldn't\nexactly say you were moping.\"\n\n\"I am bored to death. I have been to the opera twice a week for the last\neight years. Whenever I ask for anything my mouth is stopped with that:\nPray, madam, haven't you an opera box? Could a woman of taste want more?\nIn the first place, my opera box was down in my contrat; they have\nto give it to me. To-night, for instance, I should have preferred a\nthousand times to go to the Palais Royal. But my husband won't go to the\nPalais Royal because the ladies of the court go there so much. You may\nimagine, then, whether he would take me to Bullier's; he says it is\na mere imitation--and a bad one--of what they do at the Princess\nKleinfuss's. But as I don't go to the Princess Kleinfuss's, the next\nbest thing is to go to Bullier's. It is my dream, at any rate, it's\na fixed idea. All I ask of you is to give me your arm; you are less\ncompromising than any one else. I don't know why, but you are. I can\narrange it. I shall risk something, but that is my own affair. Besides,\nfortune favors the bold. Don't refuse me; it is my dream!\"\n\nNewman gave a loud laugh. It seemed to him hardly worth while to be the\nwife of the Marquis de Bellegarde, a daughter of the crusaders, heiress\nof six centuries of glories and traditions, to have centred one's\naspirations upon the sight of a couple of hundred young ladies kicking\noff young men's hats. It struck him as a theme for the moralist; but\nhe had no time to moralize upon it. The curtain rose again; M. de\nBellegarde returned, and Newman went back to his seat.\n\nHe observed that Valentin de Bellegarde had taken his place in the\nbaignoire of Mademoiselle Nioche, behind this young lady and her\ncompanion, where he was visible only if one carefully looked for him.\nIn the next act Newman met him in the lobby and asked him if he had\nreflected upon possible emigration. \"If you really meant to meditate,\"\nhe said, \"you might have chosen a better place for it.\"\n\n\"Oh, the place was not bad,\" said Valentin. \"I was not thinking of that\ngirl. I listened to the music, and, without thinking of the play or\nlooking at the stage, I turned over your proposal. At first it seemed\nquite fantastic. And then a certain fiddle in the orchestra--I could\ndistinguish it--began to say as it scraped away, 'Why not, why not?'\nAnd then, in that rapid movement, all the fiddles took it up and the\nconductor's stick seemed to beat it in the air: 'Why not, why not?' I'm\nsure I can't say! I don't see why not. I don't see why I shouldn't do\nsomething. It appears to me really a very bright idea. This sort of\nthing is certainly very stale. And then I could come back with a trunk\nfull of dollars. Besides, I might possibly find it amusing. They call me\na raffine; who knows but that I might discover an unsuspected charm in\nshop-keeping? It would really have a certain romantic, picturesque side;\nit would look well in my biography. It would look as if I were a strong\nman, a first-rate man, a man who dominated circumstances.\"\n\n\"Never mind how it would look,\" said Newman. \"It always looks well to\nhave half a million of dollars. There is no reason why you shouldn't\nhave them if you will mind what I tell you--I alone--and not talk to\nother parties.\" He passed his arm into that of his companion, and\nthe two walked for some time up and down one of the less frequented\ncorridors. Newman's imagination began to glow with the idea of\nconverting his bright, impracticable friend into a first-class man of\nbusiness. He felt for the moment a sort of spiritual zeal, the zeal\nof the propagandist. Its ardor was in part the result of that general\ndiscomfort which the sight of all uninvested capital produced in him; so\nfine an intelligence as Bellegarde's ought to be dedicated to high uses.\nThe highest uses known to Newman's experience were certain transcendent\nsagacities in the handling of railway stock. And then his zeal was\nquickened by his personal kindness for Valentin; he had a sort of pity\nfor him which he was well aware he never could have made the Comte de\nBellegarde understand. He never lost a sense of its being pitiable that\nValentin should think it a large life to revolve in varnished boots\nbetween the Rue d'Anjou and the Rue de l'Universite, taking the\nBoulevard des Italiens on the way, when over there in America one's\npromenade was a continent, and one's Boulevard stretched from New York\nto San Francisco. It mortified him, moreover, to think that Valentin\nlacked money; there was a painful grotesqueness in it. It affected him\nas the ignorance of a companion, otherwise without reproach, touching\nsome rudimentary branch of learning would have done. There were things\nthat one knew about as a matter of course, he would have said in such a\ncase. Just so, if one pretended to be easy in the world, one had money\nas a matter of course, one had made it! There was something almost\nridiculously anomalous to Newman in the sight of lively pretensions\nunaccompanied by large investments in railroads; though I may add that\nhe would not have maintained that such investments were in themselves a\nproper ground for pretensions. \"I will make you do something,\" he said\nto Valentin; \"I will put you through. I know half a dozen things in\nwhich we can make a place for you. You will see some lively work. It\nwill take you a little while to get used to the life, but you will work\nin before long, and at the end of six months--after you have done a\nthing or two on your own account--you will like it. And then it will\nbe very pleasant for you, having your sister over there. It will be\npleasant for her to have you, too. Yes, Valentin,\" continued Newman,\npressing his friend's arm genially, \"I think I see just the opening for\nyou. Keep quiet and I'll push you right in.\"\n\nNewman pursued this favoring strain for some time longer. The two\nmen strolled about for a quarter of an hour. Valentin listened and\nquestioned, many of his questions making Newman laugh loud at the\nnaivete of his ignorance of the vulgar processes of money-getting;\nsmiling himself, too, half ironical and half curious. And yet he was\nserious; he was fascinated by Newman's plain prose version of the legend\nof El Dorado. It is true, however, that though to accept an \"opening\"\nin an American mercantile house might be a bold, original, and in its\nconsequences extremely agreeable thing to do, he did not quite see\nhimself objectively doing it. So that when the bell rang to indicate the\nclose of the entr'acte, there was a certain mock-heroism in his saying,\nwith his brilliant smile, \"Well, then, put me through; push me in! I\nmake myself over to you. Dip me into the pot and turn me into gold.\"\n\nThey had passed into the corridor which encircled the row of baignoires,\nand Valentin stopped in front of the dusky little box in which\nMademoiselle Nioche had bestowed herself, laying his hand on the\ndoorknob. \"Oh, come, are you going back there?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"Mon Dieu, oui,\" said Valentin.\n\n\"Haven't you another place?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have my usual place, in the stalls.\"\n\n\"You had better go and occupy it, then.\"\n\n\"I see her very well from there, too,\" added Valentin, serenely, \"and\nto-night she is worth seeing. But,\" he added in a moment, \"I have a\nparticular reason for going back just now.\"\n\n\"Oh, I give you up,\" said Newman. \"You are infatuated!\"\n\n\"No, it is only this. There is a young man in the box whom I shall annoy\nby going in, and I want to annoy him.\"\n\n\"I am sorry to hear it,\" said Newman. \"Can't you leave the poor fellow\nalone?\"\n\n\"No, he has given me cause. The box is not his. Noemie came in alone\nand installed herself. I went and spoke to her, and in a few moments she\nasked me to go and get her fan from the pocket of her cloak, which the\nouvreuse had carried off. In my absence this gentleman came in and took\nthe chair beside Noemie in which I had been sitting. My reappearance\ndisgusted him, and he had the grossness to show it. He came within an\nace of being impertinent. I don't know who he is; he is some vulgar\nwretch. I can't think where she picks up such acquaintances. He has been\ndrinking, too, but he knows what he is about. Just now, in the second\nact, he was unmannerly again. I shall put in another appearance for ten\nminutes--time enough to give him an opportunity to commit himself, if he\nfeels inclined. I really can't let the brute suppose that he is keeping\nme out of the box.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" said Newman, remonstrantly, \"what child's play! You\nare not going to pick a quarrel about that girl, I hope.\"\n\n\"That girl has nothing to do with it, and I have no intention of picking\na quarrel. I am not a bully nor a fire-eater. I simply wish to make a\npoint that a gentleman must.\"\n\n\"Oh, damn your point!\" said Newman. \"That is the trouble with you\nFrenchmen; you must be always making points. Well,\" he added, \"be short.\nBut if you are going in for this kind of thing, we must ship you off to\nAmerica in advance.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" Valentin answered, \"whenever you please. But if I go to\nAmerica, I must not let this gentleman suppose that it is to run away\nfrom him.\"\n\nAnd they separated. At the end of the act Newman observed that Valentin\nwas still in the baignoire. He strolled into the corridor again,\nexpecting to meet him, and when he was within a few yards of\nMademoiselle Nioche's box saw his friend pass out, accompanied by\nthe young man who had been seated beside its fair occupant. The two\ngentlemen walked with some quickness of step to a distant part of the\nlobby, where Newman perceived them stop and stand talking. The manner\nof each was perfectly quiet, but the stranger, who looked flushed, had\nbegun to wipe his face very emphatically with his pocket-handkerchief.\nBy this time Newman was abreast of the baignoire; the door had been\nleft ajar, and he could see a pink dress inside. He immediately went in.\nMademoiselle Nioche turned and greeted him with a brilliant smile.\n\n\"Ah, you have at last decided to come and see me?\" she exclaimed. \"You\njust save your politeness. You find me in a fine moment. Sit down.\"\nThere was a very becoming little flush in her cheek, and her eye had a\nnoticeable spark. You would have said that she had received some very\ngood news.\n\n\"Something has happened here!\" said Newman, without sitting down.\n\n\"You find me in a very fine moment,\" she repeated. \"Two gentlemen--one\nof them is M. de Bellegarde, the pleasure of whose acquaintance I owe to\nyou--have just had words about your humble servant. Very big words too.\nThey can't come off without crossing swords. A duel--that will give me\na push!\" cried Mademoiselle Noemie clapping her little hands. \"C'est ca\nqui pose une femme!\"\n\n\"You don't mean to say that Bellegarde is going to fight about YOU!\"\nexclaimed Newman, disgustedly.\n\n\"Nothing else!\" and she looked at him with a hard little smile. \"No,\nno, you are not galant! And if you prevent this affair I shall owe you a\ngrudge--and pay my debt!\"\n\nNewman uttered an imprecation which, though brief--it consisted simply\nof the interjection \"Oh!\" followed by a geographical, or more\ncorrectly, perhaps a theological noun in four letters--had better not\nbe transferred to these pages. He turned his back without more ceremony\nupon the pink dress and went out of the box. In the corridor he found\nValentin and his companion walking towards him. The latter was thrusting\na card into his waistcoat pocket. Mademoiselle Noemie's jealous votary\nwas a tall, robust young man with a thick nose, a prominent blue eye, a\nGermanic physiognomy, and a massive watch-chain. When they reached the\nbox, Valentin with an emphasized bow made way for him to pass in first.\nNewman touched Valentin's arm as a sign that he wished to speak with\nhim, and Bellegarde answered that he would be with him in an instant.\nValentin entered the box after the robust young man, but a couple of\nminutes afterwards he reappeared, largely smiling.\n\n\"She is immensely tickled,\" he said. \"She says we will make her fortune.\nI don't want to be fatuous, but I think it is very possible.\"\n\n\"So you are going to fight?\" said Newman.\n\n\"My dear fellow, don't look so mortally disgusted. It was not my choice.\nThe thing is all arranged.\"\n\n\"I told you so!\" groaned Newman.\n\n\"I told HIM so,\" said Valentin, smiling.\n\n\"What did he do to you?\"\n\n\"My good friend, it doesn't matter what. He used an expression--I took\nit up.\"\n\n\"But I insist upon knowing; I can't, as your elder brother, have you\nrushing into this sort of nonsense.\"\n\n\"I am very much obliged to you,\" said Valentin. \"I have nothing to\nconceal, but I can't go into particulars now and here.\"\n\n\"We will leave this place, then. You can tell me outside.\"\n\n\"Oh no, I can't leave this place, why should I hurry away? I will go to\nmy orchestra-stall and sit out the opera.\"\n\n\"You will not enjoy it; you will be preoccupied.\"\n\nValentin looked at him a moment, colored a little, smiled, and patted\nhim on the arm. \"You are delightfully simple! Before an affair a man is\nquiet. The quietest thing I can do is to go straight to my place.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Newman, \"you want her to see you there--you and your\nquietness. I am not so simple! It is a poor business.\"\n\nValentin remained, and the two men, in their respective places, sat\nout the rest of the performance, which was also enjoyed by Mademoiselle\nNioche and her truculent admirer. At the end Newman joined Valentin\nagain, and they went into the street together. Valentin shook his head\nat his friend's proposal that he should get into Newman's own vehicle,\nand stopped on the edge of the pavement. \"I must go off alone,\" he\nsaid; \"I must look up a couple of friends who will take charge of this\nmatter.\"\n\n\"I will take charge of it,\" Newman declared. \"Put it into my hands.\"\n\n\"You are very kind, but that is hardly possible. In the first place, you\nare, as you said just now, almost my brother; you are about to marry\nmy sister. That alone disqualifies you; it casts doubts on your\nimpartiality. And if it didn't, it would be enough for me that I\nstrongly suspect you of disapproving of the affair. You would try to\nprevent a meeting.\"\n\n\"Of course I should,\" said Newman. \"Whoever your friends are, I hope\nthey will do that.\"\n\n\"Unquestionably they will. They will urge that excuses be made, proper\nexcuses. But you would be too good-natured. You won't do.\"\n\nNewman was silent a moment. He was keenly annoyed, but he saw it was\nuseless to attempt interference. \"When is this precious performance to\ncome off?\" he asked.\n\n\"The sooner the better,\" said Valentin. \"The day after to-morrow, I\nhope.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, \"I have certainly a claim to know the facts. I\ncan't consent to shut my eyes to the matter.\"\n\n\"I shall be most happy to tell you the facts,\" said Valentin. \"They are\nvery simple, and it will be quickly done. But now everything depends on\nmy putting my hands on my friends without delay. I will jump into a cab;\nyou had better drive to my room and wait for me there. I will turn up at\nthe end of an hour.\"\n\nNewman assented protestingly, let his friend go, and then betook himself\nto the picturesque little apartment in the Rue d'Anjou. It was more\nthan an hour before Valentin returned, but when he did so he was able\nto announce that he had found one of his desired friends, and that this\ngentleman had taken upon himself the care of securing an associate.\nNewman had been sitting without lights by Valentin's faded fire, upon\nwhich he had thrown a log; the blaze played over the richly-encumbered\nlittle sitting-room and produced fantastic gleams and shadows. He\nlistened in silence to Valentin's account of what had passed between him\nand the gentleman whose card he had in his pocket--M. Stanislas Kapp,\nof Strasbourg--after his return to Mademoiselle Nioche's box. This\nhospitable young lady had espied an acquaintance on the other side\nof the house, and had expressed her displeasure at his not having the\ncivility to come and pay her a visit. \"Oh, let him alone!\" M. Stanislas\nKapp had hereupon exclaimed. \"There are too many people in the box\nalready.\" And he had fixed his eyes with a demonstrative stare upon M.\nde Bellegarde. Valentin had promptly retorted that if there were too\nmany people in the box it was easy for M. Kapp to diminish the number.\n\"I shall be most happy to open the door for YOU!\" M. Kapp exclaimed. \"I\nshall be delighted to fling you into the pit!\" Valentin had answered.\n\"Oh, do make a rumpus and get into the papers!\" Miss Noemie had\ngleefully ejaculated. \"M. Kapp, turn him out; or, M. de Bellegarde,\npitch him into the pit, into the orchestra--anywhere! I don't care who\ndoes which, so long as you make a scene.\" Valentin answered that they\nwould make no scene, but that the gentleman would be so good as to\nstep into the corridor with him. In the corridor, after a brief further\nexchange of words, there had been an exchange of cards. M. Stanislas\nKapp was very stiff. He evidently meant to force his offence home.\n\n\"The man, no doubt, was insolent,\" Newman said; \"but if you hadn't gone\nback into the box the thing wouldn't have happened.\"\n\n\"Why, don't you see,\" Valentin replied, \"that the event proves the\nextreme propriety of my going back into the box? M. Kapp wished to\nprovoke me; he was awaiting his chance. In such a case--that is, when\nhe has been, so to speak, notified--a man must be on hand to receive the\nprovocation. My not returning would simply have been tantamount to\nmy saying to M. Stanislas Kapp, 'Oh, if you are going to be\ndisagreeable'\"--\n\n\"'You must manage it by yourself; damned if I'll help you!' That would\nhave been a thoroughly sensible thing to say. The only attraction for\nyou seems to have been the prospect of M. Kapp's impertinence,\" Newman\nwent on. \"You told me you were not going back for that girl.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't mention that girl any more,\" murmured Valentin. \"She's a\nbore.\"\n\n\"With all my heart. But if that is the way you feel about her, why\ncouldn't you let her alone?\"\n\nValentin shook his head with a fine smile. \"I don't think you quite\nunderstand, and I don't believe I can make you. She understood the\nsituation; she knew what was in the air; she was watching us.\"\n\n\"A cat may look at a king! What difference does that make?\"\n\n\"Why, a man can't back down before a woman.\"\n\n\"I don't call her a woman. You said yourself she was a stone,\" cried\nNewman.\n\n\"Well,\" Valentin rejoined, \"there is no disputing about tastes. It's a\nmatter of feeling; it's measured by one's sense of honor.\"\n\n\"Oh, confound your sense of honor!\" cried Newman.\n\n\"It is vain talking,\" said Valentin; \"words have passed, and the thing\nis settled.\"\n\nNewman turned away, taking his hat. Then pausing with his hand on the\ndoor, \"What are you going to use?\" he asked.\n\n\"That is for M. Stanislas Kapp, as the challenged party, to decide.\nMy own choice would be a short, light sword. I handle it well. I'm an\nindifferent shot.\"\n\nNewman had put on his hat; he pushed it back, gently scratching his\nforehead, high up. \"I wish it were pistols,\" he said. \"I could show you\nhow to lodge a bullet!\"\n\nValentin broke into a laugh. \"What is it some English poet says about\nconsistency? It's a flower or a star, or a jewel. Yours has the beauty\nof all three!\" But he agreed to see Newman again on the morrow, after\nthe details of his meeting with M. Stanislas Kapp should have been\narranged.\n\nIn the course of the day Newman received three lines from him, saying\nthat it had been decided that he should cross the frontier, with his\nadversary, and that he was to take the night express to Geneva. He\nshould have time, however, to dine with Newman. In the afternoon Newman\ncalled upon Madame de Cintre, but his visit was brief. She was as\ngracious and sympathetic as he had ever found her, but she was sad, and\nshe confessed, on Newman's charging her with her red eyes, that she had\nbeen crying. Valentin had been with her a couple of hours before, and\nhis visit had left her with a painful impression. He had laughed and\ngossiped, he had brought her no bad news, he had only been, in his\nmanner, rather more affectionate than usual. His fraternal tenderness\nhad touched her, and on his departure she had burst into tears. She had\nfelt as if something strange and sad were going to happen; she had tried\nto reason away the fancy, and the effort had only given her a headache.\nNewman, of course, was perforce tongue-tied about Valentin's projected\nduel, and his dramatic talent was not equal to satirizing Madame de\nCintre's presentiment as pointedly as perfect security demanded. Before\nhe went away he asked Madame de Cintre whether Valentin had seen his\nmother.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, \"but he didn't make her cry.\"\n\nIt was in Newman's own apartment that Valentin dined, having brought\nhis portmanteau, so that he might adjourn directly to the railway. M.\nStanislas Kapp had positively declined to make excuses, and he, on his\nside, obviously, had none to offer. Valentin had found out with whom he\nwas dealing. M. Stanislas Kapp was the son of and heir of a rich brewer\nof Strasbourg, a youth of a sanguineous--and sanguinary--temperament.\nHe was making ducks and drakes of the paternal brewery, and although he\npassed in a general way for a good fellow, he had already been observed\nto be quarrelsome after dinner. \"Que voulez-vous?\" said Valentin.\n\"Brought up on beer, he can't stand champagne.\" He had chosen pistols.\nValentin, at dinner, had an excellent appetite; he made a point, in view\nof his long journey, of eating more than usual. He took the liberty\nof suggesting to Newman a slight modification in the composition of a\ncertain fish-sauce; he thought it would be worth mentioning to the\ncook. But Newman had no thoughts for fish-sauce; he felt thoroughly\ndiscontented. As he sat and watched his amiable and clever companion\ngoing through his excellent repast with the delicate deliberation of\nhereditary epicurism, the folly of so charming a fellow traveling off\nto expose his agreeable young life for the sake of M. Stanislas and\nMademoiselle Noemie struck him with intolerable force. He had grown fond\nof Valentin, he felt now how fond; and his sense of helplessness only\nincreased his irritation.\n\n\"Well, this sort of thing may be all very well,\" he cried at last, \"but\nI declare I don't see it. I can't stop you, perhaps, but at least I can\nprotest. I do protest, violently.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, don't make a scene,\" said Valentin. \"Scenes in these\ncases are in very bad taste.\"\n\n\"Your duel itself is a scene,\" said Newman; \"that's all it is! It's a\nwretched theatrical affair. Why don't you take a band of music with you\noutright? It's d--d barbarous and it's d--d corrupt, both.\"\n\n\"Oh, I can't begin, at this time of day, to defend the theory of\ndueling,\" said Valentin. \"It is our custom, and I think it is a good\nthing. Quite apart from the goodness of the cause in which a duel may\nbe fought, it has a kind of picturesque charm which in this age of\nvile prose seems to me greatly to recommend it. It's a remnant of a\nhigher-tempered time; one ought to cling to it. Depend upon it, a duel\nis never amiss.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean by a higher-tempered time,\" said Newman.\n\"Because your great-grandfather was an ass, is that any reason why you\nshould be? For my part I think we had better let our temper take care of\nitself; it generally seems to me quite high enough; I am not afraid\nof being too meek. If your great-grandfather were to make himself\nunpleasant to me, I think I could manage him yet.\"\n\n\"My dear friend,\" said Valentin, smiling, \"you can't invent anything\nthat will take the place of satisfaction for an insult. To demand it and\nto give it are equally excellent arrangements.\"\n\n\"Do you call this sort of thing satisfaction?\" Newman asked. \"Does it\nsatisfy you to receive a present of the carcass of that coarse fop? does\nit gratify you to make him a present of yours? If a man hits you, hit\nhim back; if a man libels you, haul him up.\"\n\n\"Haul him up, into court? Oh, that is very nasty!\" said Valentin.\n\n\"The nastiness is his--not yours. And for that matter, what you are\ndoing is not particularly nice. You are too good for it. I don't say\nyou are the most useful man in the world, or the cleverest, or the\nmost amiable. But you are too good to go and get your throat cut for a\nprostitute.\"\n\nValentin flushed a little, but he laughed. \"I shan't get my throat cut\nif I can help it. Moreover, one's honor hasn't two different measures.\nIt only knows that it is hurt; it doesn't ask when, or how, or where.\"\n\n\"The more fool it is!\" said Newman.\n\nValentin ceased to laugh; he looked grave. \"I beg you not to say\nany more,\" he said. \"If you do I shall almost fancy you don't care\nabout--about\"--and he paused.\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"About that matter--about one's honor.\"\n\n\"Fancy what you please,\" said Newman. \"Fancy while you are at it that\nI care about YOU--though you are not worth it. But come back without\ndamage,\" he added in a moment, \"and I will forgive you. And then,\"\nhe continued, as Valentin was going, \"I will ship you straight off to\nAmerica.\"\n\n\"Well,\" answered Valentin, \"if I am to turn over a new page, this may\nfigure as a tail-piece to the old.\" And then he lit another cigar and\ndeparted.\n\n\"Blast that girl!\" said Newman as the door closed upon Valentin.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\n\nNewman went the next morning to see Madame de Cintre, timing his visit\nso as to arrive after the noonday breakfast. In the court of the hotel,\nbefore the portico, stood Madame de Bellegarde's old square carriage.\nThe servant who opened the door answered Newman's inquiry with a\nslightly embarrassed and hesitating murmur, and at the same moment Mrs.\nBread appeared in the background, dim-visaged as usual, and wearing a\nlarge black bonnet and shawl.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" asked Newman. \"Is Madame la Comtesse at home, or\nnot?\"\n\nMrs. Bread advanced, fixing her eyes upon him: he observed that she held\na sealed letter, very delicately, in her fingers. \"The countess has left\na message for you, sir; she has left this,\" said Mrs. Bread, holding out\nthe letter, which Newman took.\n\n\"Left it? Is she out? Is she gone away?\"\n\n\"She is going away, sir; she is leaving town,\" said Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"Leaving town!\" exclaimed Newman. \"What has happened?\"\n\n\"It is not for me to say, sir,\" said Mrs. Bread, with her eyes on the\nground. \"But I thought it would come.\"\n\n\"What would come, pray?\" Newman demanded. He had broken the seal of the\nletter, but he still questioned. \"She is in the house? She is visible?\"\n\n\"I don't think she expected you this morning,\" the old waiting-woman\nreplied. \"She was to leave immediately.\"\n\n\"Where is she going?\"\n\n\"To Fleurieres.\"\n\n\"To Fleurieres? But surely I can see her?\"\n\nMrs. Bread hesitated a moment, and then clasping together her two hands,\n\"I will take you!\" she said. And she led the way upstairs. At the top\nof the staircase she paused and fixed her dry, sad eyes upon Newman. \"Be\nvery easy with her,\" she said; \"she is most unhappy!\" Then she went on\nto Madame de Cintre's apartment; Newman, perplexed and alarmed, followed\nher rapidly. Mrs. Bread threw open the door, and Newman pushed back the\ncurtain at the farther side of its deep embrasure. In the middle of the\nroom stood Madame de Cintre; her face was pale and she was dressed\nfor traveling. Behind her, before the fire-place, stood Urbain de\nBellegarde, looking at his finger-nails; near the marquis sat his\nmother, buried in an arm-chair, and with her eyes immediately fixing\nthemselves upon Newman. He felt, as soon as he entered the room, that he\nwas in the presence of something evil; he was startled and pained, as he\nwould have been by a threatening cry in the stillness of the night. He\nwalked straight to Madame de Cintre and seized her by the hand.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" he asked, commandingly; \"what is happening?\"\n\nUrbain de Bellegarde stared, then left his place and came and leaned\nupon his mother's chair, behind. Newman's sudden irruption had evidently\ndiscomposed both mother and son. Madame de Cintre stood silent, with\nher eyes resting upon Newman's. She had often looked at him with all her\nsoul, as it seemed to him; but in this present gaze there was a sort of\nbottomless depth. She was in distress; it was the most touching thing he\nhad ever seen. His heart rose into his throat, and he was on the point\nof turning to her companions, with an angry challenge; but she checked\nhim, pressing the hand that held her own.\n\n\"Something very grave has happened,\" she said. \"I cannot marry you.\"\n\nNewman dropped her hand and stood staring, first at her and then at the\nothers. \"Why not?\" he asked, as quietly as possible.\n\nMadame de Cintre almost smiled, but the attempt was strange. \"You must\nask my mother, you must ask my brother.\"\n\n\"Why can't she marry me?\" said Newman, looking at them.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde did not move in her place, but she was as pale as\nher daughter. The marquis looked down at her. She said nothing for some\nmoments, but she kept her keen, clear eyes upon Newman, bravely. The\nmarquis drew himself up and looked at the ceiling. \"It's impossible!\" he\nsaid softly.\n\n\"It's improper,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\nNewman began to laugh. \"Oh, you are fooling!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"My sister, you have no time; you are losing your train,\" said the\nmarquis.\n\n\"Come, is he mad?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"No; don't think that,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"But I am going away.\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"To the country, to Fleurieres; to be alone.\"\n\n\"To leave me?\" said Newman, slowly.\n\n\"I can't see you, now,\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"NOW--why not?\"\n\n\"I am ashamed,\" said Madame de Cintre, simply.\n\nNewman turned toward the marquis. \"What have you done to her--what does\nit mean?\" he asked with the same effort at calmness, the fruit of\nhis constant practice in taking things easily. He was excited, but\nexcitement with him was only an intenser deliberateness; it was the\nswimmer stripped.\n\n\"It means that I have given you up,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"It means\nthat.\"\n\nHer face was too charged with tragic expression not fully to confirm her\nwords. Newman was profoundly shocked, but he felt as yet no resentment\nagainst her. He was amazed, bewildered, and the presence of the old\nmarquise and her son seemed to smite his eyes like the glare of a\nwatchman's lantern. \"Can't I see you alone?\" he asked.\n\n\"It would be only more painful. I hoped I should not see you--I should\nescape. I wrote to you. Good-by.\" And she put out her hand again.\n\nNewman put both his own into his pockets. \"I will go with you,\" he said.\n\nShe laid her two hands on his arm. \"Will you grant me a last request?\"\nand as she looked at him, urging this, her eyes filled with tears. \"Let\nme go alone--let me go in peace. I can't call it peace--it's death. But\nlet me bury myself. So--good-by.\"\n\nNewman passed his hand into his hair and stood slowly rubbing his head\nand looking through his keenly-narrowed eyes from one to the other of\nthe three persons before him. His lips were compressed, and the two\nlines which had formed themselves beside his mouth might have made\nit appear at a first glance that he was smiling. I have said that his\nexcitement was an intenser deliberateness, and now he looked grimly\ndeliberate. \"It seems very much as if you had interfered, marquis,\"\nhe said slowly. \"I thought you said you wouldn't interfere. I know\nyou don't like me; but that doesn't make any difference. I thought you\npromised me you wouldn't interfere. I thought you swore on your honor\nthat you wouldn't interfere. Don't you remember, marquis?\"\n\nThe marquis lifted his eyebrows; but he was apparently determined to be\neven more urbane than usual. He rested his two hands upon the back of\nhis mother's chair and bent forward, as if he were leaning over the edge\nof a pulpit or a lecture-desk. He did not smile, but he looked softly\ngrave. \"Excuse me, sir,\" he said, \"I assured you that I would not\ninfluence my sister's decision. I adhered, to the letter, to my\nengagement. Did I not, sister?\"\n\n\"Don't appeal, my son,\" said the marquise, \"your word is sufficient.\"\n\n\"Yes--she accepted me,\" said Newman. \"That is very true, I can't deny\nthat. At least,\" he added, in a different tone, turning to Madame de\nCintre, \"you DID accept me?\"\n\nSomething in the tone seemed to move her strongly. She turned away,\nburying her face in her hands.\n\n\"But you have interfered now, haven't you?\" inquired Newman of the\nmarquis.\n\n\"Neither then nor now have I attempted to influence my sister. I used no\npersuasion then, I have used no persuasion to-day.\"\n\n\"And what have you used?\"\n\n\"We have used authority,\" said Madame de Bellegarde in a rich, bell-like\nvoice.\n\n\"Ah, you have used authority,\" Newman exclaimed. \"They have used\nauthority,\" he went on, turning to Madame de Cintre. \"What is it? how\ndid they use it?\"\n\n\"My mother commanded,\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"Commanded you to give me up--I see. And you obey--I see. But why do you\nobey?\" asked Newman.\n\nMadame de Cintre looked across at the old marquise; her eyes slowly\nmeasured her from head to foot. \"I am afraid of my mother,\" she said.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde rose with a certain quickness, crying, \"This is a\nmost indecent scene!\"\n\n\"I have no wish to prolong it,\" said Madame de Cintre; and turning to\nthe door she put out her hand again. \"If you can pity me a little, let\nme go alone.\"\n\nNewman shook her hand quietly and firmly. \"I'll come down there,\" he\nsaid. The portiere dropped behind her, and Newman sank with a long\nbreath into the nearest chair. He leaned back in it, resting his hands\non the knobs of the arms and looking at Madame de Bellegarde and Urbain.\nThere was a long silence. They stood side by side, with their heads high\nand their handsome eyebrows arched.\n\n\"So you make a distinction?\" Newman said at last. \"You make a\ndistinction between persuading and commanding? It's very neat. But the\ndistinction is in favor of commanding. That rather spoils it.\"\n\n\"We have not the least objection to defining our position,\" said M. de\nBellegarde. \"We understand that it should not at first appear to you\nquite clear. We rather expected, indeed, that you should not do us\njustice.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll do you justice,\" said Newman. \"Don't be afraid. Please\nproceed.