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diff --git a/177-h/177-h.htm b/177-h/177-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0fd95a --- /dev/null +++ b/177-h/177-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,20414 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The American, by Henry James</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The American, by Henry James</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The American</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry James</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November, 1994 [eBook #177]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 23, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Pauline J. Iacono, John Hamm and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:60%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover " /> +</div> + +<h1>The American</h1> + +<h2>by Henry James</h2> + +<h4>1877</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p> +On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was reclining at his +ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied the centre of +the Salon Carré, in the Museum of the Louvre. This commodious ottoman has since +been removed, to the extreme regret of all weak-kneed lovers of the fine arts, +but the gentleman in question had taken serene possession of its softest spot, +and, with his head thrown back and his legs outstretched, was staring at +Murillo’s beautiful moon-borne Madonna in profound enjoyment of his +posture. He had removed his hat, and flung down beside him a little red +guide-book and an opera-glass. The day was warm; he was heated with walking, +and he repeatedly passed his handkerchief over his forehead, with a somewhat +wearied gesture. And yet he was evidently not a man to whom fatigue was +familiar; long, lean, and muscular, he suggested the sort of vigor that is +commonly known as “toughness.” But his exertions on this particular +day had been of an unwonted sort, and he had performed great physical feats +which left him less jaded than his tranquil stroll through the Louvre. He had +looked out all the pictures to which an asterisk was affixed in those +formidable pages of fine print in his Bädeker; his attention had been strained +and his eyes dazzled, and he had sat down with an æsthetic headache. He had +looked, moreover, not only at all the pictures, but at all the copies that were +going forward around them, in the hands of those innumerable young women in +irreproachable toilets who devote themselves, in France, to the propagation of +masterpieces, and if the truth must be told, he had often admired the copy much +more than the original. His physiognomy would have sufficiently indicated that +he was a shrewd and capable fellow, and in truth he had often sat up all night +over a bristling bundle of accounts, and heard the cock crow without a yawn. +But Raphael and Titian and Rubens were a new kind of arithmetic, and they +inspired our friend, for the first time in his life, with a vague +self-mistrust. +</p> + +<p> +An observer with anything of an eye for national types would have had no +difficulty in determining the local origin of this undeveloped connoisseur, and +indeed such an observer might have felt a certain humorous relish of the almost +ideal completeness with which he filled out the national mould. The gentleman +on the divan was a powerful specimen of an American. But he was not only a fine +American; he was in the first place, physically, a fine man. He appeared to +possess that kind of health and strength which, when found in perfection, are +the most impressive—the physical capital which the owner does nothing to +“keep up.” If he was a muscular Christian, it was quite without +knowing it. If it was necessary to walk to a remote spot, he walked, but he had +never known himself to “exercise.” He had no theory with regard to +cold bathing or the use of Indian clubs; he was neither an oarsman, a rifleman, +nor a fencer—he had never had time for these amusements—and he was +quite unaware that the saddle is recommended for certain forms of indigestion. +He was by inclination a temperate man; but he had supped the night before his +visit to the Louvre at the Café Anglais—someone had told him it was an +experience not to be omitted—and he had slept none the less the sleep of +the just. His usual attitude and carriage were of a rather relaxed and lounging +kind, but when under a special inspiration, he straightened himself, he looked +like a grenadier on parade. He never smoked. He had been assured—such +things are said—that cigars were excellent for the health, and he was +quite capable of believing it; but he knew as little about tobacco as about +homœopathy. He had a very well-formed head, with a shapely, symmetrical +balance of the frontal and the occipital development, and a good deal of +straight, rather dry brown hair. His complexion was brown, and his nose had a +bold well-marked arch. His eye was of a clear, cold gray, and save for a rather +abundant moustache he was clean-shaved. He had the flat jaw and sinewy neck +which are frequent in the American type; but the traces of national origin are +a matter of expression even more than of feature, and it was in this respect +that our friend’s countenance was supremely eloquent. The discriminating +observer we have been supposing might, however, perfectly have measured its +expressiveness, and yet have been at a loss to describe it. It had that typical +vagueness which is not vacuity, that blankness which is not simplicity, that +look of being committed to nothing in particular, of standing in an attitude of +general hospitality to the chances of life, of being very much at one’s +own disposal so characteristic of many American faces. It was our +friend’s eye that chiefly told his story; an eye in which innocence and +experience were singularly blended. It was full of contradictory suggestions, +and though it was by no means the glowing orb of a hero of romance, you could +find in it almost anything you looked for. Frigid and yet friendly, frank yet +cautious, shrewd yet credulous, positive yet sceptical, confident yet shy, +extremely intelligent and extremely good-humored, there was something vaguely +defiant in its concessions, and something profoundly reassuring in its reserve. +The cut of this gentleman’s moustache, with the two premature wrinkles in +the cheek above it, and the fashion of his garments, in which an exposed +shirt-front and a cerulean cravat played perhaps an obtrusive part, completed +the conditions of his identity. We have approached him, perhaps, at a not +especially favorable moment; he is by no means sitting for his portrait. But +listless as he lounges there, rather baffled on the æsthetic question, and +guilty of the damning fault (as we have lately discovered it to be) of +confounding the merit of the artist with that of his work (for he admires the +squinting Madonna of the young lady with the boyish coiffure, because he thinks +the young lady herself uncommonly taking), he is a sufficiently promising +acquaintance. Decision, salubrity, jocosity, prosperity, seem to hover within +his call; he is evidently a practical man, but the idea in his case, has +undefined and mysterious boundaries, which invite the imagination to bestir +itself on his behalf. +</p> + +<p> +As the little copyist proceeded with her work, she sent every now and then a +responsive glance toward her admirer. The cultivation of the fine arts appeared +to necessitate, to her mind, a great deal of by-play, a great standing off with +folded arms and head drooping from side to side, stroking of a dimpled chin +with a dimpled hand, sighing and frowning and patting of the foot, fumbling in +disordered tresses for wandering hair-pins. These performances were accompanied +by a restless glance, which lingered longer than elsewhere upon the gentleman +we have described. At last he rose abruptly, put on his hat, and approached the +young lady. He placed himself before her picture and looked at it for some +moments, during which she pretended to be quite unconscious of his inspection. +Then, addressing her with the single word which constituted the strength of his +French vocabulary, and holding up one finger in a manner which appeared to him +to illuminate his meaning, “<i>Combien?</i>” he abruptly demanded. +</p> + +<p> +The artist stared a moment, gave a little pout, shrugged her shoulders, put +down her palette and brushes, and stood rubbing her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“How much?” said our friend, in English. +“<i>Combien?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur wishes to buy it?” asked the young lady in French. +</p> + +<p> +“Very pretty, <i>splendide. Combien?</i>” repeated the American. +</p> + +<p> +“It pleases monsieur, my little picture? It’s a very beautiful +subject,” said the young lady. +</p> + +<p> +“The Madonna, yes; I am not a Catholic, but I want to buy it. +<i>Combien?</i> Write it here.” And he took a pencil from his pocket and +showed her the fly-leaf of his guide-book. She stood looking at him and +scratching her chin with the pencil. “Is it not for sale?” he +asked. And as she still stood reflecting, and looking at him with an eye which, +in spite of her desire to treat this avidity of patronage as a very old story, +betrayed an almost touching incredulity, he was afraid he had offended her. She +was simply trying to look indifferent, and wondering how far she might go. +“I haven’t made a mistake—<i>pas insulté</i>, no?” her +interlocutor continued. “Don’t you understand a little +English?” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady’s aptitude for playing a part at short notice was +remarkable. She fixed him with her conscious, perceptive eye and asked him if +he spoke no French. Then, “<i>Donnez!</i>” she said briefly, and +took the open guide-book. In the upper corner of the fly-leaf she traced a +number, in a minute and extremely neat hand. Then she handed back the book and +took up her palette again. +</p> + +<p> +Our friend read the number: “2,000 francs.” He said nothing for a +time, but stood looking at the picture, while the copyist began actively to +dabble with her paint. “For a copy, isn’t that a good deal?” +he asked at last. “<i>Pas beaucoup?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady raised her eyes from her palette, scanned him from head to foot, +and alighted with admirable sagacity upon exactly the right answer. “Yes, +it’s a good deal. But my copy has remarkable qualities, it is worth +nothing less.” +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman in whom we are interested understood no French, but I have said +he was intelligent, and here is a good chance to prove it. He apprehended, by a +natural instinct, the meaning of the young woman’s phrase, and it +gratified him to think that she was so honest. Beauty, talent, virtue; she +combined everything! “But you must finish it,” he said. +“<i>finish</i>, you know;” and he pointed to the unpainted hand of +the figure. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it shall be finished in perfection; in the perfection of +perfections!” cried mademoiselle; and to confirm her promise, she +deposited a rosy blotch in the middle of the Madonna’s cheek. +</p> + +<p> +But the American frowned. “Ah, too red, too red!” he rejoined. +“Her complexion,” pointing to the Murillo, “is—more +delicate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Delicate? Oh, it shall be delicate, monsieur; delicate as Sèvres +<i>biscuit</i>. I am going to tone that down; I know all the secrets of my art. +And where will you allow us to send it to you? Your address?” +</p> + +<p> +“My address? Oh yes!” And the gentleman drew a card from his +pocket-book and wrote something upon it. Then hesitating a moment he said, +“If I don’t like it when it it’s finished, you know, I shall +not be obliged to take it.” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady seemed as good a guesser as himself. “Oh, I am very sure +that monsieur is not capricious,” she said with a roguish smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Capricious?” And at this monsieur began to laugh. “Oh no, +I’m not capricious. I am very faithful. I am very constant. +<i>Comprenez?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur is constant; I understand perfectly. It’s a rare virtue. +To recompense you, you shall have your picture on the first possible day; next +week—as soon as it is dry. I will take the card of monsieur.” And +she took it and read his name: “Christopher Newman.” Then she tried +to repeat it aloud, and laughed at her bad accent. “Your English names +are so droll!” +</p> + +<p> +“Droll?” said Mr. Newman, laughing too. “Did you ever hear of +Christopher Columbus?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Bien sûr!</i> He invented America; a very great man. And is he your +patron?” +</p> + +<p> +“My patron?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your patron-saint, in the calendar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, exactly; my parents named me for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur is American?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you see it?” monsieur inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“And you mean to carry my little picture away over there?” and she +explained her phrase with a gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I mean to buy a great many pictures—<i>beaucoup, +beaucoup</i>,” said Christopher Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“The honor is not less for me,” the young lady answered, “for +I am sure monsieur has a great deal of taste.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you must give me your card,” Newman said; “your card, +you know.” +</p> + +<p> +The young lady looked severe for an instant, and then said, “My father +will wait upon you.” +</p> + +<p> +But this time Mr. Newman’s powers of divination were at fault. +“Your card, your address,” he simply repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“My address?” said mademoiselle. Then with a little shrug, +“Happily for you, you are an American! It is the first time I ever gave +my card to a gentleman.” And, taking from her pocket a rather greasy +portemonnaie, she extracted from it a small glazed visiting card, and presented +the latter to her patron. It was neatly inscribed in pencil, with a great many +flourishes, “Mlle. Noémie Nioche.” But Mr. Newman, unlike his +companion, read the name with perfect gravity; all French names to him were +equally droll. +</p> + +<p> +“And precisely, here is my father, who has come to escort me home,” +said Mademoiselle Noémie. “He speaks English. He will arrange with +you.” And she turned to welcome a little old gentleman who came shuffling +up, peering over his spectacles at Newman. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche wore a glossy wig, of an unnatural color which overhung his little +meek, white, vacant face, and left it hardly more expressive than the +unfeatured block upon which these articles are displayed in the barber’s +window. He was an exquisite image of shabby gentility. His scant ill-made coat, +desperately brushed, his darned gloves, his highly polished boots, his rusty, +shapely hat, told the story of a person who had “had losses” and +who clung to the spirit of nice habits even though the letter had been +hopelessly effaced. Among other things M. Nioche had lost courage. Adversity +had not only ruined him, it had frightened him, and he was evidently going +through his remnant of life on tiptoe, for fear of waking up the hostile fates. +If this strange gentleman was saying anything improper to his daughter, M. +Nioche would entreat him huskily, as a particular favor, to forbear; but he +would admit at the same time that he was very presumptuous to ask for +particular favors. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur has bought my picture,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. +“When it’s finished you’ll carry it to him in a cab.” +</p> + +<p> +“In a cab!” cried M. Nioche; and he stared, in a bewildered way, as +if he had seen the sun rising at midnight. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you the young lady’s father?” said Newman. “I +think she said you speak English.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak English—yes,” said the old man slowly rubbing his +hands. “I will bring it in a cab.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say something, then,” cried his daughter. “Thank him a +little—not too much.” +</p> + +<p> +“A little, my daughter, a little?” said M. Nioche perplexed. +“How much?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two thousand!” said Mademoiselle Noémie. “Don’t make a +fuss or he’ll take back his word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Two thousand!” cried the old man, and he began to fumble for his +snuff-box. He looked at Newman from head to foot; he looked at his daughter and +then at the picture. “Take care you don’t spoil it!” he cried +almost sublimely. +</p> + +<p> +“We must go home,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. “This is a good +day’s work. Take care how you carry it!” And she began to put up +her utensils. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I thank you?” said M. Nioche. “My English does not +suffice.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I spoke French as well,” said Newman, good-naturedly. +“Your daughter is very clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir!” and M. Nioche looked over his spectacles with tearful +eyes and nodded several times with a world of sadness. “She has had an +education—<i>très-supérieure!</i> Nothing was spared. Lessons in pastel +at ten francs the lesson, lessons in oil at twelve francs. I didn’t look +at the francs then. She’s an <i>artiste</i>, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I understand you to say that you have had reverses?” asked +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Reverses? Oh, sir, misfortunes—terrible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unsuccessful in business, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very unsuccessful, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never fear, you’ll get on your legs again,” said Newman +cheerily. +</p> + +<p> +The old man drooped his head on one side and looked at him with an expression +of pain, as if this were an unfeeling jest. +</p> + +<p> +“What does he say?” demanded Mademoiselle Noémie. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche took a pinch of snuff. “He says I will make my fortune +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps he will help you. And what else?” +</p> + +<p> +“He says thou art very clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very possible. You believe it yourself, my father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Believe it, my daughter? With this evidence!” And the old man +turned afresh, with a staring, wondering homage, to the audacious daub on the +easel. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask him, then, if he would not like to learn French.” +</p> + +<p> +“To learn French?” +</p> + +<p> +“To take lessons.” +</p> + +<p> +“To take lessons, my daughter? From thee?” +</p> + +<p> +“From you!” +</p> + +<p> +“From me, my child? How should I give lessons?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Pas de raisons!</i> Ask him immediately!” said Mademoiselle +Noémie, with soft brevity. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche stood aghast, but under his daughter’s eye he collected his +wits, and, doing his best to assume an agreeable smile, he executed her +commands. “Would it please you to receive instruction in our beautiful +language?” he inquired, with an appealing quaver. +</p> + +<p> +“To study French?” asked Newman, staring. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and slowly raised his shoulders. +“A little conversation!” +</p> + +<p> +“Conversation—that’s it!” murmured Mademoiselle Noémie, +who had caught the word. “The conversation of the best society.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our French conversation is famous, you know,” M. Nioche ventured +to continue. “It’s a great talent.” +</p> + +<p> +“But isn’t it awfully difficult?” asked Newman, very simply. +</p> + +<p> +“Not to a man of <i>esprit</i>, like monsieur, an admirer of beauty in +every form!” and M. Nioche cast a significant glance at his +daughter’s Madonna. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t fancy myself chattering French!” said Newman with a +laugh. “And yet, I suppose that the more a man knows the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur expresses that very happily. <i>Hélas, oui!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it would help me a great deal, knocking about Paris, to know +the language.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there are so many things monsieur must want to say: difficult +things!” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything I want to say is difficult. But you give lessons?” +</p> + +<p> +Poor M. Nioche was embarrassed; he smiled more appealingly. “I am not a +regular professor,” he admitted. “I can’t nevertheless tell +him that I’m a professor,” he said to his daughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him it’s a very exceptional chance,” answered +Mademoiselle Noémie; “an <i>homme du monde</i>—one gentleman +conversing with another! Remember what you are—what you have been!” +</p> + +<p> +“A teacher of languages in neither case! Much more formerly and much less +to-day! And if he asks the price of the lessons?” +</p> + +<p> +“He won’t ask it,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. +</p> + +<p> +“What he pleases, I may say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never! That’s bad style.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he asks, then?” +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Noémie had put on her bonnet and was tying the ribbons. She +smoothed them out, with her soft little chin thrust forward. “Ten +francs,” she said quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my daughter! I shall never dare.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t dare, then! He won’t ask till the end of the lessons, +and then I will make out the bill.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche turned to the confiding foreigner again, and stood rubbing his hands, +with an air of seeming to plead guilty which was not intenser only because it +was habitually so striking. It never occurred to Newman to ask him for a +guarantee of his skill in imparting instruction; he supposed of course M. +Nioche knew his own language, and his appealing forlornness was quite the +perfection of what the American, for vague reasons, had always associated with +all elderly foreigners of the lesson-giving class. Newman had never reflected +upon philological processes. His chief impression with regard to ascertaining +those mysterious correlatives of his familiar English vocables which were +current in this extraordinary city of Paris was, that it was simply a matter of +a good deal of unwonted and rather ridiculous muscular effort on his own part. +“How did you learn English?” he asked of the old man. +</p> + +<p> +“When I was young, before my miseries. Oh, I was wide awake, then. My +father was a great <i>commerçant</i>; he placed me for a year in a +counting-house in England. Some of it stuck to me; but much I have +forgotten!” +</p> + +<p> +“How much French can I learn in a month?” +</p> + +<p> +“What does he say?” asked Mademoiselle Noémie. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche explained. +</p> + +<p> +“He will speak like an angel!” said his daughter. +</p> + +<p> +But the native integrity which had been vainly exerted to secure M. +Nioche’s commercial prosperity flickered up again. “<i>Dame</i>, +monsieur!” he answered. “All I can teach you!” And then, +recovering himself at a sign from his daughter, “I will wait upon you at +your hotel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I should like to learn French,” Newman went on, with +democratic confidingness. “Hang me if I should ever have thought of it! I +took for granted it was impossible. But if you learned my language, why +shouldn’t I learn yours?” and his frank, friendly laugh drew the +sting from the jest. “Only, if we are going to converse, you know, you +must think of something cheerful to converse about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very good, sir; I am overcome!” said M. Nioche, throwing +out his hands. “But you have cheerfulness and happiness for two!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” said Newman more seriously. “You must be bright and +lively; that’s part of the bargain.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche bowed, with his hand on his heart. “Very well, sir; you have +already made me lively.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come and bring me my picture then; I will pay you for it, and we will +talk about that. That will be a cheerful subject!” +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Noémie had collected her accessories, and she gave the precious +Madonna in charge to her father, who retreated backwards out of sight, holding +it at arm’s-length and reiterating his obeisance. The young lady gathered +her shawl about her like a perfect Parisienne, and it was with the smile of a +Parisienne that she took leave of her patron. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p> +He wandered back to the divan and seated himself on the other side, in view of +the great canvas on which Paul Veronese had depicted the marriage-feast of +Cana. Wearied as he was he found the picture entertaining; it had an illusion +for him; it satisfied his conception, which was ambitious, of what a splendid +banquet should be. In the left-hand corner of the picture is a young woman with +yellow tresses confined in a golden head-dress; she is bending forward and +listening, with the smile of a charming woman at a dinner-party, to her +neighbor. Newman detected her in the crowd, admired her, and perceived that she +too had her votive copyist—a young man with his hair standing on end. +Suddenly he became conscious of the germ of the mania of the +“collector;” he had taken the first step; why should he not go on? +It was only twenty minutes before that he had bought the first picture of his +life, and now he was already thinking of art-patronage as a fascinating +pursuit. His reflections quickened his good-humor, and he was on the point of +approaching the young man with another “<i>Combien?</i>” Two or +three facts in this relation are noticeable, although the logical chain which +connects them may seem imperfect. He knew Mademoiselle Nioche had asked too +much; he bore her no grudge for doing so, and he was determined to pay the +young man exactly the proper sum. At this moment, however, his attention was +attracted by a gentleman who had come from another part of the room and whose +manner was that of a stranger to the gallery, although he was equipped with +neither guide-book nor opera-glass. He carried a white sun-umbrella, lined with +blue silk, and he strolled in front of the Paul Veronese, vaguely looking at +it, but much too near to see anything but the grain of the canvas. Opposite to +Christopher Newman he paused and turned, and then our friend, who had been +observing him, had a chance to verify a suspicion aroused by an imperfect view +of his face. The result of this larger scrutiny was that he presently sprang to +his feet, strode across the room, and, with an outstretched hand, arrested the +gentleman with the blue-lined umbrella. The latter stared, but put out his hand +at a venture. He was corpulent and rosy, and though his countenance, which was +ornamented with a beautiful flaxen beard, carefully divided in the middle and +brushed outward at the sides, was not remarkable for intensity of expression, +he looked like a person who would willingly shake hands with anyone. I know not +what Newman thought of his face, but he found a want of response in his grasp. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come, come,” he said, laughing; “don’t say, now, +you don’t know me—if I have <i>not</i> got a white parasol!” +</p> + +<p> +The sound of his voice quickened the other’s memory, his face expanded to +its fullest capacity, and he also broke into a laugh. “Why, +Newman—I’ll be blowed! Where in the world—I declare—who +would have thought? You know you have changed.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Not for the better, no doubt. When did you get here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three days ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you let me know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had no idea <i>you</i> were here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been here these six years.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be eight or nine since we met.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something of that sort. We were very young.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was in St. Louis, during the war. You were in the army.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, not I! But you were.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe I was.” +</p> + +<p> +“You came out all right?” +</p> + +<p> +“I came out with my legs and arms—and with satisfaction. All that +seems very far away.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how long have you been in Europe?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seventeen days.” +</p> + +<p> +“First time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, very much so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Made your everlasting fortune?” +</p> + +<p> +Christopher Newman was silent a moment, and then with a tranquil smile he +answered, “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And come to Paris to spend it, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we shall see. So they carry those parasols here—the +men-folk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course they do. They’re great things. They understand comfort +out here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where do you buy them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anywhere, everywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Tristram, I’m glad to get hold of you. You can show me the +ropes. I suppose you know Paris inside out.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Tristram gave a mellow smile of self-gratulation. “Well, I guess +there are not many men that can show me much. I’ll take care of +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a pity you were not here a few minutes ago. I have just +bought a picture. You might have put the thing through for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bought a picture?” said Mr. Tristram, looking vaguely round at the +walls. “Why, do they sell them?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean a copy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see. These,” said Mr. Tristram, nodding at the Titians and +Vandykes, “these, I suppose, are originals.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so,” cried Newman. “I don’t want a copy of a +copy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Mr. Tristram, mysteriously, “you can never tell. +They imitate, you know, so deucedly well. It’s like the jewellers, with +their false stones. Go into the Palais Royal, there; you see +‘Imitation’ on half the windows. The law obliges them to stick it +on, you know; but you can’t tell the things apart. To tell the +truth,” Mr. Tristram continued, with a wry face, “I don’t do +much in pictures. I leave that to my wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you have got a wife?” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t I mention it? She’s a very nice woman; you must know +her. She’s up there in the Avenue d’Iéna.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you are regularly fixed—house and children and all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a tip-top house and a couple of youngsters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Christopher Newman, stretching his arms a little, with +a sigh, “I envy you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no! you don’t!” answered Mr. Tristram, giving him a +little poke with his parasol. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon; I do!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you won’t, then, when—when—” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t certainly mean when I have seen your +establishment?” +</p> + +<p> +“When you have seen Paris, my boy. You want to be your own master +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have been my own master all my life, and I’m tired of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, try Paris. How old are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-six.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>C’est le bel âge</i>, as they say here.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does that mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“It means that a man shouldn’t send away his plate till he has +eaten his fill.” +</p> + +<p> +“All that? I have just made arrangements to take French lessons.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you don’t want any lessons. You’ll pick it up. I never +took any.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you speak French as well as English?” +</p> + +<p> +“Better!” said Mr. Tristram, roundly. “It’s a splendid +language. You can say all sorts of bright things in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I suppose,” said Christopher Newman, with an earnest desire +for information, “that you must be bright to begin with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit; that’s just the beauty of it.” +</p> + +<p> +The two friends, as they exchanged these remarks, had remained standing where +they met, and leaning against the rail which protected the pictures. Mr. +Tristram at last declared that he was overcome with fatigue and should be happy +to sit down. Newman recommended in the highest terms the great divan on which +he had been lounging, and they prepared to seat themselves. “This is a +great place; isn’t it?” said Newman, with ardor. +</p> + +<p> +“Great place, great place. Finest thing in the world.” And then, +suddenly, Mr. Tristram hesitated and looked about him. “I suppose they +won’t let you smoke here.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman stared. “Smoke? I’m sure I don’t know. You know the +regulations better than I.” +</p> + +<p> +“I? I never was here before!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never! in six years?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe my wife dragged me here once when we first came to Paris, but +I never found my way back.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you say you know Paris so well!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t call this Paris!” cried Mr. Tristram, with +assurance. “Come; let’s go over to the Palais Royal and have a +smoke.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t smoke,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“A drink, then.” +</p> + +<p> +And Mr. Tristram led his companion away. They passed through the glorious halls +of the Louvre, down the staircases, along the cool, dim galleries of sculpture, +and out into the enormous court. Newman looked about him as he went, but he +made no comments, and it was only when they at last emerged into the open air +that he said to his friend, “It seems to me that in your place I should +have come here once a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no you wouldn’t!” said Mr. Tristram. “You think +so, but you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have had time. You would always +mean to go, but you never would go. There’s better fun than that, here in +Paris. Italy’s the place to see pictures; wait till you get there. There +you have to go; you can’t do anything else. It’s an awful country; +you can’t get a decent cigar. I don’t know why I went in there, +to-day; I was strolling along, rather hard up for amusement. I sort of noticed +the Louvre as I passed, and I thought I would go in and see what was going on. +But if I hadn’t found you there I should have felt rather sold. Hang it, +I don’t care for pictures; I prefer the reality!” And Mr. Tristram +tossed off this happy formula with an assurance which the numerous class of +persons suffering from an overdose of “culture” might have envied +him. +</p> + +<p> +The two gentlemen proceeded along the Rue de Rivoli and into the Palais Royal, +where they seated themselves at one of the little tables stationed at the door +of the café which projects into the great open quadrangle. The place was filled +with people, the fountains were spouting, a band was playing, clusters of +chairs were gathered beneath all the lime-trees, and buxom, white-capped +nurses, seated along the benches, were offering to their infant charges the +amplest facilities for nutrition. There was an easy, homely gaiety in the whole +scene, and Christopher Newman felt that it was most characteristically +Parisian. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” began Mr. Tristram, when they had tested the decoction +which he had caused to be served to them, “now just give an account of +yourself. What are your ideas, what are your plans, where have you come from +and where are you going? In the first place, where are you staying?” +</p> + +<p> +“At the Grand Hotel,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Tristram puckered his plump visage. “That won’t do! You must +change.” +</p> + +<p> +“Change?” demanded Newman. “Why, it’s the finest hotel +I ever was in.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want a ‘fine’ hotel; you want something +small and quiet and elegant, where your bell is answered and you—your +person is recognized.” +</p> + +<p> +“They keep running to see if I have rung before I have touched the +bell,” said Newman “and as for my person they are always bowing and +scraping to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you are always tipping them. That’s very bad +style.” +</p> + +<p> +“Always? By no means. A man brought me something yesterday, and then +stood loafing in a beggarly manner. I offered him a chair and asked him if he +wouldn’t sit down. Was that bad style?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very!” +</p> + +<p> +“But he bolted, instantly. At any rate, the place amuses me. Hang your +elegance, if it bores me. I sat in the court of the Grand Hotel last night +until two o’clock in the morning, watching the coming and going, and the +people knocking about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re easily pleased. But you can do as you choose—a man in +your shoes. You have made a pile of money, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have made enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Happy the man who can say that? Enough for what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Enough to rest awhile, to forget the confounded thing, to look about me, +to see the world, to have a good time, to improve my mind, and, if the fancy +takes me, to marry a wife.” Newman spoke slowly, with a certain dryness +of accent and with frequent pauses. This was his habitual mode of utterance, +but it was especially marked in the words I have just quoted. +</p> + +<p> +“Jupiter! There’s a programme!” cried Mr. Tristram. +“Certainly, all that takes money, especially the wife; unless indeed she +gives it, as mine did. And what’s the story? How have you done it?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman had pushed his hat back from his forehead, folded his arms, and +stretched his legs. He listened to the music, he looked about him at the +bustling crowd, at the plashing fountains, at the nurses and the babies. +“I have worked!” he answered at last. +</p> + +<p> +Tristram looked at him for some moments, and allowed his placid eyes to measure +his friend’s generous longitude and rest upon his comfortably +contemplative face. “What have you worked at?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, at several things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’re a smart fellow, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman continued to look at the nurses and babies; they imparted to the scene a +kind of primordial, pastoral simplicity. “Yes,” he said at last, +“I suppose I am.” And then, in answer to his companion’s +inquiries, he related briefly his history since their last meeting. It was an +intensely Western story, and it dealt with enterprises which it will be +needless to introduce to the reader in detail. Newman had come out of the war +with a brevet of brigadier-general, an honor which in this case—without +invidious comparisons—had lighted upon shoulders amply competent to bear +it. But though he could manage a fight, when need was, Newman heartily disliked +the business; his four years in the army had left him with an angry, bitter +sense of the waste of precious things—life and time and money and +“smartness” and the early freshness of purpose; and he had +addressed himself to the pursuits of peace with passionate zest and energy. He +was of course as penniless when he plucked off his shoulder-straps as when he +put them on, and the only capital at his disposal was his dogged resolution and +his lively perception of ends and means. Exertion and action were as natural to +him as respiration; a more completely healthy mortal had never trod the elastic +soil of the West. His experience, moreover, was as wide as his capacity; when +he was fourteen years old, necessity had taken him by his slim young shoulders +and pushed him into the street, to earn that night’s supper. He had not +earned it but he had earned the next night’s, and afterwards, whenever he +had had none, it was because he had gone without it to use the money for +something else, a keener pleasure or a finer profit. He had turned his hand, +with his brain in it, to many things; he had been enterprising, in an eminent +sense of the term; he had been adventurous and even reckless, and he had known +bitter failure as well as brilliant success; but he was a born experimentalist, +and he had always found something to enjoy in the pressure of necessity, even +when it was as irritating as the haircloth shirt of the mediæval monk. At one +time failure seemed inexorably his portion; ill-luck became his bed-fellow, and +whatever he touched he turned, not to gold, but to ashes. His most vivid +conception of a supernatural element in the world’s affairs had come to +him once when this pertinacity of misfortune was at its climax; there seemed to +him something stronger in life than his own will. But the mysterious something +could only be the devil, and he was accordingly seized with an intense personal +enmity to this impertinent force. He had known what it was to have utterly +exhausted his credit, to be unable to raise a dollar, and to find himself at +nightfall in a strange city, without a penny to mitigate its strangeness. It +was under these circumstances that he made his entrance into San Francisco, the +scene, subsequently, of his happiest strokes of fortune. If he did not, like +Dr. Franklin in Philadelphia, march along the street munching a penny-loaf, it +was only because he had not the penny-loaf necessary to the performance. In his +darkest days he had had but one simple, practical impulse—the desire, as +he would have phrased it, to see the thing through. He did so at last, buffeted +his way into smooth waters, and made money largely. It must be admitted, rather +nakedly, that Christopher Newman’s sole aim in life had been to make +money; what he had been placed in the world for was, to his own perception, +simply to wrest a fortune, the bigger the better, from defiant opportunity. +This idea completely filled his horizon and satisfied his imagination. Upon the +uses of money, upon what one might do with a life into which one had succeeded +in injecting the golden stream, he had up to his thirty-fifth year very +scantily reflected. Life had been for him an open game, and he had played for +high stakes. He had won at last and carried off his winnings; and now what was +he to do with them? He was a man to whom, sooner or later, the question was +sure to present itself, and the answer to it belongs to our story. A vague +sense that more answers were possible than his philosophy had hitherto dreamt +of had already taken possession of him, and it seemed softly and agreeably to +deepen as he lounged in this brilliant corner of Paris with his friend. +</p> + +<p> +“I must confess,” he presently went on, “that here I +don’t feel at all smart. My remarkable talents seem of no use. I feel as +simple as a little child, and a little child might take me by the hand and lead +me about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll be your little child,” said Tristram, jovially; +“I’ll take you by the hand. Trust yourself to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a good worker,” Newman continued, “but I rather think I +am a poor loafer. I have come abroad to amuse myself, but I doubt whether I +know how.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s easily learned.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I may perhaps learn it, but I am afraid I shall never do it by +rote. I have the best will in the world about it, but my genius doesn’t +lie in that direction. As a loafer I shall never be original, as I take it that +you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Tristram, “I suppose I am original; like all +those immoral pictures in the Louvre.” +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” Newman continued, “I don’t want to work at +pleasure, any more than I played at work. I want to take it easily. I feel +deliciously lazy, and I should like to spend six months as I am now, sitting +under a tree and listening to a band. There’s only one thing; I want to +hear some good music.” +</p> + +<p> +“Music and pictures! Lord, what refined tastes! You are what my wife +calls intellectual. I ain’t, a bit. But we can find something better for +you to do than to sit under a tree. To begin with, you must come to the +club.” +</p> + +<p> +“What club?” +</p> + +<p> +“The Occidental. You will see all the Americans there; all the best of +them, at least. Of course you play poker?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say,” cried Newman, with energy, “you are not going to +lock me up in a club and stick me down at a card-table! I haven’t come +all this way for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“What the deuce <i>have</i> you come for! You were glad enough to play +poker in St. Louis, I recollect, when you cleaned me out.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have come to see Europe, to get the best out of it I can. I want to +see all the great things, and do what the clever people do.” +</p> + +<p> +“The clever people? Much obliged. You set me down as a blockhead, +then?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was sitting sidewise in his chair, with his elbow on the back and his +head leaning on his hand. Without moving he looked a while at his companion +with his dry, guarded, half-inscrutable, and yet altogether good-natured smile. +“Introduce me to your wife!” he said at last. +</p> + +<p> +Tristram bounced about in his chair. “Upon my word, I won’t. She +doesn’t want any help to turn up her nose at me, nor do you, +either!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t turn up my nose at you, my dear fellow; nor at anyone, or +anything. I’m not proud, I assure you I’m not proud. That’s +why I am willing to take example by the clever people.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if I’m not the rose, as they say here, I have lived near it. +I can show you some clever people, too. Do you know General Packard? Do you +know C. P. Hatch? Do you know Miss Kitty Upjohn?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be happy to make their acquaintance; I want to cultivate +society.” +</p> + +<p> +Tristram seemed restless and suspicious; he eyed his friend askance, and then, +“What are you up to, anyway?” he demanded. “Are you going to +write a book?” +</p> + +<p> +Christopher Newman twisted one end of his moustache a while, in silence, and at +last he made answer. “One day, a couple of months ago, something very +curious happened to me. I had come on to New York on some important business; +it was rather a long story—a question of getting ahead of another party, +in a certain particular way, in the stock-market. This other party had once +played me a very mean trick. I owed him a grudge, I felt awfully savage at the +time, and I vowed that, when I got a chance, I would, figuratively speaking, +put his nose out of joint. There was a matter of some sixty thousand dollars at +stake. If I put it out of his way, it was a blow the fellow would feel, and he +really deserved no quarter. I jumped into a hack and went about my business, +and it was in this hack—this immortal, historical hack—that the +curious thing I speak of occurred. It was a hack like any other, only a trifle +dirtier, with a greasy line along the top of the drab cushions, as if it had +been used for a great many Irish funerals. It is possible I took a nap; I had +been traveling all night, and though I was excited with my errand, I felt the +want of sleep. At all events I woke up suddenly, from a sleep or from a kind of +a reverie, with the most extraordinary feeling in the world—a mortal +disgust for the thing I was going to do. It came upon me like +<i>that!</i>” and he snapped his fingers—“as abruptly as an +old wound that begins to ache. I couldn’t tell the meaning of it; I only +felt that I loathed the whole business and wanted to wash my hands of it. The +idea of losing that sixty thousand dollars, of letting it utterly slide and +scuttle and never hearing of it again, seemed the sweetest thing in the world. +And all this took place quite independently of my will, and I sat watching it +as if it were a play at the theatre. I could feel it going on inside of me. You +may depend upon it that there are things going on inside of us that we +understand mighty little about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jupiter! you make my flesh creep!” cried Tristram. “And +while you sat in your hack, watching the play, as you call it, the other man +marched in and bagged your sixty thousand dollars?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not the least idea. I hope so, poor devil! but I never found out. +We pulled up in front of the place I was going to in Wall Street, but I sat +still in the carriage, and at last the driver scrambled down off his seat to +see whether his carriage had not turned into a hearse. I couldn’t have +got out, any more than if I had been a corpse. What was the matter with me? +Momentary idiocy, you’ll say. What I wanted to get out of was Wall +Street. I told the man to drive down to the Brooklyn ferry and to cross over. +When we were over, I told him to drive me out into the country. As I had told +him originally to drive for dear life down town, I suppose he thought me +insane. Perhaps I was, but in that case I am insane still. I spent the morning +looking at the first green leaves on Long Island. I was sick of business; I +wanted to throw it all up and break off short; I had money enough, or if I +hadn’t I ought to have. I seemed to feel a new man inside my old skin, +and I longed for a new world. When you want a thing so very badly you had +better treat yourself to it. I didn’t understand the matter, not in the +least; but I gave the old horse the bridle and let him find his way. As soon as +I could get out of the game I sailed for Europe. That is how I come to be +sitting here.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to have bought up that hack,” said Tristram; “it +isn’t a safe vehicle to have about. And you have really sold out, then; +you have retired from business?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have made over my hand to a friend; when I feel disposed, I can take +up the cards again. I dare say that a twelvemonth hence the operation will be +reversed. The pendulum will swing back again. I shall be sitting in a gondola +or on a dromedary, and all of a sudden I shall want to clear out. But for the +present I am perfectly free. I have even bargained that I am to receive no +business letters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s a real <i>caprice de prince</i>,” said Tristram. +“I back out; a poor devil like me can’t help you to spend such very +magnificent leisure as that. You should get introduced to the crowned +heads.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at him a moment, and then, with his easy smile, “How does +one do it?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, I like that!” cried Tristram. “It shows you are in +earnest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I am in earnest. Didn’t I say I wanted the best? I know +the best can’t be had for mere money, but I rather think money will do a +good deal. In addition, I am willing to take a good deal of trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not bashful, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t the least idea. I want the biggest kind of entertainment +a man can get. People, places, art, nature, everything! I want to see the +tallest mountains, and the bluest lakes, and the finest pictures and the +handsomest churches, and the most celebrated men, and the most beautiful +women.” +</p> + +<p> +“Settle down in Paris, then. There are no mountains that I know of, and +the only lake is in the Bois du Boulogne, and not particularly blue. But there +is everything else: plenty of pictures and churches, no end of celebrated men, +and several beautiful women.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I can’t settle down in Paris at this season, just as summer is +coming on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, for the summer go up to Trouville.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is Trouville?” +</p> + +<p> +“The French Newport. Half the Americans go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it anywhere near the Alps?” +</p> + +<p> +“About as near as Newport is to the Rocky Mountains.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I want to see Mont Blanc,” said Newman, “and Amsterdam, +and the Rhine, and a lot of places. Venice in particular. I have great ideas +about Venice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Mr. Tristram, rising, “I see I shall have to +introduce you to my wife!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p> +He performed this ceremony on the following day, when, by appointment, +Christopher Newman went to dine with him. Mr. and Mrs. Tristram lived behind +one of those chalk-colored façades which decorate with their pompous sameness +the broad avenues manufactured by Baron Haussmann in the neighborhood of the +Arc de Triomphe. Their apartment was rich in the modern conveniences, and +Tristram lost no time in calling his visitor’s attention to their +principal household treasures, the gas-lamps and the furnace-holes. +“Whenever you feel homesick,” he said, “you must come up +here. We’ll stick you down before a register, under a good big burner, +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“And you will soon get over your homesickness,” said Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband stared; his wife often had a tone which he found inscrutable he +could not tell for his life whether she was in jest or in earnest. The truth is +that circumstances had done much to cultivate in Mrs. Tristram a marked +tendency to irony. Her taste on many points differed from that of her husband, +and though she made frequent concessions it must be confessed that her +concessions were not always graceful. They were founded upon a vague project +she had of some day doing something very positive, something a trifle +passionate. What she meant to do she could by no means have told you; but +meanwhile, nevertheless, she was buying a good conscience, by instalments. +</p> + +<p> +It should be added, without delay, to anticipate misconception, that her little +scheme of independence did not definitely involve the assistance of another +person, of the opposite sex; she was not saving up virtue to cover the expenses +of a flirtation. For this there were various reasons. To begin with, she had a +very plain face and she was entirely without illusions as to her appearance. +She had taken its measure to a hair’s breadth, she knew the worst and the +best, she had accepted herself. It had not been, indeed, without a struggle. As +a young girl she had spent hours with her back to her mirror, crying her eyes +out; and later she had from desperation and bravado adopted the habit of +proclaiming herself the most ill-favored of women, in order that she +might—as in common politeness was inevitable—be contradicted and +reassured. It was since she had come to live in Europe that she had begun to +take the matter philosophically. Her observation, acutely exercised here, had +suggested to her that a woman’s first duty is not to be beautiful, but to +be pleasing, and she encountered so many women who pleased without beauty that +she began to feel that she had discovered her mission. She had once heard an +enthusiastic musician, out of patience with a gifted bungler, declare that a +fine voice is really an obstacle to singing properly; and it occurred to her +that it might perhaps be equally true that a beautiful face is an obstacle to +the acquisition of charming manners. Mrs. Tristram, then, undertook to be +exquisitely agreeable, and she brought to the task a really touching devotion. +How well she would have succeeded I am unable to say; unfortunately she broke +off in the middle. Her own excuse was the want of encouragement in her +immediate circle. But I am inclined to think that she had not a real genius for +the matter, or she would have pursued the charming art for itself. The poor +lady was very incomplete. She fell back upon the harmonies of the toilet, which +she thoroughly understood, and contented herself with dressing in perfection. +She lived in Paris, which she pretended to detest, because it was only in Paris +that one could find things to exactly suit one’s complexion. Besides out +of Paris it was always more or less of a trouble to get ten-button gloves. When +she railed at this serviceable city and you asked her where she would prefer to +reside, she returned some very unexpected answer. She would say in Copenhagen, +or in Barcelona; having, while making the tour of Europe, spent a couple of +days at each of these places. On the whole, with her poetic furbelows and her +misshapen, intelligent little face, she was, when you knew her, a decidedly +interesting woman. She was naturally shy, and if she had been born a beauty, +she would (having no vanity) probably have remained shy. Now, she was both +diffident and importunate; extremely reserved sometimes with her friends, and +strangely expansive with strangers. She despised her husband; despised him too +much, for she had been perfectly at liberty not to marry him. She had been in +love with a clever man who had slighted her, and she had married a fool in the +hope that this thankless wit, reflecting on it, would conclude that she had no +appreciation of merit, and that he had flattered himself in supposing that she +cared for his own. Restless, discontented, visionary, without personal +ambitions, but with a certain avidity of imagination, she was, as I have said +before, eminently incomplete. She was full—both for good and for +ill—of beginnings that came to nothing; but she had nevertheless, +morally, a spark of the sacred fire. +</p> + +<p> +Newman was fond, under all circumstances, of the society of women, and now that +he was out of his native element and deprived of his habitual interests, he +turned to it for compensation. He took a great fancy to Mrs. Tristram; she +frankly repaid it, and after their first meeting he passed a great many hours +in her drawing-room. After two or three talks they were fast friends. +Newman’s manner with women was peculiar, and it required some ingenuity +on a lady’s part to discover that he admired her. He had no gallantry, in +the usual sense of the term; no compliments, no graces, no speeches. Very fond +of what is called chaffing, in his dealings with men, he never found himself on +a sofa beside a member of the softer sex without feeling extremely serious. He +was not shy, and so far as awkwardness proceeds from a struggle with shyness, +he was not awkward; grave, attentive, submissive, often silent, he was simply +swimming in a sort of rapture of respect. This emotion was not at all +theoretic, it was not even in a high degree sentimental; he had thought very +little about the “position” of women, and he was not familiar +either sympathetically or otherwise, with the image of a President in +petticoats. His attitude was simply the flower of his general good-nature, and +a part of his instinctive and genuinely democratic assumption of +everyone’s right to lead an easy life. If a shaggy pauper had a right to +bed and board and wages and a vote, women, of course, who were weaker than +paupers, and whose physical tissue was in itself an appeal, should be +maintained, sentimentally, at the public expense. Newman was willing to be +taxed for this purpose, largely, in proportion to his means. Moreover, many of +the common traditions with regard to women were with him fresh personal +impressions; he had never read a novel! He had been struck with their +acuteness, their subtlety, their tact, their felicity of judgment. They seemed +to him exquisitely organized. If it is true that one must always have in +one’s work here below a religion, or at least an ideal, of some sort, +Newman found his metaphysical inspiration in a vague acceptance of final +responsibility to some illumined feminine brow. +</p> + +<p> +He spent a great deal of time in listening to advice from Mrs. Tristram; +advice, it must be added, for which he had never asked. He would have been +incapable of asking for it, for he had no perception of difficulties, and +consequently no curiosity about remedies. The complex Parisian world about him +seemed a very simple affair; it was an immense, amazing spectacle, but it +neither inflamed his imagination nor irritated his curiosity. He kept his hands +in his pockets, looked on good-humoredly, desired to miss nothing important, +observed a great many things narrowly, and never reverted to himself. Mrs. +Tristram’s “advice” was a part of the show, and a more +entertaining element, in her abundant gossip, than the others. He enjoyed her +talking about himself; it seemed a part of her beautiful ingenuity; but he +never made an application of anything she said, or remembered it when he was +away from her. For herself, she appropriated him; he was the most interesting +thing she had had to think about in many a month. She wished to do something +with him—she hardly knew what. There was so much of him; he was so rich +and robust, so easy, friendly, well-disposed, that he kept her fancy constantly +on the alert. For the present, the only thing she could do was to like him. She +told him that he was “horribly Western,” but in this compliment the +adverb was tinged with insincerity. She led him about with her, introduced him +to fifty people, and took extreme satisfaction in her conquest. Newman accepted +every proposal, shook hands universally and promiscuously, and seemed equally +unfamiliar with trepidation or with elation. Tom Tristram complained of his +wife’s avidity, and declared that he could never have a clear five +minutes with his friend. If he had known how things were going to turn out, he +never would have brought him to the Avenue d’Iéna. The two men, formerly, +had not been intimate, but Newman remembered his earlier impression of his +host, and did Mrs. Tristram, who had by no means taken him into her confidence, +but whose secret he presently discovered, the justice to admit that her husband +was a rather degenerate mortal. At twenty-five he had been a good fellow, and +in this respect he was unchanged; but of a man of his age one expected +something more. People said he was sociable, but this was as much a matter of +course as for a dipped sponge to expand; and it was not a high order of +sociability. He was a great gossip and tattler, and to produce a laugh would +hardly have spared the reputation of his aged mother. Newman had a kindness for +old memories, but he found it impossible not to perceive that Tristram was +nowadays a very light weight. His only aspirations were to hold out at poker, +at his club, to know the names of all the <i>cocottes</i>, to shake hands all +round, to ply his rosy gullet with truffles and champagne, and to create +uncomfortable eddies and obstructions among the constituent atoms of the +American colony. He was shamefully idle, spiritless, sensual, snobbish. He +irritated our friend by the tone of his allusions to their native country, and +Newman was at a loss to understand why the United States were not good enough +for Mr. Tristram. He had never been a very conscious patriot, but it vexed him +to see them treated as little better than a vulgar smell in his friend’s +nostrils, and he finally broke out and swore that they were the greatest +country in the world, that they could put all Europe into their breeches’ +pockets, and that an American who spoke ill of them ought to be carried home in +irons and compelled to live in Boston. (This, for Newman was putting it very +vindictively.) Tristram was a comfortable man to snub, he bore no malice, and +he continued to insist on Newman’s finishing his evening at the +Occidental Club. +</p> + +<p> +Christopher Newman dined several times in the Avenue d’Iéna, and his host +always proposed an early adjournment to this institution. Mrs. Tristram +protested, and declared that her husband exhausted his ingenuity in trying to +displease her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I never try, my love,” he answered. “I know you +loathe me quite enough when I take my chance.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman hated to see a husband and wife on these terms, and he was sure one or +other of them must be very unhappy. He knew it was not Tristram. Mrs. Tristram +had a balcony before her windows, upon which, during the June evenings, she was +fond of sitting, and Newman used frankly to say that he preferred the balcony +to the club. It had a fringe of perfumed plants in tubs, and enabled you to +look up the broad street and see the Arch of Triumph vaguely massing its heroic +sculptures in the summer starlight. Sometimes Newman kept his promise of +following Mr. Tristram, in half an hour, to the Occidental, and sometimes he +forgot it. His hostess asked him a great many questions about himself, but on +this subject he was an indifferent talker. He was not what is called +subjective, though when he felt that her interest was sincere, he made an +almost heroic attempt to be. He told her a great many things he had done, and +regaled her with anecdotes of Western life; she was from Philadelphia, and with +her eight years in Paris, talked of herself as a languid Oriental. But some +other person was always the hero of the tale, by no means always to his +advantage; and Newman’s own emotions were but scantily chronicled. She +had an especial wish to know whether he had ever been in love—seriously, +passionately—and, failing to gather any satisfaction from his allusions, +she at last directly inquired. He hesitated a while, and at last he said, +“No!” She declared that she was delighted to hear it, as it +confirmed her private conviction that he was a man of no feeling. +</p> + +<p> +“Really?” he asked, very gravely. “Do you think so? How do +you recognize a man of feeling?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t make out,” said Mrs. Tristram, “whether you +are very simple or very deep.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very deep. That’s a fact.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe that if I were to tell you with a certain air that you have no +feeling, you would implicitly believe me.” +</p> + +<p> +“A certain air?” said Newman. “Try it and see.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would believe me, but you would not care,” said Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“You have got it all wrong. I should care immensely, but I +shouldn’t believe you. The fact is I have never had time to feel things. +I have had to <i>do</i> them, to make myself felt.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can imagine that you may have done that tremendously, +sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, there’s no mistake about that.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you are in a fury it can’t be pleasant.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am never in a fury.” +</p> + +<p> +“Angry, then, or displeased.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am never angry, and it is so long since I have been displeased that I +have quite forgotten it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe,” said Mrs. Tristram, “that you are +never angry. A man ought to be angry sometimes, and you are neither good enough +nor bad enough always to keep your temper.” +</p> + +<p> +“I lose it perhaps once in five years.” +</p> + +<p> +“The time is coming round, then,” said his hostess. “Before I +have known you six months I shall see you in a fine fury.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to put me into one?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should not be sorry. You take things too coolly. It exasperates me. +And then you are too happy. You have what must be the most agreeable thing in +the world, the consciousness of having bought your pleasure beforehand and paid +for it. You have not a day of reckoning staring you in the face. Your +reckonings are over.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose I am happy,” said Newman, meditatively. +</p> + +<p> +“You have been odiously successful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Successful in copper,” said Newman, “only so-so in +railroads, and a hopeless fizzle in oil.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very disagreeable to know how Americans have made their money. Now +you have the world before you. You have only to enjoy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I suppose I am very well off,” said Newman. “Only I am +tired of having it thrown up at me. Besides, there are several drawbacks. I am +not intellectual.” +</p> + +<p> +“One doesn’t expect it of you,” Mrs. Tristram answered. Then +in a moment, “Besides, you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I mean to have a good time, whether or no,” said Newman. +“I am not cultivated, I am not even educated; I know nothing about +history, or art, or foreign tongues, or any other learned matters. But I am not +a fool, either, and I shall undertake to know something about Europe by the +time I have done with it. I feel something under my ribs here,” he added +in a moment, “that I can’t explain—a sort of a mighty +hankering, a desire to stretch out and haul in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo!” said Mrs. Tristram, “that is very fine. You are the +great Western Barbarian, stepping forth in his innocence and might, gazing a +while at this poor effete Old World and then swooping down on it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come,” said Newman. “I am not a barbarian, by a good +deal. I am very much the reverse. I have seen barbarians; I know what they +are.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean that you are a Comanche chief, or that you wear a +blanket and feathers. There are different shades.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a highly civilized man,” said Newman. “I stick to that. +If you don’t believe it, I should like to prove it to you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram was silent a while. “I should like to make you prove +it,” she said, at last. “I should like to put you in a difficult +place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray do,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“That has a little conceited sound!” his companion rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Newman, “I have a very good opinion of +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could put it to the test. Give me time and I will.” And +Mrs. Tristram remained silent for some time afterwards, as if she was trying to +keep her pledge. It did not appear that evening that she succeeded; but as he +was rising to take his leave she passed suddenly, as she was very apt to do, +from the tone of unsparing persiflage to that of almost tremulous sympathy. +“Speaking seriously,” she said, “I believe in you, Mr. +Newman. You flatter my patriotism.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your patriotism?” Christopher demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Even so. It would take too long to explain, and you probably would not +understand. Besides, you might take it—really, you might take it for a +declaration. But it has nothing to do with you personally; it’s what you +represent. Fortunately you don’t know all that, or your conceit would +increase insufferably.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman stood staring and wondering what under the sun he +“represented.” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive all my meddlesome chatter and forget my advice. It is very silly +in me to undertake to tell you what to do. When you are embarrassed, do as you +think best, and you will do very well. When you are in a difficulty, judge for +yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall remember everything you have told me,” said Newman. +“There are so many forms and ceremonies over here—” +</p> + +<p> +“Forms and ceremonies are what I mean, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but I want to observe them,” said Newman. “Haven’t +I as good a right as another? They don’t scare me, and you needn’t +give me leave to violate them. I won’t take it.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is not what I mean. I mean, observe them in your own way. Settle +nice questions for yourself. Cut the knot or untie it, as you choose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am sure I shall never fumble over it!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +The next time that he dined in the Avenue d’Iéna was a Sunday, a day on +which Mr. Tristram left the cards unshuffled, so that there was a trio in the +evening on the balcony. The talk was of many things, and at last Mrs. Tristram +suddenly observed to Christopher Newman that it was high time he should take a +wife. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to her; she has the audacity!” said Tristram, who on Sunday +evenings was always rather acrimonious. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t suppose you have made up your mind not to marry?” +Mrs. Tristram continued. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forbid!” cried Newman. “I am sternly resolved on +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very easy,” said Tristram; “fatally easy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, I suppose you do not mean to wait till you are fifty.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary, I am in a great hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +“One would never suppose it. Do you expect a lady to come and propose to +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I am willing to propose. I think a great deal about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me some of your thoughts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, slowly, “I want to marry very +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Marry a woman of sixty, then,” said Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Well’ in what sense?” +</p> + +<p> +“In every sense. I shall be hard to please.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must remember that, as the French proverb says, the most beautiful +girl in the world can give but what she has.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you ask me,” said Newman, “I will say frankly that I +want extremely to marry. It is time, to begin with: before I know it I shall be +forty. And then I’m lonely and helpless and dull. But if I marry now, so +long as I didn’t do it in hot haste when I was twenty, I must do it with +my eyes open. I want to do the thing in handsome style. I do not only want to +make no mistakes, but I want to make a great hit. I want to take my pick. My +wife must be a magnificent woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Voilà ce qui s’appelle parler!</i>” cried Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have thought an immense deal about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you think too much. The best thing is simply to fall in +love.” +</p> + +<p> +“When I find the woman who pleases me, I shall love her enough. My wife +shall be very comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are superb! There’s a chance for the magnificent women.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not fair.” Newman rejoined. “You draw a fellow out +and put him off guard, and then you laugh at him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you,” said Mrs. Tristram, “that I am very serious. +To prove it, I will make you a proposal. Should you like me, as they say here, +to marry you?” +</p> + +<p> +“To hunt up a wife for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is already found. I will bring you together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come,” said Tristram, “we don’t keep a matrimonial +bureau. He will think you want your commission.” +</p> + +<p> +“Present me to a woman who comes up to my notions,” said Newman, +“and I will marry her tomorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have a strange tone about it, and I don’t quite understand +you. I didn’t suppose you would be so coldblooded and calculating.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was silent a while. “Well,” he said, at last, “I want +a great woman. I stick to that. That’s one thing I <i>can</i> treat +myself to, and if it is to be had I mean to have it. What else have I toiled +and struggled for, all these years? I have succeeded, and now what am I to do +with my success? To make it perfect, as I see it, there must be a beautiful +woman perched on the pile, like a statue on a monument. She must be as good as +she is beautiful, and as clever as she is good. I can give my wife a good deal, +so I am not afraid to ask a good deal myself. She shall have everything a woman +can desire; I shall not even object to her being too good for me; she may be +cleverer and wiser than I can understand, and I shall only be the better +pleased. I want to possess, in a word, the best article in the market.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you tell a fellow all this at the outset?” +Tristram demanded. “I have been trying so to make you fond of +<i>me!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“This is very interesting,” said Mrs. Tristram. “I like to +see a man know his own mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have known mine for a long time,” Newman went on. “I made +up my mind tolerably early in life that a beautiful wife was the thing best +worth having, here below. It is the greatest victory over circumstances. When I +say beautiful, I mean beautiful in mind and in manners, as well as in person. +It is a thing every man has an equal right to; he may get it if he can. He +doesn’t have to be born with certain faculties, on purpose; he needs only +to be a man. Then he needs only to use his will, and such wits as he has, and +to try.” +</p> + +<p> +“It strikes me that your marriage is to be rather a matter of +vanity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it is certain,” said Newman, “that if people notice my +wife and admire her, I shall be mightily tickled.” +</p> + +<p> +“After this,” cried Mrs. Tristram, “call any man +modest!” +</p> + +<p> +“But none of them will admire her so much as I.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see you have a taste for splendor.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman hesitated a little; and then, “I honestly believe I have!” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +“And I suppose you have already looked about you a good deal.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good deal, according to opportunity.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you have seen nothing that satisfied you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Newman, half reluctantly, “I am bound to say in +honesty that I have seen nothing that really satisfied me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You remind me of the heroes of the French romantic poets, Rolla and +Fortunio and all those other insatiable gentlemen for whom nothing in this +world was handsome enough. But I see you are in earnest, and I should like to +help you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who the deuce is it, darling, that you are going to put upon him?” +Tristram cried. “We know a good many pretty girls, thank Heaven, but +magnificent women are not so common.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any objections to a foreigner?” his wife continued, +addressing Newman, who had tilted back his chair and, with his feet on a bar of +the balcony railing and his hands in his pockets, was looking at the stars. +</p> + +<p> +“No Irish need apply,” said Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +Newman meditated a while. “As a foreigner, no,” he said at last; +“I have no prejudices.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow, you have no suspicions!” cried Tristram. +“You don’t know what terrible customers these foreign women are; +especially the ‘magnificent’ ones. How should you like a fair +Circassian, with a dagger in her belt?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman administered a vigorous slap to his knee. “I would marry a +Japanese, if she pleased me,” he affirmed. +</p> + +<p> +“We had better confine ourselves to Europe,” said Mrs. Tristram. +“The only thing is, then, that the person be in herself to your +taste?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is going to offer you an unappreciated governess!” Tristram +groaned. +</p> + +<p> +“Assuredly. I won’t deny that, other things being equal, I should +prefer one of my own countrywomen. We should speak the same language, and that +would be a comfort. But I am not afraid of a foreigner. Besides, I rather like +the idea of taking in Europe, too. It enlarges the field of selection. When you +choose from a greater number, you can bring your choice to a finer +point!” +</p> + +<p> +“You talk like Sardanapalus!” exclaimed Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“You say all this to the right person,” said Newman’s +hostess. “I happen to number among my friends the loveliest woman in the +world. Neither more nor less. I don’t say a very charming person or a +very estimable woman or a very great beauty; I say simply the loveliest woman +in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“The deuce!” cried Tristram, “you have kept very quiet about +her. Were you afraid of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have seen her,” said his wife, “but you have no +perception of such merit as Claire’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, her name is Claire? I give it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does your friend wish to marry?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Not in the least. It is for you to make her change her mind. It will not +be easy; she has had one husband, and he gave her a low opinion of the +species.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she is a widow, then?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you already afraid? She was married at eighteen, by her parents, in +the French fashion, to a disagreeable old man. But he had the good taste to die +a couple of years afterward, and she is now twenty-five.” +</p> + +<p> +“So she is French?” +</p> + +<p> +“French by her father, English by her mother. She is really more English +than French, and she speaks English as well as you or I—or rather much +better. She belongs to the very top of the basket, as they say here. Her +family, on each side, is of fabulous antiquity; her mother is the daughter of +an English Catholic earl. Her father is dead, and since her widowhood she has +lived with her mother and a married brother. There is another brother, younger, +who I believe is wild. They have an old hotel in the Rue de l’Université, +but their fortune is small, and they make a common household, for +economy’s sake. When I was a girl I was put into a convent here for my +education, while my father made the tour of Europe. It was a silly thing to do +with me, but it had the advantage that it made me acquainted with Claire de +Bellegarde. She was younger than I but we became fast friends. I took a +tremendous fancy to her, and she returned my passion as far as she could. They +kept such a tight rein on her that she could do very little, and when I left +the convent she had to give me up. I was not of her <i>monde</i>; I am not now, +either, but we sometimes meet. They are terrible people—her <i>monde</i>; +all mounted upon stilts a mile high, and with pedigrees long in proportion. It +is the skim of the milk of the old <i>noblesse</i>. Do you know what a +Legitimist is, or an Ultramontane? Go into Madame de Cintré’s +drawing-room some afternoon, at five o’clock, and you will see the best +preserved specimens. I say go, but no one is admitted who can’t show his +fifty quarterings.” +</p> + +<p> +“And this is the lady you propose to me to marry?” asked Newman. +“A lady I can’t even approach?” +</p> + +<p> +“But you said just now that you recognized no obstacles.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at Mrs. Tristram a while, stroking his moustache. “Is she a +beauty?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, then it’s no use—” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not a beauty, but she is beautiful, two very different things. A +beauty has no faults in her face, the face of a beautiful woman may have faults +that only deepen its charm.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember Madame de Cintré, now,” said Tristram. “She is as +plain as a pike-staff. A man wouldn’t look at her twice.” +</p> + +<p> +“In saying that <i>he</i> would not look at her twice, my husband +sufficiently describes her,” Mrs. Tristram rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +“Is she good; is she clever?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +“She is perfect! I won’t say more than that. When you are praising +a person to another who is to know her, it is bad policy to go into details. I +won’t exaggerate. I simply recommend her. Among all women I have known +she stands alone; she is of a different clay.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to see her,” said Newman, simply. +</p> + +<p> +“I will try to manage it. The only way will be to invite her to dinner. I +have never invited her before, and I don’t know that she will come. Her +old feudal countess of a mother rules the family with an iron hand, and allows +her to have no friends but of her own choosing, and to visit only in a certain +sacred circle. But I can at least ask her.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment Mrs. Tristram was interrupted; a servant stepped out upon the +balcony and announced that there were visitors in the drawing-room. When +Newman’s hostess had gone in to receive her friends, Tom Tristram +approached his guest. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t put your foot into <i>this</i>, my boy,” he said, +puffing the last whiffs of his cigar. “There’s nothing in +it!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked askance at him, inquisitive. “You tell another story, +eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I say simply that Madame de Cintré is a great white doll of a woman, who +cultivates quiet haughtiness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, she’s haughty, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“She looks at you as if you were so much thin air, and cares for you +about as much.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is very proud, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Proud? As proud as I’m humble.” +</p> + +<p> +“And not good-looking?” +</p> + +<p> +Tristram shrugged his shoulders: “It’s a kind of beauty you must be +<i>intellectual</i> to understand. But I must go in and amuse the +company.” +</p> + +<p> +Some time elapsed before Newman followed his friends into the drawing-room. +When he at last made his appearance there he remained but a short time, and +during this period sat perfectly silent, listening to a lady to whom Mrs. +Tristram had straightway introduced him and who chattered, without a pause, +with the full force of an extraordinarily high-pitched voice. Newman gazed and +attended. Presently he came to bid good-night to Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is that lady?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Dora Finch. How do you like her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s too noisy.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is thought so bright! Certainly, you are fastidious,” said +Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +Newman stood a moment, hesitating. Then at last, “Don’t forget +about your friend,” he said, “Madame What’s-her-name? the +proud beauty. Ask her to dinner, and give me a good notice.” And with +this he departed. +</p> + +<p> +Some days later he came back; it was in the afternoon. He found Mrs. Tristram +in her drawing-room; with her was a visitor, a woman young and pretty, dressed +in white. The two ladies had risen and the visitor was apparently taking her +leave. As Newman approached, he received from Mrs. Tristram a glance of the +most vivid significance, which he was not immediately able to interpret. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a good friend of ours,” she said, turning to her +companion, “Mr. Christopher Newman. I have spoken of you to him and he +has an extreme desire to make your acquaintance. If you had consented to come +and dine, I should have offered him an opportunity.” +</p> + +<p> +The stranger turned her face toward Newman, with a smile. He was not +embarrassed, for his unconscious <i>sang-froid</i> was boundless; but as he +became aware that this was the proud and beautiful Madame de Cintré, the +loveliest woman in the world, the promised perfection, the proposed ideal, he +made an instinctive movement to gather his wits together. Through the slight +preoccupation that it produced he had a sense of a long, fair face, and of two +eyes that were both brilliant and mild. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have been most happy,” said Madame de Cintré. +“Unfortunately, as I have been telling Mrs. Tristram, I go on Monday to +the country.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman had made a solemn bow. “I am very sorry,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Paris is getting too warm,” Madame de Cintré added, taking her +friend’s hand again in farewell. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram seemed to have formed a sudden and somewhat venturesome +resolution, and she smiled more intensely, as women do when they take such +resolution. “I want Mr. Newman to know you,” she said, dropping her +head on one side and looking at Madame de Cintré’s bonnet ribbons. +</p> + +<p> +Christopher Newman stood gravely silent, while his native penetration +admonished him. Mrs. Tristram was determined to force her friend to address him +a word of encouragement which should be more than one of the common formulas of +politeness; and if she was prompted by charity, it was by the charity that +begins at home. Madame de Cintré was her dearest Claire, and her especial +admiration but Madame de Cintré had found it impossible to dine with her and +Madame de Cintré should for once be forced gently to render tribute to Mrs. +Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“It would give me great pleasure,” she said, looking at Mrs. +Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a great deal,” cried the latter, “for Madame de +Cintré to say!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very much obliged to you,” said Newman. “Mrs. Tristram +can speak better for me than I can speak for myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré looked at him again, with the same soft brightness. “Are +you to be long in Paris?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall keep him,” said Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“But you are keeping <i>me!</i>” and Madame de Cintré shook her +friend’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“A moment longer,” said Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré looked at Newman again; this time without her smile. Her eyes +lingered a moment. “Will you come and see me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram kissed her. Newman expressed his thanks, and she took her leave. +Her hostess went with her to the door, and left Newman alone a moment. +Presently she returned, rubbing her hands. “It was a fortunate +chance,” she said. “She had come to decline my invitation. You +triumphed on the spot, making her ask you, at the end of three minutes, to her +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was you who triumphed,” said Newman. “You must not be too +hard upon her.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram stared. “What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“She did not strike me as so proud. I should say she was shy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very discriminating. And what do you think of her face?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s handsome!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I should think it was! Of course you will go and see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow!” cried Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not to-morrow; the next day. That will be Sunday; she leaves Paris +on Monday. If you don’t see her; it will at least be a beginning.” +And she gave him Madame de Cintré’s address. +</p> + +<p> +He walked across the Seine, late in the summer afternoon, and made his way +through those gray and silent streets of the Faubourg St. Germain whose houses +present to the outer world a face as impassive and as suggestive of the +concentration of privacy within as the blank walls of Eastern seraglios. Newman +thought it a queer way for rich people to live; his ideal of grandeur was a +splendid façade diffusing its brilliancy outward too, irradiating hospitality. +The house to which he had been directed had a dark, dusty, painted portal, +which swung open in answer to his ring. It admitted him into a wide, gravelled +court, surrounded on three sides with closed windows, and with a doorway facing +the street, approached by three steps and surmounted by a tin canopy. The place +was all in the shade; it answered to Newman’s conception of a convent. +The portress could not tell him whether Madame de Cintré was visible; he would +please to apply at the farther door. He crossed the court; a gentleman was +sitting, bareheaded, on the steps of the portico, playing with a beautiful +pointer. He rose as Newman approached, and, as he laid his hand upon the bell, +said with a smile, in English, that he was afraid Newman would be kept waiting; +the servants were scattered, he himself had been ringing, he didn’t know +what the deuce was in them. He was a young man, his English was excellent, and +his smile very frank. Newman pronounced the name of Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” said the young man, “that my sister is visible. +Come in, and if you will give me your card I will carry it to her +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman had been accompanied on his present errand by a slight sentiment, I will +not say of defiance—a readiness for aggression or defence, as they might +prove needful—but of reflection, good-humored suspicion. He took from his +pocket, while he stood on the portico, a card upon which, under his name, he +had written the words “San Francisco,” and while he presented it he +looked warily at his interlocutor. His glance was singularly reassuring; he +liked the young man’s face; it strongly resembled that of Madame de +Cintré. He was evidently her brother. The young man, on his side, had made a +rapid inspection of Newman’s person. He had taken the card and was about +to enter the house with it when another figure appeared on the +threshold—an older man, of a fine presence, wearing evening dress. He +looked hard at Newman, and Newman looked at him. “Madame de +Cintré,” the younger man repeated, as an introduction of the visitor. The +other took the card from his hand, read it in a rapid glance, looked again at +Newman from head to foot, hesitated a moment, and then said, gravely but +urbanely, “Madame de Cintré is not at home.” +</p> + +<p> +The younger man made a gesture, and then, turning to Newman, “I am very +sorry, sir,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Newman gave him a friendly nod, to show that he bore him no malice, and +retraced his steps. At the porter’s lodge he stopped; the two men were +still standing on the portico. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is the gentleman with the dog?” he asked of the old woman who +reappeared. He had begun to learn French. +</p> + +<p> +“That is Monsieur le Comte.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the other?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is Monsieur le Marquis.” +</p> + +<p> +“A marquis?” said Christopher in English, which the old woman +fortunately did not understand. “Oh, then he’s not the +butler!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p> +Early one morning, before Christopher Newman was dressed, a little old man was +ushered into his apartment, followed by a youth in a blouse, bearing a picture +in a brilliant frame. Newman, among the distractions of Paris, had forgotten M. +Nioche and his accomplished daughter; but this was an effective reminder. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid you had given me up, sir,” said the old man, after +many apologies and salutations. “We have made you wait so many days. You +accused us, perhaps, of inconstancy, of bad faith. But behold me at last! And +behold also the pretty Madonna. Place it on a chair, my friend, in a good +light, so that monsieur may admire it.” And M. Nioche, addressing his +companion, helped him to dispose the work of art. +</p> + +<p> +It had been endued with a layer of varnish an inch thick and its frame, of an +elaborate pattern, was at least a foot wide. It glittered and twinkled in the +morning light, and looked, to Newman’s eyes, wonderfully splendid and +precious. It seemed to him a very happy purchase, and he felt rich in the +possession of it. He stood looking at it complacently, while he proceeded with +his toilet, and M. Nioche, who had dismissed his own attendant, hovered near, +smiling and rubbing his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“It has wonderful <i>finesse</i>,” he murmured, caressingly. +“And here and there are marvelous touches, you probably perceive them, +sir. It attracted great attention on the Boulevard, as we came along. And then +a gradation of tones! That’s what it is to know how to paint. I +don’t say it because I am her father, sir; but as one man of taste +addressing another I cannot help observing that you have there an exquisite +work. It is hard to produce such things and to have to part with them. If our +means only allowed us the luxury of keeping it! I really may say, +sir—” and M. Nioche gave a little feebly insinuating +laugh—“I really may say that I envy you! You see,” he added +in a moment, “we have taken the liberty of offering you a frame. It +increases by a trifle the value of the work, and it will save you the +annoyance—so great for a person of your delicacy—of going about to +bargain at the shops.” +</p> + +<p> +The language spoken by M. Nioche was a singular compound, which I shrink from +the attempt to reproduce in its integrity. He had apparently once possessed a +certain knowledge of English, and his accent was oddly tinged with the +cockneyism of the British metropolis. But his learning had grown rusty with +disuse, and his vocabulary was defective and capricious. He had repaired it +with large patches of French, with words anglicized by a process of his own, +and with native idioms literally translated. The result, in the form in which +he in all humility presented it, would be scarcely comprehensible to the +reader, so that I have ventured to trim and sift it. Newman only half +understood it, but it amused him, and the old man’s decent forlornness +appealed to his democratic instincts. The assumption of a fatality in misery +always irritated his strong good nature—it was almost the only thing that +did so; and he felt the impulse to wipe it out, as it were, with the sponge of +his own prosperity. The papa of Mademoiselle Noémie, however, had apparently on +this occasion been vigorously indoctrinated, and he showed a certain tremulous +eagerness to cultivate unexpected opportunities. +</p> + +<p> +“How much do I owe you, then, with the frame?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“It will make in all three thousand francs,” said the old man, +smiling agreeably, but folding his hands in instinctive suppliance. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you give me a receipt?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have brought one,” said M. Nioche. “I took the liberty of +drawing it up, in case monsieur should happen to desire to discharge his +debt.” And he drew a paper from his pocket-book and presented it to his +patron. The document was written in a minute, fantastic hand, and couched in +the choicest language. +</p> + +<p> +Newman laid down the money, and M. Nioche dropped the napoleons one by one, +solemnly and lovingly, into an old leathern purse. +</p> + +<p> +“And how is your young lady?” asked Newman. “She made a great +impression on me.” +</p> + +<p> +“An impression? Monsieur is very good. Monsieur admires her +appearance?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is very pretty, certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas, yes, she is very pretty!” +</p> + +<p> +“And what is the harm in her being pretty?” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche fixed his eyes upon a spot on the carpet and shook his head. Then +looking up at Newman with a gaze that seemed to brighten and expand, +“Monsieur knows what Paris is. She is dangerous to beauty, when beauty +hasn’t the sou.