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diff --git a/old/theam10.txt b/old/theam10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e0983cc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/theam10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15574 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The American, by Henry James** + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + +The American by Henry James 1877 + + + +CHAPTER I + + +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 Carre, 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 Badeker; his attention had been strained +and his eyes dazzled, and he had sat down with an aesthetic 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. + +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 Cafe Anglais-- +some one 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 homeopathy. 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 mustache 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 skeptical, 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 mustache, 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 aesthetic 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. + +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 byplay, +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, "Combien?" he abruptly demanded. + +The artist stared a moment, gave a little pout, shrugged her shoulders, +put down her palette and brushes, and stood rubbing her hands. + +"How much?" said our friend, in English. "Combien?" + +"Monsieur wishes to buy it?" asked the young lady in French. + +"Very pretty, splendide. Combien?" repeated the American. + +"It pleases monsieur, my little picture? It's a very beautiful subject," +said the young lady. + +"The Madonna, yes; I am not a Catholic, but I want to buy it. Combien? +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 simply trying to look indifferent, and wondering how far she might go. +"I haven't made a mistake--pas insulte, no?" her interlocutor continued. +"Don't you understand a little English?" + +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, "Donnez!" 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. + +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. +"Pas beaucoup?" + +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." + +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. "FINISH, you know;" +and he pointed to the unpainted hand of the figure. + +"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. + +But the American frowned. "Ah, too red, too red!" he rejoined. +"Her complexion," pointing to the Murillo, "is--more delicate." + +"Delicate? Oh, it shall be delicate, monsieur; delicate as Sevres biscuit. +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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"Capricious?" And at this monsieur began to laugh. +"Oh no, I'm not capricious. I am very faithful. +I am very constant. Comprenez?" + +"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!" + +"Droll?" said Mr. Newman, laughing too. "Did you ever hear +of Christopher Columbus?" + +"Bien sur! He invented America; a very great man. +And is he your patron?" + +"My patron?" + +"Your patron-saint, in the calendar." + +"Oh, exactly; my parents named me for him." + +"Monsieur is American?" + +"Don't you see it?" monsieur inquired. + +"And you mean to carry my little picture away over there?" +and she explained her phrase with a gesture. + +"Oh, I mean to buy a great many pictures--beaucoup, beaucoup," +said Christopher Newman. + +"The honor is not less for me," the young lady answered, +"for I am sure monsieur has a great deal of taste." + +"But you must give me your card," Newman said; "your card, you know." + +The young lady looked severe for an instant, and then said, +"My father will wait upon you." + +But this time Mr. Newman's powers of divination were at fault. +"Your card, your address," he simply repeated. + +"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 porte-monnaie, 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. Noemie Nioche." But Mr. Newman, unlike his companion, +read the name with perfect gravity; all French names to him +were equally droll. + +"And precisely, here is my father, who has come to escort me home," +said Mademoiselle Noemie. "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. + +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. + +"Monsieur has bought my picture," said Mademoiselle Noemie. +"When it's finished you'll carry it to him in a cab." + +"In a cab!" cried M. Nioche; and he stared, in a bewildered way, +as if he had seen the sun rising at midnight. + +"Are you the young lady's father?" said Newman. +"I think she said you speak English." + +"Speak English--yes," said the old man slowly rubbing his hands. +"I will bring it in a cab." + +"Say something, then," cried his daughter. "Thank him a little-- +not too much." + +"A little, my daughter, a little?" said M. Nioche perplexed. +"How much?" + +"Two thousand!" said Mademoiselle Noemie. "Don't make a fuss +or he'll take back his word." + +"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. + +"We must go home," said Mademoiselle Noemie. "This is a good day's work. +Take care how you carry it!" And she began to put up her utensils. + +"How can I thank you?" said M. Nioche. "My English does not suffice." + +"I wish I spoke French as well," said Newman, good-naturedly. "Your +daughter is very clever." + +"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--tres-superieure! 