\"\n\nThe marquise laid her hand on her son's arm, as if to deprecate the\nattempt to define their position. \"It is quite useless,\" she said, \"to\ntry and arrange this matter so as to make it agreeable to you. It can\nnever be agreeable to you. It is a disappointment, and disappointments\nare unpleasant. I thought it over carefully and tried to arrange it\nbetter; but I only gave myself a headache and lost my sleep. Say what\nwe will, you will think yourself ill-treated, and you will publish your\nwrongs among your friends. But we are not afraid of that. Besides, your\nfriends are not our friends, and it will not matter. Think of us as you\nplease. I only beg you not to be violent. I have never in my life\nbeen present at a violent scene of any kind, and at my age I can't be\nexpected to begin.\"\n\n\"Is THAT all you have got to say?\" asked Newman, slowly rising out of\nhis chair. \"That's a poor show for a clever lady like you, marquise.\nCome, try again.\"\n\n\"My mother goes to the point, with her usual honesty and intrepidity,\"\nsaid the marquis, toying with his watch-guard. \"But it is perhaps well\nto say a little more. We of course quite repudiate the charge of having\nbroken faith with you. We left you entirely at liberty to make yourself\nagreeable to my sister. We left her quite at liberty to entertain your\nproposal. When she accepted you we said nothing. We therefore quite\nobserved our promise. It was only at a later stage of the affair, and\non quite a different basis, as it were, that we determined to speak. It\nwould have been better, perhaps, if we had spoken before. But really,\nyou see, nothing has yet been done.\"\n\n\"Nothing has yet been done?\" Newman repeated the words, unconscious\nof their comical effect. He had lost the sense of what the marquis was\nsaying; M. de Bellegarde's superior style was a mere humming in his\nears. All that he understood, in his deep and simple indignation, was\nthat the matter was not a violent joke, and that the people before him\nwere perfectly serious. \"Do you suppose I can take this?\" he asked.\n\"Do you suppose it can matter to me what you say? Do you suppose I can\nseriously listen to you? You are simply crazy!\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde gave a rap with her fan in the palm of her hand.\n\"If you don't take it you can leave it, sir. It matters very little what\nyou do. My daughter has given you up.\"\n\n\"She doesn't mean it,\" Newman declared after a moment.\n\n\"I think I can assure you that she does,\" said the marquis.\n\n\"Poor woman, what damnable thing have you done to her?\" cried Newman.\n\n\"Gently, gently!\" murmured M. de Bellegarde.\n\n\"She told you,\" said the old lady. \"I commanded her.\"\n\nNewman shook his head, heavily. \"This sort of thing can't be, you know,\"\nhe said. \"A man can't be used in this fashion. You have got no right;\nyou have got no power.\"\n\n\"My power,\" said Madame de Bellegarde, \"is in my children's obedience.\"\n\n\"In their fear, your daughter said. There is something very strange\nin it. Why should your daughter be afraid of you?\" added Newman, after\nlooking a moment at the old lady. \"There is some foul play.\"\n\nThe marquise met his gaze without flinching, and as if she did not\nhear or heed what he said. \"I did my best,\" she said, quietly. \"I could\nendure it no longer.\"\n\n\"It was a bold experiment!\" said the marquis.\n\nNewman felt disposed to walk to him, clutch his neck with his fingers\nand press his windpipe with his thumb. \"I needn't tell you how you\nstrike me,\" he said; \"of course you know that. But I should think you\nwould be afraid of your friends--all those people you introduced me to\nthe other night. There were some very nice people among them; you may\ndepend upon it there were some honest men and women.\"\n\n\"Our friends approve us,\" said M. de Bellegarde, \"there is not a family\namong them that would have acted otherwise. And however that may be,\nwe take the cue from no one. The Bellegardes have been used to set the\nexample not to wait for it.\"\n\n\"You would have waited long before any one would have set you such an\nexample as this,\" exclaimed Newman. \"Have I done anything wrong?\" he\ndemanded. \"Have I given you reason to change your opinion? Have you\nfound out anything against me? I can't imagine.\"\n\n\"Our opinion,\" said Madame de Bellegarde, \"is quite the same as at\nfirst--exactly. We have no ill-will towards yourself; we are very far\nfrom accusing you of misconduct. Since your relations with us began you\nhave been, I frankly confess, less--less peculiar than I expected. It\nis not your disposition that we object to, it is your antecedents. We\nreally cannot reconcile ourselves to a commercial person. We fancied in\nan evil hour that we could; it was a great misfortune. We determined to\npersevere to the end, and to give you every advantage. I was resolved\nthat you should have no reason to accuse me of want of loyalty. We let\nthe thing certainly go very far; we introduced you to our friends. To\ntell the truth, it was that, I think, that broke me down. I succumbed\nto the scene that took place on Thursday night in these rooms. You must\nexcuse me if what I say is disagreeable to you, but we cannot release\nourselves without an explanation.\"\n\n\"There can be no better proof of our good faith,\" said the marquis,\n\"than our committing ourselves to you in the eyes of the world the other\nevening. We endeavored to bind ourselves--to tie our hands, as it were.\"\n\n\"But it was that,\" added his mother, \"that opened our eyes and broke our\nbonds. We should have been most uncomfortable! You know,\" she added in a\nmoment, \"that you were forewarned. I told you we were very proud.\"\n\nNewman took up his hat and began mechanically to smooth it; the very\nfierceness of his scorn kept him from speaking. \"You are not proud\nenough,\" he observed at last.\n\n\"In all this matter,\" said the marquis, smiling, \"I really see nothing\nbut our humility.\"\n\n\"Let us have no more discussion than is necessary,\" resumed Madame de\nBellegarde. \"My daughter told you everything when she said she gave you\nup.\"\n\n\"I am not satisfied about your daughter,\" said Newman; \"I want to know\nwhat you did to her. It is all very easy talking about authority and\nsaying you commanded her. She didn't accept me blindly, and she wouldn't\nhave given me up blindly. Not that I believe yet she has really given me\nup; she will talk it over with me. But you have frightened her, you have\nbullied her, you have HURT her. What was it you did to her?\"\n\n\"I did very little!\" said Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone which gave\nNewman a chill when he afterwards remembered it.\n\n\"Let me remind you that we offered you these explanations,\" the marquis\nobserved, \"with the express understanding that you should abstain from\nviolence of language.\"\n\n\"I am not violent,\" Newman answered, \"it is you who are violent! But I\ndon't know that I have much more to say to you. What you expect of\nme, apparently, is to go my way, thanking you for favors received, and\npromising never to trouble you again.\"\n\n\"We expect of you to act like a clever man,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\"You have shown yourself that already, and what we have done is\naltogether based upon your being so. When one must submit, one must.\nSince my daughter absolutely withdraws, what will be the use of your\nmaking a noise?\"\n\n\"It remains to be seen whether your daughter absolutely withdraws. Your\ndaughter and I are still very good friends; nothing is changed in that.\nAs I say, I will talk it over with her.\"\n\n\"That will be of no use,\" said the old lady. \"I know my daughter well\nenough to know that words spoken as she just now spoke to you are final.\nBesides, she has promised me.\"\n\n\"I have no doubt her promise is worth a great deal more than your own,\"\nsaid Newman; \"nevertheless I don't give her up.\"\n\n\"Just as you please! But if she won't even see you,--and she\nwon't,--your constancy must remain purely Platonic.\"\n\nPoor Newman was feigning a greater confidence than he felt. Madame de\nCintre's strange intensity had in fact struck a chill to his heart; her\nface, still impressed upon his vision, had been a terribly vivid image\nof renunciation. He felt sick, and suddenly helpless. He turned away and\nstood for a moment with his hand on the door; then he faced about and\nafter the briefest hesitation broke out with a different accent. \"Come,\nthink of what this must be to me, and let her alone! Why should you\nobject to me so--what's the matter with me? I can't hurt you. I wouldn't\nif I could. I'm the most unobjectionable fellow in the world. What if\nI am a commercial person? What under the sun do you mean? A commercial\nperson? I will be any sort of a person you want. I never talked to you\nabout business. Let her go, and I will ask no questions. I will take\nher away, and you shall never see me or hear of me again. I will stay in\nAmerica if you like. I'll sign a paper promising never to come back to\nEurope! All I want is not to lose her!\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde and her son exchanged a glance of lucid irony, and\nUrbain said, \"My dear sir, what you propose is hardly an improvement. We\nhave not the slightest objection to seeing you, as an amiable foreigner,\nand we have every reason for not wishing to be eternally separated\nfrom my sister. We object to the marriage; and in that way,\" and M. de\nBellegarde gave a small, thin laugh, \"she would be more married than\never.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Newman, \"where is this place of yours--Fleurieres? I\nknow it is near some old city on a hill.\"\n\n\"Precisely. Poitiers is on a hill,\" said Madame de Bellegarde. \"I don't\nknow how old it is. We are not afraid to tell you.\"\n\n\"It is Poitiers, is it? Very good,\" said Newman. \"I shall immediately\nfollow Madame de Cintre.\"\n\n\"The trains after this hour won't serve you,\" said Urbain.\n\n\"I shall hire a special train!\"\n\n\"That will be a very silly waste of money,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\n\"It will be time enough to talk about waste three days hence,\" Newman\nanswered; and clapping his hat on his head, he departed.\n\nHe did not immediately start for Fleurieres; he was too stunned and\nwounded for consecutive action. He simply walked; he walked straight\nbefore him, following the river, till he got out of the enceinte of\nParis. He had a burning, tingling sense of personal outrage. He had\nnever in his life received so absolute a check; he had never been pulled\nup, or, as he would have said, \"let down,\" so short; and he found the\nsensation intolerable; he strode along, tapping the trees and lamp-posts\nfiercely with his stick and inwardly raging. To lose Madame de Cintre\nafter he had taken such jubilant and triumphant possession of her was as\ngreat an affront to his pride as it was an injury to his happiness.\nAnd to lose her by the interference and the dictation of others, by\nan impudent old woman and a pretentious fop stepping in with their\n\"authority\"! It was too preposterous, it was too pitiful. Upon what he\ndeemed the unblushing treachery of the Bellegardes Newman wasted little\nthought; he consigned it, once for all, to eternal perdition. But the\ntreachery of Madame de Cintre herself amazed and confounded him; there\nwas a key to the mystery, of course, but he groped for it in vain. Only\nthree days had elapsed since she stood beside him in the starlight,\nbeautiful and tranquil as the trust with which he had inspired her, and\ntold him that she was happy in the prospect of their marriage. What was\nthe meaning of the change? of what infernal potion had she tasted? Poor\nNewman had a terrible apprehension that she had really changed. His very\nadmiration for her attached the idea of force and weight to her rupture.\nBut he did not rail at her as false, for he was sure she was unhappy.\nIn his walk he had crossed one of the bridges of the Seine, and he still\nfollowed, unheedingly, the long, unbroken quay. He had left Paris behind\nhim, and he was almost in the country; he was in the pleasant suburb of\nAuteuil. He stopped at last, looked around him without seeing or caring\nfor its pleasantness, and then slowly turned and at a slower pace\nretraced his steps. When he came abreast of the fantastic embankment\nknown as the Trocadero, he reflected, through his throbbing pain,\nthat he was near Mrs. Tristram's dwelling, and that Mrs. Tristram, on\nparticular occasions, had much of a woman's kindness in her utterance.\nHe felt that he needed to pour out his ire and he took the road to\nher house. Mrs. Tristram was at home and alone, and as soon as she had\nlooked at him, on his entering the room, she told him that she knew what\nhe had come for. Newman sat down heavily, in silence, looking at her.\n\n\"They have backed out!\" she said. \"Well, you may think it strange, but\nI felt something the other night in the air.\" Presently he told her his\nstory; she listened, with her eyes fixed on him. When he had finished\nshe said quietly, \"They want her to marry Lord Deepmere.\" Newman stared.\nHe did not know that she knew anything about Lord Deepmere. \"But I don't\nthink she will,\" Mrs. Tristram added.\n\n\"SHE marry that poor little cub!\" cried Newman. \"Oh, Lord! And yet, why\ndid she refuse me?\"\n\n\"But that isn't the only thing,\" said Mrs. Tristram. \"They really\ncouldn't endure you any longer. They had overrated their courage. I must\nsay, to give the devil his due, that there is something rather fine\nin that. It was your commercial quality in the abstract they couldn't\nswallow. That is really aristocratic. They wanted your money, but they\nhave given you up for an idea.\"\n\nNewman frowned most ruefully, and took up his hat again. \"I thought you\nwould encourage me!\" he said, with almost childlike sadness.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" she answered very gently. \"I feel none the less sorry\nfor you, especially as I am at the bottom of your troubles. I have not\nforgotten that I suggested the marriage to you. I don't believe that\nMadame de Cintre has any intention of marrying Lord Deepmere. It is true\nhe is not younger than she, as he looks. He is thirty-three years old; I\nlooked in the Peerage. But no--I can't believe her so horribly, cruelly\nfalse.\"\n\n\"Please say nothing against her,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Poor woman, she IS cruel. But of course you will go after her and you\nwill plead powerfully. Do you know that as you are now,\" Mrs. Tristram\npursued, with characteristic audacity of comment, \"you are extremely\neloquent, even without speaking? To resist you a woman must have a very\nfixed idea in her head. I wish I had done you a wrong, that you might\ncome to me in that fine fashion! But go to Madame de Cintre at any rate,\nand tell her that she is a puzzle even to me. I am very curious to see\nhow far family discipline will go.\"\n\nNewman sat a while longer, leaning his elbows on his knees and his\nhead in his hands, and Mrs. Tristram continued to temper charity with\nphilosophy and compassion with criticism. At last she inquired, \"And\nwhat does the Count Valentin say to it?\" Newman started; he had not\nthought of Valentin and his errand on the Swiss frontier since the\nmorning. The reflection made him restless again, and he took his\nleave. He went straight to his apartment, where, upon the table of the\nvestibule, he found a telegram. It ran (with the date and place) as\nfollows: \"I am seriously ill; please to come to me as soon as possible.\nV. B.\" Newman groaned at this miserable news, and at the necessity of\ndeferring his journey to the Chateau de Fleurieres. But he wrote to\nMadame de Cintre these few lines; they were all he had time for:--\n\n\"I don't give you up, and I don't really believe you give me up. I don't\nunderstand it, but we shall clear it up together. I can't follow you\nto-day, as I am called to see a friend at a distance who is very ill,\nperhaps dying. But I shall come to you as soon as I can leave my friend.\nWhy shouldn't I say that he is your brother? C. N.\"\n\nAfter this he had only time to catch the night express to Geneva.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\n\nNewman possessed a remarkable talent for sitting still when it was\nnecessary, and he had an opportunity to use it on his journey to\nSwitzerland. The successive hours of the night brought him no sleep, but\nhe sat motionless in his corner of the railway-carriage, with his eyes\nclosed, and the most observant of his fellow-travelers might have envied\nhim his apparent slumber. Toward morning slumber really came, as an\neffect of mental rather than of physical fatigue. He slept for a couple\nof hours, and at last, waking, found his eyes resting upon one of the\nsnow-powdered peaks of the Jura, behind which the sky was just reddening\nwith the dawn. But he saw neither the cold mountain nor the warm sky;\nhis consciousness began to throb again, on the very instant, with a\nsense of his wrong. He got out of the train half an hour before it\nreached Geneva, in the cold morning twilight, at the station indicated\nin Valentin's telegram. A drowsy station-master was on the platform\nwith a lantern, and the hood of his overcoat over his head, and near him\nstood a gentleman who advanced to meet Newman. This personage was a man\nof forty, with a tall lean figure, a sallow face, a dark eye, a neat\nmustache, and a pair of fresh gloves. He took off his hat, looking very\ngrave, and pronounced Newman's name. Our hero assented and said, \"You\nare M. de Bellegarde's friend?\"\n\n\"I unite with you in claiming that sad honor,\" said the gentleman.\n\"I had placed myself at M. de Bellegarde's service in this melancholy\naffair, together with M. de Grosjoyaux, who is now at his bedside. M. de\nGrosjoyaux, I believe, has had the honor of meeting you in Paris, but as\nhe is a better nurse than I he remained with our poor friend. Bellegarde\nhas been eagerly expecting you.\"\n\n\"And how is Bellegarde?\" said Newman. \"He was badly hit?\"\n\n\"The doctor has condemned him; we brought a surgeon with us. But he\nwill die in the best sentiments. I sent last evening for the cure of the\nnearest French village, who spent an hour with him. The cure was quite\nsatisfied.\"\n\n\"Heaven forgive us!\" groaned Newman. \"I would rather the doctor were\nsatisfied! And can he see me--shall he know me?\"\n\n\"When I left him, half an hour ago, he had fallen asleep after a\nfeverish, wakeful night. But we shall see.\" And Newman's companion\nproceeded to lead the way out of the station to the village, explaining\nas he went that the little party was lodged in the humblest of Swiss\ninns, where, however, they had succeeded in making M. de Bellegarde much\nmore comfortable than could at first have been expected. \"We are old\ncompanions in arms,\" said Valentin's second; \"it is not the first time\nthat one of us has helped the other to lie easily. It is a very nasty\nwound, and the nastiest thing about it is that Bellegarde's adversary\nwas not shot. He put his bullet where he could. It took it into its head\nto walk straight into Bellegarde's left side, just below the heart.\"\n\nAs they picked their way in the gray, deceptive dawn, between the\nmanure-heaps of the village street, Newman's new acquaintance narrated\nthe particulars of the duel. The conditions of the meeting had been that\nif the first exchange of shots should fail to satisfy one of the two\ngentlemen, a second should take place. Valentin's first bullet had done\nexactly what Newman's companion was convinced he had intended it to do;\nit had grazed the arm of M. Stanislas Kapp, just scratching the flesh.\nM. Kapp's own projectile, meanwhile, had passed at ten good inches from\nthe person of Valentin. The representatives of M. Stanislas had demanded\nanother shot, which was granted. Valentin had then fired aside and the\nyoung Alsatian had done effective execution. \"I saw, when we met him\non the ground,\" said Newman's informant, \"that he was not going to be\ncommode. It is a kind of bovine temperament.\" Valentin had immediately\nbeen installed at the inn, and M. Stanislas and his friends had\nwithdrawn to regions unknown. The police authorities of the canton had\nwaited upon the party at the inn, had been extremely majestic, and had\ndrawn up a long proces-verbal; but it was probable that they would\nwink at so very gentlemanly a bit of bloodshed. Newman asked whether a\nmessage had not been sent to Valentin's family, and learned that up to\na late hour on the preceding evening Valentin had opposed it. He had\nrefused to believe his wound was dangerous. But after his interview with\nthe cure he had consented, and a telegram had been dispatched to his\nmother. \"But the marquise had better hurry!\" said Newman's conductor.\n\n\"Well, it's an abominable affair!\" said Newman. \"That's all I have\nto say!\" To say this, at least, in a tone of infinite disgust was an\nirresistible need.\n\n\"Ah, you don't approve?\" questioned his conductor, with curious\nurbanity.\n\n\"Approve?\" cried Newman. \"I wish that when I had him there, night before\nlast, I had locked him up in my cabinet de toilette!\"\n\nValentin's late second opened his eyes, and shook his head up and down\ntwo or three times, gravely, with a little flute-like whistle. But they\nhad reached the inn, and a stout maid-servant in a night-cap was at the\ndoor with a lantern, to take Newman's traveling-bag from the porter who\ntrudged behind him. Valentin was lodged on the ground-floor at the back\nof the house, and Newman's companion went along a stone-faced passage\nand softly opened a door. Then he beckoned to Newman, who advanced\nand looked into the room, which was lighted by a single shaded candle.\nBeside the fire sat M. de Grosjoyaux asleep in his dressing-gown--a\nlittle plump, fair man whom Newman had seen several times in Valentin's\ncompany. On the bed lay Valentin, pale and still, with his eyes\nclosed--a figure very shocking to Newman, who had seen it hitherto awake\nto its finger tips. M. de Grosjoyaux's colleague pointed to an open door\nbeyond, and whispered that the doctor was within, keeping guard. So\nlong as Valentin slept, or seemed to sleep, of course Newman could not\napproach him; so our hero withdrew for the present, committing\nhimself to the care of the half-waked bonne. She took him to a room\nabove-stairs, and introduced him to a bed on which a magnified bolster,\nin yellow calico, figured as a counterpane. Newman lay down, and, in\nspite of his counterpane, slept for three or four hours. When he awoke,\nthe morning was advanced and the sun was filling his window, and he\nheard, outside of it, the clucking of hens. While he was dressing there\ncame to his door a messenger from M. de Grosjoyaux and his companion\nproposing that he should breakfast with them. Presently he went\ndown-stairs to the little stone-paved dining-room, where the\nmaid-servant, who had taken off her night-cap, was serving the repast.\nM. de Grosjoyaux was there, surprisingly fresh for a gentleman who had\nbeen playing sick-nurse half the night, rubbing his hands and watching\nthe breakfast table attentively. Newman renewed acquaintance with him,\nand learned that Valentin was still sleeping; the surgeon, who had had\na fairly tranquil night, was at present sitting with him. Before M. de\nGrosjoyaux's associate reappeared, Newman learned that his name was M.\nLedoux, and that Bellegarde's acquaintance with him dated from the days\nwhen they served together in the Pontifical Zouaves. M. Ledoux was the\nnephew of a distinguished Ultramontane bishop. At last the bishop's\nnephew came in with a toilet in which an ingenious attempt at harmony\nwith the peculiar situation was visible, and with a gravity tempered by\na decent deference to the best breakfast that the Croix Helvetique\nhad ever set forth. Valentin's servant, who was allowed only in scanty\nmeasure the honor of watching with his master, had been lending a light\nParisian hand in the kitchen. The two Frenchmen did their best to prove\nthat if circumstances might overshadow, they could not really obscure,\nthe national talent for conversation, and M. Ledoux delivered a neat\nlittle eulogy on poor Bellegarde, whom he pronounced the most charming\nEnglishman he had ever known.\n\n\"Do you call him an Englishman?\" Newman asked.\n\nM. Ledoux smiled a moment and then made an epigram. \"C'est plus qu'un\nAnglais--c'est un Anglomane!\" Newman said soberly that he had never\nnoticed it; and M. de Grosjoyaux remarked that it was really too soon\nto deliver a funeral oration upon poor Bellegarde. \"Evidently,\" said M.\nLedoux. \"But I couldn't help observing this morning to Mr. Newman that\nwhen a man has taken such excellent measures for his salvation as our\ndear friend did last evening, it seems almost a pity he should put it in\nperil again by returning to the world.\" M. Ledoux was a great Catholic,\nand Newman thought him a queer mixture. His countenance, by daylight,\nhad a sort of amiably saturnine cast; he had a very large thin nose,\nand looked like a Spanish picture. He appeared to think dueling a very\nperfect arrangement, provided, if one should get hit, one could promptly\nsee the priest. He seemed to take a great satisfaction in Valentin's\ninterview with the cure, and yet his conversation did not at all\nindicate a sanctimonious habit of mind. M. Ledoux had evidently a high\nsense of the becoming, and was prepared to be urbane and tasteful on all\npoints. He was always furnished with a smile (which pushed his mustache\nup under his nose) and an explanation. Savoir-vivre--knowing how to\nlive--was his specialty, in which he included knowing how to die; but,\nas Newman reflected, with a good deal of dumb irritation, he seemed\ndisposed to delegate to others the application of his learning on this\nlatter point. M. de Grosjoyaux was of quite another complexion, and\nappeared to regard his friend's theological unction as the sign of an\ninaccessibly superior mind. He was evidently doing his utmost, with a\nkind of jovial tenderness, to make life agreeable to Valentin to the\nlast, and help him as little as possible to miss the Boulevard des\nItaliens; but what chiefly occupied his mind was the mystery of a\nbungling brewer's son making so neat a shot. He himself could snuff a\ncandle, etc., and yet he confessed that he could not have done better\nthan this. He hastened to add that on the present occasion he would have\nmade a point of not doing so well. It was not an occasion for that\nsort of murderous work, que diable! He would have picked out some quiet\nfleshy spot and just tapped it with a harmless ball. M. Stanislas Kapp\nhad been deplorably heavy-handed; but really, when the world had come to\nthat pass that one granted a meeting to a brewer's son!... This was M.\nde Grosjoyaux's nearest approach to a generalization. He kept looking\nthrough the window, over the shoulder of M. Ledoux, at a slender tree\nwhich stood at the end of a lane, opposite to the inn, and seemed to be\nmeasuring its distance from his extended arm and secretly wishing that,\nsince the subject had been introduced, propriety did not forbid a little\nspeculative pistol-practice.\n\nNewman was in no humor to enjoy good company. He could neither eat nor\ntalk; his soul was sore with grief and anger, and the weight of his\ndouble sorrow was intolerable. He sat with his eyes fixed upon his\nplate, counting the minutes, wishing at one moment that Valentin would\nsee him and leave him free to go in quest of Madame de Cintre and his\nlost happiness, and mentally calling himself a vile brute the next, for\nthe impatient egotism of the wish. He was very poor company, himself,\nand even his acute preoccupation and his general lack of the habit of\npondering the impression he produced did not prevent him from reflecting\nthat his companions must be puzzled to see how poor Bellegarde came to\ntake such a fancy to this taciturn Yankee that he must needs have him at\nhis death-bed. After breakfast he strolled forth alone into the village\nand looked at the fountain, the geese, the open barn doors, the brown,\nbent old women, showing their hugely darned stocking-heels at the ends\nof their slowly-clicking sabots, and the beautiful view of snowy\nAlps and purple Jura at either end of the little street. The day was\nbrilliant; early spring was in the air and in the sunshine, and the\nwinter's damp was trickling out of the cottage eaves. It was birth\nand brightness for all nature, even for chirping chickens and waddling\ngoslings, and it was to be death and burial for poor, foolish, generous,\ndelightful Bellegarde. Newman walked as far as the village church, and\nwent into the small grave-yard beside it, where he sat down and looked\nat the awkward tablets which were planted around. They were all sordid\nand hideous, and Newman could feel nothing but the hardness and coldness\nof death. He got up and came back to the inn, where he found M. Ledoux\nhaving coffee and a cigarette at a little green table which he had\ncaused to be carried into the small garden. Newman, learning that the\ndoctor was still sitting with Valentin, asked M. Ledoux if he might not\nbe allowed to relieve him; he had a great desire to be useful to his\npoor friend. This was easily arranged; the doctor was very glad to go\nto bed. He was a youthful and rather jaunty practitioner, but he had a\nclever face, and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole;\nNewman listened attentively to the instructions he gave him before\nretiring, and took mechanically from his hand a small volume which the\nsurgeon recommended as a help to wakefulness, and which turned out to be\nan old copy of \"Faublas.\" Valentin was still lying with his eyes closed,\nand there was no visible change in his condition. Newman sat down near\nhim, and for a long time narrowly watched him. Then his eyes wandered\naway with his thoughts upon his own situation, and rested upon the chain\nof the Alps, disclosed by the drawing of the scant white cotton curtain\nof the window, through which the sunshine passed and lay in squares upon\nthe red-tiled floor. He tried to interweave his reflections with hope,\nbut he only half succeeded. What had happened to him seemed to have, in\nits violence and audacity, the force of a real calamity--the strength\nand insolence of Destiny herself. It was unnatural and monstrous, and he\nhad no arms against it. At last a sound struck upon the stillness, and\nhe heard Valentin's voice.\n\n\"It can't be about me you are pulling that long face!\" He found, when he\nturned, that Valentin was lying in the same position; but his eyes\nwere open, and he was even trying to smile. It was with a very slender\nstrength that he returned the pressure of Newman's hand. \"I have been\nwatching you for a quarter of an hour,\" Valentin went on; \"you have been\nlooking as black as thunder. You are greatly disgusted with me, I see.\nWell, of course! So am I!\"\n\n\"Oh, I shall not scold you,\" said Newman. \"I feel too badly. And how are\nyou getting on?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm getting off! They have quite settled that; haven't they?\"\n\n\"That's for you to settle; you can get well if you try,\" said Newman,\nwith resolute cheerfulness.\n\n\"My dear fellow, how can I try? Trying is violent exercise, and that\nsort of thing isn't in order for a man with a hole in his side as big as\nyour hat, that begins to bleed if he moves a hair's-breadth. I knew you\nwould come,\" he continued; \"I knew I should wake up and find you here;\nso I'm not surprised. But last night I was very impatient. I didn't see\nhow I could keep still until you came. It was a matter of keeping still,\njust like this; as still as a mummy in his case. You talk about trying;\nI tried that! Well, here I am yet--these twenty hours. It seems like\ntwenty days.\" Bellegarde talked slowly and feebly, but distinctly\nenough. It was visible, however, that he was in extreme pain, and at\nlast he closed his eyes. Newman begged him to remain silent and spare\nhimself; the doctor had left urgent orders. \"Oh,\" said Valentin, \"let us\neat and drink, for to-morrow--to-morrow\"--and he paused again. \"No, not\nto-morrow, perhaps, but today. I can't eat and drink, but I can talk.\nWhat's to be gained, at this pass, by renun--renunciation? I mustn't use\nsuch big words. I was always a chatterer; Lord, how I have talked in my\nday!\"\n\n\"That's a reason for keeping quiet now,\" said Newman. \"We know how well\nyou talk, you know.\"\n\nBut Valentin, without heeding him, went on in the same weak, dying\ndrawl. \"I wanted to see you because you have seen my sister. Does she\nknow--will she come?\"\n\nNewman was embarrassed. \"Yes, by this time she must know.\"\n\n\"Didn't you tell her?\" Valentin asked. And then, in a moment, \"Didn't\nyou bring me any message from her?\" His eyes rested upon Newman's with a\ncertain soft keenness.\n\n\"I didn't see her after I got your telegram,\" said Newman. \"I wrote to\nher.\"\n\n\"And she sent you no answer?\"\n\nNewman was obliged to reply that Madame de Cintre had left Paris. \"She\nwent yesterday to Fleurieres.\"\n\n\"Yesterday--to Fleurieres? Why did she go to Fleurieres? What day is\nthis? What day was yesterday? Ah, then I shan't see her,\" said Valentin,\nsadly. \"Fleurieres is too far!\" And then he closed his eyes again.\nNewman sat silent, summoning pious invention to his aid, but he was\nrelieved at finding that Valentin was apparently too weak to reason\nor to be curious. Bellegarde, however, presently went on. \"And my\nmother--and my brother--will they come? Are they at Fleurieres?\"\n\n\"They were in Paris, but I didn't see them, either,\" Newman answered.\n\"If they received your telegram in time, they will have started this\nmorning. Otherwise they will be obliged to wait for the night-express,\nand they will arrive at the same hour as I did.\"\n\n\"They won't thank me--they won't thank me,\" Valentin murmured. \"They\nwill pass an atrocious night, and Urbain doesn't like the early\nmorning air. I don't remember ever in my life to have seen him before\nnoon--before breakfast. No one ever saw him. We don't know how he is\nthen. Perhaps he's different. Who knows? Posterity, perhaps, will\nknow. That's the time he works, in his cabinet, at the history of the\nPrincesses. But I had to send for them--hadn't I? And then I want to\nsee my mother sit there where you sit, and say good-by to her. Perhaps,\nafter all, I don't know her, and she will have some surprise for me.\nDon't think you know her yet, yourself; perhaps she may surprise YOU.\nBut if I can't see Claire, I don't care for anything. I have been\nthinking of it--and in my dreams, too. Why did she go to Fleurieres\nto-day? She never told me. What has happened? Ah, she ought to have\nguessed I was here--this way. It is the first time in her life she ever\ndisappointed me. Poor Claire!\"\n\n\"You know we are not man and wife quite yet,--your sister and I,\" said\nNewman. \"She doesn't yet account to me for all her actions.\" And, after\na fashion, he smiled.\n\nValentin looked at him a moment. \"Have you quarreled?\"\n\n\"Never, never, never!\" Newman exclaimed.\n\n\"How happily you say that!\" said Valentin. \"You are going to be\nhappy--VA!\" In answer to this stroke of irony, none the less powerful\nfor being so unconscious, all poor Newman could do was to give a\nhelpless and transparent stare. Valentin continued to fix him with his\nown rather over-bright gaze, and presently he said, \"But something is\nthe matter with you. I watched you just now; you haven't a bridegroom's\nface.