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but that is not the case with your daughter. She is rich, +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very true; we are rich for six months. But if my daughter were a plain +girl I should sleep better all the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are afraid of the young men?” +</p> + +<p> +“The young and the old!” +</p> + +<p> +“She ought to get a husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, monsieur, one doesn’t get a husband for nothing. Her husband +must take her as she is; I can’t give her a sou. But the young men +don’t see with that eye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Newman, “her talent is in itself a dowry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, sir, it needs first to be converted into specie!” and M. +Nioche slapped his purse tenderly before he stowed it away. “The +operation doesn’t take place every day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, your young men are very shabby,” said Newman; +“that’s all I can say. They ought to pay for your daughter, and not +ask money themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Those are very noble ideas, monsieur; but what will you have? They are +not the ideas of this country. We want to know what we are about when we +marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“How big a portion does your daughter want?” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche stared, as if he wondered what was coming next; but he promptly +recovered himself, at a venture, and replied that he knew a very nice young +man, employed by an insurance company, who would content himself with fifteen +thousand francs. +</p> + +<p> +“Let your daughter paint half a dozen pictures for me, and she shall have +her dowry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Half a dozen pictures—her dowry! Monsieur is not speaking +inconsiderately?” +</p> + +<p> +“If she will make me six or eight copies in the Louvre as pretty as that +Madonna, I will pay her the same price,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Poor M. Nioche was speechless a moment, with amazement and gratitude, and then +he seized Newman’s hand, pressed it between his own ten fingers, and +gazed at him with watery eyes. “As pretty as that? They shall be a +thousand times prettier—they shall be magnificent, sublime. Ah, if I only +knew how to paint, myself, sir, so that I might lend a hand! What can I do to +thank you? <i>Voyons!</i>” And he pressed his forehead while he tried to +think of something. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you have thanked me enough,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, here it is, sir!” cried M. Nioche. “To express my +gratitude, I will charge you nothing for the lessons in French +conversation.” +</p> + +<p> +“The lessons? I had quite forgotten them. Listening to your +English,” added Newman, laughing, “is almost a lesson in +French.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I don’t profess to teach English, certainly,” said M. +Nioche. “But for my own admirable tongue I am still at your +service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you are here, then,” said Newman, “we will begin. This +is a very good hour. I am going to have my coffee; come every morning at +half-past nine and have yours with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur offers me my coffee, also?” cried M. Nioche. +“Truly, my <i>beaux jours</i> are coming back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said Newman, “let us begin. The coffee is almighty +hot. How do you say that in French?” +</p> + +<p> +Every day, then, for the following three weeks, the minutely respectable figure +of M. Nioche made its appearance, with a series of little inquiring and +apologetic obeisances, among the aromatic fumes of Newman’s morning +beverage. I don’t know how much French our friend learned, but, as he +himself said, if the attempt did him no good, it could at any rate do him no +harm. And it amused him; it gratified that irregularly sociable side of his +nature which had always expressed itself in a relish for ungrammatical +conversation, and which often, even in his busy and preoccupied days, had made +him sit on rail fences in young Western towns, in the twilight, in gossip +hardly less than fraternal with humorous loafers and obscure fortune-seekers. +He had notions, wherever he went, about talking with the natives; he had been +assured, and his judgment approved the advice, that in traveling abroad it was +an excellent thing to look into the life of the country. M. Nioche was very +much of a native and, though his life might not be particularly worth looking +into, he was a palpable and smoothly-rounded unit in that picturesque Parisian +civilization which offered our hero so much easy entertainment and propounded +so many curious problems to his inquiring and practical mind. Newman was fond +of statistics; he liked to know how things were done; it gratified him to learn +what taxes were paid, what profits were gathered, what commercial habits +prevailed, how the battle of life was fought. M. Nioche, as a reduced +capitalist, was familiar with these considerations, and he formulated his +information, which he was proud to be able to impart, in the neatest possible +terms and with a pinch of snuff between finger and thumb. As a +Frenchman—quite apart from Newman’s napoleons—M. Nioche loved +conversation, and even in his decay his urbanity had not grown rusty. As a +Frenchman, too, he could give a clear account of things, and—still as a +Frenchman—when his knowledge was at fault he could supply its lapses with +the most convenient and ingenious hypotheses. The little shrunken financier was +intensely delighted to have questions asked him, and he scraped together +information, by frugal processes, and took notes, in his little greasy +pocket-book, of incidents which might interest his munificent friend. He read +old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to frequent another +<i>café</i>, where more newspapers were taken and his postprandial +<i>demitasse</i> cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered +sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and strange coincidences. He +would relate with solemnity the next morning that a child of five years of age +had lately died at Bordeaux, whose brain had been found to weigh sixty +ounces—the brain of a Napoleon or a Washington! or that Madame P—, +<i>charcutière</i> in the Rue de Clichy, had found in the wadding of an old +petticoat the sum of three hundred and sixty francs, which she had lost five +years before. He pronounced his words with great distinctness and sonority, and +Newman assured him that his way of dealing with the French tongue was very +superior to the bewildering chatter that he heard in other mouths. Upon this M. +Nioche’s accent became more finely trenchant than ever, he offered to +read extracts from Lamartine, and he protested that, although he did endeavor +according to his feeble lights to cultivate refinement of diction, monsieur, if +he wanted the real thing, should go to the Théâtre Français. +</p> + +<p> +Newman took an interest in French thriftiness and conceived a lively admiration +for Parisian economies. His own economic genius was so entirely for operations +on a larger scale, and, to move at his ease, he needed so imperatively the +sense of great risks and great prizes, that he found an ungrudging +entertainment in the spectacle of fortunes made by the aggregation of copper +coins, and in the minute subdivision of labor and profit. He questioned M. +Nioche about his own manner of life, and felt a friendly mixture of compassion +and respect over the recital of his delicate frugalities. The worthy man told +him how, at one period, he and his daughter had supported existence comfortably +upon the sum of fifteen sous <i>per diem</i>; recently, having succeeded in +hauling ashore the last floating fragments of the wreck of his fortune, his +budget had been a trifle more ample. But they still had to count their sous +very narrowly, and M. Nioche intimated with a sigh that Mademoiselle Noémie did +not bring to this task that zealous cooperation which might have been desired. +</p> + +<p> +“But what will you have?”’ he asked, philosophically. +“One is young, one is pretty, one needs new dresses and fresh gloves; one +can’t wear shabby gowns among the splendors of the Louvre.” +</p> + +<p> +“But your daughter earns enough to pay for her own clothes,” said +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche looked at him with weak, uncertain eyes. He would have liked to be +able to say that his daughter’s talents were appreciated, and that her +crooked little daubs commanded a market; but it seemed a scandal to abuse the +credulity of this free-handed stranger, who, without a suspicion or a question, +had admitted him to equal social rights. He compromised, and declared that +while it was obvious that Mademoiselle Noémie’s reproductions of the old +masters had only to be seen to be coveted, the prices which, in consideration +of their altogether peculiar degree of finish, she felt obliged to ask for them +had kept purchasers at a respectful distance. “Poor little one!” +said M. Nioche, with a sigh; “it is almost a pity that her work is so +perfect! It would be in her interest to paint less well.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if Mademoiselle Noémie has this devotion to her art,” Newman +once observed, “why should you have those fears for her that you spoke of +the other day?” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche meditated: there was an inconsistency in his position; it made him +chronically uncomfortable. Though he had no desire to destroy the goose with +the golden eggs—Newman’s benevolent confidence—he felt a +tremulous impulse to speak out all his trouble. “Ah, she is an artist, my +dear sir, most assuredly,” he declared. “But, to tell you the +truth, she is also a <i>franche coquette</i>. I am sorry to say,” he +added in a moment, shaking his head with a world of harmless bitterness, +“that she comes honestly by it. Her mother was one before her!” +</p> + +<p> +“You were not happy with your wife?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche gave half a dozen little backward jerks of his head. “She was +my purgatory, monsieur!” +</p> + +<p> +“She deceived you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Under my nose, year after year. I was too stupid, and the temptation was +too great. But I found her out at last. I have only been once in my life a man +to be afraid of; I know it very well; it was in that hour! Nevertheless I +don’t like to think of it. I loved her—I can’t tell you how +much. She was a bad woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not living?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has gone to her account.” +</p> + +<p> +“Her influence on your daughter, then,” said Newman encouragingly, +“is not to be feared.” +</p> + +<p> +“She cared no more for her daughter than for the sole of her shoe! But +Noémie has no need of influence. She is sufficient to herself. She is stronger +than I.” +</p> + +<p> +“She doesn’t obey you, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“She can’t obey, monsieur, since I don’t command. What would +be the use? It would only irritate her and drive her to some <i>coup de +tête</i>. She is very clever, like her mother; she would waste no time about +it. As a child—when I was happy, or supposed I was—she studied +drawing and painting with first-class professors, and they assured me she had a +talent. I was delighted to believe it, and when I went into society I used to +carry her pictures with me in a portfolio and hand them round to the company. I +remember, once, a lady thought I was offering them for sale, and I took it very +ill. We don’t know what we may come to! Then came my dark days, and my +explosion with Madame Nioche. Noémie had no more twenty-franc lessons; but in +the course of time, when she grew older, and it became highly expedient that +she should do something that would help to keep us alive, she bethought herself +of her palette and brushes. Some of our friends in the <i>quartier</i> +pronounced the idea fantastic: they recommended her to try bonnet making, to +get a situation in a shop, or—if she was more ambitious—to +advertise for a place of <i>dame de compagnie</i>. She did advertise, and an +old lady wrote her a letter and bade her come and see her. The old lady liked +her, and offered her her living and six hundred francs a year; but Noémie +discovered that she passed her life in her armchair and had only two visitors, +her confessor and her nephew: the confessor very strict, and the nephew a man +of fifty, with a broken nose and a government clerkship of two thousand francs. +She threw her old lady over, bought a paint-box, a canvas, and a new dress, and +went and set up her easel in the Louvre. There in one place and another, she +has passed the last two years; I can’t say it has made us millionaires. +But Noémie tells me that Rome was not built in a day, that she is making great +progress, that I must leave her to her own devices. The fact is, without +prejudice to her genius, that she has no idea of burying herself alive. She +likes to see the world, and to be seen. She says, herself, that she can’t +work in the dark. With her appearance it is very natural. Only, I can’t +help worrying and trembling and wondering what may happen to her there all +alone, day after day, amid all that coming and going of strangers. I +can’t be always at her side. I go with her in the morning, and I come to +fetch her away, but she won’t have me near her in the interval; she says +I make her nervous. As if it didn’t make me nervous to wander about all +day without her! Ah, if anything were to happen to her!” cried M. Nioche, +clenching his two fists and jerking back his head again, portentously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I guess nothing will happen,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe I should shoot her!” said the old man, solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, we’ll marry her,” said Newman, “since that’s +how you manage it; and I will go and see her tomorrow at the Louvre and pick +out the pictures she is to copy for me.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche had brought Newman a message from his daughter, in acceptance of his +magnificent commission, the young lady declaring herself his most devoted +servant, promising her most zealous endeavor, and regretting that the +proprieties forbade her coming to thank him in person. The morning after the +conversation just narrated, Newman reverted to his intention of meeting +Mademoiselle Noémie at the Louvre. M. Nioche appeared preoccupied, and left his +budget of anecdotes unopened; he took a great deal of snuff, and sent certain +oblique, appealing glances toward his stalwart pupil. At last, when he was +taking his leave, he stood a moment, after he had polished his hat with his +calico pocket-handkerchief, with his small, pale eyes fixed strangely upon +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” our hero demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse the solicitude of a father’s heart!” said M. Nioche. +“You inspire me with boundless confidence, but I can’t help giving +you a warning. After all, you are a man, you are young and at liberty. Let me +beseech you, then, to respect the innocence of Mademoiselle Nioche!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman had wondered what was coming, and at this he broke into a laugh. He was +on the point of declaring that his own innocence struck him as the more +exposed, but he contented himself with promising to treat the young girl with +nothing less than veneration. He found her waiting for him, seated upon the +great divan in the Salon Carré. She was not in her working-day costume, but +wore her bonnet and gloves and carried her parasol, in honor of the occasion. +These articles had been selected with unerring taste, and a fresher, prettier +image of youthful alertness and blooming discretion was not to be conceived. +She made Newman a most respectful curtsey and expressed her gratitude for his +liberality in a wonderfully graceful little speech. It annoyed him to have a +charming young girl stand there thanking him, and it made him feel +uncomfortable to think that this perfect young lady, with her excellent manners +and her finished intonation, was literally in his pay. He assured her, in such +French as he could muster, that the thing was not worth mentioning, and that he +considered her services a great favor. +</p> + +<p> +“Whenever you please, then,” said Mademoiselle Noémie, “we +will pass the review.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked slowly round the room, then passed into the others and strolled +about for half an hour. Mademoiselle Noémie evidently relished her situation, +and had no desire to bring her public interview with her striking-looking +patron to a close. Newman perceived that prosperity agreed with her. The little +thin-lipped, peremptory air with which she had addressed her father on the +occasion of their former meeting had given place to the most lingering and +caressing tones. +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of pictures do you desire?” she asked. “Sacred, or +profane?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a few of each,” said Newman. “But I want something +bright and gay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something gay? There is nothing very gay in this solemn old Louvre. But +we will see what we can find. You speak French to-day like a charm. My father +has done wonders.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am a bad subject,” said Newman. “I am too old to learn +a language.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too old? <i>Quelle folie!</i>” cried Mademoiselle Noémie, with a +clear, shrill laugh. “You are a very young man. And how do you like my +father?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a very nice old gentleman. He never laughs at my blunders.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is very <i>comme il faut</i>, my papa,” said Mademoiselle +Noémie, “and as honest as the day. Oh, an exceptional probity! You could +trust him with millions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you always obey him?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Obey him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you do what he bids you?” +</p> + +<p> +The young girl stopped and looked at him; she had a spot of color in either +cheek, and in her expressive French eye, which projected too much for perfect +beauty, there was a slight gleam of audacity. “Why do you ask me +that?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I want to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think me a bad girl?” And she gave a strange smile. +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at her a moment; he saw that she was pretty, but he was not in +the least dazzled. He remembered poor M. Nioche’s solicitude for her +“innocence,” and he laughed as his eyes met hers. Her face was the +oddest mixture of youth and maturity, and beneath her candid brow her searching +little smile seemed to contain a world of ambiguous intentions. She was pretty +enough, certainly to make her father nervous; but, as regards her innocence, +Newman felt ready on the spot to affirm that she had never parted with it. She +had simply never had any; she had been looking at the world since she was ten +years old, and he would have been a wise man who could tell her any secrets. In +her long mornings at the Louvre she had not only studied Madonnas and St. +Johns; she had kept an eye upon all the variously embodied human nature around +her, and she had formed her conclusions. In a certain sense, it seemed to +Newman, M. Nioche might be at rest; his daughter might do something very +audacious, but she would never do anything foolish. Newman, with his +long-drawn, leisurely smile, and his even, unhurried utterance, was always, +mentally, taking his time; and he asked himself, now, what she was looking at +him in that way for. He had an idea that she would like him to confess that he +did think her a bad girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” he said at last; “it would be very bad manners in +me to judge you that way. I don’t know you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my father has complained to you,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. +</p> + +<p> +“He says you are a coquette.” +</p> + +<p> +“He shouldn’t go about saying such things to gentlemen! But you +don’t believe it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Newman gravely, “I don’t believe it.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him again, gave a shrug and a smile, and then pointed to a small +Italian picture, a Marriage of St. Catherine. “How should you like +that?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t please me,” said Newman. “The young lady in +the yellow dress is not pretty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you are a great connoisseur,” murmured Mademoiselle Noémie. +</p> + +<p> +“In pictures? Oh, no; I know very little about them.” +</p> + +<p> +“In pretty women, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that I am hardly better.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you say to that, then?” the young girl asked, indicating a +superb Italian portrait of a lady. “I will do it for you on a smaller +scale.” +</p> + +<p> +“On a smaller scale? Why not as large as the original?” +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Noémie glanced at the glowing splendor of the Venetian masterpiece +and gave a little toss of her head. “I don’t like that woman. She +looks stupid.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do like her,” said Newman. “Decidedly, I must have her, as +large as life. And just as stupid as she is there.” +</p> + +<p> +The young girl fixed her eyes on him again, and with her mocking smile, +“It certainly ought to be easy for me to make her look stupid!” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” asked Newman, puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +She gave another little shrug. “Seriously, then, you want that +portrait—the golden hair, the purple satin, the pearl necklace, the two +magnificent arms?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything—just as it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would nothing else do, instead?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I want some other things, but I want that too.” +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Noémie turned away a moment, walked to the other side of the hall, +and stood there, looking vaguely about her. At last she came back. “It +must be charming to be able to order pictures at such a rate. Venetian +portraits, as large as life! You go at it <i>en prince</i>. And you are going +to travel about Europe that way?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I intend to travel,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Ordering, buying, spending money?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I shall spend some money.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very happy to have it. And you are perfectly free?” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean, free?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have nothing to bother you—no family, no wife, no +<i>fiancée?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I am tolerably free.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very happy,” said Mademoiselle Noémie, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Je le veux bien!</i>” said Newman, proving that he had learned +more French than he admitted. +</p> + +<p> +“And how long shall you stay in Paris?” the young girl went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Only a few days more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you go away?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is getting hot, and I must go to Switzerland.” +</p> + +<p> +“To Switzerland? That’s a fine country. I would give my new parasol +to see it! Lakes and mountains, romantic valleys and icy peaks! Oh, I +congratulate you. Meanwhile, I shall sit here through all the hot summer, +daubing at your pictures.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, take your time about it,” said Newman. “Do them at your +convenience.” +</p> + +<p> +They walked farther and looked at a dozen other things. Newman pointed out what +pleased him, and Mademoiselle Noémie generally criticised it, and proposed +something else. Then suddenly she diverged and began to talk about some +personal matter. +</p> + +<p> +“What made you speak to me the other day in the Salon Carré?” she +abruptly asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I admired your picture.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you hesitated a long time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I do nothing rashly,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I saw you watching me. But I never supposed you were going to speak +to me. I never dreamed I should be walking about here with you to-day. +It’s very curious.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very natural,” observed Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I beg your pardon; not to me. Coquette as you think me, I have never +walked about in public with a gentleman before. What was my father thinking of, +when he consented to our interview?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was repenting of his unjust accusations,” replied Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Noémie remained silent; at last she dropped into a seat. +“Well then, for those five it is fixed,” she said. “Five +copies as brilliant and beautiful as I can make them. We have one more to +choose. Shouldn’t you like one of those great Rubenses—the marriage +of Marie de Médicis? Just look at it and see how handsome it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes; I should like that,” said Newman. “Finish off with +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Finish off with that—good!” And she laughed. She sat a +moment, looking at him, and then she suddenly rose and stood before him, with +her hands hanging and clasped in front of her. “I don’t understand +you,” she said with a smile. “I don’t understand how a man +can be so ignorant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am ignorant, certainly,” said Newman, putting his hands into +his pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s ridiculous! I don’t know how to paint.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know how?” +</p> + +<p> +“I paint like a cat; I can’t draw a straight line. I never sold a +picture until you bought that thing the other day.” And as she offered +this surprising information she continued to smile. +</p> + +<p> +Newman burst into a laugh. “Why do you tell me this?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Because it irritates me to see a clever man blunder so. My pictures are +grotesque.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the one I possess—” +</p> + +<p> +“That one is rather worse than usual.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, “I like it all the same!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him askance. “That is a very pretty thing to say,” +she answered; “but it is my duty to warn you before you go farther. This +order of yours is impossible, you know. What do you take me for? It is work for +ten men. You pick out the six most difficult pictures in the Louvre, and you +expect me to go to work as if I were sitting down to hem a dozen pocket +handkerchiefs. I wanted to see how far you would go.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at the young girl in some perplexity. In spite of the ridiculous +blunder of which he stood convicted, he was very far from being a simpleton, +and he had a lively suspicion that Mademoiselle Noémie’s sudden frankness +was not essentially more honest than her leaving him in error would have been. +She was playing a game; she was not simply taking pity on his æsthetic +verdancy. What was it she expected to win? The stakes were high and the risk +was great; the prize therefore must have been commensurate. But even granting +that the prize might be great, Newman could not resist a movement of admiration +for his companion’s intrepidity. She was throwing away with one hand, +whatever she might intend to do with the other, a very handsome sum of money. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you joking,” he said, “or are you serious?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, serious!” cried Mademoiselle Noémie, but with her +extraordinary smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I know very little about pictures or how they are painted. If you +can’t do all that, of course you can’t. Do what you can, +then.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will be very bad,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Newman, laughing, “if you are determined it shall +be bad, of course it will. But why do you go on painting badly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can do nothing else; I have no real talent.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are deceiving your father, then.” +</p> + +<p> +The young girl hesitated a moment. “He knows very well!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” Newman declared; “I am sure he believes in you.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is afraid of me. I go on painting badly, as you say, because I want +to learn. I like it, at any rate. And I like being here; it is a place to come +to, every day; it is better than sitting in a little dark, damp room, on a +court, or selling buttons and whalebones over a counter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it is much more amusing,” said Newman. “But for a +poor girl isn’t it rather an expensive amusement?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am very wrong, there is no doubt about that,” said +Mademoiselle Noémie. “But rather than earn my living as some girls +do—toiling with a needle, in little black holes, out of the world—I +would throw myself into the Seine.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need of that,” Newman answered; “your father +told you my offer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your offer?” +</p> + +<p> +“He wants you to marry, and I told him I would give you a chance to earn +your <i>dot</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“He told me all about it, and you see the account I make of it! Why +should you take such an interest in my marriage?” +</p> + +<p> +“My interest was in your father. I hold to my offer; do what you can, and +I will buy what you paint.” +</p> + +<p> +She stood for some time, meditating, with her eyes on the ground. At last, +looking up, “What sort of a husband can you get for twelve thousand +francs?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Your father tells me he knows some very good young men.” +</p> + +<p> +“Grocers and butchers and little <i>maîtres de cafés!</i> I will not +marry at all if I can’t marry well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would advise you not to be too fastidious,” said Newman. +“That’s all the advice I can give you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very much vexed at what I have said!” cried the young girl. +“It has done me no good. But I couldn’t help it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What good did you expect it to do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t help it, simply.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at her a moment. “Well, your pictures may be bad,” he +said, “but you are too clever for me, nevertheless. I don’t +understand you. Good-bye!” And he put out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +She made no response, and offered him no farewell. She turned away and seated +herself sidewise on a bench, leaning her head on the back of her hand, which +clasped the rail in front of the pictures. Newman stood a moment and then +turned on his heel and retreated. He had understood her better than he +confessed; this singular scene was a practical commentary upon her +father’s statement that she was a frank coquette. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p> +When Newman related to Mrs. Tristram his fruitless visit to Madame de Cintré, +she urged him not to be discouraged, but to carry out his plan of “seeing +Europe” during the summer, and return to Paris in the autumn and settle +down comfortably for the winter. “Madame de Cintré will keep,” she +said; “she is not a woman who will marry from one day to another.” +Newman made no distinct affirmation that he would come back to Paris; he even +talked about Rome and the Nile, and abstained from professing any especial +interest in Madame de Cintré’s continued widowhood. This circumstance was +at variance with his habitual frankness, and may perhaps be regarded as +characteristic of the incipient stage of that passion which is more +particularly known as the mysterious one. The truth is that the expression of a +pair of eyes that were at once brilliant and mild had become very familiar to +his memory, and he would not easily have resigned himself to the prospect of +never looking into them again. He communicated to Mrs. Tristram a number of +other facts, of greater or less importance, as you choose; but on this +particular point he kept his own counsel. He took a kindly leave of M. Nioche, +having assured him that, so far as he was concerned, the blue-cloaked Madonna +herself might have been present at his interview with Mademoiselle Noémie; and +left the old man nursing his breast-pocket, in an ecstasy which the acutest +misfortune might have been defied to dissipate. Newman then started on his +travels, with all his usual appearance of slow-strolling leisure, and all his +essential directness and intensity of aim. No man seemed less in a hurry, and +yet no man achieved more in brief periods. He had certain practical instincts +which served him excellently in his trade of tourist. He found his way in +foreign cities by divination, his memory was excellent when once his attention +had been at all cordially given, and he emerged from dialogues in foreign +tongues, of which he had, formally, not understood a word, in full possession +of the particular fact he had desired to ascertain. His appetite for facts was +capacious, and although many of those which he noted would have seemed woefully +dry and colorless to the ordinary sentimental traveler, a careful inspection of +the list would have shown that he had a soft spot in his imagination. In the +charming city of Brussels—his first stopping-place after leaving +Paris—he asked a great many questions about the street-cars, and took +extreme satisfaction in the reappearance of this familiar symbol of American +civilization; but he was also greatly struck with the beautiful Gothic tower of +the Hôtel de Ville, and wondered whether it would not be possible to “get +up” something like it in San Francisco. He stood for half an hour in the +crowded square before this edifice, in imminent danger from carriage-wheels, +listening to a toothless old cicerone mumble in broken English the touching +history of Counts Egmont and Horn; and he wrote the names of these +gentlemen—for reasons best known to himself—on the back of an old +letter. +</p> + +<p> +At the outset, on his leaving Paris, his curiosity had not been intense; +passive entertainment, in the Champs Élysées and at the theatres, seemed about +as much as he need expect of himself, and although, as he had said to Tristram, +he wanted to see the mysterious, satisfying <i>best</i>, he had not the Grand +Tour in the least on his conscience, and was not given to cross-questioning the +amusement of the hour. He believed that Europe was made for him, and not he for +Europe. He had said that he wanted to improve his mind, but he would have felt +a certain embarrassment, a certain shame, even—a false shame, +possibly—if he had caught himself looking intellectually into the mirror. +Neither in this nor in any other respect had Newman a high sense of +responsibility; it was his prime conviction that a man’s life should be +easy, and that he should be able to resolve privilege into a matter of course. +The world, to his sense, was a great bazaar, where one might stroll about and +purchase handsome things; but he was no more conscious, individually, of social +pressure than he admitted the existence of such a thing as an obligatory +purchase. He had not only a dislike, but a sort of moral mistrust, of +uncomfortable thoughts, and it was both uncomfortable and slightly contemptible +to feel obliged to square one’s self with a standard. One’s +standard was the ideal of one’s own good-humored prosperity, the +prosperity which enabled one to give as well as take. To expand, without +bothering about it—without shiftless timidity on one side, or loquacious +eagerness on the other—to the full compass of what he would have called a +“pleasant” experience, was Newman’s most definite programme +of life. He had always hated to hurry to catch railroad trains, and yet he had +always caught them; and just so an undue solicitude for “culture” +seemed a sort of silly dawdling at the station, a proceeding properly confined +to women, foreigners, and other unpractical persons. All this admitted, Newman +enjoyed his journey, when once he had fairly entered the current, as profoundly +as the most zealous <i>dilettante</i>. One’s theories, after all, matter +little; it is one’s humor that is the great thing. Our friend was +intelligent, and he could not help that. He lounged through Belgium and Holland +and the Rhineland, through Switzerland and Northern Italy, planning about +nothing, but seeing everything. The guides and <i>valets de place</i> found him +an excellent subject. He was always approachable, for he was much addicted to +standing about in the vestibules and porticos of inns, and he availed himself +little of the opportunities for impressive seclusion which are so liberally +offered in Europe to gentlemen who travel with long purses. When an excursion, +a church, a gallery, a ruin, was proposed to him, the first thing Newman +usually did, after surveying his postulant in silence, from head to foot, was +to sit down at a little table and order something to drink. The cicerone, +during this process, usually retreated to a respectful distance; otherwise I am +not sure that Newman would not have bidden him sit down and have a glass also, +and tell him as an honest fellow whether his church or his gallery was really +worth a man’s trouble. At last he rose and stretched his long legs, +beckoned to the man of monuments, looked at his watch, and fixed his eye on his +adversary. “What is it?” he asked. “How far?” And +whatever the answer was, although he sometimes seemed to hesitate, he never +declined. He stepped into an open cab, made his conductor sit beside him to +answer questions, bade the driver go fast (he had a particular aversion to slow +driving) and rolled, in all probability through a dusty suburb, to the goal of +his pilgrimage. If the goal was a disappointment, if the church was meagre, or +the ruin a heap of rubbish, Newman never protested or berated his cicerone; he +looked with an impartial eye upon great monuments and small, made the guide +recite his lesson, listened to it religiously, asked if there was nothing else +to be seen in the neighborhood, and drove back again at a rattling pace. It is +to be feared that his perception of the difference between good architecture +and bad was not acute, and that he might sometimes have been seen gazing with +culpable serenity at inferior productions. Ugly churches were a part of his +pastime in Europe, as well as beautiful ones, and his tour was altogether a +pastime. But there is sometimes nothing like the imagination of these people +who have none, and Newman, now and then, in an unguided stroll in a foreign +city, before some lonely, sad-towered church, or some angular image of one who +had rendered civic service in an unknown past, had felt a singular inward +tremor. It was not an excitement or a perplexity; it was a placid, fathomless +sense of diversion. +</p> + +<p> +He encountered by chance in Holland a young American, with whom, for a time, he +formed a sort of traveler’s partnership. They were men of a very +different cast, but each, in his way, was so good a fellow that, for a few +weeks at least, it seemed something of a pleasure to share the chances of the +road. Newman’s comrade, whose name was Babcock, was a young Unitarian +minister, a small, spare, neatly-attired man, with a strikingly candid +physiognomy. He was a native of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and had spiritual +charge of a small congregation in another suburb of the New England metropolis. +His digestion was weak and he lived chiefly on Graham bread and hominy—a +regimen to which he was so much attached that his tour seemed to him destined +to be blighted when, on landing on the Continent, he found that these +delicacies did not flourish under the <i>table d’hôte</i> system. In +Paris he had purchased a bag of hominy at an establishment which called itself +an American Agency, and at which the New York illustrated papers were also to +be procured, and he had carried it about with him, and shown extreme serenity +and fortitude in the somewhat delicate position of having his hominy prepared +for him and served at anomalous hours, at the hotels he successively visited. +Newman had once spent a morning, in the course of business, at Mr. +Babcock’s birthplace, and, for reasons too recondite to unfold, his visit +there always assumed in his mind a jocular cast. To carry out his joke, which +certainly seems poor so long as it is not explained, he used often to address +his companion as “Dorchester.” Fellow-travelers very soon grow +intimate but it is highly improbable that at home these extremely dissimilar +characters would have found any very convenient points of contact. They were, +indeed, as different as possible. Newman, who never reflected on such matters, +accepted the situation with great equanimity, but Babcock used to meditate over +it privately; used often, indeed, to retire to his room early in the evening +for the express purpose of considering it conscientiously and impartially. He +was not sure that it was a good thing for him to associate with our hero, whose +way of taking life was so little his own. Newman was an excellent, generous +fellow; Mr. Babcock sometimes said to himself that he was a <i>noble</i> +fellow, and, certainly, it was impossible not to like him. But would it not be +desirable to try to exert an influence upon him, to try to quicken his moral +life and sharpen his sense of duty? He liked everything, he accepted +everything, he found amusement in everything; he was not discriminating, he had +not a high tone. The young man from Dorchester accused Newman of a fault which +he considered very grave, and which he did his best to avoid: what he would +have called a want of “moral reaction.” Poor Mr. Babcock was +extremely fond of pictures and churches, and carried Mrs. Jameson’s works +about in his trunk; he delighted in æsthetic analysis, and received peculiar +impressions from everything he saw. But nevertheless in his secret soul he +detested Europe, and he felt an irritating need to protest against +Newman’s gross intellectual hospitality. Mr. Babcock’s moral +<i>malaise</i>, I am afraid, lay deeper than where any definition of mine can +reach it. He mistrusted the European temperament, he suffered from the European +climate, he hated the European dinner-hour; European life seemed to him +unscrupulous and impure. And yet he had an exquisite sense of beauty; and as +beauty was often inextricably associated with the above displeasing conditions, +as he wished, above all, to be just and dispassionate, and as he was, +furthermore, extremely devoted to “culture,” he could not bring +himself to decide that Europe was utterly bad. But he thought it was very bad +indeed, and his quarrel with Newman was that this unregulated epicure had a +sadly insufficient perception of the bad. Babcock himself really knew as little +about the bad, in any quarter of the world, as a nursing infant, his most vivid +realization of evil had been the discovery that one of his college classmates, +who was studying architecture in Paris had a love affair with a young woman who +did not expect him to marry her. Babcock had related this incident to Newman, +and our hero had applied an epithet of an unflattering sort to the young girl. +The next day his companion asked him whether he was very sure he had used +exactly the right word to characterize the young architect’s mistress. +Newman stared and laughed. “There are a great many words to express that +idea,” he said; “you can take your choice!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I mean,” said Babcock, “was she possibly not to be +considered in a different light? Don’t you think she <i>really</i> +expected him to marry her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure I don’t know,” said Newman. “Very likely she +did; I have no doubt she is a grand woman.” And he began to laugh again. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean that either,” said Babcock, “I was only +afraid that I might have seemed yesterday not to remember—not to +consider; well, I think I will write to Percival about it.” +</p> + +<p> +And he had written to Percival (who answered him in a really impudent fashion), +and he had reflected that it was somehow, raw and reckless in Newman to assume +in that off-hand manner that the young woman in Paris might be +“grand.” The brevity of Newman’s judgments very often shocked +and discomposed him. He had a way of damning people without farther appeal, or +of pronouncing them capital company in the face of uncomfortable symptoms, +which seemed unworthy of a man whose conscience had been properly cultivated. +And yet poor Babcock liked him, and remembered that even if he was sometimes +perplexing and painful, this was not a reason for giving him up. Goethe +recommended seeing human nature in the most various forms, and Mr. Babcock +thought Goethe perfectly splendid. He often tried, in odd half-hours of +conversation to infuse into Newman a little of his own spiritual starch, but +Newman’s personal texture was too loose to admit of stiffening. His mind +could no more hold principles than a sieve can hold water. He admired +principles extremely, and thought Babcock a mighty fine little fellow for +having so many. He accepted all that his high-strung companion offered him, and +put them away in what he supposed to be a very safe place; but poor Babcock +never afterwards recognized his gifts among the articles that Newman had in +daily use. +</p> + +<p> +They traveled together through Germany and into Switzerland, where for three or +four weeks they trudged over passes and lounged upon blue lakes. At last they +crossed the Simplon and made their way to Venice. Mr. Babcock had become gloomy +and even a trifle irritable; he seemed moody, absent, preoccupied; he got his +plans into a tangle, and talked one moment of doing one thing and the next of +doing another. Newman led his usual life, made acquaintances, took his ease in +the galleries and churches, spent an unconscionable amount of time in strolling +in the Piazza San Marco, bought a great many bad pictures, and for a fortnight +enjoyed Venice grossly. One evening, coming back to his inn, he found Babcock +waiting for him in the little garden beside it. The young man walked up to him, +looking very dismal, thrust out his hand, and said with solemnity that he was +afraid they must part. Newman expressed his surprise and regret, and asked why +a parting had become necessary. “Don’t be afraid I’m tired of +you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not tired of me?” demanded Babcock, fixing him with his +clear gray eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Why the deuce should I be? You are a very plucky fellow. Besides, I +don’t grow tired of things.” +</p> + +<p> +“We don’t understand each other,” said the young minister. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t I understand you?” cried Newman. “Why, I hoped I +did. But what if I don’t; where’s the harm?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand <i>you</i>,” said Babcock. And he sat +down and rested his head on his hand, and looked up mournfully at his +immeasurable friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh Lord, I don’t mind that!” cried Newman, with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s very distressing to me. It keeps me in a state of unrest. +It irritates me; I can’t settle anything. I don’t think it’s +good for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You worry too much; that’s what’s the matter with +you,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it must seem so to you. You think I take things too hard, and +I think you take things too easily. We can never agree.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we have agreed very well all along.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I haven’t agreed,” said Babcock, shaking his head. +“I am very uncomfortable. I ought to have separated from you a month +ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, horrors! I’ll agree to anything!” cried Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Babcock buried his head in both hands. At last looking up, “I +don’t think you appreciate my position,” he said. “I try to +arrive at the truth about everything. And then you go too fast. For me, you are +too passionate, too extravagant. I feel as if I ought to go over all this +ground we have traversed again, by myself, alone. I am afraid I have made a +great many mistakes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you needn’t give so many reasons,” said Newman. +“You are simply tired of my company. You have a good right to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, I am not tired!” cried the pestered young divine. +“It is very wrong to be tired.” +</p> + +<p> +“I give it up!” laughed Newman. “But of course it will never +do to go on making mistakes. Go your way, by all means. I shall miss you; but +you have seen I make friends very easily. You will be lonely yourself; but drop +me a line, when you feel like it, and I will wait for you anywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I will go back to Milan. I am afraid I didn’t do justice +to Luini.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Luini!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean that I am afraid I overestimated him. I don’t think that he +is a painter of the first rank.” +</p> + +<p> +“Luini?” Newman exclaimed; “why, he’s +enchanting—he’s magnificent! There is something in his genius that +is like a beautiful woman. It gives one the same feeling.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Babcock frowned and winced. And it must be added that this was, for Newman, +an unusually metaphysical flight; but in passing through Milan he had taken a +great fancy to the painter. “There you are again!” said Mr. +Babcock. “Yes, we had better separate.” And on the morrow he +retraced his steps and proceeded to tone down his impressions of the great +Lombard artist. +</p> + +<p> +A few days afterwards Newman received a note from his late companion which ran +as follows:— +</p> + +<p> +My Dear Mr. Newman,—I am afraid that my conduct at Venice, a week ago, +seemed to you strange and ungrateful, and I wish to explain my position, which, +as I said at the time, I do not think you appreciate. I had long had it on my +mind to propose that we should part company, and this step was not really so +abrupt as it seemed. In the first place, you know, I am traveling in Europe on +funds supplied by my congregation, who kindly offered me a vacation and an +opportunity to enrich my mind with the treasures of nature and art in the Old +World. I feel, therefore, as if I ought to use my time to the very best +advantage. I have a high sense of responsibility. You appear to care only for +the pleasure of the hour, and you give yourself up to it with a violence which +I confess I am not able to emulate. I feel as if I must arrive at some +conclusion and fix my belief on certain points. Art and life seem to me +intensely serious things, and in our travels in Europe we should especially +remember the immense seriousness of Art. You seem to hold that if a thing +amuses you for the moment, that is all you need ask for it, and your relish for +mere amusement is also much higher than mine. You put, however, a kind of +reckless confidence into your pleasure which at times, I confess, has seemed to +me—shall I say it?—almost cynical. Your way at any rate is not my +way, and it is unwise that we should attempt any longer to pull together. And +yet, let me add that I know there is a great deal to be said for your way; I +have felt its attraction, in your society, very strongly. But for this I should +have left you long ago. But I was so perplexed. I hope I have not done wrong. I +feel as if I had a great deal of lost time to make up. I beg you take all this +as I mean it, which, Heaven knows, is not invidiously. I have a great personal +esteem for you and hope that some day, when I have recovered my balance, we +shall meet again. I hope you will continue to enjoy your travels, only +<i>do</i> remember that Life and Art <i>are</i> extremely serious. Believe me +your sincere friend and well-wisher, +</p> + +<p> +BENJAMIN BABCOCK +</p> + +<p> +P. S. I am greatly perplexed by Luini. +</p> + +<p> +This letter produced in Newman’s mind a singular mixture of exhilaration +and awe. At first, Mr. Babcock’s tender conscience seemed to him a +capital farce, and his traveling back to Milan only to get into a deeper muddle +appeared, as the reward of his pedantry, exquisitely and ludicrously just. Then +Newman reflected that these are mighty mysteries, that possibly he himself was +indeed that baleful and barely mentionable thing, a cynic, and that his manner +of considering the treasures of art and the privileges of life was probably +very base and immoral. Newman had a great contempt for immorality, and that +evening, for a good half hour, as he sat watching the star-sheen on the warm +Adriatic, he felt rebuked and depressed. He was at a loss how to answer +Babcock’s letter. His good nature checked his resenting the young +minister’s lofty admonitions, and his tough, inelastic sense of humor +forbade his taking them seriously. He wrote no answer at all but a day or two +afterward he found in a curiosity shop a grotesque little statuette in ivory, +of the sixteenth century, which he sent off to Babcock without a commentary. It +represented a gaunt, ascetic-looking monk, in a tattered gown and cowl, +kneeling with clasped hands and pulling a portentously long face. It was a +wonderfully delicate piece of carving, and in a moment, through one of the +rents of his gown, you espied a fat capon hung round the monk’s waist. In +Newman’s intention what did the figure symbolize? Did it mean that he was +going to try to be as “high-toned” as the monk looked at first, but +that he feared he should succeed no better than the friar, on a closer +inspection, proved to have done? It is not supposable that he intended a satire +upon Babcock’s own asceticism, for this would have been a truly cynical +stroke. He made his late companion, at any rate, a very valuable little +present. +</p> + +<p> +Newman, on leaving Venice, went through the Tyrol to Vienna, and then returned +westward, through Southern Germany. The autumn found him at Baden-Baden, where +he spent several weeks. The place was charming, and he was in no hurry to +depart; besides, he was looking about him and deciding what to do for the +winter. His summer had been very full, and he sat under the great trees beside +the miniature river that trickles past the Baden flower-beds, he slowly +rummaged it over. He had seen and done a great deal, enjoyed and observed a +great deal; he felt older, and yet he felt younger too. He remembered Mr. +Babcock and his desire to form conclusions, and he remembered also that he had +profited very little by his friend’s exhortation to cultivate the same +respectable habit. Could he not scrape together a few conclusions? Baden-Baden +was the prettiest place he had seen yet, and orchestral music in the evening, +under the stars, was decidedly a great institution. This was one of his +conclusions! But he went on to reflect that he had done very wisely to pull up +stakes and come abroad; this seeing of the world was a very interesting thing. +He had learned a great deal; he couldn’t say just what, but he had it +there under his hat-band. He had done what he wanted; he had seen the great +things, and he had given his mind a chance to “improve,” if it +would. He cheerfully believed that it had improved. Yes, this seeing of the +world was very pleasant, and he would willingly do a little more of it. +Thirty-six years old as he was, he had a handsome stretch of life before him +yet, and he need not begin to count his weeks. Where should he take the world +next? I have said he remembered the eyes of the lady whom he had found standing +in Mrs. Tristram’s drawing-room; four months had elapsed, and he had not +forgotten them yet. He had looked—he had made a point of +looking—into a great many other eyes in the interval, but the only ones +he thought of now were Madame de Cintré’s. If he wanted to see more of +the world, should he find it in Madame de Cintré’s eyes? He would +certainly find something there, call it this world or the next. Throughout +these rather formless meditations he sometimes thought of his past life and the +long array of years (they had begun so early) during which he had had nothing +in his head but “enterprise.” They seemed far away now, for his +present attitude was more than a holiday, it was almost a rupture. He had told +Tristram that the pendulum was swinging back and it appeared that the backward +swing had not yet ended. Still “enterprise,” which was over in the +other quarter wore to his mind a different aspect at different hours. In its +train a thousand forgotten episodes came trooping back into his memory. Some of +them he looked complacently enough in the face; from some he averted his head. +They were old efforts, old exploits, antiquated examples of +“smartness” and sharpness. Some of them, as he looked at them, he +felt decidedly proud of; he admired himself as if he had been looking at +another man. And, in fact, many of the qualities that make a great deed were +there: the decision, the resolution, the courage, the celerity, the clear eye, +and the strong hand. Of certain other achievements it would be going too far to +say that he was ashamed of them for Newman had never had a stomach for dirty +work. He was blessed with a natural impulse to disfigure with a direct, +unreasoning blow the comely visage of temptation. And certainly, in no man +could a want of integrity have been less excusable. Newman knew the crooked +from the straight at a glance, and the former had cost him, first and last, a +great many moments of lively disgust. But none the less some of his memories +seemed to wear at present a rather graceless and sordid mien, and it struck him +that if he had never done anything very ugly, he had never, on the other hand, +done anything particularly beautiful. He had spent his years in the unremitting +effort to add thousands to thousands, and, now that he stood well outside of +it, the business of money-getting appeared tolerably dry and sterile. It is +very well to sneer at money-getting after you have filled your pockets, and +Newman, it may be said, should have begun somewhat earlier to moralize thus +delicately. To this it may be answered that he might have made another fortune, +if he chose; and we ought to add that he was not exactly moralizing. It had +come back to him simply that what he had been looking at all summer was a very +rich and beautiful world, and that it had not all been made by sharp railroad +men and stock-brokers. +</p> + +<p> +During his stay at Baden-Baden he received a letter from Mrs. Tristram, +scolding him for the scanty tidings he had sent to his friends of the Avenue +d’Iéna, and begging to be definitely informed that he had not concocted +any horrid scheme for wintering in outlying regions, but was coming back sanely +and promptly to the most comfortable city in the world. Newman’s answer +ran as follows:— +</p> + +<p> +“I supposed you knew I was a miserable letter-writer, and didn’t +expect anything of me. I don’t think I have written twenty letters of +pure friendship in my whole life; in America I conducted my correspondence +altogether by telegrams. This is a letter of pure friendship; you have got hold +of a curiosity, and I hope you will value it. You want to know everything that +has happened to me these three months. The best way to tell you, I think, would +be to send you my half dozen guide-books, with my pencil-marks in the margin. +Wherever you find a scratch or a cross, or a ‘Beautiful!’ or a +‘So true!’ or a ‘Too thin!’ you may know that I have +had a sensation of some sort or other. That has been about my history, ever +since I left you. Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Italy—I have +been through the whole list, and I don’t think I am any the worse for it. +I know more about Madonnas and church-steeples than I supposed any man could. I +have seen some very pretty things, and shall perhaps talk them over this +winter, by your fireside. You see, my face is not altogether set against Paris. +I have had all kinds of plans and visions, but your letter has blown most of +them away. ‘<i>L’appétit vient en mangeant</i>,’ says the +French proverb, and I find that the more I see of the world the more I want to +see. Now that I am in the shafts, why shouldn’t I trot to the end of the +course? Sometimes I think of the far East, and keep rolling the names of +Eastern cities under my tongue: Damascus and Bagdad, Medina and Mecca. I spent +a week last month in the company of a returned missionary, who told me I ought +to be ashamed to be loafing about Europe when there are such big things to be +seen out there. I do want to explore, but I think I would rather explore over +in the Rue de l’Université. Do you ever hear from that pretty lady? If +you can get her to promise she will be at home the next time I call, I will go +back to Paris straight. I am more than ever in the state of mind I told you +about that evening; I want a first-class wife. I have kept an eye on all the +pretty girls I have come across this summer, but none of them came up to my +notion, or anywhere near it. I should have enjoyed all this a thousand times +more if I had had the lady just mentioned by my side. The nearest approach to +her was a Unitarian minister from Boston, who very soon demanded a separation, +for incompatibility of temper. He told me I was low-minded, immoral, a devotee +of ‘art for art’—whatever that is: all of which greatly +afflicted me, for he was really a sweet little fellow. But shortly afterwards I +met an Englishman, with whom I struck up an acquaintance which at first seemed +to promise well—a very bright man, who writes in the London papers and +knows Paris nearly as well as Tristram. We knocked about for a week together, +but he very soon gave me up in disgust. I was too virtuous by half; I was too +stern a moralist. He told me, in a friendly way, that I was cursed with a +conscience; that I judged things like a Methodist and talked about them like an +old lady. This was rather bewildering. Which of my two critics was I to +believe? I didn’t worry about it and very soon made up my mind they were +both idiots. But there is one thing in which no one will ever have the +impudence to pretend I am wrong, that is, in being your faithful friend, +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p> +Newman gave up Damascus and Bagdad and returned to Paris before the autumn was +over. He established himself in some rooms selected for him by Tom Tristram, in +accordance with the latter’s estimate of what he called his social +position. When Newman learned that his social position was to be taken into +account, he professed himself utterly incompetent, and begged Tristram to +relieve him of the care. “I didn’t know I had a social +position,” he said, “and if I have, I haven’t the smallest +idea what it is. Isn’t a social position knowing some two or three +thousand people and inviting them to dinner? I know you and your wife and +little old Mr. Nioche, who gave me French lessons last spring. Can I invite you +to dinner to meet each other? If I can, you must come to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is not very grateful to me,” said Mrs. Tristram, “who +introduced you last year to every creature I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you did; I had quite forgotten. But I thought you wanted me to +forget,” said Newman, with that tone of simple deliberateness which +frequently marked his utterance, and which an observer would not have known +whether to pronounce a somewhat mysteriously humorous affection of ignorance or +a modest aspiration to knowledge; “you told me you disliked them +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, the way you remember what I say is at least very flattering. But in +future,” added Mrs. Tristram, “pray forget all the wicked things +and remember only the good ones. It will be easily done, and it will not +fatigue your memory. But I forewarn you that if you trust my husband to pick +out your rooms, you are in for something hideous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hideous, darling?” cried Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“To-day I must say nothing wicked; otherwise I should use stronger +language.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think she would say, Newman?” asked Tristram. +“If she really tried, now? She can express displeasure, volubly, in two +or three languages; that’s what it is to be intellectual. It gives her +the start of me completely, for I can’t swear, for the life of me, except +in English. When I get mad I have to fall back on our dear old mother tongue. +There’s nothing like it, after all.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman declared that he knew nothing about tables and chairs, and that he would +accept, in the way of a lodging, with his eyes shut, anything that Tristram +should offer him. This was partly veracity on our hero’s part, but it was +also partly charity. He knew that to pry about and look at rooms, and make +people open windows, and poke into sofas with his cane, and gossip with +landladies, and ask who lived above and who below—he knew that this was +of all pastimes the dearest to Tristram’s heart, and he felt the more +disposed to put it in his way as he was conscious that, as regards his obliging +friend, he had suffered the warmth of ancient good-fellowship somewhat to +abate. Besides, he had no taste for upholstery; he had even no very exquisite +sense of comfort or convenience. He had a relish for luxury and splendor, but +it was satisfied by rather gross contrivances. He scarcely knew a hard chair +from a soft one, and he possessed a talent for stretching his legs which quite +dispensed with adventitious facilities. His idea of comfort was to inhabit very +large rooms, have a great many of them, and be conscious of their possessing a +number of patented mechanical devices—half of which he should never have +occasion to use. The apartments should be light and brilliant and lofty; he had +once said that he liked rooms in which you wanted to keep your hat on. For the +rest, he was satisfied with the assurance of any respectable person that +everything was “handsome.” Tristram accordingly secured for him an +apartment to which this epithet might be lavishly applied. It was situated on +the Boulevard Haussmann, on the first floor, and consisted of a series of +rooms, gilded from floor to ceiling a foot thick, draped in various light +shades of satin, and chiefly furnished with mirrors and clocks. Newman thought +them magnificent, thanked Tristram heartily, immediately took possession, and +had one of his trunks standing for three months in his drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +One day Mrs. Tristram told him that her beautiful friend, Madame de Cintré, had +returned from the country; that she had met her three days before, coming out +of the Church of St. Sulpice; she herself having journeyed to that distant +quarter in quest of an obscure lace-mender, of whose skill she had heard high +praise. +</p> + +<p> +“And how were those eyes?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Those eyes were red with weeping, if you please!” said Mrs. +Tristram. “She had been to confession.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t tally with your account of her,” said Newman, +“that she should have sins to confess.” +</p> + +<p> +“They were not sins; they were sufferings.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know that?” +</p> + +<p> +“She asked me to come and see her; I went this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what does she suffer from?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t ask her. With her, somehow, one is very discreet. But I +guessed, easily enough. She suffers from her wicked old mother and her Grand +Turk of a brother. They persecute her. But I can almost forgive them, because, +as I told you, she is a saint, and a persecution is all that she needs to bring +out her saintliness and make her perfect.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a comfortable theory for her. I hope you will never impart +it to the old folks. Why does she let them bully her? Is she not her own +mistress?” +</p> + +<p> +“Legally, yes, I suppose; but morally, no. In France you must never say +nay to your mother, whatever she requires of you. She may be the most +abominable old woman in the world, and make your life a purgatory; but, after +all, she is <i>ma mère</i>, and you have no right to judge her. You have simply +to obey. The thing has a fine side to it. Madame de Cintré bows her head and +folds her wings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t she at least make her brother leave off?” +</p> + +<p> +“Her brother is the <i>chef de la famille</i>, as they say; he is the +head of the clan. With those people the family is everything; you must act, not +for your own pleasure, but for the advantage of the family.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what <i>my</i> family would like me to do!” exclaimed +Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you had one!” said his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“But what do they want to get out of that poor lady?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Another marriage. They are not rich, and they want to bring more money +into the family.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s your chance, my boy!” said Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“And Madame de Cintré objects,” Newman continued. +</p> + +<p> +“She has been sold once; she naturally objects to being sold again. It +appears that the first time they made rather a poor bargain; M. de Cintré left +a scanty property.” +</p> + +<p> +“And to whom do they want to marry her now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it best not to ask; but you may be sure it is to some horrid +old nabob, or to some dissipated little duke.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s Mrs. Tristram, as large as life!” cried her husband. +“Observe the richness of her imagination. She has not a single +question—it’s vulgar to ask questions—and yet she knows +everything. She has the history of Madame de Cintré’s marriage at her +fingers’ ends. She has seen the lovely Claire on her knees, with loosened +tresses and streaming eyes, and the rest of them standing over her with spikes +and goads and red-hot irons, ready to come down on her if she refuses the tipsy +duke. The simple truth is that they made a fuss about her milliner’s bill +or refused her an opera-box.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked from Tristram to his wife with a certain mistrust in each +direction. “Do you really mean,” he asked of Mrs. Tristram, +“that your friend is being forced into an unhappy marriage?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it extremely probable. Those people are very capable of that +sort of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is like something in a play,” said Newman; “that dark old +house over there looks as if wicked things had been done in it, and might be +done again.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have a still darker old house in the country Madame de Cintré tells +me, and there, during the summer this scheme must have been hatched.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Must</i> have been; mind that!” said Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“After all,” suggested Newman, after a silence, “she may be +in trouble about something else.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it is something else, then it is something worse,” said Mrs. +Tristram, with rich decision. +</p> + +<p> +Newman was silent a while, and seemed lost in meditation. “Is it +possible,” he asked at last, “that they do that sort of thing over +here? that helpless women are bullied into marrying men they hate?” +</p> + +<p> +“Helpless women, all over the world, have a hard time of it,” said +Mrs. Tristram. “There is plenty of bullying everywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“A great deal of that kind of thing goes on in New York,” said +Tristram. “Girls are bullied or coaxed or bribed, or all three together, +into marrying nasty fellows. There is no end of that always going on in the +Fifth Avenue, and other bad things besides. The Mysteries of the Fifth Avenue! +Someone ought to show them up.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe it!” said Newman, very gravely. “I +don’t believe that, in America, girls are ever subjected to compulsion. I +don’t believe there have been a dozen cases of it since the country +began.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to the voice of the spread eagle!” cried Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“The spread eagle ought to use his wings,” said Mrs. Tristram. +“Fly to the rescue of Madame de Cintré!” +</p> + +<p> +“To her rescue?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pounce down, seize her in your talons, and carry her off. Marry her +yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman, for some moments, answered nothing; but presently, “I should +suppose she had heard enough of marrying,” he said. “The kindest +way to treat her would be to admire her, and yet never to speak of it. But that +sort of thing is infamous,” he added; “it makes me feel savage to +hear of it.” +</p> + +<p> +He heard of it, however, more than once afterward. Mrs. Tristram again saw +Madame de Cintré, and again found her looking very sad. But on these occasions +there had been no tears; her beautiful eyes were clear and still. “She is +cold, calm, and hopeless,” Mrs. Tristram declared, and she added that on +her mentioning that her friend Mr. Newman was again in Paris and was faithful +in his desire to make Madame de Cintré’s acquaintance, this lovely woman +had found a smile in her despair, and declared that she was sorry to have +missed his visit in the spring and that she hoped he had not lost courage. +“I told her something about you,” said Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a comfort,” said Newman, placidly. “I like +people to know about me.” +</p> + +<p> +A few days after this, one dusky autumn afternoon, he went again to the Rue de +l’Université. The early evening had closed in as he applied for +admittance at the stoutly guarded <i>Hôtel de Bellegarde</i>. He was told that +Madame de Cintré was at home; he crossed the court, entered the farther door, +and was conducted through a vestibule, vast, dim, and cold, up a broad stone +staircase with an ancient iron balustrade, to an apartment on the second floor. +Announced and ushered in, he found himself in a sort of paneled boudoir, at one +end of which a lady and gentleman were seated before the fire. The gentleman +was smoking a cigarette; there was no light in the room save that of a couple +of candles and the glow from the hearth. Both persons rose to welcome Newman, +who, in the firelight, recognized Madame de Cintré. She gave him her hand with +a smile which seemed in itself an illumination, and, pointing to her companion, +said softly, “My brother.” The gentleman offered Newman a frank, +friendly greeting, and our hero then perceived him to be the young man who had +spoken to him in the court of the hotel on his former visit and who had struck +him as a good fellow. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Tristram has spoken to me a great deal of you,” said Madame +de Cintré gently, as she resumed her former place. +</p> + +<p> +Newman, after he had seated himself, began to consider what, in truth, was his +errand. He had an unusual, unexpected sense of having wandered into a strange +corner of the world. He was not given, as a general thing, to anticipating +danger, or forecasting disaster, and he had had no social tremors on this +particular occasion. He was not timid and he was not impudent. He felt too +kindly toward himself to be the one, and too good-naturedly toward the rest of +the world to be the other. But his native shrewdness sometimes placed his ease +of temper at its mercy; with every disposition to take things simply, it was +obliged to perceive that some things were not so simple as others. He felt as +one does in missing a step, in an ascent, where one expected to find it. This +strange, pretty woman, sitting in fire-side talk with her brother, in the gray +depths of her inhospitable-looking house—what had he to say to her? She +seemed enveloped in a sort of fantastic privacy; on what grounds had he pulled +away the curtain? For a moment he felt as if he had plunged into some medium as +deep as the ocean, and as if he must exert himself to keep from sinking. +Meanwhile he was looking at Madame de Cintré, and she was settling herself in +her chair and drawing in her long dress and turning her face towards him. Their +eyes met; a moment afterwards she looked away and motioned to her brother to +put a log on the fire. But the moment, and the glance which traversed it, had +been sufficient to relieve Newman of the first and the last fit of personal +embarrassment he was ever to know. He performed the movement which was so +frequent with him, and which was always a sort of symbol of his taking mental +possession of a scene—he extended his legs. The impression Madame de +Cintré had made upon him on their first meeting came back in an instant; it had +been deeper than he knew. She was pleasing, she was interesting; he had opened +a book and the first lines held his attention. +</p> + +<p> +She asked him several questions: how lately he had seen Mrs. Tristram, how long +he had been in Paris, how long he expected to remain there, how he liked it. +She spoke English without an accent, or rather with that distinctively British +accent which, on his arrival in Europe, had struck Newman as an altogether +foreign tongue, but which, in women, he had come to like extremely. Here and +there Madame de Cintré’s utterance had a faint shade of strangeness but +at the end of ten minutes Newman found himself waiting for these soft +roughnesses. He enjoyed them, and he marveled to see that gross thing, error, +brought down to so fine a point. +</p> + +<p> +“You have a beautiful country,” said Madame de Cintré, presently. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, magnificent!” said Newman. “You ought to see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never see it,” said Madame de Cintré with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t travel; especially so far.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you go away sometimes; you are not always here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I go away in summer, a little way, to the country.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman wanted to ask her something more, something personal, he hardly knew +what. “Don’t you find it rather—rather quiet here?” he +said; “so far from the street?” Rather “gloomy,” he was +going to say, but he reflected that that would be impolite. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is very quiet,” said Madame de Cintré; “but we like +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you like that,” repeated Newman, slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides, I have lived here all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lived here all your life,” said Newman, in the same way. +</p> + +<p> +“I was born here, and my father was born here before me, and my +grandfather, and my great-grandfathers. Were they not, Valentin?” and she +appealed to her brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it’s a family habit to be born here!” the young man +said with a laugh, and rose and threw the remnant of his cigarette into the +fire, and then remained leaning against the chimney-piece. An observer would +have perceived that he wished to take a better look at Newman, whom he covertly +examined, while he stood stroking his moustache. +</p> + +<p> +“Your house is tremendously old, then,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“How old is it, brother?” asked Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +The young man took the two candles from the mantel-shelf, lifted one high in +each hand, and looked up toward the cornice of the room, above the +chimney-piece. This latter feature of the apartment was of white marble, and in +the familiar rococo style of the last century; but above it was a paneling of +an earlier date, quaintly carved, painted white, and gilded here and there. The +white had turned to yellow, and the gilding was tarnished. On the top, the +figures ranged themselves into a sort of shield, on which an armorial device +was cut. Above it, in relief, was a date—1627. “There you have +it,” said the young man. “That is old or new, according to your +point of view.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, over here,” said Newman, “one’s point of view +gets shifted round considerably.” And he threw back his head and looked +about the room. “Your house is of a very curious style of +architecture,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you interested in architecture?” asked the young man at the +chimney-piece. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I took the trouble, this summer,” said Newman, “to +examine—as well as I can calculate—some four hundred and seventy +churches. Do you call that interested?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you are interested in theology,” said the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Not particularly. Are you a Roman Catholic, madam?” And he turned +to Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” she answered, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +Newman was struck with the gravity of her tone; he threw back his head and +began to look round the room again. “Had you never noticed that number up +there?” he presently asked. +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated a moment, and then, “In former years,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Her brother had been watching Newman’s movement. “Perhaps you would +like to examine the house,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Newman slowly brought down his eyes and looked at him; he had a vague +impression that the young man at the chimney-piece was inclined to irony. He +was a handsome fellow, his face wore a smile, his moustaches were curled up at +the ends, and there was a little dancing gleam in his eye. “Damn his +French impudence!” Newman was on the point of saying to himself. +“What the deuce is he grinning at?” He glanced at Madame de Cintré; +she was sitting with her eyes fixed on the floor. She raised them, they met +his, and she looked at her brother. Newman turned again to this young man and +observed that he strikingly resembled his sister. This was in his favor, and +our hero’s first impression of the Count Valentin, moreover, had been +agreeable. His mistrust expired, and he said he would be very glad to see the +house. +</p> + +<p> +The young man gave a frank laugh, and laid his hand on one of the candlesticks. +“Good, good!” he exclaimed. “Come, then.” +</p> + +<p> +But Madame de Cintré rose quickly and grasped his arm, “Ah, +Valentin!” she said. “What do you mean to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“To show Mr. Newman the house. It will be very amusing.” +</p> + +<p> +She kept her hand on his arm, and turned to Newman with a smile. +“Don’t let him take you,” she said; “you will not find +it amusing. It is a musty old house, like any other.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is full of curious things,” said the count, resisting. +“Besides, I want to do it; it is a rare chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very wicked, brother,” Madame de Cintré answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing venture, nothing have!” cried the young man. “Will +you come?” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré stepped toward Newman, gently clasping her hands and smiling +softly. “Would you not prefer my society, here, by my fire, to stumbling +about dark passages after my brother?” +</p> + +<p> +“A hundred times!” said Newman. “We will see the house some +other day.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man put down his candlestick with mock solemnity, and, shaking his +head, “Ah, you have defeated a great scheme, sir!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“A scheme? I don’t understand,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“You would have played your part in it all the better. Perhaps some day I +shall have a chance to explain it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be quiet, and ring for the tea,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +The young man obeyed, and presently a servant brought in the tea, placed the +tray on a small table, and departed. Madame de Cintré, from her place, busied +herself with making it. She had but just begun when the door was thrown open +and a lady rushed in, making a loud rustling sound. She stared at Newman, gave +a little nod and a “Monsieur!” and then quickly approached Madame +de Cintré and presented her forehead to be kissed. Madame de Cintré saluted +her, and continued to make tea. The new-comer was young and pretty, it seemed +to Newman; she wore her bonnet and cloak, and a train of royal proportions. She +began to talk rapidly in French. “Oh, give me some tea, my beautiful one, +for the love of God! I’m exhausted, mangled, massacred.” Newman +found himself quite unable to follow her; she spoke much less distinctly than +M. Nioche. +</p> + +<p> +“That is my sister-in-law,” said the Count Valentin, leaning +towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“She is very pretty,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Exquisite,” answered the young man, and this time, again, Newman +suspected him of irony. +</p> + +<p> +His sister-in-law came round to the other side of the fire with her cup of tea +in her hand, holding it out at arm’s-length, so that she might not spill +it on her dress, and uttering little cries of alarm. She placed the cup on the +mantel-shelf and begun to unpin her veil and pull off her gloves, looking +meanwhile at Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anything I can do for you, my dear lady?” the Count +Valentin asked, in a sort of mock-caressing tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Present monsieur,” said his sister-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +The young man answered, “Mr. Newman!” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t courtesy to you, monsieur, or I shall spill my tea,” +said the lady. “So Claire receives strangers, like that?” she +added, in a low voice, in French, to her brother-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +“Apparently!” he answered with a smile. Newman stood a moment, and +then he approached Madame de Cintré. She looked up at him as if she were +thinking of something to say. But she seemed to think of nothing; so she simply +smiled. He sat down near her and she handed him a cup of tea. For a few moments +they talked about that, and meanwhile he looked at her. He remembered what Mrs. +Tristram had told him of her “perfection” and of her having, in +combination, all the brilliant things that he dreamed of finding. This made him +observe her not only without mistrust, but without uneasy conjectures; the +presumption, from the first moment he looked at her, had been in her favor. And +yet, if she was beautiful, it was not a dazzling beauty. She was tall and +moulded in long lines; she had thick fair hair, a wide forehead, and features +with a sort of harmonious irregularity. Her clear gray eyes were strikingly +expressive; they were both gentle and intelligent, and Newman liked them +immensely; but they had not those depths of splendor—those many-colored +rays—which illumine the brows of famous beauties. Madame de Cintré was +rather thin, and she looked younger than probably she was. In her whole person +there was something both youthful and subdued, slender and yet ample, tranquil +yet shy; a mixture of immaturity and repose, of innocence and dignity. What had +Tristram meant, Newman wondered, by calling her proud? She was certainly not +proud now, to him; or if she was, it was of no use, it was lost upon him; she +must pile it up higher if she expected him to mind it. She was a beautiful +woman, and it was very easy to get on with her. Was she a countess, a +<i>marquise</i>, a kind of historical formation? Newman, who had rarely heard +these words used, had never been at pains to attach any particular image to +them; but they occurred to him now and seemed charged with a sort of melodious +meaning. They signified something fair and softly bright, that had easy motions +and spoke very agreeably. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you many friends in Paris; do you go out?” asked Madame de +Cintré, who had at last thought of something to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean do I dance, and all that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you go <i>dans le monde</i>, as we say?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen a good many people. Mrs. Tristram has taken me about. I do +whatever she tells me.” +</p> + +<p> +“By yourself, you are not fond of amusements?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, of some sorts. I am not fond of dancing, and that sort of thing; +I am too old and sober. But I want to be amused; I came to Europe for +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you can be amused in America, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t; I was always at work. But after all, that was my +amusement.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment Madame de Bellegarde came back for another cup of tea, +accompanied by the Count Valentin. Madame de Cintré, when she had served her, +began to talk again with Newman, and recalling what he had last said, “In +your own country you were very much occupied?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I was in business. I have been in business since I was fifteen years +old.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what was your business?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, who was +decidedly not so pretty as Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been in everything,” said Newman. “At one time I sold +leather; at one time I manufactured wash-tubs.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde made a little grimace. “Leather? I don’t like +that. Wash-tubs are better. I prefer the smell of soap. I hope at least they +made your fortune.” She rattled this off with the air of a woman who had +the reputation of saying everything that came into her head, and with a strong +French accent. +</p> + +<p> +Newman had spoken with cheerful seriousness, but Madame de Bellegarde’s +tone made him go on, after a meditative pause, with a certain light grimness of +jocularity. “No, I lost money on wash-tubs, but I came out pretty square +on leather.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have made up my mind, after all,” said Madame de Bellegarde, +“that the great point is—how do you call it?—to come out +square. I am on my knees to money; I don’t deny it. If you have it, I ask +no questions. For that I am a real democrat—like you, monsieur. Madame de +Cintré is very proud; but I find that one gets much more pleasure in this sad +life if one doesn’t look too close.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just Heaven, dear madam, how you go at it,” said the Count +Valentin, lowering his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a man one can speak to, I suppose, since my sister receives +him,” the lady answered. “Besides, it’s very true; those are +my ideas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you call them ideas,” murmured the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“But Mrs. Tristram told me you had been in the army—in your +war,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but that is not business!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Very true!” said M. de Bellegarde. “Otherwise perhaps I +should not be penniless.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it true,” asked Newman in a moment, “that you are so +proud? I had already heard it.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré smiled. “Do you find me so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Newman, “I am no judge. If you are proud with me, +you will have to tell me. Otherwise I shall not know it.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré began to laugh. “That would be pride in a sad +position!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be partly,” Newman went on, “because I +shouldn’t want to know it. I want you to treat me well.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré, whose laugh had ceased, looked at him with her head half +averted, as if she feared what he was going to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Tristram told you the literal truth,” he went on; “I +want very much to know you. I didn’t come here simply to call to-day; I +came in the hope that you might ask me to come again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, pray come often,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“But will you be at home?” Newman insisted. Even to himself he +seemed a trifle “pushing,” but he was, in truth, a trifle excited. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope so!” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +Newman got up. “Well, we shall see,” he said smoothing his hat with +his coat-cuff. +</p> + +<p> +“Brother,” said Madame de Cintré, “invite Mr. Newman to come +again.” +</p> + +<p> +The Count Valentin looked at our hero from head to foot with his peculiar +smile, in which impudence and urbanity seemed perplexingly commingled. +“Are you a brave man?” he asked, eying him askance. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope so,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I rather suspect so. In that case, come again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, what an invitation!” murmured Madame de Cintré, with something +painful in her smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I want Mr. Newman to come—particularly,” said the young +man. “It will give me great pleasure. I shall be desolate if I miss one +of his visits. But I maintain he must be brave. A stout heart, sir!” And +he offered Newman his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not come to see you; I shall come to see Madame de +Cintré,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“You will need all the more courage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Valentin!” said Madame de Cintré, appealingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Decidedly,” cried Madame de Bellegarde, “I am the only +person here capable of saying something polite! Come to see me; you will need +no courage,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Newman gave a laugh which was not altogether an assent, and took his leave. +Madame de Cintré did not take up her sister’s challenge to be gracious, +but she looked with a certain troubled air at the retreating guest. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p> +One evening very late, about a week after his visit to Madame de Cintré, +Newman’s servant brought him a card. It was that of young M. de +Bellegarde. When, a few moments later, he went to receive his visitor, he found +him standing in the middle of his great gilded parlor and eying it from cornice +to carpet. M. de Bellegarde’s face, it seemed to Newman, expressed a +sense of lively entertainment. “What the devil is he laughing at +now?” our hero asked himself. But he put the question without acrimony, +for he felt that Madame de Cintré’s brother was a good fellow, and he had +a presentiment that on this basis of good fellowship they were destined to +understand each other. Only, if there was anything to laugh at, he wished to +have a glimpse of it too. +</p> + +<p> +“To begin with,” said the young man, as he extended his hand, +“have I come too late?” +</p> + +<p> +“Too late for what?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“To smoke a cigar with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have to come early to do that,” said Newman. “I +don’t smoke.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you are a strong man!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I keep cigars,” Newman added. “Sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely, I may not smoke here,” said M. de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter? Is the room too small?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is too large. It is like smoking in a ball-room, or a church.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is what you were laughing at just now?” Newman asked; +“the size of my room?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not size only,” replied M. de Bellegarde, “but +splendor, and harmony, and beauty of detail. It was the smile of +admiration.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at him a moment, and then, “So it <i>is</i> very +ugly?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Ugly, my dear sir? It is magnificent.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is the same thing, I suppose,” said Newman. “Make +yourself comfortable. Your coming to see me, I take it, is an act of +friendship. You were not obliged to. Therefore, if anything around here amuses +you, it will be all in a pleasant way. Laugh as loud as you please; I like to +see my visitors cheerful. Only, I must make this request: that you explain the +joke to me as soon as you can speak. I don’t want to lose anything, +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde stared, with a look of unresentful perplexity. He laid his +hand on Newman’s sleeve and seemed on the point of saying something, but +he suddenly checked himself, leaned back in his chair, and puffed at his cigar. +At last, however, breaking silence,—“Certainly,” he said, +“my coming to see you is an act of friendship. Nevertheless I was in a +measure obliged to do so. My sister asked me to come, and a request from my +sister is, for me, a law. I was near you, and I observed lights in what I +supposed were your rooms. It was not a ceremonious hour for making a call, but +I was not sorry to do something that would show I was not performing a mere +ceremony.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, here I am as large as life,” said Newman, extending his +legs. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean,” the young man went on “by +giving me unlimited leave to laugh. Certainly I am a great laugher, and it is +better to laugh too much than too little. But it is not in order that we may +laugh together—or separately—that I have, I may say, sought your +acquaintance. To speak with almost impudent frankness, you interest me!” +All this was uttered by M. de Bellegarde with the modulated smoothness of the +man of the world, and in spite of his excellent English, of the Frenchman; but +Newman, at the same time that he sat noting its harmonious flow, perceived that +it was not mere mechanical urbanity. Decidedly, there was something in his +visitor that he liked. M. de Bellegarde was a foreigner to his finger-tips, and +if Newman had met him on a Western prairie he would have felt it proper to +address him with a “How-d’ye-do, Mosseer?” But there was +something in his physiognomy which seemed to cast a sort of aerial bridge over +the impassable gulf produced by difference of race. He was below the middle +height, and robust and agile in figure. Valentin de Bellegarde, Newman +afterwards learned, had a mortal dread of the robustness overtaking the +agility; he was afraid of growing stout; he was too short, as he said, to +afford a belly. He rode and fenced and practiced gymnastics with unremitting +zeal, and if you greeted him with a “How well you are looking” he +started and turned pale. In your <i>well</i> he read a grosser monosyllable. He +had a round head, high above the ears, a crop of hair at once dense and silky, +a broad, low forehead, a short nose, of the ironical and inquiring rather than +of the dogmatic or sensitive cast, and a moustache as delicate as that of a +page in a romance. He resembled his sister not in feature, but in the +expression of his clear, bright eye, completely void of introspection, and in +the way he smiled. The great point in his face was that it was intensely +alive—frankly, ardently, gallantly alive. The look of it was like a bell, +of which the handle might have been in the young man’s soul: at a touch +of the handle it rang with a loud, silver sound. There was something in his +quick, light brown eye which assured you that he was not economizing his +consciousness. He was not living in a corner of it to spare the furniture of +the rest. He was squarely encamped in the centre and he was keeping open house. +When he smiled, it was like the movement of a person who in emptying a cup +turns it upside down: he gave you the last drop of his jollity. He inspired +Newman with something of the same kindness that our hero used to feel in his +earlier years for those of his companions who could perform strange and clever +tricks—make their joints crack in queer places or whistle at the back of +their mouths. +</p> + +<p> +“My sister told me,” M. de Bellegarde continued, “that I +ought to come and remove the impression that I had taken such great pains to +produce upon you; the impression that I am a lunatic. Did it strike you that I +behaved very oddly the other day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather so,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“So my sister tells me.” And M. de Bellegarde watched his host for +a moment through his smoke-wreaths. “If that is the case, I think we had +better let it stand. I didn’t try to make you think I was a lunatic, at +all; on the contrary, I wanted to produce a favorable impression. But if, after +all, I made a fool of myself, it was the intention of Providence. I should +injure myself by protesting too much, for I should seem to set up a claim for +wisdom which, in the sequel of our acquaintance, I could by no means justify. +Set me down as a lunatic with intervals of sanity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I guess you know what you are about,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“When I am sane, I am very sane; that I admit,” M. de Bellegarde +answered. “But I didn’t come here to talk about myself. I should +like to ask you a few questions. You allow me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me a specimen,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“You live here all alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Absolutely. With whom should I live?” +</p> + +<p> +“For the moment,” said M. de Bellegarde with a smile “I am +asking questions, not answering them. You have come to Paris for your +pleasure?