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 artiste, ah!" + +"Do I understand you to say that you have had reverses?" asked Newman. + +"Reverses? Oh, sir, misfortunes--terrible." + +"Unsuccessful in business, eh?" + +"Very unsuccessful, sir." + +"Oh, never fear, you'll get on your legs again," said Newman cheerily. + +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. + +"What does he say?" demanded Mademoiselle Noemie. + +M. Nioche took a pinch of snuff. "He says I will make my fortune again." + +"Perhaps he will help you. And what else?" + +"He says thou art very clever." + +"It is very possible. You believe it yourself, my father?" + +"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. + +"Ask him, then. if he would not like to learn French." + +"To learn French?" + +"To take lessons." + +"To take lessons, my daughter? From thee?" + +"From you!" + +"From me, my child? How should I give lessons?" + +"Pas de raisons! Ask him immediately!" said Mademoiselle Noemie, +with soft brevity. + +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. + +"To study French?" asked Newman, staring. + +M. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and slowly raised his shoulders. +"A little conversation!" + +"Conversation--that's it!" murmured Mademoiselle Noemie, who had caught +the word. "The conversation of the best society." + +"Our French conversation is famous, you know," M. Nioche ventured +to continue. "It's a great talent." + +"But isn't it awfully difficult?" asked Newman, very simply. + +"Not to a man of esprit, like monsieur, an admirer of beauty in every form!" +and M. Nioche cast a significant glance at his daughter's Madonna. + +"I can't fancy myself chattering French!" said Newman with a laugh. +"And yet, I suppose that the more a man knows the better." + +"Monsieur expresses that very happily. Helas, oui!" + +"I suppose it would help me a great deal, knocking about Paris, +to know the language." + +"Ah, there are so many things monsieur must want to say: difficult things!" + +"Everything I want to say is difficult. But you give lessons?" + +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. + +"Tell him it's a very exceptional chance," answered Mademoiselle Noemie; +"an homme du monde--one gentleman conversing with another! +Remember what you are--what you have been!" + +"A teacher of languages in neither case! Much more formerly and much +less to-day! And if he asks the price of the lessons?" + +"He won't ask it," said Mademoiselle Noemie. + +"What he pleases, I may say?" + +"Never! That's bad style." + +"If he asks, then?" + +Mademoiselle Noemie 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. + +"Oh, my daughter! I shall never dare." + +"Don't dare, then! He won't ask till the end of the lessons, +and then I will make out the bill." + +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. + +"When I was young, before my miseries. Oh, I was wide awake, then. +My father was a great commercant; he placed me for a year +in a counting-house in England. Some of it stuck to me; +but I have forgotten!" + +"How much French can I learn in a month?" + +"What does he say?" asked Mademoiselle Noemie. + +M. Nioche explained. + +"He will speak like an angel!" said his daughter. + +But the native integrity which had been vainly exerted to +secure M. Nioche's commercial prosperity flickered up again. +"Dame, 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." + +"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." + +"You are very good, sir; I am overcome!" said M. Nioche, throwing out +his hands. "But you have cheerfulness and happiness for two!" + +"Oh no," said Newman more seriously. "You must be bright and lively; +that's part of the bargain." + +M. Nioche bowed, with his hand on his heart. "Very well, sir; +you have already made me lively." + +"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!" + +Mademoiselle Noemie 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. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +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 "Combien?" +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 any one. +I know not what Newman thought of his face, but he found a want +of response in his grasp. + +"Oh, come, come," he said, laughing; "don't say, now, you don't know me-- +if I have NOT got a white parasol!" + +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." + +"You haven't!" said Newman. + +"Not for the better, no doubt. When did you get here?" + +"Three days ago." + +"Why didn't you let me know?" + +"I had no idea YOU were here." + +"I have been here these six years." + +"It must be eight or nine since we met." + +"Something of that sort. We were very young." + +"It was in St. Louis, during the war. You were in the army." + +"Oh no, not I! But you were." + +"I believe I was." + +"You came out all right?" + +"I came out with my legs and arms--and