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" said Newman, \"how can I show YOU a bridegroom's face?\nIf you think I enjoy seeing you lie there and not being able to help\nyou\"--\n\n\"Why, you are just the man to be cheerful; don't forfeit your rights!\nI'm a proof of your wisdom. When was a man ever gloomy when he could\nsay, 'I told you so?' You told me so, you know. You did what you could\nabout it. You said some very good things; I have thought them over. But,\nmy dear friend, I was right, all the same. This is the regular way.\"\n\n\"I didn't do what I ought,\" said Newman. \"I ought to have done something\nelse.\"\n\n\"For instance?\"\n\n\"Oh, something or other. I ought to have treated you as a small boy.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm a very small boy, now,\" said Valentin. \"I'm rather less than\nan infant. An infant is helpless, but it's generally voted promising.\nI'm not promising, eh? Society can't lose a less valuable member.\"\n\nNewman was strongly moved. He got up and turned his back upon his friend\nand walked away to the window, where he stood looking out, but only\nvaguely seeing. \"No, I don't like the look of your back,\" Valentin\ncontinued. \"I have always been an observer of backs; yours is quite out\nof sorts.\"\n\nNewman returned to his bedside and begged him to be quiet. \"Be quiet and\nget well,\" he said. \"That's what you must do. Get well and help me.\"\n\n\"I told you you were in trouble! How can I help you?\" Valentin asked.\n\n\"I'll let you know when you are better. You were always curious; there\nis something to get well for!\" Newman answered, with resolute animation.\n\nValentin closed his eyes and lay a long time without speaking. He seemed\neven to have fallen asleep. But at the end of half an hour he began to\ntalk again. \"I am rather sorry about that place in the bank. Who knows\nbut what I might have become another Rothschild? But I wasn't meant for\na banker; bankers are not so easy to kill. Don't you think I have\nbeen very easy to kill? It's not like a serious man. It's really very\nmortifying. It's like telling your hostess you must go, when you count\nupon her begging you to stay, and then finding she does no such thing.\n'Really--so soon? You've only just come!' Life doesn't make me any such\npolite little speech.\"\n\nNewman for some time said nothing, but at last he broke out. \"It's a bad\ncase--it's a bad case--it's the worst case I ever met. I don't want\nto say anything unpleasant, but I can't help it. I've seen men dying\nbefore--and I've seen men shot. But it always seemed more natural; they\nwere not so clever as you. Damnation--damnation! You might have done\nsomething better than this. It's about the meanest winding-up of a man's\naffairs that I can imagine!\"\n\nValentin feebly waved his hand to and fro. \"Don't insist--don't insist!\nIt is mean--decidedly mean. For you see at the bottom--down at the\nbottom, in a little place as small as the end of a wine-funnel--I agree\nwith you!\"\n\nA few moments after this the doctor put his head through the half-opened\ndoor and, perceiving that Valentin was awake, came in and felt his\npulse. He shook his head and declared that he had talked too much--ten\ntimes too much. \"Nonsense!\" said Valentin; \"a man sentenced to death can\nnever talk too much. Have you never read an account of an execution in\na newspaper? Don't they always set a lot of people at the\nprisoner--lawyers, reporters, priests--to make him talk? But it's not\nMr. Newman's fault; he sits there as mum as a death's-head.\"\n\nThe doctor observed that it was time his patient's wound should be\ndressed again; MM. de Grosjoyaux and Ledoux, who had already witnessed\nthis delicate operation, taking Newman's place as assistants. Newman\nwithdrew and learned from his fellow-watchers that they had received a\ntelegram from Urbain de Bellegarde to the effect that their message had\nbeen delivered in the Rue de l'Universite too late to allow him to\ntake the morning train, but that he would start with his mother in the\nevening. Newman wandered away into the village again, and walked about\nrestlessly for two or three hours. The day seemed terribly long. At dusk\nhe came back and dined with the doctor and M. Ledoux. The dressing of\nValentin's wound had been a very critical operation; the doctor didn't\nreally see how he was to endure a repetition of it. He then declared\nthat he must beg of Mr. Newman to deny himself for the present the\nsatisfaction of sitting with M. de Bellegarde; more than any one else,\napparently, he had the flattering but inconvenient privilege of exciting\nhim. M. Ledoux, at this, swallowed a glass of wine in silence; he must\nhave been wondering what the deuce Bellegarde found so exciting in the\nAmerican.\n\nNewman, after dinner, went up to his room, where he sat for a long time\nstaring at his lighted candle, and thinking that Valentin was dying\ndown-stairs. Late, when the candle had burnt low, there came a soft rap\nat his door. The doctor stood there with a candlestick and a shrug.\n\n\"He must amuse himself, still!\" said Valentin's medical adviser. \"He\ninsists upon seeing you, and I am afraid you must come. I think at this\nrate, that he will hardly outlast the night.\"\n\nNewman went back to Valentin's room, which he found lighted by a taper\non the hearth. Valentin begged him to light a candle. \"I want to see\nyour face,\" he said. \"They say you excite me,\" he went on, as Newman\ncomplied with this request, \"and I confess I do feel excited. But it\nisn't you--it's my own thoughts. I have been thinking--thinking. Sit\ndown there, and let me look at you again.\" Newman seated himself, folded\nhis arms, and bent a heavy gaze upon his friend. He seemed to be playing\na part, mechanically, in a lugubrious comedy. Valentin looked at him for\nsome time. \"Yes, this morning I was right; you have something on your\nmind heavier than Valentin de Bellegarde. Come, I'm a dying man and it's\nindecent to deceive me. Something happened after I left Paris. It was\nnot for nothing that my sister started off at this season of the year\nfor Fleurieres. Why was it? It sticks in my crop. I have been thinking\nit over, and if you don't tell me I shall guess.\"\n\n\"I had better not tell you,\" said Newman. \"It won't do you any good.\"\n\n\"If you think it will do me any good not to tell me, you are very much\nmistaken. There is trouble about your marriage.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Newman. \"There is trouble about my marriage.\"\n\n\"Good!\" And Valentin was silent again. \"They have stopped it.\"\n\n\"They have stopped it,\" said Newman. Now that he had spoken out, he\nfound a satisfaction in it which deepened as he went on. \"Your mother\nand brother have broken faith. They have decided that it can't take\nplace. They have decided that I am not good enough, after all. They have\ntaken back their word. Since you insist, there it is!\"\n\nValentin gave a sort of groan, lifted his hands a moment, and then let\nthem drop.\n\n\"I am sorry not to have anything better to tell you about them,\" Newman\npursued. \"But it's not my fault. I was, indeed, very unhappy when your\ntelegram reached me; I was quite upside down. You may imagine whether I\nfeel any better now.\"\n\nValentin moaned gaspingly, as if his wound were throbbing. \"Broken\nfaith, broken faith!\" he murmured. \"And my sister--my sister?\"\n\n\"Your sister is very unhappy; she has consented to give me up. I don't\nknow why. I don't know what they have done to her; it must be something\npretty bad. In justice to her you ought to know it. They have made\nher suffer. I haven't seen her alone, but only before them! We had an\ninterview yesterday morning. They came out, flat, in so many words. They\ntold me to go about my business. It seems to me a very bad case. I'm\nangry, I'm sore, I'm sick.\"\n\nValentin lay there staring, with his eyes more brilliantly lighted, his\nlips soundlessly parted, and a flush of color in his pale face. Newman\nhad never before uttered so many words in the plaintive key, but now,\nin speaking to Valentin in the poor fellow's extremity, he had a feeling\nthat he was making his complaint somewhere within the presence of the\npower that men pray to in trouble; he felt his outgush of resentment as\na sort of spiritual privilege.\n\n\"And Claire,\"--said Bellegarde,--\"Claire? She has given you up?\"\n\n\"I don't really believe it,\" said Newman.\n\n\"No. Don't believe it, don't believe it. She is gaining time; excuse\nher.\"\n\n\"I pity her!\" said Newman.\n\n\"Poor Claire!\" murmured Valentin. \"But they--but they\"--and he paused\nagain. \"You saw them; they dismissed you, face to face?\"\n\n\"Face to face. They were very explicit.\"\n\n\"What did they say?\"\n\n\"They said they couldn't stand a commercial person.\"\n\nValentin put out his hand and laid it upon Newman's arm. \"And about\ntheir promise--their engagement with you?\"\n\n\"They made a distinction. They said it was to hold good only until\nMadame de Cintre accepted me.\"\n\nValentin lay staring a while, and his flush died away. \"Don't tell me\nany more,\" he said at last. \"I'm ashamed.\"\n\n\"You? You are the soul of honor,\" said Newman simply.\n\nValentin groaned and turned away his head. For some time nothing more\nwas said. Then Valentin turned back again and found a certain force to\npress Newman's arm. \"It's very bad--very bad. When my people--when\nmy race--come to that, it is time for me to withdraw. I believe in\nmy sister; she will explain. Excuse her. If she can't--if she can't,\nforgive her. She has suffered. But for the others it is very bad--very\nbad. You take it very hard? No, it's a shame to make you say so.\" He\nclosed his eyes and again there was a silence. Newman felt almost awed;\nhe had evoked a more solemn spirit than he expected. Presently Valentin\nlooked at him again, removing his hand from his arm. \"I apologize,\"\nhe said. \"Do you understand? Here on my death-bed. I apologize for\nmy family. For my mother. For my brother. For the ancient house of\nBellegarde. Voila!\" he added, softly.\n\nNewman for an answer took his hand and pressed it with a world of\nkindness. Valentin remained quiet, and at the end of half an hour the\ndoctor softly came in. Behind him, through the half-open door, Newman\nsaw the two questioning faces of MM. de Grosjoyaux and Ledoux. The\ndoctor laid his hand on Valentin's wrist and sat looking at him. He gave\nno sign and the two gentlemen came in, M. Ledoux having first beckoned\nto some one outside. This was M. le cure, who carried in his hand an\nobject unknown to Newman, and covered with a white napkin. M. le cure\nwas short, round, and red: he advanced, pulling off his little black cap\nto Newman, and deposited his burden on the table; and then he sat down\nin the best arm-chair, with his hands folded across his person. The\nother gentlemen had exchanged glances which expressed unanimity as to\nthe timeliness of their presence. But for a long time Valentin neither\nspoke nor moved. It was Newman's belief, afterwards, that M. le cure\nwent to sleep. At last abruptly, Valentin pronounced Newman's name. His\nfriend went to him, and he said in French, \"You are not alone. I want to\nspeak to you alone.\" Newman looked at the doctor, and the doctor looked\nat the cure, who looked back at him; and then the doctor and the cure,\ntogether, gave a shrug. \"Alone--for five minutes,\" Valentin repeated.\n\"Please leave us.\"\n\nThe cure took up his burden again and led the way out, followed by\nhis companions. Newman closed the door behind them and came back to\nValentin's bedside. Bellegarde had watched all this intently.\n\n\"It's very bad, it's very bad,\" he said, after Newman had seated himself\nclose to him. \"The more I think of it the worse it is.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't think of it,\" said Newman.\n\nBut Valentin went on, without heeding him. \"Even if they should come\nround again, the shame--the baseness--is there.\"\n\n\"Oh, they won't come round!\" said Newman.\n\n\"Well, you can make them.\"\n\n\"Make them?\"\n\n\"I can tell you something--a great secret--an immense secret. You can\nuse it against them--frighten them, force them.\"\n\n\"A secret!\" Newman repeated. The idea of letting Valentin, on his\ndeath-bed, confide him an \"immense secret\" shocked him, for the\nmoment, and made him draw back. It seemed an illicit way of arriving at\ninformation, and even had a vague analogy with listening at a key-hole.\nThen, suddenly, the thought of \"forcing\" Madame de Bellegarde and her\nson became attractive, and Newman bent his head closer to Valentin's\nlips. For some time, however, the dying man said nothing more. He only\nlay and looked at his friend with his kindled, expanded, troubled eye,\nand Newman began to believe that he had spoken in delirium. But at last\nhe said,--\n\n\"There was something done--something done at Fleurieres. It was foul\nplay. My father--something happened to him. I don't know; I have been\nashamed--afraid to know. But I know there is something. My mother\nknows--Urbain knows.\"\n\n\"Something happened to your father?\" said Newman, urgently.\n\nValentin looked at him, still more wide-eyed. \"He didn't get well.\"\n\n\"Get well of what?\"\n\nBut the immense effort which Valentin had made, first to decide to utter\nthese words and then to bring them out, appeared to have taken his last\nstrength. He lapsed again into silence, and Newman sat watching him. \"Do\nyou understand?\" he began again, presently. \"At Fleurieres. You can find\nout. Mrs. Bread knows. Tell her I begged you to ask her. Then tell them\nthat, and see. It may help you. If not, tell, every one. It will--it\nwill\"--here Valentin's voice sank to the feeblest murmur--\"it will\navenge you!\"\n\nThe words died away in a long, soft groan. Newman stood up, deeply\nimpressed, not knowing what to say; his heart was beating violently.\n\"Thank you,\" he said at last. \"I am much obliged.\" But Valentin seemed\nnot to hear him, he remained silent, and his silence continued. At\nlast Newman went and opened the door. M. le cure reentered, bearing\nhis sacred vessel and followed by the three gentlemen and by Valentin's\nservant. It was almost processional.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\n\nValentin de Bellegarde died, tranquilly, just as the cold, faint March\ndawn began to illumine the faces of the little knot of friends gathered\nabout his bedside. An hour afterwards Newman left the inn and drove\nto Geneva; he was naturally unwilling to be present at the arrival of\nMadame de Bellegarde and her first-born. At Geneva, for the moment, he\nremained. He was like a man who has had a fall and wants to sit still\nand count his bruises. He instantly wrote to Madame de Cintre,\nrelating to her the circumstances of her brother's death--with certain\nexceptions--and asking her what was the earliest moment at which he\nmight hope that she would consent to see him. M. Ledoux had told him\nthat he had reason to know that Valentin's will--Bellegarde had a great\ndeal of elegant personal property to dispose of--contained a request\nthat he should be buried near his father in the church-yard of\nFleurieres, and Newman intended that the state of his own relations with\nthe family should not deprive him of the satisfaction of helping to pay\nthe last earthly honors to the best fellow in the world. He reflected\nthat Valentin's friendship was older than Urbain's enmity, and that at\na funeral it was easy to escape notice. Madame de Cintre's answer to his\nletter enabled him to time his arrival at Fleurieres. This answer was\nvery brief; it ran as follows:--\n\n\"I thank you for your letter, and for your being with Valentin. It is\na most inexpressible sorrow to me that I was not. To see you will be\nnothing but a distress to me; there is no need, therefore, to wait for\nwhat you call brighter days. It is all one now, and I shall have no\nbrighter days. Come when you please; only notify me first. My brother is\nto be buried here on Friday, and my family is to remain here. C. de C.\"\n\nAs soon as he received this letter Newman went straight to Paris and to\nPoitiers. The journey took him far southward, through green Touraine\nand across the far-shining Loire, into a country where the early spring\ndeepened about him as he went. But he had never made a journey during\nwhich he heeded less what he would have called the lay of the land. He\nobtained lodging at the inn at Poitiers, and the next morning drove in\na couple of hours to the village of Fleurieres. But here, preoccupied\nthough he was, he could not fail to notice the picturesqueness of the\nplace. It was what the French call a petit bourg; it lay at the base of\na sort of huge mound on the summit of which stood the crumbling ruins of\na feudal castle, much of whose sturdy material, as well as that of\nthe wall which dropped along the hill to inclose the clustered houses\ndefensively, had been absorbed into the very substance of the village.\nThe church was simply the former chapel of the castle, fronting upon its\ngrass-grown court, which, however, was of generous enough width to\nhave given up its quaintest corner to a little graveyard. Here the very\nheadstones themselves seemed to sleep, as they slanted into the grass;\nthe patient elbow of the rampart held them together on one side, and in\nfront, far beneath their mossy lids, the green plains and blue distances\nstretched away. The way to church, up the hill, was impracticable to\nvehicles. It was lined with peasants, two or three rows deep, who stood\nwatching old Madame de Bellegarde slowly ascend it, on the arm of her\nelder son, behind the pall-bearers of the other. Newman chose to lurk\namong the common mourners who murmured \"Madame la Comtesse\" as a tall\nfigure veiled in black passed before them. He stood in the dusky little\nchurch while the service was going forward, but at the dismal tomb-side\nhe turned away and walked down the hill. He went back to Poitiers,\nand spent two days in which patience and impatience were singularly\ncommingled. On the third day he sent Madame de Cintre a note, saying\nthat he would call upon her in the afternoon, and in accordance with\nthis he again took his way to Fleurieres. He left his vehicle at the\ntavern in the village street, and obeyed the simple instructions which\nwere given him for finding the chateau.\n\n\"It is just beyond there,\" said the landlord, and pointed to the\ntree-tops of the park, above the opposite houses. Newman followed the\nfirst cross-road to the right--it was bordered with mouldy cottages--and\nin a few moments saw before him the peaked roofs of the towers.\nAdvancing farther, he found himself before a vast iron gate, rusty and\nclosed; here he paused a moment, looking through the bars. The chateau\nwas near the road; this was at once its merit and its defect; but its\naspect was extremely impressive. Newman learned afterwards, from a\nguide-book of the province, that it dated from the time of Henry IV. It\npresented to the wide, paved area which preceded it and which was edged\nwith shabby farm-buildings an immense facade of dark time-stained\nbrick, flanked by two low wings, each of which terminated in a little\nDutch-looking pavilion capped with a fantastic roof. Two towers rose\nbehind, and behind the towers was a mass of elms and beeches, now just\nfaintly green. But the great feature was a wide, green river which\nwashed the foundations of the chateau. The building rose from an island\nin the circling stream, so that this formed a perfect moat spanned by\na two-arched bridge without a parapet. The dull brick walls, which here\nand there made a grand, straight sweep; the ugly little cupolas of the\nwings, the deep-set windows, the long, steep pinnacles of mossy slate,\nall mirrored themselves in the tranquil river. Newman rang at the gate,\nand was almost frightened at the tone with which a big rusty bell above\nhis head replied to him. An old woman came out from the gate-house and\nopened the creaking portal just wide enough for him to pass, and he went\nin, across the dry, bare court and the little cracked white slabs of\nthe causeway on the moat. At the door of the chateau he waited for some\nmoments, and this gave him a chance to observe that Fleurieres was not\n\"kept up,\" and to reflect that it was a melancholy place of residence.\n\"It looks,\" said Newman to himself--and I give the comparison for what\nit is worth--\"like a Chinese penitentiary.\" At last the door was opened\nby a servant whom he remembered to have seen in the Rue de l'Universite.\nThe man's dull face brightened as he perceived our hero, for Newman, for\nindefinable reasons, enjoyed the confidence of the liveried gentry. The\nfootman led the way across a great central vestibule, with a pyramid of\nplants in tubs in the middle of glass doors all around, to what appeared\nto be the principal drawing-room of the chateau. Newman crossed the\nthreshold of a room of superb proportions, which made him feel at first\nlike a tourist with a guide-book and a cicerone awaiting a fee. But when\nhis guide had left him alone, with the observation that he would call\nMadame la Comtesse, Newman perceived that the salon contained little\nthat was remarkable save a dark ceiling with curiously carved rafters,\nsome curtains of elaborate, antiquated tapestry, and a dark oaken floor,\npolished like a mirror. He waited some minutes, walking up and down; but\nat length, as he turned at the end of the room, he saw that Madame de\nCintre had come in by a distant door. She wore a black dress, and she\nstood looking at him. As the length of the immense room lay between them\nhe had time to look at her before they met in the middle of it.\n\nHe was dismayed at the change in her appearance. Pale, heavy-browed,\nalmost haggard with a sort of monastic rigidity in her dress, she had\nlittle but her pure features in common with the woman whose radiant good\ngrace he had hitherto admired. She let her eyes rest on his own, and she\nlet him take her hand; but her eyes looked like two rainy autumn moons,\nand her touch was portentously lifeless.\n\n\"I was at your brother's funeral,\" Newman said. \"Then I waited three\ndays. But I could wait no longer.\"\n\n\"Nothing can be lost or gained by waiting,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"But\nit was very considerate of you to wait, wronged as you have been.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you think I have been wronged,\" said Newman, with that\noddly humorous accent with which he often uttered words of the gravest\nmeaning.\n\n\"Do I need to say so?\" she asked. \"I don't think I have wronged,\nseriously, many persons; certainly not consciously. To you, to whom I\nhave done this hard and cruel thing, the only reparation I can make is\nto say, 'I know it, I feel it!' The reparation is pitifully small!\"\n\n\"Oh, it's a great step forward!\" said Newman, with a gracious smile of\nencouragement. He pushed a chair towards her and held it, looking at her\nurgently. She sat down, mechanically, and he seated himself near\nher; but in a moment he got up, restlessly, and stood before her. She\nremained seated, like a troubled creature who had passed through the\nstage of restlessness.\n\n\"I say nothing is to be gained by my seeing you,\" she went on, \"and yet\nI am very glad you came. Now I can tell you what I feel. It is a selfish\npleasure, but it is one of the last I shall have.\" And she paused, with\nher great misty eyes fixed upon him. \"I know how I have deceived and\ninjured you; I know how cruel and cowardly I have been. I see it\nas vividly as you do--I feel it to the ends of my fingers.\" And she\nunclasped her hands, which were locked together in her lap, lifted them,\nand dropped them at her side. \"Anything that you may have said of me in\nyour angriest passion is nothing to what I have said to myself.\"\n\n\"In my angriest passion,\" said Newman, \"I have said nothing hard of\nyou. The very worst thing I have said of you yet is that you are the\nloveliest of women.\" And he seated himself before her again, abruptly.\n\nShe flushed a little, but even her flush was pale. \"That is because you\nthink I will come back. But I will not come back. It is in that hope\nyou have come here, I know; I am very sorry for you. I would do almost\nanything for you. To say that, after what I have done, seems simply\nimpudent; but what can I say that will not seem impudent? To wrong you\nand apologize--that is easy enough. I should not have wronged you.\" She\nstopped a moment, looking at him, and motioned him to let her go on.\n\"I ought never to have listened to you at first; that was the wrong.\nNo good could come of it. I felt it, and yet I listened; that was your\nfault. I liked you too much; I believed in you.\"\n\n\"And don't you believe in me now?\"\n\n\"More than ever. But now it doesn't matter. I have given you up.\"\n\nNewman gave a powerful thump with his clenched fist upon his knee. \"Why,\nwhy, why?\" he cried. \"Give me a reason--a decent reason. You are not a\nchild--you are not a minor, nor an idiot. You are not obliged to drop me\nbecause your mother told you to. Such a reason isn't worthy of you.\"\n\n\"I know that; it's not worthy of me. But it's the only one I have to\ngive. After all,\" said Madame de Cintre, throwing out her hands, \"think\nme an idiot and forget me! That will be the simplest way.\"\n\nNewman got up and walked away with a crushing sense that his cause was\nlost, and yet with an equal inability to give up fighting. He went to\none of the great windows, and looked out at the stiffly embanked river\nand the formal gardens which lay beyond it. When he turned round, Madame\nde Cintre had risen; she stood there silent and passive. \"You are not\nfrank,\" said Newman; \"you are not honest. Instead of saying that you are\nimbecile, you should say that other people are wicked. Your mother and\nyour brother have been false and cruel; they have been so to me, and I\nam sure they have been so to you. Why do you try to shield them? Why do\nyou sacrifice me to them? I'm not false; I'm not cruel. You don't know\nwhat you give up; I can tell you that--you don't. They bully you and\nplot about you; and I--I\"--And he paused, holding out his hands. She\nturned away and began to leave him. \"You told me the other day that\nyou were afraid of your mother,\" he said, following her. \"What did you\nmean?\"\n\nMadame de Cintre shook her head. \"I remember; I was sorry afterwards.\"\n\n\"You were sorry when she came down and put on the thumb-screws. In God's\nname what IS it she does to you?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Nothing that you can understand. And now that I have given you\nup, I must not complain of her to you.\"\n\n\"That's no reasoning!\" cried Newman. \"Complain of her, on the contrary.\nTell me all about it, frankly and trustfully, as you ought, and we will\ntalk it over so satisfactorily that you won't give me up.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre looked down some moments, fixedly; and then, raising\nher eyes, she said, \"One good at least has come of this: I have made\nyou judge me more fairly. You thought of me in a way that did me great\nhonor; I don't know why you had taken it into your head. But it left me\nno loophole for escape--no chance to be the common, weak creature I am.\nIt was not my fault; I warned you from the first. But I ought to have\nwarned you more. I ought to have convinced you that I was doomed\nto disappoint you. But I WAS, in a way, too proud. You see what my\nsuperiority amounts to, I hope!\" she went on, raising her voice with\na tremor which even then and there Newman thought beautiful. \"I am too\nproud to be honest, I am not too proud to be faithless. I am timid and\ncold and selfish. I am afraid of being uncomfortable.\"\n\n\"And you call marrying me uncomfortable!\" said Newman staring.\n\nMadame de Cintre blushed a little and seemed to say that if begging his\npardon in words was impudent, she might at least thus mutely express\nher perfect comprehension of his finding her conduct odious. \"It is not\nmarrying you; it is doing all that would go with it. It's the rupture,\nthe defiance, the insisting upon being happy in my own way. What right\nhave I to be happy when--when\"--And she paused.\n\n\"When what?\" said Newman.\n\n\"When others have been most unhappy!\"\n\n\"What others?\" Newman asked. \"What have you to do with any others but\nme? Besides you said just now that you wanted happiness, and that you\nshould find it by obeying your mother. You contradict yourself.\"\n\n\"Yes, I contradict myself; that shows you that I am not even\nintelligent.\"\n\n\"You are laughing at me!\" cried Newman. \"You are mocking me!\"\n\nShe looked at him intently, and an observer might have said that she was\nasking herself whether she might not most quickly end their common pain\nby confessing that she was mocking him. \"No; I am not,\" she presently\nsaid.\n\n\"Granting that you are not intelligent,\" he went on, \"that you are\nweak, that you are common, that you are nothing that I have believed\nyou were--what I ask of you is not heroic effort, it is a very common\neffort. There is a great deal on my side to make it easy. The simple\ntruth is that you don't care enough about me to make it.\"\n\n\"I am cold,\" said Madame de Cintre, \"I am as cold as that flowing\nriver.\"\n\nNewman gave a great rap on the floor with his stick, and a long, grim\nlaugh. \"Good, good!\" he cried. \"You go altogether too far--you overshoot\nthe mark. There isn't a woman in the world as bad as you would make\nyourself out. I see your game; it's what I said. You are blackening\nyourself to whiten others. You don't want to give me up, at all; you\nlike me--you like me. I know you do; you have shown it, and I have felt\nit. After that, you may be as cold as you please! They have bullied you,\nI say; they have tortured you. It's an outrage, and I insist upon saving\nyou from the extravagance of your own generosity. Would you chop off\nyour hand if your mother requested it?\"\n\nMadame de Cintre looked a little frightened. \"I spoke of my mother\ntoo blindly, the other day. I am my own mistress, by law and by her\napproval. She can do nothing to me; she has done nothing. She has never\nalluded to those hard words I used about her.\"\n\n\"She has made you feel them, I'll promise you!\" said Newman.\n\n\"It's my conscience that makes me feel them.\"\n\n\"Your conscience seems to me to be rather mixed!\" exclaimed Newman,\npassionately.\n\n\"It has been in great trouble, but now it is very clear,\" said Madame\nde Cintre. \"I don't give you up for any worldly advantage or for any\nworldly happiness.\"\n\n\"Oh, you don't give me up for Lord Deepmere, I know,\" said Newman. \"I\nwon't pretend, even to provoke you, that I think that. But that's what\nyour mother and your brother wanted, and your mother, at that villainous\nball of hers--I liked it at the time, but the very thought of it now\nmakes me rabid--tried to push him on to make up to you.\"\n\n\"Who told you this?\" said Madame de Cintre softly.\n\n\"Not Valentin. I observed it. I guessed it. I didn't know at the time\nthat I was observing it, but it stuck in my memory. And afterwards, you\nrecollect, I saw Lord Deepmere with you in the conservatory. You said\nthen that you would tell me at another time what he had said to you.\"\n\n\"That was before--before THIS,\" said Madame de Cintre.\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" said Newman; \"and, besides, I think I know. He's an\nhonest little Englishman. He came and told you what your mother was up\nto--that she wanted him to supplant me; not being a commercial person.\nIf he would make you an offer she would undertake to bring you over and\ngive me the slip. Lord Deepmere isn't very intellectual, so she had to\nspell it out to him. He said he admired you 'no end,' and that he wanted\nyou to know it; but he didn't like being mixed up with that sort of\nunderhand work, and he came to you and told tales. That was about the\namount of it, wasn't it? And then you said you were perfectly happy.\"\n\n\"I don't see why we should talk of Lord Deepmere,\" said Madame de\nCintre. \"It was not for that you came here. And about my mother, it\ndoesn't matter what you suspect and what you know. When once my mind\nhas been made up, as it is now, I should not discuss these things.\nDiscussing anything, now, is very idle. We must try and live each as we\ncan. I believe you will be happy again; even, sometimes, when you think\nof me. When you do so, think this--that it was not easy, and that I did\nthe best I could. I have things to reckon with that you don't know. I\nmean I have feelings. I must do as they force me--I must, I must. They\nwould haunt me otherwise,\" she cried, with vehemence; \"they would kill\nme!\"\n\n\"I know what your feelings are: they are superstitions! They are the\nfeeling that, after all, though I AM a good fellow, I have been\nin business; the feeling that your mother's looks are law and your\nbrother's words are gospel; that you all hang together, and that it's\na part of the everlasting proprieties that they should have a hand in\neverything you do. It makes my blood boil. That is cold; you are right.\nAnd what I feel here,\" and Newman struck his heart and became more\npoetical than he knew, \"is a glowing fire!\"\n\nA spectator less preoccupied than Madame de Cintre's distracted wooer\nwould have felt sure from the first that her appealing calm of manner\nwas the result of violent effort, in spite of which the tide of\nagitation was rapidly rising. On these last words of Newman's it\noverflowed, though at first she spoke low, for fear of her voice\nbetraying her. \"No. I was not right--I am not cold! I believe that if I\nam doing what seems so bad, it is not mere weakness and falseness. Mr.\nNewman, it's like a religion. I can't tell you--I can't! It's cruel of\nyou to insist. I don't see why I shouldn't ask you to believe me--and\npity me. It's like a religion. There's a curse upon the house; I don't\nknow what--I don't know why--don't ask me. We must all bear it. I have\nbeen too selfish; I wanted to escape from it. You offered me a great\nchance--besides my liking you. It seemed good to change completely, to\nbreak, to go away. And then I admired you. But I can't--it has overtaken\nand come back to me.\" Her self-control had now completely abandoned her,\nand her words were broken with long sobs. \"Why do such dreadful things\nhappen to us--why is my brother Valentin killed, like a beast in the\nmidst of his youth and his gayety and his brightness and all that we\nloved him for? Why are there things I can't ask about--that I am afraid\nto know? Why are there places I can't look at, sounds I can't hear?\nWhy is it given to me to choose, to decide, in a case so hard and so\nterrible as this? I am not meant for that--I am not made for boldness\nand defiance. I was made to be happy in a quiet, natural way.\" At this\nNewman gave a most expressive groan, but Madame de Cintre went on. \"I\nwas made to do gladly and gratefully what is expected of me. My mother\nhas always been very good to me; that's all I can say. I must not judge\nher; I must not criticize her. If I did, it would come back to me. I\ncan't change!\"\n\n\"No,\" said Newman, bitterly; \"I must change--if I break in two in the\neffort!