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was silent a while. Then, at last, “Everyone asks me that!” +he said with his mild slowness. “It sounds so awfully foolish.” +</p> + +<p> +“But at any rate you had a reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I came for my pleasure!” said Newman. “Though it is +foolish, it is true.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you are enjoying it?” +</p> + +<p> +Like any other good American, Newman thought it as well not to truckle to the +foreigner. “Oh, so-so,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde puffed his cigar again in silence. “For myself,” +he said at last, “I am entirely at your service. Anything I can do for +you I shall be very happy to do. Call upon me at your convenience. Is there +anyone you desire to know—anything you wish to see? It is a pity you +should not enjoy Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I do enjoy it!” said Newman, good-naturedly. “I’m +much obliged to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Honestly speaking,” M. de Bellegarde went on, “there is +something absurd to me in hearing myself make you these offers. They represent +a great deal of goodwill, but they represent little else. You are a successful +man and I am a failure, and it’s a turning of the tables to talk as if I +could lend you a hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“In what way are you a failure?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m not a tragical failure!” cried the young man with a +laugh. “I have fallen from a height, and my fiasco has made no noise. +You, evidently, are a success. You have made a fortune, you have built up an +edifice, you are a financial, commercial power, you can travel about the world +until you have found a soft spot, and lie down in it with the consciousness of +having earned your rest. Is not that true? Well, imagine the exact reverse of +all that, and you have me. I have done nothing—I can do nothing!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a long story. Some day I will tell you. Meanwhile, I’m +right, eh? You are a success? You have made a fortune? It’s none of my +business, but, in short, you are rich?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s another thing that it sounds foolish to say,” said +Newman. “Hang it, no man is rich!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard philosophers affirm,” laughed M. de Bellegarde, +“that no man was poor; but your formula strikes me as an improvement. As +a general thing, I confess, I don’t like successful people, and I find +clever men who have made great fortunes very offensive. They tread on my toes; +they make me uncomfortable. But as soon as I saw you, I said to myself. +‘Ah, there is a man with whom I shall get on. He has the good-nature of +success and none of the <i>morgue</i>; he has not our confoundedly irritable +French vanity.’ In short, I took a fancy to you. We are very different, +I’m sure; I don’t believe there is a subject on which we think or +feel alike. But I rather think we shall get on, for there is such a thing, you +know, as being too different to quarrel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I never quarrel,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Never! Sometimes it’s a duty—or at least it’s a +pleasure. Oh, I have had two or three delicious quarrels in my day!” and +M. de Bellegarde’s handsome smile assumed, at the memory of these +incidents, an almost voluptuous intensity. +</p> + +<p> +With the preamble embodied in his share of the foregoing fragment of dialogue, +he paid our hero a long visit; as the two men sat with their heels on +Newman’s glowing hearth, they heard the small hours of the morning +striking larger from a far-off belfry. Valentin de Bellegarde was, by his own +confession, at all times a great chatterer, and on this occasion he was +evidently in a particularly loquacious mood. It was a tradition of his race +that people of its blood always conferred a favor by their smiles, and as his +enthusiasms were as rare as his civility was constant, he had a double reason +for not suspecting that his friendship could ever be importunate. Moreover, the +flower of an ancient stem as he was, tradition (since I have used the word) had +in his temperament nothing of disagreeable rigidity. It was muffled in +sociability and urbanity, as an old dowager in her laces and strings of pearls. +Valentin was what is called in France a <i>gentilhomme</i>, of the purest +source, and his rule of life, so far as it was definite, was to play the part +of a <i>gentilhomme</i>. This, it seemed to him, was enough to occupy +comfortably a young man of ordinary good parts. But all that he was he was by +instinct and not by theory, and the amiability of his character was so great +that certain of the aristocratic virtues, which in some aspects seem rather +brittle and trenchant, acquired in his application of them an extreme +geniality. In his younger years he had been suspected of low tastes, and his +mother had greatly feared he would make a slip in the mud of the highway and +bespatter the family shield. He had been treated, therefore, to more than his +share of schooling and drilling, but his instructors had not succeeded in +mounting him upon stilts. They could not spoil his safe spontaneity, and he +remained the least cautious and the most lucky of young nobles. He had been +tied with so short a rope in his youth that he had now a mortal grudge against +family discipline. He had been known to say, within the limits of the family, +that, light-headed as he was, the honor of the name was safer in his hands than +in those of some of its other members, and that if a day ever came to try it, +they should see. His talk was an odd mixture of almost boyish garrulity and of +the reserve and discretion of the man of the world, and he seemed to Newman, as +afterwards young members of the Latin races often seemed to him, now amusingly +juvenile and now appallingly mature. In America, Newman reflected, lads of +twenty-five and thirty have old heads and young hearts, or at least young +morals; here they have young heads and very aged hearts, morals the most +grizzled and wrinkled. +</p> + +<p> +“What I envy you is your liberty,” observed M. de Bellegarde, +“your wide range, your freedom to come and go, your not having a lot of +people, who take themselves awfully seriously, expecting something of you. I +live,” he added with a sigh, “beneath the eyes of my admirable +mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is your own fault; what is to hinder your ranging?” said +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a delightful simplicity in that remark! Everything is to hinder +me. To begin with, I have not a penny.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had not a penny when I began to range.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but your poverty was your capital. Being an American, it was +impossible you should remain what you were born, and being born poor—do I +understand it?—it was therefore inevitable that you should become rich. +You were in a position that makes one’s mouth water; you looked round you +and saw a world full of things you had only to step up to and take hold of. +When I was twenty, I looked around me and saw a world with everything ticketed +‘Hands off!’ and the deuce of it was that the ticket seemed meant +only for me. I couldn’t go into business, I couldn’t make money, +because I was a Bellegarde. I couldn’t go into politics, because I was a +Bellegarde—the Bellegardes don’t recognize the Bonapartes. I +couldn’t go into literature, because I was a dunce. I couldn’t +marry a rich girl, because no Bellegarde had ever married a <i>roturière</i>, +and it was not proper that I should begin. We shall have to come to it, yet. +Marriageable heiresses, <i>de notre bord</i>, are not to be had for nothing; it +must be name for name, and fortune for fortune. The only thing I could do was +to go and fight for the Pope. That I did, punctiliously, and received an +apostolic flesh-wound at Castlefidardo. It did neither the Holy Father nor me +any good, that I could see. Rome was doubtless a very amusing place in the days +of Caligula, but it has sadly fallen off since. I passed three years in the +Castle of St. Angelo, and then came back to secular life.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you have no profession—you do nothing,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I do nothing! I am supposed to amuse myself, and, to tell the truth, I +have amused myself. One can, if one knows how. But you can’t keep it up +forever. I am good for another five years, perhaps, but I foresee that after +that I shall lose my appetite. Then what shall I do? I think I shall turn monk. +Seriously, I think I shall tie a rope round my waist and go into a monastery. +It was an old custom, and the old customs were very good. People understood +life quite as well as we do. They kept the pot boiling till it cracked, and +then they put it on the shelf altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you very religious?” asked Newman, in a tone which gave the +inquiry a grotesque effect. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde evidently appreciated the comical element in the question, but +he looked at Newman a moment with extreme soberness. “I am a very good +Catholic. I respect the Church. I adore the blessed Virgin. I fear the +Devil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said Newman, “you are very well fixed. You have +got pleasure in the present and religion in the future; what do you complain +of?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a part of one’s pleasure to complain. There is +something in your own circumstances that irritates me. You are the first man I +have ever envied. It’s singular, but so it is. I have known many men who, +besides any factitious advantages that I may possess, had money and brains into +the bargain; but somehow they have never disturbed my good-humor. But you have +got something that I should have liked to have. It is not money, it is not even +brains—though no doubt yours are excellent. It is not your six feet of +height, though I should have rather liked to be a couple of inches taller. +It’s a sort of air you have of being thoroughly at home in the world. +When I was a boy, my father told me that it was by such an air as that that +people recognized a Bellegarde. He called my attention to it. He didn’t +advise me to cultivate it; he said that as we grew up it always came of itself. +I supposed it had come to me, because I think I have always had the feeling. My +place in life was made for me, and it seemed easy to occupy it. But you who, as +I understand it, have made your own place, you who, as you told us the other +day, have manufactured wash-tubs—you strike me, somehow, as a man who +stands at his ease, who looks at things from a height. I fancy you going about +the world like a man traveling on a railroad in which he owns a large amount of +stock. You make me feel as if I had missed something. What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is the proud consciousness of honest toil—of having +manufactured a few wash-tubs,” said Newman, at once jocose and serious. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no; I have seen men who had done even more, men who had made not only +wash-tubs, but soap—strong-smelling yellow soap, in great bars; and they +never made me the least uncomfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it’s the privilege of being an American citizen,” said +Newman. “That sets a man up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly,” rejoined M. de Bellegarde. “But I am forced to +say that I have seen a great many American citizens who didn’t seem at +all set up or in the least like large stock-holders. I never envied them. I +rather think the thing is an accomplishment of your own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come,” said Newman, “you will make me proud!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I shall not. You have nothing to do with pride, or with +humility—that is a part of this easy manner of yours. People are proud +only when they have something to lose, and humble when they have something to +gain.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what I have to lose,” said Newman, “but I +certainly have something to gain.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” asked his visitor. +</p> + +<p> +Newman hesitated a while. “I will tell you when I know you better.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope that will be soon! Then, if I can help you to gain it, I shall be +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you may,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t forget, then, that I am your servant,” M. de +Bellegarde answered; and shortly afterwards he took his departure. +</p> + +<p> +During the next three weeks Newman saw Bellegarde several times, and without +formally swearing an eternal friendship the two men established a sort of +comradeship. To Newman, Bellegarde was the ideal Frenchman, the Frenchman of +tradition and romance, so far as our hero was concerned with these mystical +influences. Gallant, expansive, amusing, more pleased himself with the effect +he produced than those (even when they were well pleased) for whom he produced +it; a master of all the distinctively social virtues and a votary of all +agreeable sensations; a devotee of something mysterious and sacred to which he +occasionally alluded in terms more ecstatic even than those in which he spoke +of the last pretty woman, and which was simply the beautiful though somewhat +superannuated image of <i>honor</i>; he was irresistibly entertaining and +enlivening, and he formed a character to which Newman was as capable of doing +justice when he had once been placed in contact with it, as he was unlikely, in +musing upon the possible mixtures of our human ingredients, mentally to have +foreshadowed it. Bellegarde did not in the least cause him to modify his +needful premise that all Frenchmen are of a frothy and imponderable substance; +he simply reminded him that light materials may be beaten up into a most +agreeable compound. No two companions could be more different, but their +differences made a capital basis for a friendship of which the distinctive +characteristic was that it was extremely amusing to each. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin de Bellegarde lived in the basement of an old house in the Rue +d’Anjou St. Honoré, and his small apartments lay between the court of the +house and an old garden which spread itself behind it—one of those large, +sunless humid gardens into which you look unexpectingly in Paris from back +windows, wondering how among the grudging habitations they find their space. +When Newman returned Bellegarde’s visit, he hinted that <i>his</i> +lodging was at least as much a laughing matter as his own. But its oddities +were of a different cast from those of our hero’s gilded saloons on the +Boulevard Haussmann: the place was low, dusky, contracted, and crowded with +curious bric-à-brac. Bellegarde, penniless patrician as he was, was an +insatiable collector, and his walls were covered with rusty arms and ancient +panels and platters, his doorways draped in faded tapestries, his floors +muffled in the skins of beasts. Here and there was one of those uncomfortable +tributes to elegance in which the upholsterer’s art, in France, is so +prolific; a curtain recess with a sheet of looking-glass in which, among the +shadows, you could see nothing; a divan on which, for its festoons and +furbelows, you could not sit; a fireplace draped, flounced, and frilled to the +complete exclusion of fire. The young man’s possessions were in +picturesque disorder, and his apartment was pervaded by the odor of cigars, +mingled with perfumes more inscrutable. Newman thought it a damp, gloomy place +to live in, and was puzzled by the obstructive and fragmentary character of the +furniture. +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde, according to the custom of his country talked very generously about +himself, and unveiled the mysteries of his private history with an unsparing +hand. Inevitably, he had a vast deal to say about women, and he used frequently +to indulge in sentimental and ironical apostrophes to these authors of his joys +and woes. “Oh, the women, the women, and the things they have made me +do!” he would exclaim with a lustrous eye. “<i>C’est +égal</i>, of all the follies and stupidities I have committed for them I would +not have missed one!” On this subject Newman maintained an habitual +reserve; to expatiate largely upon it had always seemed to him a proceeding +vaguely analogous to the cooing of pigeons and the chattering of monkeys, and +even inconsistent with a fully developed human character. But +Bellegarde’s confidences greatly amused him, and rarely displeased him, +for the generous young Frenchman was not a cynic. “I really think,” +he had once said, “that I am not more depraved than most of my +contemporaries. They are tolerably depraved, my contemporaries!” He said +wonderfully pretty things about his female friends, and, numerous and various +as they had been, declared that on the whole there was more good in them than +harm. “But you are not to take that as advice,” he added. “As +an authority I am very untrustworthy. I’m prejudiced in their favor; +I’m an <i>idealist!</i>” Newman listened to him with his impartial +smile, and was glad, for his own sake, that he had fine feelings; but he +mentally repudiated the idea of a Frenchman having discovered any merit in the +amiable sex which he himself did not suspect. M. de Bellegarde, however, did +not confine his conversation to the autobiographical channel; he questioned our +hero largely as to the events of his own life, and Newman told him some better +stories than any that Bellegarde carried in his budget. He narrated his career, +in fact, from the beginning, through all its variations, and whenever his +companion’s credulity, or his habits of gentility, appeared to protest, +it amused him to heighten the color of the episode. Newman had sat with Western +humorists in knots, round cast-iron stoves, and seen “tall” stories +grow taller without toppling over, and his own imagination had learned the +trick of piling up consistent wonders. Bellegarde’s regular attitude at +last became that of laughing self-defense; to maintain his reputation as an +all-knowing Frenchman, he doubted of everything, wholesale. The result of this +was that Newman found it impossible to convince him of certain time-honored +verities. +</p> + +<p> +“But the details don’t matter,” said M. de Bellegarde. +“You have evidently had some surprising adventures; you have seen some +strange sides of life, you have revolved to and fro over a whole continent as I +walked up and down the Boulevard. You are a man of the world with a vengeance! +You have spent some deadly dull hours, and you have done some extremely +disagreeable things: you have shoveled sand, as a boy, for supper, and you have +eaten roast dog in a gold-diggers’ camp. You have stood casting up +figures for ten hours at a time, and you have sat through Methodist sermons for +the sake of looking at a pretty girl in another pew. All that is rather stiff, +as we say. But at any rate you have done something and you are something; you +have used your will and you have made your fortune. You have not stupified +yourself with debauchery and you have not mortgaged your fortune to social +conveniences. You take things easily, and you have fewer prejudices even than +I, who pretend to have none, but who in reality have three or four. Happy man, +you are strong and you are free. But what the deuce,” demanded the young +man in conclusion, “do you propose to do with such advantages? Really to +use them you need a better world than this. There is nothing worth your while +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I think there is something,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” murmured Newman, “I will tell you some other +time!” +</p> + +<p> +In this way our hero delayed from day to day broaching a subject which he had +very much at heart. Meanwhile, however, he was growing practically familiar +with it; in other words, he had called again, three times, on Madame de Cintré. +On only two of these occasions had he found her at home, and on each of them +she had other visitors. Her visitors were numerous and extremely loquacious, +and they exacted much of their hostess’s attention. She found time, +however, to bestow a little of it on Newman, in an occasional vague smile, the +very vagueness of which pleased him, allowing him as it did to fill it out +mentally, both at the time and afterwards, with such meanings as most pleased +him. He sat by without speaking, looking at the entrances and exits, the +greetings and chatterings, of Madame de Cintré’s visitors. He felt as if +he were at the play, and as if his own speaking would be an interruption; +sometimes he wished he had a book, to follow the dialogue; he half expected to +see a woman in a white cap and pink ribbons come and offer him one for two +francs. Some of the ladies looked at him very hard—or very soft, as you +please; others seemed profoundly unconscious of his presence. The men looked +only at Madame de Cintré. This was inevitable; for whether one called her +beautiful or not, she entirely occupied and filled one’s vision, just as +an agreeable sound fills one’s ear. Newman had but twenty distinct words +with her, but he carried away an impression to which solemn promises could not +have given a higher value. She was part of the play that he was seeing acted, +quite as much as her companions; but how she filled the stage and how much +better she did it! Whether she rose or seated herself; whether she went with +her departing friends to the door and lifted up the heavy curtain as they +passed out, and stood an instant looking after them and giving them the last +nod; or whether she leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed and her eyes +resting, listening and smiling; she gave Newman the feeling that he should like +to have her always before him, moving slowly to and fro along the whole scale +of expressive hospitality. If it might be <i>to</i> him, it would be well; if +it might be <i>for</i> him, it would be still better! She was so tall and yet +so light, so active and yet so still, so elegant and yet so simple, so frank +and yet so mysterious! It was the mystery—it was what she was off the +stage, as it were—that interested Newman most of all. He could not have +told you what warrant he had for talking about mysteries; if it had been his +habit to express himself in poetic figures he might have said that in observing +Madame de Cintré he seemed to see the vague circle which sometimes accompanies +the partly-filled disk of the moon. It was not that she was reserved; on the +contrary, she was as frank as flowing water. But he was sure she had qualities +which she herself did not suspect. +</p> + +<p> +He had abstained for several reasons from saying some of these things to +Bellegarde. One reason was that before proceeding to any act he was always +circumspect, conjectural, contemplative; he had little eagerness, as became a +man who felt that whenever he really began to move he walked with long steps. +And then, it simply pleased him not to speak—it occupied him, it excited +him. But one day Bellegarde had been dining with him, at a restaurant, and they +had sat long over their dinner. On rising from it, Bellegarde proposed that, to +help them through the rest of the evening, they should go and see Madame +Dandelard. Madame Dandelard was a little Italian lady who had married a +Frenchman who proved to be a rake and a brute and the torment of her life. Her +husband had spent all her money, and then, lacking the means of obtaining more +expensive pleasures, had taken, in his duller hours, to beating her. She had a +blue spot somewhere, which she showed to several persons, including Bellegarde. +She had obtained a separation from her husband, collected the scraps of her +fortune (they were very meagre) and come to live in Paris, where she was +staying at a <i>hôtel garni</i>. She was always looking for an apartment, and +visiting, inquiringly, those of other people. She was very pretty, very +childlike, and she made very extraordinary remarks. Bellegarde had made her +acquaintance, and the source of his interest in her was, according to his own +declaration, a curiosity as to what would become of her. “She is poor, +she is pretty, and she is silly,” he said, “it seems to me she can +go only one way. It’s a pity, but it can’t be helped. I will give +her six months. She has nothing to fear from me, but I am watching the process. +I am curious to see just how things will go. Yes, I know what you are going to +say: this horrible Paris hardens one’s heart. But it quickens one’s +wits, and it ends by teaching one a refinement of observation! To see this +little woman’s little drama play itself out, now, is, for me, an +intellectual pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“If she is going to throw herself away,” Newman had said, +“you ought to stop her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop her? How stop her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Talk to her; give her some good advice.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde laughed. “Heaven deliver us both! Imagine the situation! Go +and advise her yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +It was after this that Newman had gone with Bellegarde to see Madame Dandelard. +When they came away, Bellegarde reproached his companion. “Where was your +famous advice?” he asked. “I didn’t hear a word of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I give it up,” said Newman, simply. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you are as bad as I!” said Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“No, because I don’t take an ‘intellectual pleasure’ in +her prospective adventures. I don’t in the least want to see her going +down hill. I had rather look the other way. But why,” he asked, in a +moment, “don’t you get your sister to go and see her?” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde stared. “Go and see Madame Dandelard—my sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“She might talk to her to very good purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde shook his head with sudden gravity. “My sister can’t see +that sort of person. Madame Dandelard is nothing at all; they would never +meet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think,” said Newman, “that your sister might see +whom she pleased.” And he privately resolved that after he knew her a +little better he would ask Madame de Cintré to go and talk to the foolish +little Italian lady. +</p> + +<p> +After his dinner with Bellegarde, on the occasion I have mentioned, he demurred +to his companion’s proposal that they should go again and listen to +Madame Dandelard describe her sorrows and her bruises. +</p> + +<p> +“I have something better in mind,” he said; “come home with +me and finish the evening before my fire.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde always welcomed the prospect of a long stretch of conversation, and +before long the two men sat watching the great blaze which scattered its +scintillations over the high adornments of Newman’s ball-room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p> +“Tell me something about your sister,” Newman began abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde turned and gave him a quick look. “Now that I think of it, you +have never yet asked me a question about her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that very well.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it is because you don’t trust me, you are very right,” +said Bellegarde. “I can’t talk of her rationally. I admire her too +much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Talk of her as you can,” rejoined Newman. “Let yourself +go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we are very good friends; we are such a brother and sister as have +not been seen since Orestes and Electra. You have seen her; you know what she +is: tall, thin, light, imposing, and gentle, half a <i>grande dame</i> and half +an angel; a mixture of pride and humility, of the eagle and the dove. She looks +like a statue which had failed as stone, resigned itself to its grave defects, +and come to life as flesh and blood, to wear white capes and long trains. All I +can say is that she really possesses every merit that her face, her glance, her +smile, the tone of her voice, lead you to expect; it is saying a great deal. As +a general thing, when a woman seems very charming, I should say +‘Beware!’ But in proportion as Claire seems charming you may fold +your arms and let yourself float with the current; you are safe. She is so +good! I have never seen a woman half so perfect or so complete. She has +everything; that is all I can say about her. There!” Bellegarde +concluded; “I told you I should rhapsodize.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was silent a while, as if he were turning over his companion’s +words. “She is very good, eh?” he repeated at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Divinely good!” +</p> + +<p> +“Kind, charitable, gentle, generous?” +</p> + +<p> +“Generosity itself; kindness double-distilled!” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she clever?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is the most intelligent woman I know. Try her, some day, with +something difficult, and you will see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she fond of admiration?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Parbleu!</i>” cried Bellegarde; “what woman is +not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, when they are too fond of admiration they commit all kinds of +follies to get it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not say she was too fond!” Bellegarde exclaimed. +“Heaven forbid I should say anything so idiotic. She is not <i>too</i> +anything! If I were to say she was ugly, I should not mean she was too ugly. +She is fond of pleasing, and if you are pleased she is grateful. If you are not +pleased, she lets it pass and thinks the worst neither of you nor of herself. I +imagine, though, she hopes the saints in heaven are, for I am sure she is +incapable of trying to please by any means of which they would +disapprove.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she grave or gay?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“She is both; not alternately, for she is always the same. There is +gravity in her gaiety, and gaiety in her gravity. But there is no reason why +she should be particularly gay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she unhappy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t say that, for unhappiness is according as one takes +things, and Claire takes them according to some receipt communicated to her by +the Blessed Virgin in a vision. To be unhappy is to be disagreeable, which, for +her, is out of the question. So she has arranged her circumstances so as to be +happy in them.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is a philosopher,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“No, she is simply a very nice woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Her circumstances, at any rate, have been disagreeable?” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde hesitated a moment—a thing he very rarely did. “Oh, my +dear fellow, if I go into the history of my family I shall give you more than +you bargain for.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, on the contrary, I bargain for that,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have to appoint a special séance, then, beginning early. +Suffice it for the present that Claire has not slept on roses. She made at +eighteen a marriage that was expected to be brilliant, but that turned out like +a lamp that goes out; all smoke and bad smell. M. de Cintré was sixty years +old, and an odious old gentleman. He lived, however, but a short time, and +after his death his family pounced upon his money, brought a lawsuit against +his widow, and pushed things very hard. Their case was a good one, for M. de +Cintré, who had been trustee for some of his relatives, appeared to have been +guilty of some very irregular practices. In the course of the suit some +revelations were made as to his private history which my sister found so +displeasing that she ceased to defend herself and washed her hands of the +property. This required some pluck, for she was between two fires, her +husband’s family opposing her and her own family forcing her. My mother +and my brother wished her to cleave to what they regarded as her rights. But +she resisted firmly, and at last bought her freedom—obtained my +mother’s assent to dropping the suit at the price of a promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“What was the promise?” +</p> + +<p> +“To do anything else, for the next ten years, that was asked of +her—anything, that is, but marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“She had disliked her husband very much?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one knows how much!” +</p> + +<p> +“The marriage had been made in your horrible French way,” Newman +continued, “made by the two families, without her having any +voice?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a chapter for a novel. She saw M. de Cintré for the first time a +month before the wedding, after everything, to the minutest detail, had been +arranged. She turned white when she looked at him, and white she remained till +her wedding-day. The evening before the ceremony she swooned away, and she +spent the whole night in sobs. My mother sat holding her two hands, and my +brother walked up and down the room. I declared it was revolting and told my +sister publicly that if she would refuse, downright, I would stand by her. I +was told to go about my business, and she became Comtesse de Cintré.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your brother,” said Newman, reflectively, “must be a very +nice young man.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is very nice, though he is not young. He is upward of fifty, fifteen +years my senior. He has been a father to my sister and me. He is a very +remarkable man; he has the best manners in France. He is extremely clever; +indeed he is very learned. He is writing a history of The Princesses of France +Who Never Married.” This was said by Bellegarde with extreme gravity, +looking straight at Newman, and with an eye that betokened no mental +reservation; or that, at least, almost betokened none. +</p> + +<p> +Newman perhaps discovered there what little there was, for he presently said, +“You don’t love your brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” said Bellegarde, ceremoniously; +“well-bred people always love their brothers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t love him, then!” Newman answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till you know him!” rejoined Bellegarde, and this time he +smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Is your mother also very remarkable?” Newman asked, after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“For my mother,” said Bellegarde, now with intense gravity, +“I have the highest admiration. She is a very extraordinary woman. You +cannot approach her without perceiving it.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is the daughter, I believe, of an English nobleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of the Earl of St. Dunstan’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is the Earl of St. Dunstan’s a very old family?” +</p> + +<p> +“So-so; the sixteenth century. It is on my father’s side that we go +back—back, back, back. The family antiquaries themselves lose breath. At +last they stop, panting and fanning themselves, somewhere in the ninth century, +under Charlemagne. That is where we begin.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no mistake about it?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I hope not. We have been mistaken at least for several +centuries.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you have always married into old families?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a rule; though in so long a stretch of time there have been some +exceptions. Three or four Bellegardes, in the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries, took wives out of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>—married +lawyers’ daughters.” +</p> + +<p> +“A lawyer’s daughter; that’s very bad, is it?” asked +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Horrible! one of us, in the Middle Ages, did better: he married a +beggar-maid, like King Cophetua. That was really better; it was like marrying a +bird or a monkey; one didn’t have to think about her family at all. Our +women have always done well; they have never even gone into the <i>petite +noblesse</i>. There is, I believe, not a case on record of a misalliance among +the women.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman turned this over for a while, and, then at last he said, “You +offered, the first time you came to see me to render me any service you could. +I told you that some time I would mention something you might do. Do you +remember?” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember? I have been counting the hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; here’s your chance. Do what you can to make your sister +think well of me.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde stared, with a smile. “Why, I’m sure she thinks as well +of you as possible, already.” +</p> + +<p> +“An opinion founded on seeing me three or four times? That is putting me +off with very little. I want something more. I have been thinking of it a good +deal, and at last I have decided to tell you. I should like very much to marry +Madame de Cintré.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde had been looking at him with quickened expectancy, and with the +smile with which he had greeted Newman’s allusion to his promised +request. At this last announcement he continued to gaze; but his smile went +through two or three curious phases. It felt, apparently, a momentary impulse +to broaden; but this it immediately checked. Then it remained for some instants +taking counsel with itself, at the end of which it decreed a retreat. It slowly +effaced itself and left a look of seriousness modified by the desire not to be +rude. Extreme surprise had come into the Count Valentin’s face; but he +had reflected that it would be uncivil to leave it there. And yet, what the +deuce was he to do with it? He got up, in his agitation, and stood before the +chimney-piece, still looking at Newman. He was a longer time thinking what to +say than one would have expected. +</p> + +<p> +“If you can’t render me the service I ask,” said Newman, +“say it out!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me hear it again, distinctly,” said Bellegarde. +“It’s very important, you know. I shall plead your cause with my +sister, because you want—you want to marry her? That’s it, +eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t say plead my cause, exactly; I shall try and do that +myself. But say a good word for me, now and then—let her know that you +think well of me.” +</p> + +<p> +At this, Bellegarde gave a little light laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“What I want chiefly, after all,” Newman went on, “is just to +let you know what I have in mind. I suppose that is what you expect, +isn’t it? I want to do what is customary over here. If there is anything +particular to be done, let me know and I will do it. I wouldn’t for the +world approach Madame de Cintré without all the proper forms. If I ought to go +and tell your mother, why I will go and tell her. I will go and tell your +brother, even. I will go and tell anyone you please. As I don’t know +anyone else, I begin by telling you. But that, if it is a social obligation, is +a pleasure as well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I see—I see,” said Bellegarde, lightly stroking his +chin. “You have a very right feeling about it, but I’m glad you +have begun with me.” He paused, hesitated, and then turned away and +walked slowly the length of the room. Newman got up and stood leaning against +the mantel-shelf, with his hands in his pockets, watching Bellegarde’s +promenade. The young Frenchman came back and stopped in front of him. “I +give it up,” he said; “I will not pretend I am not surprised. I +am—hugely! <i>Ouf!</i> It’s a relief.” +</p> + +<p> +“That sort of news is always a surprise,” said Newman. “No +matter what you have done, people are never prepared. But if you are so +surprised, I hope at least you are pleased.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” said Bellegarde. “I am going to be tremendously +frank. I don’t know whether I am pleased or horrified.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you are pleased, I shall be glad,” said Newman, “and I +shall be—encouraged. If you are horrified, I shall be sorry, but I shall +not be discouraged. You must make the best of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is quite right—that is your only possible attitude. You are +perfectly serious?” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I a Frenchman, that I should not be?” asked Newman. “But +why is it, by the bye, that you should be horrified?” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde raised his hand to the back of his head and rubbed his hair quickly +up and down, thrusting out the tip of his tongue as he did so. “Why, you +are not noble, for instance,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“The devil I am not!” exclaimed Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Bellegarde a little more seriously, “I did not +know you had a title.” +</p> + +<p> +“A title? What do you mean by a title?” asked Newman. “A +count, a duke, a marquis? I don’t know anything about that, I don’t +know who is and who is not. But I say I am noble. I don’t exactly know +what you mean by it, but it’s a fine word and a fine idea; I put in a +claim to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what have you to show, my dear fellow, what proofs?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything you please! But you don’t suppose I am going to undertake +to prove that I am noble. It is for you to prove the contrary.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s easily done. You have manufactured wash-tubs.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman stared a moment. “Therefore I am not noble? I don’t see it. +Tell me something I have <i>not</i> done—something I cannot do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You cannot marry a woman like Madame de Cintré for the asking.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you mean,” said Newman slowly, “that I am not good +enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brutally speaking—yes!” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde had hesitated a moment, and while he hesitated Newman’s +attentive glance had grown somewhat eager. In answer to these last words he for +a moment said nothing. He simply blushed a little. Then he raised his eyes to +the ceiling and stood looking at one of the rosy cherubs that was painted upon +it. “Of course I don’t expect to marry any woman for the +asking,” he said at last; “I expect first to make myself acceptable +to her. She must like me, to begin with. But that I am not good enough to make +a trial is rather a surprise.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde wore a look of mingled perplexity, sympathy, and amusement. +“You should not hesitate, then, to go up to-morrow and ask a duchess to +marry you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if I thought she would suit me. But I am very fastidious; she might +not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde’s amusement began to prevail. “And you should be +surprised if she refused you?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman hesitated a moment. “It sounds conceited to say yes, but +nevertheless I think I should. For I should make a very handsome offer.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would it be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything she wishes. If I get hold of a woman that comes up to my +standard, I shall think nothing too good for her. I have been a long time +looking, and I find such women are rare. To combine the qualities I require +seems to be difficult, but when the difficulty is vanquished it deserves a +reward. My wife shall have a good position, and I’m not afraid to say +that I shall be a good husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“And these qualities that you require—what are they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness, beauty, intelligence, a fine education, personal +elegance—everything, in a word, that makes a splendid woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“And noble birth, evidently,” said Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, throw that in, by all means, if it’s there. The more the +better!” +</p> + +<p> +“And my sister seems to you to have all these things?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is exactly what I have been looking for. She is my dream +realized.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you would make her a very good husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is what I wanted you to tell her.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde laid his hand on his companion’s arm a moment, looked at him +with his head on one side, from head to foot, and then, with a loud laugh, and +shaking the other hand in the air, turned away. He walked again the length of +the room, and again he came back and stationed himself in front of Newman. +“All this is very interesting—it is very curious. In what I said +just now I was speaking, not for myself, but for my tradition, my +superstitions. For myself, really, your proposal tickles me. It startled me at +first, but the more I think of it the more I see in it. It’s no use +attempting to explain anything; you won’t understand me. After all, I +don’t see why you need; it’s no great loss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if there is anything more to explain, try it! I want to proceed with +my eyes open. I will do my best to understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Bellegarde, “it’s disagreeable to me; I give +it up. I liked you the first time I saw you, and I will abide by that. It would +be quite odious for me to come talking to you as if I could patronize you. I +have told you before that I envy you; <i>vous m’imposez</i>, as we say. I +didn’t know you much until within five minutes. So we will let things go, +and I will say nothing to you that, if our positions were reversed, you would +not say to me.” +</p> + +<p> +I do not know whether in renouncing the mysterious opportunity to which he +alluded, Bellegarde felt that he was doing something very generous. If so, he +was not rewarded; his generosity was not appreciated. Newman quite failed to +recognize the young Frenchman’s power to wound his feelings, and he had +now no sense of escaping or coming off easily. He did not thank his companion +even with a glance. “My eyes are open, though,” he said, “so +far as that you have practically told me that your family and your friends will +turn up their noses at me. I have never thought much about the reasons that +make it proper for people to turn up their noses, and so I can only decide the +question off-hand. Looking at it in that way I can’t see anything in it. +I simply think, if you want to know, that I’m as good as the best. Who +the best are, I don’t pretend to say. I have never thought much about +that either. To tell the truth, I have always had rather a good opinion of +myself; a man who is successful can’t help it. But I will admit that I +was conceited. What I don’t say yes to is that I don’t stand +high—as high as anyone else. This is a line of speculation I should not +have chosen, but you must remember you began it yourself. I should never have +dreamed that I was on the defensive, or that I had to justify myself; but if +your people will have it so, I will do my best.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you offered, a while ago, to make your court as we say, to my mother +and my brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn it!” cried Newman, “I want to be polite.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” rejoined Bellegarde; “this will go far, it will be +very entertaining. Excuse my speaking of it in that cold-blooded fashion, but +the matter must, of necessity, be for me something of a spectacle. It’s +positively exciting. But apart from that I sympathize with you, and I shall be +actor, so far as I can, as well as spectator. You are a capital fellow; I +believe in you and I back you. The simple fact that you appreciate my sister +will serve as the proof I was asking for. All men are equal—especially +men of taste!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think,” asked Newman presently, “that Madame de +Cintré is determined not to marry?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is my impression. But that is not against you; it’s for you +to make her change her mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid it will be hard,” said Newman, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it will be easy. In a general way I don’t see +why a widow should ever marry again. She has gained the benefits of +matrimony—freedom and consideration—and she has got rid of the +drawbacks. Why should she put her head into the noose again? Her usual motive +is ambition: if a man can offer her a great position, make her a princess or an +ambassadress she may think the compensation sufficient.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—in that way—is Madame de Cintré ambitious?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows?” said Bellegarde, with a profound shrug. “I +don’t pretend to say all that she is or all that she is not. I think she +might be touched by the prospect of becoming the wife of a great man. But in a +certain way, I believe, whatever she does will be the <i>improbable</i>. +Don’t be too confident, but don’t absolutely doubt. Your best +chance for success will be precisely in being, to her mind, unusual, +unexpected, original. Don’t try to be anyone else; be simply yourself, +out and out. Something or other can’t fail to come of it; I am very +curious to see what.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged to you for your advice,” said Newman. +“And,” he added with a smile, “I am glad, for your sake, I am +going to be so amusing.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will be more than amusing,” said Bellegarde; “it will be +inspiring. I look at it from my point of view, and you from yours. After all, +anything for a change! And only yesterday I was yawning so as to dislocate my +jaw, and declaring that there was nothing new under the sun! If it isn’t +new to see you come into the family as a suitor, I am very much mistaken. Let +me say that, my dear fellow; I won’t call it anything else, bad or good; +I will simply call it <i>new</i>.” And overcome with a sense of the +novelty thus foreshadowed, Valentin de Bellegarde threw himself into a deep +armchair before the fire, and, with a fixed, intense smile, seemed to read a +vision of it in the flame of the logs. After a while he looked up. “Go +ahead, my boy; you have my good wishes,” he said. “But it is really +a pity you don’t understand me, that you don’t know just what I am +doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Newman, laughing, “don’t do anything wrong. +Leave me to myself, rather, or defy me, out and out. I wouldn’t lay any +load on your conscience.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde sprang up again; he was evidently excited; there was a warmer spark +even than usual in his eye. “You never will understand—you never +will know,” he said; “and if you succeed, and I turn out to have +helped you, you will never be grateful, not as I shall deserve you should be. +You will be an excellent fellow always, but you will not be grateful. But it +doesn’t matter, for I shall get my own fun out of it.” And he broke +into an extravagant laugh. “You look puzzled,” he added; “you +look almost frightened.” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i> a pity,” said Newman, “that I don’t +understand you. I shall lose some very good jokes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you, you remember, that we were very strange people,” +Bellegarde went on. “I give you warning again. We are! My mother is +strange, my brother is strange, and I verily believe that I am stranger than +either. You will even find my sister a little strange. Old trees have crooked +branches, old houses have queer cracks, old races have odd secrets. Remember +that we are eight hundred years old!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” said Newman; “that’s the sort of thing I +came to Europe for. You come into my programme.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Touchez-là</i>, then,” said Bellegarde, putting out his hand. +“It’s a bargain: I accept you; I espouse your cause. It’s +because I like you, in a great measure; but that is not the only reason!” +And he stood holding Newman’s hand and looking at him askance. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the other one?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am in the Opposition. I dislike someone else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your brother?” asked Newman, in his unmodulated voice. +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde laid his fingers upon his lips with a whispered <i>hush!</i> +“Old races have strange secrets!” he said. “Put yourself into +motion, come and see my sister, and be assured of my sympathy!” And on +this he took his leave. +</p> + +<p> +Newman dropped into a chair before his fire, and sat a long time staring into +the blaze. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p> +He went to see Madame de Cintré the next day, and was informed by the servant +that she was at home. He passed as usual up the large, cold staircase and +through a spacious vestibule above, where the walls seemed all composed of +small door panels, touched with long-faded gilding; whence he was ushered into +the sitting-room in which he had already been received. It was empty, and the +servant told him that Madame la Comtesse would presently appear. He had time, +while he waited, to wonder whether Bellegarde had seen his sister since the +evening before, and whether in this case he had spoken to her of their talk. In +this case Madame de Cintré’s receiving him was an encouragement. He felt +a certain trepidation as he reflected that she might come in with the knowledge +of his supreme admiration and of the project he had built upon it in her eyes; +but the feeling was not disagreeable. Her face could wear no look that would +make it less beautiful, and he was sure beforehand that however she might take +the proposal he had in reserve, she would not take it in scorn or in irony. He +had a feeling that if she could only read the bottom of his heart and measure +the extent of his good will toward her, she would be entirely kind. +</p> + +<p> +She came in at last, after so long an interval that he wondered whether she had +been hesitating. She smiled with her usual frankness, and held out her hand; +she looked at him straight with her soft and luminous eyes, and said, without a +tremor in her voice, that she was glad to see him and that she hoped he was +well. He found in her what he had found before—that faint perfume of a +personal shyness worn away by contact with the world, but the more perceptible +the more closely you approached her. This lingering diffidence seemed to give a +peculiar value to what was definite and assured in her manner; it made it seem +like an accomplishment, a beautiful talent, something that one might compare to +an exquisite touch in a pianist. It was, in fact, Madame de Cintré’s +“authority,” as they say of artists, that especially impressed and +fascinated Newman; he always came back to the feeling that when he should +complete himself by taking a wife, that was the way he should like his wife to +interpret him to the world. The only trouble, indeed, was that when the +instrument was so perfect it seemed to interpose too much between you and the +genius that used it. Madame de Cintré gave Newman the sense of an elaborate +education, of her having passed through mysterious ceremonies and processes of +culture in her youth, of her having been fashioned and made flexible to certain +exalted social needs. All this, as I have affirmed, made her seem rare and +precious—a very expensive article, as he would have said, and one which a +man with an ambition to have everything about him of the best would find it +highly agreeable to possess. But looking at the matter with an eye to private +felicity, Newman wondered where, in so exquisite a compound, nature and art +showed their dividing line. Where did the special intention separate from the +habit of good manners? Where did urbanity end and sincerity begin? Newman asked +himself these questions even while he stood ready to accept the admired object +in all its complexity; he felt that he could do so in profound security, and +examine its mechanism afterwards, at leisure. +</p> + +<p> +“I am very glad to find you alone,” he said. “You know I have +never had such good luck before.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you have seemed before very well contented with your luck,” +said Madame de Cintré. “You have sat and watched my visitors with an air +of quiet amusement. What have you thought of them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have thought the ladies were very elegant and very graceful, and +wonderfully quick at repartee. But what I have chiefly thought has been that +they only helped me to admire you.” This was not gallantry on +Newman’s part—an art in which he was quite unversed. It was simply +the instinct of the practical man, who had made up his mind what he wanted, and +was now beginning to take active steps to obtain it. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré started slightly, and raised her eyebrows; she had evidently +not expected so fervid a compliment. “Oh, in that case,” she said +with a laugh, “your finding me alone is not good luck for me. I hope +someone will come in quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope not,” said Newman. “I have something particular to +say to you. Have you seen your brother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I saw him an hour ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he tell you that he had seen me last night?” +</p> + +<p> +“He said so.” +</p> + +<p> +“And did he tell you what we had talked about?” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré hesitated a moment. As Newman asked these questions she had +grown a little pale, as if she regarded what was coming as necessary, but not +as agreeable. “Did you give him a message to me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“It was not exactly a message—I asked him to render me a +service.” +</p> + +<p> +“The service was to sing your praises, was it not?” And she +accompanied this question with a little smile, as if to make it easier to +herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that is what it really amounts to,” said Newman. “Did +he sing my praises?” +</p> + +<p> +“He spoke very well of you. But when I know that it was by your special +request, of course I must take his eulogy with a grain of salt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that makes no difference,” said Newman. “Your brother +would not have spoken well of me unless he believed what he was saying. He is +too honest for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you very deep?” said Madame de Cintré. “Are you trying +to please me by praising my brother? I confess it is a good way.” +</p> + +<p> +“For me, any way that succeeds will be good. I will praise your brother +all day, if that will help me. He is a noble little fellow. He has made me +feel, in promising to do what he can to help me, that I can depend upon +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t make too much of that,” said Madame de Cintré. +“He can help you very little.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I must work my way myself. I know that very well; I only want +a chance to. In consenting to see me, after what he told you, you almost seem +to be giving me a chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am seeing you,” said Madame de Cintré, slowly and gravely, +“because I promised my brother I would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blessings on your brother’s head!” cried Newman. “What +I told him last evening was this: that I admired you more than any woman I had +ever seen, and that I should like immensely to make you my wife.” He +uttered these words with great directness and firmness, and without any sense +of confusion. He was full of his idea, he had completely mastered it, and he +seemed to look down on Madame de Cintré, with all her gathered elegance, from +the height of his bracing good conscience. It is probable that this particular +tone and manner were the very best he could have hit upon. Yet the light, just +visibly forced smile with which his companion had listened to him died away, +and she sat looking at him with her lips parted and her face as solemn as a +tragic mask. There was evidently something very painful to her in the scene to +which he was subjecting her, and yet her impatience of it found no angry voice. +Newman wondered whether he was hurting her; he could not imagine why the +liberal devotion he meant to express should be disagreeable. He got up and +stood before her, leaning one hand on the chimney-piece. “I know I have +seen you very little to say this,” he said, “so little that it may +make what I say seem disrespectful. That is my misfortune! I could have said it +the first time I saw you. Really, I had seen you before; I had seen you in +imagination; you seemed almost an old friend. So what I say is not mere +gallantry and compliments and nonsense—I can’t talk that way, I +don’t know how, and I wouldn’t, to you, if I could. It’s as +serious as such words can be. I feel as if I knew you and knew what a +beautiful, admirable woman you are. I shall know better, perhaps, some day, but +I have a general notion now. You are just the woman I have been looking for, +except that you are far more perfect. I won’t make any protestations and +vows, but you can trust me. It is very soon, I know, to say all this; it is +almost offensive. But why not gain time if one can? And if you want time to +reflect—of course you do—the sooner you begin, the better for me. I +don’t know what you think of me; but there is no great mystery about me; +you see what I am. Your brother told me that my antecedents and occupations +were against me; that your family stands, somehow, on a higher level than I do. +That is an idea which of course I don’t understand and don’t +accept. But you don’t care anything about that. I can assure you that I +am a very solid fellow, and that if I give my mind to it I can arrange things +so that in a very few years I shall not need to waste time in explaining who I +am and what I am. You will decide for yourself whether you like me or not. What +there is you see before you. I honestly believe I have no hidden vices or nasty +tricks. I am kind, kind, kind! Everything that a man can give a woman I will +give you. I have a large fortune, a very large fortune; some day, if you will +allow me, I will go into details. If you want brilliancy, everything in the way +of brilliancy that money can give you, you shall have. And as regards anything +you may give up, don’t take for granted too much that its place cannot be +filled. Leave that to me; I’ll take care of you; I shall know what you +need. Energy and ingenuity can arrange everything. I’m a strong man! +There, I have said what I had on my heart! It was better to get it off. I am +very sorry if it’s disagreeable to you; but think how much better it is +that things should be clear. Don’t answer me now, if you don’t wish +it. Think about it, think about it as slowly as you please. Of course I +haven’t said, I can’t say, half I mean, especially about my +admiration for you. But take a favorable view of me; it will only be +just.” +</p> + +<p> +During this speech, the longest that Newman had ever made, Madame de Cintré +kept her gaze fixed upon him, and it expanded at the last into a sort of +fascinated stare. When he ceased speaking she lowered her eyes and sat for some +moments looking down and straight before her. Then she slowly rose to her feet, +and a pair of exceptionally keen eyes would have perceived that she was +trembling a little in the movement. She still looked extremely serious. +“I am very much obliged to you for your offer,” she said. “It +seems very strange, but I am glad you spoke without waiting any longer. It is +better the subject should be dismissed. I appreciate all you say; you do me +great honor. But I have decided not to marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t say that!” cried Newman, in a tone absolutely +<i>naïf</i> from its pleading and caressing cadence. She had turned away, and +it made her stop a moment with her back to him. “Think better of that. +You are too young, too beautiful, too much made to be happy and to make others +happy. If you are afraid of losing your freedom, I can assure you that this +freedom here, this life you now lead, is a dreary bondage to what I will offer +you. You shall do things that I don’t think you have ever thought of. I +will take you anywhere in the wide world that you propose. Are you unhappy? You +give me a feeling that you <i>are</i> unhappy. You have no right to be, or to +be made so. Let me come in and put an end to it.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré stood there a moment longer, looking away from him. If she was +touched by the way he spoke, the thing was conceivable. His voice, always very +mild and interrogative, gradually became as soft and as tenderly argumentative +as if he had been talking to a much-loved child. He stood watching her, and she +presently turned round again, but this time she did not look at him, and she +spoke in a quietness in which there was a visible trace of effort. +</p> + +<p> +“There are a great many reasons why I should not marry,” she said, +“more than I can explain to you. As for my happiness, I am very happy. +Your offer seems strange to me, for more reasons also than I can say. Of course +you have a perfect right to make it. But I cannot accept it—it is +impossible. Please never speak of this matter again. If you cannot promise me +this, I must ask you not to come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why is it impossible?” Newman demanded. “You may think it +is, at first, without its really being so. I didn’t expect you to be +pleased at first, but I do believe that if you will think of it a good while, +you may be satisfied.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know you,” said Madame de Cintré. “Think how +little I know you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very little, of course, and therefore I don’t ask for your +ultimatum on the spot. I only ask you not to say no, and to let me hope. I will +wait as long as you desire. Meanwhile you can see more of me and know me +better, look at me as a possible husband—as a candidate—and make up +your mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Something was going on, rapidly, in Madame de Cintré’s thoughts; she was +weighing a question there, beneath Newman’s eyes, weighing it and +deciding it. “From the moment I don’t very respectfully beg you to +leave the house and never return,” she said, “I listen to you, I +seem to give you hope. I <i>have</i> listened to you—against my judgment. +It is because you are eloquent. If I had been told this morning that I should +consent to consider you as a possible husband, I should have thought my +informant a little crazy. I <i>am</i> listening to you, you see!” And she +threw her hands out for a moment and let them drop with a gesture in which +there was just the slightest expression of appealing weakness. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, as far as saying goes, I have said everything,” said Newman. +“I believe in you, without restriction, and I think all the good of you +that it is possible to think of a human creature. I firmly believe that in +marrying me you will be <i>safe</i>. As I said just now,” he went on with +a smile, “I have no bad ways. I can <i>do</i> so much for you. And if you +are afraid that I am not what you have been accustomed to, not refined and +delicate and punctilious, you may easily carry that too far. I <i>am</i> +delicate! You shall see!” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré walked some distance away, and paused before a great plant, an +azalea, which was flourishing in a porcelain tub before her window. She plucked +off one of the flowers and, twisting it in her fingers, retraced her steps. +Then she sat down in silence, and her attitude seemed to be a consent that +Newman should say more. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should you say it is impossible you should marry?” he +continued. “The only thing that could make it really impossible would be +your being already married. Is it because you have been unhappy in marriage? +That is all the more reason! Is it because your family exert a pressure upon +you, interfere with you, annoy you? That is still another reason; you ought to +be perfectly free, and marriage will make you so. I don’t say anything +against your family—understand that!” added Newman, with an +eagerness which might have made a perspicacious observer smile. “Whatever +way you feel toward them is the right way, and anything that you should wish me +to do to make myself agreeable to them I will do as well as I know how. Depend +upon that!” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré rose again and came toward the fireplace, near which Newman +was standing. The expression of pain and embarrassment had passed out of her +face, and it was illuminated with something which, this time at least, Newman +need not have been perplexed whether to attribute to habit or to intention, to +art or to nature. She had the air of a woman who has stepped across the +frontier of friendship and, looking around her, finds the region vast. A +certain checked and controlled exaltation seemed mingled with the usual level +radiance of her glance. “I will not refuse to see you again,” she +said, “because much of what you have said has given me pleasure. But I +will see you only on this condition: that you say nothing more in the same way +for a long time.” +</p> + +<p> +“For how long?” +</p> + +<p> +“For six months. It must be a solemn promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, I promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, then,” she said, and extended her hand. +</p> + +<p> +He held it a moment, as if he were going to say something more. But he only +looked at her; then he took his departure. +</p> + +<p> +That evening, on the Boulevard, he met Valentin de Bellegarde. After they had +exchanged greetings, Newman told him that he had seen Madame de Cintré a few +hours before. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it,” said Bellegarde. “I dined in the Rue de +l’Université.” And then, for some moments, both men were silent. +Newman wished to ask Bellegarde what visible impression his visit had made and +the Count Valentin had a question of his own. Bellegarde spoke first. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s none of my business, but what the deuce did you say to my +sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am willing to tell you,” said Newman, “that I made her an +offer of marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Already!” And the young man gave a whistle. “‘Time is +money!’ Is that what you say in America? And Madame de Cintré?” he +added, with an interrogative inflection. +</p> + +<p> +“She did not accept my offer.” +</p> + +<p> +“She couldn’t, you know, in that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I’m to see her again,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the strangeness of woman!” exclaimed Bellegarde. Then he +stopped, and held Newman off at arms’-length. “I look at you with +respect!” he exclaimed. “You have achieved what we call a personal +success! Immediately, now, I must present you to my brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whenever you please!” said Newman. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p> +Newman continued to see his friends the Tristrams with a good deal of +frequency, though if you had listened to Mrs. Tristram’s account of the +matter you would have supposed that they had been cynically repudiated for the +sake of grander acquaintance. “We were all very well so long as we had no +rivals—we were better than nothing. But now that you have become the +fashion, and have your pick every day of three invitations to dinner, we are +tossed into the corner. I am sure it is very good of you to come and see us +once a month; I wonder you don’t send us your cards in an envelope. When +you do, pray have them with black edges; it will be for the death of my last +illusion.” It was in this incisive strain that Mrs. Tristram moralized +over Newman’s so-called neglect, which was in reality a most exemplary +constancy. Of course she was joking, but there was always something ironical in +her jokes, as there was always something jocular in her gravity. +</p> + +<p> +“I know no better proof that I have treated you very well,” Newman +had said, “than the fact that you make so free with my character. +Familiarity breeds contempt; I have made myself too cheap. If I had a little +proper pride I would stay away a while, and when you asked me to dinner say I +was going to the Princess Borealska’s. But I have not any pride where my +pleasure is concerned, and to keep you in the humor to see me—if you must +see me only to call me bad names—I will agree to anything you choose; I +will admit that I am the biggest snob in Paris.” Newman, in fact, had +declined an invitation personally given by the Princess Borealska, an inquiring +Polish lady to whom he had been presented, on the ground that on that +particular day he always dined at Mrs. Tristram’s; and it was only a +tenderly perverse theory of his hostess of the Avenue d’Iéna that he was +faithless to his early friendships. She needed the theory to explain a certain +moral irritation by which she was often visited; though, if this explanation +was unsound, a deeper analyst than I must give the right one. Having launched +our hero upon the current which was bearing him so rapidly along, she appeared +but half-pleased at its swiftness. She had succeeded too well; she had played +her game too cleverly and she wished to mix up the cards. Newman had told her, +in due season, that her friend was “satisfactory.” The epithet was +not romantic, but Mrs. Tristram had no difficulty in perceiving that, in +essentials, the feeling which lay beneath it was. Indeed, the mild, expansive +brevity with which it was uttered, and a certain look, at once appealing and +inscrutable, that issued from Newman’s half-closed eyes as he leaned his +head against the back of his chair, seemed to her the most eloquent attestation +of a mature sentiment that she had ever encountered. Newman was, according to +the French phrase, only abounding in her own sense, but his temperate raptures +exerted a singular effect upon the ardor which she herself had so freely +manifested a few months before. She now seemed inclined to take a purely +critical view of Madame de Cintré, and wished to have it understood that she +did not in the least answer for her being a compendium of all the virtues. +“No woman was ever so good as that woman seems,” she said. +“Remember what Shakespeare calls Desdemona; ‘a supersubtle +Venetian.’ Madame de Cintré is a supersubtle Parisian. She is a charming +woman, and she has five hundred merits; but you had better keep that in +mind.” Was Mrs. Tristram simply finding out that she was jealous of her +dear friend on the other side of the Seine, and that in undertaking to provide +Newman with an ideal wife she had counted too much on her own +disinterestedness? We may be permitted to doubt it. The inconsistent little +lady of the Avenue d’Iéna had an insuperable need of changing her place, +intellectually. She had a lively imagination, and she was capable, at certain +times, of imagining the direct reverse of her most cherished beliefs, with a +vividness more intense than that of conviction. She got tired of thinking +aright; but there was no serious harm in it, as she got equally tired of +thinking wrong. In the midst of her mysterious perversities she had admirable +flashes of justice. One of these occurred when Newman related to her that he +had made a formal proposal to Madame de Cintré. He repeated in a few words what +he had said, and in a great many what she had answered. Mrs. Tristram listened +with extreme interest. +</p> + +<p> +“But after all,” said Newman, “there is nothing to +congratulate me upon. It is not a triumph.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Tristram; “it is a great +triumph. It is a great triumph that she did not silence you at the first word, +and request you never to speak to her again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that,” observed Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you don’t; Heaven forbid you should! When I told you to +go on your own way and do what came into your head, I had no idea you would go +over the ground so fast. I never dreamed you would offer yourself after five or +six morning-calls. As yet, what had you done to make her like you? You had +simply sat—not very straight—and stared at her. But she does like +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That remains to be seen.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, that is proved. What will come of it remains to be seen. That you +should propose to marry her, without more ado, could never have come into her +head. You can form very little idea of what passed through her mind as you +spoke; if she ever really marries you, the affair will be characterized by the +usual justice of all human beings towards women. You will think you take +generous views of her; but you will never begin to know through what a strange +sea of feeling she passed before she accepted you. As she stood there in front +of you the other day, she plunged into it. She said ‘Why not?’ to +something which, a few hours earlier, had been inconceivable. She turned about +on a thousand gathered prejudices and traditions as on a pivot, and looked +where she had never looked hitherto. When I think of it—when I think of +Claire de Cintré and all that she represents, there seems to me something very +fine in it. When I recommended you to try your fortune with her I of course +thought well of you, and in spite of your sins I think so still. But I confess +I don’t see quite what you are and what you have done, to make such a +woman do this sort of thing for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there is something very fine in it!” said Newman with a laugh, +repeating her words. He took an extreme satisfaction in hearing that there was +something fine in it. He had not the least doubt of it himself, but he had +already begun to value the world’s admiration of Madame de Cintré, as +adding to the prospective glory of possession. +</p> + +<p> +It was immediately after this conversation that Valentin de Bellegarde came to +conduct his friend to the Rue de l’Université to present him to the other +members of his family. “You are already introduced,” he said, +“and you have begun to be talked about. My sister has mentioned your +successive visits to my mother, and it was an accident that my mother was +present at none of them. I have spoken of you as an American of immense wealth, +and the best fellow in the world, who is looking for something very superior in +the way of a wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose,” asked Newman, “that Madame de Cintré has +related to your mother the last conversation I had with her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very certain that she has not; she will keep her own counsel. +Meanwhile you must make your way with the rest of the family. Thus much is +known about you: you have made a great fortune in trade, you are a little +eccentric, and you frankly admire our dear Claire. My sister-in-law, whom you +remember seeing in Madame de Cintré’s sitting-room, took, it appears, a +fancy to you; she has described you as having <i>beaucoup de cachet</i>. My +mother, therefore, is curious to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“She expects to laugh at me, eh?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“She never laughs. If she does not like you, don’t hope to purchase +favor by being amusing. Take warning by me!” +</p> + +<p> +This conversation took place in the evening, and half an hour later Valentin +ushered his companion into an apartment of the house of the Rue de +l’Université into which he had not yet penetrated, the salon of the +dowager Marquise de Bellegarde. It was a vast, high room, with elaborate and +ponderous mouldings, painted a whitish gray, along the upper portion of the +walls and the ceiling; with a great deal of faded and carefully repaired +tapestry in the doorways and chair-backs; a Turkey carpet in light colors, +still soft and deep, in spite of great antiquity, on the floor, and portraits +of each of Madame de Bellegarde’s children, at the age of ten, suspended +against an old screen of red silk. The room was illumined, exactly enough for +conversation, by half a dozen candles, placed in odd corners, at a great +distance apart. In a deep armchair, near the fire, sat an old lady in black; at +the other end of the room another person was seated at the piano, playing a +very expressive waltz. In this latter person Newman recognized the young +Marquise de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin presented his friend, and Newman walked up to the old lady by the fire +and shook hands with her. He received a rapid impression of a white, delicate, +aged face, with a high forehead, a small mouth, and a pair of cold blue eyes +which had kept much of the freshness of youth. Madame de Bellegarde looked hard +at him, and returned his hand-shake with a sort of British positiveness which +reminded him that she was the daughter of the Earl of St. Dunstan’s. Her +daughter-in-law stopped playing and gave him an agreeable smile. Newman sat +down and looked about him, while Valentin went and kissed the hand of the young +marquise. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to have seen you before,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +“You have paid several visits to my daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Newman, smiling; “Madame de Cintré and I are +old friends by this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have gone fast,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so fast as I should like,” said Newman, bravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are very ambitious,” answered the old lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I confess I am,” said Newman, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde looked at him with her cold fine eyes, and he returned her +gaze, reflecting that she was a possible adversary and trying to take her +measure. Their eyes remained in contact for some moments. Then Madame de +Bellegarde looked away, and without smiling, “I am very ambitious, +too,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Newman felt that taking her measure was not easy; she was a formidable, +inscrutable little woman. She resembled her daughter, and yet she was utterly +unlike her. The coloring in Madame de Cintré was the same, and the high +delicacy of her brow and nose was hereditary. But her face was a larger and +freer copy, and her mouth in especial a happy divergence from that conservative +orifice, a little pair of lips at once plump and pinched, that looked, when +closed, as if they could not open wider than to swallow a gooseberry or to emit +an “Oh, dear, no!” which probably had been thought to give the +finishing touch to the aristocratic prettiness of the Lady Emmeline Atheling as +represented, forty years before, in several Books of Beauty. Madame de +Cintré’s face had, to Newman’s eye, a range of expression as +delightfully vast as the wind-streaked, cloud-flecked distance on a Western +prairie. But her mother’s white, intense, respectable countenance, with +its formal gaze, and its circumscribed smile, suggested a document signed and +sealed; a thing of parchment, ink, and ruled lines. “She is a woman of +conventions and proprieties,” he said to himself as he looked at her; +“her world is the world of things immutably decreed. But how she is at +home in it, and what a paradise she finds it. She walks about in it as if it +were a blooming park, a Garden of Eden; and when she sees ‘This is +genteel,’ or ‘This is improper,’ written on a mile-stone she +stops ecstatically, as if she were listening to a nightingale or smelling a +rose.” Madame de Bellegarde wore a little black velvet hood tied under +her chin, and she was wrapped in an old black cashmere shawl. +</p> + +<p> +“You are an American?” she said presently. “I have seen +several Americans.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are several in Paris,” said Newman jocosely. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, really?” said Madame de Bellegarde. “It was in England I +saw these, or somewhere else; not in Paris. I think it must have been in the +Pyrenees, many years ago. I am told your ladies are very pretty. One of these +ladies was very pretty! such a wonderful complexion! She presented me a note of +introduction from someone—I forgot whom—and she sent with it a note +of her own. I kept her letter a long time afterwards, it was so strangely +expressed. I used to know some of the phrases by heart. But I have forgotten +them now, it is so many years ago. Since then I have seen no more Americans. I +think my daughter-in-law has; she is a great gad-about, she sees +everyone.” +</p> + +<p> +At this the younger lady came rustling forward, pinching in a very slender +waist, and casting idly preoccupied glances over the front of her dress, which +was apparently designed for a ball. She was, in a singular way, at once ugly +and pretty; she had protuberant eyes, and lips strangely red. She reminded +Newman of his friend, Mademoiselle Nioche; this was what that much-obstructed +young lady would have liked to be. Valentin de Bellegarde walked behind her at +a distance, hopping about to keep off the far-spreading train of her dress. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to show more of your shoulders behind,” he said very +gravely. “You might as well wear a standing ruff as such a dress as +that.” +</p> + +<p> +The young woman turned her back to the mirror over the chimney-piece, and +glanced behind her, to verify Valentin’s assertion. The mirror descended +low, and yet it reflected nothing but a large unclad flesh surface. The young +marquise put her hands behind her and gave a downward pull to the waist of her +dress. “Like that, you mean?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That is a little better,” said Bellegarde in the same tone, +“but it leaves a good deal to be desired.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I never go to extremes,” said his sister-in-law. And then, +turning to Madame de Bellegarde, “What were you calling me just now, +madame?” +</p> + +<p> +“I called you a gad-about,” said the old lady. “But I might +call you something else, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“A gad-about? What an ugly word! What does it mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“A very beautiful person,” Newman ventured to say, seeing that it +was in French. +</p> + +<p> +“That is a pretty compliment but a bad translation,” said the young +marquise. And then, looking at him a moment, “Do you dance?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a step.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very wrong,” she said, simply. And with another look at +her back in the mirror she turned away. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like Paris?” asked the old lady, who was apparently +wondering what was the proper way to talk to an American. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, rather,” said Newman. And then he added with a friendly +intonation, “Don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say I know it. I know my house—I know my +friends—I don’t know Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you lose a great deal,” said Newman, sympathetically. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde stared; it was presumably the first time she had been +condoled with on her losses. +</p> + +<p> +“I am content with what I have,” she said with dignity. +</p> + +<p> +Newman’s eyes, at this moment, were wandering round the room, which +struck him as rather sad and shabby; passing from the high casements, with +their small, thickly-framed panes, to the sallow tints of two or three +portraits in pastel, of the last century, which hung between them. He ought, +obviously, to have answered that the contentment of his hostess was quite +natural—she had a great deal; but the idea did not occur to him during +the pause of some moments which followed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dear mother,” said Valentin, coming and leaning against +the chimney-piece, “what do you think of my dear friend Newman? Is he not +the excellent fellow I told you?” +</p> + +<p> +“My acquaintance with Mr. Newman has not gone very far,” said +Madame de Bellegarde. “I can as yet only appreciate his great +politeness.” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother is a great judge of these matters,” said Valentin to +Newman. “If you have satisfied her, it is a triumph.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I shall satisfy you, some day,” said Newman, looking at the +old lady. “I have done nothing yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must not listen to my son; he will bring you into trouble. He is a +sad scatterbrain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I like him—I like him,” said Newman, genially. +</p> + +<p> +“He amuses you, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, perfectly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear that, Valentin?” said Madame de Bellegarde. “You +amuse Mr. Newman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps we shall all come to that!” Valentin exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“You must see my other son,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “He +is much better than this one. But he will not amuse you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—I don’t know!” murmured Valentin, +reflectively. “But we shall very soon see. Here comes <i>Monsieur mon +frère</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +The door had just opened to give ingress to a gentleman who stepped forward and +whose face Newman remembered. He had been the author of our hero’s +discomfiture the first time he tried to present himself to Madame de Cintré. +Valentin de Bellegarde went to meet his brother, looked at him a moment, and +then, taking him by the arm, led him up to Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“This is my excellent friend Mr. Newman,” he said very blandly. +“You must know him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am delighted to know Mr. Newman,” said the marquis with a low +bow, but without offering his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“He is the old woman at second-hand,” Newman said to himself, as he +returned M. de Bellegarde’s greeting. And this was the starting-point of +a speculative theory, in his mind, that the late marquis had been a very +amiable foreigner, with an inclination to take life easily and a sense that it +was difficult for the husband of the stilted little lady by the fire to do so. +But if he had taken little comfort in his wife he had taken much in his two +younger children, who were after his own heart, while Madame de Bellegarde had +paired with her eldest-born. +</p> + +<p> +“My brother has spoken to me of you,” said M. de Bellegarde; +“and as you are also acquainted with my sister, it was time we should +meet.” He turned to his mother and gallantly bent over her hand, touching +it with his lips, and then he assumed an attitude before the chimney-piece. +With his long, lean face, his high-bridged nose and his small, opaque eye he +looked much like an Englishman. His whiskers were fair and glossy, and he had a +large dimple, of unmistakably British origin, in the middle of his handsome +chin. He was “distinguished” to the tips of his polished nails, and +there was not a movement of his fine, perpendicular person that was not noble +and majestic. Newman had never yet been confronted with such an incarnation of +the art of taking one’s self seriously; he felt a sort of impulse to step +backward, as you do to get a view of a great façade. +</p> + +<p> +“Urbain,” said young Madame de Bellegarde, who had apparently been +waiting for her husband to take her to her ball, “I call your attention +to the fact that I am dressed.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is a good idea,” murmured Valentin. +</p> + +<p> +“I am at your orders, my dear friend,” said M. de Bellegarde. +“Only, you must allow me first the pleasure of a little conversation with +Mr. Newman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if you are going to a party, don’t let me keep you,” +objected Newman. “I am very sure we shall meet again. Indeed, if you +would like to converse with me I will gladly name an hour.” He was eager +to make it known that he would readily answer all questions and satisfy all +exactions. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde stood in a well-balanced position before the fire, caressing +one of his fair whiskers with one of his white hands, and looking at Newman, +half askance, with eyes from which a particular ray of observation made its way +through a general meaningless smile. “It is very kind of you to make such +an offer,” he said. “If I am not mistaken, your occupations are +such as to make your time precious. You are in—a—as we say, <i>dans +les affaires</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“In business, you mean? Oh no, I have thrown business overboard for the +present. I am ‘loafing,’ as <i>we</i> say. My time is quite my +own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you are taking a holiday,” rejoined M. de Bellegarde. +“‘Loafing.’ Yes, I have heard that expression.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Newman is American,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“My brother is a great ethnologist,” said Valentin. +</p> + +<p> +“An ethnologist?” said Newman. “Ah, you collect +negroes’ skulls, and that sort of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis looked hard at his brother, and began to caress his other whisker. +Then, turning to Newman, with sustained urbanity, “You are traveling for +your pleasure?” he asked.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am knocking about to pick up one thing and another. Of course I +get a good deal of pleasure out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What especially interests you?” inquired the marquis. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, everything interests me,” said Newman. “I am not +particular. Manufactures are what I care most about.” +</p> + +<p> +“That has been your specialty?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say I have any specialty. My specialty has been to make +the largest possible fortune in the shortest possible time.” Newman made +this last remark very deliberately; he wished to open the way, if it were +necessary, to an authoritative statement of his means. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde laughed agreeably. “I hope you have succeeded,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have made a fortune in a reasonable time. I am not so old, you +see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Paris is a very good place to spend a fortune. I wish you great +enjoyment of yours.” And M. de Bellegarde drew forth his gloves and began +to put them on. +</p> + +<p> +Newman for a few moments watched him sliding his white hands into the white +kid, and as he did so his feelings took a singular turn. M. de +Bellegarde’s good wishes seemed to descend out of the white expanse of +his sublime serenity with the soft, scattered movement of a shower of +snow-flakes. Yet Newman was not irritated; he did not feel that he was being +patronized; he was conscious of no especial impulse to introduce a discord into +so noble a harmony. Only he felt himself suddenly in personal contact with the +forces with which his friend Valentin had told him that he would have to +contend, and he became sensible of their intensity. He wished to make some +answering manifestation, to stretch himself out at his own length, to sound a +note at the uttermost end of <i>his</i> scale. It must be added that if this +impulse was not vicious or malicious, it was by no means void of humorous +expectancy. Newman was quite as ready to give play to that loosely-adjusted +smile of his, if his hosts should happen to be shocked, as he was far from +deliberately planning to shock them. +</p> + +<p> +“Paris is a very good place for idle people,” he said, “or it +is a very good place if your family has been settled here for a long time, and +you have made acquaintances and got your relations round you; or if you have +got a good big house like this, and a wife and children and mother and sister, +and everything comfortable. I don’t like that way of living all in rooms +next door to each other. But I am not an idler. I try to be, but I can’t +manage it; it goes against the grain. My business habits are too deep-seated. +Then, I haven’t any house to call my own, or anything in the way of a +family. My sisters are five thousand miles away, my mother died when I was a +youngster, and I haven’t any wife; I wish I had! So, you see, I +don’t exactly know what to do with myself. I am not fond of books, as you +are, sir, and I get tired of dining out and going to the opera. I miss my +business activity. You see, I began to earn my living when I was almost a baby, +and until a few months ago I have never had my hand off the plow. Elegant +leisure comes hard.” +</p> + +<p> +This speech was followed by a profound silence of some moments, on the part of +Newman’s entertainers. Valentin stood looking at him fixedly, with his +hands in his pockets, and then he slowly, with a half-sidling motion, went out +of the door. The marquis continued to draw on his gloves and to smile +benignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“You began to earn your living when you were a mere baby?” said the +marquise. +</p> + +<p> +“Hardly more—a small boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You say you are not fond of books,” said M. de Bellegarde; +“but you must do yourself the justice to remember that your studies were +interrupted early.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is very true; on my tenth birthday I stopped going to school. I +thought it was a grand way to keep it. But I picked up some information +afterwards,” said Newman, reassuringly. +</p> + +<p> +“You have some sisters?” asked old Madame de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, two sisters. Splendid women!” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope that for them the hardships of life commenced less early.” +</p> + +<p> +“They married very early, if you call that a hardship, as girls do in our +Western country. One of them is married to the owner of the largest +india-rubber house in the West.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you make houses also of india-rubber?” inquired the marquise. +</p> + +<p> +“You can stretch them as your family increases,” said young Madame +de Bellegarde, who was muffling herself in a long white shawl. +</p> + +<p> +Newman indulged in a burst of hilarity, and explained that the house in which +his brother-in-law lived was a large wooden structure, but that he manufactured +and sold india-rubber on a colossal scale. +</p> + +<p> +“My children have some little india-rubber shoes which they put on when +they go to play in the Tuileries in damp weather,” said the young +marquise. “I wonder whether your brother-in-law made them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely,” said Newman; “if he did, you may be very sure +they are well made.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you must not be discouraged,” said M. de Bellegarde, with +vague urbanity. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mean to be. I have a project which gives me plenty to +think about, and that is an occupation.” And then Newman was silent a +moment, hesitating, yet thinking rapidly; he wished to make his point, and yet +to do so forced him to speak out in a way that was disagreeable to him. +Nevertheless he continued, addressing himself to old Madame de Bellegarde, +“I will tell you my project; perhaps you can help me. I want to take a +wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a very good project, but I am no matchmaker,” said the old +lady. +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at her an instant, and then, with perfect sincerity, “I +should have thought you were,” he declared. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde appeared to think him too sincere. She murmured something +sharply in French, and fixed her eyes on her son. At this moment the door of +the room was thrown open, and with a rapid step Valentin reappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a message for you,” he said to his sister-in-law. +“Claire bids me to request you not to start for your ball. She will go +with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Claire will go with us!” cried the young marquise. “<i>En +voilà, du nouveau!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“She has changed her mind; she decided half an hour ago, and she is +sticking the last diamond into her hair,” said Valentin. +</p> + +<p> +“What has taken possession of my daughter?” demanded Madame de +Bellegarde, sternly. “She has not been into the world these three years. +Does she take such a step at half an hour’s notice, and without +consulting me?” +</p> + +<p> +“She consulted me, dear mother, five minutes since,” said Valentin, +“and I told her that such a beautiful woman—she is beautiful, you +will see—had no right to bury herself alive.” +</p> + +<p> +“You should have referred Claire to her mother, my brother,” said +M. de Bellegarde, in French. “This is very strange.” +</p> + +<p> +“I refer her to the whole company!” said Valentin. “Here she +comes!” And he went to the open door, met Madame de Cintré on the +threshold, took her by the hand, and led her into the room. She was dressed in +white; but a long blue cloak, which hung almost to her feet, was fastened +across her shoulders by a silver clasp. She had tossed it back, however, and +her long white arms were uncovered. In her dense, fair hair there glittered a +dozen diamonds. She looked serious and, Newman thought, rather pale; but she +glanced round her, and, when she saw him, smiled and put out her hand. He +thought her tremendously handsome. He had a chance to look at her full in the +face, for she stood a moment in the centre of the room, hesitating, apparently, +what she should do, without meeting his eyes. Then she went up to her mother, +who sat in her deep chair by the fire, looking at Madame de Cintré almost +fiercely. With her back turned to the others, Madame de Cintré held her cloak +apart to show her dress. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you are audacious,” said the marquise. “It was but +three days ago, when I asked you, as a particular favor to myself, to go to the +Duchess de Lusignan’s, that you told me you were going nowhere and that +one must be consistent. Is this your consistency? Why should you distinguish +Madame Robineau? Who is it you wish to please to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to please myself, dear mother,” said Madame de Cintré. And +she bent over and kissed the old lady. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like surprises, my sister,” said Urbain de +Bellegarde; “especially when one is on the point of entering a +drawing-room.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman at this juncture felt inspired to speak. “Oh, if you are going +into a room with Madame de Cintré, you needn’t be afraid of being noticed +yourself!” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde turned to his sister with a smile too intense to be easy. +“I hope you appreciate a compliment that is paid you at your +brother’s expense,” he said. “Come, come, madame.” And +offering Madame de Cintré his arm he led her rapidly out of the room. Valentin +rendered the same service to young Madame de Bellegarde, who had apparently +been reflecting on the fact that the ball-dress of her sister-in-law was much +less brilliant than her own, and yet had failed to derive absolute comfort from +the reflection. With a farewell smile she sought the complement of her +consolation in the eyes of the American visitor, and perceiving in them a +certain mysterious brilliancy, it is not improbable that she may have flattered +herself she had found it. +</p> + +<p> +Newman, left alone with old Madame de Bellegarde, stood before her a few +moments in silence. “Your daughter is very beautiful,” he said at +last. +</p> + +<p> +“She is very strange,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to hear it,” Newman rejoined, smiling. “It makes +me hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hope what?” +</p> + +<p> +“That she will consent, some day, to marry me.” +</p> + +<p> +The old lady slowly rose to her feet. “That really is your project, +then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; will you favor it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Favor it?” Madame de Bellegarde looked at him a moment and then +shook her head. “No!” she said, softly. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you suffer it, then? Will you let it pass?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know what you ask. I am a very proud and meddlesome old +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I am very rich,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde fixed her eyes on the floor, and Newman thought it +probable she was weighing the reasons in favor of resenting the brutality of +this remark. But at last, looking up, she said simply, “How rich?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman expressed his income in a round number which had the magnificent sound +that large aggregations of dollars put on when they are translated into francs. +He added a few remarks of a financial character, which completed a sufficiently +striking presentment of his resources. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde listened in silence. “You are very frank,” she +said finally. “I will be the same. I would rather favor you, on the +whole, than suffer you. It will be easier.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am thankful for any terms,” said Newman. “But, for the +present, you have suffered me long enough. Good night!” And he took his +leave. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p> +Newman, on his return to Paris, had not resumed the study of French +conversation with M. Nioche; he found that he had too many other uses for his +time. M. Nioche, however, came to see him very promptly, having learned his +whereabouts by a mysterious process to which his patron never obtained the key. +The shrunken little capitalist repeated his visit more than once. He seemed +oppressed by a humiliating sense of having been overpaid, and wished apparently +to redeem his debt by the offer of grammatical and statistical information in +small installments. He wore the same decently melancholy aspect as a few months +before; a few months more or less of brushing could make little difference in +the antique lustre of his coat and hat. But the poor old man’s spirit was +a trifle more threadbare; it seemed to have received some hard rubs during the +summer. Newman inquired with interest about Mademoiselle Noémie; and M. Nioche, +at first, for answer, simply looked at him in lachrymose silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ask me, sir,” he said at last. “I sit and watch +her, but I can do nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean that she misconducts herself?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, I am sure. I can’t follow her. I don’t +understand her. She has something in her head; I don’t know what she is +trying to do. She is too deep for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does she continue to go to the Louvre? Has she made any of those copies +for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“She goes to the Louvre, but I see nothing of the copies. She has +something on her easel; I suppose it is one of the pictures you ordered. Such a +magnificent order ought to give her fairy-fingers. But she is not in earnest. I +can’t say anything to her; I am afraid of her. One evening, last summer, +when I took her to walk in the Champs Élysées, she said some things to me that +frightened me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What were they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse an unhappy father from telling you,” said M. Nioche, +unfolding his calico pocket-handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +Newman promised himself to pay Mademoiselle Noémie another visit at the Louvre. +He was curious about the progress of his copies, but it must be added that he +was still more curious about the progress of the young lady herself. He went +one afternoon to the great museum, and wandered through several of the rooms in +fruitless quest of her. He was bending his steps to the long hall of the +Italian masters, when suddenly he found himself face to face with Valentin de +Bellegarde. The young Frenchman greeted him with ardor, and assured him that he +was a godsend. He himself was in the worst of humors and he wanted someone to +contradict. +</p> + +<p> +“In a bad humor among all these beautiful things?” said Newman. +“I thought you were so fond of pictures, especially the old black ones. +There are two or three here that ought to keep you in spirits.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, to-day,” answered Valentin, “I am not in a mood for +pictures, and the more beautiful they are the less I like them. Their great +staring eyes and fixed positions irritate me. I feel as if I were at some big, +dull party, in a room full of people I shouldn’t wish to speak to. What +should I care for their beauty? It’s a bore, and, worse still, it’s +a reproach. I have a great many <i>ennuis</i>; I feel vicious.” +</p> + +<p> +“If the Louvre has so little comfort for you, why in the world did you +come here?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That is one of my <i>ennuis</i>. I came to meet my cousin—a +dreadful English cousin, a member of my mother’s family—who is in +Paris for a week for her husband, and who wishes me to point out the +‘principal beauties.’ Imagine a woman who wears a green crape +bonnet in December and has straps sticking out of the ankles of her +interminable boots! My mother begged I would do something to oblige them. I +have undertaken to play <i>valet de place</i> this afternoon. They were to have +met me here at two o’clock, and I have been waiting for them twenty +minutes. Why doesn’t she arrive? She has at least a pair of feet to carry +her. I don’t know whether to be furious at their playing me false, or +delighted to have escaped them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think in your place I would be furious,” said Newman, +“because they may arrive yet, and then your fury will still be of use to +you. Whereas if you were delighted and they were afterwards to turn up, you +might not know what to do with your delight.” +</p> + +<p> +“You give me excellent advice, and I already feel better. I will be +furious; I will let them go to the deuce and I myself will go with +you—unless by chance you too have a rendezvous.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not exactly a rendezvous,” said Newman. “But I have in +fact come to see a person, not a picture.” +</p> + +<p> +“A woman, presumably?” +</p> + +<p> +“A young lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Valentin, “I hope for you with all my heart that +she is not clothed in green tulle and that her feet are not too much out of +focus.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know much about her feet, but she has very pretty +hands.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin gave a sigh. “And on that assurance I must part with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not certain of finding my young lady,” said Newman, +“and I am not quite prepared to lose your company on the chance. It does +not strike me as particularly desirable to introduce you to her, and yet I +should rather like to have your opinion of her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she pretty?” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess you will think so.” +</p> + +<p> +Bellegarde passed his arm into that of his companion. “Conduct me to her +on the instant! I should be ashamed to make a pretty woman wait for my +verdict.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman suffered himself to be gently propelled in the direction in which he had +been walking, but his step was not rapid. He was turning something over in his +mind. The two men passed into the long gallery of the Italian masters, and +Newman, after having scanned for a moment its brilliant vista, turned aside +into the smaller apartment devoted to the same school, on the left. It +contained very few persons, but at the farther end of it sat Mademoiselle +Nioche, before her easel. She was not at work; her palette and brushes had been +laid down beside her, her hands were folded in her lap, and she was leaning +back in her chair and looking intently at two ladies on the other side of the +hall, who, with their backs turned to her, had stopped before one of the +pictures. These ladies were apparently persons of high fashion; they were +dressed with great splendor, and their long silken trains and furbelows were +spread over the polished floor. It was at their dresses Mademoiselle Noémie was +looking, though what she was thinking of I am unable to say. I hazard the +supposition that she was saying to herself that to be able to drag such a train +over a polished floor was a felicity worth any price. Her reflections, at any +rate, were disturbed by the advent of Newman and his companion. She glanced at +them quickly, and then, coloring a little, rose and stood before her easel. +</p> + +<p> +“I came here on purpose to see you,” said Newman in his bad French, +offering to shake hands. And then, like a good American, he introduced Valentin +formally: “Allow me to make you acquainted with the Comte Valentin de +Bellegarde.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin made a bow which must have seemed to Mademoiselle Noémie quite in +harmony with the impressiveness of his title, but the graceful brevity of her +own response made no concession to underbred surprise. She turned to Newman, +putting up her hands to her hair and smoothing its delicately-felt roughness. +Then, rapidly, she turned the canvas that was on her easel over upon its face. +“You have not forgotten me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never forget you,” said Newman. “You may be sure of +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the young girl, “there are a great many different +ways of remembering a person.” And she looked straight at Valentin de +Bellegarde, who was looking at her as a gentleman may when a +“verdict” is expected of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you painted anything for me?” said Newman. “Have you +been industrious?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I have done nothing.” And taking up her palette, she began to +mix her colors at hazard. +</p> + +<p> +“But your father tells me you have come here constantly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have nowhere else to go! Here, all summer, it was cool, at +least.” +</p> + +<p> +“Being here, then,” said Newman, “you might have tried +something.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you before,” she answered, softly, “that I +don’t know how to paint.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you have something charming on your easel, now,” said +Valentin, “if you would only let me see it.” +</p> + +<p> +She spread out her two hands, with the fingers expanded, over the back of the +canvas—those hands which Newman had called pretty, and which, in spite of +several paint-stains, Valentin could now admire. “My painting is not +charming,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the only thing about you that is not, then, mademoiselle,” +quoth Valentin, gallantly. +</p> + +<p> +She took up her little canvas and silently passed it to him. He looked at it, +and in a moment she said, “I am sure you are a judge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered, “I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know, then, that that is very bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mon Dieu</i>,” said Valentin, shrugging his shoulders +“let us distinguish.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know that I ought not to attempt to paint,” the young girl +continued. +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly, then, mademoiselle, I think you ought not.” +</p> + +<p> +She began to look at the dresses of the two splendid ladies again—a point +on which, having risked one conjecture, I think I may risk another. While she +was looking at the ladies she was seeing Valentin de Bellegarde. He, at all +events, was seeing her. He put down the roughly-besmeared canvas and addressed +a little click with his tongue, accompanied by an elevation of the eyebrows, to +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Where have you been all these months?” asked Mademoiselle Noémie +of our hero. “You took those great journeys, you amused yourself +well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Newman. “I amused myself well enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very glad,” said Mademoiselle Noémie with extreme gentleness, +and she began to dabble in her colors again. She was singularly pretty, with +the look of serious sympathy that she threw into her face. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin took advantage of her downcast eyes to telegraph again to his +companion. He renewed his mysterious physiognomical play, making at the same +time a rapid tremulous movement in the air with his fingers. He was evidently +finding Mademoiselle Noémie extremely interesting; the blue devils had +departed, leaving the field clear. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me something about your travels,” murmured the young girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I went to Switzerland,—to Geneva and Zermatt and Zürich and +all those places you know; and down to Venice, and all through Germany, and +down the Rhine, and into Holland and Belgium—the regular round. How do +you say that, in French—the regular round?” Newman asked of +Valentin. +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Nioche fixed her eyes an instant on Bellegarde, and then with a +little smile, “I don’t understand monsieur,” she said, +“when he says so much at once. Would you be so good as to +translate?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather talk to you out of my own head,” Valentin declared. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Newman, gravely, still in his bad French, “you +must not talk to Mademoiselle Nioche, because you say discouraging things. You +ought to tell her to work, to persevere.” +</p> + +<p> +“And we French, mademoiselle,” said Valentin, “are accused of +being false flatterers!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want any flattery, I want only the truth. But I know the +truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“All I say is that I suspect there are some things that you can do better +than paint,” said Valentin. +</p> + +<p> +“I know the truth—I know the truth,” Mademoiselle Noémie +repeated. And, dipping a brush into a clot of red paint, she drew a great +horizontal daub across her unfinished picture. +</p> + +<p> +“What is that?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Without answering, she drew another long crimson daub, in a vertical direction, +down the middle of her canvas, and so, in a moment, completed the rough +indication of a cross. “It is the sign of the truth,” she said at +last. +</p> + +<p> +The two men looked at each other, and Valentin indulged in another flash of +physiognomical eloquence. “You have spoiled your picture,” said +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I know that very well. It was the only thing to do with it. I had sat +looking at it all day without touching it. I had begun to hate it. It seemed to +me something was going to happen.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like it better that way than as it was before,” said Valentin. +“Now it is more interesting. It tells a story. Is it for sale?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything I have is for sale,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. +</p> + +<p> +“How much is this thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten thousand francs,” said the young girl, without a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything that Mademoiselle Nioche may do at present is mine in +advance,” said Newman. “It makes part of an order I gave her some +months ago. So you can’t have this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur will lose nothing by it,” said the young girl, looking at +Valentin. And she began to put up her utensils. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall have gained a charming memory,” said Valentin. “You +are going away? your day is over?” +</p> + +<p> +“My father is coming to fetch me,” said Mademoiselle Noémie. +</p> + +<p> +She had hardly spoken when, through the door behind her, which opens on one of +the great white stone staircases of the Louvre, M. Nioche made his appearance. +He came in with his usual even, patient shuffle, and he made a low salute to +the two gentlemen who were standing before his daughter’s easel. Newman +shook his hands with muscular friendliness, and Valentin returned his greeting +with extreme deference. While the old man stood waiting for Noémie to make a +parcel of her implements, he let his mild, oblique gaze hover toward +Bellegarde, who was watching Mademoiselle Noémie put on her bonnet and mantle. +Valentin was at no pains to disguise his scrutiny. He looked at a pretty girl +as he would have listened to a piece of music. Attention, in each case, was +simple good manners. M. Nioche at last took his daughter’s paint-box in +one hand and the bedaubed canvas, after giving it a solemn, puzzled stare, in +the other, and led the way to the door. Mademoiselle Noémie made the young men +the salute of a duchess, and followed her father. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, “what do you think of her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is very remarkable. <i>Diable, diable, diable!</i>” repeated +M. de Bellegarde, reflectively; “she is very remarkable.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid she is a sad little adventuress,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a little one—a great one. She has the material.” And +Valentin began to walk away slowly, looking vaguely at the pictures on the +walls, with a thoughtful illumination in his eye. Nothing could have appealed +to his imagination more than the possible adventures of a young lady endowed +with the “material” of Mademoiselle Nioche. “She is very +interesting,” he went on. “She is a beautiful type.” +</p> + +<p> +“A beautiful type? What the deuce do you mean?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean from the artistic point of view. She is an artist,—outside +of her painting, which obviously is execrable.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she is not beautiful. I don’t even think her very +pretty.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is quite pretty enough for her purposes, and it is a face and figure +on which everything tells. If she were prettier she would be less intelligent, +and her intelligence is half of her charm.” +</p> + +<p> +“In what way,” asked Newman, who was much amused at his +companion’s immediate philosophisation of Mademoiselle Nioche, +“does her intelligence strike you as so remarkable?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has taken the measure of life, and she has determined to <i>be</i> +something—to succeed at any cost. Her painting, of course, is a mere +trick to gain time. She is waiting for her chance; she wishes to launch +herself, and to do it well. She knows her Paris. She is one of fifty thousand, +so far as the mere ambition goes; but I am very sure that in the way of +resolution and capacity she is a rarity. And in one gift—perfect +heartlessness—I will warrant she is unsurpassed. She has not as much +heart as will go on the point of a needle. That is an immense virtue. Yes, she +is one of the celebrities of the future.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven help us!” said Newman, “how far the artistic point of +view may take a man! But in this case I must request that you don’t let +it take you too far. You have learned a wonderful deal about Mademoiselle +Noémie in a quarter of an hour. Let that suffice; don’t follow up your +researches.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow,” cried Bellegarde with warmth, “I hope I +have too good manners to intrude.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not intruding. The girl is nothing to me. In fact, I rather +dislike her. But I like her poor old father, and for his sake I beg you to +abstain from any attempt to verify your theories.” +</p> + +<p> +“For the sake of that seedy old gentleman who came to fetch her?” +demanded Valentin, stopping short. And on Newman’s assenting, “Ah +no, ah no,” he went on with a smile. “You are quite wrong, my dear +fellow; you needn’t mind him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I verily believe that you are accusing the poor gentleman of being +capable of rejoicing in his daughter’s dishonor.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Voyons!</i>” said Valentin; “who is he? what is +he?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is what he looks like: as poor as a rat, but very high-toned.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly. I noticed him perfectly; be sure I do him justice. He has had +losses, <i>des malheurs</i>, as we say. He is very low-spirited, and his +daughter is too much for him. He is the pink of respectability, and he has +sixty years of honesty on his back. All this I perfectly appreciate. But I know +my fellow-men and my fellow-Parisians, and I will make a bargain with +you.” Newman gave ear to his bargain and he went on. “He would +rather his daughter were a good girl than a bad one, but if the worst comes to +the worst, the old man will not do what Virginius did. Success justifies +everything. If Mademoiselle Noémie makes a figure, her papa will +feel—well, we will call it relieved. And she will make a figure. The old +gentleman’s future is assured.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what Virginius did, but M. Nioche will shoot Miss +Noémie,” said Newman. “After that, I suppose his future will be +assured in some snug prison.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not a cynic; I am simply an observer,” Valentin rejoined. +“Mademoiselle Noémie interests me; she is extremely remarkable. If there +is a good reason, in honor or decency, for dismissing her from my thoughts +forever, I am perfectly willing to do it. Your estimate of the papa’s +sensibilities is a good reason until it is invalidated. I promise you not to +look at the young girl again until you tell me that you have changed your mind +about the papa. When he has given distinct proof of being a philosopher, you +will raise your interdict. Do you agree to that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to bribe him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you admit, then, that he is bribable? No, he would ask too much, and +it would not be exactly fair. I mean simply to wait. You will continue, I +suppose, to see this interesting couple, and you will give me the news +yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, “if the old man turns out a humbug, you +may do what you please. I wash my hands of the matter. For the girl herself, +you may be at rest. I don’t know what harm she may do to me, but I +certainly can’t hurt her. It seems to me,” said Newman, “that +you are very well matched. You are both hard cases, and M. Nioche and I, I +believe, are the only virtuous men to be found in Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +Soon after this M. de Bellegarde, in punishment for his levity, received a +stern poke in the back from a pointed instrument. Turning quickly round he +found the weapon to be a parasol wielded by a lady in green gauze bonnet. +Valentin’s English cousins had been drifting about unpiloted, and +evidently deemed that they had a grievance. Newman left him to their mercies, +but with a boundless faith in his power to plead his cause. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p> +Three days after his introduction to the family of Madame de Cintré, Newman, +coming in toward evening, found upon his table the card of the Marquis de +Bellegarde. On the following day he received a note informing him that the +Marquise de Bellegarde would be grateful for the honor of his company at +dinner. +</p> + +<p> +He went, of course, though he had to break another engagement to do it. He was +ushered into the room in which Madame de Bellegarde had received him before, +and here he found his venerable hostess, surrounded by her entire family. The +room was lighted only by the crackling fire, which illuminated the very small +pink slippers of a lady who, seated in a low chair, was stretching out her toes +before it. This lady was the younger Madame de Bellegarde. Madame de Cintré was +seated at the other end of the room, holding a little girl against her knee, +the child of her brother Urbain, to whom she was apparently relating a +wonderful story. Valentin was sitting on a puff, close to his sister-in-law, +into whose ear he was certainly distilling the finest nonsense. The marquis was +stationed before the fire, with his head erect and his hands behind him, in an +attitude of formal expectancy. +</p> + +<p> +Old Madame de Bellegarde stood up to give Newman her greeting, and there was +that in the way she did so which seemed to measure narrowly the extent of her +condescension. “We are all alone, you see, we have asked no one +else,” she said austerely. +</p> + +<p> +“I am very glad you didn’t; this is much more sociable,” said +Newman. “Good evening, sir,” and he offered his hand to the +marquis. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde was affable, but in spite of his dignity he was restless. He +began to pace up and down the room, he looked out of the long windows, he took +up books and laid them down again. Young Madame de Bellegarde gave Newman her +hand without moving and without looking at him. +</p> + +<p> +“You may think that is coldness,” exclaimed Valentin; “but it +is not, it is warmth. It shows she is treating you as an intimate. Now she +detests me, and yet she is always looking at me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No wonder I detest you if I am always looking at you!” cried the +lady. “If Mr. Newman does not like my way of shaking hands, I will do it +again.” +</p> + +<p> +But this charming privilege was lost upon our hero, who was already making his +way across the room to Madame de Cintré. She looked at him as she shook hands, +but she went on with the story she was telling her little niece. She had only +two or three phrases to add, but they were apparently of great moment. She +deepened her voice, smiling as she did so, and the little girl gazed at her +with round eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“But in the end the young prince married the beautiful Florabella,” +said Madame de Cintré, “and carried her off to live with him in the Land +of the Pink Sky. There she was so happy that she forgot all her troubles, and +went out to drive every day of her life in an ivory coach drawn by five hundred +white mice. Poor Florabella,” she exclaimed to Newman, “had +suffered terribly.” +</p> + +<p> +“She had had nothing to eat for six months,” said little Blanche. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but when the six months were over, she had a plum-cake as big as +that ottoman,” said Madame de Cintré. “That quite set her up +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a checkered career!” said Newman. “Are you very fond of +children?” He was certain that she was, but he wished to make her say it. +</p> + +<p> +“I like to talk with them,” she answered; “we can talk with +them so much more seriously than with grown persons. That is great nonsense +that I have been telling Blanche, but it is a great deal more serious than most +of what we say in society.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you would talk to me, then, as if I were Blanche’s +age,” said Newman, laughing. “Were you happy at your ball the other +night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ecstatically!” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you are talking the nonsense that we talk in society,” said +Newman. “I don’t believe that.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was my own fault if I was not happy. The ball was very pretty, and +everyone very amiable.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was on your conscience,” said Newman, “that you had +annoyed your mother and your brother.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré looked at him a moment without answering. “That is +true,” she replied at last. “I had undertaken more than I could +carry out. I have very little courage; I am not a heroine.” She said this +with a certain soft emphasis; but then, changing her tone, “I could never +have gone through the sufferings of the beautiful Florabella,” she added, +not even for her prospective rewards. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner was announced, and Newman betook himself to the side of the old Madame +de Bellegarde. The dining-room, at the end of a cold corridor, was vast and +sombre; the dinner was simple and delicately excellent. Newman wondered whether +Madame de Cintré had had something to do with ordering the repast and greatly +hoped she had. Once seated at table, with the various members of the ancient +house of Bellegarde around him, he asked himself the meaning of his position. +Was the old lady responding to his advances? Did the fact that he was a +solitary guest augment his credit or diminish it? Were they ashamed to show him +to other people, or did they wish to give him a sign of sudden adoption into +their last reserve of favor? Newman was on his guard; he was watchful and +conjectural; and yet at the same time he was vaguely indifferent. Whether they +gave him a long rope or a short one he was there now, and Madame de Cintré was +opposite to him. She had a tall candlestick on each side of her; she would sit +there for the next hour, and that was enough. The dinner was extremely solemn +and measured; he wondered whether this was always the state of things in +“old families.” Madame de Bellegarde held her head very high, and +fixed her eyes, which looked peculiarly sharp in her little, finely-wrinkled +white face, very intently upon the table-service. The marquis appeared to have +decided that the fine arts offered a safe subject of conversation, as not +leading to startling personal revelations. Every now and then, having learned +from Newman that he had been through the museums of Europe, he uttered some +polished aphorism upon the flesh-tints of Rubens and the good taste of +Sansovino. His manners seemed to indicate a fine, nervous dread that something +disagreeable might happen if the atmosphere were not purified by allusions of a +thoroughly superior cast. “What under the sun is the man afraid +of?” Newman asked himself. “Does he think I am going to offer to +swap jack-knives with him?” It was useless to shut his eyes to the fact +that the marquis was profoundly disagreeable to him. He had never been a man of +strong personal aversions; his nerves had not been at the mercy of the mystical +qualities of his neighbors. But here was a man towards whom he was irresistibly +in opposition; a man of forms and phrases and postures; a man full of possible +impertinences and treacheries. M. de Bellegarde made him feel as if he were +standing bare-footed on a marble floor; and yet, to gain his desire, Newman +felt perfectly able to stand. He wondered what Madame de Cintré thought of his +being accepted, if accepted it was. There was no judging from her face, which +expressed simply the desire to be gracious in a manner which should require as +little explicit recognition as possible. Young Madame de Bellegarde had always +the same manners; she was always preoccupied, distracted, listening to +everything and hearing nothing, looking at her dress, her rings, her +finger-nails, seeming rather bored, and yet puzzling you to decide what was her +ideal of social diversion. Newman was enlightened on this point later. Even +Valentin did not quite seem master of his wits; his vivacity was fitful and +forced, yet Newman observed that in the lapses of his talk he appeared excited. +His eyes had an intenser spark than usual. The effect of all this was that +Newman, for the first time in his life, was not himself; that he measured his +movements, and counted his words, and resolved that if the occasion demanded +that he should appear to have swallowed a ramrod, he would meet the emergency. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner M. de Bellegarde proposed to his guest that they should go into +the smoking-room, and he led the way toward a small, somewhat musty apartment, +the walls of which were ornamented with old hangings of stamped leather and +trophies of rusty arms. Newman refused a cigar, but he established himself upon +one of the divans, while the marquis puffed his own weed before the fire-place, +and Valentin sat looking through the light fumes of a cigarette from one to the +other. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t keep quiet any longer,” said Valentin, at last. +“I must tell you the news and congratulate you. My brother seems unable +to come to the point; he revolves around his announcement like the priest +around the altar. You are accepted as a candidate for the hand of our +sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Valentin, be a little proper!” murmured the marquis, with a look +of the most delicate irritation contracting the bridge of his high nose. +</p> + +<p> +“There has been a family council,” the young man continued; +“my mother and Urbain have put their heads together, and even my +testimony has not been altogether excluded. My mother and the marquis sat at a +table covered with green cloth; my sister-in-law and I were on a bench against +the wall. It was like a committee at the Corps Législatif. We were called up, +one after the other, to testify. We spoke of you very handsomely. Madame de +Bellegarde said that if she had not been told who you were, she would have +taken you for a duke—an American duke, the Duke of California. I said +that I could warrant you grateful for the smallest favors—modest, humble, +unassuming. I was sure that you would know your own place, always, and never +give us occasion to remind you of certain differences. After all, you +couldn’t help it if you were not a duke. There were none in your country; +but if there had been, it was certain that, smart and active as you are, you +would have got the pick of the titles. At this point I was ordered to sit down, +but I think I made an impression in your favor.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde looked at his brother with dangerous coldness, and gave a +smile as thin as the edge of a knife. Then he removed a spark of cigar-ash from +the sleeve of his coat; he fixed his eyes for a while on the cornice of the +room, and at last he inserted one of his white hands into the breast of his +waistcoat. “I must apologize to you for the deplorable levity of my +brother,” he said, “and I must notify you that this is probably not +the last time that his want of tact will cause you serious +embarrassment.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I confess I have no tact,” said Valentin. “Is your +embarrassment really painful, Newman? The marquis will put you right again; his +own touch is deliciously delicate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Valentin, I am sorry to say,” the marquis continued, “has +never possessed the tone, the manner, that belongs to a young man in his +position. It has been a great affliction to his mother, who is very fond of the +old traditions. But you must remember that he speaks for no one but +himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mind him, sir,” said Newman, good-humoredly. +“I know what he amounts to.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the good old times,” said Valentin, “marquises and counts +used to have their appointed fools and jesters, to crack jokes for them. +Nowadays we see a great strapping democrat keeping a count about him to play +the fool. It’s a good situation, but I certainly am very +degenerate.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde fixed his eyes for some time on the floor. “My mother +informed me,” he said presently, “of the announcement that you made +to her the other evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“That I desired to marry your sister?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“That you wished to arrange a marriage,” said the marquis, slowly, +“with my sister, the Comtesse de Cintré. The proposal was serious, and +required, on my mother’s part, a great deal of reflection. She naturally +took me into her counsels, and I gave my most zealous attention to the subject. +There was a great deal to be considered; more than you appear to imagine. We +have viewed the question on all its faces, we have weighed one thing against +another. Our conclusion has been that we favor your suit. My mother has desired +me to inform you of our decision. She will have the honor of saying a few words +to you on the subject herself. Meanwhile, by us, the heads of the family, you +are accepted.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman got up and came nearer to the marquis. “You will do nothing to +hinder me, and all you can to help me, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will recommend my sister to accept you.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman passed his hand over his face, and pressed it for a moment upon his +eyes. This promise had a great sound, and yet the pleasure he took in it was +embittered by his having to stand there so and receive his passport from M. de +Bellegarde. The idea of having this gentleman mixed up with his wooing and +wedding was more and more disagreeable to him. But Newman had resolved to go +through the mill, as he imagined it, and he would not cry out at the first turn +of the wheel. He was silent a while, and then he said, with a certain dryness +which Valentin told him afterwards had a very grand air, “I am much +obliged to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I take note of the promise,” said Valentin, “I register the +vow.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde began to gaze at the cornice again; he apparently had +something more to say. “I must do my mother the justice,” he +resumed, “I must do myself the justice, to say that our decision was not +easy. Such an arrangement was not what we had expected. The idea that my sister +should marry a gentleman—ah—in business was something of a +novelty.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I told you, you know,” said Valentin raising his finger at +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“The novelty has not quite worn away, I confess,” the marquis went +on; “perhaps it never will, entirely. But possibly that is not altogether +to be regretted,” and he gave his thin smile again. “It may be that +the time has come when we should make some concession to novelty. There had +been no novelties in our house for a great many years. I made the observation +to my mother, and she did me the honor to admit that it was worthy of +attention.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear brother,” interrupted Valentin, “is not your memory +just here leading you the least bit astray? Our mother is, I may say, +distinguished for her small respect of abstract reasoning. Are you very sure +that she replied to your striking proposition in the gracious manner you +describe? You know how terribly incisive she is sometimes. Didn’t she, +rather, do you the honor to say, ‘A fiddlestick for your phrases! There +are better reasons than that?’” +</p> + +<p> +“Other reasons were discussed,” said the marquis, without looking +at Valentin, but with an audible tremor in his voice; “some of them +possibly were better. We are conservative, Mr. Newman, but we are not also +bigots. We judged the matter liberally. We have no doubt that everything will +be comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman had stood listening to these remarks with his arms folded and his eyes +fastened upon M. de Bellegarde, “Comfortable?” he said, with a sort +of grim flatness of intonation. “Why shouldn’t we be comfortable? +If you are not, it will be your own fault; I have everything to make <i>me</i> +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“My brother means that with the lapse of time you may get used to the +change”—and Valentin paused, to light another cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +“What change?” asked Newman in the same tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Urbain,” said Valentin, very gravely, “I am afraid that Mr. +Newman does not quite realize the change. We ought to insist upon that.” +</p> + +<p> +“My brother goes too far,” said M. de Bellegarde. “It is his +fatal want of tact again. It is my mother’s wish, and mine, that no such +allusions should be made. Pray never make them yourself. We prefer to assume +that the person accepted as the possible husband of my sister is one of +ourselves, and that he should have no explanations to make. With a little +discretion on both sides, everything, I think, will be easy. That is exactly +what I wished to say—that we quite understand what we have undertaken, +and that you may depend upon our adhering to our resolution.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin shook his hands in the air and then buried his face in them. “I +have less tact than I might have, no doubt; but oh, my brother, if you knew +what you yourself were saying!” And he went off into a long laugh. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde’s face flushed a little, but he held his head higher, as +if to repudiate this concession to vulgar perturbability. “I am sure you +understand me,” he said to Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I don’t understand you at all,” said Newman. +“But you needn’t mind that. I don’t care. In fact, I think I +had better not understand you. I might not like it. That wouldn’t suit me +at all, you know. I want to marry your sister, that’s all; to do it as +quickly as possible, and to find fault with nothing. I don’t care how I +do it. I am not marrying you, you know, sir. I have got my leave, and that is +all I want.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better receive the last word from my mother,” said the +marquis. +</p> + +<p> +“Very good; I will go and get it,” said Newman; and he prepared to +return to the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde made a motion for him to pass first, and when Newman had gone +out he shut himself into the room with Valentin. Newman had been a trifle +bewildered by the audacious irony of the younger brother, and he had not needed +its aid to point the moral of M. de Bellegarde’s transcendent patronage. +He had wit enough to appreciate the force of that civility which consists in +calling your attention to the impertinences it spares you. But he had felt +warmly the delicate sympathy with himself that underlay Valentin’s +fraternal irreverence, and he was most unwilling that his friend should pay a +tax upon it. He paused a moment in the corridor, after he had gone a few steps, +expecting to hear the resonance of M. de Bellegarde’s displeasure; but he +detected only a perfect stillness. The stillness itself seemed a trifle +portentous; he reflected however that he had no right to stand listening, and +he made his way back to the salon. In his absence several persons had come in. +They were scattered about the room in groups, two or three of them having +passed into a small boudoir, next to the drawing-room, which had now been +lighted and opened. Old Madame de Bellegarde was in her place by the fire, +talking to a very old gentleman in a wig and a profuse white neck cloth of the +fashion of 1820. Madame de Cintré was bending a listening head to the historic +confidences of an old lady who was presumably the wife of the old gentleman in +the neckcloth, an old lady in a red satin dress and an ermine cape, who wore +across her forehead a band with a topaz set in it. Young Madame de Bellegarde, +when Newman came in, left some people among whom she was sitting, and took the +place that she had occupied before dinner. Then she gave a little push to the +puff that stood near her, and by a glance at Newman seemed to indicate that she +had placed it in position for him. He went and took possession of it; the +marquis’s wife amused and puzzled him. +</p> + +<p> +“I know your secret,” she said, in her bad but charming English; +“you need make no mystery of it. You wish to marry my sister-in-law. +<i>C’est un beau choix</i>. A man like you ought to marry a tall, thin +woman. You must know that I have spoken in your favor; you owe me a famous +taper!” +</p> + +<p> +“You have spoken to Madame de Cintré?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, not that. You may think it strange, but my sister-in-law and I +are not so intimate as that. No; I spoke to my husband and my mother-in-law; I +said I was sure we could do what we chose with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged to you,” said Newman, laughing; “but you +can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that very well; I didn’t believe a word of it. But I wanted +you to come into the house; I thought we should be friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very sure of it,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be too sure. If you like Madame de Cintré so much, perhaps +you will not like me. We are as different as blue and pink. But you and I have +something in common. I have come into this family by marriage; you want to come +into it in the same way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I don’t!” interrupted Newman. “I only want to +take Madame de Cintré out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, to cast your nets you have to go into the water. Our positions are +alike; we shall be able to compare notes. What do you think of my husband? +It’s a strange question, isn’t it? But I shall ask you some +stranger ones yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps a stranger one will be easier to answer,” said Newman. +“You might try me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you get off very well; the old Comte de la Rochefidèle, yonder, +couldn’t do it better. I told them that if we only gave you a chance you +would be a perfect <i>talon rouge</i>. I know something about men. Besides, you +and I belong to the same camp. I am a ferocious democrat. By birth I am +<i>vieille roche</i>; a good little bit of the history of France is the history +of my family. Oh, you never heard of us, of course! <i>Ce que c’est que +la gloire!</i> We are much better than the Bellegardes, at any rate. But I +don’t care a pin for my pedigree; I want to belong to my time. I’m +a revolutionist, a radical, a child of the age! I am sure I go beyond you. I +like clever people, wherever they come from, and I take my amusement wherever I +find it. I don’t pout at the Empire; here all the world pouts at the +Empire. Of course I have to mind what I say; but I expect to take my revenge +with you.” Madame de Bellegarde discoursed for some time longer in this +sympathetic strain, with an eager abundance which seemed to indicate that her +opportunities for revealing her esoteric philosophy were indeed rare. She hoped +that Newman would never be afraid of her, however he might be with the others, +for, really, she went very far indeed. “Strong people”—<i>le +gens forts</i>—were in her opinion equal, all the world over. Newman +listened to her with an attention at once beguiled and irritated. He wondered +what the deuce she, too, was driving at, with her hope that he would not be +afraid of her and her protestations of equality. In so far as he could +understand her, she was wrong; a silly, rattling woman was certainly not the +equal of a sensible man, preoccupied with an ambitious passion. Madame de +Bellegarde stopped suddenly, and looked at him sharply, shaking her fan. +“I see you don’t believe me,” she said, “you are too +much on your guard. You will not form an alliance, offensive or defensive? You +are very wrong; I could help you.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman answered that he was very grateful and that he would certainly ask for +help; she should see. “But first of all,” he said, “I must +help myself.” And he went to join Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been telling Madame de la Rochefidèle that you are an +American,” she said, as he came up. “It interests her greatly. Her +father went over with the French troops to help you in your battles in the last +century, and she has always, in consequence, wanted greatly to see an American. +But she has never succeeded till to-night. You are the first—to her +knowledge—that she has ever looked at.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de la Rochefidèle had an aged, cadaverous face, with a falling of the +lower jaw which prevented her from bringing her lips together, and reduced her +conversations to a series of impressive but inarticulate gutturals. She raised +an antique eyeglass, elaborately mounted in chased silver, and looked at Newman +from head to foot. Then she said something to which he listened deferentially, +but which he completely failed to understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Madame de la Rochefidèle says that she is convinced that she must have +seen Americans without knowing it,” Madame de Cintré explained. Newman +thought it probable she had seen a great many things without knowing it; and +the old lady, again addressing herself to utterance, declared—as +interpreted by Madame de Cintré—that she wished she had known it. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the old gentleman who had been talking to the elder Madame de +Bellegarde drew near, leading the marquise on his arm. His wife pointed out +Newman to him, apparently explaining his remarkable origin. M. de la +Rochefidèle, whose old age was rosy and rotund, spoke very neatly and clearly, +almost as prettily, Newman thought, as M. Nioche. When he had been enlightened, +he turned to Newman with an inimitable elderly grace. +</p> + +<p> +“Monsieur is by no means the first American that I have seen,” he +said. “Almost the first person I ever saw—to notice him—was +an American.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah?” said Newman, sympathetically. +</p> + +<p> +“The great Dr. Franklin,” said M. de la Rochefidèle. “Of +course I was very young. He was received very well in our <i>monde.</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Not better than Mr. Newman,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “I +beg he will offer his arm into the other room. I could have offered no higher +privilege to Dr. Franklin.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman, complying with Madame de Bellegarde’s request, perceived that her +two sons had returned to the drawing-room. He scanned their faces an instant +for traces of the scene that had followed his separation from them, but the +marquis seemed neither more nor less frigidly grand than usual, and Valentin +was kissing ladies’ hands with at least his habitual air of +self-abandonment to the act. Madame de Bellegarde gave a glance at her eldest +son, and by the time she had crossed the threshold of her boudoir he was at her +side. The room was now empty and offered a sufficient degree of privacy. The +old lady disengaged herself from Newman’s arm and rested her hand on the +arm of the marquis; and in this position she stood a moment, holding her head +high and biting her small under-lip. I am afraid the picture was lost upon +Newman, but Madame de Bellegarde was, in fact, at this moment a striking image +of the dignity which—even in the case of a little time-shrunken old +lady—may reside in the habit of unquestioned authority and the +absoluteness of a social theory favorable to yourself. +</p> + +<p> +“My son has spoken to you as I desired,” she said, “and you +understand that we shall not interfere. The rest will lie with yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“M. de Bellegarde told me several things I didn’t +understand,” said Newman, “but I made out that. You will leave me +open field. I am much obliged.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to add a word that my son probably did not feel at liberty to +say,” the marquise rejoined. “I must say it for my own peace of +mind. We are stretching a point; we are doing you a great favor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, your son said it very well; didn’t you?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so well as my mother,” declared the marquis. +</p> + +<p> +“I can only repeat—I am much obliged.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is proper I should tell you,” Madame de Bellegarde went on, +“that I am very proud, and that I hold my head very high. I may be wrong, +but I am too old to change. At least I know it, and I don’t pretend to +anything else. Don’t flatter yourself that my daughter is not proud. She +is proud in her own way—a somewhat different way from mine. You will have +to make your terms with that. Even Valentin is proud, if you touch the right +spot—or the wrong one. Urbain is proud; that you see for yourself. +Sometimes I think he is a little too proud; but I wouldn’t change him. He +is the best of my children; he cleaves to his old mother. But I have said +enough to show you that we are all proud together. It is well that you should +know the sort of people you have come among.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, “I can only say, in return, that I am +<i>not</i> proud; I shan’t mind you! But you speak as if you intended to +be very disagreeable.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not enjoy having my daughter marry you, and I shall not pretend +to enjoy it. If you don’t mind that, so much the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you stick to your own side of the contract we shall not quarrel; that +is all I ask of you,” said Newman. “Keep your hands off, and give +me an open field. I am very much in earnest, and there is not the slightest +danger of my getting discouraged or backing out. You will have me constantly +before your eyes; if you don’t like it, I am sorry for you. I will do for +your daughter, if she will accept me, everything that a man can do for a woman. +I am happy to tell you that, as a promise—a pledge. I consider that on +your side you make me an equal pledge. You will not back out, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean by ‘backing out,’” +said the marquise. “It suggests a movement of which I think no Bellegarde +has ever been guilty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our word is our word,” said Urbain. “We have given +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now,” said Newman, “I am very glad you are so proud. +It makes me believe that you will keep it.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquise was silent a moment, and then, suddenly, “I shall always be +polite to you, Mr. Newman,” she declared, “but, decidedly, I shall +never like you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be too sure,” said Newman, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“I am so sure that I will ask you to take me back to my armchair without +the least fear of having my sentiments modified by the service you render +me.” And Madame de Bellegarde took his arm, and returned to the salon and +to her customary place. +</p> + +<p> +M. de la Rochefidèle and his wife were preparing to take their leave, and +Madame de Cintré’s interview with the mumbling old lady was at an end. +She stood looking about her, asking herself, apparently to whom she should next +speak, when Newman came up to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Your mother has given me leave—very solemnly—to come here +often,” he said. “I mean to come often.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be glad to see you,” she answered simply. And then, in a +moment: “You probably think it very strange that there should be such a +solemnity—as you say—about your coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes; I do, rather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember what my brother Valentin said, the first time you came +to see me—that we were a strange, strange family?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not the first time I came, but the second,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Very true. Valentin annoyed me at the time, but now I know you better, I +may tell you he was right. If you come often, you will see!” and Madame +de Cintré turned away. +</p> + +<p> +Newman watched her a while, talking with other people, and then he took his +leave. He shook hands last with Valentin de Bellegarde, who came out with him +to the top of the staircase. “Well, you have got your permit,” said +Valentin. “I hope you liked the process.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like your sister, more than ever. But don’t worry your brother +any more for my sake,” Newman added. “I don’t mind him. I am +afraid he came down on you in the smoking-room, after I went out.” +</p> + +<p> +“When my brother comes down on me,” said Valentin, “he falls +hard. I have a peculiar way of receiving him. I must say,” he continued, +“that they came up to the mark much sooner than I expected. I don’t +understand it, they must have had to turn the screw pretty tight. It’s a +tribute to your millions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s the most precious one they have ever received,” +said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +He was turning away when Valentin stopped him, looking at him with a brilliant, +softly-cynical glance. “I should like to know whether, within a few days, +you have seen your venerable friend M. Nioche.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was yesterday at my rooms,” Newman answered. +</p> + +<p> +“What did he tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing particular.” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t see the muzzle of a pistol sticking out of his +pocket?” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you driving at?” Newman demanded. “I thought he +seemed rather cheerful for him.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin broke into a laugh. “I am delighted to hear it! I win my bet. +Mademoiselle Noémie has thrown her cap over the mill, as we say. She has left +the paternal domicile. She is launched! And M. Nioche is rather +cheerful—<i>for him!</i> Don’t brandish your tomahawk at that rate; +I have not seen her nor communicated with her since that day at the Louvre. +Andromeda has found another Perseus than I. My information is exact; on such +matters it always is. I suppose that now you will raise your protest.” +</p> + +<p> +“My protest be hanged!” murmured Newman, disgustedly. +</p> + +<p> +But his tone found no echo in that in which Valentin, with his hand on the +door, to return to his mother’s apartment, exclaimed, “But I shall +see her now! She is very remarkable—she is very remarkable!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p> +Newman kept his promise, or his menace, of going often to the Rue de +l’Université, and during the next six weeks he saw Madame de Cintré more +times than he could have numbered. He flattered himself that he was not in +love, but his biographer may be supposed to know better. He claimed, at least, +none of the exemptions and emoluments of the romantic passion. Love, he +believed, made a fool of a man, and his present emotion was not folly but +wisdom; wisdom sound, serene, well-directed. What he felt was an intense, +all-consuming tenderness, which had for its object an extraordinarily graceful +and delicate, and at the same time impressive, woman who lived in a large gray +house on the left bank of the Seine. This tenderness turned very often into a +positive heartache; a sign in which, certainly, Newman ought to have read the +appellation which science has conferred upon his sentiment. When the heart has +a heavy weight upon it, it hardly matters whether the weight be of gold or of +lead; when, at any rate, happiness passes into that place in which it becomes +identical with pain, a man may admit that the reign of wisdom is temporarily +suspended. Newman wished Madame de Cintré so well that nothing he could think +of doing for her in the future rose to the high standard which his present mood +had set itself. She seemed to him so felicitous a product of nature and +circumstance that his invention, musing on future combinations, was constantly +catching its breath with the fear of stumbling into some brutal compression or +mutilation of her beautiful personal harmony. This is what I mean by +Newman’s tenderness: Madame de Cintré pleased him so, exactly as she was, +that his desire to interpose between her and the troubles of life had the +quality of a young mother’s eagerness to protect the sleep of her +first-born child. Newman was simply charmed, and he handled his charm as if it +were a music-box which would stop if one shook it. There can be no better proof +of the hankering epicure that is hidden in every man’s temperament, +waiting for a signal from some divine confederate that he may safely peep out. +Newman at last was enjoying, purely, freely, deeply. Certain of Madame de +Cintré’s personal qualities—the luminous sweetness of her eyes, the +delicate mobility of her face, the deep liquidity of her voice—filled all +his consciousness. A rose-crowned Greek of old, gazing at a marble goddess with +his whole bright intellect resting satisfied in the act, could not have been a +more complete embodiment of the wisdom that loses itself in the enjoyment of +quiet harmonies. +</p> + +<p> +He made no violent love to her—no sentimental speeches. He never +trespassed on what she had made him understand was for the present forbidden +ground. But he had, nevertheless, a comfortable sense that she knew better from +day to day how much he admired her. Though in general he was no great talker, +he talked much, and he succeeded perfectly in making her say many things. He +was not afraid of boring her, either by his discourse or by his silence; and +whether or no he did occasionally bore her, it is probable that on the whole +she liked him only the better for his absence of embarrassed scruples. Her +visitors, coming in often while Newman sat there, found a tall, lean, silent +man in a half-lounging attitude, who laughed out sometimes when no one had +meant to be droll, and remained grave in the presence of calculated witticisms, +for appreciation of which he had apparently not the proper culture. +</p> + +<p> +It must be confessed that the number of subjects upon which Newman had no ideas +was extremely large, and it must be added that as regards those subjects upon +which he was without ideas he was also perfectly without words. He had little +of the small change of conversation, and his stock of ready-made formulas and +phrases was the scantiest. On the other hand he had plenty of attention to +bestow, and his estimate of the importance of a topic did not depend upon the +number of clever things he could say about it. He himself was almost never +bored, and there was no man with whom it would have been a greater mistake to +suppose that silence meant displeasure. What it was that entertained him during +some of his speechless sessions I must, however, confess myself unable to +determine. We know in a general way that a great many things which were old +stories to a great many people had the charm of novelty to him, but a complete +list of his new impressions would probably contain a number of surprises for +us. He told Madame de Cintré a hundred long stories; he explained to her, in +talking of the United States, the working of various local institutions and +mercantile customs. Judging by the sequel she was interested, but one would not +have been sure of it beforehand. As regards her own talk, Newman was very sure +himself that she herself enjoyed it: this was as a sort of amendment to the +portrait that Mrs. Tristram had drawn of her. He discovered that she had +naturally an abundance of gaiety. He had been right at first in saying she was +shy; her shyness, in a woman whose circumstances and tranquil beauty afforded +every facility for well-mannered hardihood, was only a charm the more. For +Newman it had lasted some time, and even when it went it left something behind +it which for a while performed the same office. Was this the tearful secret of +which Mrs. Tristram had had a glimpse, and of which, as of her friend’s +reserve, her high-breeding, and her profundity, she had given a sketch of which +the outlines were, perhaps, rather too heavy? Newman supposed so, but he found +himself wondering less every day what Madame de Cintré’s secrets might +be, and more convinced that secrets were, in themselves, hateful things to her. +She was a woman for the light, not for the shade; and her natural line was not +picturesque reserve and mysterious melancholy, but frank, joyous, brilliant +action, with just so much meditation as was necessary, and not a grain more. To +this, apparently, he had succeeded in bringing her back. He felt, himself, that +he was an antidote to oppressive secrets; what he offered her was, in fact, +above all things a vast, sunny immunity from the need of having any. +</p> + +<p> +He often passed his evenings, when Madame de Cintré had so appointed it, at the +chilly fireside of Madame de Bellegarde, contenting himself with looking across +the room, through narrowed eyelids, at his mistress, who always made a point, +before her family, of talking to someone else. Madame de Bellegarde sat by the +fire conversing neatly and coldly with whomsoever approached her, and glancing +round the room with her slowly-restless eye, the effect of which, when it +lighted upon him, was to Newman’s sense identical with that of a sudden +spurt of damp air. When he shook hands with her he always asked her with a +laugh whether she could “stand him” another evening, and she +replied, without a laugh, that thank God she had always been able to do her +duty. Newman, talking once of the marquise to Mrs. Tristram, said that after +all it was very easy to get on with her; it always was easy to get on with +out-and-out rascals. +</p> + +<p> +“And is it by that elegant term,” said Mrs. Tristram, “that +you designate the Marquise de Bellegarde?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, “she is wicked, she is an old +sinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is her crime?” asked Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t wonder if she had murdered someone—all from a +sense of duty, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you be so dreadful?” sighed Mrs. Tristram. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not dreadful. I am speaking of her favorably.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray what will you say when you want to be severe?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall keep my severity for someone else—for the marquis. +There’s a man I can’t swallow, mix the drink as I will.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what has <i>he</i> done?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t quite make out; it is something dreadfully bad, something +mean and underhand, and not redeemed by audacity, as his mother’s +misdemeanors may have been. If he has never committed murder, he has at least +turned his back and looked the other way while someone else was committing +it.” +</p> + +<p> +In spite of this invidious hypothesis, which must be taken for nothing more +than an example of the capricious play of “American humor,” Newman +did his best to maintain an easy and friendly style of communication with M. de +Bellegarde. So long as he was in personal contact with people he disliked +extremely to have anything to forgive them, and he was capable of a good deal +of unsuspected imaginative effort (for the sake of his own personal comfort) to +assume for the time that they were good fellows. He did his best to treat the +marquis as one; he believed honestly, moreover, that he could not, in reason, +be such a confounded fool as he seemed. Newman’s familiarity was never +importunate; his sense of human equality was not an aggressive taste or an +æsthetic theory, but something as natural and organic as a physical appetite +which had never been put on a scanty allowance and consequently was innocent of +ungraceful eagerness. His tranquil unsuspectingness of the relativity of his +own place in the social scale was probably irritating to M. de Bellegarde, who +saw himself reflected in the mind of his potential brother-in-law in a crude +and colorless form, unpleasantly dissimilar to the impressive image projected +upon his own intellectual mirror. He never forgot himself for an instant, and +replied to what he must have considered Newman’s “advances” +with mechanical politeness. Newman, who was constantly forgetting himself, and +indulging in an unlimited amount of irresponsible inquiry and conjecture, now +and then found himself confronted by the conscious, ironical smile of his host. +What the deuce M. de Bellegarde was smiling at he was at a loss to divine. M. +de Bellegarde’s smile may be supposed to have been, for himself, a +compromise between a great many emotions. So long as he smiled he was polite, +and it was proper he should be polite. A smile, moreover, committed him to +nothing more than politeness, and left the degree of politeness agreeably +vague. A smile, too, was neither dissent—which was too serious—nor +agreement, which might have brought on terrible complications. And then a smile +covered his own personal dignity, which in this critical situation he was +resolved to keep immaculate; it was quite enough that the glory of his house +should pass into eclipse. Between him and Newman, his whole manner seemed to +declare there could be no interchange of opinion; he was holding his breath so +as not to inhale the odor of democracy. Newman was far from being versed in +European politics, but he liked to have a general idea of what was going on +about him, and he accordingly asked M. de Bellegarde several times what he +thought of public affairs. M. de Bellegarde answered with suave concision that +he thought as ill of them as possible, that they were going from bad to worse, +and that the age was rotten to its core. This gave Newman, for the moment, an +almost kindly feeling for the marquis; he pitied a man for whom the world was +so cheerless a place, and the next time he saw M. de Bellegarde he attempted to +call his attention to some of the brilliant features of the time. The marquis +presently replied that he had but a single political conviction, which was +enough for him: he believed in the divine right of Henry of Bourbon, Fifth of +his name, to the throne of France. Newman stared, and after this he ceased to +talk politics with M. de Bellegarde. He was not horrified nor scandalized, he +was not even amused; he felt as he should have felt if he had discovered in M. +de Bellegarde a taste for certain oddities of diet; an appetite, for instance, +for fishbones or nutshells. Under these circumstances, of course, he would +never have broached dietary questions with him. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon, on his calling on Madame de Cintré, Newman was requested by the +servant to wait a few moments, as his hostess was not at liberty. He walked +about the room a while, taking up her books, smelling her flowers, and looking +at her prints and photographs (which he thought prodigiously pretty), and at +last he heard the opening of a door to which his back was turned. On the +threshold stood an old woman whom he remembered to have met several times in +entering and leaving the house. She was tall and straight and dressed in black, +and she wore a cap which, if Newman had been initiated into such mysteries, +would have been a sufficient assurance that she was not a Frenchwoman; a cap of +pure British composition. She had a pale, decent, depressed-looking face, and a +clear, dull, English eye. She looked at Newman a moment, both intently and +timidly, and then she dropped a short, straight English curtsey. +</p> + +<p> +“Madame de Cintré begs you will kindly wait,” she said. “She +has just come in; she will soon have finished dressing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I will wait as long as she wants,” said Newman. “Pray +tell her not to hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir,” said the woman, softly; and then, instead of +retiring with her message, she advanced into the room. She looked about her for +a moment, and presently went to a table and began to arrange certain books and +knick-knacks. Newman was struck with the high respectability of her appearance; +he was afraid to address her as a servant. She busied herself for some moments +with putting the table in order and pulling the curtains straight, while Newman +walked slowly to and fro. He perceived at last from her reflection in the +mirror, as he was passing that her hands were idle and that she was looking at +him intently. She evidently wished to say something, and Newman, perceiving it, +helped her to begin. +</p> + +<p> +“You are English?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, please,” she answered, quickly and softly; “I was +born in Wiltshire.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what do you think of Paris?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t think of Paris, sir,” she said in the same tone. +“It is so long since I have been here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you have been here very long?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is more than forty years, sir. I came over with Lady Emmeline.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean with old Madame de Bellegarde?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. I came with her when she was married. I was my lady’s +own woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you have been with her ever since?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been in the house ever since. My lady has taken a younger person. +You see I am very old. I do nothing regular now. But I keep about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look very strong and well,” said Newman, observing the +erectness of her figure, and a certain venerable rosiness in her cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God I am not ill, sir; I hope I know my duty too well to go +panting and coughing about the house. But I am an old woman, sir, and it is as +an old woman that I venture to speak to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, speak out,” said Newman, curiously. “You needn’t +be afraid of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. I think you are kind. I have seen you before.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the stairs, you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. When you have been coming to see the countess. I have taken +the liberty of noticing that you come often.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes; I come very often,” said Newman, laughing. “You need +not have been wide-awake to notice that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have noticed it with pleasure, sir,” said the ancient tirewoman, +gravely. And she stood looking at Newman with a strange expression of face. The +old instinct of deference and humility was there; the habit of decent +self-effacement and knowledge of her “own place.” But there mingled +with it a certain mild audacity, born of the occasion and of a sense, probably, +of Newman’s unprecedented approachableness, and, beyond this, a vague +indifference to the old proprieties; as if my lady’s own woman had at +last begun to reflect that, since my lady had taken another person, she had a +slight reversionary property in herself. +</p> + +<p> +“You take a great interest in the family?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“A deep interest, sir. Especially in the countess.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad of that,” said Newman. And in a moment he added, +smiling, “So do I!” +</p> + +<p> +“So I suppose, sir. We can’t help noticing these things and having +our ideas; can we, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean as a servant?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there it is, sir. I am afraid that when I let my thoughts meddle +with such matters I am no longer a servant. But I am so devoted to the +countess; if she were my own child I couldn’t love her more. That is how +I come to be so bold, sir. They say you want to marry her.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman eyed his interlocutress and satisfied himself that she was not a gossip, +but a zealot; she looked anxious, appealing, discreet. “It is quite +true,” he said. “I want to marry Madame de Cintré.” +</p> + +<p> +“And to take her away to America?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will take her wherever she wants to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“The farther away the better, sir!” exclaimed the old woman, with +sudden intensity. But she checked herself, and, taking up a paper-weight in +mosaic, began to polish it with her black apron. “I don’t mean +anything against the house or the family, sir. But I think a great change would +do the poor countess good. It is very sad here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it’s not very lively,” said Newman. “But Madame +de Cintré is gay herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is everything that is good. You will not be vexed to hear that she +has been gayer for a couple of months past than she had been in many a day +before.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was delighted to gather this testimony to the prosperity of his suit, +but he repressed all violent marks of elation. “Has Madame de Cintré been +in bad spirits before this?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor lady, she had good reason. M. de Cintré was no husband for a sweet +young lady like that. And then, as I say, it has been a sad house. It is +better, in my humble opinion, that she were out of it. So, if you will excuse +me for saying so, I hope she will marry you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope she will!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“But you must not lose courage, sir, if she doesn’t make up her +mind at once. That is what I wanted to beg of you, sir. Don’t give it up, +sir. You will not take it ill if I say it’s a great risk for any lady at +any time; all the more when she has got rid of one bad bargain. But if she can +marry a good, kind, respectable gentleman, I think she had better make up her +mind to it. They speak very well of you, sir, in the house, and, if you will +allow me to say so, I like your face. You have a very different appearance from +the late count, he wasn’t five feet high. And they say your fortune is +beyond everything. There’s no harm in that. So I beseech you to be +patient, sir, and bide your time. If I don’t say this to you, sir, +perhaps no one will. Of course it is not for me to make any promises. I can +answer for nothing. But I think your chance is not so bad, sir. I am nothing +but a weary old woman in my quiet corner, but one woman understands another, +and I think I make out the countess. I received her in my arms when she came +into the world and her first wedding day was the saddest of my life. She owes +it to me to show me another and a brighter one. If you will hold firm, +sir—and you look as if you would—I think we may see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged to you for your encouragement,” said Newman, +heartily. “One can’t have too much. I mean to hold firm. And if +Madame de Cintré marries me you must come and live with her.” +</p> + +<p> +The old woman looked at him strangely, with her soft, lifeless eyes. “It +may seem a heartless thing to say, sir, when one has been forty years in a +house, but I may tell you that I should like to leave this place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s just the time to say it,” said Newman, fervently. +“After forty years one wants a change.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very kind, sir;” and this faithful servant dropped another +curtsey and seemed disposed to retire. But she lingered a moment and gave a +timid, joyless smile. Newman was disappointed, and his fingers stole half shyly +half irritably into his waistcoat-pocket. His informant noticed the movement. +“Thank God I am not a Frenchwoman,” she said. “If I were, I +would tell you with a brazen simper, old as I am, that if you please, monsieur, +my information is worth something. Let me tell you so in my own decent English +way. It <i>is</i> worth something.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much, please?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Simply this: a promise not to hint to the countess that I have said +these things.” +</p> + +<p> +“If that is all, you have it,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“That is all, sir. Thank you, sir. Good day, sir.” And having once +more slid down telescope-wise into her scanty petticoats, the old woman +departed. At the same moment Madame de Cintré came in by an opposite door. She +noticed the movement of the other <i>portière</i> and asked Newman who had been +entertaining him. +</p> + +<p> +“The British female!” said Newman. “An old lady in a black +dress and a cap, who curtsies up and down, and expresses herself ever so +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“An old lady who curtsies and expresses herself?... Ah, you mean poor +Mrs. Bread. I happen to know that you have made a conquest of her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Cake, she ought to be called,” said Newman. “She is +very sweet. She is a delicious old woman.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré looked at him a moment. “What can she have said to you? +She is an excellent creature, but we think her rather dismal.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” Newman answered presently, “that I like her +because she has lived near you so long. Since your birth, she told me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Madame de Cintré, simply; “she is very faithful; +I can trust her.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman had never made any reflections to this lady upon her mother and her +brother Urbain; had given no hint of the impression they made upon him. But, as +if she had guessed his thoughts, she seemed careful to avoid all occasion for +making him speak of them. She never alluded to her mother’s domestic +decrees; she never quoted the opinions of the marquis. They had talked, +however, of Valentin, and she had made no secret of her extreme affection for +her younger brother. Newman listened sometimes with a certain harmless +jealousy; he would have liked to divert some of her tender allusions to his own +credit. Once Madame de Cintré told him with a little air of triumph about +something that Valentin had done which she thought very much to his honor. It +was a service he had rendered to an old friend of the family; something more +“serious” than Valentin was usually supposed capable of being. +Newman said he was glad to hear of it, and then began to talk about something +which lay upon his own heart. Madame de Cintré listened, but after a while she +said, “I don’t like the way you speak of my brother +Valentin.” Hereupon Newman, surprised, said that he had never spoken of +him but kindly. +</p> + +<p> +“It is too kindly,” said Madame de Cintré. “It is a kindness +that costs nothing; it is the kindness you show to a child. It is as if you +didn’t respect him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Respect him? Why I think I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think? If you are not sure, it is no respect.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you respect him?” said Newman. “If you do, I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“If one loves a person, that is a question one is not bound to +answer,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“You should not have asked it of me, then. I am very fond of your +brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“He amuses you. But you would not like to resemble him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t like to resemble anyone. It is hard enough work +resembling one’s self.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean,” asked Madame de Cintré, “by resembling +one’s self?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, doing what is expected of one. Doing one’s duty.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is only when one is very good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, a great many people are good,” said Newman. “Valentin +is quite good enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré was silent for a short time. “He is not good enough for +me,” she said at last. “I wish he would do something.” +</p> + +<p> +“What can he do?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. Yet he is very clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a proof of cleverness,” said Newman, “to be happy +without doing anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think Valentin is happy, in reality. He is clever, +generous, brave; but what is there to show for it? To me there is something sad +in his life, and sometimes I have a sort of foreboding about him. I don’t +know why, but I fancy he will have some great trouble—perhaps an unhappy +end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, leave him to me,” said Newman, jovially. “I will watch +over him and keep harm away.” +</p> + +<p> +One evening, in Madame de Bellegarde’s salon, the conversation had +flagged most sensibly. The marquis walked up and down in silence, like a +sentinel at the door of some smooth-fronted citadel of the proprieties; his +mother sat staring at the fire; young Madame de Bellegarde worked at an +enormous band of tapestry. Usually there were three or four visitors, but on +this occasion a violent storm sufficiently accounted for the absence of even +the most devoted habitués. In the long silences the howling of the wind and the +beating of the rain were distinctly audible. Newman sat perfectly still, +watching the clock, determined to stay till the stroke of eleven, but not a +moment longer. Madame de Cintré had turned her back to the circle, and had been +standing for some time within the uplifted curtain of a window, with her +forehead against the pane, gazing out into the deluged darkness. Suddenly she +turned round toward her sister-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake,” she said, with peculiar eagerness, +“go to the piano and play something.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde held up her tapestry and pointed to a little white flower. +“Don’t ask me to leave this. I am in the midst of a masterpiece. My +flower is going to smell very sweet; I am putting in the smell with this +gold-colored silk. I am holding my breath; I can’t leave off. Play +something yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is absurd for me to play when you are present,” said Madame de +Cintré. But the next moment she went to the piano and began to strike the keys +with vehemence. She played for some time, rapidly and brilliantly; when she +stopped, Newman went to the piano and asked her to begin again. She shook her +head, and, on his insisting, she said, “I have not been playing for you; +I have been playing for myself.” She went back to the window again and +looked out, and shortly afterwards left the room. When Newman took leave, +Urbain de Bellegarde accompanied him, as he always did, just three steps down +the staircase. At the bottom stood a servant with his overcoat. He had just put +it on when he saw Madame de Cintré coming towards him across the vestibule. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall you be at home on Friday?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him a moment before answering his question. “You +don’t like my mother and my brother,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated a moment, and then he said softly, “No.” +</p> + +<p> +She laid her hand on the balustrade and prepared to ascend the stairs, fixing +her eyes on the first step. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I shall be at home on Friday,” and she passed up the wide +dusky staircase. +</p> + +<p> +On the Friday, as soon as he came in, she asked him to please to tell her why +he disliked her family. +</p> + +<p> +“Dislike your family?” he exclaimed. “That has a horrid +sound. I didn’t say so, did I? I didn’t mean it, if I did.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you would tell me what you think of them,” said Madame de +Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think of any of them but you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is because you dislike them. Speak the truth; you can’t +offend me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t exactly love your brother,” said Newman. +“I remember now. But what is the use of my saying so? I had forgotten +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are too good-natured,” said Madame de Cintré gravely. Then, as +if to avoid the appearance of inviting him to speak ill of the marquis, she +turned away, motioning him to sit down. +</p> + +<p> +But he remained standing before her and said presently, “What is of much +more importance is that they don’t like me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—they don’t,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t you think they are wrong?” Newman asked. “I +don’t believe I am a man to dislike.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose that a man who may be liked may also be disliked. And my +brother—my mother,” she added, “have not made you +angry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have never shown it.” +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, so much the better. They think they have treated you very +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no doubt they might have handled me much more roughly,” +said Newman. “I am much obliged to them. Honestly.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are generous,” said Madame de Cintré. “It’s a +disagreeable position.” +</p> + +<p> +“For them, you mean. Not for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“For me,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“Not when their sins are forgiven!” said Newman. “They +don’t think I am as good as they are. I do. But we shan’t quarrel +about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t even agree with you without saying something that has a +disagreeable sound. The presumption was against you. That you probably +don’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman sat down and looked at her for some time. “I don’t think I +really understand it. But when you say it, I believe it.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a poor reason,” said Madame de Cintré, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s a very good one. You have a high spirit, a high standard; +but with you it’s all natural and unaffected; you don’t seem to +have stuck your head into a vise, as if you were sitting for the photograph of +propriety. You think of me as a fellow who has had no idea in life but to make +money and drive sharp bargains. That’s a fair description of me, but it +is not the whole story. A man ought to care for something else, though I +don’t know exactly what. I cared for money-making, but I never cared +particularly for the money. There was nothing else to do, and it was impossible +to be idle. I have been very easy to others, and to myself. I have done most of +the things that people asked me—I don’t mean rascals. As regards +your mother and your brother,” Newman added, “there is only one +point upon which I feel that I might quarrel with them. I don’t ask them +to sing my praises to you, but I ask them to let you alone. If I thought they +talked ill of me to you, I should come down upon them.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have let me alone, as you say. They have not talked ill of +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“In that case,” cried Newman, “I declare they are only too +good for this world!” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré appeared to find something startling in his exclamation. She +would, perhaps, have replied, but at this moment the door was thrown open and +Urbain de Bellegarde stepped across the threshold. He appeared surprised at +finding Newman, but his surprise was but a momentary shadow across the surface +of an unwonted joviality. Newman had never seen the marquis so exhilarated; his +pale, unlighted countenance had a sort of thin transfiguration. He held open +the door for someone else to enter, and presently appeared old Madame de +Bellegarde, leaning on the arm of a gentleman whom Newman had not seen before. +He had already risen, and Madame de Cintré rose, as she always did before her +mother. The marquis, who had greeted Newman almost genially, stood apart, +slowly rubbing his hands. His mother came forward with her companion. She gave +a majestic little nod at Newman, and then she released the strange gentleman, +that he might make his bow to her daughter. +</p> + +<p> +“My daughter,” she said, “I have brought you an unknown +relative, Lord Deepmere. Lord Deepmere is our cousin, but he has done only +to-day what he ought to have done long ago—come to make our +acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré smiled, and offered Lord Deepmere her hand. “It is very +extraordinary,” said this noble laggard, “but this is the first +time that I have ever been in Paris for more than three or four weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how long have you been here now?” asked Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, for the last two months,” said Lord Deepmere. +</p> + +<p> +These two remarks might have constituted an impertinence; but a glance at Lord +Deepmere’s face would have satisfied you, as it apparently satisfied +Madame de Cintré, that they constituted only a <i>naïveté</i>. When his +companions were seated, Newman, who was out of the conversation, occupied +himself with observing the newcomer. Observation, however, as regards Lord +Deepmere’s person; had no great range. He was a small, meagre man, of +some three and thirty years of age, with a bald head, a short nose and no front +teeth in the upper jaw; he had round, candid blue eyes, and several pimples on +his chin. He was evidently very shy, and he laughed a great deal, catching his +breath with an odd, startling sound, as the most convenient imitation of +repose. His physiognomy denoted great simplicity, a certain amount of +brutality, and probable failure in the past to profit by rare educational +advantages. He remarked that Paris was awfully jolly, but that for real, +thorough-paced entertainment it was nothing to Dublin. He even preferred Dublin +to London. Had Madame de Cintré ever been to Dublin? They must all come over +there some day, and he would show them some Irish sport. He always went to +Ireland for the fishing, and he came to Paris for the new Offenbach things. +They always brought them out in Dublin, but he couldn’t wait. He had been +nine times to hear La Pomme de Paris. Madame de Cintré, leaning back, with her +arms folded, looked at Lord Deepmere with a more visibly puzzled face than she +usually showed to society. Madame de Bellegarde, on the other hand, wore a +fixed smile. The marquis said that among light operas his favorite was the +Gazza Ladra. The marquise then began a series of inquiries about the duke and +the cardinal, the old countess and Lady Barbara, after listening to which, and +to Lord Deepmere’s somewhat irreverent responses, for a quarter of an +hour, Newman rose to take his leave. The marquis went with him three steps into +the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he Irish?” asked Newman, nodding in the direction of the +visitor. +</p> + +<p> +“His mother was the daughter of Lord Finucane,” said the marquis; +“he has great Irish estates. Lady Bridget, in the complete absence of +male heirs, either direct or collateral—a most extraordinary +circumstance—came in for everything. But Lord Deepmere’s title is +English and his English property is immense. He is a charming young man.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman answered nothing, but he detained the marquis as the latter was +beginning gracefully to recede. “It is a good time for me to thank +you,” he said, “for sticking so punctiliously to our bargain, for +doing so much to help me on with your sister.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis stared. “Really, I have done nothing that I can boast +of,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh don’t be modest,” Newman answered, laughing. “I +can’t flatter myself that I am doing so well simply by my own merit. And +thank your mother for me, too!” And he turned away, leaving M. de +Bellegarde looking after him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p> +The next time Newman came to the Rue de l’Université he had the good +fortune to find Madame de Cintré alone. He had come with a definite intention, +and he lost no time in executing it. She wore, moreover, a look which he +eagerly interpreted as expectancy. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been coming to see you for six months, now,” he said, +“and I have never spoken to you a second time of marriage. That was what +you asked me; I obeyed. Could any man have done better?