\"\n\n\"You are different. You are a man; you will get over it. You have all\nkinds of consolation. You were born--you were trained, to changes.\nBesides--besides, I shall always think of you.\"\n\n\"I don't care for that!\" cried Newman. \"You are cruel--you are terribly\ncruel. God forgive you! You may have the best reasons and the finest\nfeelings in the world; that makes no difference. You are a mystery to\nme; I don't see how such hardness can go with such loveliness.\"\n\nMadame de Cintre fixed him a moment with her swimming eyes. \"You believe\nI am hard, then?\"\n\nNewman answered her look, and then broke out, \"You are a perfect,\nfaultless creature! Stay by me!\"\n\n\"Of course I am hard,\" she went on. \"Whenever we give pain we are hard.\nAnd we MUST give pain; that's the world,--the hateful, miserable world!\nAh!\" and she gave a long, deep sigh, \"I can't even say I am glad to have\nknown you--though I am. That too is to wrong you. I can say nothing that\nis not cruel. Therefore let us part, without more of this. Good-by!\" And\nshe put out her hand.\n\nNewman stood and looked at it without taking it, and raised his eyes to\nher face. He felt, himself, like shedding tears of rage. \"What are you\ngoing to do?\" he asked. \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"Where I shall give no more pain and suspect no more evil. I am going\nout of the world.\"\n\n\"Out of the world?\"\n\n\"I am going into a convent.\"\n\n\"Into a convent!\" Newman repeated the words with the deepest dismay;\nit was as if she had said she was going into an hospital. \"Into a\nconvent--YOU!\"\n\n\"I told you that it was not for my worldly advantage or pleasure I was\nleaving you.\"\n\nBut still Newman hardly understood. \"You are going to be a nun,\" he went\non, \"in a cell--for life--with a gown and white veil?\"\n\n\"A nun--a Carmelite nun,\" said Madame de Cintre. \"For life, with God's\nleave.\"\n\nThe idea struck Newman as too dark and horrible for belief, and made\nhim feel as he would have done if she had told him that she was going\nto mutilate her beautiful face, or drink some potion that would make her\nmad. He clasped his hands and began to tremble, visibly.\n\n\"Madame de Cintre, don't, don't!\" he said. \"I beseech you! On my knees,\nif you like, I'll beseech you.\"\n\nShe laid her hand upon his arm, with a tender, pitying, almost\nreassuring gesture. \"You don't understand,\" she said. \"You have wrong\nideas. It's nothing horrible. It is only peace and safety. It is to be\nout of the world, where such troubles as this come to the innocent,\nto the best. And for life--that's the blessing of it! They can't begin\nagain.\"\n\nNewman dropped into a chair and sat looking at her with a long,\ninarticulate murmur. That this superb woman, in whom he had seen all\nhuman grace and household force, should turn from him and all the\nbrightness that he offered her--him and his future and his fortune and\nhis fidelity--to muffle herself in ascetic rags and entomb herself in a\ncell was a confounding combination of the inexorable and the grotesque.\nAs the image deepened before him the grotesque seemed to expand and\noverspread it; it was a reduction to the absurd of the trial to which\nhe was subjected. \"You--you a nun!\" he exclaimed; \"you with your beauty\ndefaced--you behind locks and bars! Never, never, if I can prevent it!\"\nAnd he sprang to his feet with a violent laugh.\n\n\"You can't prevent it,\" said Madame de Cintre, \"and it ought--a\nlittle--to satisfy you. Do you suppose I will go on living in the world,\nstill beside you, and yet not with you? It is all arranged. Good-by,\ngood-by.\"\n\nThis time he took her hand, took it in both his own. \"Forever?\" he\nsaid. Her lips made an inaudible movement and his own uttered a deep\nimprecation. She closed her eyes, as if with the pain of hearing it;\nthen he drew her towards him and clasped her to his breast. He kissed\nher white face; for an instant she resisted and for a moment she\nsubmitted; then, with force, she disengaged herself and hurried away\nover the long shining floor. The next moment the door closed behind her.\n\nNewman made his way out as he could.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\n\nThere is a pretty public walk at Poitiers, laid out upon the crest of\nthe high hill around which the little city clusters, planted with thick\ntrees and looking down upon the fertile fields in which the old English\nprinces fought for their right and held it. Newman paced up and down\nthis quiet promenade for the greater part of the next day and let his\neyes wander over the historic prospect; but he would have been sadly\nat a loss to tell you afterwards whether the latter was made up of\ncoal-fields or of vineyards. He was wholly given up to his grievance,\nor which reflection by no means diminished the weight. He feared that\nMadame de Cintre was irretrievably lost; and yet, as he would have\nsaid himself, he didn't see his way clear to giving her up. He found\nit impossible to turn his back upon Fleurieres and its inhabitants;\nit seemed to him that some germ of hope or reparation must lurk there\nsomewhere, if he could only stretch his arm out far enough to pluck\nit. It was as if he had his hand on a door-knob and were closing his\nclenched fist upon it: he had thumped, he had called, he had pressed\nthe door with his powerful knee and shaken it with all his strength,\nand dead, damning silence had answered him. And yet something held\nhim there--something hardened the grasp of his fingers. Newman's\nsatisfaction had been too intense, his whole plan too deliberate and\nmature, his prospect of happiness too rich and comprehensive for this\nfine moral fabric to crumble at a stroke. The very foundation seemed\nfatally injured, and yet he felt a stubborn desire still to try to save\nthe edifice. He was filled with a sorer sense of wrong than he had ever\nknown, or than he had supposed it possible he should know. To accept\nhis injury and walk away without looking behind him was a stretch of\ngood-nature of which he found himself incapable. He looked behind him\nintently and continually, and what he saw there did not assuage his\nresentment. He saw himself trustful, generous, liberal, patient, easy,\npocketing frequent irritation and furnishing unlimited modesty. To have\neaten humble pie, to have been snubbed and patronized and satirized and\nhave consented to take it as one of the conditions of the bargain--to\nhave done this, and done it all for nothing, surely gave one a right to\nprotest. And to be turned off because one was a commercial person! As if\nhe had ever talked or dreamt of the commercial since his connection with\nthe Bellegardes began--as if he had made the least circumstance of the\ncommercial--as if he would not have consented to confound the commercial\nfifty times a day, if it might have increased by a hair's breadth the\nchance of the Bellegardes' not playing him a trick! Granted that being\ncommercial was fair ground for having a trick played upon one, how\nlittle they knew about the class so designed and its enterprising way\nof not standing upon trifles! It was in the light of his injury that the\nweight of Newman's past endurance seemed so heavy; his actual irritation\nhad not been so great, merged as it was in his vision of the cloudless\nblue that overarched his immediate wooing. But now his sense of outrage\nwas deep, rancorous, and ever present; he felt that he was a good fellow\nwronged. As for Madame de Cintre's conduct, it struck him with a kind\nof awe, and the fact that he was powerless to understand it or feel\nthe reality of its motives only deepened the force with which he had\nattached himself to her. He had never let the fact of her Catholicism\ntrouble him; Catholicism to him was nothing but a name, and to express\na mistrust of the form in which her religious feelings had moulded\nthemselves would have seemed to him on his own part a rather pretentious\naffectation of Protestant zeal. If such superb white flowers as that\ncould bloom in Catholic soil, the soil was not insalubrious. But it was\none thing to be a Catholic, and another to turn nun--on your hand!\nThere was something lugubriously comical in the way Newman's thoroughly\ncontemporaneous optimism was confronted with this dusky old-world\nexpedient. To see a woman made for him and for motherhood to his\nchildren juggled away in this tragic travesty--it was a thing to rub\none's eyes over, a nightmare, an illusion, a hoax. But the hours passed\naway without disproving the thing, and leaving him only the after-sense\nof the vehemence with which he had embraced Madame de Cintre. He\nremembered her words and her looks; he turned them over and tried to\nshake the mystery out of them and to infuse them with an endurable\nmeaning. What had she meant by her feeling being a kind of religion? It\nwas the religion simply of the family laws, the religion of which her\nimplacable little mother was the high priestess. Twist the thing about\nas her generosity would, the one certain fact was that they had used\nforce against her. Her generosity had tried to screen them, but Newman's\nheart rose into his throat at the thought that they should go scot-free.\n\nThe twenty-four hours wore themselves away, and the next morning Newman\nsprang to his feet with the resolution to return to Fleurieres and\ndemand another interview with Madame de Bellegarde and her son. He\nlost no time in putting it into practice. As he rolled swiftly over\nthe excellent road in the little caleche furnished him at the inn at\nPoitiers, he drew forth, as it were, from the very safe place in his\nmind to which he had consigned it, the last information given him by\npoor Valentin. Valentin had told him he could do something with it, and\nNewman thought it would be well to have it at hand. This was of course\nnot the first time, lately, that Newman had given it his attention. It\nwas information in the rough,--it was dark and puzzling; but Newman was\nneither helpless nor afraid. Valentin had evidently meant to put him in\npossession of a powerful instrument, though he could not be said to\nhave placed the handle very securely within his grasp. But if he had not\nreally told him the secret, he had at least given him the clew to it--a\nclew of which that queer old Mrs. Bread held the other end. Mrs. Bread\nhad always looked to Newman as if she knew secrets; and as he apparently\nenjoyed her esteem, he suspected she might be induced to share her\nknowledge with him. So long as there was only Mrs. Bread to deal\nwith, he felt easy. As to what there was to find out, he had only one\nfear--that it might not be bad enough. Then, when the image of the\nmarquise and her son rose before him again, standing side by side,\nthe old woman's hand in Urbain's arm, and the same cold, unsociable\nfixedness in the eyes of each, he cried out to himself that the fear was\ngroundless. There was blood in the secret at the very last! He arrived\nat Fleurieres almost in a state of elation; he had satisfied himself,\nlogically, that in the presence of his threat of exposure they would, as\nhe mentally phrased it, rattle down like unwound buckets. He remembered\nindeed that he must first catch his hare--first ascertain what there was\nto expose; but after that, why shouldn't his happiness be as good as new\nagain? Mother and son would drop their lovely victim in terror and take\nto hiding, and Madame de Cintre, left to herself, would surely come back\nto him. Give her a chance and she would rise to the surface, return to\nthe light. How could she fail to perceive that his house would be much\nthe most comfortable sort of convent?\n\nNewman, as he had done before, left his conveyance at the inn and walked\nthe short remaining distance to the chateau. When he reached the gate,\nhowever, a singular feeling took possession of him--a feeling which,\nstrange as it may seem, had its source in its unfathomable good\nnature. He stood there a while, looking through the bars at the large,\ntime-stained face of the edifice, and wondering to what crime it was\nthat the dark old house, with its flowery name, had given convenient\noccasion. It had given occasion, first and last, to tyrannies and\nsufferings enough, Newman said to himself; it was an evil-looking\nplace to live in. Then, suddenly, came the reflection--What a horrible\nrubbish-heap of iniquity to fumble in! The attitude of inquisitor turned\nits ignobler face, and with the same movement Newman declared that\nthe Bellegardes should have another chance. He would appeal once more\ndirectly to their sense of fairness, and not to their fear, and if they\nshould be accessible to reason, he need know nothing worse about them\nthan what he already knew. That was bad enough.\n\nThe gate-keeper let him in through the same stiff crevice as before,\nand he passed through the court and over the little rustic bridge on the\nmoat. The door was opened before he had reached it, and, as if to put\nhis clemency to rout with the suggestion of a richer opportunity, Mrs.\nBread stood there awaiting him. Her face, as usual, looked as hopelessly\nblank as the tide-smoothed sea-sand, and her black garments seemed of\nan intenser sable. Newman had already learned that her strange\ninexpressiveness could be a vehicle for emotion, and he was not\nsurprised at the muffled vivacity with which she whispered, \"I thought\nyou would try again, sir. I was looking out for you.\"\n\n\"I am glad to see you,\" said Newman; \"I think you are my friend.\"\n\nMrs. Bread looked at him opaquely. \"I wish you well sir; but it's vain\nwishing now.\"\n\n\"You know, then, how they have treated me?\"\n\n\"Oh, sir,\" said Mrs. Bread, dryly, \"I know everything.\"\n\nNewman hesitated a moment. \"Everything?\"\n\nMrs. Bread gave him a glance somewhat more lucent. \"I know at least too\nmuch, sir.\"\n\n\"One can never know too much. I congratulate you. I have come to see\nMadame de Bellegarde and her son,\" Newman added. \"Are they at home? If\nthey are not, I will wait.\"\n\n\"My lady is always at home,\" Mrs. Bread replied, \"and the marquis is\nmostly with her.\"\n\n\"Please then tell them--one or the other, or both--that I am here and\nthat I desire to see them.\"\n\nMrs. Bread hesitated. \"May I take a great liberty, sir?\"\n\n\"You have never taken a liberty but you have justified it,\" said Newman,\nwith diplomatic urbanity.\n\nMrs. Bread dropped her wrinkled eyelids as if she were curtseying; but\nthe curtsey stopped there; the occasion was too grave. \"You have come to\nplead with them again, sir? Perhaps you don't know this--that Madame de\nCintre returned this morning to Paris.\"\n\n\"Ah, she's gone!\" And Newman, groaning, smote the pavement with his\nstick.\n\n\"She has gone straight to the convent--the Carmelites they call it. I\nsee you know, sir. My lady and the marquis take it very ill. It was only\nlast night she told them.\"\n\n\"Ah, she had kept it back, then?\" cried Newman. \"Good, good! And they\nare very fierce?\"\n\n\"They are not pleased,\" said Mrs. Bread. \"But they may well dislike it.\nThey tell me it's most dreadful, sir; of all the nuns in Christendom the\nCarmelites are the worst. You may say they are really not human, sir;\nthey make you give up everything--forever. And to think of HER there! If\nI was one that cried, sir, I could cry.\"\n\nNewman looked at her an instant. \"We mustn't cry, Mrs. Bread; we must\nact. Go and call them!\" And he made a movement to enter farther.\n\nBut Mrs. Bread gently checked him. \"May I take another liberty? I am\ntold you were with my dearest Mr. Valentin, in his last hours. If you\nwould tell me a word about him! The poor count was my own boy, sir; for\nthe first year of his life he was hardly out of my arms; I taught him\nto speak. And the count spoke so well, sir! He always spoke well to his\npoor old Bread. When he grew up and took his pleasure he always had a\nkind word for me. And to die in that wild way! They have a story that\nhe fought with a wine-merchant. I can't believe that, sir! And was he in\ngreat pain?\"\n\n\"You are a wise, kind old woman, Mrs. Bread,\" said Newman. \"I hoped I\nmight see you with my own children in your arms. Perhaps I shall, yet.\"\nAnd he put out his hand. Mrs. Bread looked for a moment at his open\npalm, and then, as if fascinated by the novelty of the gesture, extended\nher own ladylike fingers. Newman held her hand firmly and deliberately,\nfixing his eyes upon her. \"You want to know all about Mr. Valentin?\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"It would be a sad pleasure, sir.\"\n\n\"I can tell you everything. Can you sometimes leave this place?\"\n\n\"The chateau, sir? I really don't know. I never tried.\"\n\n\"Try, then; try hard. Try this evening, at dusk. Come to me in the old\nruin there on the hill, in the court before the church. I will wait for\nyou there; I have something very important to tell you. An old woman\nlike you can do as she pleases.\"\n\nMrs. Bread stared, wondering, with parted lips. \"Is it from the count,\nsir?\" she asked.\n\n\"From the count--from his death-bed,\" said Newman.\n\n\"I will come, then. I will be bold, for once, for HIM.\"\n\nShe led Newman into the great drawing-room with which he had already\nmade acquaintance, and retired to execute his commands. Newman waited\na long time; at last he was on the point of ringing and repeating his\nrequest. He was looking round him for a bell when the marquis came in\nwith his mother on his arm. It will be seen that Newman had a logical\nmind when I say that he declared to himself, in perfect good faith, as\na result of Valentin's dark hints, that his adversaries looked grossly\nwicked. \"There is no mistake about it now,\" he said to himself as they\nadvanced. \"They're a bad lot; they have pulled off the mask.\" Madame\nde Bellegarde and her son certainly bore in their faces the signs of\nextreme perturbation; they looked like people who had passed a sleepless\nnight. Confronted, moreover, with an annoyance which they hoped they had\ndisposed of, it was not natural that they should have any very tender\nglances to bestow upon Newman. He stood before them, and such eye-beams\nas they found available they leveled at him; Newman feeling as if the\ndoor of a sepulchre had suddenly been opened, and the damp darkness were\nbeing exhaled.\n\n\"You see I have come back,\" he said. \"I have come to try again.\"\n\n\"It would be ridiculous,\" said M. de Bellegarde, \"to pretend that we are\nglad to see you or that we don't question the taste of your visit.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't talk about taste,\" said Newman, with a laugh, \"or that will\nbring us round to yours! If I consulted my taste I certainly shouldn't\ncome to see you. Besides, I will make as short work as you please.\nPromise me to raise the blockade--to set Madame de Cintre at\nliberty--and I will retire instantly.\"\n\n\"We hesitated as to whether we would see you,\" said Madame de\nBellegarde; \"and we were on the point of declining the honor. But it\nseemed to me that we should act with civility, as we have always done,\nand I wished to have the satisfaction of informing you that there are\ncertain weaknesses that people of our way of feeling can be guilty of\nbut once.\"\n\n\"You may be weak but once, but you will be audacious many times,\nmadam,\" Newman answered. \"I didn't come however, for conversational\npurposes. I came to say this, simply: that if you will write immediately\nto your daughter that you withdraw your opposition to her marriage, I\nwill take care of the rest. You don't want her to turn nun--you know\nmore about the horrors of it than I do. Marrying a commercial person is\nbetter than that. Give me a letter to her, signed and sealed, saying you\nretract and that she may marry me with your blessing, and I will take\nit to her at the convent and bring her out. There's your chance--I call\nthose easy terms.\"\n\n\"We look at the matter otherwise, you know. We call them very hard\nterms,\" said Urbain de Bellegarde. They had all remained standing\nrigidly in the middle of the room. \"I think my mother will tell you that\nshe would rather her daughter should become Soeur Catherine than Mrs.\nNewman.\"\n\nBut the old lady, with the serenity of supreme power, let her son make\nher epigrams for her. She only smiled, almost sweetly, shaking her head\nand repeating, \"But once, Mr. Newman; but once!\"\n\nNothing that Newman had ever seen or heard gave him such a sense of\nmarble hardness as this movement and the tone that accompanied it.\n\"Could anything compel you?\" he asked. \"Do you know of anything that\nwould force you?\"\n\n\"This language, sir,\" said the marquis, \"addressed to people in\nbereavement and grief is beyond all qualification.\"\n\n\"In most cases,\" Newman answered, \"your objection would have some\nweight, even admitting that Madame de Cintre's present intentions make\ntime precious. But I have thought of what you speak of, and I have come\nhere to-day without scruple simply because I consider your brother and\nyou two very different parties. I see no connection between you. Your\nbrother was ashamed of you. Lying there wounded and dying, the poor\nfellow apologized to me for your conduct. He apologized to me for that\nof his mother.\"\n\nFor a moment the effect of these words was as if Newman had struck\na physical blow. A quick flush leaped into the faces of Madame de\nBellegarde and her son, and they exchanged a glance like a twinkle of\nsteel. Urbain uttered two words which Newman but half heard, but of\nwhich the sense came to him as it were in the reverberation of the\nsound, \"Le miserable!\"\n\n\"You show little respect for the living,\" said Madame de Bellegarde,\n\"but at least respect the dead. Don't profane--don't insult--the memory\nof my innocent son.\"\n\n\"I speak the simple truth,\" Newman declared, \"and I speak it for a\npurpose. I repeat it--distinctly. Your son was utterly disgusted--your\nson apologized.\"\n\nUrbain de Bellegarde was frowning portentously, and Newman supposed he\nwas frowning at poor Valentin's invidious image. Taken by surprise,\nhis scant affection for his brother had made a momentary concession to\ndishonor. But not for an appreciable instant did his mother lower her\nflag. \"You are immensely mistaken, sir,\" she said. \"My son was sometimes\nlight, but he was never indecent. He died faithful to his name.\"\n\n\"You simply misunderstood him,\" said the marquis, beginning to rally.\n\"You affirm the impossible!\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't care for poor Valentin's apology,\" said Newman. \"It was\nfar more painful than pleasant to me. This atrocious thing was not his\nfault; he never hurt me, or any one else; he was the soul of honor. But\nit shows how he took it.\"\n\n\"If you wish to prove that my poor brother, in his last moments, was\nout of his head, we can only say that under the melancholy circumstances\nnothing was more possible. But confine yourself to that.\"\n\n\"He was quite in his right mind,\" said Newman, with gentle but dangerous\ndoggedness; \"I have never seen him so bright and clever. It was terrible\nto see that witty, capable fellow dying such a death. You know I was\nvery fond of your brother. And I have further proof of his sanity,\"\nNewman concluded.\n\nThe marquise gathered herself together majestically. \"This is too\ngross!\" she cried. \"We decline to accept your story, sir--we repudiate\nit. Urbain, open the door.\" She turned away, with an imperious motion\nto her son, and passed rapidly down the length of the room. The marquis\nwent with her and held the door open. Newman was left standing.\n\nHe lifted his finger, as a sign to M. de Bellegarde, who closed the\ndoor behind his mother and stood waiting. Newman slowly advanced, more\nsilent, for the moment, than life. The two men stood face to face. Then\nNewman had a singular sensation; he felt his sense of injury almost\nbrimming over into jocularity. \"Come,\" he said, \"you don't treat me\nwell; at least admit that.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde looked at him from head to foot, and then, in the most\ndelicate, best-bred voice, \"I detest you, personally,\" he said.\n\n\"That's the way I feel to you, but for politeness sake I don't say\nit,\" said Newman. \"It's singular I should want so much to be your\nbrother-in-law, but I can't give it up. Let me try once more.\" And he\npaused a moment. \"You have a secret--you have a skeleton in the closet.\"\nM. de Bellegarde continued to look at him hard, but Newman could not see\nwhether his eyes betrayed anything; the look of his eyes was always so\nstrange. Newman paused again, and then went on. \"You and your mother\nhave committed a crime.\" At this M. de Bellegarde's eyes certainly did\nchange; they seemed to flicker, like blown candles. Newman could see\nthat he was profoundly startled; but there was something admirable in\nhis self-control.\n\n\"Continue,\" said M. de Bellegarde.\n\nNewman lifted a finger and made it waver a little in the air. \"Need I\ncontinue? You are trembling.\"\n\n\"Pray where did you obtain this interesting information?\" M. de\nBellegarde asked, very softly.\n\n\"I shall be strictly accurate,\" said Newman. \"I won't pretend to know\nmore than I do. At present that is all I know. You have done something\nthat you must hide, something that would damn you if it were known,\nsomething that would disgrace the name you are so proud of. I don't know\nwhat it is, but I can find out. Persist in your present course and I\nWILL find out. Change it, let your sister go in peace, and I will leave\nyou alone. It's a bargain?\"\n\nThe marquis almost succeeded in looking untroubled; the breaking up\nof the ice in his handsome countenance was an operation that was\nnecessarily gradual. But Newman's mildly-syllabled argumentation seemed\nto press, and press, and presently he averted his eyes. He stood some\nmoments, reflecting.\n\n\"My brother told you this,\" he said, looking up.\n\nNewman hesitated a moment. \"Yes, your brother told me.\"\n\nThe marquis smiled, handsomely. \"Didn't I say that he was out of his\nmind?\"\n\n\"He was out of his mind if I don't find out. He was very much in it if I\ndo.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde gave a shrug. \"Eh, sir, find out or not, as you\nplease.\"\n\n\"I don't frighten you?\" demanded Newman.\n\n\"That's for you to judge.\"\n\n\"No, it's for you to judge, at your leisure. Think it over, feel\nyourself all round. I will give you an hour or two. I can't give you\nmore, for how do we know how fast they may be making Madame de Cintre\na nun? Talk it over with your mother; let her judge whether she is\nfrightened. I don't believe she is as easily frightened, in general, as\nyou; but you will see. I will go and wait in the village, at the inn,\nand I beg you to let me know as soon as possible. Say by three o'clock.\nA simple YES or NO on paper will do. Only, you know, in case of a yes\nI shall expect you, this time, to stick to your bargain.\" And with this\nNewman opened the door and let himself out. The marquis did not move,\nand Newman, retiring, gave him another look. \"At the inn, in the\nvillage,\" he repeated. Then he turned away altogether and passed out of\nthe house.\n\nHe was extremely excited by what he had been doing, for it was\ninevitable that there should be a certain emotion in calling up the\nspectre of dishonor before a family a thousand years old. But he went\nback to the inn and contrived to wait there, deliberately, for the next\ntwo hours. He thought it more than probable that Urbain de Bellegarde\nwould give no sign; for an answer to his challenge, in either sense,\nwould be a confession of guilt. What he most expected was silence--in\nother words defiance. But he prayed that, as he imagined it, his shot\nmight bring them down. It did bring, by three o'clock, a note, delivered\nby a footman; a note addressed in Urbain de Bellegarde's handsome\nEnglish hand. It ran as follows:--\n\n\"I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of letting you know that I return\nto Paris, to-morrow, with my mother, in order that we may see my sister\nand confirm her in the resolution which is the most effectual reply to\nyour audacious pertinacity.\n\n\"HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE.\"\n\n\nNewman put the letter into his pocket, and continued his walk up and\ndown the inn-parlor. He had spent most of his time, for the past week,\nin walking up and down. He continued to measure the length of the little\nsalle of the Armes de Prance until the day began to wane, when he went\nout to keep his rendezvous with Mrs. Bread. The path which led up\nthe hill to the ruin was easy to find, and Newman in a short time had\nfollowed it to the top. He passed beneath the rugged arch of the castle\nwall, and looked about him in the early dusk for an old woman in black.\nThe castle yard was empty, but the door of the church was open. Newman\nwent into the little nave and of course found a deeper dusk than\nwithout. A couple of tapers, however, twinkled on the altar and just\nenabled him to perceive a figure seated by one of the pillars. Closer\ninspection helped him to recognize Mrs. Bread, in spite of the fact\nthat she was dressed with unwonted splendor. She wore a large black\nsilk bonnet, with imposing bows of crape, and an old black satin dress\ndisposed itself in vaguely lustrous folds about her person. She had\njudged it proper to the occasion to appear in her stateliest apparel.\nShe had been sitting with her eyes fixed upon the ground, but when\nNewman passed before her she looked up at him, and then she rose.\n\n\"Are you a Catholic, Mrs. Bread?\" he asked.\n\n\"No, sir; I'm a good Church-of-England woman, very Low,\" she answered.\n\"But I thought I should be safer in here than outside. I was never out\nin the evening before, sir.\"\n\n\"We shall be safer,\" said Newman, \"where no one can hear us.\" And he led\nthe way back into the castle court and then followed a path beside the\nchurch, which he was sure must lead into another part of the ruin. He\nwas not deceived. It wandered along the crest of the hill and terminated\nbefore a fragment of wall pierced by a rough aperture which had once\nbeen a door. Through this aperture Newman passed and found himself in\na nook peculiarly favorable to quiet conversation, as probably many\nan earnest couple, otherwise assorted than our friends, had assured\nthemselves. The hill sloped abruptly away, and on the remnant of its\ncrest were scattered two or three fragments of stone. Beneath, over the\nplain, lay the gathered twilight, through which, in the near distance,\ngleamed two or three lights from the chateau. Mrs. Bread rustled slowly\nafter her guide, and Newman, satisfying himself that one of the fallen\nstones was steady, proposed to her to sit upon it. She cautiously\ncomplied, and he placed himself upon another, near her.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\n\n\"I am very much obliged to you for coming,\" Newman said. \"I hope it won't\nget you into trouble.\"\n\n\"I don't think I shall be missed. My lady, in these days, is not fond of\nhaving me about her.\" This was said with a certain fluttered eagerness\nwhich increased Newman's sense of having inspired the old woman with\nconfidence.\n\n\"From the first, you know,\" he answered, \"you took an interest in my\nprospects. You were on my side. That gratified me, I assure you. And now\nthat you know what they have done to me, I am sure you are with me all\nthe more.\"\n\n\"They have not done well--I must say it,\" said Mrs. Bread. \"But you\nmustn't blame the poor countess; they pressed her hard.\"\n\n\"I would give a million of dollars to know what they did to her!\" cried\nNewman.\n\nMrs. Bread sat with a dull, oblique gaze fixed upon the lights of the\nchateau. \"They worked on her feelings; they knew that was the way.\nShe is a delicate creature. They made her feel wicked. She is only too\ngood.\"\n\n\"Ah, they made her feel wicked,\" said Newman, slowly; and then he\nrepeated it. \"They made her feel wicked,--they made her feel wicked.\"\nThe words seemed to him for the moment a vivid description of infernal\ningenuity.\n\n\"It was because she was so good that she gave up--poor sweet lady!\"\nadded Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"But she was better to them than to me,\" said Newman.\n\n\"She was afraid,\" said Mrs. Bread, very confidently; \"she has always\nbeen afraid, or at least for a long time. That was the real trouble,\nsir. She was like a fair peach, I may say, with just one little speck.\nShe had one little sad spot. You pushed her into the sunshine, sir, and\nit almost disappeared. Then they pulled her back into the shade and in\na moment it began to spread. Before we knew it she was gone. She was a\ndelicate creature.\"\n\nThis singular attestation of Madame de Cintre's delicacy, for all its\nsingularity, set Newman's wound aching afresh. \"I see,\" he presently\nsaid; \"she knew something bad about her mother.\"\n\n\"No, sir, she knew nothing,\" said Mrs. Bread, holding her head very\nstiff and keeping her eyes fixed upon the glimmering windows of the\nchateau.\n\n\"She guessed something, then, or suspected it.\"\n\n\"She was afraid to know,\" said Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"But YOU know, at any rate,\" said Newman.\n\nShe slowly turned her vague eyes upon Newman, squeezing her hands\ntogether in her lap. \"You are not quite faithful, sir. I thought it was\nto tell me about Mr. Valentin you asked me to come here.\"\n\n\"Oh, the more we talk of Mr. Valentin the better,\" said Newman. \"That's\nexactly what I want. I was with him, as I told you, in his last hour.\nHe was in a great deal of pain, but he was quite himself. You know what\nthat means; he was bright and lively and clever.\"\n\n\"Oh, he would always be clever, sir,\" said Mrs. Bread. \"And did he know\nof your trouble?\"\n\n\"Yes, he guessed it of himself.\"\n\n\"And what did he say to it?\"\n\n\"He said it was a disgrace to his name--but it was not the first.\"\n\n\"Lord, Lord!\" murmured Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"He said that his mother and his brother had once put their heads\ntogether and invented something even worse.\"\n\n\"You shouldn't have listened to that, sir.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not. But I DID listen, and I don't forget it. Now I want to\nknow what it is they did.\"\n\nMrs. Bread gave a soft moan. \"And you have enticed me up into this\nstrange place to tell you?\"\n\n\"Don't be alarmed,\" said Newman. \"I won't say a word that shall be\ndisagreeable to you. Tell me as it suits you, and when it suits you.\nOnly remember that it was Mr. Valentin's last wish that you should.\"\n\n\"Did he say that?\"\n\n\"He said it with his last breath--'Tell Mrs. Bread I told you to ask\nher.'\"\n\n\"Why didn't he tell you himself?\"\n\n\"It was too long a story for a dying man; he had no breath left in his\nbody. He could only say that he wanted me to know--that, wronged as I\nwas, it was my right to know.\"\n\n\"But how will it help you, sir?\" said Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"That's for me to decide. Mr. Valentin believed it would, and that's why\nhe told me. Your name was almost the last word he spoke.\"\n\nMrs. Bread was evidently awe-struck by this statement; she shook her\nclasped hands slowly up and down. \"Excuse me, sir,\" she said, \"if I take\na great liberty. Is it the solemn truth you are speaking? I MUST ask you\nthat; must I not, sir?\"\n\n\"There's no offense. It is the solemn truth; I solemnly swear it. Mr.\nValentin himself would certainly have told me more if he had been able.\"\n\n\"Oh, sir, if he knew more!\"\n\n\"Don't you suppose he did?\"\n\n\"There's no saying what he knew about anything,\" said Mrs. Bread, with\na mild head-shake. \"He was so mightily clever. He could make you believe\nhe knew things that he didn't, and that he didn't know others that he\nhad better not have known.\"\n\n\"I suspect he knew something about his brother that kept the marquis\ncivil to him,\" Newman propounded; \"he made the marquis feel him. What he\nwanted now was to put me in his place; he wanted to give me a chance to\nmake the marquis feel ME.\"\n\n\"Mercy on us!\" cried the old waiting-woman, \"how wicked we all are!\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Newman; \"some of us are wicked, certainly. I am\nvery angry, I am very sore, and I am very bitter, but I don't know that\nI am wicked. I have been cruelly injured. They have hurt me, and I want\nto hurt them. I don't deny that; on the contrary, I tell you plainly\nthat it is the use I want to make of your secret.\"\n\nMrs. Bread seemed to hold her breath. \"You want to publish them--you\nwant to shame them?\"\n\n\"I want to bring them down,--down, down, down! I want to turn the tables\nupon them--I want to mortify them as they mortified me. They took me up\ninto a high place and made me stand there for all the world to see me,\nand then they stole behind me and pushed me into this bottomless pit,\nwhere I lie howling and gnashing my teeth! I made a fool of myself\nbefore all their friends; but I shall make something worse of them.\"\n\nThis passionate sally, which Newman uttered with the greater fervor that\nit was the first time he had had a chance to say all this aloud, kindled\ntwo small sparks in Mrs. Bread's fixed eyes. \"I suppose you have a right\nto your anger, sir; but think of the dishonor you will draw down on\nMadame de Cintre.\"\n\n\"Madame de Cintre is buried alive,\" cried Newman. \"What are honor or\ndishonor to her? The door of the tomb is at this moment closing behind\nher.\"\n\n\"Yes, it's most awful,\" moaned Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"She has moved off, like her brother Valentin, to give me room to work.\nIt's as if it were done on purpose.\"\n\n\"Surely,\" said Mrs. Bread, apparently impressed by the ingenuity of this\nreflection. She was silent for some moments; then she added, \"And would\nyou bring my lady before the courts?\"\n\n\"The courts care nothing for my lady,\" Newman replied. \"If she has\ncommitted a crime, she will be nothing for the courts but a wicked old\nwoman.\"\n\n\"And will they hang her, Sir?\"\n\n\"That depends upon what she has done.\" And Newman eyed Mrs. Bread\nintently.\n\n\"It would break up the family most terribly, sir!\"\n\n\"It's time such a family should be broken up!\" said Newman, with a\nlaugh.\n\n\"And me at my age out of place, sir!\" sighed Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"Oh, I will take care of you! You shall come and live with me. You shall\nbe my housekeeper, or anything you like. I will pension you for life.\"\n\n\"Dear, dear, sir, you think of everything.\" And she seemed to fall\na-brooding.\n\nNewman watched her a while, and then he said suddenly. \"Ah, Mrs. Bread,\nyou are too fond of my lady!\"\n\nShe looked at him as quickly. \"I wouldn't have you say that, sir. I\ndon't think it any part of my duty to be fond of my lady. I have served\nher faithfully this many a year; but if she were to die to-morrow, I\nbelieve, before Heaven I shouldn't shed a tear for her.\" Then, after a\npause, \"I have no reason to love her!\" Mrs. Bread added. \"The most she\nhas done for me has been not to turn me out of the house.\" Newman felt\nthat decidedly his companion was more and more confidential--that if\nluxury is corrupting, Mrs. Bread's conservative habits were already\nrelaxed by the spiritual comfort of this preconcerted interview, in\na remarkable locality, with a free-spoken millionaire. All his native\nshrewdness admonished him that his part was simply to let her take her\ntime--let the charm of the occasion work. So he said nothing; he only\nlooked at her kindly. Mrs. Bread sat nursing her lean elbows. \"My lady\nonce did me a great wrong,\" she went on at last. \"She has a terrible\ntongue when she is vexed. It was many a year ago, but I have never\nforgotten it. I have never mentioned it to a human creature; I have kept\nmy grudge to myself. I dare say I have been wicked, but my grudge has\ngrown old with me. It has grown good for nothing, too, I dare say;\nbut it has lived along, as I have lived. It will die when I die,--not\nbefore!\"\n\n\"And what IS your grudge?\" Newman asked.\n\nMrs. Bread dropped her eyes and hesitated. \"If I were a foreigner,\nsir, I should make less of telling you; it comes harder to a decent\nEnglishwoman. But I sometimes think I have picked up too many foreign\nways. What I was telling you belongs to a time when I was much younger\nand very different looking to what I am now. I had a very high color,\nsir, if you can believe it, indeed I was a very smart lass. My lady was\nyounger, too, and the late marquis was youngest of all--I mean in the\nway he went on, sir; he had a very high spirit; he was a magnificent\nman. He was fond of his pleasure, like most foreigners, and it must be\nowned that he sometimes went rather below him to take it. My lady was\noften jealous, and, if you'll believe it, sir, she did me the honor to\nbe jealous of me. One day I had a red ribbon in my cap, and my lady flew\nout at me and ordered me to take it off. She accused me of putting it on\nto make the marquis look at me. I don't know that I was impertinent, but\nI spoke up like an honest girl and didn't count my words. A red ribbon\nindeed! As if it was my ribbons the marquis looked at! My lady knew\nafterwards that I was perfectly respectable, but she never said a word\nto show that she believed it. But the marquis did!\" Mrs. Bread presently\nadded, \"I took off my red ribbon and put it away in a drawer, where I\nhave kept it to this day. It's faded now, it's a very pale pink; but\nthere it lies. My grudge has faded, too; the red has all gone out of it;\nbut it lies here yet.\" And Mrs. Bread stroked her black satin bodice.\n\nNewman listened with interest to this decent narrative, which seemed\nto have opened up the deeps of memory to his companion. Then, as she\nremained silent, and seemed to be losing herself in retrospective\nmeditation upon her perfect respectability, he ventured upon a short\ncut to his goal. \"So Madame de Bellegarde was jealous; I see. And M. de\nBellegarde admired pretty women, without distinction of class. I suppose\none mustn't be hard upon him, for they probably didn't all behave so\nproperly as you. But years afterwards it could hardly have been jealousy\nthat turned Madame de Bellegarde into a criminal.\"\n\nMrs. Bread gave a weary sigh. \"We are using dreadful words, sir, but I\ndon't care now. I see you have your idea, and I have no will of my own.\nMy will was the will of my children, as I called them; but I have lost\nmy children now. They are dead--I may say it of both of them; and\nwhat should I care for the living? What is any one in the house to me\nnow--what am I to them? My lady objects to me--she has objected to me\nthese thirty years. I should have been glad to be something to young\nMadame de Bellegarde, though I never was nurse to the present marquis.\nWhen he was a baby I was too young; they wouldn't trust me with him. But\nhis wife told her own maid, Mamselle Clarisse, the opinion she had of\nme. Perhaps you would like to hear it, sir.\"\n\n\"Oh, immensely,\" said Newman.\n\n\"She said that if I would sit in her children's schoolroom I should do\nvery well for a penwiper! When things have come to that I don't think I\nneed stand upon ceremony.\"\n\n\"Decidedly not,\" said Newman. \"Go on, Mrs. Bread.\"\n\nMrs. Bread, however, relapsed again into troubled dumbness, and all\nNewman could do was to fold his arms and wait. But at last she appeared\nto have set her memories in order. \"It was when the late marquis was an\nold man and his eldest son had been two years married. It was when the\ntime came on for marrying Mademoiselle Claire; that's the way they talk\nof it here, you know, sir. The marquis's health was bad; he was very\nmuch broken down. My lady had picked out M. de Cintre, for no good\nreason that I could see. But there are reasons, I very well know, that\nare beyond me, and you must be high in the world to understand them. Old\nM. de Cintre was very high, and my lady thought him almost as good\nas herself; that's saying a good deal. Mr. Urbain took sides with his\nmother, as he always did. The trouble, I believe, was that my lady would\ngive very little money, and all the other gentlemen asked more. It was\nonly M. de Cintre that was satisfied. The Lord willed it he should have\nthat one soft spot; it was the only one he had. He may have been very\ngrand in his birth, and he certainly was very grand in his bows and\nspeeches; but that was all the grandeur he had. I think he was like what\nI have heard of comedians; not that I have ever seen one. But I know he\npainted his face. He might paint it all he would; he could never make me\nlike it! The marquis couldn't abide him, and declared that sooner than\ntake such a husband as that Mademoiselle Claire should take none at\nall. He and my lady had a great scene; it came even to our ears in the\nservants' hall. It was not their first quarrel, if the truth must be\ntold. They were not a loving couple, but they didn't often come to\nwords, because, I think, neither of them thought the other's doings\nworth the trouble. My lady had long ago got over her jealousy, and she\nhad taken to indifference. In this, I must say, they were well matched.\nThe marquis was very easy-going; he had a most gentlemanly temper. He\ngot angry only once a year, but then it was very bad. He always took to\nbed directly afterwards. This time I speak of he took to bed as usual,\nbut he never got up again. I'm afraid the poor gentleman was paying for\nhis dissipation; isn't it true they mostly do, sir, when they get old?\nMy lady and Mr. Urbain kept quiet, but I know my lady wrote letters\nto M. de Cintre. The marquis got worse and the doctors gave him up. My\nlady, she gave him up too, and if the truth must be told, she gave up\ngladly. When once he was out of the way she could do what she pleased\nwith her daughter, and it was all arranged that my poor innocent child\nshould be handed over to M. de Cintre. You don't know what Mademoiselle\nwas in those days, sir; she was the sweetest young creature in France,\nand knew as little of what was going on around her as the lamb does of\nthe butcher. I used to nurse the marquis, and I was always in his room.\nIt was here at Fleurieres, in the autumn. We had a doctor from Paris,\nwho came and stayed two or three weeks in the house. Then there came two\nothers, and there was a consultation, and these two others, as I said,\ndeclared that the marquis couldn't be saved. After this they went off,\npocketing their fees, but the other one stayed and did what he could.\nThe marquis himself kept crying out that he wouldn't die, that he\ndidn't want to die, that he would live and look after his daughter.\nMademoiselle Claire and the viscount--that was Mr. Valentin, you\nknow--were both in the house. The doctor was a clever man,--that I could\nsee myself,--and I think he believed that the marquis might get well. We\ntook good care of him, he and I, between us, and one day, when my lady\nhad almost ordered her mourning, my patient suddenly began to mend. He\ngot better and better, till the doctor said he was out of danger. What\nwas killing him was the dreadful fits of pain in his stomach. But little\nby little they stopped, and the poor marquis began to make his jokes\nagain. The doctor found something that gave him great comfort--some\nwhite stuff that we kept in a great bottle on the chimney-piece. I\nused to give it to the marquis through a glass tube; it always made him\neasier. Then the doctor went away, after telling me to keep on giving\nhim the mixture whenever he was bad. After that there was a little\ndoctor from Poitiers, who came every day. So we were alone in the\nhouse--my lady and her poor husband and their three children. Young\nMadame de Bellegarde had gone away, with her little girl, to her\nmothers. You know she is very lively, and her maid told me that she\ndidn't like to be where people were dying.\" Mrs. Bread paused a moment,\nand then she went on with the same quiet consistency. \"I think you\nhave guessed, sir, that when the marquis began to turn my lady was\ndisappointed.\" And she paused again, bending upon Newman a face which\nseemed to grow whiter as the darkness settled down upon them.\n\nNewman had listened eagerly--with an eagerness greater even than that\nwith which he had bent his ear to Valentin de Bellegarde's last words.\nEvery now and then, as his companion looked up at him, she reminded him\nof an ancient tabby cat, protracting the enjoyment of a dish of milk.\nEven her triumph was measured and decorous; the faculty of exultation\nhad been chilled by disuse. She presently continued. \"Late one night I\nwas sitting by the marquis in his room, the great red room in the west\ntower. He had been complaining a little, and I gave him a spoonful\nof the doctor's dose. My lady had been there in the early part of the\nevening; she sat far more than an hour by his bed. Then she went away\nand left me alone. After midnight she came back, and her eldest son was\nwith her. They went to the bed and looked at the marquis, and my lady\ntook hold of his hand. Then she turned to me and said he was not so\nwell; I remember how the marquis, without saying anything, lay staring\nat her. I can see his white face, at this moment, in the great black\nsquare between the bed-curtains. I said I didn't think he was very bad;\nand she told me to go to bed--she would sit a while with him. When the\nmarquis saw me going he gave a sort of groan, and called out to me not\nto leave him; but Mr. Urbain opened the door for me and pointed the\nway out. The present marquis--perhaps you have noticed, sir--has a very\nproud way of giving orders, and I was there to take orders. I went to\nmy room, but I wasn't easy; I couldn't tell you why. I didn't undress;\nI sat there waiting and listening. For what, would you have said, sir? I\ncouldn't have told you; for surely a poor gentleman might be comfortable\nwith his wife and his son. It was as if I expected to hear the marquis\nmoaning after me again. I listened, but I heard nothing. It was a very\nstill night; I never knew a night so still. At last the very stillness\nitself seemed to frighten me, and I came out of my room and went very\nsoftly down-stairs. In the anteroom, outside of the marquis's chamber,\nI found Mr. Urbain walking up and down. He asked me what I wanted, and\nI said I came back to relieve my lady. He said HE would relieve my lady,\nand ordered me back to bed; but as I stood there, unwilling to turn\naway, the door of the room opened and my lady came out. I noticed she\nwas very pale; she was very strange. She looked a moment at the count\nand at me, and then she held out her arms to the count. He went to her,\nand she fell upon him and hid her face. I went quickly past her into the\nroom and to the marquis's bed. He was lying there, very white, with his\neyes shut, like a corpse. I took hold of his hand and spoke to him,\nand he felt to me like a dead man. Then I turned round; my lady and\nMr. Urbain were there. 'My poor Bread,' said my lady, 'M. le Marquis is\ngone.' Mr. Urbain knelt down by the bed and said softly, 'Mon pere, mon\npere.' I thought it wonderful strange, and asked my lady what in the\nworld had happened, and why she hadn't called me. She said nothing had\nhappened; that she had only been sitting there with the marquis, very\nquiet. She had closed her eyes, thinking she might sleep, and she had\nslept, she didn't know how long. When she woke up he was dead. 'It's\ndeath, my son, It's death,' she said to the count. Mr. Urbain said they\nmust have the doctor, immediately, from Poitiers, and that he would ride\noff and fetch him. He kissed his father's face, and then he kissed his\nmother and went away. My lady and I stood there at the bedside. As I\nlooked at the poor marquis it came into my head that he was not dead,\nthat he was in a kind of swoon. And then my lady repeated, 'My poor\nBread, it's death, it's death;' and I said, 'Yes, my lady, it's\ncertainly death.' I said just the opposite to what I believed; it was my\nnotion. Then my lady said we must wait for the doctor, and we sat there\nand waited. It was a long time; the poor marquis neither stirred nor\nchanged. 'I have seen death before,' said my lady, 'and it's terribly\nlike this.' 'Yes please, my lady,' said I; and I kept thinking. The\nnight wore away without the count's coming back, and my lady began to\nbe frightened. She was afraid he had had an accident in the dark, or met\nwith some wild people. At last she got so restless that she went below\nto watch in the court for her son's return. I sat there alone and the\nmarquis never stirred.\"\n\nHere Mrs. Bread paused again, and the most artistic of romancers could\nnot have been more effective. Newman made a movement as if he were\nturning over the page of a novel. \"So he WAS dead!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"Three days afterwards he was in his grave,\" said Mrs. Bread,\nsententiously. \"In a little while I went away to the front of the house\nand looked out into the court, and there, before long, I saw Mr. Urbain\nride in alone. I waited a bit, to hear him come upstairs with his\nmother, but they stayed below, and I went back to the marquis's room.\nI went to the bed and held up the light to him, but I don't know why\nI didn't let the candlestick fall. The marquis's eyes were open--open\nwide! they were staring at me. I knelt down beside him and took his\nhands, and begged him to tell me, in the name of wonder, whether he was\nalive or dead. Still he looked at me a long time, and then he made me a\nsign to put my ear close to him: 'I am dead,' he said, 'I am dead. The\nmarquise has killed me.' I was all in a tremble; I didn't understand\nhim. He seemed both a man and a corpse, if you can fancy, sir. 'But\nyou'll get well now, sir,' I said. And then he whispered again, ever\nso weak; 'I wouldn't get well for a kingdom. I wouldn't be that woman's\nhusband again.' And then he said more; he said she had murdered him.\nI asked him what she had done to him, but he only replied, 'Murder,\nmurder. And she'll kill my daughter,' he said; 'my poor unhappy child.'\nAnd he begged me to prevent that, and then he said that he was dying,\nthat he was dead. I was afraid to move or to leave him; I was almost\ndead myself. All of a sudden he asked me to get a pencil and write for\nhim; and then I had to tell him that I couldn't manage a pencil. He\nasked me to hold him up in bed while he wrote himself, and I said he\ncould never, never do such a thing. But he seemed to have a kind of\nterror that gave him strength. I found a pencil in the room and a piece\nof paper and a book, and I put the paper on the book and the pencil into\nhis hand, and moved the candle near him. You will think all this very\nstrange, sir; and very strange it was. The strangest part of it was that\nI believed he was dying, and that I was eager to help him to write. I\nsat on the bed and put my arm round him, and held him up. I felt very\nstrong; I believe I could have lifted him and carried him. It was a\nwonder how he wrote, but he did write, in a big scratching hand; he\nalmost covered one side of the paper. It seemed a long time; I suppose\nit was three or four minutes. He was groaning, terribly, all the while.\nThen he said it was ended, and I let him down upon his pillows and he\ngave me the paper and told me to fold it, and hide it, and give it to\nthose who would act upon it. 'Whom do you mean?' I said. 'Who are those\nwho will act upon it?' But he only groaned, for an answer; he couldn't\nspeak, for weakness. In a few minutes he told me to go and look at the\nbottle on the chimney-piece. I knew the bottle he meant; the white\nstuff that was good for his stomach. I went and looked at it, but it was\nempty. When I came back his eyes were open and he was staring at me; but\nsoon he closed them and he said no more. I hid the paper in my dress;\nI didn't look at what was written upon it, though I can read very well,\nsir, if I haven't any handwriting. I sat down near the bed, but it was\nnearly half an hour before my lady and the count came in. The marquis\nlooked as he did when they left him, and I never said a word about his\nhaving been otherwise. Mr. Urbain said that the doctor had been\ncalled to a person in child-birth, but that he promised to set out for\nFleurieres immediately. In another half hour he arrived, and as soon as\nhe had examined the marquis he said that we had had a false alarm. The\npoor gentleman was very low, but he was still living. I watched my lady\nand her son when he said this, to see if they looked at each other, and\nI am obliged to admit that they didn't. The doctor said there was no\nreason he should die; he had been going on so well. And then he wanted\nto know how he had suddenly fallen off; he had left him so very hearty.\nMy lady told her little story again--what she had told Mr. Urbain and\nme--and the doctor looked at her and said nothing. He stayed all the\nnext day at the chateau, and hardly left the marquis. I was always\nthere. Mademoiselle and Mr. Valentin came and looked at their father,\nbut he never stirred. It was a strange, deathly stupor. My lady was\nalways about; her face was as white as her husband's, and she looked\nvery proud, as I had seen her look when her orders or her wishes had\nbeen disobeyed. It was as if the poor marquis had defied her; and the\nway she took it made me afraid of her. The apothecary from Poitiers kept\nthe marquis along through the day, and we waited for the other doctor\nfrom Paris, who, as I told you, had been staying at Fleurieres. They had\ntelegraphed for him early in the morning, and in the evening he arrived.\nHe talked a bit outside with the doctor from Poitiers, and then they\ncame in to see the marquis together. I was with him, and so was Mr.\nUrbain. My lady had been to receive the doctor from Paris, and she\ndidn't come back with him into the room. He sat down by the marquis;\nI can see him there now, with his hand on the marquis's wrist, and Mr.\nUrbain watching him with a little looking-glass in his hand. 'I'm sure\nhe's better,' said the little doctor from Poitiers; 'I'm sure he'll come\nback.' A few moments after he had said this the marquis opened his eyes,\nas if he were waking up, and looked at us, from one to the other. I saw\nhim look at me, very softly, as you'd say. At the same moment my lady\ncame in on tiptoe; she came up to the bed and put in her head between me\nand the count. The marquis saw her and gave a long, most wonderful moan.\nHe said something we couldn't understand, and he seemed to have a kind\nof spasm. He shook all over and then closed his eyes, and the doctor\njumped up and took hold of my lady. He held her for a moment a bit\nroughly. The marquis was stone dead! This time there were those there\nthat knew.\"\n\nNewman felt as if he had been reading by starlight the report of highly\nimportant evidence in a great murder case. \"And the paper--the paper!\"\nhe said, excitedly. \"What was written upon it?\"\n\n\"I can't tell you, sir,\" answered Mrs. Bread. \"I couldn't read it; it\nwas in French.\"\n\n\"But could no one else read it?\"\n\n\"I never asked a human creature.\"\n\n\"No one has ever seen it?\"\n\n\"If you see it you'll be the first.\"\n\nNewman seized the old woman's hand in both his own and pressed it\nvigorously. \"I thank you ever so much for that,\" he cried. \"I want to\nbe the first, I want it to be my property and no one else's! You're the\nwisest old woman in Europe. And what did you do with the paper?\" This\ninformation had made him feel extraordinarily strong. \"Give it to me\nquick!\"\n\nMrs. Bread got up with a certain majesty. \"It is not so easy as that,\nsir. If you want the paper, you must wait.\"\n\n\"But waiting is horrible, you know,\" urged Newman.\n\n\"I am sure I have waited; I have waited these many years,\" said Mrs.\nBread.\n\n\"That is very true. You have waited for me. I won't forget it. And yet,\nhow comes it you didn't do as M. de Bellegarde said, show the paper to\nsome one?\"\n\n\"To whom should I show it?\" answered Mrs. Bread, mournfully. \"It was not\neasy to know, and many's the night I have lain awake thinking of it.\nSix months afterwards, when they married Mademoiselle to her vicious old\nhusband, I was very near bringing it out. I thought it was my duty to do\nsomething with it, and yet I was mightily afraid. I didn't know what\nwas written on the paper or how bad it might be, and there was no one\nI could trust enough to ask. And it seemed to me a cruel kindness to do\nthat sweet young creature, letting her know that her father had written\nher mother down so shamefully; for that's what he did, I suppose. I\nthought she would rather be unhappy with her husband than be unhappy\nthat way. It was for her and for my dear Mr. Valentin I kept quiet.\nQuiet I call it, but for me it was a weary quietness. It worried me\nterribly, and it changed me altogether. But for others I held my tongue,\nand no one, to this hour, knows what passed between the poor marquis and\nme.\"\n\n\"But evidently there were suspicions,\" said Newman. \"Where did Mr.\nValentin get his ideas?\"\n\n\"It was the little doctor from Poitiers. He was very ill-satisfied, and\nhe made a great talk. He was a sharp Frenchman, and coming to the house,\nas he did day after day, I suppose he saw more than he seemed to see.\nAnd indeed the way the poor marquis went off as soon as his eyes fell on\nmy lady was a most shocking sight for anyone. The medical gentleman from\nParis was much more accommodating, and he hushed up the other. But for\nall he could do Mr. Valentin and Mademoiselle heard something; they knew\ntheir father's death was somehow against nature. Of course they couldn't\naccuse their mother, and, as I tell you, I was as dumb as that stone.\nMr. Valentin used to look at me sometimes, and his eyes seemed to shine,\nas if he were thinking of asking me something. I was dreadfully afraid\nhe would speak, and I always looked away and went about my business. If\nI were to tell him, I was sure he would hate me afterwards, and that I\ncould never have borne. Once I went up to him and took a great liberty;\nI kissed him, as I had kissed him when he was a child. 'You oughtn't to\nlook so sad, sir,' I said; 'believe your poor old Bread. Such a gallant,\nhandsome young man can have nothing to be sad about.' And I think he\nunderstood me; he understood that I was begging off, and he made up\nhis mind in his own way. He went about with his unasked question in\nhis mind, as I did with my untold tale; we were both afraid of bringing\ndishonor on a great house. And it was the same with Mademoiselle. She\ndidn't know what happened; she wouldn't know. My lady and Mr. Urbain\nasked me no questions because they had no reason. I was as still as\na mouse. When I was younger my lady thought me a hussy, and now she\nthought me a fool. How should I have any ideas?\"\n\n\"But you say the little doctor from Poitiers made a talk,\" said Newman.\n\"Did no one take it up?\"\n\n\"I heard nothing of it, sir. They are always talking scandal in these\nforeign countries you may have noticed--and I suppose they shook their\nheads over Madame de Bellegarde. But after all, what could they say? The\nmarquis had been ill, and the marquis had died; he had as good a right\nto die as any one. The doctor couldn't say he had not come honestly by\nhis cramps. The next year the little doctor left the place and bought a\npractice in Bordeaux, and if there has been any gossip it died out. And\nI don't think there could have been much gossip about my lady that any\none would listen to. My lady is so very respectable.\"\n\nNewman, at this last affirmation, broke into an immense, resounding\nlaugh. Mrs. Bread had begun to move away from the spot where they were\nsitting, and he helped her through the aperture in the wall and\nalong the homeward path. \"Yes,\" he said, \"my lady's respectability is\ndelicious; it will be a great crash!\" They reached the empty space in\nfront of the church, where they stopped a moment, looking at each\nother with something of an air of closer fellowship--like two sociable\nconspirators. \"But what was it,\" said Newman, \"what was it she did to\nher husband? She didn't stab him or poison him.\"\n\n\"I don't know, sir; no one saw it.\"\n\n\"Unless it was Mr. Urbain. You say he was walking up and down, outside\nthe room. Perhaps he looked through the keyhole. But no; I think that\nwith his mother he would take it on trust.\"\n\n\"You may be sure I have often thought of it,\" said Mrs. Bread. \"I\nam sure she didn't touch him with her hands. I saw nothing on him,\nanywhere. I believe it was in this way. He had a fit of his great pain,\nand he asked her for his medicine. Instead of giving it to him she went\nand poured it away, before his eyes. Then he saw what she meant, and,\nweak and helpless as he was, he was frightened, he was terrified. 'You\nwant to kill me,' he said. 'Yes, M. le Marquis, I want to kill you,'\nsays my lady, and sits down and fixes her eyes upon him. You know my\nlady's eyes, I think, sir; it was with them she killed him; it was\nwith the terrible strong will she put into them. It was like a frost on\nflowers.\"\n\n\"Well, you are a very intelligent woman; you have shown great\ndiscretion,\" said Newman. \"I shall value your services as housekeeper\nextremely.\"\n\nThey had begun to descend the hill, and Mrs. Bread said nothing until\nthey reached the foot. Newman strolled lightly beside her; his head was\nthrown back and he was gazing at all the stars; he seemed to himself to\nbe riding his vengeance along the Milky Way. \"So you are serious, sir,\nabout that?\" said Mrs. Bread, softly.\n\n\"About your living with me? Why of course I will take care of you to the\nend of your days. You can't live with those people any longer. And you\noughtn't to, you know, after this. You give me the paper, and you move\naway.\"\n\n\"It seems very flighty in me to be taking a new place at this time of\nlife,\" observed Mrs. Bread, lugubriously. \"But if you are going to turn\nthe house upside down, I would rather be out of it.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Newman, in the cheerful tone of a man who feels rich in\nalternatives. \"I don't think I shall bring in the constables, if that's\nwhat you mean. Whatever Madame de Bellegarde did, I am afraid the law\ncan't take hold of it. But I am glad of that; it leaves it altogether to\nme!\"\n\n\"You are a mighty bold gentleman, sir,\" murmured Mrs. Bread, looking at\nhim round the edge of her great bonnet.\n\nHe walked with her back to the chateau; the curfew had tolled for the\nlaborious villagers of Fleurieres, and the street was unlighted and\nempty. She promised him that he should have the marquis's manuscript in\nhalf an hour. Mrs. Bread choosing not to go in by the great gate, they\npassed round by a winding lane to a door in the wall of the park, of\nwhich she had the key, and which would enable her to enter the chateau\nfrom behind. Newman arranged with her that he should await outside the\nwall her return with the coveted document.\n\nShe went in, and his half hour in the dusky lane seemed very long. But\nhe had plenty to think about. At last the door in the wall opened and\nMrs. Bread stood there, with one hand on the latch and the other holding\nout a scrap of white paper, folded small. In a moment he was master of\nit, and it had passed into his waistcoat pocket. \"Come and see me in\nParis,\" he said; \"we are to settle your future, you know; and I will\ntranslate poor M. de Bellegarde's French to you.\" Never had he felt so\ngrateful as at this moment for M. Nioche's instructions.\n\nMrs. Bread's dull eyes had followed the disappearance of the paper, and\nshe gave a heavy sigh. \"Well, you have done what you would with me, sir,\nand I suppose you will do it again. You MUST take care of me now. You\nare a terribly positive gentleman.\"\n\n\"Just now,\" said Newman, \"I'm a terribly impatient gentleman!\" And he\nbade her good-night and walked rapidly back to the inn. He ordered his\nvehicle to be prepared for his return to Poitiers, and then he shut\nthe door of the common salle and strode toward the solitary lamp on the\nchimney-piece. He pulled out the paper and quickly unfolded it. It was\ncovered with pencil-marks, which at first, in the feeble light, seemed\nindistinct. But Newman's fierce curiosity forced a meaning from the\ntremulous signs. The English of them was as follows:--\n\n\n\"My wife has tried to kill me, and she has done it; I am dying, dying\nhorribly. It is to marry my dear daughter to M. de Cintre. With all my\nsoul I protest,--I forbid it. I am not insane,--ask the doctors, ask\nMrs. B----. It was alone with me here, to-night; she attacked me and put\nme to death. It is murder, if murder ever was. Ask the doctors.\n\n\"HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\n\nNewman returned to Paris the second day after his interview with Mrs.\nBread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again\nthe little document which he had lodged in his pocket-book, and thinking\nwhat he would do in the circumstances and how he would do it. He would\nnot have said that Poitiers was an amusing place; yet the day seemed\nvery short. Domiciled once more in the Boulevard Haussmann, he walked\nover to the Rue de l'Universite and inquired of Madame de Bellegarde's\nportress whether the marquise had come back. The portress told him that\nshe had arrived, with M. le Marquis, on the preceding day, and further\ninformed him that if he desired to enter, Madame de Bellegarde and her\nson were both at home. As she said these words the little white-faced\nold woman who peered out of the dusky gate-house of the Hotel de\nBellegarde gave a small wicked smile--a smile which seemed to Newman\nto mean, \"Go in if you dare!\" She was evidently versed in the current\ndomestic history; she was placed where she could feel the pulse of the\nhouse. Newman stood a moment, twisting his mustache and looking at her;\nthen he abruptly turned away. But this was not because he was afraid\nto go in--though he doubted whether, if he did so, he should be able\nto make his way, unchallenged, into the presence of Madame de Cintre's\nrelatives. Confidence--excessive confidence, perhaps--quite as much as\ntimidity prompted his retreat. He was nursing his thunder-bolt; he loved\nit; he was unwilling to part with it. He seemed to be holding it aloft\nin the rumbling, vaguely-flashing air, directly over the heads of his\nvictims, and he fancied he could see their pale, upturned faces. Few\nspecimens of the human countenance had ever given him such pleasure\nas these, lighted in the lurid fashion I have hinted at, and he was\ndisposed to sip the cup of contemplative revenge in a leisurely fashion.