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have acted with great delicacy,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m going to change now,” said Newman. “I +don’t mean that I am going to be indelicate; but I’m going to go +back to where I began. I <i>am</i> back there. I have been all round the +circle. Or rather, I have never been away from here. I have never ceased to +want what I wanted then. Only now I am more sure of it, if possible; I am more +sure of myself, and more sure of you. I know you better, though I don’t +know anything I didn’t believe three months ago. You are +everything—you are beyond everything—I can imagine or desire. You +know me now; you <i>must</i> know me. I won’t say that you have seen the +best—but you have seen the worst. I hope you have been thinking all this +while. You must have seen that I was only waiting; you can’t suppose that +I was changing. What will you say to me, now? Say that everything is clear and +reasonable, and that I have been very patient and considerate, and deserve my +reward. And then give me your hand. Madame de Cintré do that. Do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew you were only waiting,” she said; “and I was very +sure this day would come. I have thought about it a great deal. At first I was +half afraid of it. But I am not afraid of it now.” She paused a moment, +and then she added, “It’s a relief.” +</p> + +<p> +She was sitting on a low chair, and Newman was on an ottoman, near her. He +leaned a little and took her hand, which for an instant she let him keep. +“That means that I have not waited for nothing,” he said. She +looked at him for a moment, and he saw her eyes fill with tears. “With +me,” he went on, “you will be as safe—as +safe”—and even in his ardor he hesitated a moment for a +comparison—“as safe,” he said, with a kind of simple +solemnity, “as in your father’s arms.” +</p> + +<p> +Still she looked at him and her tears increased. Then, abruptly, she buried her +face on the cushioned arm of the sofa beside her chair, and broke into +noiseless sobs. “I am weak—I am weak,” he heard her say. +</p> + +<p> +“All the more reason why you should give yourself up to me,” he +answered. “Why are you troubled? There is nothing but happiness. Is that +so hard to believe?” +</p> + +<p> +“To you everything seems so simple,” she said, raising her head. +“But things are not so. I like you extremely. I liked you six months ago, +and now I am sure of it, as you say you are sure. But it is not easy, simply +for that, to decide to marry you. There are a great many things to think +about.” +</p> + +<p> +“There ought to be only one thing to think about—that we love each +other,” said Newman. And as she remained silent he quickly added, +“Very good, if you can’t accept that, don’t tell me +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be very glad to think of nothing,” she said at last; +“not to think at all; only to shut both my eyes and give myself up. But I +can’t. I’m cold, I’m old, I’m a coward; I never +supposed I should marry again, and it seems to me very strange I should ever +have listened to you. When I used to think, as a girl, of what I should do if I +were to marry freely, by my own choice, I thought of a very different man from +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s nothing against me,” said Newman with an immense +smile; “your taste was not formed.” +</p> + +<p> +His smile made Madame de Cintré smile. “Have you formed it?” she +asked. And then she said, in a different tone, “Where do you wish to +live?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anywhere in the wide world you like. We can easily settle that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know why I ask you,” she presently continued. +“I care very little. I think if I were to marry you I could live almost +anywhere. You have some false ideas about me; you think that I need a great +many things—that I must have a brilliant, worldly life. I am sure you are +prepared to take a great deal of trouble to give me such things. But that is +very arbitrary; I have done nothing to prove that.” She paused again, +looking at him, and her mingled sound and silence were so sweet to him that he +had no wish to hurry her, any more than he would have had a wish to hurry a +golden sunrise. “Your being so different, which at first seemed a +difficulty, a trouble, began one day to seem to me a pleasure, a great +pleasure. I was glad you were different. And yet if I had said so, no one would +have understood me; I don’t mean simply to my family.” +</p> + +<p> +“They would have said I was a queer monster, eh?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“They would have said I could never be happy with you—you were too +different; and I would have said it was just <i>because</i> you were so +different that I might be happy. But they would have given better reasons than +I. My only reason”—and she paused again. +</p> + +<p> +But this time, in the midst of his golden sunrise, Newman felt the impulse to +grasp at a rosy cloud. “Your only reason is that you love me!” he +murmured with an eloquent gesture, and for want of a better reason Madame de +Cintré reconciled herself to this one. +</p> + +<p> +Newman came back the next day, and in the vestibule, as he entered the house, +he encountered his friend Mrs. Bread. She was wandering about in honorable +idleness, and when his eyes fell upon her she delivered him one of her +curtsies. Then turning to the servant who had admitted him, she said, with the +combined majesty of her native superiority and of a rugged English accent, +“You may retire; I will have the honor of conducting monsieur.” In +spite of this combination, however, it appeared to Newman that her voice had a +slight quaver, as if the tone of command were not habitual to it. The man gave +her an impertinent stare, but he walked slowly away, and she led Newman +upstairs. At half its course the staircase gave a bend, forming a little +platform. In the angle of the wall stood an indifferent statue of an +eighteenth-century nymph, simpering, sallow, and cracked. Here Mrs. Bread +stopped and looked with shy kindness at her companion. +</p> + +<p> +“I know the good news, sir,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“You have a good right to be first to know it,” said Newman. +“You have taken such a friendly interest.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread turned away and began to blow the dust off the statue, as if this +might be mockery. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you want to congratulate me,” said Newman. “I am +greatly obliged.” And then he added, “You gave me much pleasure the +other day.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned around, apparently reassured. “You are not to think that I +have been told anything,” she said; “I have only guessed. But when +I looked at you, as you came in, I was sure I had guessed aright.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very sharp,” said Newman. “I am sure that in your +quiet way you see everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not a fool, sir, thank God. I have guessed something else +beside,” said Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I needn’t tell you that, sir; I don’t think you would +believe it. At any rate it wouldn’t please you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, tell me nothing but what will please me,” laughed Newman. +“That is the way you began.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, I suppose you won’t be vexed to hear that the sooner +everything is over the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“The sooner we are married, you mean? The better for me, +certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“The better for everyone.” +</p> + +<p> +“The better for you, perhaps. You know you are coming to live with +us,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m extremely obliged to you, sir, but it is not of myself I was +thinking. I only wanted, if I might take the liberty, to recommend you to lose +no time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whom are you afraid of?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread looked up the staircase and then down and then she looked at the +undusted nymph, as if she possibly had sentient ears. “I am afraid of +everyone,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“What an uncomfortable state of mind!” said Newman. “Does +‘everyone’ wish to prevent my marriage?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid of already having said too much,” Mrs. Bread replied. +“I won’t take it back, but I won’t say any more.” And +she took her way up the staircase again and led him into Madame de +Cintré’s salon. +</p> + +<p> +Newman indulged in a brief and silent imprecation when he found that Madame de +Cintré was not alone. With her sat her mother, and in the middle of the room +stood young Madame de Bellegarde, in her bonnet and mantle. The old marquise, +who was leaning back in her chair with a hand clasping the knob of each arm, +looked at him fixedly without moving. She seemed barely conscious of his +greeting; she appeared to be musing intently. Newman said to himself that her +daughter had been announcing her engagement and that the old lady found the +morsel hard to swallow. But Madame de Cintré, as she gave him her hand gave him +also a look by which she appeared to mean that he should understand something. +Was it a warning or a request? Did she wish to enjoin speech or silence? He was +puzzled, and young Madame de Bellegarde’s pretty grin gave him no +information. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not told my mother,” said Madame de Cintré abruptly, +looking at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Told me what?” demanded the marquise. “You tell me too +little; you should tell me everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is what I do,” said Madame Urbain, with a little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Let <i>me</i> tell your mother,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +The old lady stared at him again, and then turned to her daughter. “You +are going to marry him?” she cried, softly. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Oui, ma mère</i>,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“Your daughter has consented, to my great happiness,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“And when was this arrangement made?” asked Madame de Bellegarde. +“I seem to be picking up the news by chance!” +</p> + +<p> +“My suspense came to an end yesterday,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“And how long was mine to have lasted?” said the marquise to her +daughter. She spoke without irritation; with a sort of cold, noble displeasure. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré stood silent, with her eyes on the ground. “It is over +now,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is my son—where is Urbain?” asked the marquise. +“Send for your brother and inform him.” +</p> + +<p> +Young Madame de Bellegarde laid her hand on the bell-rope. “He was to +make some visits with me, and I was to go and knock—very softly, very +softly—at the door of his study. But he can come to me!” She pulled +the bell, and in a few moments Mrs. Bread appeared, with a face of calm +inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“Send for your brother,” said the old lady. +</p> + +<p> +But Newman felt an irresistible impulse to speak, and to speak in a certain +way. “Tell the marquis we want him,” he said to Mrs. Bread, who +quietly retired. +</p> + +<p> +Young Madame de Bellegarde went to her sister-in-law and embraced her. Then she +turned to Newman, with an intense smile. “She is charming. I congratulate +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I congratulate you, sir,” said Madame de Bellegarde, with extreme +solemnity. “My daughter is an extraordinarily good woman. She may have +faults, but I don’t know them.” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother does not often make jokes,” said Madame de Cintré; +“but when she does they are terrible.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is ravishing,” the Marquise Urbain resumed, looking at her +sister-in-law, with her head on one side. “Yes, I congratulate +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré turned away, and, taking up a piece of tapestry, began to ply +the needle. Some minutes of silence elapsed, which were interrupted by the +arrival of M. de Bellegarde. He came in with his hat in his hand, gloved, and +was followed by his brother Valentin, who appeared to have just entered the +house. M. de Bellegarde looked around the circle and greeted Newman with his +usual finely-measured courtesy. Valentin saluted his mother and his sisters, +and, as he shook hands with Newman, gave him a glance of acute interrogation. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Arrivez donc, messieurs!</i>” cried young Madame de Bellegarde. +“We have great news for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak to your brother, my daughter,” said the old lady. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré had been looking at her tapestry. She raised her eyes to her +brother. “I have accepted Mr. Newman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sister has consented,” said Newman. “You see after all, +I knew what I was about.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am charmed!” said M. de Bellegarde, with superior benignity. +</p> + +<p> +“So am I,” said Valentin to Newman. “The marquis and I are +charmed. I can’t marry, myself, but I can understand it. I can’t +stand on my head, but I can applaud a clever acrobat. My dear sister, I bless +your union.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis stood looking for a while into the crown of his hat. “We have +been prepared,” he said at last “but it is inevitable that in face +of the event one should experience a certain emotion.” And he gave a most +unhilarious smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel no emotion that I was not perfectly prepared for,” said his +mother. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say that for myself,” said Newman, smiling but +differently from the marquis. “I am happier than I expected to be. I +suppose it’s the sight of your happiness!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t exaggerate that,” said Madame de Bellegarde, getting +up and laying her hand upon her daughter’s arm. “You can’t +expect an honest old woman to thank you for taking away her beautiful, only +daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“You forgot me, dear madame,” said the young marquise demurely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she is very beautiful,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“And when is the wedding, pray?” asked young Madame de Bellegarde; +“I must have a month to think over a dress.” +</p> + +<p> +“That must be discussed,” said the marquise. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, we will discuss it, and let you know!” Newman exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no doubt we shall agree,” said Urbain. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t agree with Madame de Cintré, you will be very +unreasonable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, Urbain,” said young Madame de Bellegarde, “I +must go straight to my tailor’s.” +</p> + +<p> +The old lady had been standing with her hand on her daughter’s arm, +looking at her fixedly. She gave a little sigh, and murmured, “No, I did +<i>not</i> expect it! You are a fortunate man,” she added, turning to +Newman, with an expressive nod. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know that!” he answered. “I feel tremendously proud. I +feel like crying it on the housetops,—like stopping people in the street +to tell them.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde narrowed her lips. “Pray don’t,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“The more people that know it, the better,” Newman declared. +“I haven’t yet announced it here, but I telegraphed it this morning +to America.” +</p> + +<p> +“Telegraphed it to America?” the old lady murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“To New York, to St. Louis, and to San Francisco; those are the principal +cities, you know. To-morrow I shall tell my friends here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you many?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone of which I +am afraid that Newman but partly measured the impertinence. +</p> + +<p> +“Enough to bring me a great many hand-shakes and congratulations. To say +nothing,” he added, in a moment, “of those I shall receive from +your friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“They will not use the telegraph,” said the marquise, taking her +departure. +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde, whose wife, her imagination having apparently taken flight to +the tailor’s, was fluttering her silken wings in emulation, shook hands +with Newman, and said with a more persuasive accent than the latter had ever +heard him use, “You may count upon me.” Then his wife led him away. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin stood looking from his sister to our hero. “I hope you both +reflected seriously,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré smiled. “We have neither your powers of reflection nor +your depth of seriousness; but we have done our best.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I have a great regard for each of you,” Valentin continued. +“You are charming young people. But I am not satisfied, on the whole, +that you belong to that small and superior class—that exquisite group +composed of persons who are worthy to remain unmarried. These are rare souls; +they are the salt of the earth. But I don’t mean to be invidious; the +marrying people are often very nice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Valentin holds that women should marry, and that men should not,” +said Madame de Cintré. “I don’t know how he arranges it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I arrange it by adoring you, my sister,” said Valentin ardently. +“Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Adore someone whom you can marry,” said Newman. “I will +arrange that for you some day. I foresee that I am going to turn +apostle.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin was on the threshold; he looked back a moment with a face that had +turned grave. “I adore someone I can’t marry!” he said. And +he dropped the <i>portière</i> and departed. +</p> + +<p> +“They don’t like it,” said Newman, standing alone before +Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said, after a moment; “they don’t like +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now, do you mind that?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” she said, after another interval. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t help it. I should prefer that my mother were +pleased.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why the deuce,” demanded Newman, “is she not pleased? She +gave you leave to marry me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very true; I don’t understand it. And yet I do ‘mind +it,’ as you say. You will call it superstitious.” +</p> + +<p> +“That will depend upon how much you let it bother you. Then I shall call +it an awful bore.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will keep it to myself,” said Madame de Cintré, “It shall +not bother you.” And then they talked of their marriage-day, and Madame +de Cintré assented unreservedly to Newman’s desire to have it fixed for +an early date. +</p> + +<p> +Newman’s telegrams were answered with interest. Having dispatched but +three electric missives, he received no less than eight gratulatory bulletins +in return. He put them into his pocket-book, and the next time he encountered +old Madame de Bellegarde drew them forth and displayed them to her. This, it +must be confessed, was a slightly malicious stroke; the reader must judge in +what degree the offense was venial. Newman knew that the marquise disliked his +telegrams, though he could see no sufficient reason for it. Madame de Cintré, +on the other hand, liked them, and, most of them being of a humorous cast, +laughed at them immoderately, and inquired into the character of their authors. +Newman, now that his prize was gained, felt a peculiar desire that his triumph +should be manifest. He more than suspected that the Bellegardes were keeping +quiet about it, and allowing it, in their select circle, but a limited +resonance; and it pleased him to think that if he were to take the trouble he +might, as he phrased it, break all the windows. No man likes being repudiated, +and yet Newman, if he was not flattered, was not exactly offended. He had not +this good excuse for his somewhat aggressive impulse to promulgate his +felicity; his sentiment was of another quality. He wanted for once to make the +heads of the house of Bellegarde <i>feel</i> him; he knew not when he should +have another chance. He had had for the past six months a sense of the old lady +and her son looking straight over his head, and he was now resolved that they +should toe a mark which he would give himself the satisfaction of drawing. +</p> + +<p> +“It is like seeing a bottle emptied when the wine is poured too +slowly,” he said to Mrs. Tristram. “They make me want to joggle +their elbows and force them to spill their wine.” +</p> + +<p> +To this Mrs. Tristram answered that he had better leave them alone and let them +do things in their own way. “You must make allowances for them,” +she said. “It is natural enough that they should hang fire a little. They +thought they accepted you when you made your application; but they are not +people of imagination, they could not project themselves into the future, and +now they will have to begin again. But they <i>are</i> people of honor, and +they will do whatever is necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman spent a few moments in narrow-eyed meditation. “I am not hard on +them,” he presently said, “and to prove it I will invite them all +to a festival.” +</p> + +<p> +“To a festival?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been laughing at my great gilded rooms all winter; I will show +you that they are good for something. I will give a party. What is the grandest +thing one can do here? I will hire all the great singers from the opera, and +all the first people from the Théâtre Français, and I will give an +entertainment.” +</p> + +<p> +“And whom will you invite?” +</p> + +<p> +“You, first of all. And then the old lady and her son. And then everyone +among her friends whom I have met at her house or elsewhere, everyone who has +shown me the minimum of politeness, every duke of them and his wife. And then +all my friends, without exception: Miss Kitty Upjohn, Miss Dora Finch, General +Packard, C. P Hatch, and all the rest. And everyone shall know what it is +about, that is, to celebrate my engagement to the Countess de Cintré. What do +you think of the idea?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it is odious!” said Mrs. Tristram. And then in a moment: +“I think it is delicious!” +</p> + +<p> +The very next evening Newman repaired to Madame de Bellegarde’s salon, +where he found her surrounded by her children, and invited her to honor his +poor dwelling by her presence on a certain evening a fortnight distant. +</p> + +<p> +The marquise stared a moment. “My dear sir,” she cried, “what +do you want to do to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“To make you acquainted with a few people, and then to place you in a +very easy chair and ask you to listen to Madame Frezzolini’s +singing.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean to give a concert?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something of that sort.” +</p> + +<p> +“And to have a crowd of people?” +</p> + +<p> +“All my friends, and I hope some of yours and your daughter’s. I +want to celebrate my engagement.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Newman that Madame de Bellegarde turned pale. She opened her fan, +a fine old painted fan of the last century, and looked at the picture, which +represented a <i>fête champêtre</i>—a lady with a guitar, singing, and a +group of dancers round a garlanded Hermes. +</p> + +<p> +“We go out so little,” murmured the marquis, “since my poor +father’s death.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>my</i> dear father is still alive, my friend,” said his +wife. “I am only waiting for my invitation to accept it,” and she +glanced with amiable confidence at Newman. “It will be magnificent; I am +very sure of that.” +</p> + +<p> +I am sorry to say, to the discredit of Newman’s gallantry, that this +lady’s invitation was not then and there bestowed; he was giving all his +attention to the old marquise. She looked up at last, smiling. “I +can’t think of letting you offer me a fête,” she said, “until +I have offered you one. We want to present you to our friends; we will invite +them all. We have it very much at heart. We must do things in order. Come to me +about the 25th; I will let you know the exact day immediately. We shall not +have anyone so fine as Madame Frezzolini, but we shall have some very good +people. After that you may talk of your own fête.” The old lady spoke +with a certain quick eagerness, smiling more agreeably as she went on. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Newman a handsome proposal, and such proposals always touched the +sources of his good-nature. He said to Madame de Bellegarde that he should be +glad to come on the 25th or any other day, and that it mattered very little +whether he met his friends at her house or at his own. I have said that Newman +was observant, but it must be admitted that on this occasion he failed to +notice a certain delicate glance which passed between Madame de Bellegarde and +the marquis, and which we may presume to have been a commentary upon the +innocence displayed in that latter clause of his speech. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin de Bellegarde walked away with Newman that evening, and when they had +left the Rue de l’Université some distance behind them he said +reflectively, “My mother is very strong—very strong.” Then in +answer to an interrogative movement of Newman’s he continued, “She +was driven to the wall, but you would never have thought it. Her fête of the +25th was an invention of the moment. She had no idea whatever of giving a fête, +but finding it the only issue from your proposal, she looked straight at the +dose—excuse the expression—and bolted it, as you saw, without +winking. She is very strong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me!” said Newman, divided between relish and compassion. +“I don’t care a straw for her fête, I am willing to take the will +for the deed.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Valentin, with a little inconsequent touch of family +pride. “The thing will be done now, and done handsomely.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p> +Valentin de Bellegarde’s announcement of the secession of Mademoiselle +Nioche from her father’s domicile and his irreverent reflections upon the +attitude of this anxious parent in so grave a catastrophe, received a practical +commentary in the fact that M. Nioche was slow to seek another interview with +his late pupil. It had cost Newman some disgust to be forced to assent to +Valentin’s somewhat cynical interpretation of the old man’s +philosophy, and, though circumstances seemed to indicate that he had not given +himself up to a noble despair, Newman thought it very possible he might be +suffering more keenly than was apparent. M. Nioche had been in the habit of +paying him a respectful little visit every two or three weeks and his absence +might be a proof quite as much of extreme depression as of a desire to conceal +the success with which he had patched up his sorrow. Newman presently learned +from Valentin several details touching this new phase of Mademoiselle +Noémie’s career. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you she was remarkable,” this unshrinking observer +declared, “and the way she has managed this performance proves it. She +has had other chances, but she was resolved to take none but the best. She did +you the honor to think for a while that you might be such a chance. You were +not; so she gathered up her patience and waited a while longer. At last her +occasion came along, and she made her move with her eyes wide open. I am very +sure she had no innocence to lose, but she had all her respectability. Dubious +little damsel as you thought her, she had kept a firm hold of that; nothing +could be proved against her, and she was determined not to let her reputation +go till she had got her equivalent. About her equivalent she had high ideas. +Apparently her ideal has been satisfied. It is fifty years old, bald-headed, +and deaf, but it is very easy about money.” +</p> + +<p> +“And where in the world,” asked Newman, “did you pick up this +valuable information?” +</p> + +<p> +“In conversation. Remember my frivolous habits. In conversation with a +young woman engaged in the humble trade of glove-cleaner, who keeps a small +shop in the Rue St. Roch. M. Nioche lives in the same house, up six pair of +stairs, across the court, in and out of whose ill-swept doorway Miss Noémie has +been flitting for the last five years. The little glove-cleaner was an old +acquaintance; she used to be the friend of a friend of mine, who has married +and dropped such friends. I often saw her in his society. As soon as I espied +her behind her clear little window-pane, I recollected her. I had on a +spotlessly fresh pair of gloves, but I went in and held up my hands, and said +to her, ‘Dear mademoiselle, what will you ask me for cleaning +these?’ ‘Dear count,’ she answered immediately, ‘I will +clean them for you for nothing.’ She had instantly recognized me, and I +had to hear her history for the last six years. But after that, I put her upon +that of her neighbors. She knows and admires Noémie, and she told me what I +have just repeated.” +</p> + +<p> +A month elapsed without M. Nioche reappearing, and Newman, who every morning +read two or three suicides in the <i>Figaro</i>, began to suspect that, +mortification proving stubborn, he had sought a balm for his wounded pride in +the waters of the Seine. He had a note of M. Nioche’s address in his +pocket-book, and finding himself one day in the <i>quartier</i>, he determined, +in so far as he might, to clear up his doubts. He repaired to the house in the +Rue St. Roch which bore the recorded number, and observed in a neighboring +basement, behind a dangling row of neatly inflated gloves, the attentive +physiognomy of Bellegarde’s informant—a sallow person in a +dressing-gown—peering into the street as if she were expecting that +amiable nobleman to pass again. But it was not to her that Newman applied; he +simply asked of the portress if M. Nioche were at home. The portress replied, +as the portress invariably replies, that her lodger had gone out barely three +minutes before; but then, through the little square hole of her lodge-window +taking the measure of Newman’s fortunes, and seeing them, by an +unspecified process, refresh the dry places of servitude to occupants of fifth +floors on courts, she added that M. Nioche would have had just time to reach +the Café de la Patrie, round the second corner to the left, at which +establishment he regularly spent his afternoons. Newman thanked her for the +information, took the second turning to the left, and arrived at the Café de la +Patrie. He felt a momentary hesitation to go in; was it not rather mean to +“follow up” poor old Nioche at that rate? But there passed across +his vision an image of a haggard little septuagenarian taking measured sips of +a glass of sugar and water and finding them quite impotent to sweeten his +desolation. He opened the door and entered, perceiving nothing at first but a +dense cloud of tobacco smoke. Across this, however, in a corner, he presently +descried the figure of M. Nioche, stirring the contents of a deep glass, with a +lady seated in front of him. The lady’s back was turned to Newman, but M. +Nioche very soon perceived and recognized his visitor. Newman had gone toward +him, and the old man rose slowly, gazing at him with a more blighted expression +even than usual. +</p> + +<p> +“If you are drinking hot punch,” said Newman, “I suppose you +are not dead. That’s all right. Don’t move.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche stood staring, with a fallen jaw, not daring to put out his hand. The +lady, who sat facing him, turned round in her place and glanced upward with a +spirited toss of her head, displaying the agreeable features of his daughter. +She looked at Newman sharply, to see how he was looking at her, then—I +don’t know what she discovered—she said graciously, “How +d’ ye do, monsieur? won’t you come into our little corner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you come—did you come after <i>me?</i>” asked M. Nioche +very softly. +</p> + +<p> +“I went to your house to see what had become of you. I thought you might +be sick,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“It is very good of you, as always,” said the old man. “No, I +am not well. Yes, I am <i>seek</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask monsieur to sit down,” said Mademoiselle Nioche. +“Garçon, bring a chair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you do us the honor to <i>seat?</i>” said M. Nioche, +timorously, and with a double foreignness of accent. +</p> + +<p> +Newman said to himself that he had better see the thing out and he took a chair +at the end of the table, with Mademoiselle Nioche on his left and her father on +the other side. “You will take something, of course,” said Miss +Noémie, who was sipping a glass of madeira. Newman said that he believed not, +and then she turned to her papa with a smile. “What an honor, eh? he has +come only for us.” M. Nioche drained his pungent glass at a long draught, +and looked out from eyes more lachrymose in consequence. “But you +didn’t come for me, eh?” Mademoiselle Noémie went on. “You +didn’t expect to find me here?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman observed the change in her appearance. She was very elegant and prettier +than before; she looked a year or two older, and it was noticeable that, to the +eye, she had only gained in respectability. She looked “lady-like.” +She was dressed in quiet colors, and wore her expensively unobtrusive toilet +with a grace that might have come from years of practice. Her present +self-possession and <i>aplomb</i> struck Newman as really infernal, and he +inclined to agree with Valentin de Bellegarde that the young lady was very +remarkable. “No, to tell the truth, I didn’t come for you,” +he said, “and I didn’t expect to find you. I was told,” he +added in a moment “that you had left your father.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Quelle horreur!</i>” cried Mademoiselle Nioche with a smile. +“Does one leave one’s father? You have the proof of the +contrary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, convincing proof,” said Newman glancing at M. Nioche. The old +man caught his glance obliquely, with his faded, deprecating eye, and then, +lifting his empty glass, pretended to drink again. +</p> + +<p> +“Who told you that?” Noémie demanded. “I know very well. It +was M. de Bellegarde. Why don’t you say yes? You are not polite.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am embarrassed,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I set you a better example. I know M. de Bellegarde told you. He knows a +great deal about me—or he thinks he does. He has taken a great deal of +trouble to find out, but half of it isn’t true. In the first place, I +haven’t left my father; I am much too fond of him. Isn’t it so, +little father? M. de Bellegarde is a charming young man; it is impossible to be +cleverer. I know a good deal about him too; you can tell him that when you next +see him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Newman, with a sturdy grin; “I won’t carry +any messages for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just as you please,” said Mademoiselle Nioche, “I +don’t depend upon you, nor does M. de Bellegarde either. He is very much +interested in me; he can be left to his own devices. He is a contrast to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he is a great contrast to me, I have no doubt” said Newman. +“But I don’t exactly know how you mean it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean it in this way. First of all, he never offered to help me to a +<i>dot</i> and a husband.” And Mademoiselle Nioche paused, smiling. +“I won’t say that is in his favor, for I do you justice. What led +you, by the way, to make me such a queer offer? You didn’t care for +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I did,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“How so?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would have given me real pleasure to see you married to a respectable +young fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“With six thousand francs of income!” cried Mademoiselle Nioche. +“Do you call that caring for me? I’m afraid you know little about +women. You were not <i>galant</i>; you were not what you might have +been.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman flushed a trifle fiercely. “Come!” he exclaimed +“that’s rather strong. I had no idea I had been so shabby.” +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Nioche smiled as she took up her muff. “It is something, at +any rate, to have made you angry.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father had leaned both his elbows on the table, and his head, bent forward, +was supported in his hands, the thin white fingers of which were pressed over +his ears. In his position he was staring fixedly at the bottom of his empty +glass, and Newman supposed he was not hearing. Mademoiselle Noémie buttoned her +furred jacket and pushed back her chair, casting a glance charged with the +consciousness of an expensive appearance first down over her flounces and then +up at Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“You had better have remained an honest girl,” Newman said quietly. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche continued to stare at the bottom of his glass, and his daughter got +up, still bravely smiling. “You mean that I look so much like one? +That’s more than most women do nowadays. Don’t judge me yet +awhile,” she added. “I mean to succeed; that’s what I mean to +do. I leave you; I don’t mean to be seen in cafés, for one thing. I +can’t think what you want of my poor father; he’s very comfortable +now. It isn’t his fault, either. <i>Au revoir</i>, little father.” +And she tapped the old man on the head with her muff. Then she stopped a +minute, looking at Newman. “Tell M. de Bellegarde, when he wants news of +me, to come and get it from <i>me!</i>” And she turned and departed, the +white-aproned waiter, with a bow, holding the door wide open for her. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche sat motionless, and Newman hardly knew what to say to him. The old +man looked dismally foolish. “So you determined not to shoot her, after +all,” Newman said presently. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche, without moving, raised his eyes and gave him a long, peculiar look. +It seemed to confess everything, and yet not to ask for pity, nor to pretend, +on the other hand, to a rugged ability to do without it. It might have +expressed the state of mind of an innocuous insect, flat in shape and conscious +of the impending pressure of a boot-sole, and reflecting that he was perhaps +too flat to be crushed. M. Nioche’s gaze was a profession of moral +flatness. “You despise me terribly,” he said, in the weakest +possible voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” said Newman, “it is none of my business. It’s +a good plan to take things easily.” +</p> + +<p> +“I made you too many fine speeches,” M. Nioche added. “I +meant them at the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure I am very glad you didn’t shoot her,” said Newman. +“I was afraid you might have shot yourself. That is why I came to look +you up.” And he began to button his coat. +</p> + +<p> +“Neither,” said M. Nioche. “You despise me, and I can’t +explain to you. I hoped I shouldn’t see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that’s rather shabby,” said Newman. “You +shouldn’t drop your friends that way. Besides, the last time you came to +see me I thought you particularly jolly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I remember,” said M. Nioche musingly; “I was in a +fever. I didn’t know what I said, what I did. It was delirium.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, you are quieter now.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche was silent a moment. “As quiet as the grave,” he +whispered softly. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you very unhappy?” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche rubbed his forehead slowly, and even pushed back his wig a little, +looking askance at his empty glass. “Yes—yes. But that’s an +old story. I have always been unhappy. My daughter does what she will with me. +I take what she gives me, good or bad. I have no spirit, and when you have no +spirit you must keep quiet. I shan’t trouble you any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, rather disgusted at the smooth operation of +the old man’s philosophy, “that’s as you please.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche seemed to have been prepared to be despised but nevertheless he made +a feeble movement of appeal from Newman’s faint praise. “After +all,” he said, “she is my daughter, and I can still look after her. +If she will do wrong, why she will. But there are many different paths, there +are degrees. I can give her the benefit—give her the +benefit”—and M. Nioche paused, staring vaguely at Newman, who began +to suspect that his brain had softened—“the benefit of my +experience,” M. Nioche added. +</p> + +<p> +“Your experience?” inquired Newman, both amused and amazed. +</p> + +<p> +“My experience of business,” said M. Nioche, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes,” said Newman, laughing, “that will be a great +advantage to her!” And then he said good-bye, and offered the poor, +foolish old man his hand. +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche took it and leaned back against the wall, holding it a moment and +looking up at him. “I suppose you think my wits are going,” he +said. “Very likely; I have always a pain in my head. That’s why I +can’t explain, I can’t tell you. And she’s so strong, she +makes me walk as she will, anywhere! But there’s this—there’s +this.” And he stopped, still staring up at Newman. His little white eyes +expanded and glittered for a moment like those of a cat in the dark. +“It’s not as it seems. I haven’t forgiven her. Oh, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right; don’t,” said Newman. “She’s +a bad case.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s horrible, it’s horrible,” said M. Nioche; +“but do you want to know the truth? I hate her! I take what she gives me, +and I hate her more. To-day she brought me three hundred francs; they are here +in my waistcoat pocket. Now I hate her almost cruelly. No, I haven’t +forgiven her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you accept the money?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +“If I hadn’t,” said M. Nioche, “I should have hated her +still more. That’s what misery is. No, I haven’t forgiven +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take care you don’t hurt her!” said Newman, laughing again. +And with this he took his leave. As he passed along the glazed side of the +café, on reaching the street, he saw the old man motioning the waiter, with a +melancholy gesture, to replenish his glass. +</p> + +<p> +One day, a week after his visit to the Café de la Patrie, he called upon +Valentin de Bellegarde, and by good fortune found him at home. Newman spoke of +his interview with M. Nioche and his daughter, and said he was afraid Valentin +had judged the old man correctly. He had found the couple hobnobbing together +in all amity; the old gentleman’s rigor was purely theoretic. Newman +confessed that he was disappointed; he should have expected to see M. Nioche +take high ground. +</p> + +<p> +“High ground, my dear fellow,” said Valentin, laughing; +“there is no high ground for him to take. The only perceptible eminence +in M. Nioche’s horizon is Montmartre, which is not an edifying quarter. +You can’t go mountaineering in a flat country.” +</p> + +<p> +“He remarked, indeed,” said Newman, “that he has not forgiven +her. But she’ll never find it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must do him the justice to suppose he doesn’t like the +thing,” Valentin rejoined. “Mademoiselle Nioche is like the great +artists whose biographies we read, who at the beginning of their career have +suffered opposition in the domestic circle. Their vocation has not been +recognized by their families, but the world has done it justice. Mademoiselle +Nioche has a vocation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come,” said Newman, impatiently, “you take the little +baggage too seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know I do; but when one has nothing to think about, one must think of +little baggages. I suppose it is better to be serious about light things than +not to be serious at all. This little baggage entertains me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she has discovered that. She knows you have been hunting her up and +asking questions about her. She is very much tickled by it. That’s rather +annoying.” +</p> + +<p> +“Annoying, my dear fellow,” laughed Valentin; “not the +least!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hanged if I should want to have a greedy little adventuress like that +know I was giving myself such pains about her!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty woman is always worth one’s pains,” objected +Valentin. “Mademoiselle Nioche is welcome to be tickled by my curiosity, +and to know that I am tickled that she is tickled. She is not so much tickled, +by the way.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better go and tell her,” Newman rejoined. “She gave +me a message for you of some such drift.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless your quiet imagination,” said Valentin, “I have been +to see her—three times in five days. She is a charming hostess; we talk +of Shakespeare and the musical glasses. She is extremely clever and a very +curious type; not at all coarse or wanting to be coarse; determined not to be. +She means to take very good care of herself. She is extremely perfect; she is +as hard and clear-cut as some little figure of a sea-nymph in an antique +intaglio, and I will warrant that she has not a grain more of sentiment or +heart than if she was scooped out of a big amethyst. You can’t scratch +her even with a diamond. Extremely pretty,—really, when you know her, she +is wonderfully pretty,—intelligent, determined, ambitious, unscrupulous, +capable of looking at a man strangled without changing color, she is upon my +honor, extremely entertaining.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a fine list of attractions,” said Newman; “they +would serve as a police-detective’s description of a favorite criminal. I +should sum them up by another word than ‘entertaining.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that is just the word to use. I don’t say she is laudable or +lovable. I don’t want her as my wife or my sister. But she is a very +curious and ingenious piece of machinery; I like to see it in operation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I have seen some very curious machines too,” said Newman; +“and once, in a needle factory, I saw a gentleman from the city, who had +stopped too near one of them, picked up as neatly as if he had been prodded by +a fork, swallowed down straight, and ground into small pieces.” +</p> + +<p> +Re-entering his domicile, late in the evening, three days after Madame de +Bellegarde had made her bargain with him—the expression is sufficiently +correct—touching the entertainment at which she was to present him to the +world, he found on his table a card of goodly dimensions bearing an +announcement that this lady would be at home on the 27th of the month, at ten +o’clock in the evening. He stuck it into the frame of his mirror and eyed +it with some complacency; it seemed an agreeable emblem of triumph, documentary +evidence that his prize was gained. Stretched out in a chair, he was looking at +it lovingly, when Valentin de Bellegarde was shown into the room. +Valentin’s glance presently followed the direction of Newman’s, and +he perceived his mother’s invitation. +</p> + +<p> +“And what have they put into the corner?” he asked. “Not the +customary ‘music,’ ‘dancing,’ or <i>‘tableaux +vivants’?</i> They ought at least to put ‘An +American.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there are to be several of us,” said Newman. “Mrs. +Tristram told me to-day that she had received a card and sent an +acceptance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, then, with Mrs. Tristram and her husband you will have support. My +mother might have put on her card ‘Three Americans.’ But I suspect +you will not lack amusement. You will see a great many of the best people in +France. I mean the long pedigrees and the high noses, and all that. Some of +them are awful idiots; I advise you to take them up cautiously.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I guess I shall like them,” said Newman. “I am prepared +to like every one and everything in these days; I am in high good-humor.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin looked at him a moment in silence and then dropped himself into a +chair with an unwonted air of weariness. +</p> + +<p> +“Happy man!” he said with a sigh. “Take care you don’t +become offensive.” +</p> + +<p> +“If anyone chooses to take offense, he may. I have a good +conscience,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“So you are really in love with my sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir!” said Newman, after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“And she also?” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess she likes me,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the witchcraft you have used?” Valentin asked. “How +do <i>you</i> make love?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I haven’t any general rules,” said Newman. “In any +way that seems acceptable.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suspect that, if one knew it,” said Valentin, laughing, +“you are a terrible customer. You walk in seven-league boots.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is something the matter with you to-night,” Newman said in +response to this. “You are vicious. Spare me all discordant sounds until +after my marriage. Then, when I have settled down for life, I shall be better +able to take things as they come.” +</p> + +<p> +“And when does your marriage take place?” +</p> + +<p> +“About six weeks hence.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin was silent a while, and then he said, “And you feel very +confident about the future?” +</p> + +<p> +“Confident. I knew what I wanted, exactly, and I know what I have +got.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are sure you are going to be happy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure?” said Newman. “So foolish a question deserves a +foolish answer. Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not afraid of anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“What should I be afraid of? You can’t hurt me unless you kill me +by some violent means. That I should indeed consider a tremendous sell. I want +to live and I mean to live. I can’t die of illness, I am too ridiculously +tough; and the time for dying of old age won’t come round yet a while. I +can’t lose my wife, I shall take too good care of her. I may lose my +money, or a large part of it; but that won’t matter, for I shall make +twice as much again. So what have I to be afraid of?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not afraid it may be rather a mistake for an American man of +business to marry a French countess?” +</p> + +<p> +“For the countess, possibly; but not for the man of business, if you mean +me! But my countess shall not be disappointed; I answer for her +happiness!” And as if he felt the impulse to celebrate his happy +certitude by a bonfire, he got up to throw a couple of logs upon the already +blazing hearth. Valentin watched for a few moments the quickened flame, and +then, with his head leaning on his hand, gave a melancholy sigh. “Got a +headache?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Je suis triste</i>,” said Valentin, with Gallic simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +“You are sad, eh? It is about the lady you said the other night that you +adored and that you couldn’t marry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did I really say that? It seemed to me afterwards that the words had +escaped me. Before Claire it was bad taste. But I felt gloomy as I spoke, and I +feel gloomy still. Why did you ever introduce me to that girl?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s Noémie, is it? Lord deliver us! You don’t mean to +say you are lovesick about her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lovesick, no; it’s not a grand passion. But the cold-blooded +little demon sticks in my thoughts; she has bitten me with those even little +teeth of hers; I feel as if I might turn rabid and do something crazy in +consequence. It’s very low, it’s disgustingly low. She’s the +most mercenary little jade in Europe. Yet she really affects my peace of mind; +she is always running in my head. It’s a striking contrast to your noble +and virtuous attachment—a vile contrast! It is rather pitiful that it +should be the best I am able to do for myself at my present respectable age. I +am a nice young man, eh, <i>en somme?</i> You can’t warrant my future, as +you do your own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Drop that girl, short,” said Newman; “don’t go near +her again, and your future will do. Come over to America and I will get you a +place in a bank.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is easy to say drop her,” said Valentin, with a light laugh. +“You can’t drop a pretty woman like that. One must be polite, even +with Noémie. Besides, I’ll not have her suppose I am afraid of +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“So, between politeness and vanity, you will get deeper into the mud? +Keep them both for something better. Remember, too, that I didn’t want to +introduce you to her; you insisted. I had a sort of uneasy feeling about +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t reproach you,” said Valentin. “Heaven +forbid! I wouldn’t for the world have missed knowing her. She is really +extraordinary. The way she has already spread her wings is amazing. I +don’t know when a woman has amused me more. But excuse me,” he +added in an instant; “she doesn’t amuse you, at second hand, and +the subject is an impure one. Let us talk of something else.” Valentin +introduced another topic, but within five minutes Newman observed that, by a +bold transition, he had reverted to Mademoiselle Nioche, and was giving +pictures of her manners and quoting specimens of her <i>mots</i>. These were +very witty, and, for a young woman who six months before had been painting the +most artless madonnas, startlingly cynical. But at last, abruptly, he stopped, +became thoughtful, and for some time afterwards said nothing. When he rose to +go it was evident that his thoughts were still running upon Mademoiselle +Nioche. “Yes, she’s a frightful little monster!” he said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p> +The next ten days were the happiest that Newman had ever known. He saw Madame +de Cintré every day, and never saw either old Madame de Bellegarde or the elder +of his prospective brothers-in-law. Madame de Cintré at last seemed to think it +becoming to apologize for their never being present. “They are much taken +up,” she said, “with doing the honors of Paris to Lord +Deepmere.” There was a smile in her gravity as she made this declaration, +and it deepened as she added, “He is our seventh cousin, you know, and +blood is thicker than water. And then, he is so interesting!” And with +this she laughed. +</p> + +<p> +Newman met young Madame de Bellegarde two or three times, always roaming about +with graceful vagueness, as if in search of an unattainable ideal of amusement. +She always reminded him of a painted perfume-bottle with a crack in it; but he +had grown to have a kindly feeling for her, based on the fact of her owing +conjugal allegiance to Urbain de Bellegarde. He pitied M. de Bellegarde’s +wife, especially since she was a silly, thirstily-smiling little brunette, with +a suggestion of an unregulated heart. The small marquise sometimes looked at +him with an intensity too marked not to be innocent, for coquetry is more +finely shaded. She apparently wanted to ask him something or tell him +something; he wondered what it was. But he was shy of giving her an +opportunity, because, if her communication bore upon the aridity of her +matrimonial lot, he was at a loss to see how he could help her. He had a fancy, +however, of her coming up to him some day and saying (after looking around +behind her) with a little passionate hiss, “I know you detest my husband; +let me have the pleasure of assuring you for once that you are right. Pity a +poor woman who is married to a clock-image in <i>papier-mâché!</i>” +Possessing, however, in default of a competent knowledge of the principles of +etiquette, a very downright sense of the “meanness” of certain +actions, it seemed to him to belong to his position to keep on his guard; he +was not going to put it into the power of these people to say that in their +house he had done anything unpleasant. As it was, Madame de Bellegarde used to +give him news of the dress she meant to wear at his wedding, and which had not +yet, in her creative imagination, in spite of many interviews with the tailor, +resolved itself into its composite totality. “I told you pale blue bows +on the sleeves, at the elbows,” she said. “But to-day I don’t +see my blue bows at all. I don’t know what has become of them. To-day I +see pink—a tender pink. And then I pass through strange, dull phases in +which neither blue nor pink says anything to me. And yet I must have the +bows.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have them green or yellow,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Malheureux!</i>” the little marquise would cry. “Green +bows would break your marriage—your children would be +illegitimate!” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré was calmly happy before the world, and Newman had the felicity +of fancying that before him, when the world was absent, she was almost +agitatedly happy. She said very tender things. “I take no pleasure in +you. You never give me a chance to scold you, to correct you. I bargained for +that, I expected to enjoy it. But you won’t do anything dreadful; you are +dismally inoffensive. It is very stupid; there is no excitement for me; I might +as well be marrying someone else.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid it’s the worst I can do,” Newman would say in +answer to this. “Kindly overlook the deficiency.” He assured her +that he, at least, would never scold her; she was perfectly satisfactory. +“If you only knew,” he said, “how exactly you are what I +coveted! And I am beginning to understand why I coveted it; the having it makes +all the difference that I expected. Never was a man so pleased with his good +fortune. You have been holding your head for a week past just as I wanted my +wife to hold hers. You say just the things I want her to say. You walk about +the room just as I want her to walk. You have just the taste in dress that I +want her to have. In short, you come up to the mark, and, I can tell you, my +mark was high.” +</p> + +<p> +These observations seemed to make Madame de Cintré rather grave. At last she +said, “Depend upon it, I don’t come up to the mark; your mark is +too high. I am not all that you suppose; I am a much smaller affair. She is a +magnificent woman, your ideal. Pray, how did she come to such +perfection?” +</p> + +<p> +“She was never anything else,” Newman said. +</p> + +<p> +“I really believe,” Madame de Cintré went on, “that she is +better than my own ideal. Do you know that is a very handsome compliment? Well, +sir, I will make her my own!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram came to see her dear Claire after Newman had announced his +engagement, and she told our hero the next day that his good fortune was simply +absurd. “For the ridiculous part of it is,” she said, “that +you are evidently going to be as happy as if you were marrying Miss Smith or +Miss Thompson. I call it a brilliant match for you, but you get brilliancy +without paying any tax upon it. Those things are usually a compromise, but here +you have everything, and nothing crowds anything else out. You will be +brilliantly happy as well.” Newman thanked her for her pleasant, +encouraging way of saying things; no woman could encourage or discourage +better. Tristram’s way of saying things was different; he had been taken +by his wife to call upon Madame de Cintré, and he gave an account of the +expedition. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t catch me giving an opinion on your countess this +time,” he said; “I put my foot in it once. That’s a d—d +underhand thing to do, by the way—coming round to sound a fellow upon the +woman you are going to marry. You deserve anything you get. Then of course you +rush and tell her, and she takes care to make it pleasant for the poor spiteful +wretch the first time he calls. I will do you the justice to say, however, that +you don’t seem to have told Madame de Cintré; or if you have, she’s +uncommonly magnanimous. She was very nice; she was tremendously polite. She and +Lizzie sat on the sofa, pressing each other’s hands and calling each +other <i>chère belle</i>, and Madame de Cintré sent me with every third word a +magnificent smile, as if to give me to understand that I too was a handsome +dear. She quite made up for past neglect, I assure you; she was very pleasant +and sociable. Only in an evil hour it came into her head to say that she must +present us to her mother—her mother wished to know your friends. I +didn’t want to know her mother, and I was on the point of telling Lizzie +to go in alone and let me wait for her outside. But Lizzie, with her usual +infernal ingenuity, guessed my purpose and reduced me by a glance of her eye. +So they marched off arm in arm, and I followed as I could. We found the old +lady in her armchair, twiddling her aristocratic thumbs. She looked at Lizzie +from head to foot; but at that game Lizzie, to do her justice, was a match for +her. My wife told her we were great friends of Mr. Newman. The marquise started +a moment, and then said, ‘Oh, Mr. Newman! My daughter has made up her +mind to marry a Mr. Newman.’ Then Madame de Cintré began to fondle Lizzie +again, and said it was this dear lady that had planned the match and brought +them together. ‘Oh, ‘tis you I have to thank for my American +son-in-law,’ the old lady said to Mrs. Tristram. ‘It was a very +clever thought of yours. Be sure of my gratitude.’ And then she began to +look at me and presently said, ‘Pray, are you engaged in some species of +manufacture?’ I wanted to say that I manufactured broom-sticks for old +witches to ride on, but Lizzie got in ahead of me. ‘My husband, Madame la +Marquise,’ she said, ‘belongs to that unfortunate class of persons +who have no profession and no business, and do very little good in the +world.’ To get her poke at the old woman she didn’t care where she +shoved me. ‘Dear me,’ said the marquise, ‘we all have our +duties.’ ‘I am sorry mine compel me to take leave of you,’ +said Lizzie. And we bundled out again. But you have a mother-in-law, in all the +force of the term.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Newman, “my mother-in-law desires nothing better +than to let me alone.” +</p> + +<p> +Betimes, on the evening of the 27th, he went to Madame de Bellegarde’s +ball. The old house in the Rue de l’Université looked strangely +brilliant. In the circle of light projected from the outer gate a detachment of +the populace stood watching the carriages roll in; the court was illumined with +flaring torches and the portico carpeted with crimson. When Newman arrived +there were but a few people present. The marquise and her two daughters were at +the top of the staircase, where the sallow old nymph in the angle peeped out +from a bower of plants. Madame de Bellegarde, in purple and fine laces, looked +like an old lady painted by Vandyke; Madame de Cintré was dressed in white. The +old lady greeted Newman with majestic formality, and looking round her, called +several of the persons who were standing near. They were elderly gentlemen, of +what Valentin de Bellegarde had designated as the high-nosed category; two or +three of them wore cordons and stars. They approached with measured alertness, +and the marquise said that she wished to present them to Mr. Newman, who was +going to marry her daughter. Then she introduced successively three dukes, +three counts, and a baron. These gentlemen bowed and smiled most agreeably, and +Newman indulged in a series of impartial hand-shakes, accompanied by a +“Happy to make your acquaintance, sir.” He looked at Madame de +Cintré, but she was not looking at him. If his personal self-consciousness had +been of a nature to make him constantly refer to her, as the critic before +whom, in company, he played his part, he might have found it a flattering proof +of her confidence that he never caught her eyes resting upon him. It is a +reflection Newman did not make, but we nevertheless risk it, that in spite of +this circumstance she probably saw every movement of his little finger. Young +Madame de Bellegarde was dressed in an audacious toilet of crimson crape, +bestrewn with huge silver moons—thin crescent and full disks. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t say anything about my dress,” she said to Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel,” he answered, “as if I were looking at you through a +telescope. It is very strange.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it is strange it matches the occasion. But I am not a heavenly +body.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw the sky at midnight that particular shade of crimson,” +said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“That is my originality; anyone could have chosen blue. My sister-in-law +would have chosen a lovely shade of blue, with a dozen little delicate moons. +But I think crimson is much more amusing. And I give my idea, which is +moonshine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Moonshine and bloodshed,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“A murder by moonlight,” laughed Madame de Bellegarde. “What +a delicious idea for a toilet! To make it complete, there is the silver dagger, +you see, stuck into my hair. But here comes Lord Deepmere,” she added in +a moment. “I must find out what he thinks of it.” Lord Deepmere +came up, looking very red in the face, and laughing. “Lord Deepmere +can’t decide which he prefers, my sister-in-law or me,” said Madame +de Bellegarde. “He likes Claire because she is his cousin, and me because +I am not. But he has no right to make love to Claire, whereas I am perfectly +<i>disponible</i>. It is very wrong to make love to a woman who is engaged, but +it is very wrong not to make love to a woman who is married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s very jolly making love to married women,” said Lord +Deepmere, “because they can’t ask you to marry them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that what the others do, the spinsters?” Newman inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, yes,” said Lord Deepmere; “in England all the girls +ask a fellow to marry them.” +</p> + +<p> +“And a fellow brutally refuses,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, really, you know, a fellow can’t marry any girl that asks +him,” said his lordship. +</p> + +<p> +“Your cousin won’t ask you. She is going to marry Mr. +Newman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s a very different thing!” laughed Lord Deepmere. +</p> + +<p> +“You would have accepted <i>her</i>, I suppose. That makes me hope that +after all you prefer me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, when things are nice I never prefer one to the other,” said +the young Englishman. “I take them all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, what a horror! I won’t be taken in that way; I must be kept +apart,” cried Madame de Bellegarde. “Mr. Newman is much better; he +knows how to choose. Oh, he chooses as if he were threading a needle. He +prefers Madame de Cintré to any conceivable creature or thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you can’t help my being her cousin,” said Lord +Deepmere to Newman, with candid hilarity. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, I can’t help that,” said Newman, laughing back; +“neither can she!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you can’t help my dancing with her,” said Lord Deepmere, +with sturdy simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +“I could prevent that only by dancing with her myself,” said +Newman. “But unfortunately I don’t know how to dance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you may dance without knowing how; may you not, milord?” said +Madame de Bellegarde. But to this Lord Deepmere replied that a fellow ought to +know how to dance if he didn’t want to make an ass of himself; and at +this moment Urbain de Bellegarde joined the group, slow-stepping and with his +hands behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a very splendid entertainment,” said Newman, cheerfully. +“The old house looks very bright.” +</p> + +<p> +“If <i>you</i> are pleased, we are content,” said the marquis, +lifting his shoulders and bending them forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I suspect everyone is pleased,” said Newman. “How can +they help being pleased when the first thing they see as they come in is your +sister, standing there as beautiful as an angel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she is very beautiful,” rejoined the marquis, solemnly. +“But that is not so great a source of satisfaction to other people, +naturally, as to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I am satisfied, marquis, I am satisfied,” said Newman, with +his protracted enunciation. “And now tell me,” he added, looking +round, “who some of your friends are.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde looked about him in silence, with his head bent and his hand +raised to his lower lip, which he slowly rubbed. A stream of people had been +pouring into the salon in which Newman stood with his host, the rooms were +filling up and the spectacle had become brilliant. It borrowed its splendor +chiefly from the shining shoulders and profuse jewels of the women, and from +the voluminous elegance of their dresses. There were no uniforms, as Madame de +Bellegarde’s door was inexorably closed against the myrmidons of the +upstart power which then ruled the fortunes of France, and the great company of +smiling and chattering faces was not graced by any very frequent suggestions of +harmonious beauty. It is a pity, nevertheless, that Newman had not been a +physiognomist, for a great many of the faces were irregularly agreeable, +expressive, and suggestive. If the occasion had been different they would +hardly have pleased him; he would have thought the women not pretty enough and +the men too smirking; but he was now in a humor to receive none but agreeable +impressions, and he looked no more narrowly than to perceive that everyone was +brilliant, and to feel that the sun of their brilliancy was a part of his +credit. “I will present you to some people,” said M. de Bellegarde +after a while. “I will make a point of it, in fact. You will allow +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I will shake hands with anyone you want,” said Newman. +“Your mother just introduced me to half a dozen old gentlemen. Take care +you don’t pick up the same parties again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are the gentlemen to whom my mother presented you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my word, I forgot them,” said Newman, laughing. “The +people here look very much alike.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suspect they have not forgotten you,” said the marquis. And he +began to walk through the rooms. Newman, to keep near him in the crowd, took +his arm; after which for some time, the marquis walked straight along, in +silence. At last, reaching the farther end of the suite of reception-rooms, +Newman found himself in the presence of a lady of monstrous proportions, seated +in a very capacious armchair, with several persons standing in a semicircle +round her. This little group had divided as the marquis came up, and M. de +Bellegarde stepped forward and stood for an instant silent and obsequious, with +his hat raised to his lips, as Newman had seen some gentlemen stand in churches +as soon as they entered their pews. The lady, indeed, bore a very fair likeness +to a reverend effigy in some idolatrous shrine. She was monumentally stout and +imperturbably serene. Her aspect was to Newman almost formidable; he had a +troubled consciousness of a triple chin, a small piercing eye, a vast expanse +of uncovered bosom, a nodding and twinkling tiara of plumes and gems, and an +immense circumference of satin petticoat. With her little circle of beholders +this remarkable woman reminded him of the Fat Lady at a fair. She fixed her +small, unwinking eyes at the new-comers. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear duchess,” said the marquis, “let me present you our +good friend Mr. Newman, of whom you have heard us speak. Wishing to make Mr. +Newman known to those who are dear to us, I could not possibly fail to begin +with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Charmed, dear friend; charmed, monsieur,” said the duchess in a +voice which, though small and shrill, was not disagreeable, while Newman +executed his obeisance. “I came on purpose to see monsieur. I hope he +appreciates the compliment. You have only to look at me to do so, sir,” +she continued, sweeping her person with a much-encompassing glance. Newman +hardly knew what to say, though it seemed that to a duchess who joked about her +corpulence one might say almost anything. On hearing that the duchess had come +on purpose to see Newman, the gentlemen who surrounded her turned a little and +looked at him with sympathetic curiosity. The marquis with supernatural gravity +mentioned to him the name of each, while the gentleman who bore it bowed; they +were all what are called in France <i>beaux noms</i>. “I wanted extremely +to see you,” the duchess went on. “<i>C’est positif</i>. In +the first place, I am very fond of the person you are going to marry; she is +the most charming creature in France. Mind you treat her well, or you shall +hear some news of me. But you look as if you were good. I am told you are very +remarkable. I have heard all sorts of extraordinary things about you. +<i>Voyons</i>, are they true?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you can have heard,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you have your <i>légende</i>. We have heard that you have had a +career the most checkered, the most <i>bizarre</i>. What is that about your +having founded a city some ten years ago in the great West, a city which +contains to-day half a million of inhabitants? Isn’t it half a million, +messieurs? You are exclusive proprietor of this flourishing settlement, and are +consequently fabulously rich, and you would be richer still if you didn’t +grant lands and houses free of rent to all new-comers who will pledge +themselves never to smoke cigars. At this game, in three years, we are told, +you are going to be made president of America.” +</p> + +<p> +The duchess recited this amazing “legend” with a smooth +self-possession which gave the speech to Newman’s mind, the air of being +a bit of amusing dialogue in a play, delivered by a veteran comic actress. +Before she had ceased speaking he had burst into loud, irrepressible laughter. +“Dear duchess, dear duchess,” the marquis began to murmur, +soothingly. Two or three persons came to the door of the room to see who was +laughing at the duchess. But the lady continued with the soft, serene assurance +of a person who, as a duchess, was certain of being listened to, and, as a +garrulous woman, was independent of the pulse of her auditors. “But I +know you are very remarkable. You must be, to have endeared yourself to this +good marquis and to his admirable world. They are very exacting. I myself am +not very sure at this hour of really possessing it. Eh, Bellegarde? To please +you, I see, one must be an American millionaire. But your real triumph, my dear +sir, is pleasing the countess; she is as difficult as a princess in a fairy +tale. Your success is a miracle. What is your secret? I don’t ask you to +reveal it before all these gentlemen, but come and see me some day and give me +a specimen of your talents.” +</p> + +<p> +“The secret is with Madame de Cintré,” said Newman. “You must +ask her for it. It consists in her having a great deal of charity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very pretty!” said the duchess. “That’s a very nice +specimen, to begin with. What, Bellegarde, are you already taking monsieur +away?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have a duty to perform, dear friend,” said the marquis, pointing +to the other groups. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, for you I know what that means. Well, I have seen monsieur; that is +what I wanted. He can’t persuade me that he isn’t very clever. +Farewell.” +</p> + +<p> +As Newman passed on with his host, he asked who the duchess was. “The +greatest lady in France,” said the marquis. M. de Bellegarde then +presented his prospective brother-in-law to some twenty other persons of both +sexes, selected apparently for their typically august character. In some cases +this character was written in good round hand upon the countenance of the +wearer; in others Newman was thankful for such help as his companion’s +impressively brief intimation contributed to the discovery of it. There were +large, majestic men, and small demonstrative men; there were ugly ladies in +yellow lace and quaint jewels, and pretty ladies with white shoulders from +which jewels and everything else were absent. Everyone gave Newman extreme +attention, everyone smiled, everyone was charmed to make his acquaintance, +everyone looked at him with that soft hardness of good society which puts out +its hand but keeps its fingers closed over the coin. If the marquis was going +about as a bear-leader, if the fiction of Beauty and the Beast was supposed to +have found its companion-piece, the general impression appeared to be that the +bear was a very fair imitation of humanity. Newman found his reception among +the marquis’s friends very “pleasant;” he could not have said +more for it. It was pleasant to be treated with so much explicit politeness; it +was pleasant to hear neatly turned civilities, with a flavor of wit, uttered +from beneath carefully-shaped moustaches; it was pleasant to see clever +Frenchwomen—they all seemed clever—turn their backs to their +partners to get a good look at the strange American whom Claire de Cintré was +to marry, and reward the object of the exhibition with a charming smile. At +last, as he turned away from a battery of smiles and other amenities, Newman +caught the eye of the marquis looking at him heavily; and thereupon, for a +single instant, he checked himself. “Am I behaving like a d—d +fool?” he asked himself. “Am I stepping about like a terrier on his +hind legs?” At this moment he perceived Mrs. Tristram at the other side +of the room, and he waved his hand in farewell to M. de Bellegarde and made his +way toward her. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I holding my head too high?” he asked. “Do I look as if I +had the lower end of a pulley fastened to my chin?” +</p> + +<p> +“You look like all happy men, very ridiculous,” said Mrs. Tristram. +“It’s the usual thing, neither better nor worse. I have been +watching you for the last ten minutes, and I have been watching M. de +Bellegarde. He doesn’t like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The more credit to him for putting it through,” replied Newman. +“But I shall be generous. I shan’t trouble him any more. But I am +very happy. I can’t stand still here. Please to take my arm and we will +go for a walk.” +</p> + +<p> +He led Mrs. Tristram through all the rooms. There were a great many of them, +and, decorated for the occasion and filled with a stately crowd, their somewhat +tarnished nobleness recovered its lustre. Mrs. Tristram, looking about her, +dropped a series of softly-incisive comments upon her fellow-guests. But Newman +made vague answers; he hardly heard her, his thoughts were elsewhere. They were +lost in a cheerful sense of success, of attainment and victory. His momentary +care as to whether he looked like a fool passed away, leaving him simply with a +rich contentment. He had got what he wanted. The savor of success had always +been highly agreeable to him, and it had been his fortune to know it often. But +it had never before been so sweet, been associated with so much that was +brilliant and suggestive and entertaining. The lights, the flowers, the music, +the crowd, the splendid women, the jewels, the strangeness even of the +universal murmur of a clever foreign tongue were all a vivid symbol and +assurance of his having grasped his purpose and forced along his groove. If +Newman’s smile was larger than usual, it was not tickled vanity that +pulled the strings; he had no wish to be shown with the finger or to achieve a +personal success. If he could have looked down at the scene, invisible, from a +hole in the roof, he would have enjoyed it quite as much. It would have spoken +to him about his own prosperity and deepened that easy feeling about life to +which, sooner or later, he made all experience contribute. Just now the cup +seemed full. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a very pretty party,” said Mrs. Tristram, after they had +walked a while. “I have seen nothing objectionable except my husband +leaning against the wall and talking to an individual whom I suppose he takes +for a duke, but whom I more than suspect to be the functionary who attends to +the lamps. Do you think you could separate them? Knock over a lamp!” +</p> + +<p> +I doubt whether Newman, who saw no harm in Tristram’s conversing with an +ingenious mechanic, would have complied with this request; but at this moment +Valentin de Bellegarde drew near. Newman, some weeks previously, had presented +Madame de Cintré’s youngest brother to Mrs. Tristram, for whose merits +Valentin professed a discriminating relish and to whom he had paid several +visits. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever read Keats’s Belle Dame sans Merci?” asked Mrs. +Tristram. “You remind me of the hero of the ballad:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,<br /> +Alone and palely loitering?’” +</p> + +<p> +“If I am alone, it is because I have been deprived of your +society,” said Valentin. “Besides it is good manners for no man +except Newman to look happy. This is all to his address. It is not for you and +me to go before the curtain.” +</p> + +<p> +“You promised me last spring,” said Newman to Mrs. Tristram, +“that six months from that time I should get into a monstrous rage. It +seems to me the time’s up, and yet the nearest I can come to doing +anything rough now is to offer you a <i>café glacé</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you we should do things grandly,” said Valentin. “I +don’t allude to the <i>cafés glacés</i>. But everyone is here, and my +sister told me just now that Urbain had been adorable.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a good fellow, he’s a good fellow,” said Newman. +“I love him as a brother. That reminds me that I ought to go and say +something polite to your mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let it be something very polite indeed,” said Valentin. “It +may be the last time you will feel so much like it!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman walked away, almost disposed to clasp old Madame de Bellegarde round the +waist. He passed through several rooms and at last found the old marquise in +the first saloon, seated on a sofa, with her young kinsman, Lord Deepmere, +beside her. The young man looked somewhat bored; his hands were thrust into his +pockets and his eyes were fixed upon the toes of his shoes, his feet being +thrust out in front of him. Madame de Bellegarde appeared to have been talking +to him with some intensity and to be waiting for an answer to what she had +said, or for some sign of the effect of her words. Her hands were folded in her +lap, and she was looking at his lordship’s simple physiognomy with an air +of politely suppressed irritation. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Deepmere looked up as Newman approached, met his eyes, and changed color. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I disturb an interesting interview,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde rose, and her companion rising at the same time, she put +her hand into his arm. She answered nothing for an instant, and then, as he +remained silent, she said with a smile, “It would be polite for Lord +Deepmere to say it was very interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m not polite!” cried his lordship. “But it +<i>was</i> interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame de Bellegarde was giving you some good advice, eh?” said +Newman; “toning you down a little?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was giving him some excellent advice,” said the marquise, fixing +her fresh, cold eyes upon our hero. “It’s for him to take +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take it, sir—take it,” Newman exclaimed. “Any advice +the marquise gives you to-night must be good. For to-night, marquise, you must +speak from a cheerful, comfortable spirit, and that makes good advice. You see +everything going on so brightly and successfully round you. Your party is +magnificent; it was a very happy thought. It is much better than that thing of +mine would have been.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you are pleased I am satisfied,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +“My desire was to please you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want to please me a little more?” said Newman. “Just +drop our lordly friend; I am sure he wants to be off and shake his heels a +little. Then take my arm and walk through the rooms.” +</p> + +<p> +“My desire was to please you,” the old lady repeated. And she +liberated Lord Deepmere, Newman rather wondering at her docility. “If +this young man is wise,” she added, “he will go and find my +daughter and ask her to dance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been endorsing your advice,” said Newman, bending over her +and laughing, “I suppose I must swallow that!” +</p> + +<p> +Lord Deepmere wiped his forehead and departed, and Madame de Bellegarde took +Newman’s arm. “Yes, it’s a very pleasant, sociable +entertainment,” the latter declared, as they proceeded on their circuit. +“Everyone seems to know everyone and to be glad to see everyone. The +marquis has made me acquainted with ever so many people, and I feel quite like +one of the family. It’s an occasion,” Newman continued, wanting to +say something thoroughly kind and comfortable, “that I shall always +remember, and remember very pleasantly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it is an occasion that we shall none of us forget,” said +the marquise, with her pure, neat enunciation. +</p> + +<p> +People made way for her as she passed, others turned round and looked at her, +and she received a great many greetings and pressings of the hand, all of which +she accepted with the most delicate dignity. But though she smiled upon +everyone, she said nothing until she reached the last of the rooms, where she +found her elder son. Then, “This is enough, sir,” she declared with +measured softness to Newman, and turned to the marquis. He put out both his +hands and took both hers, drawing her to a seat with an air of the tenderest +veneration. It was a most harmonious family group, and Newman discreetly +retired. He moved through the rooms for some time longer, circulating freely, +overtopping most people by his great height, renewing acquaintance with some of +the groups to which Urbain de Bellegarde had presented him, and expending +generally the surplus of his equanimity. He continued to find it all extremely +agreeable; but the most agreeable things have an end, and the revelry on this +occasion began to deepen to a close. The music was sounding its ultimate +strains and people were looking for the marquise, to make their farewells. +There seemed to be some difficulty in finding her, and Newman heard a report +that she had left the ball, feeling faint. “She has succumbed to the +emotions of the evening,” he heard a lady say. “Poor, dear +marquise; I can imagine all that they may have been for her!” But he +learned immediately afterwards that she had recovered herself and was seated in +an armchair near the doorway, receiving parting compliments from great ladies +who insisted upon her not rising. He himself set out in quest of Madame de +Cintré. He had seen her move past him many times in the rapid circles of a +waltz, but in accordance with her explicit instructions he had exchanged no +words with her since the beginning of the evening. The whole house having been +thrown open, the apartments of the <i>rez-de-chaussée</i> were also accessible, +though a smaller number of persons had gathered there. Newman wandered through +them, observing a few scattered couples to whom this comparative seclusion +appeared grateful and reached a small conservatory which opened into the +garden. The end of the conservatory was formed by a clear sheet of glass, +unmasked by plants, and admitting the winter starlight so directly that a +person standing there would seem to have passed into the open air. Two persons +stood there now, a lady and a gentleman; the lady Newman, from within the room +and although she had turned her back to it, immediately recognized as Madame de +Cintré. He hesitated as to whether he would advance, but as he did so she +looked round, feeling apparently that he was there. She rested her eyes on him +a moment and then turned again to her companion. +</p> + +<p> +“It is almost a pity not to tell Mr. Newman,” she said softly, but +in a tone that Newman could hear. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him if you like!” the gentleman answered, in the voice of +Lord Deepmere. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, tell me by all means!” said Newman advancing. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Deepmere, he observed, was very red in the face, and he had twisted his +gloves into a tight cord as if he had been squeezing them dry. These, +presumably, were tokens of violent emotion, and it seemed to Newman that the +traces of corresponding agitation were visible in Madame de Cintré’s +face. The two had been talking with much vivacity. “What I should tell +you is only to my lord’s credit,” said Madame de Cintré, smiling +frankly enough. +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t like it any better for that!” said my lord, with +his awkward laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Come; what’s the mystery?” Newman demanded. “Clear it +up. I don’t like mysteries.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must have some things we don’t like, and go without some we +do,” said the ruddy young nobleman, laughing still. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s to Lord Deepmere’s credit, but it is not to +everyone’s,” said Madam de Cintré. “So I shall say nothing +about it. You may be sure,” she added; and she put out her hand to the +Englishman, who took it half shyly, half impetuously. “And now go and +dance!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I feel awfully like dancing!” he answered. “I shall +go and get tipsy.” And he walked away with a gloomy guffaw. +</p> + +<p> +“What has happened between you?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell you—now,” said Madame de Cintré. +“Nothing that need make you unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has the little Englishman been trying to make love to you?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated, and then she uttered a grave “No! he’s a very honest +little fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you are agitated. Something is the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, I repeat, that need make you unhappy. My agitation is over. +Some day I will tell you what it was; not now. I can’t now!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I confess,” remarked Newman, “I don’t want to +hear anything unpleasant. I am satisfied with everything—most of all with +you. I have seen all the ladies and talked with a great many of them; but I am +satisfied with you.” Madame de Cintré covered him for a moment with her +large, soft glance, and then turned her eyes away into the starry night. So +they stood silent a moment, side by side. “Say you are satisfied with +me,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +He had to wait a moment for the answer; but it came at last, low yet distinct: +“I am very happy.” +</p> + +<p> +It was presently followed by a few words from another source, which made them +both turn round. “I am sadly afraid Madame de Cintré will take a chill. I +have ventured to bring a shawl.” Mrs. Bread stood there softly +solicitous, holding a white drapery in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Madame de Cintré, “the sight of those cold +stars gives one a sense of frost. I won’t take your shawl, but we will go +back into the house.” +</p> + +<p> +She passed back and Newman followed her, Mrs. Bread standing respectfully aside +to make way for them. Newman paused an instant before the old woman, and she +glanced up at him with a silent greeting. “Oh, yes,” he said, +“you must come and live with us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, sir, if you will,” she answered, “you have not +seen the last of me!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<p> +Newman was fond of music and went often to the opera. A couple of evenings +after Madame de Bellegarde’s ball he sat listening to “Don +Giovanni,” having in honor of this work, which he had never yet seen +represented, come to occupy his orchestra-chair before the rising of the +curtain. Frequently he took a large box and invited a party of his compatriots; +this was a mode of recreation to which he was much addicted. He liked making up +parties of his friends and conducting them to the theatre, and taking them to +drive on high drags or to dine at remote restaurants. He liked doing things +which involved his paying for people; the vulgar truth is that he enjoyed +“treating” them. This was not because he was what is called +purse-proud; handling money in public was on the contrary positively +disagreeable to him; he had a sort of personal modesty about it, akin to what +he would have felt about making a toilet before spectators. But just as it was +a gratification to him to be handsomely dressed, just so it was a private +satisfaction to him (he enjoyed it very clandestinely) to have interposed, +pecuniarily, in a scheme of pleasure. To set a large group of people in motion +and transport them to a distance, to have special conveyances, to charter +railway-carriages and steamboats, harmonized with his relish for bold +processes, and made hospitality seem more active and more to the purpose. A few +evenings before the occasion of which I speak he had invited several ladies and +gentlemen to the opera to listen to Madame Alboni—a party which included +Miss Dora Finch. It befell, however, that Miss Dora Finch, sitting near Newman +in the box, discoursed brilliantly, not only during the entr’actes, but +during many of the finest portions of the performance, so that Newman had +really come away with an irritated sense that Madame Alboni had a thin, shrill +voice, and that her musical phrase was much garnished with a laugh of the +giggling order. After this he promised himself to go for a while to the opera +alone. +</p> + +<p> +When the curtain had fallen upon the first act of “Don Giovanni” he +turned round in his place to observe the house. Presently, in one of the boxes, +he perceived Urbain de Bellegarde and his wife. The little marquise was +sweeping the house very busily with a glass, and Newman, supposing that she saw +him, determined to go and bid her good evening. M. de Bellegarde was leaning +against a column, motionless, looking straight in front of him, with one hand +in the breast of his white waistcoat and the other resting his hat on his +thigh. Newman was about to leave his place when he noticed in that obscure +region devoted to the small boxes which in France are called, not inaptly, +“bathing-tubs,” a face which even the dim light and the distance +could not make wholly indistinct. It was the face of a young and pretty woman, +and it was surmounted with a <i>coiffure</i> of pink roses and diamonds. This +person was looking round the house, and her fan was moving to and fro with the +most practiced grace; when she lowered it, Newman perceived a pair of plump +white shoulders and the edge of a rose-colored dress. Beside her, very close to +the shoulders and talking, apparently with an earnestness which it pleased her +scantily to heed, sat a young man with a red face and a very low shirt-collar. +A moment’s gazing left Newman with no doubts; the pretty young woman was +Noémie Nioche. He looked hard into the depths of the box, thinking her father +might perhaps be in attendance, but from what he could see the young +man’s eloquence had no other auditor. Newman at last made his way out, +and in doing so he passed beneath the <i>baignoire</i> of Mademoiselle Noémie. +She saw him as he approached and gave him a nod and smile which seemed meant as +an assurance that she was still a good-natured girl, in spite of her enviable +rise in the world. Newman passed into the <i>foyer</i> and walked through it. +Suddenly he paused in front of a gentleman seated on one of the divans. The +gentleman’s elbows were on his knees; he was leaning forward and staring +at the pavement, lost apparently in meditations of a somewhat gloomy cast. But +in spite of his bent head Newman recognized him, and in a moment sat down +beside him. Then the gentleman looked up and displayed the expressive +countenance of Valentin de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“What in the world are you thinking of so hard?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“A subject that requires hard thinking to do it justice,” said +Valentin. “My immeasurable idiocy.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter now?” +</p> + +<p> +“The matter now is that I am a man again, and no more a fool than usual. +But I came within an inch of taking that girl <i>au sérieux</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean the young lady below stairs, in a <i>baignoire</i> in a pink +dress?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you notice what a brilliant kind of pink it was?” Valentin +inquired, by way of answer. “It makes her look as white as new +milk.” +</p> + +<p> +“White or black, as you please. But you have stopped going to see +her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, bless you, no. Why should I stop? I have changed, but she +hasn’t,” said Valentin. “I see she is a vulgar little wretch, +after all. But she is as amusing as ever, and one <i>must</i> be amused.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I am glad she strikes you so unpleasantly,” Newman rejoiced. +“I suppose you have swallowed all those fine words you used about her the +other night. You compared her to a sapphire, or a topaz, or an +amethyst—some precious stone; what was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t remember,” said Valentin, “it may have been to +a carbuncle! But she won’t make a fool of me now. She has no real charm. +It’s an awfully low thing to make a mistake about a person of that +sort.” +</p> + +<p> +“I congratulate you,” Newman declared, “upon the scales +having fallen from your eyes. It’s a great triumph; it ought to make you +feel better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it makes me feel better!” said Valentin, gaily. Then, +checking himself, he looked askance at Newman. “I rather think you are +laughing at me. If you were not one of the family I would take it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, I’m not laughing, any more than I am one of the family. +You make me feel badly. You are too clever a fellow, you are made of too good +stuff, to spend your time in ups and downs over that class of goods. The idea +of splitting hairs about Miss Nioche! It seems to me awfully foolish. You say +you have given up taking her seriously; but you take her seriously so long as +you take her at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin turned round in his place and looked a while at Newman, wrinkling his +forehead and rubbing his knees. “<i>Vous parlez d’or</i>. But she +has wonderfully pretty arms. Would you believe I didn’t know it till this +evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“But she is a vulgar little wretch, remember, all the same,” said +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; the other day she had the bad taste to begin to abuse her father, +to his face, in my presence. I shouldn’t have expected it of her; it was +a disappointment; heigho!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, she cares no more for her father than for her door-mat,” said +Newman. “I discovered that the first time I saw her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s another affair; she may think of the poor old beggar +what she pleases. But it was low in her to call him bad names; it quite threw +me off. It was about a frilled petticoat that he was to have fetched from the +washer-woman’s; he appeared to have neglected this graceful duty. She +almost boxed his ears. He stood there staring at her with his little blank eyes +and smoothing his old hat with his coat-tail. At last he turned round and went +out without a word. Then I told her it was in very bad taste to speak so to +one’s papa. She said she should be so thankful to me if I would mention +it to her whenever her taste was at fault; she had immense confidence in mine. +I told her I couldn’t have the bother of forming her manners; I had had +an idea they were already formed, after the best models. She had disappointed +me. But I shall get over it,” said Valentin, gaily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, time’s a great consoler!” Newman answered with humorous +sobriety. He was silent a moment, and then he added, in another tone, “I +wish you would think of what I said to you the other day. Come over to America +with us, and I will put you in the way of doing some business. You have a very +good head, if you will only use it.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin made a genial grimace. “My head is much obliged to you. Do you +mean the place in a bank?” +</p> + +<p> +“There are several places, but I suppose you would consider the bank the +most aristocratic.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin burst into a laugh. “My dear fellow, at night all cats are gray! +When one derogates there are no degrees.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman answered nothing for a minute. Then, “I think you will find there +are degrees in success,” he said with a certain dryness. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin had leaned forward again, with his elbows on his knees, and he was +scratching the pavement with his stick. At last he said, looking up, “Do +you really think I ought to do something?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman laid his hand on his companion’s arm and looked at him a moment +through sagaciously-narrowed eyelids. “Try it and see. You are not good +enough for it, but we will stretch a point.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really think I can make some money? I should like to see how it +feels to have a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do what I tell you, and you shall be rich,” said Newman. +“Think of it.” And he looked at his watch and prepared to resume +his way to Madame de Bellegarde’s box. +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my word I will think of it,” said Valentin. “I will go +and listen to Mozart another half hour—I can always think better to +music—and profoundly meditate upon it.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis was with his wife when Newman entered their box; he was bland, +remote, and correct as usual; or, as it seemed to Newman, even more than usual. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of the opera?” asked our hero. “What do +you think of the Don?” +</p> + +<p> +“We all know what Mozart is,” said the marquis; “our +impressions don’t date from this evening. Mozart is youth, freshness, +brilliancy, facility—a little too great facility, perhaps. But the +execution is here and there deplorably rough.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very curious to see how it ends,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“You speak as if it were a <i>feuilleton</i> in the <i>Figaro</i>,” +observed the marquis. “You have surely seen the opera before?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” said Newman. “I am sure I should have remembered it. +Donna Elvira reminds me of Madame de Cintré; I don’t mean in her +circumstances, but in the music she sings.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a very nice distinction,” laughed the marquis lightly. +“There is no great possibility, I imagine, of Madame de Cintré being +forsaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much!” said Newman. “But what becomes of the Don?” +</p> + +<p> +“The devil comes down—or comes up,” said Madame de +Bellegarde, “and carries him off. I suppose Zerlina reminds you of +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will go to the <i>foyer</i> for a few moments,” said the +marquis, “and give you a chance to say that the commander—the man +of stone—resembles me.” And he passed out of the box. +</p> + +<p> +The little marquise stared an instant at the velvet ledge of the balcony, and +then murmured, “Not a man of stone, a man of wood.” Newman had +taken her husband’s empty chair. She made no protest, and then she turned +suddenly and laid her closed fan upon his arm. “I am very glad you came +in,” she said. “I want to ask you a favor. I wanted to do so on +Thursday, at my mother-in-law’s ball, but you would give me no chance. +You were in such very good spirits that I thought you might grant my little +favor then; not that you look particularly doleful now. It is something you +must promise me; now is the time to take you; after you are married you will be +good for nothing. Come, promise!” +</p> + +<p> +“I never sign a paper without reading it first,” said Newman. +“Show me your document.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you must sign with your eyes shut; I will hold your hand. Come, +before you put your head into the noose. You ought to be thankful to me for +giving you a chance to do something amusing.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it is so amusing,” said Newman, “it will be in even +better season after I am married.” +</p> + +<p> +“In other words,” cried Madame de Bellegarde, “you will not +do it at all. You will be afraid of your wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if the thing is intrinsically improper,” said Newman, “I +won’t go into it. If it is not, I will do it after my marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“You talk like a treatise on logic, and English logic into the +bargain!” exclaimed Madame de Bellegarde. “Promise, then, after you +are married. After all, I shall enjoy keeping you to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, after I am married,” said Newman serenely. +</p> + +<p> +The little marquise hesitated a moment, looking at him, and he wondered what +was coming. “I suppose you know what my life is,” she presently +said. “I have no pleasure, I see nothing, I do nothing. I live in Paris +as I might live at Poitiers. My mother-in-law calls me—what is the pretty +word?—a gad-about? accuses me of going to unheard-of places, and thinks +it ought to be joy enough for me to sit at home and count over my ancestors on +my fingers. But why should I bother about my ancestors? I am sure they never +bothered about me. I don’t propose to live with a green shade on my eyes; +I hold that things were made to look at. My husband, you know, has principles, +and the first on the list is that the Tuileries are dreadfully vulgar. If the +Tuileries are vulgar, his principles are tiresome. If I chose I might have +principles quite as well as he. If they grew on one’s family tree I +should only have to give mine a shake to bring down a shower of the finest. At +any rate, I prefer clever Bonapartes to stupid Bourbons.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see; you want to go to court,” said Newman, vaguely +conjecturing that she might wish him to appeal to the United States legation to +smooth her way to the imperial halls. +</p> + +<p> +The marquise gave a little sharp laugh. “You are a thousand miles away. I +will take care of the Tuileries myself; the day I decide to go they will be +very glad to have me. Sooner or later I shall dance in an imperial quadrille. I +know what you are going to say: ‘How will you dare?’ But I +<i>shall</i> dare. I am afraid of my husband; he is soft, smooth, +irreproachable; everything that you know; but I am afraid of him—horribly +afraid of him. And yet I shall arrive at the Tuileries. But that will not be +this winter, nor perhaps next, and meantime I must live. For the moment, I want +to go somewhere else; it’s my dream. I want to go to the Bal +Bullier.” +</p> + +<p> +“To the Bal Bullier?” repeated Newman, for whom the words at first +meant nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“The ball in the Latin Quarter, where the students dance with their +mistresses. Don’t tell me you have not heard of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” said Newman; “I have heard of it; I remember now. I +have even been there. And you want to go there?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is silly, it is low, it is anything you please. But I want to go. +Some of my friends have been, and they say it is awfully <i>drôle</i>. My +friends go everywhere; it is only I who sit moping at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me you are not at home now,” said Newman, “and I +shouldn’t exactly say you were moping.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am bored to death. I have been to the opera twice a week for the last +eight years. Whenever I ask for anything my mouth is stopped with that: Pray, +madam, haven’t you an opera box? Could a woman of taste want more? In the +first place, my opera box was down in my <i>contrat</i>; they have to give it +to me. To-night, for instance, I should have preferred a thousand times to go +to the Palais Royal. But my husband won’t go to the Palais Royal because +the ladies of the court go there so much. You may imagine, then, whether he +would take me to Bullier’s; he says it is a mere imitation—and a +bad one—of what they do at the Princess Kleinfuss’s. But as I +don’t go to the Princess Kleinfuss’s, the next best thing is to go +to Bullier’s. It is my dream, at any rate, it’s a fixed idea. All I +ask of you is to give me your arm; you are less compromising than anyone else. +I don’t know why, but you are. I can arrange it. I shall risk something, +but that is my own affair. Besides, fortune favors the bold. Don’t refuse +me; it is my dream!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman gave a loud laugh. It seemed to him hardly worth while to be the wife of +the Marquis de Bellegarde, a daughter of the crusaders, heiress of six +centuries of glories and traditions, to have centred one’s aspirations +upon the sight of a couple of hundred young ladies kicking off young +men’s hats. It struck him as a theme for the moralist; but he had no time +to moralize upon it. The curtain rose again; M. de Bellegarde returned, and +Newman went back to his seat. +</p> + +<p> +He observed that Valentin de Bellegarde had taken his place in the +<i>baignoire</i> of Mademoiselle Nioche, behind this young lady and her +companion, where he was visible only if one carefully looked for him. In the +next act Newman met him in the lobby and asked him if he had reflected upon +possible emigration. “If you really meant to meditate,” he said, +“you might have chosen a better place for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the place was not bad,” said Valentin. “I was not +thinking of that girl. I listened to the music, and, without thinking of the +play or looking at the stage, I turned over your proposal. At first it seemed +quite fantastic. And then a certain fiddle in the orchestra—I could +distinguish it—began to say as it scraped away, ‘Why not, why +not?’ And then, in that rapid movement, all the fiddles took it up and +the conductor’s stick seemed to beat it in the air: ‘Why not, why +not?’ I’m sure I can’t say! I don’t see why not. I +don’t see why I shouldn’t do something. It appears to me really a +very bright idea. This sort of thing is certainly very stale. And then I could +come back with a trunk full of dollars. Besides, I might possibly find it +amusing. They call me a <i>raffiné</i>; who knows but that I might discover an +unsuspected charm in shop-keeping? It would really have a certain romantic, +picturesque side; it would look well in my biography. It would look as if I +were a strong man, a first-rate man, a man who dominated circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind how it would look,” said Newman. “It always looks +well to have half a million of dollars. There is no reason why you +shouldn’t have them if you will mind what I tell you—I +alone—and not talk to other parties.” He passed his arm into that +of his companion, and the two walked for some time up and down one of the less +frequented corridors. Newman’s imagination began to glow with the idea of +converting his bright, impracticable friend into a first-class man of business. +He felt for the moment a sort of spiritual zeal, the zeal of the propagandist. +Its ardor was in part the result of that general discomfort which the sight of +all uninvested capital produced in him; so fine an intelligence as +Bellegarde’s ought to be dedicated to high uses. The highest uses known +to Newman’s experience were certain transcendent sagacities in the +handling of railway stock. And then his zeal was quickened by his personal +kindness for Valentin; he had a sort of pity for him which he was well aware he +never could have made the Comte de Bellegarde understand. He never lost a sense +of its being pitiable that Valentin should think it a large life to revolve in +varnished boots between the Rue d’Anjou and the Rue de +l’Université, taking the Boulevard des Italiens on the way, when over +there in America one’s promenade was a continent, and one’s +Boulevard stretched from New York to San Francisco. It mortified him, moreover, +to think that Valentin lacked money; there was a painful grotesqueness in it. +It affected him as the ignorance of a companion, otherwise without reproach, +touching some rudimentary branch of learning would have done. There were things +that one knew about as a matter of course, he would have said in such a case. +Just so, if one pretended to be easy in the world, one had money as a matter of +course, one had made it! There was something almost ridiculously anomalous to +Newman in the sight of lively pretensions unaccompanied by large investments in +railroads; though I may add that he would not have maintained that such +investments were in themselves a proper ground for pretensions. “I will +make you do something,” he said to Valentin; “I will put you +through. I know half a dozen things in which we can make a place for you. You +will see some lively work. It will take you a little while to get used to the +life, but you will work in before long, and at the end of six +months—after you have done a thing or two on your own account—you +will like it. And then it will be very pleasant for you, having your sister +over there. It will be pleasant for her to have you, too. Yes, Valentin,” +continued Newman, pressing his friend’s arm genially, “I think I +see just the opening for you. Keep quiet and I’ll push you right +in.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman pursued this favoring strain for some time longer. The two men strolled +about for a quarter of an hour. Valentin listened and questioned, many of his +questions making Newman laugh loud at the <i>naïveté</i> of his ignorance of +the vulgar processes of money-getting; smiling himself, too, half ironical and +half curious. And yet he was serious; he was fascinated by Newman’s plain +prose version of the legend of El Dorado. It is true, however, that though to +accept an “opening” in an American mercantile house might be a +bold, original, and in its consequences extremely agreeable thing to do, he did +not quite see himself objectively doing it. So that when the bell rang to +indicate the close of the entr’acte, there was a certain mock-heroism in +his saying, with his brilliant smile, “Well, then, put me through; push +me in! I make myself over to you. Dip me into the pot and turn me into +gold.” +</p> + +<p> +They had passed into the corridor which encircled the row of <i>baignoires</i>, +and Valentin stopped in front of the dusky little box in which Mademoiselle +Nioche had bestowed herself, laying his hand on the doorknob. “Oh, come, +are you going back there?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mon Dieu, oui</i>,” said Valentin. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you another place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have my usual place, in the stalls.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better go and occupy it, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see her very well from there, too,” added Valentin, serenely, +“and to-night she is worth seeing. But,” he added in a moment, +“I have a particular reason for going back just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I give you up,” said Newman. “You are infatuated!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it is only this. There is a young man in the box whom I shall annoy +by going in, and I want to annoy him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to hear it,” said Newman. “Can’t you leave +the poor fellow alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he has given me cause. The box is not his. Noémie came in alone and +installed herself. I went and spoke to her, and in a few moments she asked me +to go and get her fan from the pocket of her cloak, which the <i>ouvreuse</i> +had carried off. In my absence this gentleman came in and took the chair beside +Noémie in which I had been sitting. My reappearance disgusted him, and he had +the grossness to show it. He came within an ace of being impertinent. I +don’t know who he is; he is some vulgar wretch. I can’t think where +she picks up such acquaintances. He has been drinking, too, but he knows what +he is about. Just now, in the second act, he was unmannerly again. I shall put +in another appearance for ten minutes—time enough to give him an +opportunity to commit himself, if he feels inclined. I really can’t let +the brute suppose that he is keeping me out of the box.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow,” said Newman, remonstrantly, “what +child’s play! You are not going to pick a quarrel about that girl, I +hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“That girl has nothing to do with it, and I have no intention of picking +a quarrel. I am not a bully nor a fire-eater. I simply wish to make a point +that a gentleman must.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, damn your point!” said Newman. “That is the trouble with +you Frenchmen; you must be always making points. Well,” he added, +“be short. But if you are going in for this kind of thing, we must ship +you off to America in advance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” Valentin answered, “whenever you please. But if +I go to America, I must not let this gentleman suppose that it is to run away +from him.” +</p> + +<p> +And they separated. At the end of the act Newman observed that Valentin was +still in the <i>baignoire</i>. He strolled into the corridor again, expecting +to meet him, and when he was within a few yards of Mademoiselle Nioche’s +box saw his friend pass out, accompanied by the young man who had been seated +beside its fair occupant. The two gentlemen walked with some quickness of step +to a distant part of the lobby, where Newman perceived them stop and stand +talking. The manner of each was perfectly quiet, but the stranger, who looked +flushed, had begun to wipe his face very emphatically with his +pocket-handkerchief. By this time Newman was abreast of the <i>baignoire</i>; +the door had been left ajar, and he could see a pink dress inside. He +immediately went in. Mademoiselle Nioche turned and greeted him with a +brilliant smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you have at last decided to come and see me?” she exclaimed. +“You just save your politeness. You find me in a fine moment. Sit +down.” There was a very becoming little flush in her cheek, and her eye +had a noticeable spark. You would have said that she had received some very +good news. +</p> + +<p> +“Something has happened here!” said Newman, without sitting down. +</p> + +<p> +“You find me in a very fine moment,” she repeated. “Two +gentlemen—one of them is M. de Bellegarde, the pleasure of whose +acquaintance I owe to you—have just had words about your humble servant. +Very big words too. They can’t come off without crossing swords. A +duel—that will give me a push!” cried Mademoiselle Noémie clapping +her little hands. “<i>C’est ça qui pose une femme!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say that Bellegarde is going to fight about +<i>you!</i>” exclaimed Newman disgustedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing else!” and she looked at him with a hard little smile. +“No, no, you are not <i>galant!</i> And if you prevent this affair I +shall owe you a grudge—and pay my debt!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman uttered an imprecation which, though brief—it consisted simply of +the interjection “Oh!” followed by a geographical, or more +correctly, perhaps a theological noun in four letters—had better not be +transferred to these pages. He turned his back without more ceremony upon the +pink dress and went out of the box. In the corridor he found Valentin and his +companion walking towards him. The latter was thrusting a card into his +waistcoat pocket. Mademoiselle Noémie’s jealous votary was a tall, robust +young man with a thick nose, a prominent blue eye, a Germanic physiognomy, and +a massive watch-chain. When they reached the box, Valentin with an emphasized +bow made way for him to pass in first. Newman touched Valentin’s arm as a +sign that he wished to speak with him, and Bellegarde answered that he would be +with him in an instant. Valentin entered the box after the robust young man, +but a couple of minutes afterwards he reappeared, largely smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“She is immensely tickled,” he said. “She says we will make +her fortune. I don’t want to be fatuous, but I think it is very +possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you are going to fight?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow, don’t look so mortally disgusted. It was not my +choice. The thing is all arranged.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you so!” groaned Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I told <i>him</i> so,” said Valentin, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“What did he do to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“My good friend, it doesn’t matter what. He used an +expression—I took it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I insist upon knowing; I can’t, as your elder brother, have +you rushing into this sort of nonsense.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very much obliged to you,” said Valentin. “I have +nothing to conceal, but I can’t go into particulars now and here.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will leave this place, then. You can tell me outside.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I can’t leave this place, why should I hurry away? I will +go to my orchestra-stall and sit out the opera.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not enjoy it; you will be preoccupied.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin looked at him a moment, colored a little, smiled, and patted him on +the arm. “You are delightfully simple! Before an affair a man is quiet. +The quietest thing I can do is to go straight to my place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Newman, “you want her to see you there—you +and your quietness. I am not so simple! It is a poor business.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin remained, and the two men, in their respective places, sat out the +rest of the performance, which was also enjoyed by Mademoiselle Nioche and her +truculent admirer. At the end Newman joined Valentin again, and they went into +the street together. Valentin shook his head at his friend’s proposal +that he should get into Newman’s own vehicle, and stopped on the edge of +the pavement. “I must go off alone,” he said; “I must look up +a couple of friends who will take charge of this matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will take charge of it,” Newman declared. “Put it into my +hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very kind, but that is hardly possible. In the first place, you +are, as you said just now, almost my brother; you are about to marry my sister. +That alone disqualifies you; it casts doubts on your impartiality. And if it +didn’t, it would be enough for me that I strongly suspect you of +disapproving of the affair. You would try to prevent a meeting.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I should,” said Newman. “Whoever your friends are, +I hope they will do that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unquestionably they will. They will urge that excuses be made, proper +excuses. But you would be too good-natured. You won’t do.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was silent a moment. He was keenly annoyed, but he saw it was useless to +attempt interference. “When is this precious performance to come +off?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The sooner the better,” said Valentin. “The day after +to-morrow, I hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, “I have certainly a claim to know the +facts. I can’t consent to shut my eyes to the matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be most happy to tell you the facts,” said Valentin. +“They are very simple, and it will be quickly done. But now everything +depends on my putting my hands on my friends without delay. I will jump into a +cab; you had better drive to my room and wait for me there. I will turn up at +the end of an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman assented protestingly, let his friend go, and then betook himself to the +picturesque little apartment in the Rue d’Anjou. It was more than an hour +before Valentin returned, but when he did so he was able to announce that he +had found one of his desired friends, and that this gentleman had taken upon +himself the care of securing an associate. Newman had been sitting without +lights by Valentin’s faded fire, upon which he had thrown a log; the +blaze played over the richly-encumbered little sitting-room and produced +fantastic gleams and shadows. He listened in silence to Valentin’s +account of what had passed between him and the gentleman whose card he had in +his pocket—M. Stanislas Kapp, of Strasbourg—after his return to +Mademoiselle Nioche’s box. This hospitable young lady had espied an +acquaintance on the other side of the house, and had expressed her displeasure +at his not having the civility to come and pay her a visit. “Oh, let him +alone!” M. Stanislas Kapp had hereupon exclaimed. “There are too +many people in the box already.” And he had fixed his eyes with a +demonstrative stare upon M. de Bellegarde. Valentin had promptly retorted that +if there were too many people in the box it was easy for M. Kapp to diminish +the number. “I shall be most happy to open the door for +<i>you!</i>” M. Kapp exclaimed. “I shall be delighted to fling you +into the pit!” Valentin had answered. “Oh, do make a rumpus and get +into the papers!” Miss Noémie had gleefully ejaculated. “M. Kapp, +turn him out; or, M. de Bellegarde, pitch him into the pit, into the +orchestra—anywhere! I don’t care who does which, so long as you +make a scene.” Valentin answered that they would make no scene, but that +the gentleman would be so good as to step into the corridor with him. In the +corridor, after a brief further exchange of words, there had been an exchange +of cards. M. Stanislas Kapp was very stiff. He evidently meant to force his +offence home. +</p> + +<p> +“The man, no doubt, was insolent,” Newman said; “but if you +hadn’t gone back into the box the thing wouldn’t have +happened.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, don’t you see,” Valentin replied, “that the event +proves the extreme propriety of my going back into the box? M. Kapp wished to +provoke me; he was awaiting his chance. In such a case—that is, when he +has been, so to speak, notified—a man must be on hand to receive the +provocation. My not returning would simply have been tantamount to my saying to +M. Stanislas Kapp, ‘Oh, if you are going to be +disagreeable’”— — +</p> + +<p> +“‘You must manage it by yourself; damned if I’ll help +you!’ That would have been a thoroughly sensible thing to say. The only +attraction for you seems to have been the prospect of M. Kapp’s +impertinence,” Newman went on. “You told me you were not going back +for that girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t mention that girl any more,” murmured Valentin. +“She’s a bore.” +</p> + +<p> +“With all my heart. But if that is the way you feel about her, why +couldn’t you let her alone?” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin shook his head with a fine smile. “I don’t think you quite +understand, and I don’t believe I can make you. She understood the +situation; she knew what was in the air; she was watching us.” +</p> + +<p> +“A cat may look at a king! What difference does that make?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, a man can’t back down before a woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t call her a woman. You said yourself she was a +stone,” cried Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” Valentin rejoined, “there is no disputing about +tastes. It’s a matter of feeling; it’s measured by one’s +sense of honor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, confound your sense of honor!” cried Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“It is vain talking,” said Valentin; “words have passed, and +the thing is settled.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman turned away, taking his hat. Then pausing with his hand on the door, +“What are you going to use?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That is for M. Stanislas Kapp, as the challenged party, to decide. My +own choice would be a short, light sword. I handle it well. I’m an +indifferent shot.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman had put on his hat; he pushed it back, gently scratching his forehead, +high up. “I wish it were pistols,” he said. “I could show you +how to lodge a bullet!” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin broke into a laugh. “What is it some English poet says about +consistency? It’s a flower, or a star, or a jewel. Yours has the beauty +of all three!” But he agreed to see Newman again on the morrow, after the +details of his meeting with M. Stanislas Kapp should have been arranged. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of the day Newman received three lines from him, saying that it +had been decided that he should cross the frontier, with his adversary, and +that he was to take the night express to Geneva. He should have time, however, +to dine with Newman. In the afternoon Newman called upon Madame de Cintré, but +his visit was brief. She was as gracious and sympathetic as he had ever found +her, but she was sad, and she confessed, on Newman’s charging her with +her red eyes, that she had been crying. Valentin had been with her a couple of +hours before, and his visit had left her with a painful impression. He had +laughed and gossiped, he had brought her no bad news, he had only been, in his +manner, rather more affectionate than usual. His fraternal tenderness had +touched her, and on his departure she had burst into tears. She had felt as if +something strange and sad were going to happen; she had tried to reason away +the fancy, and the effort had only given her a headache. Newman, of course, was +perforce tongue-tied about Valentin’s projected duel, and his dramatic +talent was not equal to satirizing Madame de Cintré’s presentiment as +pointedly as perfect security demanded. Before he went away he asked Madame de +Cintré whether Valentin had seen his mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, “but he didn’t make her cry.” +</p> + +<p> +It was in Newman’s own apartment that Valentin dined, having brought his +portmanteau, so that he might adjourn directly to the railway. M. Stanislas +Kapp had positively declined to make excuses, and he, on his side, obviously, +had none to offer. Valentin had found out with whom he was dealing. M. +Stanislas Kapp was the son of and heir of a rich brewer of Strasbourg, a youth +of a sanguineous—and sanguinary—temperament. He was making ducks +and drakes of the paternal brewery, and although he passed in a general way for +a good fellow, he had already been observed to be quarrelsome after dinner. +“<i>Que voulez-vous?</i>” said Valentin. “Brought up on beer, +he can’t stand champagne.” He had chosen pistols. Valentin, at +dinner, had an excellent appetite; he made a point, in view of his long +journey, of eating more than usual. He took the liberty of suggesting to Newman +a slight modification in the composition of a certain fish-sauce; he thought it +would be worth mentioning to the cook. But Newman had no thoughts for +fish-sauce; he felt thoroughly discontented. As he sat and watched his amiable +and clever companion going through his excellent repast with the delicate +deliberation of hereditary epicurism, the folly of so charming a fellow +traveling off to expose his agreeable young life for the sake of M. Stanislas +and Mademoiselle Noémie struck him with intolerable force. He had grown fond of +Valentin, he felt now how fond; and his sense of helplessness only increased +his irritation. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, this sort of thing may be all very well,” he cried at last, +“but I declare I don’t see it. I can’t stop you, perhaps, but +at least I can protest. I do protest, violently.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow, don’t make a scene,” said Valentin. +“Scenes in these cases are in very bad taste.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your duel itself is a scene,” said Newman; “that’s all +it is! It’s a wretched theatrical affair. Why don’t you take a band +of music with you outright? It’s d—d barbarous and it’s +d—d corrupt, both.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I can’t begin, at this time of day, to defend the theory of +dueling,” said Valentin. “It is our custom, and I think it is a +good thing. Quite apart from the goodness of the cause in which a duel may be +fought, it has a kind of picturesque charm which in this age of vile prose +seems to me greatly to recommend it. It’s a remnant of a higher-tempered +time; one ought to cling to it. Depend upon it, a duel is never amiss.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean by a higher-tempered time,” said +Newman. “Because your great-grandfather was an ass, is that any reason +why you should be? For my part I think we had better let our temper take care +of itself; it generally seems to me quite high enough; I am not afraid of being +too meek. If your great-grandfather were to make himself unpleasant to me, I +think I could manage him yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear friend,” said Valentin, smiling, “you can’t +invent anything that will take the place of satisfaction for an insult. To +demand it and to give it are equally excellent arrangements.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you call this sort of thing satisfaction?” Newman asked. +“Does it satisfy you to receive a present of the carcass of that coarse +fop? does it gratify you to make him a present of yours? If a man hits you, hit +him back; if a man libels you, haul him up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haul him up, into court? Oh, that is very nasty!” said Valentin. +</p> + +<p> +“The nastiness is his—not yours. And for that matter, what you are +doing is not particularly nice. You are too good for it. I don’t say you +are the most useful man in the world, or the cleverest, or the most amiable. +But you are too good to go and get your throat cut for a prostitute.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin flushed a little, but he laughed. “I shan’t get my throat +cut if I can help it. Moreover, one’s honor hasn’t two different +measures. It only knows that it is hurt; it doesn’t ask when, or how, or +where.” +</p> + +<p> +“The more fool it is!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin ceased to laugh; he looked grave. “I beg you not to say any +more,” he said. “If you do I shall almost fancy you don’t +care about—about”—and he paused. +</p> + +<p> +“About what?” +</p> + +<p> +“About that matter—about one’s honor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy what you please,” said Newman. “Fancy while you are at +it that I care about <i>you</i>—though you are not worth it. But come +back without damage,” he added in a moment, “and I will forgive +you. And then,” he continued, as Valentin was going, “I will ship +you straight off to America.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” answered Valentin, “if I am to turn over a new page, +this may figure as a tail-piece to the old.” And then he lit another +cigar and departed. +</p> + +<p> +“Blast that girl!” said Newman as the door closed upon Valentin. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<p> +Newman went the next morning to see Madame de Cintré, timing his visit so as to +arrive after the noonday breakfast. In the court of the <i>hôtel</i>, before +the portico, stood Madame de Bellegarde’s old square carriage. The +servant who opened the door answered Newman’s inquiry with a slightly +embarrassed and hesitating murmur, and at the same moment Mrs. Bread appeared +in the background, dim-visaged as usual, and wearing a large black bonnet and +shawl. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter?” asked Newman. “Is Madame la Comtesse at +home, or not?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread advanced, fixing her eyes upon him: he observed that she held a +sealed letter, very delicately, in her fingers. “The countess has left a +message for you, sir; she has left this,” said Mrs. Bread, holding out +the letter, which Newman took. +</p> + +<p> +“Left it? Is she out? Is she gone away?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is going away, sir; she is leaving town,” said Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“Leaving town!” exclaimed Newman. “What has happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not for me to say, sir,” said Mrs. Bread, with her eyes on +the ground. “But I thought it would come.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would come, pray?” Newman demanded. He had broken the seal of +the letter, but he still questioned. “She is in the house? She is +visible?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think she expected you this morning,” the old +waiting-woman replied. “She was to leave immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is she going?” +</p> + +<p> +“To Fleurières.” +</p> + +<p> +“To Fleurières? But surely I can see her?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread hesitated a moment, and then clasping together her two hands, +“I will take you!” she said. And she led the way upstairs. At the +top of the staircase she paused and fixed her dry, sad eyes upon Newman. +“Be very easy with her,” she said; “she is most +unhappy!” Then she went on to Madame de Cintré’s apartment; Newman, +perplexed and alarmed, followed her rapidly. Mrs. Bread threw open the door, +and Newman pushed back the curtain at the farther side of its deep embrasure. +In the middle of the room stood Madame de Cintré; her face was pale and she was +dressed for traveling. Behind her, before the fire-place, stood Urbain de +Bellegarde, looking at his finger-nails; near the marquis sat his mother, +buried in an armchair, and with her eyes immediately fixing themselves upon +Newman. He felt, as soon as he entered the room, that he was in the presence of +something evil; he was startled and pained, as he would have been by a +threatening cry in the stillness of the night. He walked straight to Madame de +Cintré and seized her by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter?” he asked commandingly; “what is +happening?” +</p> + +<p> +Urbain de Bellegarde stared, then left his place and came and leaned upon his +mother’s chair, behind. Newman’s sudden irruption had evidently +discomposed both mother and son. Madame de Cintré stood silent, with her eyes +resting upon Newman’s. She had often looked at him with all her soul, as +it seemed to him; but in this present gaze there was a sort of bottomless +depth. She was in distress; it was the most touching thing he had ever seen. +His heart rose into his throat, and he was on the point of turning to her +companions, with an angry challenge; but she checked him, pressing the hand +that held her own. +</p> + +<p> +“Something very grave has happened,” she said. “I cannot +marry you.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman dropped her hand and stood staring, first at her and then at the others. +“Why not?” he asked, as quietly as possible. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré almost smiled, but the attempt was strange. “You must +ask my mother, you must ask my brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t she marry me?” said Newman, looking at them. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde did not move in her place, but she was as pale as her +daughter. The marquis looked down at her. She said nothing for some moments, +but she kept her keen, clear eyes upon Newman, bravely. The marquis drew +himself up and looked at the ceiling. “It’s impossible!” he +said softly. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s improper,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +Newman began to laugh. “Oh, you are fooling!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“My sister, you have no time; you are losing your train,” said the +marquis. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, is he mad?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“No; don’t think that,” said Madame de Cintré. “But I +am going away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“To the country, to Fleurières; to be alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“To leave me?” said Newman, slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t see you, now,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Now</i>—why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am ashamed,” said Madame de Cintré, simply. +</p> + +<p> +Newman turned toward the marquis. “What have you done to her—what +does it mean?” he asked with the same effort at calmness, the fruit of +his constant practice in taking things easily. He was excited, but excitement +with him was only an intenser deliberateness; it was the swimmer stripped. +</p> + +<p> +“It means that I have given you up,” said Madame de Cintré. +“It means that.” +</p> + +<p> +Her face was too charged with tragic expression not fully to confirm her words. +Newman was profoundly shocked, but he felt as yet no resentment against her. He +was amazed, bewildered, and the presence of the old marquise and her son seemed +to smite his eyes like the glare of a watchman’s lantern. +“Can’t I see you alone?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be only more painful. I hoped I should not see you—I +should escape. I wrote to you. Good-bye.” And she put out her hand again. +</p> + +<p> +Newman put both his own into his pockets. “I will go with you,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +She laid her two hands on his arm. “Will you grant me a last +request?” and as she looked at him, urging this, her eyes filled with +tears. “Let me go alone—let me go in peace. I can’t call it +peace—it’s death. But let me bury myself. So—good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman passed his hand into his hair and stood slowly rubbing his head and +looking through his keenly-narrowed eyes from one to the other of the three +persons before him. His lips were compressed, and the two lines which had +formed themselves beside his mouth might have made it appear at a first glance +that he was smiling. I have said that his excitement was an intenser +deliberateness, and now he looked grimly deliberate. “It seems very much +as if you had interfered, marquis,” he said slowly. “I thought you +said you wouldn’t interfere. I know you don’t like me; but that +doesn’t make any difference. I thought you promised me you wouldn’t +interfere. I thought you swore on your honor that you wouldn’t interfere. +Don’t you remember, marquis?” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis lifted his eyebrows; but he was apparently determined to be even +more urbane than usual. He rested his two hands upon the back of his +mother’s chair and bent forward, as if he were leaning over the edge of a +pulpit or a lecture-desk. He did not smile, but he looked softly grave. +“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “I assured you that I would not +influence my sister’s decision. I adhered, to the letter, to my +engagement. Did I not, sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t appeal, my son,” said the marquise, “your word +is sufficient.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—she accepted me,” said Newman. “That is very true, +I can’t deny that. At least,” he added, in a different tone, +turning to Madame de Cintré, “you <i>did</i> accept me?” +</p> + +<p> +Something in the tone seemed to move her strongly. She turned away, burying her +face in her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“But you have interfered now, haven’t you?” inquired Newman +of the marquis. +</p> + +<p> +“Neither then nor now have I attempted to influence my sister. I used no +persuasion then, I have used no persuasion to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what have you used?” +</p> + +<p> +“We have used authority,” said Madame de Bellegarde in a rich, +bell-like voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you have used authority,” Newman exclaimed. “They have +used authority,” he went on, turning to Madame de Cintré. “What is +it? how did they use it?” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother commanded,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“Commanded you to give me up—I see. And you obey—I see. But +why do you obey?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré looked across at the old marquise; her eyes slowly measured +her from head to foot. “I am afraid of my mother,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde rose with a certain quickness, crying, “This is a +most indecent scene!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no wish to prolong it,” said Madame de Cintré; and turning +to the door she put out her hand again. “If you can pity me a little, let +me go alone.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman shook her hand quietly and firmly. “I’ll come down +there,” he said. The <i>portière</i> dropped behind her, and Newman sank +with a long breath into the nearest chair. He leaned back in it, resting his +hands on the knobs of the arms and looking at Madame de Bellegarde and Urbain. +There was a long silence. They stood side by side, with their heads high and +their handsome eyebrows arched. +</p> + +<p> +“So you make a distinction?” Newman said at last. “You make a +distinction between persuading and commanding? It’s very neat. But the +distinction is in favor of commanding. That rather spoils it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have not the least objection to defining our position,” said M. +de Bellegarde. “We understand that it should not at first appear to you +quite clear. We rather expected, indeed, that you should not do us +justice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll do you justice,” said Newman. “Don’t be +afraid. Please proceed.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquise laid her hand on her son’s arm, as if to deprecate the +attempt to define their position. “It is quite useless,” she said, +“to try and arrange this matter so as to make it agreeable to you. It can +never be agreeable to you. It is a disappointment, and disappointments are +unpleasant. I thought it over carefully and tried to arrange it better; but I +only gave myself a headache and lost my sleep. Say what we will, you will think +yourself ill-treated, and you will publish your wrongs among your friends. But +we are not afraid of that. Besides, your friends are not our friends, and it +will not matter. Think of us as you please. I only beg you not to be violent. I +have never in my life been present at a violent scene of any kind, and at my +age I can’t be expected to begin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is <i>that</i> all you have got to say?” asked Newman, slowly +rising out of his chair. “That’s a poor show for a clever lady like +you, marquise. Come, try again.” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother goes to the point, with her usual honesty and +intrepidity,” said the marquis, toying with his watch-guard. “But +it is perhaps well to say a little more. We of course quite repudiate the +charge of having broken faith with you. We left you entirely at liberty to make +yourself agreeable to my sister. We left her quite at liberty to entertain your +proposal. When she accepted you we said nothing. We therefore quite observed +our promise. It was only at a later stage of the affair, and on quite a +different basis, as it were, that we determined to speak. It would have been +better, perhaps, if we had spoken before. But really, you see, nothing has yet +been done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing has yet been done?” Newman repeated the words, unconscious +of their comical effect. He had lost the sense of what the marquis was saying; +M. de Bellegarde’s superior style was a mere humming in his ears. All +that he understood, in his deep and simple indignation, was that the matter was +not a violent joke, and that the people before him were perfectly serious. +“Do you suppose I can take this?” he asked. “Do you suppose +it can matter to me what you say? Do you suppose I can seriously listen to you? +You are simply crazy!” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde gave a rap with her fan in the palm of her hand. “If +you don’t take it you can leave it, sir. It matters very little what you +do. My daughter has given you up.” +</p> + +<p> +“She doesn’t mean it,” Newman declared after a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I can assure you that she does,” said the marquis. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor woman, what damnable thing have you done to her?” cried +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Gently, gently!” murmured M. de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“She told you,” said the old lady. “I commanded her.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman shook his head, heavily. “This sort of thing can’t be, you +know,” he said. “A man can’t be used in this fashion. You +have got no right; you have got no power.” +</p> + +<p> +“My power,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “is in my +children’s obedience.” +</p> + +<p> +“In their fear, your daughter said. There is something very strange in +it. Why should your daughter be afraid of you?” added Newman, after +looking a moment at the old lady. “There is some foul play.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquise met his gaze without flinching, and as if she did not hear or heed +what he said. “I did my best,” she said, quietly. “I could +endure it no longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a bold experiment!” said the marquis. +</p> + +<p> +Newman felt disposed to walk to him, clutch his neck with his fingers and press +his windpipe with his thumb. “I needn’t tell you how you strike +me,” he said; “of course you know that. But I should think you +would be afraid of your friends—all those people you introduced me to the +other night. There were some very nice people among them; you may depend upon +it there were some honest men and women.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our friends approve us,” said M. de Bellegarde, “there is +not a family among them that would have acted otherwise. And however that may +be, we take the cue from no one. The Bellegardes have been used to set the +example, not to wait for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have waited long before anyone would have set you such an +example as this,” exclaimed Newman. “Have I done anything +wrong?” he demanded. “Have I given you reason to change your +opinion? Have you found out anything against me? I can’t imagine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our opinion,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “is quite the same +as at first—exactly. We have no ill-will towards yourself; we are very +far from accusing you of misconduct. Since your relations with us began you +have been, I frankly confess, less—less peculiar than I expected. It is +not your disposition that we object to, it is your antecedents. We really +cannot reconcile ourselves to a commercial person. We fancied in an evil hour +that we could; it was a great misfortune. We determined to persevere to the +end, and to give you every advantage. I was resolved that you should have no +reason to accuse me of want of loyalty. We let the thing certainly go very far; +we introduced you to our friends. To tell the truth, it was that, I think, that +broke me down. I succumbed to the scene that took place on Thursday night in +these rooms. You must excuse me if what I say is disagreeable to you, but we +cannot release ourselves without an explanation.” +</p> + +<p> +“There can be no better proof of our good faith,” said the marquis, +“than our committing ourselves to you in the eyes of the world the other +evening. We endeavored to bind ourselves—to tie our hands, as it +were.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it was that,” added his mother, “that opened our eyes +and broke our bonds. We should have been most uncomfortable! You know,” +she added in a moment, “that you were forewarned. I told you we were very +proud.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman took up his hat and began mechanically to smooth it; the very fierceness +of his scorn kept him from speaking. “You are not proud enough,” he +observed at last. +</p> + +<p> +“In all this matter,” said the marquis, smiling, “I really +see nothing but our humility.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us have no more discussion than is necessary,” resumed Madame +de Bellegarde. “My daughter told you everything when she said she gave +you up.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not satisfied about your daughter,” said Newman; “I +want to know what you did to her. It is all very easy talking about authority +and saying you commanded her. She didn’t accept me blindly, and she +wouldn’t have given me up blindly. Not that I believe yet she has really +given me up; she will talk it over with me. But you have frightened her, you +have bullied her, you have <i>hurt</i> her. What was it you did to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did very little!” said Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone which +gave Newman a chill when he afterwards remembered it. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me remind you that we offered you these explanations,” the +marquis observed, “with the express understanding that you should abstain +from violence of language.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not violent,” Newman answered, “it is you who are +violent! But I don’t know that I have much more to say to you. What you +expect of me, apparently, is to go my way, thanking you for favors received, +and promising never to trouble you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“We expect of you to act like a clever man,” said Madame de +Bellegarde. “You have shown yourself that already, and what we have done +is altogether based upon your being so. When one must submit, one must. Since +my daughter absolutely withdraws, what will be the use of your making a +noise?” +</p> + +<p> +“It remains to be seen whether your daughter absolutely withdraws. Your +daughter and I are still very good friends; nothing is changed in that. As I +say, I will talk it over with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“That will be of no use,” said the old lady. “I know my +daughter well enough to know that words spoken as she just now spoke to you are +final. Besides, she has promised me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have no doubt her promise is worth a great deal more than your +own,” said Newman; “nevertheless I don’t give her up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just as you please! But if she won’t even see you,—and she +won’t,—your constancy must remain purely Platonic.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Newman was feigning a greater confidence than he felt. Madame de +Cintré’s strange intensity had in fact struck a chill to his heart; her +face, still impressed upon his vision, had been a terribly vivid image of +renunciation. He felt sick, and suddenly helpless. He turned away and stood for +a moment with his hand on the door; then he faced about and after the briefest +hesitation broke out with a different accent. “Come, think of what this +must be to me, and let her alone! Why should you object to me +so—what’s the matter with me? I can’t hurt you. I +wouldn’t if I could. I’m the most unobjectionable fellow in the +world. What if I am a commercial person? What under the sun do you mean? A +commercial person? I will be any sort of a person you want. I never talked to +you about business. Let her go, and I will ask no questions. I will take her +away, and you shall never see me or hear of me again. I will stay in America if +you like. I’ll sign a paper promising never to come back to Europe! All I +want is not to lose her!” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde and her son exchanged a glance of lucid irony, and Urbain +said, “My dear sir, what you propose is hardly an improvement. We have +not the slightest objection to seeing you, as an amiable foreigner, and we have +every reason for not wishing to be eternally separated from my sister. We +object to the marriage; and in that way,” and M. de Bellegarde gave a +small, thin laugh, “she would be more married than ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said Newman, “where is this place of +yours—Fleurières? I know it is near some old city on a hill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely. Poitiers is on a hill,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +“I don’t know how old it is. We are not afraid to tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is Poitiers, is it? Very good,” said Newman. “I shall +immediately follow Madame de Cintré.” +</p> + +<p> +“The trains after this hour won’t serve you,” said Urbain. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall hire a special train!” +</p> + +<p> +“That will be a very silly waste of money,” said Madame de +Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be time enough to talk about waste three days hence,” +Newman answered; and clapping his hat on his head, he departed. +</p> + +<p> +He did not immediately start for Fleurières; he was too stunned and wounded for +consecutive action. He simply walked; he walked straight before him, following +the river, till he got out of the <i>enceinte</i> of Paris. He had a burning, +tingling sense of personal outrage. He had never in his life received so +absolute a check; he had never been pulled up, or, as he would have said, +“let down,” so short; and he found the sensation intolerable; he +strode along, tapping the trees and lamp-posts fiercely with his stick and +inwardly raging. To lose Madame de Cintré after he had taken such jubilant and +triumphant possession of her was as great an affront to his pride as it was an +injury to his happiness. And to lose her by the interference and the dictation +of others, by an impudent old woman and a pretentious fop stepping in with +their “authority”! It was too preposterous, it was too pitiful. +Upon what he deemed the unblushing treachery of the Bellegardes Newman wasted +little thought; he consigned it, once for all, to eternal perdition. But the +treachery of Madame de Cintré herself amazed and confounded him; there was a +key to the mystery, of course, but he groped for it in vain. Only three days +had elapsed since she stood beside him in the starlight, beautiful and tranquil +as the trust with which he had inspired her, and told him that she was happy in +the prospect of their marriage. What was the meaning of the change? of what +infernal potion had she tasted? Poor Newman had a terrible apprehension that +she had really changed. His very admiration for her attached the idea of force +and weight to her rupture. But he did not rail at her as false, for he was sure +she was unhappy. In his walk he had crossed one of the bridges of the Seine, +and he still followed, unheedingly, the long, unbroken quay. He had left Paris +behind him, and he was almost in the country; he was in the pleasant suburb of +Auteuil. He stopped at last, looked around him without seeing or caring for its +pleasantness, and then slowly turned and at a slower pace retraced his steps. +When he came abreast of the fantastic embankment known as the Trocadero, he +reflected, through his throbbing pain, that he was near Mrs. Tristram’s +dwelling, and that Mrs. Tristram, on particular occasions, had much of a +woman’s kindness in her utterance. He felt that he needed to pour out his +ire and he took the road to her house. Mrs. Tristram was at home and alone, and +as soon as she had looked at him, on his entering the room, she told him that +she knew what he had come for. Newman sat down heavily, in silence, looking at +her. +</p> + +<p> +“They have backed out!” she said. “Well, you may think it +strange, but I felt something the other night in the air.” Presently he +told her his story; she listened, with her eyes fixed on him. When he had +finished she said quietly, “They want her to marry Lord Deepmere.” +Newman stared. He did not know that she knew anything about Lord Deepmere. +“But I don’t think she will,” Mrs. Tristram added. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>She</i> marry that poor little cub!” cried Newman. “Oh, +Lord! And yet, why did she refuse me?” +</p> + +<p> +“But that isn’t the only thing,” said Mrs. Tristram. +“They really couldn’t endure you any longer. They had overrated +their courage. I must say, to give the devil his due, that there is something +rather fine in that. It was your commercial quality in the abstract they +couldn’t swallow. That is really aristocratic. They wanted your money, +but they have given you up for an idea.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman frowned most ruefully, and took up his hat again. “I thought you +would encourage me!” he said, with almost childlike sadness. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” she answered very gently. “I feel none the less +sorry for you, especially as I am at the bottom of your troubles. I have not +forgotten that I suggested the marriage to you. I don’t believe that +Madame de Cintré has any intention of marrying Lord Deepmere. It is true he is +not younger than she, as he looks. He is thirty-three years old; I looked in +the Peerage. But no—I can’t believe her so horribly, cruelly +false.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please say nothing against her,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor woman, she <i>is</i> cruel. But of course you will go after her and +you will plead powerfully. Do you know that as you are now,” Mrs. +Tristram pursued, with characteristic audacity of comment, “you are +extremely eloquent, even without speaking? To resist you a woman must have a +very fixed idea in her head. I wish I had done you a wrong, that you might come +to me in that fine fashion! But go to Madame de Cintré at any rate, and tell +her that she is a puzzle even to me. I am very curious to see how far family +discipline will go.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman sat a while longer, leaning his elbows on his knees and his head in his +hands, and Mrs. Tristram continued to temper charity with philosophy and +compassion with criticism. At last she inquired, “And what does the Count +Valentin say to it?” Newman started; he had not thought of Valentin and +his errand on the Swiss frontier since the morning. The reflection made him +restless again, and he took his leave. He went straight to his apartment, +where, upon the table of the vestibule, he found a telegram. It ran (with the +date and place) as follows: “I am seriously ill; please to come to me as +soon as possible. V. B.” Newman groaned at this miserable news, and at +the necessity of deferring his journey to the Château de Fleurières. But he +wrote to Madame de Cintré these few lines; they were all he had time +for:— +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t give you up, and I don’t really believe you give me +up. I don’t understand it, but we shall clear it up together. I +can’t follow you to-day, as I am called to see a friend at a distance who +is very ill, perhaps dying. But I shall come to you as soon as I can leave my +friend. Why shouldn’t I say that he is your brother? C. N.” +</p> + +<p> +After this he had only time to catch the night express to Geneva. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<p> +Newman possessed a remarkable talent for sitting still when it was necessary, +and he had an opportunity to use it on his journey to Switzerland. The +successive hours of the night brought him no sleep, but he sat motionless in +his corner of the railway-carriage, with his eyes closed, and the most +observant of his fellow-travelers might have envied him his apparent slumber. +Toward morning slumber really came, as an effect of mental rather than of +physical fatigue. He slept for a couple of hours, and at last, waking, found +his eyes resting upon one of the snow-powdered peaks of the Jura, behind which +the sky was just reddening with the dawn. But he saw neither the cold mountain +nor the warm sky; his consciousness began to throb again, on the very instant, +with a sense of his wrong. He got out of the train half an hour before it +reached Geneva, in the cold morning twilight, at the station indicated in +Valentin’s telegram. A drowsy station-master was on the platform with a +lantern, and the hood of his overcoat over his head, and near him stood a +gentleman who advanced to meet Newman. This personage was a man of forty, with +a tall lean figure, a sallow face, a dark eye, a neat moustache, and a pair of +fresh gloves. He took off his hat, looking very grave, and pronounced +Newman’s name. Our hero assented and said, “You are M. de +Bellegarde’s friend?” +</p> + +<p> +“I unite with you in claiming that sad honor,” said the gentleman. +“I had placed myself at M. de Bellegarde’s service in this +melancholy affair, together with M. de Grosjoyaux, who is now at his bedside. +M. de Grosjoyaux, I believe, has had the honor of meeting you in Paris, but as +he is a better nurse than I he remained with our poor friend. Bellegarde has +been eagerly expecting you.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how is Bellegarde?” said Newman. “He was badly +hit?” +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor has condemned him; we brought a surgeon with us. But he will +die in the best sentiments. I sent last evening for the curé of the nearest +French village, who spent an hour with him. The curé was quite +satisfied.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forgive us!” groaned Newman. “I would rather the +doctor were satisfied! And can he see me—shall he know me?” +</p> + +<p> +“When I left him, half an hour ago, he had fallen asleep after a +feverish, wakeful night. But we shall see.” And Newman’s companion +proceeded to lead the way out of the station to the village, explaining as he +went that the little party was lodged in the humblest of Swiss inns, where, +however, they had succeeded in making M. de Bellegarde much more comfortable +than could at first have been expected. “We are old companions in +arms,” said Valentin’s second; “it is not the first time that +one of us has helped the other to lie easily. It is a very nasty wound, and the +nastiest thing about it is that Bellegarde’s adversary was not shot. He +put his bullet where he could. It took it into its head to walk straight into +Bellegarde’s left side, just below the heart.” +</p> + +<p> +As they picked their way in the gray, deceptive dawn, between the manure-heaps +of the village street, Newman’s new acquaintance narrated the particulars +of the duel. The conditions of the meeting had been that if the first exchange +of shots should fail to satisfy one of the two gentlemen, a second should take +place. Valentin’s first bullet had done exactly what Newman’s +companion was convinced he had intended it to do; it had grazed the arm of M. +Stanislas Kapp, just scratching the flesh. M. Kapp’s own projectile, +meanwhile, had passed at ten good inches from the person of Valentin. The +representatives of M. Stanislas had demanded another shot, which was granted. +Valentin had then fired aside and the young Alsatian had done effective +execution. “I saw, when we met him on the ground,” said +Newman’s informant, “that he was not going to be <i>commode</i>. It +is a kind of bovine temperament.” Valentin had immediately been installed +at the inn, and M. Stanislas and his friends had withdrawn to regions unknown. +The police authorities of the canton had waited upon the party at the inn, had +been extremely majestic, and had drawn up a long <i>procès-verbal</i>; but it +was probable that they would wink at so very gentlemanly a bit of bloodshed. +Newman asked whether a message had not been sent to Valentin’s family, +and learned that up to a late hour on the preceding evening Valentin had +opposed it. He had refused to believe his wound was dangerous. But after his +interview with the curé he had consented, and a telegram had been dispatched to +his mother. “But the marquise had better hurry!” said +Newman’s conductor. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s an abominable affair!” said Newman. +“That’s all I have to say!” To say this, at least, in a tone +of infinite disgust was an irresistible need. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you don’t approve?” questioned his conductor, with +curious urbanity. +</p> + +<p> +“Approve?” cried Newman. “I wish that when I had him there, +night before last, I had locked him up in my <i>cabinet de toilette!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin’s late second opened his eyes, and shook his head up and down +two or three times, gravely, with a little flute-like whistle. But they had +reached the inn, and a stout maid-servant in a night-cap was at the door with a +lantern, to take Newman’s traveling-bag from the porter who trudged +behind him. Valentin was lodged on the ground-floor at the back of the house, +and Newman’s companion went along a stone-faced passage and softly opened +a door. Then he beckoned to Newman, who advanced and looked into the room, +which was lighted by a single shaded candle. Beside the fire sat M. de +Grosjoyaux asleep in his dressing-gown—a little plump, fair man whom +Newman had seen several times in Valentin’s company. On the bed lay +Valentin, pale and still, with his eyes closed—a figure very shocking to +Newman, who had seen it hitherto awake to its fingertips. M. de +Grosjoyaux’s colleague pointed to an open door beyond, and whispered that +the doctor was within, keeping guard. So long as Valentin slept, or seemed to +sleep, of course Newman could not approach him; so our hero withdrew for the +present, committing himself to the care of the half-waked <i>bonne</i>. She +took him to a room above-stairs, and introduced him to a bed on which a +magnified bolster, in yellow calico, figured as a counterpane. Newman lay down, +and, in spite of his counterpane, slept for three or four hours. When he awoke, +the morning was advanced and the sun was filling his window, and he heard, +outside of it, the clucking of hens. While he was dressing there came to his +door a messenger from M. de Grosjoyaux and his companion proposing that he +should breakfast with them. Presently he went downstairs to the little +stone-paved dining-room, where the maid-servant, who had taken off her +night-cap, was serving the repast. M. de Grosjoyaux was there, surprisingly +fresh for a gentleman who had been playing sick-nurse half the night, rubbing +his hands and watching the breakfast table attentively. Newman renewed +acquaintance with him, and learned that Valentin was still sleeping; the +surgeon, who had had a fairly tranquil night, was at present sitting with him. +Before M. de Grosjoyaux’s associate reappeared, Newman learned that his +name was M. Ledoux, and that Bellegarde’s acquaintance with him dated +from the days when they served together in the Pontifical Zouaves. M. Ledoux +was the nephew of a distinguished Ultramontane bishop. At last the +bishop’s nephew came in with a toilet in which an ingenious attempt at +harmony with the peculiar situation was visible, and with a gravity tempered by +a decent deference to the best breakfast that the Croix Helvétique had ever set +forth. Valentin’s servant, who was allowed only in scanty measure the +honor of watching with his master, had been lending a light Parisian hand in +the kitchen. The two Frenchmen did their best to prove that if circumstances +might overshadow, they could not really obscure, the national talent for +conversation, and M. Ledoux delivered a neat little eulogy on poor Bellegarde, +whom he pronounced the most charming Englishman he had ever known. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you call him an Englishman?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +M. Ledoux smiled a moment and then made an epigram. <i>“C’est plus +qu’un Anglais—c’est un Anglomane!”</i> Newman said +soberly that he had never noticed it; and M. de Grosjoyaux remarked that it was +really too soon to deliver a funeral oration upon poor Bellegarde. +“Evidently,” said M. Ledoux. “But I couldn’t help +observing this morning to Mr. Newman that when a man has taken such excellent +measures for his salvation as our dear friend did last evening, it seems almost +a pity he should put it in peril again by returning to the world.” M. +Ledoux was a great Catholic, and Newman thought him a queer mixture. His +countenance, by daylight, had a sort of amiably saturnine cast; he had a very +large thin nose, and looked like a Spanish picture. He appeared to think +dueling a very perfect arrangement, provided, if one should get hit, one could +promptly see the priest. He seemed to take a great satisfaction in +Valentin’s interview with the curé, and yet his conversation did not at +all indicate a sanctimonious habit of mind. M. Ledoux had evidently a high +sense of the becoming, and was prepared to be urbane and tasteful on all +points. He was always furnished with a smile (which pushed his moustache up +under his nose) and an explanation. <i>Savoir-vivre</i>—knowing how to +live—was his specialty, in which he included knowing how to die; but, as +Newman reflected, with a good deal of dumb irritation, he seemed disposed to +delegate to others the application of his learning on this latter point. M. de +Grosjoyaux was of quite another complexion, and appeared to regard his +friend’s theological unction as the sign of an inaccessibly superior +mind. He was evidently doing his utmost, with a kind of jovial tenderness, to +make life agreeable to Valentin to the last, and help him as little as possible +to miss the Boulevard des Italiens; but what chiefly occupied his mind was the +mystery of a bungling brewer’s son making so neat a shot. He himself +could snuff a candle, etc., and yet he confessed that he could not have done +better than this. He hastened to add that on the present occasion he would have +made a point of not doing so well. It was not an occasion for that sort of +murderous work, <i>que diable!</i> He would have picked out some quiet fleshy +spot and just tapped it with a harmless ball. M. Stanislas Kapp had been +deplorably heavy-handed; but really, when the world had come to that pass that +one granted a meeting to a brewer’s son!... This was M. de +Grosjoyaux’s nearest approach to a generalization. He kept looking +through the window, over the shoulder of M. Ledoux, at a slender tree which +stood at the end of a lane, opposite to the inn, and seemed to be measuring its +distance from his extended arm and secretly wishing that, since the subject had +been introduced, propriety did not forbid a little speculative pistol-practice. +</p> + +<p> +Newman was in no humor to enjoy good company. He could neither eat nor talk; +his soul was sore with grief and anger, and the weight of his double sorrow was +intolerable. He sat with his eyes fixed upon his plate, counting the minutes, +wishing at one moment that Valentin would see him and leave him free to go in +quest of Madame de Cintré and his lost happiness, and mentally calling himself +a vile brute the next, for the impatient egotism of the wish. He was very poor +company, himself, and even his acute preoccupation and his general lack of the +habit of pondering the impression he produced did not prevent him from +reflecting that his companions must be puzzled to see how poor Bellegarde came +to take such a fancy to this taciturn Yankee that he must needs have him at his +death-bed. After breakfast he strolled forth alone into the village and looked +at the fountain, the geese, the open barn doors, the brown, bent old women, +showing their hugely darned stocking-heels at the ends of their slowly-clicking +sabots, and the beautiful view of snowy Alps and purple Jura at either end of +the little street. The day was brilliant; early spring was in the air and in +the sunshine, and the winter’s damp was trickling out of the cottage +eaves. It was birth and brightness for all nature, even for chirping chickens +and waddling goslings, and it was to be death and burial for poor, foolish, +generous, delightful Bellegarde. Newman walked as far as the village church, +and went into the small graveyard beside it, where he sat down and looked at +the awkward tablets which were planted around. They were all sordid and +hideous, and Newman could feel nothing but the hardness and coldness of death. +He got up and came back to the inn, where he found M. Ledoux having coffee and +a cigarette at a little green table which he had caused to be carried into the +small garden. Newman, learning that the doctor was still sitting with Valentin, +asked M. Ledoux if he might not be allowed to relieve him; he had a great +desire to be useful to his poor friend. This was easily arranged; the doctor +was very glad to go to bed. He was a youthful and rather jaunty practitioner, +but he had a clever face, and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor in his +buttonhole; Newman listened attentively to the instructions he gave him before +retiring, and took mechanically from his hand a small volume which the surgeon +recommended as a help to wakefulness, and which turned out to be an old copy of +“Les Liaisons Dangereuses.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin was still lying with his eyes closed, and there was no visible change +in his condition. Newman sat down near him, and for a long time narrowly +watched him. Then his eyes wandered away with his thoughts upon his own +situation, and rested upon the chain of the Alps, disclosed by the drawing of +the scant white cotton curtain of the window, through which the sunshine passed +and lay in squares upon the red-tiled floor. He tried to interweave his +reflections with hope, but he only half succeeded. What had happened to him +seemed to have, in its violence and audacity, the force of a real +calamity—the strength and insolence of Destiny herself. It was unnatural +and monstrous, and he had no arms against it. At last a sound struck upon the +stillness, and he heard Valentin’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t be about <i>me</i> you are pulling that long face!” +He found, when he turned, that Valentin was lying in the same position; but his +eyes were open, and he was even trying to smile. It was with a very slender +strength that he returned the pressure of Newman’s hand. “I have +been watching you for a quarter of an hour,” Valentin went on; “you +have been looking as black as thunder. You are greatly disgusted with me, I +see. Well, of course! So am I!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I shall not scold you,” said Newman. “I feel too badly. +And how are you getting on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m getting off! They have quite settled that; haven’t +they?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s for you to settle; you can get well if you try,” said +Newman, with resolute cheerfulness. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow, how can I try? Trying is violent exercise, and that sort +of thing isn’t in order for a man with a hole in his side as big as your +hat, that begins to bleed if he moves a hair’s-breadth. I knew you would +come,” he continued; “I knew I should wake up and find you here; so +I’m not surprised. But last night I was very impatient. I didn’t +see how I could keep still until you came. It was a matter of keeping still, +just like this; as still as a mummy in his case. You talk about trying; I tried +that! Well, here I am yet—these twenty hours. It seems like twenty +days.” Bellegarde talked slowly and feebly, but distinctly enough. It was +visible, however, that he was in extreme pain, and at last he closed his eyes. +Newman begged him to remain silent and spare himself; the doctor had left +urgent orders. “Oh,” said Valentin, “let us eat and drink, +for to-morrow—to-morrow”—and he paused again. “No, not +to-morrow, perhaps, but to-day. I can’t eat and drink, but I can talk. +What’s to be gained, at this pass, by renun—renunciation? I +mustn’t use such big words. I was always a chatterer; Lord, how I have +talked in my day!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a reason for keeping quiet now,” said Newman. +“We know how well you talk, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +But Valentin, without heeding him, went on in the same weak, dying drawl. +“I wanted to see you because you have seen my sister. Does she +know—will she come?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was embarrassed. “Yes, by this time she must know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you tell her?” Valentin asked. And then, in a moment, +“Didn’t you bring me any message from her?” His eyes rested +upon Newman’s with a certain soft keenness. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t see her after I got your telegram,” said Newman. +“I wrote to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And she sent you no answer?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was obliged to reply that Madame de Cintré had left Paris. “She +went yesterday to Fleurières.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yesterday—to Fleurières? Why did she go to Fleurières? What day is +this? What day was yesterday? Ah, then I shan’t see her,” said +Valentin sadly. “Fleurières is too far!” And then he closed his +eyes again. Newman sat silent, summoning pious invention to his aid, but he was +relieved at finding that Valentin was apparently too weak to reason or to be +curious. Bellegarde, however, presently went on. “And my mother—and +my brother—will they come? Are they at Fleurières?” +</p> + +<p> +“They were in Paris, but I didn’t see them, either,” Newman +answered. “If they received your telegram in time, they will have started +this morning. Otherwise they will be obliged to wait for the night-express, and +they will arrive at the same hour as I did.” +</p> + +<p> +“They won’t thank me—they won’t thank me,” +Valentin murmured. “They will pass an atrocious night, and Urbain +doesn’t like the early morning air. I don’t remember ever in my +life to have seen him before noon—before breakfast. No one ever saw him. +We don’t know how he is then. Perhaps he’s different. Who knows? +Posterity, perhaps, will know. That’s the time he works, in his +<i>cabinet</i>, at the history of the Princesses. But I had to send for +them—hadn’t I? And then I want to see my mother sit there where you +sit, and say good-bye to her. Perhaps, after all, I don’t know her, and +she will have some surprise for me. Don’t think you know her yet, +yourself; perhaps she may surprise <i>you</i>. But if I can’t see Claire, +I don’t care for anything. I have been thinking of it—and in my +dreams, too. Why did she go to Fleurières to-day? She never told me. What has +happened? Ah, she ought to have guessed I was here—this way. It is the +first time in her life she ever disappointed me. Poor Claire!” +</p> + +<p> +“You know we are not man and wife quite yet,—your sister and +I,” said Newman. “She doesn’t yet account to me for all her +actions.” And, after a fashion, he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin looked at him a moment. “Have you quarreled?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never, never, never!” Newman exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“How happily you say that!” said Valentin. “You are going to +be happy—<i>va!</i>” In answer to this stroke of irony, none the +less powerful for being so unconscious, all poor Newman could do was to give a +helpless and transparent stare. Valentin continued to fix him with his own +rather over-bright gaze, and presently he said, “But something <i>is</i> +the matter with you. I watched you just now; you haven’t a +bridegroom’s face.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow,” said Newman, “how can I show <i>you</i> a +bridegroom’s face? If you think I enjoy seeing you lie there and not +being able to help you”— +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you are just the man to be cheerful; don’t forfeit your +rights! I’m a proof of your wisdom. When was a man ever gloomy when he +could say, ‘I told you so?’ You told me so, you know. You did what +you could about it. You said some very good things; I have thought them over. +But, my dear friend, I was right, all the same. This is the regular way.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t do what I ought,” said Newman. “I ought to +have done something else.” +</p> + +<p> +“For instance?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, something or other. I ought to have treated you as a small +boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m a very small boy, now,” said Valentin. +“I’m rather less than an infant. An infant is helpless, but +it’s generally voted promising. I’m not promising, eh? Society +can’t lose a less valuable member.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was strongly moved. He got up and turned his back upon his friend and +walked away to the window, where he stood looking out, but only vaguely seeing. +“No, I don’t like the look of your back,” Valentin continued. +“I have always been an observer of backs; yours is quite out of +sorts.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman returned to his bedside and begged him to be quiet. “Be quiet and +get well,” he said. “That’s what you must do. Get well and +help me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you you were in trouble! How can I help you?” Valentin +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll let you know when you are better. You were always curious; +there is something to get well for!” Newman answered, with resolute +animation. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin closed his eyes and lay a long time without speaking. He seemed even +to have fallen asleep. But at the end of half an hour he began to talk again. +“I am rather sorry about that place in the bank. Who knows but that I +might have become another Rothschild? But I wasn’t meant for a banker; +bankers are not so easy to kill. Don’t you think I have been very easy to +kill? It’s not like a serious man. It’s really very mortifying. +It’s like telling your hostess you must go, when you count upon her +begging you to stay, and then finding she does no such thing. +‘Really—so soon? You’ve only just come!’ Life +doesn’t make me any such polite little speech.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman for some time said nothing, but at last he broke out. “It’s +a bad case—it’s a bad case—it’s the worst case I ever +met. I don’t want to say anything unpleasant, but I can’t help it. +I’ve seen men dying before—and I’ve seen men shot. But it +always seemed more natural; they were not so clever as you. +Damnation—damnation! You might have done something better than this. +It’s about the meanest winding-up of a man’s affairs that I can +imagine!” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin feebly waved his hand to and fro. “Don’t +insist—don’t insist! It is mean—decidedly mean. For you see +at the bottom—down at the bottom, in a little place as small as the end +of a wine funnel—I agree with you!” +</p> + +<p> +A few moments after this the doctor put his head through the half-opened door +and, perceiving that Valentin was awake, came in and felt his pulse. He shook +his head and declared that he had talked too much—ten times too much. +“Nonsense!” said Valentin; “a man sentenced to death can +never talk too much. Have you never read an account of an execution in a +newspaper? Don’t they always set a lot of people at the +prisoner—lawyers, reporters, priests—to make him talk? But +it’s not Mr. Newman’s fault; he sits there as mum as a +death’s-head.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor observed that it was time his patient’s wound should be +dressed again; MM. de Grosjoyaux and Ledoux, who had already witnessed this +delicate operation, taking Newman’s place as assistants. Newman withdrew +and learned from his fellow-watchers that they had received a telegram from +Urbain de Bellegarde to the effect that their message had been delivered in the +Rue de l’Université too late to allow him to take the morning train, but +that he would start with his mother in the evening. Newman wandered away into +the village again, and walked about restlessly for two or three hours. The day +seemed terribly long. At dusk he came back and dined with the doctor and M. +Ledoux. The dressing of Valentin’s wound had been a very critical +operation; the doctor didn’t really see how he was to endure a repetition +of it. He then declared that he must beg of Mr. Newman to deny himself for the +present the satisfaction of sitting with M. de Bellegarde; more than anyone +else, apparently, he had the flattering but inconvenient privilege of exciting +him. M. Ledoux, at this, swallowed a glass of wine in silence; he must have +been wondering what the deuce Bellegarde found so exciting in the American. +</p> + +<p> +Newman, after dinner, went up to his room, where he sat for a long time staring +at his lighted candle, and thinking that Valentin was dying downstairs. Late, +when the candle had burnt low, there came a soft rap at his door. The doctor +stood there with a candlestick and a shrug. +</p> + +<p> +“He must amuse himself still!” said Valentin’s medical +adviser. “He insists upon seeing you, and I am afraid you must come. I +think at this rate, that he will hardly outlast the night.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman went back to Valentin’s room, which he found lighted by a taper on +the hearth. Valentin begged him to light a candle. “I want to see your +face,” he said. “They say you excite me,” he went on, as +Newman complied with this request, “and I confess I do feel excited. But +it isn’t you—it’s my own thoughts. I have been +thinking—thinking. Sit down there and let me look at you again.” +Newman seated himself, folded his arms, and bent a heavy gaze upon his friend. +He seemed to be playing a part, mechanically, in a lugubrious comedy. Valentin +looked at him for some time. “Yes, this morning I was right; you have +something on your mind heavier than Valentin de Bellegarde. Come, I’m a +dying man and it’s indecent to deceive me. Something happened after I +left Paris. It was not for nothing that my sister started off at this season of +the year for Fleurières. Why was it? It sticks in my crop. I have been thinking +it over, and if you don’t tell me I shall guess.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had better not tell you,” said Newman. “It won’t do +you any good.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you think it will do me any good not to tell me, you are very much +mistaken. There is trouble about your marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Newman. “There is trouble about my +marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” And Valentin was silent again. “They have stopped +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have stopped it,” said Newman. Now that he had spoken out, he +found a satisfaction in it which deepened as he went on. “Your mother and +brother have broken faith. They have decided that it can’t take place. +They have decided that I am not good enough, after all. They have taken back +their word. Since you insist, there it is!” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin gave a sort of groan, lifted his hands a moment, and then let them +drop. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry not to have anything better to tell you about them,” +Newman pursued. “But it’s not my fault. I was, indeed, very unhappy +when your telegram reached me; I was quite upside down. You may imagine whether +I feel any better now.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin moaned gaspingly, as if his wound were throbbing. “Broken faith, +broken faith!” he murmured. “And my sister—my sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sister is very unhappy; she has consented to give me up. I +don’t know why. I don’t know what they have done to her; it must be +something pretty bad. In justice to her you ought to know it. They have made +her suffer. I haven’t seen her alone, but only before them! We had an +interview yesterday morning. They came out flat, in so many words. They told me +to go about my business. It seems to me a very bad case. I’m angry, +I’m sore, I’m sick.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin lay there staring, with his eyes more brilliantly lighted, his lips +soundlessly parted, and a flush of color in his pale face. Newman had never +before uttered so many words in the plaintive key, but now, in speaking to +Valentin in the poor fellow’s extremity, he had a feeling that he was +making his complaint somewhere within the presence of the power that men pray +to in trouble; he felt his outgush of resentment as a sort of spiritual +privilege. +</p> + +<p> +“And Claire,”—said Bellegarde,—“Claire? She has +given you up?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t really believe it,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“No. Don’t believe it, don’t believe it. She is gaining time; +excuse her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I pity her!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Claire!” murmured Valentin. “But they—but +they”—and he paused again. “You saw them; they dismissed you, +face to face?” +</p> + +<p> +“Face to face. They were very explicit.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did they say?” +</p> + +<p> +“They said they couldn’t stand a commercial person.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin put out his hand and laid it upon Newman’s arm. “And about +their promise—their engagement with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“They made a distinction. They said it was to hold good only until Madame +de Cintré accepted me.” +</p> + +<p> +Valentin lay staring a while, and his flush died away. “Don’t tell +me any more,” he said at last. “I’m ashamed.” +</p> + +<p> +“You? You are the soul of honor,” said Newman simply. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin groaned and turned away his head. For some time nothing more was said. +Then Valentin turned back again and found a certain force to press +Newman’s arm. “It’s very bad—very bad. When my +people—when my race—come to that, it is time for me to withdraw. I +believe in my sister; she will explain. Excuse her. If she can’t—if +she can’t, forgive her. She has suffered. But for the others it is very +bad—very bad. You take it very hard? No, it’s a shame to make you +say so.” He closed his eyes and again there was a silence. Newman felt +almost awed; he had evoked a more solemn spirit than he expected. Presently +Valentin looked at him again, removing his hand from his arm. “I +apologize,” he said. “Do you understand? Here on my death-bed. I +apologize for my family. For my mother. For my brother. For the ancient house +of Bellegarde. <i>Voilà!</i>” he added softly. +</p> + +<p> +Newman for an answer took his hand and pressed it with a world of kindness. +Valentin remained quiet, and at the end of half an hour the doctor softly came +in. Behind him, through the half-open door, Newman saw the two questioning +faces of MM. de Grosjoyaux and Ledoux. The doctor laid his hand on +Valentin’s wrist and sat looking at him. He gave no sign and the two +gentlemen came in, M. Ledoux having first beckoned to someone outside. This was +M. le Curé, who carried in his hand an object unknown to Newman, and covered +with a white napkin. M. le Curé was short, round, and red: he advanced, pulling +off his little black cap to Newman, and deposited his burden on the table; and +then he sat down in the best armchair, with his hands folded across his person. +The other gentlemen had exchanged glances which expressed unanimity as to the +timeliness of their presence. But for a long time Valentin neither spoke nor +moved. It was Newman’s belief, afterwards, that M. le Curé went to sleep. +At last abruptly, Valentin pronounced Newman’s name. His friend went to +him, and he said in French, “You are not alone. I want to speak to you +alone.” Newman looked at the doctor, and the doctor looked at the curé, +who looked back at him; and then the doctor and the curé, together, gave a +shrug. “Alone—for five minutes,” Valentin repeated. +“Please leave us.” +</p> + +<p> +The curé took up his burden again and led the way out, followed by his +companions. Newman closed the door behind them and came back to +Valentin’s bedside. Bellegarde had watched all this intently. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very bad, it’s very bad,” he said, after Newman +had seated himself close to him. “The more I think of it the worse it +is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t think of it,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +But Valentin went on, without heeding him. “Even if they should come +round again, the shame—the baseness—is there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they won’t come round!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you can make them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Make them?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can tell you something—a great secret—an immense secret. +You can use it against them—frighten them, force them.” +</p> + +<p> +“A secret!” Newman repeated. The idea of letting Valentin, on his +death-bed, confide him an “immense secret” shocked him, for the +moment, and made him draw back. It seemed an illicit way of arriving at +information, and even had a vague analogy with listening at a keyhole. Then, +suddenly, the thought of “forcing” Madame de Bellegarde and her son +became attractive, and Newman bent his head closer to Valentin’s lips. +For some time, however, the dying man said nothing more. He only lay and looked +at his friend with his kindled, expanded, troubled eye, and Newman began to +believe that he had spoken in delirium. But at last he said,— +</p> + +<p> +“There was something done—something done at Fleurières. It was foul +play. My father—something happened to him. I don’t know; I have +been ashamed—afraid to know. But I know there is something. My mother +knows—Urbain knows.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something happened to your father?” said Newman, urgently. +</p> + +<p> +Valentin looked at him, still more wide-eyed. “He didn’t get +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get well of what?” +</p> + +<p> +But the immense effort which Valentin had made, first to decide to utter these +words and then to bring them out, appeared to have taken his last strength. He +lapsed again into silence, and Newman sat watching him. “Do you +understand?” he began again, presently. “At Fleurières. You can +find out. Mrs. Bread knows. Tell her I begged you to ask her. Then tell them +that, and see. It may help you. If not, tell everyone. It will—it +will”—here Valentin’s voice sank to the feeblest +murmur—“it will avenge you!” +</p> + +<p> +The words died away in a long, soft groan. Newman stood up, deeply impressed, +not knowing what to say; his heart was beating violently. “Thank +you,” he said at last. “I am much obliged.” But Valentin +seemed not to hear him, he remained silent, and his silence continued. At last +Newman went and opened the door. M. le Curé re-entered, bearing his sacred +vessel and followed by the three gentlemen and by Valentin’s servant. It +was almost processional. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<p> +Valentin de Bellegarde died tranquilly, just as the cold faint March dawn began +to illumine the faces of the little knot of friends gathered about his bedside. +An hour afterwards Newman left the inn and drove to Geneva; he was naturally +unwilling to be present at the arrival of Madame de Bellegarde and her +first-born. At Geneva, for the moment, he remained. He was like a man who has +had a fall and wants to sit still and count his bruises. He instantly wrote to +Madame de Cintré, relating to her the circumstances of her brother’s +death—with certain exceptions—and asking her what was the earliest +moment at which he might hope that she would consent to see him. M. Ledoux had +told him that he had reason to know that Valentin’s will—Bellegarde +had a great deal of elegant personal property to dispose of—contained a +request that he should be buried near his father in the churchyard of +Fleurières, and Newman intended that the state of his own relations with the +family should not deprive him of the satisfaction of helping to pay the last +earthly honors to the best fellow in the world. He reflected that +Valentin’s friendship was older than Urbain’s enmity, and that at a +funeral it was easy to escape notice. Madame de Cintré’s answer to his +letter enabled him to time his arrival at Fleurières. This answer was very +brief; it ran as follows:— +</p> + +<p> +“I thank you for your letter, and for your being with Valentin. It is a +most inexpressible sorrow to me that I was not. To see you will be nothing but +a distress to me; there is no need, therefore, to wait for what you call +brighter days. It is all one now, and I shall have no brighter days. Come when +you please; only notify me first. My brother is to be buried here on Friday, +and my family is to remain here. C. de C.