\nIt must be added, too, that he was at a loss to see exactly how he could\narrange to witness the operation of his thunder. To send in his card to\nMadame de Bellegarde would be a waste of ceremony; she would certainly\ndecline to receive him. On the other hand he could not force his way\ninto her presence. It annoyed him keenly to think that he might be\nreduced to the blind satisfaction of writing her a letter; but he\nconsoled himself in a measure with the reflection that a letter might\nlead to an interview. He went home, and feeling rather tired--nursing a\nvengeance was, it must be confessed, a rather fatiguing process; it\ntook a good deal out of one--flung himself into one of his brocaded\nfauteuils, stretched his legs, thrust his hands into his pockets, and,\nwhile he watched the reflected sunset fading from the ornate house-tops\non the opposite side of the Boulevard, began mentally to compose a cool\nepistle to Madame de Bellegarde. While he was so occupied his servant\nthrew open the door and announced ceremoniously, \"Madame Brett!\"\n\nNewman roused himself, expectantly, and in a few moments perceived upon\nhis threshold the worthy woman with whom he had conversed to such good\npurpose on the starlit hill-top of Fleurieres. Mrs. Bread had made for\nthis visit the same toilet as for her former expedition. Newman was\nstruck with her distinguished appearance. His lamp was not lit, and as\nher large, grave face gazed at him through the light dusk from under\nthe shadow of her ample bonnet, he felt the incongruity of such a person\npresenting herself as a servant. He greeted her with high geniality and\nbade her come in and sit down and make herself comfortable. There was\nsomething which might have touched the springs both of mirth and of\nmelancholy in the ancient maidenliness with which Mrs. Bread endeavored\nto comply with these directions. She was not playing at being fluttered,\nwhich would have been simply ridiculous; she was doing her best to carry\nherself as a person so humble that, for her, even embarrassment would\nhave been pretentious; but evidently she had never dreamed of its being\nin her horoscope to pay a visit, at night-fall, to a friendly single\ngentleman who lived in theatrical-looking rooms on one of the new\nBoulevards.\n\n\"I truly hope I am not forgetting my place, sir,\" she murmured.\n\n\"Forgetting your place?\" cried Newman. \"Why, you are remembering it.\nThis is your place, you know. You are already in my service; your wages,\nas housekeeper, began a fortnight ago. I can tell you my house wants\nkeeping! Why don't you take off your bonnet and stay?\"\n\n\"Take off my bonnet?\" said Mrs. Bread, with timid literalness. \"Oh, sir,\nI haven't my cap. And with your leave, sir, I couldn't keep house in my\nbest gown.\"\n\n\"Never mind your gown,\" said Newman, cheerfully. \"You shall have a\nbetter gown than that.\"\n\nMrs. Bread stared solemnly and then stretched her hands over her\nlustreless satin skirt, as if the perilous side of her situation were\ndefining itself. \"Oh, sir, I am fond of my own clothes,\" she murmured.\n\n\"I hope you have left those wicked people, at any rate,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Well, sir, here I am!\" said Mrs. Bread. \"That's all I can tell you.\nHere I sit, poor Catherine Bread. It's a strange place for me to be. I\ndon't know myself; I never supposed I was so bold. But indeed, sir, I\nhave gone as far as my own strength will bear me.\"\n\n\"Oh, come, Mrs. Bread,\" said Newman, almost caressingly, \"don't make\nyourself uncomfortable. Now's the time to feel lively, you know.\"\n\nShe began to speak again with a trembling voice. \"I think it would be\nmore respectable if I could--if I could\"--and her voice trembled to a\npause.\n\n\"If you could give up this sort of thing altogether?\" said Newman\nkindly, trying to anticipate her meaning, which he supposed might be a\nwish to retire from service.\n\n\"If I could give up everything, sir! All I should ask is a decent\nProtestant burial.\"\n\n\"Burial!\" cried Newman, with a burst of laughter. \"Why, to bury you now\nwould be a sad piece of extravagance. It's only rascals who have to be\nburied to get respectable. Honest folks like you and me can live our\ntime out--and live together. Come! Did you bring your baggage?\"\n\n\"My box is locked and corded; but I haven't yet spoken to my lady.\"\n\n\"Speak to her, then, and have done with it. I should like to have your\nchance!\" cried Newman.\n\n\"I would gladly give it you, sir. I have passed some weary hours in my\nlady's dressing-room; but this will be one of the longest. She will tax\nme with ingratitude.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Newman, \"so long as you can tax her with murder--\"\n\n\"Oh, sir, I can't; not I,\" sighed Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"You don't mean to say anything about it? So much the better. Leave that\nto me.\"\n\n\"If she calls me a thankless old woman,\" said Mrs. Bread, \"I shall have\nnothing to say. But it is better so,\" she softly added. \"She shall be my\nlady to the last. That will be more respectable.\"\n\n\"And then you will come to me and I shall be your gentleman,\" said\nNewman; \"that will be more respectable still!\"\n\nMrs. Bread rose, with lowered eyes, and stood a moment; then, looking\nup, she rested her eyes upon Newman's face. The disordered proprieties\nwere somehow settling to rest. She looked at Newman so long and so\nfixedly, with such a dull, intense devotedness, that he himself might\nhave had a pretext for embarrassment. At last she said gently, \"You are\nnot looking well, sir.\"\n\n\"That's natural enough,\" said Newman. \"I have nothing to feel well\nabout. To be very indifferent and very fierce, very dull and very\njovial, very sick and very lively, all at once,--why, it rather mixes\none up.\"\n\nMrs. Bread gave a noiseless sigh. \"I can tell you something that will\nmake you feel duller still, if you want to feel all one way. About\nMadame de Cintre.\"\n\n\"What can you tell me?\" Newman demanded. \"Not that you have seen her?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"No, indeed, sir, nor ever shall. That's the\ndullness of it. Nor my lady. Nor M. de Bellegarde.\"\n\n\"You mean that she is kept so close.\"\n\n\"Close, close,\" said Mrs. Bread, very softly.\n\nThese words, for an instant, seemed to check the beating of Newman's\nheart. He leaned back in his chair, staring up at the old woman. \"They\nhave tried to see her, and she wouldn't--she couldn't?\"\n\n\"She refused--forever! I had it from my lady's own maid,\" said Mrs.\nBread, \"who had it from my lady. To speak of it to such a person my lady\nmust have felt the shock. Madame de Cintre won't see them now, and now\nis her only chance. A while hence she will have no chance.\"\n\n\"You mean the other women--the mothers, the daughters, the sisters; what\nis it they call them?--won't let her?\"\n\n\"It is what they call the rule of the house,--or of the order, I\nbelieve,\" said Mrs. Bread. \"There is no rule so strict as that of the\nCarmelites. The bad women in the reformatories are fine ladies to them.\nThey wear old brown cloaks--so the femme de chambre told me--that you\nwouldn't use for a horse blanket. And the poor countess was so fond of\nsoft-feeling dresses; she would never have anything stiff! They sleep on\nthe ground,\" Mrs. Bread went on; \"they are no better, no better,\"--and\nshe hesitated for a comparison,--\"they are no better than tinkers'\nwives. They give up everything, down to the very name their poor old\nnurses called them by. They give up father and mother, brother and\nsister,--to say nothing of other persons,\" Mrs. Bread delicately added.\n\"They wear a shroud under their brown cloaks and a rope round their\nwaists, and they get up on winter nights and go off into cold places to\npray to the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary is a hard mistress!\"\n\nMrs. Bread, dwelling on these terrible facts, sat dry-eyed and pale,\nwith her hands clasped in her satin lap. Newman gave a melancholy\ngroan and fell forward, leaning his head on his hands. There was a long\nsilence, broken only by the ticking of the great gilded clock on the\nchimney-piece.\n\n\"Where is this place--where is the convent?\" Newman asked at last,\nlooking up.\n\n\"There are two houses,\" said Mrs. Bread. \"I found out; I thought you\nwould like to know--though it's poor comfort, I think. One is in the\nAvenue de Messine; they have learned that Madame de Cintre is there. The\nother is in the Rue d'Enfer. That's a terrible name; I suppose you know\nwhat it means.\"\n\nNewman got up and walked away to the end of his long room. When he came\nback Mrs. Bread had got up, and stood by the fire with folded hands.\n\"Tell me this,\" he said. \"Can I get near her--even if I don't see her?\nCan I look through a grating, or some such thing, at the place where she\nis?\"\n\nIt is said that all women love a lover, and Mrs. Bread's sense of the\npre-established harmony which kept servants in their \"place,\" even\nas planets in their orbits (not that Mrs. Bread had ever consciously\nlikened herself to a planet), barely availed to temper the maternal\nmelancholy with which she leaned her head on one side and gazed at\nher new employer. She probably felt for the moment as if, forty years\nbefore, she had held him also in her arms. \"That wouldn't help you, sir.\nIt would only make her seem farther away.\"\n\n\"I want to go there, at all events,\" said Newman. \"Avenue de Messine,\nyou say? And what is it they call themselves?\"\n\n\"Carmelites,\" said Mrs. Bread.\n\n\"I shall remember that.\"\n\nMrs. Bread hesitated a moment, and then, \"It's my duty to tell you\nthis, sir,\" she went on. \"The convent has a chapel, and some people are\nadmitted on Sunday to the Mass. You don't see the poor creatures that\nare shut up there, but I am told you can hear them sing. It's a wonder\nthey have any heart for singing! Some Sunday I shall make bold to go. It\nseems to me I should know her voice in fifty.\"\n\nNewman looked at his visitor very gratefully; then he held out his hand\nand shook hers. \"Thank you,\" he said. \"If any one can get in, I will.\"\nA moment later Mrs. Bread proposed, deferentially, to retire, but he\nchecked her and put a lighted candle into her hand. \"There are half a\ndozen rooms there I don't use,\" he said, pointing through an open door.\n\"Go and look at them and take your choice. You can live in the one\nyou like best.\" From this bewildering opportunity Mrs. Bread at first\nrecoiled; but finally, yielding to Newman's gentle, reassuring push, she\nwandered off into the dusk with her tremulous taper. She remained absent\na quarter of an hour, during which Newman paced up and down, stopped\noccasionally to look out of the window at the lights on the Boulevard,\nand then resumed his walk. Mrs. Bread's relish for her investigation\napparently increased as she proceeded; but at last she reappeared and\ndeposited her candlestick on the chimney-piece.\n\n\"Well, have you picked one out?\" asked Newman.\n\n\"A room, sir? They are all too fine for a dingy old body like me. There\nisn't one that hasn't a bit of gilding.\"\n\n\"It's only tinsel, Mrs. Bread,\" said Newman. \"If you stay there a while\nit will all peel off of itself.\" And he gave a dismal smile.\n\n\"Oh, sir, there are things enough peeling off already!\" rejoined Mrs.\nBread, with a head-shake. \"Since I was there I thought I would look\nabout me. I don't believe you know, sir. The corners are most dreadful.\nYou do want a housekeeper, that you do; you want a tidy Englishwoman\nthat isn't above taking hold of a broom.\"\n\nNewman assured her that he suspected, if he had not measured, his\ndomestic abuses, and that to reform them was a mission worthy of her\npowers. She held her candlestick aloft again and looked around the salon\nwith compassionate glances; then she intimated that she accepted the\nmission, and that its sacred character would sustain her in her rupture\nwith Madame de Bellegarde. With this she curtsied herself away.\n\nShe came back the next day with her worldly goods, and Newman, going\ninto his drawing-room, found her upon her aged knees before a divan,\nsewing up some detached fringe. He questioned her as to her leave-taking\nwith her late mistress, and she said it had proved easier than she\nfeared. \"I was perfectly civil, sir, but the Lord helped me to remember\nthat a good woman has no call to tremble before a bad one.\"\n\n\"I should think so!\" cried Newman. \"And does she know you have come to\nme?\"\n\n\"She asked me where I was going, and I mentioned your name,\" said Mrs.\nBread.\n\n\"What did she say to that?\"\n\n\"She looked at me very hard, and she turned very red. Then she bade me\nleave her. I was all ready to go, and I had got the coachman, who is an\nEnglishman, to bring down my poor box and to fetch me a cab. But when I\nwent down myself to the gate I found it closed. My lady had sent orders\nto the porter not to let me pass, and by the same orders the porter's\nwife--she is a dreadful sly old body--had gone out in a cab to fetch\nhome M. de Bellegarde from his club.\"\n\nNewman slapped his knee. \"She IS scared! she IS scared!\" he cried,\nexultantly.\n\n\"I was frightened too, sir,\" said Mrs. Bread, \"but I was also mightily\nvexed. I took it very high with the porter and asked him by what right\nhe used violence to an honorable Englishwoman who had lived in the house\nfor thirty years before he was heard of. Oh, sir, I was very grand, and\nI brought the man down. He drew his bolts and let me out, and I promised\nthe cabman something handsome if he would drive fast. But he was\nterribly slow; it seemed as if we should never reach your blessed door.\nI am all of a tremble still; it took me five minutes, just now, to\nthread my needle.\"\n\nNewman told her, with a gleeful laugh, that if she chose she might\nhave a little maid on purpose to thread her needles; and he went away\nmurmuring to himself again that the old woman WAS scared--she WAS\nscared!\n\nHe had not shown Mrs. Tristram the little paper that he carried in\nhis pocket-book, but since his return to Paris he had seen her several\ntimes, and she had told him that he seemed to her to be in a strange\nway--an even stranger way than his sad situation made natural. Had his\ndisappointment gone to his head? He looked like a man who was going to\nbe ill, and yet she had never seen him more restless and active. One day\nhe would sit hanging his head and looking as if he were firmly resolved\nnever to smile again; another he would indulge in laughter that was\nalmost unseemly and make jokes that were bad even for him. If he was\ntrying to carry off his sorrow, he at such times really went too far.\nShe begged him of all things not to be \"strange.\" Feeling in a measure\nresponsible as she did for the affair which had turned out so ill\nfor him, she could endure anything but his strangeness. He might be\nmelancholy if he would, or he might be stoical; he might be cross and\ncantankerous with her and ask her why she had ever dared to meddle\nwith his destiny: to this she would submit; for this she would make\nallowances. Only, for Heaven's sake, let him not be incoherent. That\nwould be extremely unpleasant. It was like people talking in their\nsleep; they always frightened her. And Mrs. Tristram intimated that,\ntaking very high ground as regards the moral obligation which events\nhad laid upon her, she proposed not to rest quiet until she should have\nconfronted him with the least inadequate substitute for Madame de Cintre\nthat the two hemispheres contained.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Newman, \"we are even now, and we had better not open a new\naccount! You may bury me some day, but you shall never marry me. It's\ntoo rough. I hope, at any rate,\" he added, \"that there is nothing\nincoherent in this--that I want to go next Sunday to the Carmelite\nchapel in the Avenue de Messine. You know one of the Catholic\nministers--an abbe, is that it?--I have seen him here, you know; that\nmotherly old gentleman with the big waist-band. Please ask him if I need\na special leave to go in, and if I do, beg him to obtain it for me.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram gave expression to the liveliest joy. \"I am so glad you\nhave asked me to do something!\" she cried. \"You shall get into the\nchapel if the abbe is disfrocked for his share in it.\" And two days\nafterwards she told him that it was all arranged; the abbe was enchanted\nto serve him, and if he would present himself civilly at the convent\ngate there would be no difficulty.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\n\nSunday was as yet two days off; but meanwhile, to beguile his\nimpatience, Newman took his way to the Avenue de Messine and got\nwhat comfort he could in staring at the blank outer wall of Madame de\nCintre's present residence. The street in question, as some travelers\nwill remember, adjoins the Parc Monceau, which is one of the prettiest\ncorners of Paris. The quarter has an air of modern opulence and\nconvenience which seems at variance with the ascetic institution,\nand the impression made upon Newman's gloomily-irritated gaze by the\nfresh-looking, windowless expanse behind which the woman he loved was\nperhaps even then pledging herself to pass the rest of her days was less\nexasperating than he had feared. The place suggested a convent with the\nmodern improvements--an asylum in which privacy, though unbroken,\nmight be not quite identical with privation, and meditation, though\nmonotonous, might be of a cheerful cast. And yet he knew the case was\notherwise; only at present it was not a reality to him. It was too\nstrange and too mocking to be real; it was like a page torn out of a\nromance, with no context in his own experience.\n\nOn Sunday morning, at the hour which Mrs. Tristram had indicated, he\nrang at the gate in the blank wall. It instantly opened and admitted\nhim into a clean, cold-looking court, from beyond which a dull, plain\nedifice looked down upon him. A robust lay sister with a cheerful\ncomplexion emerged from a porter's lodge, and, on his stating his\nerrand, pointed to the open door of the chapel, an edifice which\noccupied the right side of the court and was preceded by the high flight\nof steps. Newman ascended the steps and immediately entered the open\ndoor. Service had not yet begun; the place was dimly lighted, and it was\nsome moments before he could distinguish its features. Then he saw it\nwas divided by a large close iron screen into two unequal portions.\nThe altar was on the hither side of the screen, and between it and the\nentrance were disposed several benches and chairs. Three or four of\nthese were occupied by vague, motionless figures--figures that he\npresently perceived to be women, deeply absorbed in their devotion. The\nplace seemed to Newman very cold; the smell of the incense itself was\ncold. Besides this there was a twinkle of tapers and here and there a\nglow of colored glass. Newman seated himself; the praying women kept\nstill, with their backs turned. He saw they were visitors like himself\nand he would have liked to see their faces; for he believed that they\nwere the mourning mothers and sisters of other women who had had the\nsame pitiless courage as Madame de Cintre. But they were better off\nthan he, for they at least shared the faith to which the others had\nsacrificed themselves. Three or four persons came in; two of them were\nelderly gentlemen. Every one was very quiet. Newman fastened his\neyes upon the screen behind the altar. That was the convent, the real\nconvent, the place where she was. But he could see nothing; no light\ncame through the crevices. He got up and approached the partition very\ngently, trying to look through. But behind it there was darkness, with\nnothing stirring. He went back to his place, and after that a priest\nand two altar boys came in and began to say mass. Newman watched their\ngenuflections and gyrations with a grim, still enmity; they seemed aids\nand abettors of Madame de Cintre's desertion; they were mouthing and\ndroning out their triumph. The priest's long, dismal intonings acted\nupon his nerves and deepened his wrath; there was something defiant in\nhis unintelligible drawl; it seemed meant for Newman himself. Suddenly\nthere arose from the depths of the chapel, from behind the inexorable\ngrating, a sound which drew his attention from the altar--the sound of\na strange, lugubrious chant, uttered by women's voices. It began softly,\nbut it presently grew louder, and as it increased it became more of a\nwail and a dirge. It was the chant of the Carmelite nuns, their only\nhuman utterance. It was their dirge over their buried affections\nand over the vanity of earthly desires. At first Newman was\nbewildered--almost stunned--by the strangeness of the sound; then, as\nhe comprehended its meaning, he listened intently and his heart began to\nthrob. He listened for Madame de Cintre's voice, and in the very heart\nof the tuneless harmony he imagined he made it out. (We are obliged to\nbelieve that he was wrong, inasmuch as she had obviously not yet had\ntime to become a member of the invisible sisterhood.) The chant kept\non, mechanical and monotonous, with dismal repetitions and despairing\ncadences. It was hideous, it was horrible; as it continued, Newman felt\nthat he needed all his self-control. He was growing more agitated; he\nfelt tears in his eyes. At last, as in its full force the thought came\nover him that this confused, impersonal wail was all that either he or\nthe world she had deserted should ever hear of the voice he had found\nso sweet, he felt that he could bear it no longer. He rose abruptly\nand made his way out. On the threshold he paused, listened again to the\ndreary strain, and then hastily descended into the court. As he did\nso he saw the good sister with the high-colored cheeks and the fanlike\nfrill to her coiffure, who had admitted him, was in conference at the\ngate with two persons who had just come in. A second glance informed him\nthat these persons were Madame de Bellegarde and her son, and that they\nwere about to avail themselves of that method of approach to Madame\nde Cintre which Newman had found but a mockery of consolation. As he\ncrossed the court M. de Bellegarde recognized him; the marquis was\ncoming to the steps, leading his mother. The old lady also gave Newman\na look, and it resembled that of her son. Both faces expressed a franker\nperturbation, something more akin to the humbleness of dismay, than\nNewman had yet seen in them. Evidently he startled the Bellegardes, and\nthey had not their grand behavior immediately in hand. Newman hurried\npast them, guided only by the desire to get out of the convent walls and\ninto the street. The gate opened itself at his approach; he strode over\nthe threshold and it closed behind him. A carriage which appeared to\nhave been standing there, was just turning away from the sidewalk.\nNewman looked at it for a moment, blankly; then he became conscious,\nthrough the dusky mist that swam before his eyes, that a lady seated in\nit was bowing to him. The vehicle had turned away before he recognized\nher; it was an ancient landau with one half the cover lowered. The\nlady's bow was very positive and accompanied with a smile; a little girl\nwas seated beside her. He raised his hat, and then the lady bade the\ncoachman stop. The carriage halted again beside the pavement, and she\nsat there and beckoned to Newman--beckoned with the demonstrative grace\nof Madame Urbain de Bellegarde. Newman hesitated a moment before\nhe obeyed her summons, during this moment he had time to curse his\nstupidity for letting the others escape him. He had been wondering how\nhe could get at them; fool that he was for not stopping them then and\nthere! What better place than beneath the very prison walls to which\nthey had consigned the promise of his joy? He had been too bewildered\nto stop them, but now he felt ready to wait for them at the gate. Madame\nUrbain, with a certain attractive petulance, beckoned to him again, and\nthis time he went over to the carriage. She leaned out and gave him her\nhand, looking at him kindly, and smiling.\n\n\"Ah, monsieur,\" she said, \"you don't include me in your wrath? I had\nnothing to do with it.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't suppose YOU could have prevented it!\" Newman answered in a\ntone which was not that of studied gallantry.\n\n\"What you say is too true for me to resent the small account it makes of\nmy influence. I forgive you, at any rate, because you look as if you had\nseen a ghost.\"\n\n\"I have!\" said Newman.\n\n\"I am glad, then, I didn't go in with Madame de Bellegarde and my\nhusband. You must have seen them, eh? Was the meeting affectionate?\nDid you hear the chanting? They say it's like the lamentations of the\ndamned. I wouldn't go in: one is certain to hear that soon enough. Poor\nClaire--in a white shroud and a big brown cloak! That's the toilette\nof the Carmelites, you know. Well, she was always fond of long, loose\nthings. But I must not speak of her to you; only I must say that I am\nvery sorry for you, that if I could have helped you I would, and that\nI think every one has been very shabby. I was afraid of it, you know; I\nfelt it in the air for a fortnight before it came. When I saw you at\nmy mother-in-law's ball, taking it all so easily, I felt as if you were\ndancing on your grave. But what could I do? I wish you all the good I\ncan think of. You will say that isn't much! Yes; they have been very\nshabby; I am not a bit afraid to say it; I assure you every one thinks\nso. We are not all like that. I am sorry I am not going to see you\nagain; you know I think you very good company. I would prove it by\nasking you to get into the carriage and drive with me for a quarter\nof an hour, while I wait for my mother-in-law. Only if we were\nseen--considering what has passed, and every one knows you have been\nturned away--it might be thought I was going a little too far, even for\nme. But I shall see you sometimes--somewhere, eh? You know\"--this was\nsaid in English--\"we have a plan for a little amusement.\"\n\nNewman stood there with his hand on the carriage-door listening to this\nconsolatory murmur with an unlighted eye. He hardly knew what Madame\nde Bellegarde was saying; he was only conscious that she was chattering\nineffectively. But suddenly it occurred to him that, with her pretty\nprofessions, there was a way of making her effective; she might help\nhim to get at the old woman and the marquis. \"They are coming back\nsoon--your companions?\" he said. \"You are waiting for them?\"\n\n\"They will hear the mass out; there is nothing to keep them longer.\nClaire has refused to see them.\"\n\n\"I want to speak to them,\" said Newman; \"and you can help me, you can do\nme a favor. Delay your return for five minutes and give me a chance at\nthem. I will wait for them here.\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde clasped her hands with a tender grimace. \"My poor\nfriend, what do you want to do to them? To beg them to come back to you?\nIt will be wasted words. They will never come back!\"\n\n\"I want to speak to them, all the same. Pray do what I ask you. Stay\naway and leave them to me for five minutes; you needn't be afraid; I\nshall not be violent; I am very quiet.\"\n\n\"Yes, you look very quiet! If they had le coeur tendre you would move\nthem. But they haven't! However, I will do better for you than what you\npropose. The understanding is not that I shall come back for them. I am\ngoing into the Parc Monceau with my little girl to give her a walk, and\nmy mother-in-law, who comes so rarely into this quarter, is to profit\nby the same opportunity to take the air. We are to wait for her in the\npark, where my husband is to bring her to us. Follow me now; just within\nthe gates I shall get out of my carriage. Sit down on a chair in some\nquiet corner and I will bring them near you. There's devotion for you!\nLe reste vous regarde.\"\n\nThis proposal seemed to Newman extremely felicitous; it revived his\ndrooping spirit, and he reflected that Madame Urbain was not such a\ngoose as she seemed. He promised immediately to overtake her, and the\ncarriage drove away.\n\nThe Parc Monceau is a very pretty piece of landscape-gardening, but\nNewman, passing into it, bestowed little attention upon its elegant\nvegetation, which was full of the freshness of spring. He found Madame\nde Bellegarde promptly, seated in one of the quiet corners of which she\nhad spoken, while before her, in the alley, her little girl, attended by\nthe footman and the lap-dog, walked up and down as if she were taking a\nlesson in deportment. Newman sat down beside the mamma, and she talked\na great deal, apparently with the design of convincing him that--if\nhe would only see it--poor dear Claire did not belong to the most\nfascinating type of woman. She was too tall and thin, too stiff and\ncold; her mouth was too wide and her nose too narrow. She had no dimples\nanywhere. And then she was eccentric, eccentric in cold blood; she was\nan Anglaise, after all. Newman was very impatient; he was counting the\nminutes until his victims should reappear. He sat silent, leaning upon\nhis cane, looking absently and insensibly at the little marquise. At\nlength Madame de Bellegarde said she would walk toward the gate of the\npark and meet her companions; but before she went she dropped her eyes,\nand, after playing a moment with the lace of her sleeve, looked up again\nat Newman.\n\n\"Do you remember,\" she asked, \"the promise you made me three weeks\nago?\" And then, as Newman, vainly consulting his memory, was obliged to\nconfess that the promise had escaped it, she declared that he had made\nher, at the time, a very queer answer--an answer at which, viewing it\nin the light of the sequel, she had fair ground for taking offense.\n\"You promised to take me to Bullier's after your marriage. After your\nmarriage--you made a great point of that. Three days after that your\nmarriage was broken off. Do you know, when I heard the news, the\nfirst thing I said to myself? 'Oh heaven, now he won't go with me to\nBullier's!' And I really began to wonder if you had not been expecting\nthe rupture.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear lady,\" murmured Newman, looking down the path to see if the\nothers were not coming.\n\n\"I shall be good-natured,\" said Madame de Bellegarde. \"One must not ask\ntoo much of a gentleman who is in love with a cloistered nun. Besides,\nI can't go to Bullier's while we are in mourning. But I haven't given it\nup for that. The partie is arranged; I have my cavalier. Lord Deepmere,\nif you please! He has gone back to his dear Dublin; but a few months\nhence I am to name any evening and he will come over from Ireland, on\npurpose. That's what I call gallantry!\"\n\nShortly after this Madame de Bellegarde walked away with her little\ngirl. Newman sat in his place; the time seemed terribly long. He felt\nhow fiercely his quarter of an hour in the convent chapel had raked\nover the glowing coals of his resentment. Madame de Bellegarde kept him\nwaiting, but she proved as good as her word. At last she reappeared at\nthe end of the path, with her little girl and her footman; beside her\nslowly walked her husband, with his mother on his arm. They were a long\ntime advancing, during which Newman sat unmoved. Tingling as he was\nwith passion, it was extremely characteristic of him that he was able\nto moderate his expression of it, as he would have turned down a flaring\ngas-burner. His native coolness, shrewdness, and deliberateness, his\nlife-long submissiveness to the sentiment that words were acts and acts\nwere steps in life, and that in this matter of taking steps\ncurveting and prancing were exclusively reserved for quadrupeds\nand foreigners--all this admonished him that rightful wrath had no\nconnection with being a fool and indulging in spectacular violence. So\nas he rose, when old Madame de Bellegarde and her son were close to\nhim, he only felt very tall and light. He had been sitting beside some\nshrubbery, in such a way as not to be noticeable at a distance; but M.\nde Bellegarde had evidently already perceived him. His mother and he\nwere holding their course, but Newman stepped in front of them, and they\nwere obliged to pause. He lifted his hat slightly, and looked at them\nfor a moment; they were pale with amazement and disgust.\n\n\"Excuse me for stopping you,\" he said in a low tone, \"but I must profit\nby the occasion. I have ten words to say to you. Will you listen to\nthem?\"\n\nThe marquis glared at him and then turned to his mother. \"Can Mr. Newman\npossibly have anything to say that is worth our listening to?\"\n\n\"I assure you I have something,\" said Newman, \"besides, it is my duty to\nsay it. It's a notification--a warning.\"\n\n\"Your duty?\" said old Madame de Bellegarde, her thin lips curving like\nscorched paper. \"That is your affair, not ours.\"\n\nMadame Urbain meanwhile had seized her little girl by the hand, with a\ngesture of surprise and impatience which struck Newman, intent as he was\nupon his own words, with its dramatic effectiveness. \"If Mr. Newman is\ngoing to make a scene in public,\" she exclaimed, \"I will take my poor\nchild out of the melee. She is too young to see such naughtiness!\" and\nshe instantly resumed her walk.\n\n\"You had much better listen to me,\" Newman went on. \"Whether you do or\nnot, things will be disagreeable for you; but at any rate you will be\nprepared.\"\n\n\"We have already heard something of your threats,\" said the marquis,\n\"and you know what we think of them.\"\n\n\"You think a good deal more than you admit. A moment,\" Newman added in\nreply to an exclamation of the old lady. \"I remember perfectly that we\nare in a public place, and you see I am very quiet. I am not going to\ntell your secret to the passers-by; I shall keep it, to begin with, for\ncertain picked listeners. Any one who observes us will think that we are\nhaving a friendly chat, and that I am complimenting you, madam, on your\nvenerable virtues.\"\n\nThe marquis gave three short sharp raps on the ground with his stick. \"I\ndemand of you to step out of our path!\" he hissed.\n\nNewman instantly complied, and M. de Bellegarde stepped forward with his\nmother. Then Newman said, \"Half an hour hence Madame de Bellegarde will\nregret that she didn't learn exactly what I mean.\"\n\nThe marquise had taken a few steps, but at these words she paused,\nlooking at Newman with eyes like two scintillating globules of ice. \"You\nare like a peddler with something to sell,\" she said, with a little cold\nlaugh which only partially concealed the tremor in her voice.\n\n\"Oh, no, not to sell,\" Newman rejoined; \"I give it to you for nothing.\"\nAnd he approached nearer to her, looking her straight in the eyes. \"You\nkilled your husband,\" he said, almost in a whisper. \"That is, you tried\nonce and failed, and then, without trying, you succeeded.\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde closed her eyes and gave a little cough, which, as\na piece of dissimulation, struck Newman as really heroic. \"Dear mother,\"\nsaid the marquis, \"does this stuff amuse you so much?\"\n\n\"The rest is more amusing,\" said Newman. \"You had better not lose it.\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde opened her eyes; the scintillations had gone out of\nthem; they were fixed and dead. But she smiled superbly with her narrow\nlittle lips, and repeated Newman's word. \"Amusing? Have I killed some\none else?\"\n\n\"I don't count your daughter,\" said Newman, \"though I might! Your\nhusband knew what you were doing. I have a proof of it whose existence\nyou have never suspected.\" And he turned to the marquis, who was\nterribly white--whiter than Newman had ever seen any one out of a\npicture. \"A paper written by the hand, and signed with the name, of\nHenri-Urbain de Bellegarde. Written after you, madame, had left him for\ndead, and while you, sir, had gone--not very fast--for the doctor.\"\n\nThe marquis looked at his mother; she turned away, looking vaguely round\nher. \"I must sit down,\" she said in a low tone, going toward the bench\non which Newman had been sitting.\n\n\"Couldn't you have spoken to me alone?\" said the marquis to Newman, with\na strange look.\n\n\"Well, yes, if I could have been sure of speaking to your mother alone,\ntoo,\" Newman answered. \"But I have had to take you as I could get you.\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde, with a movement very eloquent of what he would\nhave called her \"grit,\" her steel-cold pluck and her instinctive appeal\nto her own personal resources, drew her hand out of her son's arm and\nwent and seated herself upon the bench. There she remained, with her\nhands folded in her lap, looking straight at Newman. The expression of\nher face was such that he fancied at first that she was smiling; but he\nwent and stood in front of her and saw that her elegant features were\ndistorted by agitation. He saw, however, equally, that she was resisting\nher agitation with all the rigor of her inflexible will, and there was\nnothing like either fear or submission in her stony stare. She had been\nstartled, but she was not terrified. Newman had an exasperating feeling\nthat she would get the better of him still; he would not have believed\nit possible that he could so utterly fail to be touched by the sight of\na woman (criminal or other) in so tight a place. Madame de Bellegarde\ngave a glance at her son which seemed tantamount to an injunction to be\nsilent and leave her to her own devices. The marquis stood beside her,\nwith his hands behind him, looking at Newman.\n\n\"What paper is this you speak of?\" asked the old lady, with an imitation\nof tranquillity which would have been applauded in a veteran actress.\n\n\"Exactly what I have told you,\" said Newman. \"A paper written by your\nhusband after you had left him for dead, and during the couple of hours\nbefore you returned. You see he had the time; you shouldn't have stayed\naway so long. It declares distinctly his wife's murderous intent.\"\n\n\"I should like to see it,\" Madame de Bellegarde observed.\n\n\"I thought you might,\" said Newman, \"and I have taken a copy.\" And he\ndrew from his waistcoat pocket a small, folded sheet.\n\n\"Give it to my son,\" said Madame de Bellegarde. Newman handed it to the\nmarquis, whose mother, glancing at him, said simply, \"Look at it.\" M. de\nBellegarde's eyes had a pale eagerness which it was useless for him to\ntry to dissimulate; he took the paper in his light-gloved fingers and\nopened it. There was a silence, during which he read it. He had more\nthan time to read it, but still he said nothing; he stood staring at it.\n\"Where is the original?\" asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a voice which\nwas really a consummate negation of impatience.\n\n\"In a very safe place. Of course I can't show you that,\" said Newman.\n\"You might want to take hold of it,\" he added with conscious quaintness.\n\"But that's a very correct copy--except, of course, the handwriting. I\nam keeping the original to show some one else.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde at last looked up, and his eyes were still very eager.\n\"To whom do you mean to show it?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm thinking of beginning with the duchess,\" said Newman; \"that\nstout lady I saw at your ball. She asked me to come and see her, you\nknow. I thought at the moment I shouldn't have much to say to her; but\nmy little document will give us something to talk about.\"\n\n\"You had better keep it, my son,\" said Madame de Bellegarde.\n\n\"By all means,\" said Newman; \"keep it and show it to your mother when\nyou get home.\"\n\n\"And after showing it to the duchess?\"--asked the marquis, folding the\npaper and putting it away.\n\n\"Well, I'll take up the dukes,\" said Newman. \"Then the counts and the\nbarons--all the people you had the cruelty to introduce me to in a\ncharacter of which you meant immediately to deprive me. I have made out\na list.\"\n\nFor a moment neither Madame de Bellegarde nor her son said a word; the\nold lady sat with her eyes upon the ground; M. de Bellegarde's blanched\npupils were fixed upon her face. Then, looking at Newman, \"Is that all\nyou have to say?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, I want to say a few words more. I want to say that I hope you\nquite understand what I'm about. This is my revenge, you know. You have\ntreated me before the world--convened for the express purpose--as if I\nwere not good enough for you. I mean to show the world that, however bad\nI may be, you are not quite the people to say it.\"\n\nMadame de Bellegarde was silent again, and then she broke her silence.\nHer self-possession continued to be extraordinary. \"I needn't ask you\nwho has been your accomplice. Mrs. Bread told me that you had purchased\nher services.\"\n\n\"Don't accuse Mrs. Bread of venality,\" said Newman. \"She has kept your\nsecret all these years. She has given you a long respite. It was beneath\nher eyes your husband wrote that paper; he put it into her hands with\na solemn injunction that she was to make it public. She was too\ngood-hearted to make use of it.\"\n\nThe old lady appeared for an instant to hesitate, and then, \"She was my\nhusband's mistress,\" she said, softly. This was the only concession to\nself-defense that she condescended to make.\n\n\"I doubt that,\" said Newman.\n\nMadame de Bellegarde got up from her bench. \"It was not to your opinions\nI undertook to listen, and if you have nothing left but them to tell\nme I think this remarkable interview may terminate.\" And turning to the\nmarquis she took his arm again. \"My son,\" she said, \"say something!\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde looked down at his mother, passing his hand over his\nforehead, and then, tenderly, caressingly, \"What shall I say?\" he asked.\n\n\"There is only one thing to say,\" said the Marquise. \"That it was really\nnot worth while to have interrupted our walk.\"\n\nBut the marquis thought he could improve this. \"Your paper's a forgery,\"\nhe said to Newman.\n\nNewman shook his head a little, with a tranquil smile. \"M. de\nBellegarde,\" he said, \"your mother does better. She has done better all\nalong, from the first of my knowing you. You're a mighty plucky woman,\nmadam,\" he continued. \"It's a great pity you have made me your enemy. I\nshould have been one of your greatest admirers.\"\n\n\"Mon pauvre ami,\" said Madame de Bellegarde to her son in French, and\nas if she had not heard these words, \"you must take me immediately to my\ncarriage.\"\n\nNewman stepped back and let them leave him; he watched them a moment and\nsaw Madame Urbain, with her little girl, come out of a by-path to meet\nthem. The old lady stooped and kissed her grandchild. \"Damn it, she is\nplucky!\" said Newman, and he walked home with a slight sense of being\nbalked. She was so inexpressively defiant! But on reflection he decided\nthat what he had witnessed was no real sense of security, still less a\nreal innocence. It was only a very superior style of brazen assurance.\n\"Wait till she reads the paper!\" he said to himself; and he concluded\nthat he should hear from her soon.\n\nHe heard sooner than he expected. The next morning, before midday,\nwhen he was about to give orders for his breakfast to be served, M. de\nBellegarde's card was brought to him. \"She has read the paper and she\nhas passed a bad night,\" said Newman. He instantly admitted his visitor,\nwho came in with the air of the ambassador of a great power meeting the\ndelegate of a barbarous tribe whom an absurd accident had enabled for\nthe moment to be abominably annoying. The ambassador, at all events, had\npassed a bad night, and his faultlessly careful toilet only threw\ninto relief the frigid rancor in his eyes and the mottled tones of his\nrefined complexion. He stood before Newman a moment, breathing quickly\nand softly, and shaking his forefinger curtly as his host pointed to a\nchair.\n\n\"What I have come to say is soon said,\" he declared \"and can only be\nsaid without ceremony.\"\n\n\"I am good for as much or for as little as you desire,\" said Newman.\n\nThe marquis looked round the room a moment, and then, \"On what terms\nwill you part with your scrap of paper?\"\n\n\"On none!\" And while Newman, with his head on one side and his hands\nbehind him sounded the marquis's turbid gaze with his own, he added,\n\"Certainly, that is not worth sitting down about.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde meditated a moment, as if he had not heard Newman's\nrefusal. \"My mother and I, last evening,\" he said, \"talked over your\nstory. You will be surprised to learn that we think your little document\nis--a\"--and he held back his word a moment--\"is genuine.\"\n\n\"You forget that with you I am used to surprises!\" exclaimed Newman,\nwith a laugh.\n\n\"The very smallest amount of respect that we owe to my father's memory,\"\nthe marquis continued, \"makes us desire that he should not be held up to\nthe world as the author of so--so infernal an attack upon the reputation\nof a wife whose only fault was that she had been submissive to\naccumulated injury.\"\n\n\"Oh, I see,\" said Newman. \"It's for your father's sake.\" And he laughed\nthe laugh in which he indulged when he was most amused--a noiseless\nlaugh, with his lips closed.\n\nBut M. de Bellegarde's gravity held good. \"There are a few of my\nfather's particular friends for whom the knowledge of so--so unfortunate\nan--inspiration--would be a real grief. Even say we firmly established\nby medical evidence the presumption of a mind disordered by fever, il\nen resterait quelque chose. At the best it would look ill in him. Very\nill!\"\n\n\"Don't try medical evidence,\" said Newman. \"Don't touch the doctors and\nthey won't touch you. I don't mind your knowing that I have not written\nto them.\"\n\nNewman fancied that he saw signs in M. de Bellegarde's discolored mask\nthat this information was extremely pertinent. But it may have been\nmerely fancy; for the marquis remained majestically argumentative. \"For\ninstance, Madame d'Outreville,\" he said, \"of whom you spoke yesterday. I\ncan imagine nothing that would shock her more.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am quite prepared to shock Madame d'Outreville, you know. That's\non the cards. I expect to shock a great many people.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde examined for a moment the stitching on the back of one\nof his gloves. Then, without looking up, \"We don't offer you money,\" he\nsaid. \"That we supposed to be useless.\"\n\nNewman, turning away, took a few turns about the room and then came\nback. \"What DO you offer me? By what I can make out, the generosity is\nall to be on my side.\"\n\nThe marquis dropped his arms at his side and held his head a little\nhigher. \"What we offer you is a chance--a chance that a gentleman should\nappreciate. A chance to abstain from inflicting a terrible blot upon the\nmemory of a man who certainly had his faults, but who, personally, had\ndone you no wrong.\"\n\n\"There are two things to say to that,\" said Newman. \"The first is,\nas regards appreciating your 'chance,' that you don't consider me a\ngentleman. That's your great point you know. It's a poor rule that won't\nwork both ways. The second is that--well, in a word, you are talking\ngreat nonsense!\"\n\nNewman, who in the midst of his bitterness had, as I have said, kept\nwell before his eyes a certain ideal of saying nothing rude, was\nimmediately somewhat regretfully conscious of the sharpness of these\nwords. But he speedily observed that the marquis took them more quietly\nthan might have been expected. M. de Bellegarde, like the stately\nambassador that he was, continued the policy of ignoring what was\ndisagreeable in his adversary's replies. He gazed at the gilded\narabesques on the opposite wall, and then presently transferred his\nglance to Newman, as if he too were a large grotesque in a rather\nvulgar system of chamber-decoration. \"I suppose you know that as regards\nyourself it won't do at all.\"\n\n\"How do you mean it won't do?\"\n\n\"Why, of course you damn yourself. But I suppose that's in your\nprogramme. You propose to throw mud at us; you believe, you hope, that\nsome of it may stick. We know, of course, it can't,\" explained the\nmarquis in a tone of conscious lucidity; \"but you take the chance, and\nare willing at any rate to show that you yourself have dirty hands.\"\n\n\"That's a good comparison; at least half of it is,\" said Newman. \"I\ntake the chance of something sticking. But as regards my hands, they are\nclean. I have taken the matter up with my finger-tips.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde looked a moment into his hat. \"All our friends are\nquite with us,\" he said. \"They would have done exactly as we have done.\"\n\n\"I shall believe that when I hear them say it. Meanwhile I shall think\nbetter of human nature.\"\n\nThe marquis looked into his hat again. \"Madame de Cintre was extremely\nfond of her father. If she knew of the existence of the few written\nwords of which you propose to make this scandalous use, she would demand\nof you proudly for his sake to give it up to her, and she would destroy\nit without reading it.\"\n\n\"Very possibly,\" Newman rejoined. \"But she will not know. I was in that\nconvent yesterday and I know what SHE is doing. Lord deliver us! You can\nguess whether it made me feel forgiving!\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde appeared to have nothing more to suggest; but he\ncontinued to stand there, rigid and elegant, as a man who believed that\nhis mere personal presence had an argumentative value. Newman\nwatched him, and, without yielding an inch on the main issue, felt an\nincongruously good-natured impulse to help him to retreat in good order.\n\n\"Your visit's a failure, you see,\" he said. \"You offer too little.\"\n\n\"Propose something yourself,\" said the marquis.\n\n\"Give me back Madame de Cintre in the same state in which you took her\nfrom me.\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde threw back his head and his pale face flushed. \"Never!\"\nhe said.\n\n\"You can't!\"\n\n\"We wouldn't if we could! In the sentiment which led us to deprecate her\nmarriage nothing is changed.\"\n\n\"'Deprecate' is good!\" cried Newman. \"It was hardly worth while to come\nhere only to tell me that you are not ashamed of yourselves. I could\nhave guessed that!\"\n\nThe marquis slowly walked toward the door, and Newman, following, opened\nit for him. \"What you propose to do will be very disagreeable,\" M. de\nBellegarde said. \"That is very evident. But it will be nothing more.\"\n\n\"As I understand it,\" Newman answered, \"that will be quite enough!\"\n\nM. de Bellegarde stood for a moment looking on the ground, as if he\nwere ransacking his ingenuity to see what else he could do to save his\nfather's reputation. Then, with a little cold sigh, he seemed to signify\nthat he regretfully surrendered the late marquis to the penalty of his\nturpitude. He gave a hardly perceptible shrug, took his neat umbrella\nfrom the servant in the vestibule, and, with his gentlemanly walk,\npassed out. Newman stood listening till he heard the door close; then he\nslowly exclaimed, \"Well, I ought to begin to be satisfied now!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\n\nNewman called upon the comical duchess and found her at home. An old\ngentleman with a high nose and a gold-headed cane was just taking leave\nof her; he made Newman a protracted obeisance as he retired, and our\nhero supposed that he was one of the mysterious grandees with whom he\nhad shaken hands at Madame de Bellegarde's ball. The duchess, in her\narm-chair, from which she did not move, with a great flower-pot on one\nside of her, a pile of pink-covered novels on the other, and a large\npiece of tapestry depending from her lap, presented an expansive and\nimposing front; but her aspect was in the highest degree gracious, and\nthere was nothing in her manner to check the effusion of his confidence.\nShe talked to him about flowers and books, getting launched with\nmarvelous promptitude; about the theatres, about the peculiar\ninstitutions of his native country, about the humidity of Paris about\nthe pretty complexions of the American ladies, about his impressions\nof France and his opinion of its female inhabitants. All this was a\nbrilliant monologue on the part of the duchess, who, like many of\nher country-women, was a person of an affirmative rather than an\ninterrogative cast of mind, who made mots and put them herself into\ncirculation, and who was apt to offer you a present of a convenient\nlittle opinion, neatly enveloped in the gilt paper of a happy Gallicism.\nNewman had come to her with a grievance, but he found himself in an\natmosphere in which apparently no cognizance was taken of grievance; an\natmosphere into which the chill of discomfort had never penetrated,\nand which seemed exclusively made up of mild, sweet, stale intellectual\nperfumes. The feeling with which he had watched Madame d'Outreville at\nthe treacherous festival of the Bellegardes came back to him; she struck\nhim as a wonderful old lady in a comedy, particularly well up in her\npart. He observed before long that she asked him no questions about\ntheir common friends; she made no allusion to the circumstances under\nwhich he had been presented to her. She neither feigned ignorance of a\nchange in these circumstances nor pretended to condole with him upon it;\nbut she smiled and discoursed and compared the tender-tinted wools of\nher tapestry, as if the Bellegardes and their wickedness were not of\nthis world. \"She is fighting shy!\" said Newman to himself; and, having\nmade the observation, he was prompted to observe, farther, how the\nduchess would carry off her indifference. She did so in a masterly\nmanner. There was not a gleam of disguised consciousness in those\nsmall, clear, demonstrative eyes which constituted her nearest claim to\npersonal loveliness, there was not a symptom of apprehension that Newman\nwould trench upon the ground she proposed to avoid. \"Upon my word,\nshe does it very well,\" he tacitly commented. \"They all hold together\nbravely, and, whether any one else can trust them or not, they can\ncertainly trust each other.\"\n\nNewman, at this juncture, fell to admiring the duchess for her fine\nmanners. He felt, most accurately, that she was not a grain less urbane\nthan she would have been if his marriage were still in prospect; but\nhe felt also that she was not a particle more urbane. He had come,\nso reasoned the duchess--Heaven knew why he had come, after what had\nhappened; and for the half hour, therefore, she would be charmante. But\nshe would never see him again. Finding no ready-made opportunity to tell\nhis story, Newman pondered these things more dispassionately than might\nhave been expected; he stretched his legs, as usual, and even chuckled a\nlittle, appreciatively and noiselessly. And then as the duchess went on\nrelating a mot with which her mother had snubbed the great Napoleon, it\noccurred to Newman that her evasion of a chapter of French history\nmore interesting to himself might possibly be the result of an extreme\nconsideration for his feelings. Perhaps it was delicacy on the duchess's\npart--not policy. He was on the point of saying something himself, to\nmake the chance which he had determined to give her still better, when\nthe servant announced another visitor. The duchess, on hearing the\nname--it was that of an Italian prince--gave a little imperceptible\npout, and said to Newman, rapidly: \"I beg you to remain; I desire\nthis visit to be short.\" Newman said to himself, at this, that\nMadame d'Outreville intended, after all, that they should discuss the\nBellegardes together.\n\nThe prince was a short, stout man, with a head disproportionately large.\nHe had a dusky complexion and a bushy eyebrow, beneath which his\neye wore a fixed and somewhat defiant expression; he seemed to be\nchallenging you to insinuate that he was top-heavy. The duchess, judging\nfrom her charge to Newman, regarded him as a bore; but this was not\napparent from the unchecked flow of her conversation. She made a fresh\nseries of mots, characterized with great felicity the Italian intellect\nand the taste of the figs at Sorrento, predicted the ultimate future of\nthe Italian kingdom (disgust with the brutal Sardinian rule and complete\nreversion, throughout the peninsula, to the sacred sway of the Holy\nFather), and, finally, gave a history of the love affairs of the\nPrincess X----. This narrative provoked some rectifications on the part\nof the prince, who, as he said, pretended to know something about that\nmatter; and having satisfied himself that Newman was in no laughing\nmood, either with regard to the size of his head or anything else, he\nentered into the controversy with an animation for which the duchess,\nwhen she set him down as a bore, could not have been prepared. The\nsentimental vicissitudes of the Princess X----led to a discussion of the\nheart history of Florentine nobility in general; the duchess had spent\nfive weeks in Florence and had gathered much information on the subject.\nThis was merged, in turn, in an examination of the Italian heart per se.\nThe duchess took a brilliantly heterodox view--thought it the least\nsusceptible organ of its kind that she had ever encountered, related\nexamples of its want of susceptibility, and at last declared that for\nher the Italians were a people of ice. The prince became flame to refute\nher, and his visit really proved charming. Newman was naturally out of\nthe conversation; he sat with his head a little on one side, watching\nthe interlocutors. The duchess, as she talked, frequently looked at him\nwith a smile, as if to intimate, in the charming manner of her nation,\nthat it lay only with him to say something very much to the point. But\nhe said nothing at all, and at last his thoughts began to wander. A\nsingular feeling came over him--a sudden sense of the folly of his\nerrand. What under the sun had he to say to the duchess, after all?\nWherein would it profit him to tell her that the Bellegardes were\ntraitors and that the old lady, into the bargain was a murderess? He\nseemed morally to have turned a sort of somersault, and to find things\nlooking differently in consequence. He felt a sudden stiffening of\nhis will and quickening of his reserve. What in the world had he been\nthinking of when he fancied the duchess could help him, and that it\nwould conduce to his comfort to make her think ill of the Bellegardes?\nWhat did her opinion of the Bellegardes matter to him? It was only a\nshade more important than the opinion the Bellegardes entertained of\nher. The duchess help him--that cold, stout, soft, artificial woman help\nhim?--she who in the last twenty minutes had built up between them a\nwall of polite conversation in which she evidently flattered herself\nthat he would never find a gate. Had it come to that--that he was asking\nfavors of conceited people, and appealing for sympathy where he had\nno sympathy to give? He rested his arms on his knees, and sat for some\nminutes staring into his hat. As he did so his ears tingled--he had come\nvery near being an ass. Whether or no the duchess would hear his story,\nhe wouldn't tell it. Was he to sit there another half hour for the\nsake of exposing the Bellegardes? The Bellegardes be hanged! He got up\nabruptly, and advanced to shake hands with his hostess.\n\n\"You can't stay longer?\" she asked, very graciously.\n\n\"I am afraid not,\" he said.\n\nShe hesitated a moment, and then, \"I had an idea you had something\nparticular to say to me,\" she declared.\n\nNewman looked at her; he felt a little dizzy; for the moment he seemed\nto be turning his somersault again. The little Italian prince came to\nhis help: \"Ah, madam, who has not that?\" he softly sighed.\n\n\"Don't teach Mr. Newman to say fadaises,\" said the duchess. \"It is his\nmerit that he doesn't know how.\"\n\n\"Yes, I don't know how to say fadaises,\" said Newman, \"and I don't want\nto say anything unpleasant.\"\n\n\"I am sure you are very considerate,\" said the duchess with a smile; and\nshe gave him a little nod for good-by with which he took his departure.\n\nOnce in the street, he stood for some time on the pavement, wondering\nwhether, after all, he was not an ass not to have discharged his pistol.\nAnd then again he decided that to talk to any one whomsoever about\nthe Bellegardes would be extremely disagreeable to him. The least\ndisagreeable thing, under the circumstances, was to banish them from his\nmind, and never think of them again. Indecision had not hitherto\nbeen one of Newman's weaknesses, and in this case it was not of long\nduration. For three days after this he did not, or at least he tried not\nto, think of the Bellegardes. He dined with Mrs. Tristram, and on her\nmentioning their name, he begged her almost severely to desist. This\ngave Tom Tristram a much-coveted opportunity to offer his condolences.\n\nHe leaned forward, laying his hand on Newman's arm compressing his lips\nand shaking his head. \"The fact is my dear fellow, you see, that you\nought never to have gone into it. It was not your doing, I know--it was\nall my wife. If you want to come down on her, I'll stand off; I give you\nleave to hit her as hard as you like. You know she has never had a word\nof reproach from me in her life, and I think she is in need of something\nof the kind. Why didn't you listen to ME? You know I didn't believe in\nthe thing. I thought it at the best an amiable delusion. I don't profess\nto be a Don Juan or a gay Lothario,--that class of man, you know; but I\ndo pretend to know something about the harder sex. I have never disliked\na woman in my life that she has not turned out badly. I was not at all\ndeceived in Lizzie, for instance; I always had my doubts about her.\nWhatever you may think of my present situation, I must at least admit\nthat I got into it with my eyes open. Now suppose you had got into\nsomething like this box with Madame de Cintre. You may depend upon it\nshe would have turned out a stiff one. And upon my word I don't see\nwhere you could have found your comfort. Not from the marquis, my dear\nNewman; he wasn't a man you could go and talk things over with in a\nsociable, common-sense way. Did he ever seem to want to have you on the\npremises--did he ever try to see you alone? Did he ever ask you to come\nand smoke a cigar with him of an evening, or step in, when you had been\ncalling on the ladies, and take something? I don't think you would have\ngot much encouragement out of HIM. And as for the old lady, she struck\none as an uncommonly strong dose. They have a great expression here, you\nknow; they call it 'sympathetic.' Everything is sympathetic--or ought\nto be. Now Madame de Bellegarde is about as sympathetic as that\nmustard-pot. They're a d--d cold-blooded lot, any way; I felt it awfully\nat that ball of theirs. I felt as if I were walking up and down in the\nArmory, in the Tower of London! My dear boy, don't think me a vulgar\nbrute for hinting at it, but you may depend upon it, all they wanted\nwas your money. I know something about that; I can tell when people\nwant one's money! Why they stopped wanting yours I don't know; I suppose\nbecause they could get some one else's without working so hard for it.\nIt isn't worth finding out. It may be that it was not Madame de Cintre\nthat backed out first, very likely the old woman put her up to it. I\nsuspect she and her mother are really as thick as thieves, eh? You are\nwell out of it, my boy; make up your mind to that. If I express myself\nstrongly it is all because I love you so much; and from that point of\nview I may say I should as soon have thought of making up to that piece\nof pale high-mightiness as I should have thought of making up to the\nObelisk in the Place des la Concorde.\"\n\nNewman sat gazing at Tristram during this harangue with a lack-lustre\neye; never yet had he seemed to himself to have outgrown so completely\nthe phase of equal comradeship with Tom Tristram. Mrs. Tristram's glance\nat her husband had more of a spark; she turned to Newman with a slightly\nlurid smile. \"You must at least do justice,\" she said, \"to the felicity\nwith which Mr. Tristram repairs the indiscretions of a too zealous\nwife.\"\n\nBut even without the aid of Tom Tristram's conversational felicities,\nNewman would have begun to think of the Bellegardes again. He could\ncease to think of them only when he ceased to think of his loss and\nprivation, and the days had as yet but scantily lightened the weight\nof this incommodity. In vain Mrs. Tristram begged him to cheer up; she\nassured him that the sight of his countenance made her miserable.\n\n\"How can I help it?\" he demanded with a trembling voice. \"I feel like\na widower--and a widower who has not even the consolation of going to\nstand beside the grave of his wife--who has not the right to wear so\nmuch mourning as a weed on his hat. I feel,\" he added in a moment \"as if\nmy wife had been murdered and her assassins were still at large.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram made no immediate rejoinder, but at last she said, with\na smile which, in so far as it was a forced one, was less successfully\nsimulated than such smiles, on her lips, usually were; \"Are you very\nsure that you would have been happy?\"\n\nNewman stared a moment, and then shook his head. \"That's weak,\" he said;\n\"that won't do.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mrs. Tristram with a more triumphant bravery, \"I don't\nbelieve you would have been happy.\"\n\nNewman gave a little laugh. \"Say I should have been miserable, then;\nit's a misery I should have preferred to any happiness.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram began to muse. \"I should have been curious to see; it\nwould have been very strange.\"\n\n\"Was it from curiosity that you urged me to try and marry her?\"\n\n\"A little,\" said Mrs. Tristram, growing still more audacious. Newman\ngave her the one angry look he had been destined ever to give her,\nturned away and took up his hat. She watched him a moment, and then\nshe said, \"That sounds very cruel, but it is less so than it sounds.\nCuriosity has a share in almost everything I do. I wanted very much to\nsee, first, whether such a marriage could actually take place; second,\nwhat would happen if it should take place.\"\n\n\"So you didn't believe,\" said Newman, resentfully.\n\n\"Yes, I believed--I believed that it would take place, and that you\nwould be happy. Otherwise I should have been, among my speculations,\na very heartless creature. BUT,\" she continued, laying her hand upon\nNewman's arm and hazarding a grave smile, \"it was the highest flight\never taken by a tolerably bold imagination!\"\n\nShortly after this she recommended him to leave Paris and travel for\nthree months. Change of scene would do him good, and he would forget his\nmisfortune sooner in absence from the objects which had witnessed it. \"I\nreally feel,\" Newman rejoined, \"as if to leave YOU, at least, would do\nme good--and cost me very little effort. You are growing cynical, you\nshock me and pain me.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said Mrs. Tristram, good-naturedly or cynically, as may be\nthought most probable. \"I shall certainly see you again.\"\n\nNewman was very willing to get away from Paris; the brilliant streets he\nhad walked through in his happier hours, and which then seemed to wear\na higher brilliancy in honor of his happiness, appeared now to be in\nthe secret of his defeat and to look down upon it in shining mockery. He\nwould go somewhere; he cared little where; and he made his preparations.\nThen, one morning, at haphazard, he drove to the train that would\ntransport him to Boulogne and dispatch him thence to the shores of\nBritain. As he rolled along in the train he asked himself what had\nbecome of his revenge, and he was able to say that it was provisionally\npigeon-holed in a very safe place; it would keep till called for.\n\nHe arrived in London in the midst of what is called \"the season,\" and\nit seemed to him at first that he might here put himself in the way\nof being diverted from his heavy-heartedness. He knew no one in all\nEngland, but the spectacle of the mighty metropolis roused him somewhat\nfrom his apathy. Anything that was enormous usually found favor with\nNewman, and the multitudinous energies and industries of England stirred\nwithin him a dull vivacity of contemplation. It is on record that the\nweather, at that moment, was of the finest English quality; he took\nlong walks and explored London in every direction; he sat by the hour in\nKensington Gardens and beside the adjoining Drive, watching the people\nand the horses and the carriages; the rosy English beauties, the\nwonderful English dandies, and the splendid flunkies. He went to the\nopera and found it better than in Paris; he went to the theatre and\nfound a surprising charm in listening to dialogue the finest points\nof which came within the range of his comprehension. He made several\nexcursions into the country, recommended by the waiter at his hotel,\nwith whom, on this and similar points, he had established confidential\nrelations. He watched the deer in Windsor Forest and admired the Thames\nfrom Richmond Hill; he ate white-bait and brown-bread and butter\nat Greenwich, and strolled in the grassy shadow of the cathedral of\nCanterbury. He also visited the Tower of London and Madame Tussaud's\nexhibition. One day he thought he would go to Sheffield, and then,\nthinking again, he gave it up. Why should he go to Sheffield? He had\na feeling that the link which bound him to a possible interest in the\nmanufacture of cutlery was broken. He had no desire for an \"inside view\"\nof any successful enterprise whatever, and he would not have given the\nsmallest sum for the privilege of talking over the details of the most\n\"splendid\" business with the shrewdest of overseers.\n\nOne afternoon he had walked into Hyde Park, and was slowly threading\nhis way through the human maze which edges the Drive. The stream of\ncarriages was no less dense, and Newman, as usual, marveled at the\nstrange, dingy figures which he saw taking the air in some of the\nstateliest vehicles. They reminded him of what he had read of eastern\nand southern countries, in which grotesque idols and fetiches were\nsometimes taken out of their temples and carried abroad in golden\nchariots to be displayed to the multitude. He saw a great many pretty\ncheeks beneath high-plumed hats as he squeezed his way through serried\nwaves of crumpled muslin; and sitting on little chairs at the base of\nthe great serious English trees, he observed a number of quiet-eyed\nmaidens who seemed only to remind him afresh that the magic of beauty\nhad gone out of the world with Madame de Cintre: to say nothing of other\ndamsels, whose eyes were not quiet, and who struck him still more as a\nsatire on possible consolation. He had been walking for some time, when,\ndirectly in front of him, borne back by the summer breeze, he heard a\nfew words uttered in that bright Parisian idiom from which his ears had\nbegun to alienate themselves. The voice in which the words were spoken\nmade them seem even more like a thing with which he had once been\nfamiliar, and as he bent his eyes it lent an identity to the commonplace\nelegance of the back hair and shoulders of a young lady walking in the\nsame direction as himself. Mademoiselle Nioche, apparently, had come to\nseek a more rapid advancement in London, and another glance led Newman\nto suppose that she had found it. A gentleman was strolling beside her,\nlending a most attentive ear to her conversation and too entranced to\nopen his lips. Newman did not hear his voice, but perceived that\nhe presented the dorsal expression of a well-dressed Englishman.