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +As soon as he received this letter Newman went straight to Paris and to +Poitiers. The journey took him far southward, through green Touraine and across +the far-shining Loire, into a country where the early spring deepened about him +as he went. But he had never made a journey during which he heeded less what he +would have called the lay of the land. He obtained lodging at the inn at +Poitiers, and the next morning drove in a couple of hours to the village of +Fleurières. But here, preoccupied though he was, he could not fail to notice +the picturesqueness of the place. It was what the French call a <i>petit +bourg</i>; it lay at the base of a sort of huge mound on the summit of which +stood the crumbling ruins of a feudal castle, much of whose sturdy material, as +well as that of the wall which dropped along the hill to enclose the clustered +houses defensively, had been absorbed into the very substance of the village. +The church was simply the former chapel of the castle, fronting upon its +grass-grown court, which, however, was of generous enough width to have given +up its quaintest corner to a little graveyard. Here the very headstones +themselves seemed to sleep, as they slanted into the grass; the patient elbow +of the rampart held them together on one side, and in front, far beneath their +mossy lids, the green plains and blue distances stretched away. The way to +church, up the hill, was impracticable to vehicles. It was lined with peasants, +two or three rows deep, who stood watching old Madame de Bellegarde slowly +ascend it, on the arm of her elder son, behind the pall-bearers of the other. +Newman chose to lurk among the common mourners who murmured “Madame la +Comtesse” as a tall figure veiled in black passed before them. He stood +in the dusky little church while the service was going forward, but at the +dismal tomb-side he turned away and walked down the hill. He went back to +Poitiers, and spent two days in which patience and impatience were singularly +commingled. On the third day he sent Madame de Cintré a note, saying that he +would call upon her in the afternoon, and in accordance with this he again took +his way to Fleurières. He left his vehicle at the tavern in the village street, +and obeyed the simple instructions which were given him for finding the +château. +</p> + +<p> +“It is just beyond there,” said the landlord, and pointed to the +tree-tops of the park, above the opposite houses. Newman followed the first +cross-road to the right—it was bordered with mouldy cottages—and in +a few moments saw before him the peaked roofs of the towers. Advancing farther, +he found himself before a vast iron gate, rusty and closed; here he paused a +moment, looking through the bars. The château was near the road; this was at +once its merit and its defect; but its aspect was extremely impressive. Newman +learned afterwards, from a guide-book of the province, that it dated from the +time of Henry IV. It presented to the wide, paved area which preceded it and +which was edged with shabby farm-buildings an immense façade of dark +time-stained brick, flanked by two low wings, each of which terminated in a +little Dutch-looking pavilion capped with a fantastic roof. Two towers rose +behind, and behind the towers was a mass of elms and beeches, now just faintly +green. +</p> + +<p> +But the great feature was a wide, green river which washed the foundations of +the château. The building rose from an island in the circling stream, so that +this formed a perfect moat spanned by a two-arched bridge without a parapet. +The dull brick walls, which here and there made a grand, straight sweep; the +ugly little cupolas of the wings, the deep-set windows, the long, steep +pinnacles of mossy slate, all mirrored themselves in the tranquil river. Newman +rang at the gate, and was almost frightened at the tone with which a big rusty +bell above his head replied to him. An old woman came out from the gate-house +and opened the creaking portal just wide enough for him to pass, and he went +in, across the dry, bare court and the little cracked white slabs of the +causeway on the moat. At the door of the château he waited for some moments, +and this gave him a chance to observe that Fleurières was not “kept +up,” and to reflect that it was a melancholy place of residence. +“It looks,” said Newman to himself—and I give the comparison +for what it is worth—“like a Chinese penitentiary.” At last +the door was opened by a servant whom he remembered to have seen in the Rue de +l’Université. The man’s dull face brightened as he perceived our +hero, for Newman, for indefinable reasons, enjoyed the confidence of the +liveried gentry. The footman led the way across a great central vestibule, with +a pyramid of plants in tubs in the middle of glass doors all around, to what +appeared to be the principal drawing-room of the château. Newman crossed the +threshold of a room of superb proportions, which made him feel at first like a +tourist with a guide-book and a cicerone awaiting a fee. But when his guide had +left him alone, with the observation that he would call Madame la Comtesse, +Newman perceived that the salon contained little that was remarkable save a +dark ceiling with curiously carved rafters, some curtains of elaborate, +antiquated tapestry, and a dark oaken floor, polished like a mirror. He waited +some minutes, walking up and down; but at length, as he turned at the end of +the room, he saw that Madame de Cintré had come in by a distant door. She wore +a black dress, and she stood looking at him. As the length of the immense room +lay between them he had time to look at her before they met in the middle of +it. +</p> + +<p> +He was dismayed at the change in her appearance. Pale, heavy-browed, almost +haggard with a sort of monastic rigidity in her dress, she had little but her +pure features in common with the woman whose radiant good grace he had hitherto +admired. She let her eyes rest on his own, and she let him take her hand; but +her eyes looked like two rainy autumn moons, and her touch was portentously +lifeless. +</p> + +<p> +“I was at your brother’s funeral,” Newman said. “Then I +waited three days. But I could wait no longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing can be lost or gained by waiting,” said Madame de Cintré. +“But it was very considerate of you to wait, wronged as you have +been.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you think I have been wronged,” said Newman, with +that oddly humorous accent with which he often uttered words of the gravest +meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I need to say so?” she asked. “I don’t think I have +wronged, seriously, many persons; certainly not consciously. To you, to whom I +have done this hard and cruel thing, the only reparation I can make is to say, +‘I know it, I feel it!’ The reparation is pitifully small!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s a great step forward!” said Newman, with a gracious +smile of encouragement. He pushed a chair towards her and held it, looking at +her urgently. She sat down, mechanically, and he seated himself near her; but +in a moment he got up, restlessly, and stood before her. She remained seated, +like a troubled creature who had passed through the stage of restlessness. +</p> + +<p> +“I say nothing is to be gained by my seeing you,” she went on, +“and yet I am very glad you came. Now I can tell you what I feel. It is a +selfish pleasure, but it is one of the last I shall have.” And she +paused, with her great misty eyes fixed upon him. “I know how I have +deceived and injured you; I know how cruel and cowardly I have been. I see it +as vividly as you do—I feel it to the ends of my fingers.” And she +unclasped her hands, which were locked together in her lap, lifted them, and +dropped them at her side. “Anything that you may have said of me in your +angriest passion is nothing to what I have said to myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“In my angriest passion,” said Newman, “I have said nothing +hard of you. The very worst thing I have said of you yet is that you are the +loveliest of women.” And he seated himself before her again abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +She flushed a little, but even her flush was pale. “That is because you +think I will come back. But I will not come back. It is in that hope you have +come here, I know; I am very sorry for you. I would do almost anything for you. +To say that, after what I have done, seems simply impudent; but what can I say +that will not seem impudent? To wrong you and apologize—that is easy +enough. I should not have wronged you.” She stopped a moment, looking at +him, and motioned him to let her go on. “I ought never to have listened +to you at first; that was the wrong. No good could come of it. I felt it, and +yet I listened; that was your fault. I liked you too much; I believed in +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t you believe in me now?” +</p> + +<p> +“More than ever. But now it doesn’t matter. I have given you +up.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman gave a powerful thump with his clenched fist upon his knee. “Why, +why, why?” he cried. “Give me a reason—a decent reason. You +are not a child—you are not a minor, nor an idiot. You are not obliged to +drop me because your mother told you to. Such a reason isn’t worthy of +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that; it’s not worthy of me. But it’s the only one I +have to give. After all,” said Madame de Cintré, throwing out her hands, +“think me an idiot and forget me! That will be the simplest way.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman got up and walked away with a crushing sense that his cause was lost, +and yet with an equal inability to give up fighting. He went to one of the +great windows, and looked out at the stiffly embanked river and the formal +gardens which lay beyond it. When he turned round, Madame de Cintré had risen; +she stood there silent and passive. “You are not frank,” said +Newman; “you are not honest. Instead of saying that you are imbecile, you +should say that other people are wicked. Your mother and your brother have been +false and cruel; they have been so to me, and I am sure they have been so to +you. Why do you try to shield them? Why do you sacrifice me to them? I’m +not false; I’m not cruel. You don’t know what you give up; I can +tell you that—you don’t. They bully you and plot about you; and +I—I”—And he paused, holding out his hands. She turned away +and began to leave him. “You told me the other day that you were afraid +of your mother,” he said, following her. “What did you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré shook her head. “I remember; I was sorry +afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were sorry when she came down and put on the thumbscrews. In +God’s name what <i>is</i> it she does to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. Nothing that you can understand. And now that I have given you +up, I must not complain of her to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s no reasoning!” cried Newman. “Complain of her, +on the contrary. Tell me all about it, frankly and trustfully, as you ought, +and we will talk it over so satisfactorily that you won’t give me +up.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré looked down some moments, fixedly; and then, raising her eyes, +she said, “One good at least has come of this: I have made you judge me +more fairly. You thought of me in a way that did me great honor; I don’t +know why you had taken it into your head. But it left me no loophole for +escape—no chance to be the common, weak creature I am. It was not my +fault; I warned you from the first. But I ought to have warned you more. I +ought to have convinced you that I was doomed to disappoint you. But I +<i>was</i>, in a way, too proud. You see what my superiority amounts to, I +hope!” she went on, raising her voice with a tremor which even then and +there Newman thought beautiful. “I am too proud to be honest, I am not +too proud to be faithless. I am timid and cold and selfish. I am afraid of +being uncomfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you call marrying me uncomfortable!” said Newman staring. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré blushed a little and seemed to say that if begging his pardon +in words was impudent, she might at least thus mutely express her perfect +comprehension of his finding her conduct odious. “It is not marrying you; +it is doing all that would go with it. It’s the rupture, the defiance, +the insisting upon being happy in my own way. What right have I to be happy +when—when”—And she paused. +</p> + +<p> +“When what?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“When others have been most unhappy!” +</p> + +<p> +“What others?” Newman asked. “What have you to do with any +others but me? Besides you said just now that you wanted happiness, and that +you should find it by obeying your mother. You contradict yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I contradict myself; that shows you that I am not even +intelligent.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are laughing at me!” cried Newman. “You are mocking +me!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him intently, and an observer might have said that she was asking +herself whether she might not most quickly end their common pain by confessing +that she was mocking him. “No; I am not,” she presently said. +</p> + +<p> +“Granting that you are not intelligent,” he went on, “that +you are weak, that you are common, that you are nothing that I have believed +you were—what I ask of you is not heroic effort, it is a very common +effort. There is a great deal on my side to make it easy. The simple truth is +that you don’t care enough about me to make it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am cold,” said Madame de Cintré, “I am as cold as that +flowing river.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman gave a great rap on the floor with his stick, and a long, grim laugh. +“Good, good!” he cried. “You go altogether too far—you +overshoot the mark. There isn’t a woman in the world as bad as you would +make yourself out. I see your game; it’s what I said. You are blackening +yourself to whiten others. You don’t want to give me up, at all; you like +me—you like me. I know you do; you have shown it, and I have felt it. +After that, you may be as cold as you please! They have bullied you, I say; +they have tortured you. It’s an outrage, and I insist upon saving you +from the extravagance of your own generosity. Would you chop off your hand if +your mother requested it?” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré looked a little frightened. “I spoke of my mother too +blindly, the other day. I am my own mistress, by law and by her approval. She +can do nothing to me; she has done nothing. She has never alluded to those hard +words I used about her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She has made you feel them, I’ll promise you!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my conscience that makes me feel them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your conscience seems to me to be rather mixed!” exclaimed Newman, +passionately. +</p> + +<p> +“It has been in great trouble, but now it is very clear,” said +Madame de Cintré. “I don’t give you up for any worldly advantage or +for any worldly happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you don’t give me up for Lord Deepmere, I know,” said +Newman. “I won’t pretend, even to provoke you, that I think that. +But that’s what your mother and your brother wanted, and your mother, at +that villainous ball of hers—I liked it at the time, but the very thought +of it now makes me rabid—tried to push him on to make up to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who told you this?” said Madame de Cintré softly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not Valentin. I observed it. I guessed it. I didn’t know at the +time that I was observing it, but it stuck in my memory. And afterwards, you +recollect, I saw Lord Deepmere with you in the conservatory. You said then that +you would tell me at another time what he had said to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was before—before <i>this</i>,” said Madame de Cintré. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter,” said Newman; “and, besides, I +think I know. He’s an honest little Englishman. He came and told you what +your mother was up to—that she wanted him to supplant me; not being a +commercial person. If he would make you an offer she would undertake to bring +you over and give me the slip. Lord Deepmere isn’t very intellectual, so +she had to spell it out to him. He said he admired you ‘no end,’ +and that he wanted you to know it; but he didn’t like being mixed up with +that sort of underhand work, and he came to you and told tales. That was about +the amount of it, wasn’t it? And then you said you were perfectly +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why we should talk of Lord Deepmere,” said +Madame de Cintré. “It was not for that you came here. And about my +mother, it doesn’t matter what you suspect and what you know. When once +my mind has been made up, as it is now, I should not discuss these things. +Discussing anything, now, is very idle. We must try and live each as we can. I +believe you will be happy again; even, sometimes, when you think of me. When +you do so, think this—that it was not easy, and that I did the best I +could. I have things to reckon with that you don’t know. I mean I have +feelings. I must do as they force me—I must, I must. They would haunt me +otherwise,” she cried, with vehemence; “they would kill me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what your feelings are: they are superstitions! They are the +feeling that, after all, though I <i>am</i> a good fellow, I have been in +business; the feeling that your mother’s looks are law and your +brother’s words are gospel; that you all hang together, and that +it’s a part of the everlasting proprieties that they should have a hand +in everything you do. It makes my blood boil. That <i>is</i> cold; you are +right. And what I feel here,” and Newman struck his heart and became more +poetical than he knew, “is a glowing fire!” +</p> + +<p> +A spectator less preoccupied than Madame de Cintré’s distracted wooer +would have felt sure from the first that her appealing calm of manner was the +result of violent effort, in spite of which the tide of agitation was rapidly +rising. On these last words of Newman’s it overflowed, though at first +she spoke low, for fear of her voice betraying her. “No. I was not +right—I am not cold! I believe that if I am doing what seems so bad, it +is not mere weakness and falseness. Mr. Newman, it’s like a religion. I +can’t tell you—I can’t! It’s cruel of you to insist. I +don’t see why I shouldn’t ask you to believe me—and pity me. +It’s like a religion. There’s a curse upon the house; I don’t +know what—I don’t know why—don’t ask me. We must all +bear it. I have been too selfish; I wanted to escape from it. You offered me a +great chance—besides my liking you. It seemed good to change completely, +to break, to go away. And then I admired you. But I can’t—it has +overtaken and come back to me.” Her self-control had now completely +abandoned her, and her words were broken with long sobs. “Why do such +dreadful things happen to us—why is my brother Valentin killed, like a +beast in the midst of his youth and his gaiety and his brightness and all that +we loved him for? Why are there things I can’t ask about—that I am +afraid to know? Why are there places I can’t look at, sounds I +can’t hear? Why is it given to me to choose, to decide, in a case so hard +and so terrible as this? I am not meant for that—I am not made for +boldness and defiance. I was made to be happy in a quiet, natural way.” +At this Newman gave a most expressive groan, but Madame de Cintré went on. +“I was made to do gladly and gratefully what is expected of me. My mother +has always been very good to me; that’s all I can say. I must not judge +her; I must not criticize her. If I did, it would come back to me. I +can’t change!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Newman, bitterly; “<i>I</i> must change—if I +break in two in the effort!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are different. You are a man; you will get over it. You have all +kinds of consolation. You were born—you were trained, to changes. +Besides—besides, I shall always think of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care for that!” cried Newman. “You are +cruel—you are terribly cruel. God forgive you! You may have the best +reasons and the finest feelings in the world; that makes no difference. You are +a mystery to me; I don’t see how such hardness can go with such +loveliness.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Cintré fixed him a moment with her swimming eyes. “You believe +I am hard, then?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman answered her look, and then broke out, “You are a perfect, +faultless creature! Stay by me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I am hard,” she went on. “Whenever we give pain we +are hard. And we <i>must</i> give pain; that’s the world,—the +hateful, miserable world! Ah!” and she gave a long, deep sigh, “I +can’t even say I am glad to have known you—though I am. That too is +to wrong you. I can say nothing that is not cruel. Therefore let us part, +without more of this. Good-bye!” And she put out her hand. +</p> + +<p> +Newman stood and looked at it without taking it, and raised his eyes to her +face. He felt, himself, like shedding tears of rage. “What are you going +to do?” he asked. “Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where I shall give no more pain and suspect no more evil. I am going out +of the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of the world?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going into a convent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Into a convent!” Newman repeated the words with the deepest +dismay; it was as if she had said she was going into an hospital. “Into a +convent—<i>you!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“I told you that it was not for my worldly advantage or pleasure I was +leaving you.” +</p> + +<p> +But still Newman hardly understood. “You are going to be a nun,” he +went on, “in a cell—for life—with a gown and white +veil?” +</p> + +<p> +“A nun—a Carmelite nun,” said Madame de Cintré. “For +life, with God’s leave.” +</p> + +<p> +The idea struck Newman as too dark and horrible for belief, and made him feel +as he would have done if she had told him that she was going to mutilate her +beautiful face, or drink some potion that would make her mad. He clasped his +hands and began to tremble, visibly. +</p> + +<p> +“Madame de Cintré, don’t, don’t!” he said. “I +beseech you! On my knees, if you like, I’ll beseech you.” +</p> + +<p> +She laid her hand upon his arm, with a tender, pitying, almost reassuring +gesture. “You don’t understand,” she said. “You have +wrong ideas. It’s nothing horrible. It is only peace and safety. It is to +be out of the world, where such troubles as this come to the innocent, to the +best. And for life—that’s the blessing of it! They can’t +begin again.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman dropped into a chair and sat looking at her with a long, inarticulate +murmur. That this superb woman, in whom he had seen all human grace and +household force, should turn from him and all the brightness that he offered +her—him and his future and his fortune and his fidelity—to muffle +herself in ascetic rags and entomb herself in a cell was a confounding +combination of the inexorable and the grotesque. As the image deepened before +him the grotesque seemed to expand and overspread it; it was a reduction to the +absurd of the trial to which he was subjected. “You—you a +nun!” he exclaimed; “you with your beauty defaced—you behind +locks and bars! Never, never, if I can prevent it!” And he sprang to his +feet with a violent laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t prevent it,” said Madame de Cintré, “and it +ought—a little—to satisfy you. Do you suppose I will go on living +in the world, still beside you, and yet not with you? It is all arranged. +Good-bye, good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +This time he took her hand, took it in both his own. “Forever?” he +said. Her lips made an inaudible movement and his own uttered a deep +imprecation. She closed her eyes, as if with the pain of hearing it; then he +drew her towards him and clasped her to his breast. He kissed her white face; +for an instant she resisted and for a moment she submitted; then, with force, +she disengaged herself and hurried away over the long shining floor. The next +moment the door closed behind her. +</p> + +<p> +Newman made his way out as he could. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p> +There is a pretty public walk at Poitiers, laid out upon the crest of the high +hill around which the little city clusters, planted with thick trees and +looking down upon the fertile fields in which the old English princes fought +for their right and held it. Newman paced up and down this quiet promenade for +the greater part of the next day and let his eyes wander over the historic +prospect; but he would have been sadly at a loss to tell you afterwards whether +the latter was made up of coal-fields or of vineyards. He was wholly given up +to his grievance, of which reflection by no means diminished the weight. He +feared that Madame de Cintré was irretrievably lost; and yet, as he would have +said himself, he didn’t see his way clear to giving her up. He found it +impossible to turn his back upon Fleurières and its inhabitants; it seemed to +him that some germ of hope or reparation must lurk there somewhere, if he could +only stretch his arm out far enough to pluck it. It was as if he had his hand +on a door-knob and were closing his clenched fist upon it: he had thumped, he +had called, he had pressed the door with his powerful knee and shaken it with +all his strength, and dead, damning silence had answered him. And yet something +held him there—something hardened the grasp of his fingers. +Newman’s satisfaction had been too intense, his whole plan too deliberate +and mature, his prospect of happiness too rich and comprehensive for this fine +moral fabric to crumble at a stroke. The very foundation seemed fatally +injured, and yet he felt a stubborn desire still to try to save the edifice. He +was filled with a sorer sense of wrong than he had ever known, or than he had +supposed it possible he should know. To accept his injury and walk away without +looking behind him was a stretch of good-nature of which he found himself +incapable. He looked behind him intently and continually, and what he saw there +did not assuage his resentment. He saw himself trustful, generous, liberal, +patient, easy, pocketing frequent irritation and furnishing unlimited modesty. +To have eaten humble pie, to have been snubbed and patronized and satirized and +have consented to take it as one of the conditions of the bargain—to have +done this, and done it all for nothing, surely gave one a right to protest. And +to be turned off because one was a commercial person! As if he had ever talked +or dreamt of the commercial since his connection with the Bellegardes +began—as if he had made the least circumstance of the commercial—as +if he would not have consented to confound the commercial fifty times a day, if +it might have increased by a hair’s breadth the chance of the +Bellegardes’ not playing him a trick! Granted that being commercial was +fair ground for having a trick played upon one, how little they knew about the +class so designed and its enterprising way of not standing upon trifles! It was +in the light of his injury that the weight of Newman’s past endurance +seemed so heavy; his actual irritation had not been so great, merged as it was +in his vision of the cloudless blue that overarched his immediate wooing. But +now his sense of outrage was deep, rancorous, and ever present; he felt that he +was a good fellow wronged. As for Madame de Cintré’s conduct, it struck +him with a kind of awe, and the fact that he was powerless to understand it or +feel the reality of its motives only deepened the force with which he had +attached himself to her. He had never let the fact of her Catholicism trouble +him; Catholicism to him was nothing but a name, and to express a mistrust of +the form in which her religious feelings had moulded themselves would have +seemed to him on his own part a rather pretentious affectation of Protestant +zeal. If such superb white flowers as that could bloom in Catholic soil, the +soil was not insalubrious. But it was one thing to be a Catholic, and another +to turn nun—on your hand! There was something lugubriously comical in the +way Newman’s thoroughly contemporaneous optimism was confronted with this +dusky old-world expedient. To see a woman made for him and for motherhood to +his children juggled away in this tragic travesty—it was a thing to rub +one’s eyes over, a nightmare, an illusion, a hoax. But the hours passed +away without disproving the thing, and leaving him only the after-sense of the +vehemence with which he had embraced Madame de Cintré. He remembered her words +and her looks; he turned them over and tried to shake the mystery out of them +and to infuse them with an endurable meaning. What had she meant by her feeling +being a kind of religion? It was the religion simply of the family laws, the +religion of which her implacable little mother was the high priestess. Twist +the thing about as her generosity would, the one certain fact was that they had +used force against her. Her generosity had tried to screen them, but +Newman’s heart rose into his throat at the thought that they should go +scot-free. +</p> + +<p> +The twenty-four hours wore themselves away, and the next morning Newman sprang +to his feet with the resolution to return to Fleurières and demand another +interview with Madame de Bellegarde and her son. He lost no time in putting it +into practice. As he rolled swiftly over the excellent road in the little +calèche furnished him at the inn at Poitiers, he drew forth, as it were, from +the very safe place in his mind to which he had consigned it, the last +information given him by poor Valentin. Valentin had told him he could do +something with it, and Newman thought it would be well to have it at hand. This +was of course not the first time, lately, that Newman had given it his +attention. It was information in the rough,—it was dark and puzzling; but +Newman was neither helpless nor afraid. Valentin had evidently meant to put him +in possession of a powerful instrument, though he could not be said to have +placed the handle very securely within his grasp. But if he had not really told +him the secret, he had at least given him the clew to it—a clew of which +that queer old Mrs. Bread held the other end. Mrs. Bread had always looked to +Newman as if she knew secrets; and as he apparently enjoyed her esteem, he +suspected she might be induced to share her knowledge with him. So long as +there was only Mrs. Bread to deal with, he felt easy. As to what there was to +find out, he had only one fear—that it might not be bad enough. Then, +when the image of the marquise and her son rose before him again, standing side +by side, the old woman’s hand in Urbain’s arm, and the same cold, +unsociable fixedness in the eyes of each, he cried out to himself that the fear +was groundless. There was blood in the secret at the very least! He arrived at +Fleurières almost in a state of elation; he had satisfied himself, logically, +that in the presence of his threat of exposure they would, as he mentally +phrased it, rattle down like unwound buckets. He remembered indeed that he must +first catch his hare—first ascertain what there was to expose; but after +that, why shouldn’t his happiness be as good as new again? Mother and son +would drop their lovely victim in terror and take to hiding, and Madame de +Cintré, left to herself, would surely come back to him. Give her a chance and +she would rise to the surface, return to the light. How could she fail to +perceive that his house would be much the most comfortable sort of convent? +</p> + +<p> +Newman, as he had done before, left his conveyance at the inn and walked the +short remaining distance to the château. When he reached the gate, however, a +singular feeling took possession of him—a feeling which, strange as it +may seem, had its source in its unfathomable good nature. He stood there a +while, looking through the bars at the large, time-stained face of the edifice, +and wondering to what crime it was that the dark old house, with its flowery +name, had given convenient occasion. It had given occasion, first and last, to +tyrannies and sufferings enough, Newman said to himself; it was an evil-looking +place to live in. Then, suddenly, came the reflection—What a horrible +rubbish-heap of iniquity to fumble in! The attitude of inquisitor turned its +ignobler face, and with the same movement Newman declared that the Bellegardes +should have another chance. He would appeal once more directly to their sense +of fairness, and not to their fear, and if they should be accessible to reason, +he need know nothing worse about them than what he already knew. That was bad +enough. +</p> + +<p> +The gate-keeper let him in through the same stiff crevice as before, and he +passed through the court and over the little rustic bridge on the moat. The +door was opened before he had reached it, and, as if to put his clemency to +rout with the suggestion of a richer opportunity, Mrs. Bread stood there +awaiting him. Her face, as usual, looked as hopelessly blank as the +tide-smoothed sea-sand, and her black garments seemed of an intenser sable. +Newman had already learned that her strange inexpressiveness could be a vehicle +for emotion, and he was not surprised at the muffled vivacity with which she +whispered, “I thought you would try again, sir. I was looking out for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to see you,” said Newman; “I think you are my +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread looked at him opaquely. “I wish you well sir; but it’s +vain wishing now.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know, then, how they have treated me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Bread, dryly, “I know everything.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman hesitated a moment. “Everything?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread gave him a glance somewhat more lucent. “I know at least too +much, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“One can never know too much. I congratulate you. I have come to see +Madame de Bellegarde and her son,” Newman added. “Are they at home? +If they are not, I will wait.” +</p> + +<p> +“My lady is always at home,” Mrs. Bread replied, “and the +marquis is mostly with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please then tell them—one or the other, or both—that I am +here and that I desire to see them.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread hesitated. “May I take a great liberty, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have never taken a liberty but you have justified it,” said +Newman, with diplomatic urbanity. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread dropped her wrinkled eyelids as if she were curtseying; but the +curtsey stopped there; the occasion was too grave. “You have come to +plead with them again, sir? Perhaps you don’t know this—that Madame +de Cintré returned this morning to Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, she’s gone!” And Newman, groaning, smote the pavement +with his stick. +</p> + +<p> +“She has gone straight to the convent—the Carmelites they call it. +I see you know, sir. My lady and the marquis take it very ill. It was only last +night she told them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, she had kept it back, then?” cried Newman. “Good, good! +And they are very fierce?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are not pleased,” said Mrs. Bread. “But they may well +dislike it. They tell me it’s most dreadful, sir; of all the nuns in +Christendom the Carmelites are the worst. You may say they are really not +human, sir; they make you give up everything—forever. And to think of +<i>her</i> there! If I was one that cried, sir, I could cry.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at her an instant. “We mustn’t cry, Mrs. Bread; we +must act. Go and call them!” And he made a movement to enter farther. +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs. Bread gently checked him. “May I take another liberty? I am told +you were with my dearest Mr. Valentin, in his last hours. If you would tell me +a word about him! The poor count was my own boy, sir; for the first year of his +life he was hardly out of my arms; I taught him to speak. And the count spoke +so well, sir! He always spoke well to his poor old Bread. When he grew up and +took his pleasure he always had a kind word for me. And to die in that wild +way! They have a story that he fought with a wine-merchant. I can’t +believe that, sir! And was he in great pain?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a wise, kind old woman, Mrs. Bread,” said Newman. “I +hoped I might see you with my own children in your arms. Perhaps I shall, +yet.” And he put out his hand. Mrs. Bread looked for a moment at his open +palm, and then, as if fascinated by the novelty of the gesture, extended her +own ladylike fingers. Newman held her hand firmly and deliberately, fixing his +eyes upon her. “You want to know all about Mr. Valentin?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be a sad pleasure, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can tell you everything. Can you sometimes leave this place?” +</p> + +<p> +“The château, sir? I really don’t know. I never tried.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try, then; try hard. Try this evening, at dusk. Come to me in the old +ruin there on the hill, in the court before the church. I will wait for you +there; I have something very important to tell you. An old woman like you can +do as she pleases.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread stared, wondering, with parted lips. “Is it from the count, +sir?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“From the count—from his death-bed,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I will come, then. I will be bold, for once, for <i>him</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +She led Newman into the great drawing-room with which he had already made +acquaintance, and retired to execute his commands. Newman waited a long time; +at last he was on the point of ringing and repeating his request. He was +looking round him for a bell when the marquis came in with his mother on his +arm. It will be seen that Newman had a logical mind when I say that he declared +to himself, in perfect good faith, as a result of Valentin’s dark hints, +that his adversaries looked grossly wicked. “There is no mistake about it +now,” he said to himself as they advanced. “They’re a bad +lot; they have pulled off the mask.” Madame de Bellegarde and her son +certainly bore in their faces the signs of extreme perturbation; they looked +like people who had passed a sleepless night. Confronted, moreover, with an +annoyance which they hoped they had disposed of, it was not natural that they +should have any very tender glances to bestow upon Newman. He stood before +them, and such eye-beams as they found available they leveled at him; Newman +feeling as if the door of a sepulchre had suddenly been opened, and the damp +darkness were being exhaled. +</p> + +<p> +“You see I have come back,” he said. “I have come to try +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be ridiculous,” said M. de Bellegarde, “to pretend +that we are glad to see you or that we don’t question the taste of your +visit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t talk about taste,” said Newman, with a laugh, +“or that will bring us round to yours! If I consulted my taste I +certainly shouldn’t come to see you. Besides, I will make as short work +as you please. Promise me to raise the blockade—to set Madame de Cintré +at liberty—and I will retire instantly.” +</p> + +<p> +“We hesitated as to whether we would see you,” said Madame de +Bellegarde; “and we were on the point of declining the honor. But it +seemed to me that we should act with civility, as we have always done, and I +wished to have the satisfaction of informing you that there are certain +weaknesses that people of our way of feeling can be guilty of but once.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may be weak but once, but you will be audacious many times, +madam,” Newman answered. “I didn’t come however, for +conversational purposes. I came to say this, simply: that if you will write +immediately to your daughter that you withdraw your opposition to her marriage, +I will take care of the rest. You don’t want her to turn nun—you +know more about the horrors of it than I do. Marrying a commercial person is +better than that. Give me a letter to her, signed and sealed, saying you +retract and that she may marry me with your blessing, and I will take it to her +at the convent and bring her out. There’s your chance—I call those +easy terms.” +</p> + +<p> +“We look at the matter otherwise, you know. We call them very hard +terms,” said Urbain de Bellegarde. They had all remained standing rigidly +in the middle of the room. “I think my mother will tell you that she +would rather her daughter should become Sœur Catherine than Mrs. +Newman.” +</p> + +<p> +But the old lady, with the serenity of supreme power, let her son make her +epigrams for her. She only smiled, almost sweetly, shaking her head and +repeating, “But once, Mr. Newman; but once!” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing that Newman had ever seen or heard gave him such a sense of marble +hardness as this movement and the tone that accompanied it. “Could +anything compel you?” he asked. “Do you know of anything that would +force you?” +</p> + +<p> +“This language, sir,” said the marquis, “addressed to people +in bereavement and grief is beyond all qualification.” +</p> + +<p> +“In most cases,” Newman answered, “your objection would have +some weight, even admitting that Madame de Cintré’s present intentions +make time precious. But I have thought of what you speak of, and I have come +here to-day without scruple simply because I consider your brother and you two +very different parties. I see no connection between you. Your brother was +ashamed of you. Lying there wounded and dying, the poor fellow apologized to me +for your conduct. He apologized to me for that of his mother.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment the effect of these words was as if Newman had struck a physical +blow. A quick flush leaped into the faces of Madame de Bellegarde and her son, +and they exchanged a glance like a twinkle of steel. Urbain uttered two words +which Newman but half heard, but of which the sense came to him as it were in +the reverberation of the sound, “<i>Le misérable!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“You show little respect for the living,” said Madame de +Bellegarde, “but at least respect the dead. Don’t +profane—don’t insult—the memory of my innocent son.” +</p> + +<p> +“I speak the simple truth,” Newman declared, “and I speak it +for a purpose. I repeat it—distinctly. Your son was utterly +disgusted—your son apologized.” +</p> + +<p> +Urbain de Bellegarde was frowning portentously, and Newman supposed he was +frowning at poor Valentin’s invidious image. Taken by surprise, his scant +affection for his brother had made a momentary concession to dishonor. But not +for an appreciable instant did his mother lower her flag. “You are +immensely mistaken, sir,” she said. “My son was sometimes light, +but he was never indecent. He died faithful to his name.” +</p> + +<p> +“You simply misunderstood him,” said the marquis, beginning to +rally. “You affirm the impossible!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t care for poor Valentin’s apology,” said +Newman. “It was far more painful than pleasant to me. This atrocious +thing was not his fault; he never hurt me, or anyone else; he was the soul of +honor. But it shows how he took it.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you wish to prove that my poor brother, in his last moments, was out +of his head, we can only say that under the melancholy circumstances nothing +was more possible. But confine yourself to that.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was quite in his right mind,” said Newman, with gentle but +dangerous doggedness; “I have never seen him so bright and clever. It was +terrible to see that witty, capable fellow dying such a death. You know I was +very fond of your brother. And I have further proof of his sanity,” +Newman concluded. +</p> + +<p> +The marquise gathered herself together majestically. “This is too +gross!” she cried. “We decline to accept your story, sir—we +repudiate it. Urbain, open the door.” She turned away, with an imperious +motion to her son, and passed rapidly down the length of the room. The marquis +went with her and held the door open. Newman was left standing. +</p> + +<p> +He lifted his finger, as a sign to M. de Bellegarde, who closed the door behind +his mother and stood waiting. Newman slowly advanced, more silent, for the +moment, than life. The two men stood face to face. Then Newman had a singular +sensation; he felt his sense of injury almost brimming over into jocularity. +“Come,” he said, “you don’t treat me well; at least +admit that.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde looked at him from head to foot, and then, in the most +delicate, best-bred voice, “I detest you personally,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the way I feel to you, but for politeness sake I +don’t say it,” said Newman. “It’s singular I should +want so much to be your brother-in-law, but I can’t give it up. Let me +try once more.” And he paused a moment. “You have a +secret—you have a skeleton in the closet.” M. de Bellegarde +continued to look at him hard, but Newman could not see whether his eyes +betrayed anything; the look of his eyes was always so strange. Newman paused +again, and then went on. “You and your mother have committed a +crime.” At this M. de Bellegarde’s eyes certainly did change; they +seemed to flicker, like blown candles. Newman could see that he was profoundly +startled; but there was something admirable in his self-control. +</p> + +<p> +“Continue,” said M. de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +Newman lifted a finger and made it waver a little in the air. “Need I +continue? You are trembling.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray where did you obtain this interesting information?” M. de +Bellegarde asked, very softly. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be strictly accurate,” said Newman. “I won’t +pretend to know more than I do. At present that is all I know. You have done +something that you must hide, something that would damn you if it were known, +something that would disgrace the name you are so proud of. I don’t know +what it is, but I can find out. Persist in your present course and I +<i>will</i> find out. Change it, let your sister go in peace, and I will leave +you alone. It’s a bargain?” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis almost succeeded in looking untroubled; the breaking up of the ice +in his handsome countenance was an operation that was necessarily gradual. But +Newman’s mildly-syllabled argumentation seemed to press, and press, and +presently he averted his eyes. He stood some moments, reflecting. +</p> + +<p> +“My brother told you this,” he said, looking up. +</p> + +<p> +Newman hesitated a moment. “Yes, your brother told me.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis smiled, handsomely. “Didn’t I say that he was out of +his mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was out of his mind if I don’t find out. He was very much in it +if I do.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde gave a shrug. “Eh, sir, find out or not, as you +please.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t frighten you?” demanded Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s for you to judge.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s for you to judge, at your leisure. Think it over, feel +yourself all round. I will give you an hour or two. I can’t give you +more, for how do we know how fast they may be making Madame de Cintré a nun? +Talk it over with your mother; let her judge whether she is frightened. I +don’t believe she is as easily frightened, in general, as you; but you +will see. I will go and wait in the village, at the inn, and I beg you to let +me know as soon as possible. Say by three o’clock. A simple <i>yes</i> or +<i>no</i> on paper will do. Only, you know, in case of a <i>yes</i> I shall +expect you, this time, to stick to your bargain.” And with this Newman +opened the door and let himself out. The marquis did not move, and Newman, +retiring, gave him another look. “At the inn, in the village,” he +repeated. Then he turned away altogether and passed out of the house. +</p> + +<p> +He was extremely excited by what he had been doing, for it was inevitable that +there should be a certain emotion in calling up the spectre of dishonor before +a family a thousand years old. But he went back to the inn and contrived to +wait there, deliberately, for the next two hours. He thought it more than +probable that Urbain de Bellegarde would give no sign; for an answer to his +challenge, in either sense, would be a confession of guilt. What he most +expected was silence—in other words defiance. But he prayed that, as he +imagined it, his shot might bring them down. It did bring, by three +o’clock, a note, delivered by a footman; a note addressed in Urbain de +Bellegarde’s handsome English hand. It ran as follows:— +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of letting you know that I return +to Paris, to-morrow, with my mother, in order that we may see my sister and +confirm her in the resolution which is the most effectual reply to your +audacious pertinacity. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman put the letter into his pocket, and continued his walk up and down the +inn-parlor. He had spent most of his time, for the past week, in walking up and +down. He continued to measure the length of the little <i>salle</i> of the +Armes de France until the day began to wane, when he went out to keep his +rendezvous with Mrs. Bread. The path which led up the hill to the ruin was easy +to find, and Newman in a short time had followed it to the top. He passed +beneath the rugged arch of the castle wall, and looked about him in the early +dusk for an old woman in black. The castle yard was empty, but the door of the +church was open. Newman went into the little nave and of course found a deeper +dusk than without. A couple of tapers, however, twinkled on the altar and just +enabled him to perceive a figure seated by one of the pillars. Closer +inspection helped him to recognize Mrs. Bread, in spite of the fact that she +was dressed with unwonted splendor. She wore a large black silk bonnet, with +imposing bows of crape, and an old black satin dress disposed itself in vaguely +lustrous folds about her person. She had judged it proper to the occasion to +appear in her stateliest apparel. She had been sitting with her eyes fixed upon +the ground, but when Newman passed before her she looked up at him, and then +she rose. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you a Catholic, Mrs. Bread?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir; I’m a good Church-of-England woman, very Low,” she +answered. “But I thought I should be safer in here than outside. I was +never out in the evening before, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall be safer,” said Newman, “where no one can hear +us.” And he led the way back into the castle court and then followed a +path beside the church, which he was sure must lead into another part of the +ruin. He was not deceived. It wandered along the crest of the hill and +terminated before a fragment of wall pierced by a rough aperture which had once +been a door. Through this aperture Newman passed and found himself in a nook +peculiarly favorable to quiet conversation, as probably many an earnest couple, +otherwise assorted than our friends, had assured themselves. The hill sloped +abruptly away, and on the remnant of its crest were scattered two or three +fragments of stone. Beneath, over the plain, lay the gathered twilight, through +which, in the near distance, gleamed two or three lights from the château. Mrs. +Bread rustled slowly after her guide, and Newman, satisfying himself that one +of the fallen stones was steady, proposed to her to sit upon it. She cautiously +complied, and he placed himself upon another, near her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<p> +“I am very much obliged to you for coming,” Newman said. “I +hope it won’t get you into trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I shall be missed. My lady, in these days, is not +fond of having me about her.” This was said with a certain fluttered +eagerness which increased Newman’s sense of having inspired the old woman +with confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“From the first, you know,” he answered, “you took an +interest in my prospects. You were on my side. That gratified me, I assure you. +And now that you know what they have done to me, I am sure you are with me all +the more.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have not done well—I must say it,” said Mrs. Bread. +“But you mustn’t blame the poor countess; they pressed her +hard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would give a million of dollars to know what they did to her!” +cried Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread sat with a dull, oblique gaze fixed upon the lights of the château. +“They worked on her feelings; they knew that was the way. She is a +delicate creature. They made her feel wicked. She is only too good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, they made her feel wicked,” said Newman, slowly; and then he +repeated it. “They made her feel wicked,—they made her feel +wicked.” The words seemed to him for the moment a vivid description of +infernal ingenuity. +</p> + +<p> +“It was because she was so good that she gave up—poor sweet +lady!” added Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“But she was better to them than to me,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“She was afraid,” said Mrs. Bread, very confidently; “she has +always been afraid, or at least for a long time. That was the real trouble, +sir. She was like a fair peach, I may say, with just one little speck. She had +one little sad spot. You pushed her into the sunshine, sir, and it almost +disappeared. Then they pulled her back into the shade and in a moment it began +to spread. Before we knew it she was gone. She was a delicate creature.” +</p> + +<p> +This singular attestation of Madame de Cintré’s delicacy, for all its +singularity, set Newman’s wound aching afresh. “I see,” he +presently said; “she knew something bad about her mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, she knew nothing,” said Mrs. Bread, holding her head very +stiff and keeping her eyes fixed upon the glimmering windows of the château. +</p> + +<p> +“She guessed something, then, or suspected it.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was afraid to know,” said Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>you</i> know, at any rate,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +She slowly turned her vague eyes upon Newman, squeezing her hands together in +her lap. “You are not quite faithful, sir. I thought it was to tell me +about Mr. Valentin you asked me to come here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the more we talk of Mr. Valentin the better,” said Newman. +“That’s exactly what I want. I was with him, as I told you, in his +last hour. He was in a great deal of pain, but he was quite himself. You know +what that means; he was bright and lively and clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he would always be clever, sir,” said Mrs. Bread. “And +did he know of your trouble?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he guessed it of himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what did he say to it?” +</p> + +<p> +“He said it was a disgrace to his name—but it was not the +first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord, Lord!” murmured Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“He said that his mother and his brother had once put their heads +together and invented something even worse.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shouldn’t have listened to that, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not. But I <i>did</i> listen, and I don’t forget it. Now I +want to know what it is they did.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread gave a soft moan. “And you have enticed me up into this +strange place to tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be alarmed,” said Newman. “I won’t say a +word that shall be disagreeable to you. Tell me as it suits you, and when it +suits you. Only remember that it was Mr. Valentin’s last wish that you +should.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he say that?” +</p> + +<p> +“He said it with his last breath—‘Tell Mrs. Bread I told you +to ask her.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t he tell you himself?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was too long a story for a dying man; he had no breath left in his +body. He could only say that he wanted me to know—that, wronged as I was, +it was my right to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how will it help you, sir?” said Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s for me to decide. Mr. Valentin believed it would, and +that’s why he told me. Your name was almost the last word he +spoke.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread was evidently awe-struck by this statement; she shook her clasped +hands slowly up and down. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, “if I +take a great liberty. Is it the solemn truth you are speaking? I <i>must</i> +ask you that; must I not, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no offense. It <i>is</i> the solemn truth; I solemnly +swear it. Mr. Valentin himself would certainly have told me more if he had been +able.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, if he knew more!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you suppose he did?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no saying what he knew about anything,” said Mrs. +Bread, with a mild head-shake. “He was so mightily clever. He could make +you believe he knew things that he didn’t, and that he didn’t know +others that he had better not have known.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suspect he knew something about his brother that kept the marquis +civil to him,” Newman propounded; “he made the marquis feel him. +What he wanted now was to put me in his place; he wanted to give me a chance to +make the marquis feel <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy on us!” cried the old waiting-woman, “how wicked we +all are!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Newman; “some of us are wicked, +certainly. I am very angry, I am very sore, and I am very bitter, but I +don’t know that I am wicked. I have been cruelly injured. They have hurt +me, and I want to hurt them. I don’t deny that; on the contrary, I tell +you plainly that it is the use I want to make of your secret.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread seemed to hold her breath. “You want to publish them—you +want to shame them?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to bring them down,—down, down, down! I want to turn the +tables upon them—I want to mortify them as they mortified me. They took +me up into a high place and made me stand there for all the world to see me, +and then they stole behind me and pushed me into this bottomless pit, where I +lie howling and gnashing my teeth! I made a fool of myself before all their +friends; but I shall make something worse of them.” +</p> + +<p> +This passionate sally, which Newman uttered with the greater fervor that it was +the first time he had had a chance to say all this aloud, kindled two small +sparks in Mrs. Bread’s fixed eyes. “I suppose you have a right to +your anger, sir; but think of the dishonor you will draw down on Madame de +Cintré.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame de Cintré is buried alive,” cried Newman. “What are +honor or dishonor to her? The door of the tomb is at this moment closing behind +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it’s most awful,” moaned Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“She has moved off, like her brother Valentin, to give me room to work. +It’s as if it were done on purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” said Mrs. Bread, apparently impressed by the ingenuity of +this reflection. She was silent for some moments; then she added, “And +would you bring my lady before the courts?” +</p> + +<p> +“The courts care nothing for my lady,” Newman replied. “If +she has committed a crime, she will be nothing for the courts but a wicked old +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“And will they hang her, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“That depends upon what she has done.” And Newman eyed Mrs. Bread +intently. +</p> + +<p> +“It would break up the family most terribly, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s time such a family should be broken up!” said Newman, +with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“And me at my age out of place, sir!” sighed Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I will take care of you! You shall come and live with me. You shall +be my housekeeper, or anything you like. I will pension you for life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, dear, sir, you think of everything.” And she seemed to fall +a-brooding. +</p> + +<p> +Newman watched her a while, and then he said suddenly. “Ah, Mrs. Bread, +you are too fond of my lady!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him as quickly. “I wouldn’t have you say that, sir. I +don’t think it any part of my duty to be fond of my lady. I have served +her faithfully this many a year; but if she were to die to-morrow, I believe, +before Heaven I shouldn’t shed a tear for her.” Then, after a +pause, “I have no reason to love her!” Mrs. Bread added. “The +most she has done for me has been not to turn me out of the house.” +Newman felt that decidedly his companion was more and more +confidential—that if luxury is corrupting, Mrs. Bread’s +conservative habits were already relaxed by the spiritual comfort of this +preconcerted interview, in a remarkable locality, with a free-spoken +millionaire. All his native shrewdness admonished him that his part was simply +to let her take her time—let the charm of the occasion work. So he said +nothing; he only looked at her kindly. Mrs. Bread sat nursing her lean elbows. +“My lady once did me a great wrong,” she went on at last. +“She has a terrible tongue when she is vexed. It was many a year ago, but +I have never forgotten it. I have never mentioned it to a human creature; I +have kept my grudge to myself. I dare say I have been wicked, but my grudge has +grown old with me. It has grown good for nothing, too, I dare say; but it has +lived along, as I have lived. It will die when I die,—not before!” +</p> + +<p> +“And what <i>is</i> your grudge?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread dropped her eyes and hesitated. “If I were a foreigner, sir, I +should make less of telling you; it comes harder to a decent Englishwoman. But +I sometimes think I have picked up too many foreign ways. What I was telling +you belongs to a time when I was much younger and very different looking to +what I am now. I had a very high color, sir, if you can believe it, indeed I +was a very smart lass. My lady was younger, too, and the late marquis was +youngest of all—I mean in the way he went on, sir; he had a very high +spirit; he was a magnificent man. He was fond of his pleasure, like most +foreigners, and it must be owned that he sometimes went rather below him to +take it. My lady was often jealous, and, if you’ll believe it, sir, she +did me the honor to be jealous of me. One day I had a red ribbon in my cap, and +my lady flew out at me and ordered me to take it off. She accused me of putting +it on to make the marquis look at me. I don’t know that I was +impertinent, but I spoke up like an honest girl and didn’t count my +words. A red ribbon indeed! As if it was my ribbons the marquis looked at! My +lady knew afterwards that I was perfectly respectable, but she never said a +word to show that she believed it. But the marquis did!” Mrs. Bread +presently added, “I took off my red ribbon and put it away in a drawer, +where I have kept it to this day. It’s faded now, it’s a very pale +pink; but there it lies. My grudge has faded, too; the red has all gone out of +it; but it lies here yet.” And Mrs. Bread stroked her black satin bodice. +</p> + +<p> +Newman listened with interest to this decent narrative, which seemed to have +opened up the deeps of memory to his companion. Then, as she remained silent, +and seemed to be losing herself in retrospective meditation upon her perfect +respectability, he ventured upon a short cut to his goal. “So Madame de +Bellegarde was jealous; I see. And M. de Bellegarde admired pretty women, +without distinction of class. I suppose one mustn’t be hard upon him, for +they probably didn’t all behave so properly as you. But years afterwards +it could hardly have been jealousy that turned Madame de Bellegarde into a +criminal.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread gave a weary sigh. “We are using dreadful words, sir, but I +don’t care now. I see you have your idea, and I have no will of my own. +My will was the will of my children, as I called them; but I have lost my +children now. They are dead—I may say it of both of them; and what should +I care for the living? What is anyone in the house to me now—what am I to +them? My lady objects to me—she has objected to me these thirty years. I +should have been glad to be something to young Madame de Bellegarde, though I +never was nurse to the present marquis. When he was a baby I was too young; +they wouldn’t trust me with him. But his wife told her own maid, Mamselle +Clarisse, the opinion she had of me. Perhaps you would like to hear it, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, immensely,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“She said that if I would sit in her children’s schoolroom I should +do very well for a penwiper! When things have come to that I don’t think +I need stand upon ceremony.” +</p> + +<p> +“Decidedly not,” said Newman. “Go on, Mrs. Bread.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread, however, relapsed again into troubled dumbness, and all Newman +could do was to fold his arms and wait. But at last she appeared to have set +her memories in order. “It was when the late marquis was an old man and +his eldest son had been two years married. It was when the time came on for +marrying Mademoiselle Claire; that’s the way they talk of it here, you +know, sir. The marquis’s health was bad; he was very much broken down. My +lady had picked out M. de Cintré, for no good reason that I could see. But +there are reasons, I very well know, that are beyond me, and you must be high +in the world to understand them. Old M. de Cintré was very high, and my lady +thought him almost as good as herself; that’s saying a good deal. Mr. +Urbain took sides with his mother, as he always did. The trouble, I believe, +was that my lady would give very little money, and all the other gentlemen +asked more. It was only M. de Cintré that was satisfied. The Lord willed it he +should have that one soft spot; it was the only one he had. He may have been +very grand in his birth, and he certainly was very grand in his bows and +speeches; but that was all the grandeur he had. I think he was like what I have +heard of comedians; not that I have ever seen one. But I know he painted his +face. He might paint it all he would; he could never make me like it! The +marquis couldn’t abide him, and declared that sooner than take such a +husband as that Mademoiselle Claire should take none at all. He and my lady had +a great scene; it came even to our ears in the servants’ hall. It was not +their first quarrel, if the truth must be told. They were not a loving couple, +but they didn’t often come to words, because, I think, neither of them +thought the other’s doings worth the trouble. My lady had long ago got +over her jealousy, and she had taken to indifference. In this, I must say, they +were well matched. The marquis was very easy-going; he had a most gentlemanly +temper. He got angry only once a year, but then it was very bad. He always took +to bed directly afterwards. This time I speak of he took to bed as usual, but +he never got up again. I’m afraid the poor gentleman was paying for his +dissipation; isn’t it true they mostly do, sir, when they get old? My +lady and Mr. Urbain kept quiet, but I know my lady wrote letters to M. de +Cintré. The marquis got worse and the doctors gave him up. My lady, she gave +him up too, and if the truth must be told, she gave him up gladly. When once he +was out of the way she could do what she pleased with her daughter, and it was +all arranged that my poor innocent child should be handed over to M. de Cintré. +You don’t know what Mademoiselle was in those days, sir; she was the +sweetest young creature in France, and knew as little of what was going on +around her as the lamb does of the butcher. I used to nurse the marquis, and I +was always in his room. It was here at Fleurières, in the autumn. We had a +doctor from Paris, who came and stayed two or three weeks in the house. Then +there came two others, and there was a consultation, and these two others, as I +said, declared that the marquis couldn’t be saved. After this they went +off, pocketing their fees, but the other one stayed and did what he could. The +marquis himself kept crying out that he wouldn’t die, that he +didn’t want to die, that he would live and look after his daughter. +Mademoiselle Claire and the viscount—that was Mr. Valentin, you +know—were both in the house. The doctor was a clever man,—that I +could see myself,—and I think he believed that the marquis might get +well. We took good care of him, he and I, between us, and one day, when my lady +had almost ordered her mourning, my patient suddenly began to mend. He got +better and better, till the doctor said he was out of danger. What was killing +him was the dreadful fits of pain in his stomach. But little by little they +stopped, and the poor marquis began to make his jokes again. The doctor found +something that gave him great comfort—some white stuff that we kept in a +great bottle on the chimney-piece. I used to give it to the marquis through a +glass tube; it always made him easier. Then the doctor went away, after telling +me to keep on giving him the mixture whenever he was bad. After that there was +a little doctor from Poitiers, who came every day. So we were alone in the +house—my lady and her poor husband and their three children. Young Madame +de Bellegarde had gone away, with her little girl, to her mothers. You know she +is very lively, and her maid told me that she didn’t like to be where +people were dying.” Mrs. Bread paused a moment, and then she went on with +the same quiet consistency. “I think you have guessed, sir, that when the +marquis began to turn my lady was disappointed.” And she paused again, +bending upon Newman a face which seemed to grow whiter as the darkness settled +down upon them. +</p> + +<p> +Newman had listened eagerly—with an eagerness greater even than that with +which he had bent his ear to Valentin de Bellegarde’s last words. Every +now and then, as his companion looked up at him, she reminded him of an ancient +tabby cat, protracting the enjoyment of a dish of milk. Even her triumph was +measured and decorous; the faculty of exultation had been chilled by disuse. +She presently continued. “Late one night I was sitting by the marquis in +his room, the great red room in the west tower. He had been complaining a +little, and I gave him a spoonful of the doctor’s dose. My lady had been +there in the early part of the evening; she sat far more than an hour by his +bed. Then she went away and left me alone. After midnight she came back, and +her eldest son was with her. They went to the bed and looked at the marquis, +and my lady took hold of his hand. Then she turned to me and said he was not so +well; I remember how the marquis, without saying anything, lay staring at her. +I can see his white face, at this moment, in the great black square between the +bed-curtains. I said I didn’t think he was very bad; and she told me to +go to bed—she would sit a while with him. When the marquis saw me going +he gave a sort of groan, and called out to me not to leave him; but Mr. Urbain +opened the door for me and pointed the way out. The present +marquis—perhaps you have noticed, sir—has a very proud way of +giving orders, and I was there to take orders. I went to my room, but I +wasn’t easy; I couldn’t tell you why. I didn’t undress; I sat +there waiting and listening. For what, would you have said, sir? I +couldn’t have told you; for surely a poor gentleman might be comfortable +with his wife and his son. It was as if I expected to hear the marquis moaning +after me again. I listened, but I heard nothing. It was a very still night; I +never knew a night so still. At last the very stillness itself seemed to +frighten me, and I came out of my room and went very softly downstairs. In the +anteroom, outside of the marquis’s chamber, I found Mr. Urbain walking up +and down. He asked me what I wanted, and I said I came back to relieve my lady. +He said <i>he</i> would relieve my lady, and ordered me back to bed; but as I +stood there, unwilling to turn away, the door of the room opened and my lady +came out. I noticed she was very pale; she was very strange. She looked a +moment at the count and at me, and then she held out her arms to the count. He +went to her, and she fell upon him and hid her face. I went quickly past her +into the room and to the marquis’s bed. He was lying there, very white, +with his eyes shut, like a corpse. I took hold of his hand and spoke to him, +and he felt to me like a dead man. Then I turned round; my lady and Mr. Urbain +were there. ‘My poor Bread,’ said my lady, ‘M. le Marquis is +gone.’ Mr. Urbain knelt down by the bed and said softly, ‘<i>Mon +père, mon père</i>.’ I thought it wonderful strange, and asked my lady +what in the world had happened, and why she hadn’t called me. She said +nothing had happened; that she had only been sitting there with the marquis, +very quiet. She had closed her eyes, thinking she might sleep, and she had +slept, she didn’t know how long. When she woke up he was dead. +‘It’s death, my son, it’s death,’ she said to the +count. Mr. Urbain said they must have the doctor, immediately, from Poitiers, +and that he would ride off and fetch him. He kissed his father’s face, +and then he kissed his mother and went away. My lady and I stood there at the +bedside. As I looked at the poor marquis it came into my head that he was not +dead, that he was in a kind of swoon. And then my lady repeated, ‘My poor +Bread, it’s death, it’s death;’ and I said, ‘Yes, my +lady, it’s certainly death.’ I said just the opposite to what I +believed; it was my notion. Then my lady said we must wait for the doctor, and +we sat there and waited. It was a long time; the poor marquis neither stirred +nor changed. ‘I have seen death before,’ said my lady, ‘and +it’s terribly like this.’ ‘Yes, please, my lady,’ said +I; and I kept thinking. The night wore away without the count’s coming +back, and my lady began to be frightened. She was afraid he had had an accident +in the dark, or met with some wild people. At last she got so restless that she +went below to watch in the court for her son’s return. I sat there alone +and the marquis never stirred.” +</p> + +<p> +Here Mrs. Bread paused again, and the most artistic of romancers could not have +been more effective. Newman made a movement as if he were turning over the page +of a novel. “So he <i>was</i> dead!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Three days afterwards he was in his grave,” said Mrs. Bread, +sententiously. “In a little while I went away to the front of the house +and looked out into the court, and there, before long, I saw Mr. Urbain ride in +alone. I waited a bit, to hear him come upstairs with his mother, but they +stayed below, and I went back to the marquis’s room. I went to the bed +and held up the light to him, but I don’t know why I didn’t let the +candlestick fall. The marquis’s eyes were open—open wide! they were +staring at me. I knelt down beside him and took his hands, and begged him to +tell me, in the name of wonder, whether he was alive or dead. Still he looked +at me a long time, and then he made me a sign to put my ear close to him: +‘I am dead,’ he said, ‘I am dead. The marquise has killed +me.’ I was all in a tremble; I didn’t understand him. He seemed +both a man and a corpse, if you can fancy, sir. ‘But you’ll get +well now, sir,’ I said. And then he whispered again, ever so weak; +‘I wouldn’t get well for a kingdom. I wouldn’t be that +woman’s husband again.’ And then he said more; he said she had +murdered him. I asked him what she had done to him, but he only replied, +‘Murder, murder. And she’ll kill my daughter,’ he said; +‘my poor unhappy child.’ And he begged me to prevent that, and then +he said that he was dying, that he was dead. I was afraid to move or to leave +him; I was almost dead myself. All of a sudden he asked me to get a pencil and +write for him; and then I had to tell him that I couldn’t manage a +pencil. He asked me to hold him up in bed while he wrote himself, and I said he +could never, never do such a thing. But he seemed to have a kind of terror that +gave him strength. I found a pencil in the room and a piece of paper and a +book, and I put the paper on the book and the pencil into his hand, and moved +the candle near him. You will think all this very strange, sir; and very +strange it was. The strangest part of it was that I believed he was dying, and +that I was eager to help him to write. I sat on the bed and put my arm round +him, and held him up. I felt very strong; I believe I could have lifted him and +carried him. It was a wonder how he wrote, but he did write, in a big +scratching hand; he almost covered one side of the paper. It seemed a long +time; I suppose it was three or four minutes. He was groaning, terribly, all +the while. Then he said it was ended, and I let him down upon his pillows and +he gave me the paper and told me to fold it, and hide it, and give it to those +who would act upon it. ‘Whom do you mean?’ I said. ‘Who are +those who will act upon it?’ But he only groaned, for an answer; he +couldn’t speak, for weakness. In a few minutes he told me to go and look +at the bottle on the chimney-piece. I knew the bottle he meant; the white stuff +that was good for his stomach. I went and looked at it, but it was empty. When +I came back his eyes were open and he was staring at me; but soon he closed +them and he said no more. I hid the paper in my dress; I didn’t look at +what was written upon it, though I can read very well, sir, if I haven’t +any handwriting. I sat down near the bed, but it was nearly half an hour before +my lady and the count came in. The marquis looked as he did when they left him, +and I never said a word about his having been otherwise. Mr. Urbain said that +the doctor had been called to a person in childbirth, but that he promised to +set out for Fleurières immediately. In another half hour he arrived, and as +soon as he had examined the marquis he said that we had had a false alarm. The +poor gentleman was very low, but he was still living. I watched my lady and her +son when he said this, to see if they looked at each other, and I am obliged to +admit that they didn’t. The doctor said there was no reason he should +die; he had been going on so well. And then he wanted to know how he had +suddenly fallen off; he had left him so very hearty. My lady told her little +story again—what she had told Mr. Urbain and me—and the doctor +looked at her and said nothing. He stayed all the next day at the château, and +hardly left the marquis. I was always there. Mademoiselle and Mr. Valentin came +and looked at their father, but he never stirred. It was a strange, deathly +stupor. My lady was always about; her face was as white as her husband’s, +and she looked very proud, as I had seen her look when her orders or her wishes +had been disobeyed. It was as if the poor marquis had defied her; and the way +she took it made me afraid of her. The apothecary from Poitiers kept the +marquis along through the day, and we waited for the other doctor from Paris, +who, as I told you, had been staying at Fleurières. They had telegraphed for +him early in the morning, and in the evening he arrived. He talked a bit +outside with the doctor from Poitiers, and then they came in to see the marquis +together. I was with him, and so was Mr. Urbain. My lady had been to receive +the doctor from Paris, and she didn’t come back with him into the room. +He sat down by the marquis; I can see him there now, with his hand on the +marquis’s wrist, and Mr. Urbain watching him with a little looking-glass +in his hand. ‘I’m sure he’s better,’ said the little +doctor from Poitiers; ‘I’m sure he’ll come back.’ A few +moments after he had said this the marquis opened his eyes, as if he were +waking up, and looked at us, from one to the other. I saw him look at me very +softly, as you’d say. At the same moment my lady came in on tiptoe; she +came up to the bed and put in her head between me and the count. The marquis +saw her and gave a long, most wonderful moan. He said something we +couldn’t understand, and he seemed to have a kind of spasm. He shook all +over and then closed his eyes, and the doctor jumped up and took hold of my +lady. He held her for a moment a bit roughly. The marquis was stone dead! This +time there were those there that knew.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman felt as if he had been reading by starlight the report of highly +important evidence in a great murder case. “And the paper—the +paper!” he said, excitedly. “What was written upon it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell you, sir,” answered Mrs. Bread. “I +couldn’t read it; it was in French.” +</p> + +<p> +“But could no one else read it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never asked a human creature.” +</p> + +<p> +“No one has ever seen it?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you see it you’ll be the first.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman seized the old woman’s hand in both his own and pressed it +vigorously. “I thank you ever so much for that,” he cried. “I +want to be the first, I want it to be my property and no one else’s! +You’re the wisest old woman in Europe. And what did you do with the +paper?” This information had made him feel extraordinarily strong. +“Give it to me quick!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread got up with a certain majesty. “It is not so easy as that, +sir. If you want the paper, you must wait.” +</p> + +<p> +“But waiting is horrible, you know,” urged Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure <i>I</i> have waited; I have waited these many years,” +said Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“That is very true. You have waited for me. I won’t forget it. And +yet, how comes it you didn’t do as M. de Bellegarde said, show the paper +to someone?” +</p> + +<p> +“To whom should I show it?” answered Mrs. Bread, mournfully. +“It was not easy to know, and many’s the night I have lain awake +thinking of it. Six months afterwards, when they married Mademoiselle to her +vicious old husband, I was very near bringing it out. I thought it was my duty +to do something with it, and yet I was mightily afraid. I didn’t know +what was written on the paper or how bad it might be, and there was no one I +could trust enough to ask. And it seemed to me a cruel kindness to do that +sweet young creature, letting her know that her father had written her mother +down so shamefully; for that’s what he did, I suppose. I thought she +would rather be unhappy with her husband than be unhappy that way. It was for +her and for my dear Mr. Valentin I kept quiet. Quiet I call it, but for me it +was a weary quietness. It worried me terribly, and it changed me altogether. +But for others I held my tongue, and no one, to this hour, knows what passed +between the poor marquis and me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But evidently there were suspicions,” said Newman. “Where +did Mr. Valentin get his ideas?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was the little doctor from Poitiers. He was very ill-satisfied, and +he made a great talk. He was a sharp Frenchman, and coming to the house, as he +did day after day, I suppose he saw more than he seemed to see. And indeed the +way the poor marquis went off as soon as his eyes fell on my lady was a most +shocking sight for anyone. The medical gentleman from Paris was much more +accommodating, and he hushed up the other. But for all he could do Mr. Valentin +and Mademoiselle heard something; they knew their father’s death was +somehow against nature. Of course they couldn’t accuse their mother, and, +as I tell you, I was as dumb as that stone. Mr. Valentin used to look at me +sometimes, and his eyes seemed to shine, as if he were thinking of asking me +something. I was dreadfully afraid he would speak, and I always looked away and +went about my business. If I were to tell him, I was sure he would hate me +afterwards, and that I could never have borne. Once I went up to him and took a +great liberty; I kissed him, as I had kissed him when he was a child. +‘You oughtn’t to look so sad, sir,’ I said; ‘believe +your poor old Bread. Such a gallant, handsome young man can have nothing to be +sad about.’ And I think he understood me; he understood that I was +begging off, and he made up his mind in his own way. He went about with his +unasked question in his mind, as I did with my untold tale; we were both afraid +of bringing dishonor on a great house. And it was the same with Mademoiselle. +She didn’t know what happened; she wouldn’t know. My lady and Mr. +Urbain asked me no questions because they had no reason. I was as still as a +mouse. When I was younger my lady thought me a hussy, and now she thought me a +fool. How should I have any ideas?” +</p> + +<p> +“But you say the little doctor from Poitiers made a talk,” said +Newman. “Did no one take it up?” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard nothing of it, sir. They are always talking scandal in these +foreign countries you may have noticed—and I suppose they shook their +heads over Madame de Bellegarde. But after all, what could they say? The +marquis had been ill, and the marquis had died; he had as good a right to die +as anyone. The doctor couldn’t say he had not come honestly by his +cramps. The next year the little doctor left the place and bought a practice in +Bordeaux, and if there has been any gossip it died out. And I don’t think +there could have been much gossip about my lady that anyone would listen to. My +lady is so very respectable.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman, at this last affirmation, broke into an immense, resounding laugh. Mrs. +Bread had begun to move away from the spot where they were sitting, and he +helped her through the aperture in the wall and along the homeward path. +“Yes,” he said, “my lady’s respectability is delicious; +it will be a great crash!” They reached the empty space in front of the +church, where they stopped a moment, looking at each other with something of an +air of closer fellowship—like two sociable conspirators. “But what +was it,” said Newman, “what was it she did to her husband? She +didn’t stab him or poison him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, sir; no one saw it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unless it was Mr. Urbain. You say he was walking up and down, outside +the room. Perhaps he looked through the keyhole. But no; I think that with his +mother he would take it on trust.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may be sure I have often thought of it,” said Mrs. Bread. +“I am sure she didn’t touch him with her hands. I saw nothing on +him, anywhere. I believe it was in this way. He had a fit of his great pain, +and he asked her for his medicine. Instead of giving it to him she went and +poured it away, before his eyes. Then he saw what she meant, and, weak and +helpless as he was, he was frightened, he was terrified. ‘You want to +kill me,’ he said. ‘Yes, M. le Marquis, I want to kill you,’ +says my lady, and sits down and fixes her eyes upon him. You know my +lady’s eyes, I think, sir; it was with them she killed him; it was with +the terrible strong will she put into them. It was like a frost on +flowers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you are a very intelligent woman; you have shown great +discretion,” said Newman. “I shall value your services as +housekeeper extremely.” +</p> + +<p> +They had begun to descend the hill, and Mrs. Bread said nothing until they +reached the foot. Newman strolled lightly beside her; his head was thrown back +and he was gazing at all the stars; he seemed to himself to be riding his +vengeance along the Milky Way. “So you are serious, sir, about +that?” said Mrs. Bread, softly. +</p> + +<p> +“About your living with me? Why of course I will take care of you to the +end of your days. You can’t live with those people any longer. And you +oughtn’t to, you know, after this. You give me the paper, and you move +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems very flighty in me to be taking a new place at this time of +life,” observed Mrs. Bread, lugubriously. “But if you are going to +turn the house upside down, I would rather be out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Newman, in the cheerful tone of a man who feels rich in +alternatives. “I don’t think I shall bring in the constables, if +that’s what you mean. Whatever Madame de Bellegarde did, I am afraid the +law can’t take hold of it. But I am glad of that; it leaves it altogether +to me!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a mighty bold gentleman, sir,” murmured Mrs. Bread, +looking at him round the edge of her great bonnet. +</p> + +<p> +He walked with her back to the château; the curfew had tolled for the laborious +villagers of Fleurières, and the street was unlighted and empty. She promised +him that he should have the marquis’s manuscript in half an hour. Mrs. +Bread choosing not to go in by the great gate, they passed round by a winding +lane to a door in the wall of the park, of which she had the key, and which +would enable her to enter the château from behind. Newman arranged with her +that he should await outside the wall her return with the coveted document. +</p> + +<p> +She went in, and his half hour in the dusky lane seemed very long. But he had +plenty to think about. At last the door in the wall opened and Mrs. Bread stood +there, with one hand on the latch and the other holding out a scrap of white +paper, folded small. In a moment he was master of it, and it had passed into +his waistcoat pocket. “Come and see me in Paris,” he said; +“we are to settle your future, you know; and I will translate poor M. de +Bellegarde’s French to you.” Never had he felt so grateful as at +this moment for M. Nioche’s instructions. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread’s dull eyes had followed the disappearance of the paper, and +she gave a heavy sigh. “Well, you have done what you would with me, sir, +and I suppose you will do it again. You <i>must</i> take care of me now. You +are a terribly positive gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just now,” said Newman, “I’m a terribly impatient +gentleman!” And he bade her good-night and walked rapidly back to the +inn. He ordered his vehicle to be prepared for his return to Poitiers, and then +he shut the door of the common salle and strode toward the solitary lamp on the +chimney-piece. He pulled out the paper and quickly unfolded it. It was covered +with pencil-marks, which at first, in the feeble light, seemed indistinct. But +Newman’s fierce curiosity forced a meaning from the tremulous signs. The +English of them was as follows:— +</p> + +<p> +“My wife has tried to kill me, and she has done it; I am dying, dying +horribly. It is to marry my dear daughter to M. de Cintré. With all my soul I +protest,—I forbid it. I am not insane,—ask the doctors, ask Mrs. +B——. It was alone with me here, to-night; she attacked me and put +me to death. It is murder, if murder ever was. Ask the doctors. +</p> + +<p> +“HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<p> +Newman returned to Paris the second day after his interview with Mrs. Bread. +The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again the little +document which he had lodged in his pocket-book, and thinking what he would do +in the circumstances and how he would do it. He would not have said that +Poitiers was an amusing place; yet the day seemed very short. Domiciled once +more in the Boulevard Haussmann, he walked over to the Rue de +l’Université and inquired of Madame de Bellegarde’s portress +whether the marquise had come back. The portress told him that she had arrived, +with M. le Marquis, on the preceding day, and further informed him that if he +desired to enter, Madame de Bellegarde and her son were both at home. As she +said these words the little white-faced old woman who peered out of the dusky +gate-house of the Hôtel de Bellegarde gave a small wicked smile—a smile +which seemed to Newman to mean, “Go in if you dare!” She was +evidently versed in the current domestic history; she was placed where she +could feel the pulse of the house. Newman stood a moment, twisting his +moustache and looking at her; then he abruptly turned away. But this was not +because he was afraid to go in—though he doubted whether, if he did so, +he should be able to make his way, unchallenged, into the presence of Madame de +Cintré’s relatives. Confidence—excessive confidence, +perhaps—quite as much as timidity prompted his retreat. He was nursing +his thunderbolt; he loved it; he was unwilling to part with it. He seemed to be +holding it aloft in the rumbling, vaguely-flashing air, directly over the heads +of his victims, and he fancied he could see their pale, upturned faces. Few +specimens of the human countenance had ever given him such pleasure as these, +lighted in the lurid fashion I have hinted at, and he was disposed to sip the +cup of contemplative revenge in a leisurely fashion. It must be added, too, +that he was at a loss to see exactly how he could arrange to witness the +operation of his thunder. To send in his card to Madame de Bellegarde would be +a waste of ceremony; she would certainly decline to receive him. On the other +hand he could not force his way into her presence. It annoyed him keenly to +think that he might be reduced to the blind satisfaction of writing her a +letter; but he consoled himself in a measure with the reflection that a letter +might lead to an interview. He went home, and feeling rather +tired—nursing a vengeance was, it must be confessed, a rather fatiguing +process; it took a good deal out of one—flung himself into one of his +brocaded fauteuils, stretched his legs, thrust his hands into his pockets, and, +while he watched the reflected sunset fading from the ornate house-tops on the +opposite side of the Boulevard, began mentally to compose a cool epistle to +Madame de Bellegarde. While he was so occupied his servant threw open the door +and announced ceremoniously, “Madame Brett!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman roused himself, expectantly, and in a few moments perceived upon his +threshold the worthy woman with whom he had conversed to such good purpose on +the starlit hill-top of Fleurières. Mrs. Bread had made for this visit the same +toilet as for her former expedition. Newman was struck with her distinguished +appearance. His lamp was not lit, and as her large, grave face gazed at him +through the light dusk from under the shadow of her ample bonnet, he felt the +incongruity of such a person presenting herself as a servant. He greeted her +with high geniality and bade her come in and sit down and make herself +comfortable. There was something which might have touched the springs both of +mirth and of melancholy in the ancient maidenliness with which Mrs. Bread +endeavored to comply with these directions. She was not playing at being +fluttered, which would have been simply ridiculous; she was doing her best to +carry herself as a person so humble that, for her, even embarrassment would +have been pretentious; but evidently she had never dreamed of its being in her +horoscope to pay a visit, at night-fall, to a friendly single gentleman who +lived in theatrical-looking rooms on one of the new Boulevards. +</p> + +<p> +“I truly hope I am not forgetting my place, sir,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgetting your place?” cried Newman. “Why, you are +remembering it. This is your place, you know. You are already in my service; +your wages, as housekeeper, began a fortnight ago. I can tell you my house +wants keeping! Why don’t you take off your bonnet and stay?” +</p> + +<p> +“Take off my bonnet?” said Mrs. Bread, with timid literalness. +“Oh, sir, I haven’t my cap. And with your leave, sir, I +couldn’t keep house in my best gown.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind your gown,” said Newman, cheerfully. “You shall +have a better gown than that.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread stared solemnly and then stretched her hands over her lustreless +satin skirt, as if the perilous side of her situation were defining itself. +“Oh, sir, I am fond of my own clothes,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you have left those wicked people, at any rate,” said +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, here I am!” said Mrs. Bread. “That’s all I +can tell you. Here I sit, poor Catherine Bread. It’s a strange place for +me to be. I don’t know myself; I never supposed I was so bold. But +indeed, sir, I have gone as far as my own strength will bear me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come, Mrs. Bread,” said Newman, almost caressingly, +“don’t make yourself uncomfortable. Now’s the time to feel +lively, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +She began to speak again with a trembling voice. “I think it would be +more respectable if I could—if I could”—and her voice +trembled to a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“If you could give up this sort of thing altogether?” said Newman +kindly, trying to anticipate her meaning, which he supposed might be a wish to +retire from service. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could give up everything, sir! All I should ask is a decent +Protestant burial.” +</p> + +<p> +“Burial!” cried Newman, with a burst of laughter. “Why, to +bury you now would be a sad piece of extravagance. It’s only rascals who +have to be buried to get respectable. Honest folks like you and me can live our +time out—and live together. Come! Did you bring your baggage?” +</p> + +<p> +“My box is locked and corded; but I haven’t yet spoken to my +lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak to her, then, and have done with it. I should like to have your +chance!” cried Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I would gladly give it you, sir. I have passed some weary hours in my +lady’s dressing-room; but this will be one of the longest. She will tax +me with ingratitude.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Newman, “so long as you can tax her with +murder—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, I can’t; not I,” sighed Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean to say anything about it? So much the better. Leave +that to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“If she calls me a thankless old woman,” said Mrs. Bread, “I +shall have nothing to say. But it is better so,” she softly added. +“She shall be my lady to the last. That will be more respectable.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then you will come to me and I shall be your gentleman,” said +Newman; “that will be more respectable still!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread rose, with lowered eyes, and stood a moment; then, looking up, she +rested her eyes upon Newman’s face. The disordered proprieties were +somehow settling to rest. She looked at Newman so long and so fixedly, with +such a dull, intense devotedness, that he himself might have had a pretext for +embarrassment. At last she said gently, “You are not looking well, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s natural enough,” said Newman. “I have nothing +to feel well about. To be very indifferent and very fierce, very dull and very +jovial, very sick and very lively, all at once,—why, it rather mixes one +up.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread gave a noiseless sigh. “I can tell you something that will +make you feel duller still, if you want to feel all one way. About Madame de +Cintré.” +</p> + +<p> +“What can you tell me?” Newman demanded. “Not that you have +seen her?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. “No, indeed, sir, nor ever shall. That’s the +dullness of it. Nor my lady. Nor M. de Bellegarde.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that she is kept so close.” +</p> + +<p> +“Close, close,” said Mrs. Bread, very softly. +</p> + +<p> +These words, for an instant, seemed to check the beating of Newman’s +heart. He leaned back in his chair, staring up at the old woman. “They +have tried to see her, and she wouldn’t—she couldn’t?” +</p> + +<p> +“She refused—forever! I had it from my lady’s own +maid,” said Mrs. Bread, “who had it from my lady. To speak of it to +such a person my lady must have felt the shock. Madame de Cintré won’t +see them now, and now is her only chance. A while hence she will have no +chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean the other women—the mothers, the daughters, the sisters; +what is it they call them?—won’t let her?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is what they call the rule of the house,—or of the order, I +believe,” said Mrs. Bread. “There is no rule so strict as that of +the Carmelites. The bad women in the reformatories are fine ladies to them. +They wear old brown cloaks—so the <i>femme de chambre</i> told +me—that you wouldn’t use for a horse blanket. And the poor countess +was so fond of soft-feeling dresses; she would never have anything stiff! They +sleep on the ground,” Mrs. Bread went on; “they are no better, no +better,”—and she hesitated for a comparison,—“they are +no better than tinkers’ wives. They give up everything, down to the very +name their poor old nurses called them by. They give up father and mother, +brother and sister,—to say nothing of other persons,” Mrs. Bread +delicately added. “They wear a shroud under their brown cloaks and a rope +round their waists, and they get up on winter nights and go off into cold +places to pray to the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary is a hard mistress!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread, dwelling on these terrible facts, sat dry-eyed and pale, with her +hands clasped in her satin lap. Newman gave a melancholy groan and fell +forward, leaning his head on his hands. There was a long silence, broken only +by the ticking of the great gilded clock on the chimney-piece. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is this place—where is the convent?” Newman asked at +last, looking up. +</p> + +<p> +“There are two houses,” said Mrs. Bread. “I found out; I +thought you would like to know—though it’s poor comfort, I think. +One is in the Avenue de Messine; they have learned that Madame de Cintré is +there. The other is in the Rue d’Enfer. That’s a terrible name; I +suppose you know what it means.