\nMademoiselle Nioche was attracting attention: the ladies who passed her\nturned round to survey the Parisian perfection of her toilet. A great\ncataract of flounces rolled down from the young lady's waist to Newman's\nfeet; he had to step aside to avoid treading upon them. He stepped\naside, indeed, with a decision of movement which the occasion scarcely\ndemanded; for even this imperfect glimpse of Miss Noemie had excited\nhis displeasure. She seemed an odious blot upon the face of nature;\nhe wanted to put her out of his sight. He thought of Valentin de\nBellegarde, still green in the earth of his burial--his young life\nclipped by this flourishing impudence. The perfume of the young lady's\nfinery sickened him; he turned his head and tried to deflect his course;\nbut the pressure of the crowd kept him near her a few minutes longer, so\nthat he heard what she was saying.\n\n\"Ah, I am sure he will miss me,\" she murmured. \"It was very cruel in me\nto leave him; I am afraid you will think me a very heartless creature.\nHe might perfectly well have come with us. I don't think he is very\nwell,\" she added; \"it seemed to me to-day that he was not very gay.\"\n\nNewman wondered whom she was talking about, but just then an opening\namong his neighbors enabled him to turn away, and he said to himself\nthat she was probably paying a tribute to British propriety and playing\nat tender solicitude about her papa. Was that miserable old man still\ntreading the path of vice in her train? Was he still giving her the\nbenefit of his experience of affairs, and had he crossed the sea to\nserve as her interpreter? Newman walked some distance farther, and then\nbegan to retrace his steps taking care not to traverse again the orbit\nof Mademoiselle Nioche. At last he looked for a chair under the trees,\nbut he had some difficulty in finding an empty one. He was about to give\nup the search when he saw a gentleman rise from the seat he had been\noccupying, leaving Newman to take it without looking at his neighbors.\nHe sat there for some time without heeding them; his attention was lost\nin the irritation and bitterness produced by his recent glimpse of Miss\nNoemie's iniquitous vitality. But at the end of a quarter of an hour,\ndropping his eyes, he perceived a small pug-dog squatted upon the path\nnear his feet--a diminutive but very perfect specimen of its interesting\nspecies. The pug was sniffing at the fashionable world, as it passed\nhim, with his little black muzzle, and was kept from extending his\ninvestigation by a large blue ribbon attached to his collar with an\nenormous rosette and held in the hand of a person seated next to\nNewman. To this person Newman transferred his attention, and immediately\nperceived that he was the object of all that of his neighbor, who was\nstaring up at him from a pair of little fixed white eyes. These eyes\nNewman instantly recognized; he had been sitting for the last quarter of\nan hour beside M. Nioche. He had vaguely felt that some one was staring\nat him. M. Nioche continued to stare; he appeared afraid to move, even\nto the extent of evading Newman's glance.\n\n\"Dear me,\" said Newman; \"are you here, too?\" And he looked at his\nneighbor's helplessness more grimly than he knew. M. Nioche had a new\nhat and a pair of kid gloves; his clothes, too, seemed to belong to a\nmore recent antiquity than of yore. Over his arm was suspended a lady's\nmantilla--a light and brilliant tissue, fringed with white lace--which\nhad apparently been committed to his keeping; and the little dog's blue\nribbon was wound tightly round his hand. There was no expression of\nrecognition in his face--or of anything indeed save a sort of feeble,\nfascinated dread; Newman looked at the pug and the lace mantilla, and\nthen he met the old man's eyes again. \"You know me, I see,\" he pursued.\n\"You might have spoken to me before.\" M. Nioche still said nothing,\nbut it seemed to Newman that his eyes began faintly to water. \"I didn't\nexpect,\" our hero went on, \"to meet you so far from--from the Cafe de la\nPatrie.\" The old man remained silent, but decidedly Newman had touched\nthe source of tears. His neighbor sat staring and Newman added, \"What's\nthe matter, M. Nioche? You used to talk--to talk very prettily. Don't\nyou remember you even gave lessons in conversation?\"\n\nAt this M. Nioche decided to change his attitude. He stooped and picked\nup the pug, lifted it to his face and wiped his eyes on its little soft\nback. \"I'm afraid to speak to you,\" he presently said, looking over the\npuppy's shoulder. \"I hoped you wouldn't notice me. I should have moved\naway, but I was afraid that if I moved you would notice me. So I sat\nvery still.\"\n\n\"I suspect you have a bad conscience, sir,\" said Newman.\n\nThe old man put down the little dog and held it carefully in his lap.\nThen he shook his head, with his eyes still fixed upon his interlocutor.\n\"No, Mr. Newman, I have a good conscience,\" he murmured.\n\n\"Then why should you want to slink away from me?\"\n\n\"Because--because you don't understand my position.\"\n\n\"Oh, I think you once explained it to me,\" said Newman. \"But it seems\nimproved.\"\n\n\"Improved!\" exclaimed M. Nioche, under his breath. \"Do you call this\nimprovement?\" And he glanced at the treasures in his arms.\n\n\"Why, you are on your travels,\" Newman rejoined. \"A visit to London in\nthe season is certainly a sign of prosperity.\"\n\nM. Nioche, in answer to this cruel piece of irony, lifted the puppy up\nto his face again, peering at Newman with his small blank eye-holes.\nThere was something almost imbecile in the movement, and Newman hardly\nknew whether he was taking refuge in a convenient affectation of\nunreason, or whether he had in fact paid for his dishonor by the loss of\nhis wits. In the latter case, just now, he felt little more tenderly\nto the foolish old man than in the former. Responsible or not, he was\nequally an accomplice of his detestably mischievous daughter. Newman\nwas going to leave him abruptly, when a ray of entreaty appeared to\ndisengage itself from the old man's misty gaze. \"Are you going away?\" he\nasked.\n\n\"Do you want me to stay?\" said Newman.\n\n\"I should have left you--from consideration. But my dignity suffers at\nyour leaving me--that way.\"\n\n\"Have you got anything particular to say to me?\"\n\nM. Nioche looked around him to see that no one was listening, and then\nhe said, very softly but distinctly, \"I have NOT forgiven her!\"\n\nNewman gave a short laugh, but the old man seemed for the moment not to\nperceive it; he was gazing away, absently, at some metaphysical image\nof his implacability. \"It doesn't much matter whether you forgive her or\nnot,\" said Newman. \"There are other people who won't, I assure you.\"\n\n\"What has she done?\" M. Nioche softly questioned, turning round again.\n\"I don't know what she does, you know.\"\n\n\"She has done a devilish mischief; it doesn't matter what,\" said Newman.\n\"She's a nuisance; she ought to be stopped.\"\n\nM. Nioche stealthily put out his hand and laid it very gently upon\nNewman's arm. \"Stopped, yes,\" he whispered. \"That's it. Stopped short.\nShe is running away--she must be stopped.\" Then he paused a moment and\nlooked round him. \"I mean to stop her,\" he went on. \"I am only waiting\nfor my chance.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Newman, laughing briefly again. \"She is running away and\nyou are running after her. You have run a long distance!\"\n\nBut M. Nioche stared insistently: \"I shall stop her!\" he softly\nrepeated.\n\nHe had hardly spoken when the crowd in front of them separated, as if by\nthe impulse to make way for an important personage. Presently, through\nthe opening, advanced Mademoiselle Nioche, attended by the gentleman\nwhom Newman had lately observed. His face being now presented to our\nhero, the latter recognized the irregular features, the hardly more\nregular complexion, and the amiable expression of Lord Deepmere. Noemie,\non finding herself suddenly confronted with Newman, who, like M. Nioche,\nhad risen from his seat, faltered for a barely perceptible instant. She\ngave him a little nod, as if she had seen him yesterday, and then, with\na good-natured smile, \"Tiens, how we keep meeting!\" she said. She looked\nconsummately pretty, and the front of her dress was a wonderful work of\nart. She went up to her father, stretching out her hands for the little\ndog, which he submissively placed in them, and she began to kiss it\nand murmur over it: \"To think of leaving him all alone,--what a wicked,\nabominable creature he must believe me! He has been very unwell,\" she\nadded, turning and affecting to explain to Newman, with a spark of\ninfernal impudence, fine as a needlepoint, in her eye. \"I don't think\nthe English climate agrees with him.\"\n\n\"It seems to agree wonderfully well with his mistress,\" said Newman.\n\n\"Do you mean me? I have never been better, thank you,\" Miss Noemie\ndeclared. \"But with MILORD\"--and she gave a brilliant glance at her\nlate companion--\"how can one help being well?\" She seated herself in the\nchair from which her father had risen, and began to arrange the little\ndog's rosette.\n\nLord Deepmere carried off such embarrassment as might be incidental\nto this unexpected encounter with the inferior grace of a male and\na Briton. He blushed a good deal, and greeted the object of his late\nmomentary aspiration to rivalry in the favor of a person other than\nthe mistress of the invalid pug with an awkward nod and a rapid\nejaculation--an ejaculation to which Newman, who often found it hard to\nunderstand the speech of English people, was able to attach no meaning.\nThen the young man stood there, with his hand on his hip, and with a\nconscious grin, staring askance at Miss Noemie. Suddenly an idea seemed\nto strike him, and he said, turning to Newman, \"Oh, you know her?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Newman, \"I know her. I don't believe you do.\"\n\n\"Oh dear, yes, I do!\" said Lord Deepmere, with another grin. \"I knew\nher in Paris--by my poor cousin Bellegarde you know. He knew her, poor\nfellow, didn't he? It was she you know, who was at the bottom of his\naffair. Awfully sad, wasn't it?\" continued the young man, talking off\nhis embarrassment as his simple nature permitted. \"They got up some\nstory about its being for the Pope; about the other man having said\nsomething against the Pope's morals. They always do that, you know. They\nput it on the Pope because Bellegarde was once in the Zouaves. But\nit was about HER morals--SHE was the Pope!\" Lord Deepmere pursued,\ndirecting an eye illumined by this pleasantry toward Mademoiselle\nNioche, who was bending gracefully over her lap-dog, apparently absorbed\nin conversation with it. \"I dare say you think it rather odd that I\nshould--a--keep up the acquaintance,\" the young man resumed. \"But she\ncouldn't help it, you know, and Bellegarde was only my twentieth cousin.\nI dare say you think it's rather cheeky, my showing with her in Hyde\nPark. But you see she isn't known yet, and she's in such very good\nform\"--And Lord Deepmere's conclusion was lost in the attesting glance\nwhich he again directed toward the young lady.\n\nNewman turned away; he was having more of her than he relished. M.\nNioche had stepped aside on his daughter's approach, and he stood there,\nwithin a very small compass, looking down hard at the ground. It had\nnever yet, as between him and Newman, been so apposite to place on\nrecord the fact that he had not forgiven his daughter. As Newman was\nmoving away he looked up and drew near to him, and Newman, seeing the\nold man had something particular to say, bent his head for an instant.\n\n\"You will see it some day in the papers,\"' murmured M. Nioche.\n\nOur hero departed to hide his smile, and to this day, though the\nnewspapers form his principal reading, his eyes have not been arrested\nby any paragraph forming a sequel to this announcement.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\n\nIn that uninitiated observation of the great spectacle of English life\nupon which I have touched, it might be supposed that Newman passed a\ngreat many dull days. But the dullness of his days pleased him; his\nmelancholy, which was settling into a secondary stage, like a healing\nwound, had in it a certain acrid, palatable sweetness. He had company in\nhis thoughts, and for the present he wanted no other. He had no desire\nto make acquaintances, and he left untouched a couple of notes of\nintroduction which had been sent him by Tom Tristram. He thought a great\ndeal of Madame de Cintre--sometimes with a dogged tranquillity which\nmight have seemed, for a quarter of an hour at a time, a near neighbor\nto forgetfulness. He lived over again the happiest hours he had\nknown--that silver chain of numbered days in which his afternoon visits,\ntending sensibly to the ideal result, had subtilized his good humor to\na sort of spiritual intoxication. He came back to reality, after such\nreveries, with a somewhat muffled shock; he had begun to feel the need\nof accepting the unchangeable. At other times the reality became an\ninfamy again and the unchangeable an imposture, and he gave himself up\nto his angry restlessness till he was weary. But on the whole he fell\ninto a rather reflective mood. Without in the least intending it or\nknowing it, he attempted to read the moral of his strange misadventure.\nHe asked himself, in his quieter hours, whether perhaps, after all, he\nWAS more commercial than was pleasant. We know that it was in obedience\nto a strong reaction against questions exclusively commercial that\nhe had come out to pick up aesthetic entertainment in Europe; it may\ntherefore be understood that he was able to conceive that a man might be\ntoo commercial. He was very willing to grant it, but the concession, as\nto his own case, was not made with any very oppressive sense of shame.\nIf he had been too commercial, he was ready to forget it, for in being\nso he had done no man any wrong that might not be as easily forgotten.\nHe reflected with sober placidity that at least there were no monuments\nof his \"meanness\" scattered about the world. If there was any reason in\nthe nature of things why his connection with business should have cast a\nshadow upon a connection--even a connection broken--with a woman justly\nproud, he was willing to sponge it out of his life forever. The thing\nseemed a possibility; he could not feel it, doubtless, as keenly as some\npeople, and it hardly seemed worth while to flap his wings very hard to\nrise to the idea; but he could feel it enough to make any sacrifice that\nstill remained to be made. As to what such sacrifice was now to be\nmade to, here Newman stopped short before a blank wall over which there\nsometimes played a shadowy imagery. He had a fancy of carrying out his\nlife as he would have directed it if Madame de Cintre had been left to\nhim--of making it a religion to do nothing that she would have disliked.\nIn this, certainly, there was no sacrifice; but there was a pale,\noblique ray of inspiration. It would be lonely entertainment--a good\ndeal like a man talking to himself in the mirror for want of better\ncompany. Yet the idea yielded Newman several half hours' dumb exaltation\nas he sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched,\nover the relics of an expensively poor dinner, in the undying English\ntwilight. If, however, his commercial imagination was dead, he felt no\ncontempt for the surviving actualities begotten by it. He was glad he\nhad been prosperous and had been a great man of business rather than a\nsmall one; he was extremely glad he was rich. He felt no impulse to sell\nall he had and give to the poor, or to retire into meditative economy\nand asceticism. He was glad he was rich and tolerably young; it was\npossible to think too much about buying and selling, it was a gain to\nhave a good slice of life left in which not to think about them. Come,\nwhat should he think about now? Again and again Newman could think only\nof one thing; his thoughts always came back to it, and as they did so,\nwith an emotional rush which seemed physically to express itself in a\nsudden upward choking, he leaned forward--the waiter having left the\nroom--and, resting his arms on the table, buried his troubled face.\n\nHe remained in England till midsummer, and spent a month in the country,\nwandering about cathedrals, castles, and ruins. Several times, taking\na walk from his inn into meadows and parks, he stopped by a well-worn\nstile, looked across through the early evening at a gray church tower,\nwith its dusky nimbus of thick-circling swallows, and remembered that\nthis might have been part of the entertainment of his honeymoon. He had\nnever been so much alone or indulged so little in accidental dialogue.\nThe period of recreation appointed by Mrs. Tristram had at last expired,\nand he asked himself what he should do now. Mrs. Tristram had written\nto him, proposing to him that he should join her in the Pyrenees; but\nhe was not in the humor to return to France. The simplest thing was to\nrepair to Liverpool and embark on the first American steamer. Newman\nmade his way to the great seaport and secured his berth; and the night\nbefore sailing he sat in his room at the hotel, staring down, vacantly\nand wearily, at an open portmanteau. A number of papers were lying\nupon it, which he had been meaning to look over; some of them might\nconveniently be destroyed. But at last he shuffled them roughly\ntogether, and pushed them into a corner of the valise; they were\nbusiness papers, and he was in no humor for sifting them. Then he drew\nforth his pocket-book and took out a paper of smaller size than those he\nhad dismissed. He did not unfold it; he simply sat looking at the back\nof it. If he had momentarily entertained the idea of destroying it, the\nidea quickly expired. What the paper suggested was the feeling that\nlay in his innermost heart and that no reviving cheerfulness could long\nquench--the feeling that after all and above all he was a good fellow\nwronged. With it came a hearty hope that the Bellegardes were enjoying\ntheir suspense as to what he would do yet. The more it was prolonged the\nmore they would enjoy it! He had hung fire once, yes; perhaps, in his\npresent queer state of mind, he might hang fire again. But he restored\nthe little paper to his pocket-book very tenderly, and felt better for\nthinking of the suspense of the Bellegardes. He felt better every time\nhe thought of it after that, as he sailed the summer seas. He landed\nin New York and journeyed across the continent to San Francisco, and\nnothing that he observed by the way contributed to mitigate his sense of\nbeing a good fellow wronged.\n\nHe saw a great many other good fellows--his old friends--but he told\nnone of them of the trick that had been played him. He said simply that\nthe lady he was to have married had changed her mind, and when he\nwas asked if he had changed his own, he said, \"Suppose we change the\nsubject.\" He told his friends that he had brought home no \"new ideas\"\nfrom Europe, and his conduct probably struck them as an eloquent proof\nof failing invention. He took no interest in chatting about his affairs\nand manifested no desire to look over his accounts. He asked half a\ndozen questions which, like those of an eminent physician inquiring\nfor particular symptoms, showed that he still knew what he was talking\nabout; but he made no comments and gave no directions. He not only\npuzzled the gentlemen on the stock exchange, but he was himself\nsurprised at the extent of his indifference. As it seemed only to\nincrease, he made an effort to combat it; he tried to interest himself\nand to take up his old occupations. But they appeared unreal to him; do\nwhat he would he somehow could not believe in them. Sometimes he began\nto fear that there was something the matter with his head; that his\nbrain, perhaps, had softened, and that the end of his strong activities\nhad come. This idea came back to him with an exasperating force.\nA hopeless, helpless loafer, useful to no one and detestable to\nhimself--this was what the treachery of the Bellegardes had made of him.\nIn his restless idleness he came back from San Francisco to New York,\nand sat for three days in the lobby of his hotel, looking out through\na huge wall of plate-glass at the unceasing stream of pretty girls in\nParisian-looking dresses, undulating past with little parcels nursed\nagainst their neat figures. At the end of three days he returned to San\nFrancisco, and having arrived there he wished he had stayed away. He\nhad nothing to do, his occupation was gone, and it seemed to him that he\nshould never find it again. He had nothing to do here, he sometimes said\nto himself; but there was something beyond the ocean that he was\nstill to do; something that he had left undone experimentally and\nspeculatively, to see if it could content itself to remain undone. But\nit was not content: it kept pulling at his heartstrings and thumping at\nhis reason; it murmured in his ears and hovered perpetually before his\neyes. It interposed between all new resolutions and their fulfillment;\nit seemed like a stubborn ghost, dumbly entreating to be laid. Till that\nwas done he should never be able to do anything else.\n\nOne day, toward the end of the winter, after a long interval, he\nreceived a letter from Mrs. Tristram, who apparently was animated by a\ncharitable desire to amuse and distract her correspondent. She gave\nhim much Paris gossip, talked of General Packard and Miss Kitty Upjohn,\nenumerated the new plays at the theatre, and inclosed a note from her\nhusband, who had gone down to spend a month at Nice. Then came her\nsignature, and after this her postscript. The latter consisted of these\nfew lines: \"I heard three days since from my friend, the Abbe Aubert,\nthat Madame de Cintre last week took the veil at the Carmelites. It was\non her twenty-seventh birthday, and she took the name of her, patroness,\nSt. Veronica. Sister Veronica has a life-time before her!\"\n\nThis letter came to Newman in the morning; in the evening he started for\nParis. His wound began to ache with its first fierceness, and during his\nlong bleak journey the thought of Madame de Cintre's \"life-time,\"\npassed within prison walls on whose outer side he might stand, kept him\nperpetual company. Now he would fix himself in Paris forever; he would\nextort a sort of happiness from the knowledge that if she was not\nthere, at least the stony sepulchre that held her was. He descended,\nunannounced, upon Mrs. Bread, whom he found keeping lonely watch in his\ngreat empty saloons on the Boulevard Haussmann. They were as neat as a\nDutch village, Mrs. Bread's only occupation had been removing individual\ndust-particles. She made no complaint, however, of her loneliness, for\nin her philosophy a servant was but a mysteriously projected machine,\nand it would be as fantastic for a housekeeper to comment upon a\ngentleman's absences as for a clock to remark upon not being wound up.\nNo particular clock, Mrs. Bread supposed, went all the time, and no\nparticular servant could enjoy all the sunshine diffused by the career\nof an exacting master. She ventured, nevertheless, to express a modest\nhope that Newman meant to remain a while in Paris. Newman laid his hand\non hers and shook it gently. \"I mean to remain forever,\" he said.\n\nHe went after this to see Mrs. Tristram, to whom he had telegraphed, and\nwho expected him. She looked at him a moment and shook her head. \"This\nwon't do,\" she said; \"you have come back too soon.\" He sat down and\nasked about her husband and her children, tried even to inquire about\nMiss Dora Finch. In the midst of this--\"Do you know where she is?\" he\nasked, abruptly.\n\nMrs. Tristram hesitated a moment; of course he couldn't mean Miss Dora\nFinch. Then she answered, properly: \"She has gone to the other house--in\nthe Rue d'Enfer.\" After Newman had sat a while longer looking very\nsombre, she went on: \"You are not so good a man as I thought. You are\nmore--you are more--\"\n\n\"More what?\" Newman asked.\n\n\"More unforgiving.\"\n\n\"Good God!\" cried Newman; \"do you expect me to forgive?\"\n\n\"No, not that. I have forgiven, so of course you can't. But you might\nforget! You have a worse temper about it than I should have expected.\nYou look wicked--you look dangerous.\"\n\n\"I may be dangerous,\" he said; \"but I am not wicked. No, I am not\nwicked.\" And he got up to go. Mrs. Tristram asked him to come back to\ndinner; but he answered that he did not feel like pledging himself to\nbe present at an entertainment, even as a solitary guest. Later in the\nevening, if he should be able, he would come.\n\nHe walked away through the city, beside the Seine and over it, and took\nthe direction of the Rue d'Enfer. The day had the softness of early\nspring; but the weather was gray and humid. Newman found himself in a\npart of Paris which he little knew--a region of convents and prisons, of\nstreets bordered by long dead walls and traversed by a few wayfarers.\nAt the intersection of two of these streets stood the house of the\nCarmelites--a dull, plain edifice, with a high-shouldered blank wall\nall round it. From without Newman could see its upper windows, its steep\nroof and its chimneys. But these things revealed no symptoms of human\nlife; the place looked dumb, deaf, inanimate. The pale, dead, discolored\nwall stretched beneath it, far down the empty side street--a vista\nwithout a human figure. Newman stood there a long time; there were\nno passers; he was free to gaze his fill. This seemed the goal of his\njourney; it was what he had come for. It was a strange satisfaction, and\nyet it was a satisfaction; the barren stillness of the place seemed to\nbe his own release from ineffectual longing. It told him that the woman\nwithin was lost beyond recall, and that the days and years of the future\nwould pile themselves above her like the huge immovable slab of a tomb.\nThese days and years, in this place, would always be just so gray and\nsilent. Suddenly, from the thought of their seeing him stand there,\nagain the charm utterly departed. He would never stand there again; it\nwas gratuitous dreariness. He turned away with a heavy heart, but with\na heart lighter than the one he had brought. Everything was over, and he\ntoo at last could rest. He walked down through narrow, winding streets\nto the edge of the Seine again, and there he saw, close above him, the\nsoft, vast towers of Notre Dame. He crossed one of the bridges and stood\na moment in the empty place before the great cathedral; then he went\nin beneath the grossly-imaged portals. He wandered some distance up the\nnave and sat down in the splendid dimness. He sat a long time; he heard\nfar-away bells chiming off, at long intervals, to the rest of the world.\nHe was very tired; this was the best place he could be in. He said no\nprayers; he had no prayers to say. He had nothing to be thankful for,\nand he had nothing to ask; nothing to ask, because now he must take care\nof himself. But a great cathedral offers a very various hospitality, and\nNewman sat in his place, because while he was there he was out of the\nworld. The most unpleasant thing that had ever happened to him had\nreached its formal conclusion, as it were; he could close the book and\nput it away. He leaned his head for a long time on the chair in front of\nhim; when he took it up he felt that he was himself again. Somewhere\nin his mind, a tight knot seemed to have loosened. He thought of the\nBellegardes; he had almost forgotten them. He remembered them as people\nhe had meant to do something to. He gave a groan as he remembered what\nhe had meant to do; he was annoyed at having meant to do it; the bottom,\nsuddenly, had fallen out of his revenge. Whether it was Christian\ncharity or unregenerate good nature--what it was, in the background of\nhis soul--I don't pretend to say; but Newman's last thought was that\nof course he would let the Bellegardes go. If he had spoken it aloud\nhe would have said that he didn't want to hurt them. He was ashamed\nof having wanted to hurt them. They had hurt him, but such things were\nreally not his game. At last he got up and came out of the darkening\nchurch; not with the elastic step of a man who had won a victory or\ntaken a resolve, but strolling soberly, like a good-natured man who is\nstill a little ashamed.\n\nGoing home, he said to Mrs. Bread that he must trouble her to put back\nhis things into the portmanteau she had unpacked the evening before. His\ngentle stewardess looked at him through eyes a trifle bedimmed. \"Dear\nme, sir,\" she exclaimed, \"I thought you said that you were going to stay\nforever.\"\n\n\"I meant that I was going to stay away forever,\" said Newman kindly. And\nsince his departure from Paris on the following day he has certainly not\nreturned. The gilded apartments I have so often spoken of stand ready to\nreceive him; but they serve only as a spacious residence for Mrs. Bread,\nwho wanders eternally from room to room, adjusting the tassels of the\ncurtains, and keeps her wages, which are regularly brought her by\na banker's clerk, in a great pink Sevres vase on the drawing-room\nmantel-shelf.\n\nLate in the evening Newman went to Mrs. Tristram's and found Tom\nTristram by the domestic fireside. \"I'm glad to see you back in Paris,\"\nthis gentleman declared. \"You know it's really the only place for a\nwhite man to live.\" Mr. Tristram made his friend welcome, according\nto his own rosy light, and offered him a convenient resume of the\nFranco-American gossip of the last six months. Then at last he got up\nand said he would go for half an hour to the club. \"I suppose a man\nwho has been for six months in California wants a little intellectual\nconversation. I'll let my wife have a go at you.\"\n\nNewman shook hands heartily with his host, but did not ask him to\nremain; and then he relapsed into his place on the sofa, opposite to\nMrs. Tristram. She presently asked him what he had done after leaving\nher. \"Nothing particular,\" said Newman.\n\n\"You struck me,\" she rejoined, \"as a man with a plot in his head. You\nlooked as if you were bent on some sinister errand, and after you had\nleft me I wondered whether I ought to have let you go.\"\n\n\"I only went over to the other side of the river--to the Carmelites,\"\nsaid Newman.\n\nMrs. Tristram looked at him a moment and smiled. \"What did you do there?\nTry to scale the wall?\"\n\n\"I did nothing. I looked at the place for a few minutes and then came\naway.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram gave him a sympathetic glance. \"You didn't happen to meet\nM. de Bellegarde,\" she asked, \"staring hopelessly at the convent wall as\nwell? I am told he takes his sister's conduct very hard.\"\n\n\"No, I didn't meet him, I am happy to say,\" Newman answered, after a\npause.\n\n\"They are in the country,\" Mrs. Tristram went on; \"at--what is the name\nof the place?--Fleurieres. They returned there at the time you left\nParis and have been spending the year in extreme seclusion. The little\nmarquise must enjoy it; I expect to hear that she has eloped with her\ndaughter's music-master!\"\n\nNewman was looking at the light wood-fire; but he listened to this with\nextreme interest. At last he spoke: \"I mean never to mention the name of\nthose people again, and I don't want to hear anything more about them.\"\nAnd then he took out his pocket-book and drew forth a scrap of paper. He\nlooked at it an instant, then got up and stood by the fire. \"I am going\nto burn them up,\" he said. \"I am glad to have you as a witness. There\nthey go!\" And he tossed the paper into the flame.\n\nMrs. Tristram sat with her embroidery needle suspended. \"What is that\npaper?\" she asked.\n\nNewman leaning against the fire-place, stretched his arms and drew a\nlonger breath than usual. Then after a moment, \"I can tell you now,\" he\nsaid. \"It was a paper containing a secret of the Bellegardes--something\nwhich would damn them if it were known.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram dropped her embroidery with a reproachful moan. \"Ah, why\ndidn't you show it to me?\"\n\n\"I thought of showing it to you--I thought of showing it to every one.\nI thought of paying my debt to the Bellegardes that way. So I told them,\nand I frightened them. They have been staying in the country as you tell\nme, to keep out of the explosion. But I have given it up.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram began to take slow stitches again. \"Have you quite given\nit up?\"\n\n\"Oh yes.\"\n\n\"Is it very bad, this secret?\"\n\n\"Yes, very bad.\"\n\n\"For myself,\" said Mrs. Tristram, \"I am sorry you have given it up. I\nshould have liked immensely to see your paper. They have wronged me too,\nyou know, as your sponsor and guarantee, and it would have served for my\nrevenge as well. How did you come into possession of your secret?\"\n\n\"It's a long story. But honestly, at any rate.\"\n\n\"And they knew you were master of it?\"\n\n\"Oh, I told them.\"\n\n\"Dear me, how interesting!\" cried Mrs. Tristram. \"And you humbled them\nat your feet?\"\n\nNewman was silent a moment. \"No, not at all. They pretended not to\ncare--not to be afraid. But I know they did care--they were afraid.\"\n\n\"Are you very sure?\"\n\nNewman stared a moment. \"Yes, I'm sure.\"\n\nMrs. Tristram resumed her slow stitches. \"They defied you, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Newman, \"it was about that.\"\n\n\"You tried by the threat of exposure to make them retract?\" Mrs.\nTristram pursued.\n\n\"Yes, but they wouldn't. I gave them their choice, and they chose to\ntake their chance of bluffing off the charge and convicting me of\nfraud. But they were frightened,\" Newman added, \"and I have had all the\nvengeance I want.\"\n\n\"It is most provoking,\" said Mrs. Tristram, \"to hear you talk of the\n'charge' when the charge is burnt up. Is it quite consumed?\" she asked,\nglancing at the fire.\n\nNewman assured her that there was nothing left of it. \"Well then,\" she\nsaid, \"I suppose there is no harm in saying that you probably did not\nmake them so very uncomfortable. My impression would be that since, as\nyou say, they defied you, it was because they believed that, after\nall, you would never really come to the point. Their confidence, after\ncounsel taken of each other, was not in their innocence, nor in their\ntalent for bluffing things off; it was in your remarkable good nature!\nYou see they were right.\"\n\nNewman instinctively turned to see if the little paper was in fact\nconsumed; but there was nothing left of it."