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman got up and walked away to the end of his long room. When he came back +Mrs. Bread had got up, and stood by the fire with folded hands. “Tell me +this,” he said. “Can I get near her—even if I don’t see +her? Can I look through a grating, or some such thing, at the place where she +is?” +</p> + +<p> +It is said that all women love a lover, and Mrs. Bread’s sense of the +pre-established harmony which kept servants in their “place,” even +as planets in their orbits (not that Mrs. Bread had ever consciously likened +herself to a planet), barely availed to temper the maternal melancholy with +which she leaned her head on one side and gazed at her new employer. She +probably felt for the moment as if, forty years before, she had held him also +in her arms. “That wouldn’t help you, sir. It would only make her +seem farther away.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go there, at all events,” said Newman. “Avenue de +Messine, you say? And what is it they call themselves?” +</p> + +<p> +“Carmelites,” said Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall remember that.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Bread hesitated a moment, and then, “It’s my duty to tell you +this, sir,” she went on. “The convent has a chapel, and some people +are admitted on Sunday to the mass. You don’t see the poor creatures that +are shut up there, but I am told you can hear them sing. It’s a wonder +they have any heart for singing! Some Sunday I shall make bold to go. It seems +to me I should know <i>her</i> voice in fifty.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at his visitor very gratefully; then he held out his hand and +shook hers. “Thank you,” he said. “If anyone can get in, I +will.” A moment later Mrs. Bread proposed, deferentially, to retire, but +he checked her and put a lighted candle into her hand. “There are half a +dozen rooms there I don’t use,” he said, pointing through an open +door. “Go and look at them and take your choice. You can live in the one +you like best.” From this bewildering opportunity Mrs. Bread at first +recoiled; but finally, yielding to Newman’s gentle, reassuring push, she +wandered off into the dusk with her tremulous taper. She remained absent a +quarter of an hour, during which Newman paced up and down, stopped occasionally +to look out of the window at the lights on the Boulevard, and then resumed his +walk. Mrs. Bread’s relish for her investigation apparently increased as +she proceeded; but at last she reappeared and deposited her candlestick on the +chimney-piece. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, have you picked one out?” asked Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“A room, sir? They are all too fine for a dingy old body like me. There +isn’t one that hasn’t a bit of gilding.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only tinsel, Mrs. Bread,” said Newman. “If you +stay there a while it will all peel off of itself.” And he gave a dismal +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, there are things enough peeling off already!” rejoined +Mrs. Bread, with a head-shake. “Since I was there I thought I would look +about me. I don’t believe you know, sir. The corners are most dreadful. +You do want a housekeeper, that you do; you want a tidy Englishwoman that +isn’t above taking hold of a broom.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman assured her that he suspected, if he had not measured, his domestic +abuses, and that to reform them was a mission worthy of her powers. She held +her candlestick aloft again and looked around the salon with compassionate +glances; then she intimated that she accepted the mission, and that its sacred +character would sustain her in her rupture with Madame de Bellegarde. With this +she curtsied herself away. +</p> + +<p> +She came back the next day with her worldly goods, and Newman, going into his +drawing-room, found her upon her aged knees before a divan, sewing up some +detached fringe. He questioned her as to her leave-taking with her late +mistress, and she said it had proved easier than she feared. “I was +perfectly civil, sir, but the Lord helped me to remember that a good woman has +no call to tremble before a bad one.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think so!” cried Newman. “And does she know you +have come to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“She asked me where I was going, and I mentioned your name,” said +Mrs. Bread. +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say to that?” +</p> + +<p> +“She looked at me very hard, and she turned very red. Then she bade me +leave her. I was all ready to go, and I had got the coachman, who is an +Englishman, to bring down my poor box and to fetch me a cab. But when I went +down myself to the gate I found it closed. My lady had sent orders to the +porter not to let me pass, and by the same orders the porter’s +wife—she is a dreadful sly old body—had gone out in a cab to fetch +home M. de Bellegarde from his club.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman slapped his knee. “She <i>is</i> scared! she <i>is</i> +scared!” he cried, exultantly. +</p> + +<p> +“I was frightened too, sir,” said Mrs. Bread, “but I was also +mightily vexed. I took it very high with the porter and asked him by what right +he used violence to an honorable Englishwoman who had lived in the house for +thirty years before he was heard of. Oh, sir, I was very grand, and I brought +the man down. He drew his bolts and let me out, and I promised the cabman +something handsome if he would drive fast. But he was terribly slow; it seemed +as if we should never reach your blessed door. I am all of a tremble still; it +took me five minutes, just now, to thread my needle.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman told her, with a gleeful laugh, that if she chose she might have a +little maid on purpose to thread her needles; and he went away murmuring to +himself again that the old woman <i>was</i> scared—she <i>was</i> scared! +</p> + +<p> +He had not shown Mrs. Tristram the little paper that he carried in his +pocket-book, but since his return to Paris he had seen her several times, and +she had told him that he seemed to her to be in a strange way—an even +stranger way than his sad situation made natural. Had his disappointment gone +to his head? He looked like a man who was going to be ill, and yet she had +never seen him more restless and active. One day he would sit hanging his head +and looking as if he were firmly resolved never to smile again; another he +would indulge in laughter that was almost unseemly and make jokes that were bad +even for him. If he was trying to carry off his sorrow, he at such times really +went too far. She begged him of all things not to be “strange.” +Feeling in a measure responsible as she did for the affair which had turned out +so ill for him, she could endure anything but his strangeness. He might be +melancholy if he would, or he might be stoical; he might be cross and +cantankerous with her and ask her why she had ever dared to meddle with his +destiny: to this she would submit; for this she would make allowances. Only, +for Heaven’s sake, let him not be incoherent. That would be extremely +unpleasant. It was like people talking in their sleep; they always frightened +her. And Mrs. Tristram intimated that, taking very high ground as regards the +moral obligation which events had laid upon her, she proposed not to rest quiet +until she should have confronted him with the least inadequate substitute for +Madame de Cintré that the two hemispheres contained. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Newman, “we are even now, and we had better not +open a new account! You may bury me some day, but you shall never marry me. +It’s too rough. I hope, at any rate,” he added, “that there +is nothing incoherent in this—that I want to go next Sunday to the +Carmelite chapel in the Avenue de Messine. You know one of the Catholic +ministers—an abbé, is that it?—I have seen him here, you know; that +motherly old gentleman with the big waistband. Please ask him if I need a +special leave to go in, and if I do, beg him to obtain it for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram gave expression to the liveliest joy. “I am so glad you +have asked me to do something!” she cried. “You shall get into the +chapel if the abbé is disfrocked for his share in it.” And two days +afterwards she told him that it was all arranged; the abbé was enchanted to +serve him, and if he would present himself civilly at the convent gate there +would be no difficulty. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p> +Sunday was as yet two days off; but meanwhile, to beguile his impatience, +Newman took his way to the Avenue de Messine and got what comfort he could in +staring at the blank outer wall of Madame de Cintré’s present residence. +The street in question, as some travelers will remember, adjoins the Parc +Monceau, which is one of the prettiest corners of Paris. The quarter has an air +of modern opulence and convenience which seems at variance with the ascetic +institution, and the impression made upon Newman’s gloomily-irritated +gaze by the fresh-looking, windowless expanse behind which the woman he loved +was perhaps even then pledging herself to pass the rest of her days was less +exasperating than he had feared. The place suggested a convent with the modern +improvements—an asylum in which privacy, though unbroken, might be not +quite identical with privation, and meditation, though monotonous, might be of +a cheerful cast. And yet he knew the case was otherwise; only at present it was +not a reality to him. It was too strange and too mocking to be real; it was +like a page torn out of a romance, with no context in his own experience. +</p> + +<p> +On Sunday morning, at the hour which Mrs. Tristram had indicated, he rang at +the gate in the blank wall. It instantly opened and admitted him into a clean, +cold-looking court, from beyond which a dull, plain edifice looked down upon +him. A robust lay sister with a cheerful complexion emerged from a +porter’s lodge, and, on his stating his errand, pointed to the open door +of the chapel, an edifice which occupied the right side of the court and was +preceded by the high flight of steps. Newman ascended the steps and immediately +entered the open door. Service had not yet begun; the place was dimly lighted, +and it was some moments before he could distinguish its features. Then he saw +it was divided by a large close iron screen into two unequal portions. The +altar was on the hither side of the screen, and between it and the entrance +were disposed several benches and chairs. Three or four of these were occupied +by vague, motionless figures—figures that he presently perceived to be +women, deeply absorbed in their devotion. The place seemed to Newman very cold; +the smell of the incense itself was cold. Besides this there was a twinkle of +tapers and here and there a glow of colored glass. Newman seated himself; the +praying women kept still, with their backs turned. He saw they were visitors +like himself and he would have liked to see their faces; for he believed that +they were the mourning mothers and sisters of other women who had had the same +pitiless courage as Madame de Cintré. But they were better off than he, for +they at least shared the faith to which the others had sacrificed themselves. +Three or four persons came in; two of them were elderly gentlemen. Everyone was +very quiet. Newman fastened his eyes upon the screen behind the altar. That was +the convent, the real convent, the place where she was. But he could see +nothing; no light came through the crevices. He got up and approached the +partition very gently, trying to look through. But behind it there was +darkness, with nothing stirring. He went back to his place, and after that a +priest and two altar boys came in and began to say mass. +</p> + +<p> +Newman watched their genuflections and gyrations with a grim, still enmity; +they seemed aids and abettors of Madame de Cintré’s desertion; they were +mouthing and droning out their triumph. The priest’s long, dismal +intonings acted upon his nerves and deepened his wrath; there was something +defiant in his unintelligible drawl; it seemed meant for Newman himself. +Suddenly there arose from the depths of the chapel, from behind the inexorable +grating, a sound which drew his attention from the altar—the sound of a +strange, lugubrious chant, uttered by women’s voices. It began softly, +but it presently grew louder, and as it increased it became more of a wail and +a dirge. It was the chant of the Carmelite nuns, their only human utterance. It +was their dirge over their buried affections and over the vanity of earthly +desires. At first Newman was bewildered—almost stunned—by the +strangeness of the sound; then, as he comprehended its meaning, he listened +intently and his heart began to throb. He listened for Madame de Cintré’s +voice, and in the very heart of the tuneless harmony he imagined he made it +out. (We are obliged to believe that he was wrong, inasmuch as she had +obviously not yet had time to become a member of the invisible sisterhood.) The +chant kept on, mechanical and monotonous, with dismal repetitions and +despairing cadences. It was hideous, it was horrible; as it continued, Newman +felt that he needed all his self-control. He was growing more agitated; he felt +tears in his eyes. At last, as in its full force the thought came over him that +this confused, impersonal wail was all that either he or the world she had +deserted should ever hear of the voice he had found so sweet, he felt that he +could bear it no longer. He rose abruptly and made his way out. On the +threshold he paused, listened again to the dreary strain, and then hastily +descended into the court. As he did so he saw the good sister with the +high-colored cheeks and the fanlike frill to her coiffure, who had admitted +him, was in conference at the gate with two persons who had just come in. A +second glance informed him that these persons were Madame de Bellegarde and her +son, and that they were about to avail themselves of that method of approach to +Madame de Cintré which Newman had found but a mockery of consolation. As he +crossed the court M. de Bellegarde recognized him; the marquis was coming to +the steps, leading his mother. The old lady also gave Newman a look, and it +resembled that of her son. Both faces expressed a franker perturbation, +something more akin to the humbleness of dismay, than Newman had yet seen in +them. Evidently he startled the Bellegardes, and they had not their grand +behavior immediately in hand. Newman hurried past them, guided only by the +desire to get out of the convent walls and into the street. The gate opened +itself at his approach; he strode over the threshold and it closed behind him. +A carriage which appeared to have been standing there, was just turning away +from the sidewalk. Newman looked at it for a moment, blankly; then he became +conscious, through the dusky mist that swam before his eyes, that a lady seated +in it was bowing to him. The vehicle had turned away before he recognized her; +it was an ancient landau with one half the cover lowered. The lady’s bow +was very positive and accompanied with a smile; a little girl was seated beside +her. He raised his hat, and then the lady bade the coachman stop. The carriage +halted again beside the pavement, and she sat there and beckoned to +Newman—beckoned with the demonstrative grace of Madame Urbain de +Bellegarde. Newman hesitated a moment before he obeyed her summons, during this +moment he had time to curse his stupidity for letting the others escape him. He +had been wondering how he could get at them; fool that he was for not stopping +them then and there! What better place than beneath the very prison walls to +which they had consigned the promise of his joy? He had been too bewildered to +stop them, but now he felt ready to wait for them at the gate. Madame Urbain, +with a certain attractive petulance, beckoned to him again, and this time he +went over to the carriage. She leaned out and gave him her hand, looking at him +kindly, and smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, monsieur,” she said, “you don’t include me in your +wrath? I had nothing to do with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t suppose <i>you</i> could have prevented it!” +Newman answered in a tone which was not that of studied gallantry. +</p> + +<p> +“What you say is too true for me to resent the small account it makes of +my influence. I forgive you, at any rate, because you look as if you had seen a +ghost.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have!” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad, then, I didn’t go in with Madame de Bellegarde and my +husband. You must have seen them, eh? Was the meeting affectionate? Did you +hear the chanting? They say it’s like the lamentations of the damned. I +wouldn’t go in: one is certain to hear that soon enough. Poor +Claire—in a white shroud and a big brown cloak! That’s the +<i>toilette</i> of the Carmelites, you know. Well, she was always fond of long, +loose things. But I must not speak of her to you; only I must say that I am +very sorry for you, that if I could have helped you I would, and that I think +everyone has been very shabby. I was afraid of it, you know; I felt it in the +air for a fortnight before it came. When I saw you at my mother-in-law’s +ball, taking it all so easily, I felt as if you were dancing on your grave. But +what could I do? I wish you all the good I can think of. You will say that +isn’t much! Yes; they have been very shabby; I am not a bit afraid to say +it; I assure you everyone thinks so. We are not all like that. I am sorry I am +not going to see you again; you know I think you very good company. I would +prove it by asking you to get into the carriage and drive with me for a quarter +of an hour, while I wait for my mother-in-law. Only if we were +seen—considering what has passed, and everyone knows you have been turned +away—it might be thought I was going a little too far, even for me. But I +shall see you sometimes—somewhere, eh? You know”—this was +said in English—“we have a plan for a little amusement.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman stood there with his hand on the carriage-door listening to this +consolatory murmur with an unlighted eye. He hardly knew what Madame de +Bellegarde was saying; he was only conscious that she was chattering +ineffectively. But suddenly it occurred to him that, with her pretty +professions, there was a way of making her effective; she might help him to get +at the old woman and the marquis. “They are coming back soon—your +companions?” he said. “You are waiting for them?” +</p> + +<p> +“They will hear the mass out; there is nothing to keep them longer. +Claire has refused to see them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to speak to them,” said Newman; “and you can help me, +you can do me a favor. Delay your return for five minutes and give me a chance +at them. I will wait for them here.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde clasped her hands with a tender grimace. “My poor +friend, what do you want to do to them? To beg them to come back to you? It +will be wasted words. They will never come back!” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to speak to them, all the same. Pray do what I ask you. Stay away +and leave them to me for five minutes; you needn’t be afraid; I shall not +be violent; I am very quiet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you look very quiet! If they had <i>le cœur tendre</i> you +would move them. But they haven’t! However, I will do better for you than +what you propose. The understanding is not that I shall come back for them. I +am going into the Parc Monceau with my little girl to give her a walk, and my +mother-in-law, who comes so rarely into this quarter, is to profit by the same +opportunity to take the air. We are to wait for her in the park, where my +husband is to bring her to us. Follow me now; just within the gates I shall get +out of my carriage. Sit down on a chair in some quiet corner and I will bring +them near you. There’s devotion for you! <i>Le reste vous +regarde</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +This proposal seemed to Newman extremely felicitous; it revived his drooping +spirit, and he reflected that Madame Urbain was not such a goose as she seemed. +He promised immediately to overtake her, and the carriage drove away. +</p> + +<p> +The Parc Monceau is a very pretty piece of landscape-gardening, but Newman, +passing into it, bestowed little attention upon its elegant vegetation, which +was full of the freshness of spring. He found Madame de Bellegarde promptly, +seated in one of the quiet corners of which she had spoken, while before her, +in the alley, her little girl, attended by the footman and the lap-dog, walked +up and down as if she were taking a lesson in deportment. Newman sat down +beside the mamma, and she talked a great deal, apparently with the design of +convincing him that—if he would only see it—poor dear Claire did +not belong to the most fascinating type of woman. She was too tall and thin, +too stiff and cold; her mouth was too wide and her nose too narrow. She had no +dimples anywhere. And then she was eccentric, eccentric in cold blood; she was +an Anglaise, after all. Newman was very impatient; he was counting the minutes +until his victims should reappear. He sat silent, leaning upon his cane, +looking absently and insensibly at the little marquise. At length Madame de +Bellegarde said she would walk toward the gate of the park and meet her +companions; but before she went she dropped her eyes, and, after playing a +moment with the lace of her sleeve, looked up again at Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember,” she asked, “the promise you made me three +weeks ago?” And then, as Newman, vainly consulting his memory, was +obliged to confess that the promise had escaped it, she declared that he had +made her, at the time, a very queer answer—an answer at which, viewing it +in the light of the sequel, she had fair ground for taking offense. “You +promised to take me to Bullier’s after your marriage. After your +marriage—you made a great point of that. Three days after that your +marriage was broken off. Do you know, when I heard the news, the first thing I +said to myself? ‘Oh heaven, now he won’t go with me to +Bullier’s!’ And I really began to wonder if you had not been +expecting the rupture.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear lady,” murmured Newman, looking down the path to see +if the others were not coming. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be good-natured,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “One +must not ask too much of a gentleman who is in love with a cloistered nun. +Besides, I can’t go to Bullier’s while we are in mourning. But I +haven’t given it up for that. The <i>partie</i> is arranged; I have my +cavalier. Lord Deepmere, if you please! He has gone back to his dear Dublin; +but a few months hence I am to name any evening and he will come over from +Ireland, on purpose. That’s what I call gallantry!” +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after this Madame de Bellegarde walked away with her little girl. +Newman sat in his place; the time seemed terribly long. He felt how fiercely +his quarter of an hour in the convent chapel had raked over the glowing coals +of his resentment. Madame de Bellegarde kept him waiting, but she proved as +good as her word. At last she reappeared at the end of the path, with her +little girl and her footman; beside her slowly walked her husband, with his +mother on his arm. They were a long time advancing, during which Newman sat +unmoved. Tingling as he was with passion, it was extremely characteristic of +him that he was able to moderate his expression of it, as he would have turned +down a flaring gas-burner. His native coolness, shrewdness, and deliberateness, +his life-long submissiveness to the sentiment that words were acts and acts +were steps in life, and that in this matter of taking steps curveting and +prancing were exclusively reserved for quadrupeds and foreigners—all this +admonished him that rightful wrath had no connection with being a fool and +indulging in spectacular violence. So as he rose, when old Madame de Bellegarde +and her son were close to him, he only felt very tall and light. He had been +sitting beside some shrubbery, in such a way as not to be noticeable at a +distance; but M. de Bellegarde had evidently already perceived him. His mother +and he were holding their course, but Newman stepped in front of them, and they +were obliged to pause. He lifted his hat slightly, and looked at them for a +moment; they were pale with amazement and disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me for stopping you,” he said in a low tone, “but I +must profit by the occasion. I have ten words to say to you. Will you listen to +them?” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis glared at him and then turned to his mother. “Can Mr. Newman +possibly have anything to say that is worth our listening to?” +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you I have something,” said Newman, “besides, it is +my duty to say it. It’s a notification—a warning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your duty?” said old Madame de Bellegarde, her thin lips curving +like scorched paper. “That is your affair, not ours.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame Urbain meanwhile had seized her little girl by the hand, with a gesture +of surprise and impatience which struck Newman, intent as he was upon his own +words, with its dramatic effectiveness. “If Mr. Newman is going to make a +scene in public,” she exclaimed, “I will take my poor child out of +the <i>mêlée</i>. She is too young to see such naughtiness!” and she +instantly resumed her walk. +</p> + +<p> +“You had much better listen to me,” Newman went on. “Whether +you do or not, things will be disagreeable for you; but at any rate you will be +prepared.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have already heard something of your threats,” said the +marquis, “and you know what we think of them.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think a good deal more than you admit. A moment,” Newman added +in reply to an exclamation of the old lady. “I remember perfectly that we +are in a public place, and you see I am very quiet. I am not going to tell your +secret to the passers-by; I shall keep it, to begin with, for certain picked +listeners. Anyone who observes us will think that we are having a friendly +chat, and that I am complimenting you, madam, on your venerable virtues.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis gave three short sharp raps on the ground with his stick. “I +demand of you to step out of our path!” he hissed. +</p> + +<p> +Newman instantly complied, and M. de Bellegarde stepped forward with his +mother. Then Newman said, “Half an hour hence Madame de Bellegarde will +regret that she didn’t learn exactly what I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquise had taken a few steps, but at these words she paused, looking at +Newman with eyes like two scintillating globules of ice. “You are like a +peddler with something to sell,” she said, with a little cold laugh which +only partially concealed the tremor in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, not to sell,” Newman rejoined; “I give it to you for +nothing.” And he approached nearer to her, looking her straight in the +eyes. “You killed your husband,” he said, almost in a whisper. +“That is, you tried once and failed, and then, without trying, you +succeeded.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde closed her eyes and gave a little cough, which, as a piece +of dissimulation, struck Newman as really heroic. “Dear mother,” +said the marquis, “does this stuff amuse you so much?” +</p> + +<p> +“The rest is more amusing,” said Newman. “You had better not +lose it.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde opened her eyes; the scintillations had gone out of them; +they were fixed and dead. But she smiled superbly with her narrow little lips, +and repeated Newman’s word. “Amusing? Have I killed someone +else?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t count your daughter,” said Newman, “though I +might! Your husband knew what you were doing. I have a proof of it whose +existence you have never suspected.” And he turned to the marquis, who +was terribly white—whiter than Newman had ever seen anyone out of a +picture. “A paper written by the hand, and signed with the name, of +Henri-Urbain de Bellegarde. Written after you, madam, had left him for dead, +and while you, sir, had gone—not very fast—for the doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis looked at his mother; she turned away, looking vaguely round her. +“I must sit down,” she said in a low tone, going toward the bench +on which Newman had been sitting. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t you have spoken to me alone?” said the marquis to +Newman, with a strange look. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes, if I could have been sure of speaking to your mother alone, +too,” Newman answered. “But I have had to take you as I could get +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde, with a movement very eloquent of what he would have +called her “grit,” her steel-cold pluck and her instinctive appeal +to her own personal resources, drew her hand out of her son’s arm and +went and seated herself upon the bench. There she remained, with her hands +folded in her lap, looking straight at Newman. The expression of her face was +such that he fancied at first that she was smiling; but he went and stood in +front of her and saw that her elegant features were distorted by agitation. He +saw, however, equally, that she was resisting her agitation with all the rigor +of her inflexible will, and there was nothing like either fear or submission in +her stony stare. She had been startled, but she was not terrified. Newman had +an exasperating feeling that she would get the better of him still; he would +not have believed it possible that he could so utterly fail to be touched by +the sight of a woman (criminal or other) in so tight a place. Madame de +Bellegarde gave a glance at her son which seemed tantamount to an injunction to +be silent and leave her to her own devices. The marquis stood beside her, with +his hands behind him, looking at Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“What paper is this you speak of?” asked the old lady, with an +imitation of tranquillity which would have been applauded in a veteran actress. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly what I have told you,” said Newman. “A paper written +by your husband after you had left him for dead, and during the couple of hours +before you returned. You see he had the time; you shouldn’t have stayed +away so long. It declares distinctly his wife’s murderous intent.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to see it,” Madame de Bellegarde observed. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you might,” said Newman, “and I have taken a +copy.” And he drew from his waistcoat pocket a small, folded sheet. +</p> + +<p> +“Give it to my son,” said Madame de Bellegarde. Newman handed it to +the marquis, whose mother, glancing at him, said simply, “Look at +it.” M. de Bellegarde’s eyes had a pale eagerness which it was +useless for him to try to dissimulate; he took the paper in his light-gloved +fingers and opened it. There was a silence, during which he read it. He had +more than time to read it, but still he said nothing; he stood staring at it. +“Where is the original?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a voice +which was really a consummate negation of impatience. +</p> + +<p> +“In a very safe place. Of course I can’t show you that,” said +Newman. “You might want to take hold of it,” he added with +conscious quaintness. “But that’s a very correct copy—except, +of course, the handwriting. I am keeping the original to show someone +else.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde at last looked up, and his eyes were still very eager. +“To whom do you mean to show it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m thinking of beginning with the duchess,” said +Newman; “that stout lady I saw at your ball. She asked me to come and see +her, you know. I thought at the moment I shouldn’t have much to say to +her; but my little document will give us something to talk about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better keep it, my son,” said Madame de Bellegarde. +</p> + +<p> +“By all means,” said Newman; “keep it and show it to your +mother when you get home.” +</p> + +<p> +“And after showing it to the duchess?”—asked the marquis, +folding the paper and putting it away. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll take up the dukes,” said Newman. “Then the +counts and the barons—all the people you had the cruelty to introduce me +to in a character of which you meant immediately to deprive me. I have made out +a list.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment neither Madame de Bellegarde nor her son said a word; the old lady +sat with her eyes upon the ground; M. de Bellegarde’s blanched pupils +were fixed upon her face. Then, looking at Newman, “Is that all you have +to say?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I want to say a few words more. I want to say that I hope you quite +understand what I’m about. This is my revenge, you know. You have treated +me before the world—convened for the express purpose—as if I were +not good enough for you. I mean to show the world that, however bad I may be, +you are not quite the people to say it.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde was silent again, and then she broke her silence. Her +self-possession continued to be extraordinary. “I needn’t ask you +who has been your accomplice. Mrs. Bread told me that you had purchased her +services.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t accuse Mrs. Bread of venality,” said Newman. +“She has kept your secret all these years. She has given you a long +respite. It was beneath her eyes your husband wrote that paper; he put it into +her hands with a solemn injunction that she was to make it public. She was too +good-hearted to make use of it.” +</p> + +<p> +The old lady appeared for an instant to hesitate, and then, “She was my +husband’s mistress,” she said, softly. This was the only concession +to self-defense that she condescended to make. +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt that,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Madame de Bellegarde got up from her bench. “It was not to your opinions +I undertook to listen, and if you have nothing left but them to tell me I think +this remarkable interview may terminate.” And turning to the marquis she +took his arm again. “My son,” she said, “say +something!” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde looked down at his mother, passing his hand over his forehead, +and then, tenderly, caressingly, “What shall I say?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“There is only one thing to say,” said the Marquise. “That it +was really not worth while to have interrupted our walk.” +</p> + +<p> +But the marquis thought he could improve this. “Your paper’s a +forgery,” he said to Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Newman shook his head a little, with a tranquil smile. “M. de +Bellegarde,” he said, “your mother does better. She has done better +all along, from the first of my knowing you. You’re a mighty plucky +woman, madam,” he continued. “It’s a great pity you have made +me your enemy. I should have been one of your greatest admirers.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mon pauvre ami</i>,” said Madame de Bellegarde to her son in +French, and as if she had not heard these words, “you must take me +immediately to my carriage.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman stepped back and let them leave him; he watched them a moment and saw +Madame Urbain, with her little girl, come out of a by-path to meet them. The +old lady stooped and kissed her grandchild. “Damn it, she <i>is</i> +plucky!” said Newman, and he walked home with a slight sense of being +balked. She was so inexpressively defiant! But on reflection he decided that +what he had witnessed was no real sense of security, still less a real +innocence. It was only a very superior style of brazen assurance. “Wait +till she reads the paper!” he said to himself; and he concluded that he +should hear from her soon. +</p> + +<p> +He heard sooner than he expected. The next morning, before midday, when he was +about to give orders for his breakfast to be served, M. de Bellegarde’s +card was brought to him. “She has read the paper and she has passed a bad +night,” said Newman. He instantly admitted his visitor, who came in with +the air of the ambassador of a great power meeting the delegate of a barbarous +tribe whom an absurd accident had enabled for the moment to be abominably +annoying. The ambassador, at all events, had passed a bad night, and his +faultlessly careful toilet only threw into relief the frigid rancor in his eyes +and the mottled tones of his refined complexion. He stood before Newman a +moment, breathing quickly and softly, and shaking his forefinger curtly as his +host pointed to a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“What I have come to say is soon said,” he declared “and can +only be said without ceremony.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am good for as much or for as little as you desire,” said +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +The marquis looked round the room a moment, and then, “On what terms will +you part with your scrap of paper?” +</p> + +<p> +“On none!” And while Newman, with his head on one side and his +hands behind him sounded the marquis’s turbid gaze with his own, he +added, “Certainly, that is not worth sitting down about.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde meditated a moment, as if he had not heard Newman’s +refusal. “My mother and I, last evening,” he said, “talked +over your story. You will be surprised to learn that we think your little +document is—a”—and he held back his word a +moment—“is genuine.” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget that with you I am used to surprises!” exclaimed +Newman, with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“The very smallest amount of respect that we owe to my father’s +memory,” the marquis continued, “makes us desire that he should not +be held up to the world as the author of so—so infernal an attack upon +the reputation of a wife whose only fault was that she had been submissive to +accumulated injury.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see,” said Newman. “It’s for your father’s +sake.” And he laughed the laugh in which he indulged when he was most +amused—a noiseless laugh, with his lips closed. +</p> + +<p> +But M. de Bellegarde’s gravity held good. “There are a few of my +father’s particular friends for whom the knowledge of so—so +unfortunate an—inspiration—would be a real grief. Even say we +firmly established by medical evidence the presumption of a mind disordered by +fever, <i>il en resterait quelque chose</i>. At the best it would look ill in +him. Very ill!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t try medical evidence,” said Newman. “Don’t +touch the doctors and they won’t touch you. I don’t mind your +knowing that I have not written to them.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman fancied that he saw signs in M. de Bellegarde’s discolored mask +that this information was extremely pertinent. But it may have been merely +fancy; for the marquis remained majestically argumentative. “For +instance, Madame d’Outreville,” he said, “of whom you spoke +yesterday. I can imagine nothing that would shock her more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am quite prepared to shock Madame d’Outreville, you know. +That’s on the cards. I expect to shock a great many people.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde examined for a moment the stitching on the back of one of his +gloves. Then, without looking up, “We don’t offer you money,” +he said. “That we supposed to be useless.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman, turning away, took a few turns about the room and then came back. +“What <i>do</i> you offer me? By what I can make out, the generosity is +all to be on my side.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis dropped his arms at his side and held his head a little higher. +“What we offer you is a chance—a chance that a gentleman should +appreciate. A chance to abstain from inflicting a terrible blot upon the memory +of a man who certainly had his faults, but who, personally, had done you no +wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are two things to say to that,” said Newman. “The +first is, as regards appreciating your ‘chance,’ that you +don’t consider me a gentleman. That’s your great point you know. +It’s a poor rule that won’t work both ways. The second is +that—well, in a word, you are talking great nonsense!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman, who in the midst of his bitterness had, as I have said, kept well +before his eyes a certain ideal of saying nothing rude, was immediately +somewhat regretfully conscious of the sharpness of these words. But he speedily +observed that the marquis took them more quietly than might have been expected. +M. de Bellegarde, like the stately ambassador that he was, continued the policy +of ignoring what was disagreeable in his adversary’s replies. He gazed at +the gilded arabesques on the opposite wall, and then presently transferred his +glance to Newman, as if he too were a large grotesque in a rather vulgar system +of chamber-decoration. “I suppose you know that as regards yourself it +won’t do at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean it won’t do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, of course you damn yourself. But I suppose that’s in your +programme. You propose to throw mud at us; you believe, you hope, that some of +it may stick. We know, of course, it can’t,” explained the marquis +in a tone of conscious lucidity; “but you take the chance, and are +willing at any rate to show that you yourself have dirty hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a good comparison; at least half of it is,” said +Newman. “I take the chance of something sticking. But as regards my +hands, they are clean. I have taken the matter up with my finger-tips.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde looked a moment into his hat. “All our friends are quite +with us,” he said. “They would have done exactly as we have +done.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall believe that when I hear them say it. Meanwhile I shall think +better of human nature.” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis looked into his hat again. “Madame de Cintré was extremely +fond of her father. If she knew of the existence of the few written words of +which you propose to make this scandalous use, she would demand of you proudly +for his sake to give it up to her, and she would destroy it without reading +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very possibly,” Newman rejoined. “But she will not know. I +was in that convent yesterday and I know what <i>she</i> is doing. Lord deliver +us! You can guess whether it made me feel forgiving!” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde appeared to have nothing more to suggest; but he continued to +stand there, rigid and elegant, as a man who believed that his mere personal +presence had an argumentative value. Newman watched him, and, without yielding +an inch on the main issue, felt an incongruously good-natured impulse to help +him to retreat in good order. +</p> + +<p> +“Your visit’s a failure, you see,” he said. “You offer +too little.” +</p> + +<p> +“Propose something yourself,” said the marquis. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me back Madame de Cintré in the same state in which you took her +from me.” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde threw back his head and his pale face flushed. +“Never!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“We wouldn’t if we could! In the sentiment which led us to +deprecate her marriage nothing is changed.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Deprecate’ is good!” cried Newman. “It was +hardly worth while to come here only to tell me that you are not ashamed of +yourselves. I could have guessed that!” +</p> + +<p> +The marquis slowly walked toward the door, and Newman, following, opened it for +him. “What you propose to do will be very disagreeable,” M. de +Bellegarde said. “That is very evident. But it will be nothing +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“As I understand it,” Newman answered, “that will be quite +enough!” +</p> + +<p> +M. de Bellegarde stood for a moment looking on the ground, as if he were +ransacking his ingenuity to see what else he could do to save his +father’s reputation. Then, with a little cold sigh, he seemed to signify +that he regretfully surrendered the late marquis to the penalty of his +turpitude. He gave a hardly perceptible shrug, took his neat umbrella from the +servant in the vestibule, and, with his gentlemanly walk, passed out. Newman +stood listening till he heard the door close; then he slowly exclaimed, +“Well, I ought to begin to be satisfied now!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<p> +Newman called upon the comical duchess and found her at home. An old gentleman +with a high nose and a gold-headed cane was just taking leave of her; he made +Newman a protracted obeisance as he retired, and our hero supposed that he was +one of the mysterious grandees with whom he had shaken hands at Madame de +Bellegarde’s ball. The duchess, in her armchair, from which she did not +move, with a great flower-pot on one side of her, a pile of pink-covered novels +on the other, and a large piece of tapestry depending from her lap, presented +an expansive and imposing front; but her aspect was in the highest degree +gracious, and there was nothing in her manner to check the effusion of his +confidence. She talked to him about flowers and books, getting launched with +marvelous promptitude; about the theatres, about the peculiar institutions of +his native country, about the humidity of Paris about the pretty complexions of +the American ladies, about his impressions of France and his opinion of its +female inhabitants. All this was a brilliant monologue on the part of the +duchess, who, like many of her country-women, was a person of an affirmative +rather than an interrogative cast of mind, who made <i>mots</i> and put them +herself into circulation, and who was apt to offer you a present of a +convenient little opinion, neatly enveloped in the gilt paper of a happy +Gallicism. Newman had come to her with a grievance, but he found himself in an +atmosphere in which apparently no cognizance was taken of grievance; an +atmosphere into which the chill of discomfort had never penetrated, and which +seemed exclusively made up of mild, sweet, stale intellectual perfumes. The +feeling with which he had watched Madame d’Outreville at the treacherous +festival of the Bellegardes came back to him; she struck him as a wonderful old +lady in a comedy, particularly well up in her part. He observed before long +that she asked him no questions about their common friends; she made no +allusion to the circumstances under which he had been presented to her. She +neither feigned ignorance of a change in these circumstances nor pretended to +condole with him upon it; but she smiled and discoursed and compared the +tender-tinted wools of her tapestry, as if the Bellegardes and their wickedness +were not of this world. “She is fighting shy!” said Newman to +himself; and, having made the observation, he was prompted to observe, farther, +how the duchess would carry off her indifference. She did so in a masterly +manner. There was not a gleam of disguised consciousness in those small, clear, +demonstrative eyes which constituted her nearest claim to personal loveliness, +there was not a symptom of apprehension that Newman would trench upon the +ground she proposed to avoid. “Upon my word, she does it very +well,” he tacitly commented. “They all hold together bravely, and, +whether anyone else can trust them or not, they can certainly trust each +other.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman, at this juncture, fell to admiring the duchess for her fine manners. He +felt, most accurately, that she was not a grain less urbane than she would have +been if his marriage were still in prospect; but he felt also that she was not +a particle more urbane. He had come, so reasoned the duchess—Heaven knew +why he had come, after what had happened; and for the half hour, therefore, she +would be <i>charmante</i>. But she would never see him again. Finding no +ready-made opportunity to tell his story, Newman pondered these things more +dispassionately than might have been expected; he stretched his legs, as usual, +and even chuckled a little, appreciatively and noiselessly. And then as the +duchess went on relating a <i>mot</i> with which her mother had snubbed the +great Napoleon, it occurred to Newman that her evasion of a chapter of French +history more interesting to himself might possibly be the result of an extreme +consideration for his feelings. Perhaps it was delicacy on the duchess’s +part—not policy. He was on the point of saying something himself, to make +the chance which he had determined to give her still better, when the servant +announced another visitor. The duchess, on hearing the name—it was that +of an Italian prince—gave a little imperceptible pout, and said to +Newman, rapidly: “I beg you to remain; I desire this visit to be +short.” Newman said to himself, at this, that Madame d’Outreville +intended, after all, that they should discuss the Bellegardes together. +</p> + +<p> +The prince was a short, stout man, with a head disproportionately large. He had +a dusky complexion and a bushy eyebrow, beneath which his eye wore a fixed and +somewhat defiant expression; he seemed to be challenging you to insinuate that +he was top-heavy. The duchess, judging from her charge to Newman, regarded him +as a bore; but this was not apparent from the unchecked flow of her +conversation. She made a fresh series of <i>mots</i>, characterized with great +felicity the Italian intellect and the taste of the figs at Sorrento, predicted +the ultimate future of the Italian kingdom (disgust with the brutal Sardinian +rule and complete reversion, throughout the peninsula, to the sacred sway of +the Holy Father), and, finally, gave a history of the love affairs of the +Princess X——. This narrative provoked some rectifications on the +part of the prince, who, as he said, pretended to know something about that +matter; and having satisfied himself that Newman was in no laughing mood, +either with regard to the size of his head or anything else, he entered into +the controversy with an animation for which the duchess, when she set him down +as a bore, could not have been prepared. The sentimental vicissitudes of the +Princess X—— led to a discussion of the heart history of Florentine +nobility in general; the duchess had spent five weeks in Florence and had +gathered much information on the subject. This was merged, in turn, in an +examination of the Italian heart <i>per se</i>. The duchess took a brilliantly +heterodox view—thought it the least susceptible organ of its kind that +she had ever encountered, related examples of its want of susceptibility, and +at last declared that for her the Italians were a people of ice. The prince +became flame to refute her, and his visit really proved charming. Newman was +naturally out of the conversation; he sat with his head a little on one side, +watching the interlocutors. The duchess, as she talked, frequently looked at +him with a smile, as if to intimate, in the charming manner of her nation, that +it lay only with him to say something very much to the point. But he said +nothing at all, and at last his thoughts began to wander. A singular feeling +came over him—a sudden sense of the folly of his errand. What under the +sun had he to say to the duchess, after all? Wherein would it profit him to +tell her that the Bellegardes were traitors and that the old lady, into the +bargain was a murderess? He seemed morally to have turned a sort of somersault, +and to find things looking differently in consequence. He felt a sudden +stiffening of his will and quickening of his reserve. What in the world had he +been thinking of when he fancied the duchess could help him, and that it would +conduce to his comfort to make her think ill of the Bellegardes? What did her +opinion of the Bellegardes matter to him? It was only a shade more important +than the opinion the Bellegardes entertained of her. The duchess help +him—that cold, stout, soft, artificial woman help him?—she who in +the last twenty minutes had built up between them a wall of polite conversation +in which she evidently flattered herself that he would never find a gate. Had +it come to that—that he was asking favors of conceited people, and +appealing for sympathy where he had no sympathy to give? He rested his arms on +his knees, and sat for some minutes staring into his hat. As he did so his ears +tingled—he had come very near being an ass. Whether or no the duchess +would hear his story, he wouldn’t tell it. Was he to sit there another +half hour for the sake of exposing the Bellegardes? The Bellegardes be hanged! +He got up abruptly, and advanced to shake hands with his hostess. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t stay longer?” she asked very graciously. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid not,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated a moment, and then, “I had an idea you had something +particular to say to me,” she declared. +</p> + +<p> +Newman looked at her; he felt a little dizzy; for the moment he seemed to be +turning his somersault again. The little Italian prince came to his help: +“Ah, madam, who has not that?” he softly sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t teach Mr. Newman to say <i>fadaises</i>,” said the +duchess. “It is his merit that he doesn’t know how.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I don’t know how to say <i>fadaises</i>,” said Newman, +“and I don’t want to say anything unpleasant.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure you are very considerate,” said the duchess with a +smile; and she gave him a little nod for good-bye with which he took his +departure. +</p> + +<p> +Once in the street, he stood for some time on the pavement, wondering whether, +after all, he was not an ass not to have discharged his pistol. And then again +he decided that to talk to anyone whomsoever about the Bellegardes would be +extremely disagreeable to him. The least disagreeable thing, under the +circumstances, was to banish them from his mind, and never think of them again. +Indecision had not hitherto been one of Newman’s weaknesses, and in this +case it was not of long duration. For three days after this he did not, or at +least he tried not to, think of the Bellegardes. He dined with Mrs. Tristram, +and on her mentioning their name, he begged her almost severely to desist. This +gave Tom Tristram a much-coveted opportunity to offer his condolences. +</p> + +<p> +He leaned forward, laying his hand on Newman’s arm compressing his lips +and shaking his head. “The fact is my dear fellow, you see, that you +ought never to have gone into it. It was not your doing, I know—it was +all my wife. If you want to come down on her, I’ll stand off; I give you +leave to hit her as hard as you like. You know she has never had a word of +reproach from me in her life, and I think she is in need of something of the +kind. Why didn’t you listen to <i>me?</i> You know I didn’t believe +in the thing. I thought it at the best an amiable delusion. I don’t +profess to be a Don Juan or a gay Lothario,—that class of man, you know; +but I do pretend to know something about the harder sex. I have never disliked +a woman in my life that she has not turned out badly. I was not at all deceived +in Lizzie, for instance; I always had my doubts about her. Whatever you may +think of my present situation, I must at least admit that I got into it with my +eyes open. Now suppose you had got into something like this box with Madame de +Cintré. You may depend upon it she would have turned out a stiff one. And upon +my word I don’t see where you could have found your comfort. Not from the +marquis, my dear Newman; he wasn’t a man you could go and talk things +over with in a sociable, common-sense way. Did he ever seem to want to have you +on the premises—did he ever try to see you alone? Did he ever ask you to +come and smoke a cigar with him of an evening, or step in, when you had been +calling on the ladies, and take something? I don’t think you would have +got much encouragement out of <i>him</i>. And as for the old lady, she struck +one as an uncommonly strong dose. They have a great expression here, you know; +they call it ‘sympathetic.’ Everything is sympathetic—or +ought to be. Now Madame de Bellegarde is about as sympathetic as that +mustard-pot. They’re a d—d cold-blooded lot, any way; I felt it +awfully at that ball of theirs. I felt as if I were walking up and down in the +Armory, in the Tower of London! My dear boy, don’t think me a vulgar +brute for hinting at it, but you may depend upon it, all they wanted was your +money. I know something about that; I can tell when people want one’s +money! Why they stopped wanting yours I don’t know; I suppose because +they could get someone else’s without working so hard for it. It +isn’t worth finding out. It may be that it was not Madame de Cintré that +backed out first, very likely the old woman put her up to it. I suspect she and +her mother are really as thick as thieves, eh? You are well out of it, my boy; +make up your mind to that. If I express myself strongly it is all because I +love you so much; and from that point of view I may say I should as soon have +thought of making up to that piece of pale high-mightiness as I should have +thought of making up to the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman sat gazing at Tristram during this harangue with a lack-lustre eye; +never yet had he seemed to himself to have outgrown so completely the phase of +equal comradeship with Tom Tristram. Mrs. Tristram’s glance at her +husband had more of a spark; she turned to Newman with a slightly lurid smile. +“You must at least do justice,” she said, “to the felicity +with which Mr. Tristram repairs the indiscretions of a too zealous wife.” +</p> + +<p> +But even without the aid of Tom Tristram’s conversational felicities, +Newman would have begun to think of the Bellegardes again. He could cease to +think of them only when he ceased to think of his loss and privation, and the +days had as yet but scantily lightened the weight of this incommodity. In vain +Mrs. Tristram begged him to cheer up; she assured him that the sight of his +countenance made her miserable. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I help it?” he demanded with a trembling voice. “I +feel like a widower—and a widower who has not even the consolation of +going to stand beside the grave of his wife—who has not the right to wear +so much mourning as a weed on his hat. I feel,” he added in a moment +“as if my wife had been murdered and her assassins were still at +large.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram made no immediate rejoinder, but at last she said, with a smile +which, in so far as it was a forced one, was less successfully simulated than +such smiles, on her lips, usually were; “Are you very sure that you would +have been happy?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman stared a moment, and then shook his head. “That’s +weak,” he said; “that won’t do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mrs. Tristram with a more triumphant bravery, “I +don’t believe you would have been happy.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman gave a little laugh. “Say I should have been miserable, then; +it’s a misery I should have preferred to any happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram began to muse. “I should have been curious to see; it would +have been very strange.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it from curiosity that you urged me to try and marry her?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little,” said Mrs. Tristram, growing still more audacious. +Newman gave her the one angry look he had been destined ever to give her, +turned away and took up his hat. She watched him a moment, and then she said, +“That sounds very cruel, but it is less so than it sounds. Curiosity has +a share in almost everything I do. I wanted very much to see, first, whether +such a marriage could actually take place; second, what would happen if it +should take place.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you didn’t believe,” said Newman, resentfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I believed—I believed that it would take place, and that you +would be happy. Otherwise I should have been, among my speculations, a very +heartless creature. <i>But</i>,” she continued, laying her hand upon +Newman’s arm and hazarding a grave smile, “it was the highest +flight ever taken by a tolerably bold imagination!” +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after this she recommended him to leave Paris and travel for three +months. Change of scene would do him good, and he would forget his misfortune +sooner in absence from the objects which had witnessed it. “I really +feel,” Newman rejoined, “as if to leave <i>you</i>, at least, would +do me good—and cost me very little effort. You are growing cynical, you +shock me and pain me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” said Mrs. Tristram, good-naturedly or cynically, as +may be thought most probable. “I shall certainly see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was very willing to get away from Paris; the brilliant streets he had +walked through in his happier hours, and which then seemed to wear a higher +brilliancy in honor of his happiness, appeared now to be in the secret of his +defeat and to look down upon it in shining mockery. He would go somewhere; he +cared little where; and he made his preparations. Then, one morning, at +haphazard, he drove to the train that would transport him to Boulogne and +dispatch him thence to the shores of Britain. As he rolled along in the train +he asked himself what had become of his revenge, and he was able to say that it +was provisionally pigeon-holed in a very safe place; it would keep till called +for. +</p> + +<p> +He arrived in London in the midst of what is called “the season,” +and it seemed to him at first that he might here put himself in the way of +being diverted from his heavy-heartedness. He knew no one in all England, but +the spectacle of the mighty metropolis roused him somewhat from his apathy. +Anything that was enormous usually found favor with Newman, and the +multitudinous energies and industries of England stirred within him a dull +vivacity of contemplation. It is on record that the weather, at that moment, +was of the finest English quality; he took long walks and explored London in +every direction; he sat by the hour in Kensington Gardens and beside the +adjoining Drive, watching the people and the horses and the carriages; the rosy +English beauties, the wonderful English dandies, and the splendid flunkies. He +went to the opera and found it better than in Paris; he went to the theatre and +found a surprising charm in listening to dialogue the finest points of which +came within the range of his comprehension. He made several excursions into the +country, recommended by the waiter at his hotel, with whom, on this and similar +points, he had established confidential relations. He watched the deer in +Windsor Forest and admired the Thames from Richmond Hill; he ate white-bait and +brown-bread and butter at Greenwich, and strolled in the grassy shadow of the +cathedral of Canterbury. He also visited the Tower of London and Madame +Tussaud’s exhibition. One day he thought he would go to Sheffield, and +then, thinking again, he gave it up. Why should he go to Sheffield? He had a +feeling that the link which bound him to a possible interest in the manufacture +of cutlery was broken. He had no desire for an “inside view” of any +successful enterprise whatever, and he would not have given the smallest sum +for the privilege of talking over the details of the most +“splendid” business with the shrewdest of overseers. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon he had walked into Hyde Park, and was slowly threading his way +through the human maze which edges the Drive. The stream of carriages was no +less dense, and Newman, as usual, marveled at the strange, dingy figures which +he saw taking the air in some of the stateliest vehicles. They reminded him of +what he had read of eastern and southern countries, in which grotesque idols +and fetiches were sometimes taken out of their temples and carried abroad in +golden chariots to be displayed to the multitude. He saw a great many pretty +cheeks beneath high-plumed hats as he squeezed his way through serried waves of +crumpled muslin; and sitting on little chairs at the base of the great serious +English trees, he observed a number of quiet-eyed maidens who seemed only to +remind him afresh that the magic of beauty had gone out of the world with +Madame de Cintré: to say nothing of other damsels, whose eyes were not quiet, +and who struck him still more as a satire on possible consolation. He had been +walking for some time, when, directly in front of him, borne back by the summer +breeze, he heard a few words uttered in that bright Parisian idiom from which +his ears had begun to alienate themselves. The voice in which the words were +spoken made them seem even more like a thing with which he had once been +familiar, and as he bent his eyes it lent an identity to the commonplace +elegance of the back hair and shoulders of a young lady walking in the same +direction as himself. Mademoiselle Nioche, apparently, had come to seek a more +rapid advancement in London, and another glance led Newman to suppose that she +had found it. A gentleman was strolling beside her, lending a most attentive +ear to her conversation and too entranced to open his lips. Newman did not hear +his voice, but perceived that he presented the dorsal expression of a +well-dressed Englishman. Mademoiselle Nioche was attracting attention: the +ladies who passed her turned round to survey the Parisian perfection of her +toilet. A great cataract of flounces rolled down from the young lady’s +waist to Newman’s feet; he had to step aside to avoid treading upon them. +He stepped aside, indeed, with a decision of movement which the occasion +scarcely demanded; for even this imperfect glimpse of Miss Noémie had excited +his displeasure. She seemed an odious blot upon the face of nature; he wanted +to put her out of his sight. He thought of Valentin de Bellegarde, still green +in the earth of his burial—his young life clipped by this flourishing +impudence. The perfume of the young lady’s finery sickened him; he turned +his head and tried to deflect his course; but the pressure of the crowd kept +him near her a few minutes longer, so that he heard what she was saying. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I am sure he will miss me,” she murmured. “It was very +cruel in me to leave him; I am afraid you will think me a very heartless +creature. He might perfectly well have come with us. I don’t think he is +very well,” she added; “it seemed to me to-day that he was not very +gay.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman wondered whom she was talking about, but just then an opening among his +neighbors enabled him to turn away, and he said to himself that she was +probably paying a tribute to British propriety and playing at tender solicitude +about her papa. Was that miserable old man still treading the path of vice in +her train? Was he still giving her the benefit of his experience of affairs, +and had he crossed the sea to serve as her interpreter? Newman walked some +distance farther, and then began to retrace his steps taking care not to +traverse again the orbit of Mademoiselle Nioche. At last he looked for a chair +under the trees, but he had some difficulty in finding an empty one. He was +about to give up the search when he saw a gentleman rise from the seat he had +been occupying, leaving Newman to take it without looking at his neighbors. He +sat there for some time without heeding them; his attention was lost in the +irritation and bitterness produced by his recent glimpse of Miss Noémie’s +iniquitous vitality. But at the end of a quarter of an hour, dropping his eyes, +he perceived a small pug-dog squatted upon the path near his feet—a +diminutive but very perfect specimen of its interesting species. The pug was +sniffing at the fashionable world, as it passed him, with his little black +muzzle, and was kept from extending his investigation by a large blue ribbon +attached to his collar with an enormous rosette and held in the hand of a +person seated next to Newman. To this person Newman transferred his attention, +and immediately perceived that he was the object of all that of his neighbor, +who was staring up at him from a pair of little fixed white eyes. These eyes +Newman instantly recognized; he had been sitting for the last quarter of an +hour beside M. Nioche. He had vaguely felt that someone was staring at him. M. +Nioche continued to stare; he appeared afraid to move, even to the extent of +evading Newman’s glance. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me,” said Newman; “are you here, too?” And he +looked at his neighbor’s helplessness more grimly than he knew. M. Nioche +had a new hat and a pair of kid gloves; his clothes, too, seemed to belong to a +more recent antiquity than of yore. Over his arm was suspended a lady’s +mantilla—a light and brilliant tissue, fringed with white +lace—which had apparently been committed to his keeping; and the little +dog’s blue ribbon was wound tightly round his hand. There was no +expression of recognition in his face—or of anything indeed save a sort +of feeble, fascinated dread; Newman looked at the pug and the lace mantilla, +and then he met the old man’s eyes again. “You know me, I +see,” he pursued. “You might have spoken to me before.” M. +Nioche still said nothing, but it seemed to Newman that his eyes began faintly +to water. “I didn’t expect,” our hero went on, “to meet +you so far from—from the Café de la Patrie.” The old man remained +silent, but decidedly Newman had touched the source of tears. His neighbor sat +staring and Newman added, “What’s the matter, M. Nioche? You used +to talk—to talk very prettily. Don’t you remember you even gave +lessons in conversation?” +</p> + +<p> +At this M. Nioche decided to change his attitude. He stooped and picked up the +pug, lifted it to his face and wiped his eyes on its little soft back. +“I’m afraid to speak to you,” he presently said, looking over +the puppy’s shoulder. “I hoped you wouldn’t notice me. I +should have moved away, but I was afraid that if I moved you would notice me. +So I sat very still.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suspect you have a bad conscience, sir,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +The old man put down the little dog and held it carefully in his lap. Then he +shook his head, with his eyes still fixed upon his interlocutor. “No, Mr. +Newman, I have a good conscience,” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why should you want to slink away from me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because—because you don’t understand my position.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I think you once explained it to me,” said Newman. “But +it seems improved.” +</p> + +<p> +“Improved!” exclaimed M. Nioche, under his breath. “Do you +call this improvement?” And he glanced at the treasures in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you are on your travels,” Newman rejoined. “A visit to +London in the season is certainly a sign of prosperity.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche, in answer to this cruel piece of irony, lifted the puppy up to his +face again, peering at Newman with his small blank eye-holes. There was +something almost imbecile in the movement, and Newman hardly knew whether he +was taking refuge in a convenient affectation of unreason, or whether he had in +fact paid for his dishonor by the loss of his wits. In the latter case, just +now, he felt little more tenderly to the foolish old man than in the former. +Responsible or not, he was equally an accomplice of his detestably mischievous +daughter. Newman was going to leave him abruptly, when a ray of entreaty +appeared to disengage itself from the old man’s misty gaze. “Are +you going away?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want me to stay?” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have left you—from consideration. But my dignity suffers +at your leaving me—that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got anything particular to say to me?” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche looked around him to see that no one was listening, and then he said, +very softly but distinctly, “I have <i>not</i> forgiven her!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman gave a short laugh, but the old man seemed for the moment not to +perceive it; he was gazing away, absently, at some metaphysical image of his +implacability. “It doesn’t much matter whether you forgive her or +not,” said Newman. “There are other people who won’t, I +assure you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What has she done?” M. Nioche softly questioned, turning round +again. “I don’t know what she does, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“She has done a devilish mischief; it doesn’t matter what,” +said Newman. “She’s a nuisance; she ought to be stopped.” +</p> + +<p> +M. Nioche stealthily put out his hand and laid it very gently upon +Newman’s arm. “Stopped, yes,” he whispered. +“That’s it. Stopped short. She is running away—she must be +stopped.” Then he paused a moment and looked round him. “I mean to +stop her,” he went on. “I am only waiting for my chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Newman, laughing briefly again. “She is running +away and you are running after her. You have run a long distance!” +</p> + +<p> +But M. Nioche stared insistently: “I shall stop her!” he softly +repeated. +</p> + +<p> +He had hardly spoken when the crowd in front of them separated, as if by the +impulse to make way for an important personage. Presently, through the opening, +advanced Mademoiselle Nioche, attended by the gentleman whom Newman had lately +observed. His face being now presented to our hero, the latter recognized the +irregular features, the hardly more regular complexion, and the amiable +expression of Lord Deepmere. Noémie, on finding herself suddenly confronted +with Newman, who, like M. Nioche, had risen from his seat, faltered for a +barely perceptible instant. She gave him a little nod, as if she had seen him +yesterday, and then, with a good-natured smile, “<i>Tiens</i>, how we +keep meeting!” she said. She looked consummately pretty, and the front of +her dress was a wonderful work of art. She went up to her father, stretching +out her hands for the little dog, which he submissively placed in them, and she +began to kiss it and murmur over it: “To think of leaving him all +alone,—what a wicked, abominable creature he must believe me! He has been +very unwell,” she added, turning and affecting to explain to Newman, with +a spark of infernal impudence, fine as a needlepoint, in her eye. “I +don’t think the English climate agrees with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to agree wonderfully well with his mistress,” said +Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean me? I have never been better, thank you,” Miss Noémie +declared. “But with <i>milord</i>”—and she gave a brilliant +glance at her late companion—“how can one help being well?” +She seated herself in the chair from which her father had risen, and began to +arrange the little dog’s rosette. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Deepmere carried off such embarrassment as might be incidental to this +unexpected encounter with the inferior grace of a male and a Briton. He blushed +a good deal, and greeted the object of his late momentary aspiration to rivalry +in the favor of a person other than the mistress of the invalid pug with an +awkward nod and a rapid ejaculation—an ejaculation to which Newman, who +often found it hard to understand the speech of English people, was able to +attach no meaning. Then the young man stood there, with his hand on his hip, +and with a conscious grin, staring askance at Miss Noémie. Suddenly an idea +seemed to strike him, and he said, turning to Newman, “Oh, you know +her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Newman, “I know her. I don’t believe you +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, yes, I do!” said Lord Deepmere, with another grin. +“I knew her in Paris—by my poor cousin Bellegarde, you know. He +knew her, poor fellow, didn’t he? It was she, you know, who was at the +bottom of his affair. Awfully sad, wasn’t it?” continued the young +man, talking off his embarrassment as his simple nature permitted. “They +got up some story about its being for the Pope; about the other man having said +something against the Pope’s morals. They always do that, you know. They +put it on the Pope because Bellegarde was once in the Zouaves. But it was about +<i>her</i> morals—<i>she</i> was the Pope!” Lord Deepmere pursued, +directing an eye illumined by this pleasantry toward Mademoiselle Nioche, who +was bending gracefully over her lap-dog, apparently absorbed in conversation +with it. “I dare say you think it rather odd that I +should—ah—keep up the acquaintance,” the young man resumed; +“but she couldn’t help it, you know, and Bellegarde was only my +twentieth cousin. I dare say you think it’s rather cheeky, my showing +with her in Hyde Park, but you see she isn’t known yet, and she’s +in such very good form——” And Lord Deepmere’s +conclusion was lost in the attesting glance which he again directed toward the +young lady. +</p> + +<p> +Newman turned away; he was having more of her than he relished. M. Nioche had +stepped aside on his daughter’s approach, and he stood there, within a +very small compass, looking down hard at the ground. It had never yet, as +between him and Newman, been so apposite to place on record the fact that he +had not forgiven his daughter. As Newman was moving away he looked up and drew +near to him, and Newman, seeing the old man had something particular to say, +bent his head for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“You will see it some day in the papers,” murmured M. Nioche. +</p> + +<p> +Our hero departed to hide his smile, and to this day, though the newspapers +form his principal reading, his eyes have not been arrested by any paragraph +forming a sequel to this announcement. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<p> +In that uninitiated observation of the great spectacle of English life upon +which I have touched, it might be supposed that Newman passed a great many dull +days. But the dullness of his days pleased him; his melancholy, which was +settling into a secondary stage, like a healing wound, had in it a certain +acrid, palatable sweetness. He had company in his thoughts, and for the present +he wanted no other. He had no desire to make acquaintances, and he left +untouched a couple of notes of introduction which had been sent him by Tom +Tristram. He thought a great deal of Madame de Cintré—sometimes with a +dogged tranquillity which might have seemed, for a quarter of an hour at a +time, a near neighbor to forgetfulness. He lived over again the happiest hours +he had known—that silver chain of numbered days in which his afternoon +visits, tending sensibly to the ideal result, had subtilized his good humor to +a sort of spiritual intoxication. He came back to reality, after such reveries, +with a somewhat muffled shock; he had begun to feel the need of accepting the +unchangeable. At other times the reality became an infamy again and the +unchangeable an imposture, and he gave himself up to his angry restlessness +till he was weary. But on the whole he fell into a rather reflective mood. +Without in the least intending it or knowing it, he attempted to read the moral +of his strange misadventure. He asked himself, in his quieter hours, whether +perhaps, after all, he <i>was</i> more commercial than was pleasant. We know +that it was in obedience to a strong reaction against questions exclusively +commercial that he had come out to pick up æsthetic entertainment in Europe; it +may therefore be understood that he was able to conceive that a man might be +too commercial. He was very willing to grant it, but the concession, as to his +own case, was not made with any very oppressive sense of shame. If he had been +too commercial, he was ready to forget it, for in being so he had done no man +any wrong that might not be as easily forgotten. He reflected with sober +placidity that at least there were no monuments of his “meanness” +scattered about the world. If there was any reason in the nature of things why +his connection with business should have cast a shadow upon a +connection—even a connection broken—with a woman justly proud, he +was willing to sponge it out of his life forever. The thing seemed a +possibility; he could not feel it, doubtless, as keenly as some people, and it +hardly seemed worth while to flap his wings very hard to rise to the idea; but +he could feel it enough to make any sacrifice that still remained to be made. +As to what such sacrifice was now to be made to, here Newman stopped short +before a blank wall over which there sometimes played a shadowy imagery. He had +a fancy of carrying out his life as he would have directed it if Madame de +Cintré had been left to him—of making it a religion to do nothing that +she would have disliked. In this, certainly, there was no sacrifice; but there +was a pale, oblique ray of inspiration. It would be lonely +entertainment—a good deal like a man talking to himself in the mirror for +want of better company. Yet the idea yielded Newman several half hours’ +dumb exaltation as he sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs +stretched, over the relics of an expensively poor dinner, in the undying +English twilight. If, however, his commercial imagination was dead, he felt no +contempt for the surviving actualities begotten by it. He was glad he had been +prosperous and had been a great man of business rather than a small one; he was +extremely glad he was rich. He felt no impulse to sell all he had and give to +the poor, or to retire into meditative economy and asceticism. He was glad he +was rich and tolerably young; if it was possible to think too much about buying +and selling, it was a gain to have a good slice of life left in which not to +think about them. Come, what should he think about now? Again and again Newman +could think only of one thing; his thoughts always came back to it, and as they +did so, with an emotional rush which seemed physically to express itself in a +sudden upward choking, he leaned forward—the waiter having left the +room—and, resting his arms on the table, buried his troubled face. +</p> + +<p> +He remained in England till midsummer, and spent a month in the country, +wandering about cathedrals, castles, and ruins. Several times, taking a walk +from his inn into meadows and parks, he stopped by a well-worn stile, looked +across through the early evening at a gray church tower, with its dusky nimbus +of thick-circling swallows, and remembered that this might have been part of +the entertainment of his honeymoon. He had never been so much alone or indulged +so little in accidental dialogue. The period of recreation appointed by Mrs. +Tristram had at last expired, and he asked himself what he should do now. Mrs. +Tristram had written to him, proposing to him that he should join her in the +Pyrenees; but he was not in the humor to return to France. The simplest thing +was to repair to Liverpool and embark on the first American steamer. Newman +made his way to the great seaport and secured his berth; and the night before +sailing he sat in his room at the hotel, staring down, vacantly and wearily, at +an open portmanteau. A number of papers were lying upon it, which he had been +meaning to look over; some of them might conveniently be destroyed. But at last +he shuffled them roughly together, and pushed them into a corner of the valise; +they were business papers, and he was in no humor for sifting them. Then he +drew forth his pocket-book and took out a paper of smaller size than those he +had dismissed. He did not unfold it; he simply sat looking at the back of it. +If he had momentarily entertained the idea of destroying it, the idea quickly +expired. What the paper suggested was the feeling that lay in his innermost +heart and that no reviving cheerfulness could long quench—the feeling +that after all and above all he was a good fellow wronged. With it came a +hearty hope that the Bellegardes were enjoying their suspense as to what he +would do yet. The more it was prolonged the more they would enjoy it! He had +hung fire once, yes; perhaps, in his present queer state of mind, he might hang +fire again. But he restored the little paper to his pocket-book very tenderly, +and felt better for thinking of the suspense of the Bellegardes. He felt better +every time he thought of it after that, as he sailed the summer seas. He landed +in New York and journeyed across the continent to San Francisco, and nothing +that he observed by the way contributed to mitigate his sense of being a good +fellow wronged. +</p> + +<p> +He saw a great many other good fellows—his old friends—but he told +none of them of the trick that had been played him. He said simply that the +lady he was to have married had changed her mind, and when he was asked if he +had changed his own, he said, “Suppose we change the subject.” He +told his friends that he had brought home no “new ideas” from +Europe, and his conduct probably struck them as an eloquent proof of failing +invention. He took no interest in chatting about his affairs and manifested no +desire to look over his accounts. He asked half a dozen questions which, like +those of an eminent physician inquiring for particular symptoms, showed that he +still knew what he was talking about; but he made no comments and gave no +directions. He not only puzzled the gentlemen on the stock exchange, but he was +himself surprised at the extent of his indifference. As it seemed only to +increase, he made an effort to combat it; he tried to interest himself and to +take up his old occupations. But they appeared unreal to him; do what he would +he somehow could not believe in them. Sometimes he began to fear that there was +something the matter with his head; that his brain, perhaps, had softened, and +that the end of his strong activities had come. This idea came back to him with +an exasperating force. A hopeless, helpless loafer, useful to no one and +detestable to himself—this was what the treachery of the Bellegardes had +made of him. In his restless idleness he came back from San Francisco to New +York, and sat for three days in the lobby of his hotel, looking out through a +huge wall of plate-glass at the unceasing stream of pretty girls in +Parisian-looking dresses, undulating past with little parcels nursed against +their neat figures. At the end of three days he returned to San Francisco, and +having arrived there he wished he had stayed away. He had nothing to do, his +occupation was gone, and it seemed to him that he should never find it again. +He had nothing to do <i>here</i>, he sometimes said to himself; but there was +something beyond the ocean that he was still to do; something that he had left +undone experimentally and speculatively, to see if it could content itself to +remain undone. But it was not content: it kept pulling at his heartstrings and +thumping at his reason; it murmured in his ears and hovered perpetually before +his eyes. It interposed between all new resolutions and their fulfillment; it +seemed like a stubborn ghost, dumbly entreating to be laid. Till that was done +he should never be able to do anything else. +</p> + +<p> +One day, toward the end of the winter, after a long interval, he received a +letter from Mrs. Tristram, who apparently was animated by a charitable desire +to amuse and distract her correspondent. She gave him much Paris gossip, talked +of General Packard and Miss Kitty Upjohn, enumerated the new plays at the +theatre, and enclosed a note from her husband, who had gone down to spend a +month at Nice. Then came her signature, and after this her postscript. The +latter consisted of these few lines: “I heard three days since from my +friend, the Abbé Aubert, that Madame de Cintré last week took the veil at the +Carmelites. It was on her twenty-seventh birthday, and she took the name of +her, patroness, St. Veronica. Sister Veronica has a lifetime before her!” +</p> + +<p> +This letter came to Newman in the morning; in the evening he started for Paris. +His wound began to ache with its first fierceness, and during his long bleak +journey the thought of Madame de Cintré’s “life-time,” passed +within prison walls on whose outer side he might stand, kept him perpetual +company. Now he would fix himself in Paris forever; he would extort a sort of +happiness from the knowledge that if she was not there, at least the stony +sepulchre that held her was. He descended, unannounced, upon Mrs. Bread, whom +he found keeping lonely watch in his great empty saloons on the Boulevard +Haussmann. They were as neat as a Dutch village, Mrs. Bread’s only +occupation had been removing individual dust-particles. She made no complaint, +however, of her loneliness, for in her philosophy a servant was but a +mysteriously projected machine, and it would be as fantastic for a housekeeper +to comment upon a gentleman’s absences as for a clock to remark upon not +being wound up. No particular clock, Mrs. Bread supposed, went all the time, +and no particular servant could enjoy all the sunshine diffused by the career +of an exacting master. She ventured, nevertheless, to express a modest hope +that Newman meant to remain a while in Paris. Newman laid his hand on hers and +shook it gently. “I mean to remain forever,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He went after this to see Mrs. Tristram, to whom he had telegraphed, and who +expected him. She looked at him a moment and shook her head. “This +won’t do,” she said; “you have come back too soon.” He +sat down and asked about her husband and her children, tried even to inquire +about Miss Dora Finch. In the midst of this—“Do you know where she +is?” he asked, abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram hesitated a moment; of course he couldn’t mean Miss Dora +Finch. Then she answered, properly: “She has gone to the other +house—in the Rue d’Enfer.” After Newman had sat a while +longer looking very sombre, she went on: “You are not so good a man as I +thought. You are more—you are more—” +</p> + +<p> +“More what?” Newman asked. +</p> + +<p> +“More unforgiving.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good God!” cried Newman; “do you expect me to +forgive?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not that. I have forgiven, so of course you can’t. But you +might forget! You have a worse temper about it than I should have expected. You +look wicked—you look dangerous.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may be dangerous,” he said; “but I am not wicked. No, I am +not wicked.” And he got up to go. Mrs. Tristram asked him to come back to +dinner; but he answered that he did not feel like pledging himself to be +present at an entertainment, even as a solitary guest. Later in the evening, if +he should be able, he would come. +</p> + +<p> +He walked away through the city, beside the Seine and over it, and took the +direction of the Rue d’Enfer. The day had the softness of early spring; +but the weather was gray and humid. Newman found himself in a part of Paris +which he little knew—a region of convents and prisons, of streets +bordered by long dead walls and traversed by a few wayfarers. At the +intersection of two of these streets stood the house of the Carmelites—a +dull, plain edifice, with a high-shouldered blank wall all round it. From +without Newman could see its upper windows, its steep roof and its chimneys. +But these things revealed no symptoms of human life; the place looked dumb, +deaf, inanimate. The pale, dead, discolored wall stretched beneath it, far down +the empty side street—a vista without a human figure. Newman stood there +a long time; there were no passers; he was free to gaze his fill. This seemed +the goal of his journey; it was what he had come for. It was a strange +satisfaction, and yet it was a satisfaction; the barren stillness of the place +seemed to be his own release from ineffectual longing. It told him that the +woman within was lost beyond recall, and that the days and years of the future +would pile themselves above her like the huge immovable slab of a tomb. These +days and years, in this place, would always be just so gray and silent. +Suddenly, from the thought of their seeing him stand there, again the charm +utterly departed. He would never stand there again; it was gratuitous +dreariness. He turned away with a heavy heart, but with a heart lighter than +the one he had brought. Everything was over, and he too at last could rest. He +walked down through narrow, winding streets to the edge of the Seine again, and +there he saw, close above him, the soft, vast towers of Notre Dame. He crossed +one of the bridges and stood a moment in the empty place before the great +cathedral; then he went in beneath the grossly-imaged portals. He wandered some +distance up the nave and sat down in the splendid dimness. He sat a long time; +he heard far-away bells chiming off, at long intervals, to the rest of the +world. He was very tired; this was the best place he could be in. He said no +prayers; he had no prayers to say. He had nothing to be thankful for, and he +had nothing to ask; nothing to ask, because now he must take care of himself. +But a great cathedral offers a very various hospitality, and Newman sat in his +place, because while he was there he was out of the world. The most unpleasant +thing that had ever happened to him had reached its formal conclusion, as it +were; he could close the book and put it away. He leaned his head for a long +time on the chair in front of him; when he took it up he felt that he was +himself again. Somewhere in his mind, a tight knot seemed to have loosened. He +thought of the Bellegardes; he had almost forgotten them. He remembered them as +people he had meant to do something to. He gave a groan as he remembered what +he had meant to do; he was annoyed at having meant to do it; the bottom, +suddenly, had fallen out of his revenge. Whether it was Christian charity or +unregenerate good nature—what it was, in the background of his +soul—I don’t pretend to say; but Newman’s last thought was +that of course he would let the Bellegardes go. +</p> + +<p> +If he had spoken it aloud he would have said that he didn’t want to hurt +them. He was ashamed of having wanted to hurt them. They had hurt him, but such +things were really not his game. At last he got up and came out of the +darkening church; not with the elastic step of a man who had won a victory or +taken a resolve, but strolling soberly, like a good-natured man who is still a +little ashamed. +</p> + +<p> +Going home, he said to Mrs. Bread that he must trouble her to put back his +things into the portmanteau she had unpacked the evening before. His gentle +stewardess looked at him through eyes a trifle bedimmed. “Dear me, +sir,” she exclaimed, “I thought you said that you were going to +stay forever.” +</p> + +<p> +“I meant that I was going to stay away forever,” said Newman +kindly. And since his departure from Paris on the following day he has +certainly not returned. The gilded apartments I have so often spoken of stand +ready to receive him; but they serve only as a spacious residence for Mrs. +Bread, who wanders eternally from room to room, adjusting the tassels of the +curtains, and keeps her wages, which are regularly brought her by a +banker’s clerk, in a great pink Sèvres vase on the drawing-room +mantelshelf. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the evening Newman went to Mrs. Tristram’s and found Tom Tristram +by the domestic fireside. “I’m glad to see you back in +Paris,” this gentleman declared. “You know it’s really the +only place for a white man to live.” Mr. Tristram made his friend +welcome, according to his own rosy light, and offered him a convenient +<i>résumé</i> of the Franco-American gossip of the last six months. Then at +last he got up and said he would go for half an hour to the club. “I +suppose a man who has been for six months in California wants a little +intellectual conversation. I’ll let my wife have a go at you.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman shook hands heartily with his host, but did not ask him to remain; and +then he relapsed into his place on the sofa, opposite to Mrs. Tristram. She +presently asked him what he had done after leaving her. “Nothing +particular,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +“You struck me,” she rejoined, “as a man with a plot in his +head. You looked as if you were bent on some sinister errand, and after you had +left me I wondered whether I ought to have let you go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I only went over to the other side of the river—to the +Carmelites,” said Newman. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram looked at him a moment and smiled. “What did you do there? +Try to scale the wall?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did nothing. I looked at the place for a few minutes and then came +away.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram gave him a sympathetic glance. “You didn’t happen to +meet M. de Bellegarde,” she asked, “staring hopelessly at the +convent wall as well? I am told he takes his sister’s conduct very +hard.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I didn’t meet him, I am happy to say,” Newman answered, +after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“They are in the country,” Mrs. Tristram went on; +“at—what is the name of the place?—Fleurières. They returned +there at the time you left Paris and have been spending the year in extreme +seclusion. The little marquise must enjoy it; I expect to hear that she has +eloped with her daughter’s music-master!” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was looking at the light wood-fire; but he listened to this with extreme +interest. At last he spoke: “I mean never to mention the name of those +people again, and I don’t want to hear anything more about them.” +And then he took out his pocket-book and drew forth a scrap of paper. He looked +at it an instant, then got up and stood by the fire. “I am going to burn +them up,” he said. “I am glad to have you as a witness. There they +go!” And he tossed the paper into the flame. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram sat with her embroidery needle suspended. “What is that +paper?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Newman leaning against the fireplace, stretched his arms and drew a longer +breath than usual. Then after a moment, “I can tell you now,” he +said. “It was a paper containing a secret of the +Bellegardes—something which would damn them if it were known.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram dropped her embroidery with a reproachful moan. “Ah, why +didn’t you show it to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought of showing it to you—I thought of showing it to +everyone. I thought of paying my debt to the Bellegardes that way. So I told +them, and I frightened them. They have been staying in the country as you tell +me, to keep out of the explosion. But I have given it up.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram began to take slow stitches again. “Have you quite given it +up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it very bad, this secret?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, very bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“For myself,” said Mrs. Tristram, “I am sorry you have given +it up. I should have liked immensely to see your paper. They have wronged me +too, you know, as your sponsor and guarantee, and it would have served for my +revenge as well. How did you come into possession of your secret?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a long story. But honestly, at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +“And they knew you were master of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I told them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me, how interesting!” cried Mrs. Tristram. “And you +humbled them at your feet?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman was silent a moment. “No, not at all. They pretended not to +care—not to be afraid. But I know they did care—they were +afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you very sure?” +</p> + +<p> +Newman stared a moment. “Yes, I’m sure.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Tristram resumed her slow stitches. “They defied you, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Newman, “it was about that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You tried by the threat of exposure to make them retract?” Mrs. +Tristram pursued. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but they wouldn’t. I gave them their choice, and they chose +to take their chance of bluffing off the charge and convicting me of fraud. But +they <i>were</i> frightened,” Newman added, “and I have had all the +vengeance I want.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is most provoking,” said Mrs. Tristram, “to hear you talk +of the ‘charge’ when the charge is burnt up. Is it quite +consumed?” she asked, glancing at the fire. +</p> + +<p> +Newman assured her that there was nothing left of it. “Well then,” +she said, “I suppose there is no harm in saying that you probably did not +make them so very uncomfortable. My impression would be that since, as you say, +they defied you, it was because they believed that, after all, you would never +really come to the point. Their confidence, after counsel taken of each other, +was not in their innocence, nor in their talent for bluffing things off; it was +in your remarkable good nature! You see they were right.” +</p> + +<p> +Newman instinctively turned to see if the little paper was in fact consumed; +but there was nothing left of it. +</p> + +<h5>THE END</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 177-h.htm or 177-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/177/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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