with satisfaction. All +that seems very far away." + +"And how long have you been in Europe?" + +"Seventeen days." + +"First time?" + +"Yes, very much so." + +"Made your everlasting fortune?" + +Christopher Newman was silent a moment, and then with a tranquil +smile he answered, "Yes." + +"And come to Paris to spend it, eh?" + +"Well, we shall see. So they carry those parasols here--the menfolk?" + +"Of course they do. They're great things. They understand +comfort out here." + +"Where do you buy them?" + +"Anywhere, everywhere." + +"Well, Tristram, I'm glad to get hold of you. You can show me the ropes. +I suppose you know Paris inside out." + +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." + +"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." + +"Bought a picture?" said Mr. Tristram, looking vaguely round at the walls. +"Why, do they sell them?" + +"I mean a copy." + +"Oh, I see. These," said Mr. Tristram, nodding at the Titians and Vandykes, +"these, I suppose, are originals." + +"I hope so," cried Newman. "I don't want a copy of a copy." + +"Ah," said Mr. Tristram, mysteriously, "you can never tell. +They imitate, you know, so deucedly well. It's like the jewelers, +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." + +"Ah, you have got a wife?" + +"Didn't I mention it? She's a very nice woman; you must know her. +She's up there in the Avenue d'Iena." + +"So you are regularly fixed--house and children and all." + +"Yes, a tip-top house and a couple of youngsters." + +"Well," said Christopher Newman, stretching his arms a little, +with a sigh, "I envy you." + +"Oh no! you don't!" answered Mr. Tristram, giving him a little +poke with his parasol. + +"I beg your pardon; I do!" + +"Well, you won't, then, when--when--" + +"You don't certainly mean when I have seen your establishment?" + +"When you have seen Paris, my boy. You want to be your own master here." + +"Oh, I have been my own master all my life, and I'm tired of it." + +"Well, try Paris. How old are you?" + +"Thirty-six." + +"C'est le bel age, as they say here." + +"What does that mean?" + +"It means that a man shouldn't send away his plate till he has +eaten his fill." + +"All that? I have just made arrangements to take French lessons." + +"Oh, you don't want any lessons. You'll pick it up. +I never took any." + +"I suppose you speak French as well as English?" + +"Better!" said Mr. Tristram, roundly. "It's a splendid language. +You can say all sorts of bright things in it." + +"But I suppose," said Christopher Newman, with an earnest desire +for information, "that you must be bright to begin with." + +"Not a bit; that's just the beauty of it." + +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. + +"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." + +Newman stared. "Smoke? I'm sure I don't know. +You know the regulations better than I." + +"I? I never was here before!" + +"Never! in six years?" + +"I believe my wife dragged me here once when we first came to Paris, +but I never found my way back." + +"But you say you know Paris so well!" + +"I don't call this Paris!" cried Mr. Tristram, with assurance. +"Come; let's go over to the Palais Royal and have a smoke." + +"I don't smoke," said Newman. + +"A drink, then." + +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." + +"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. + +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 cafe 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 gayety in the whole scene, and Christopher +Newman felt that it was most characteristically Parisian. + +"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?" + +"At the Grand Hotel," said Newman. + +Mr. Tristram puckered his plump visage. "That won't do! +You must change." + +"Change?" demanded Newman. "Why, it's the finest hotel I ever was in." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I suppose you are always tipping them. That's very bad style." + +"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?" + +"Very!" + +"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." + +"You're easily pleased. But you can do as you choose--a man in your shoes. +You have made a pile of money, eh?" + +"I have made enough" + +"Happy the man who can say that? Enough for what?" + +"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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, at several things." + +"I suppose you're a smart fellow, eh?" + +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 mediaeval 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. + +"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." + +"Oh, I'll be your little child," said Tristram, jovially; "I'll take +you by the hand. Trust yourself to me" + +"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." + +"Oh, that's easily learned." + +"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." + +"Yes," said Tristram, "I suppose I am original; like all those immoral +pictures in the Louvre." + +"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." + +"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." + +"What club?" + +"The Occidental. You will see all the Americans there; +all the best of them, at least. Of course you play poker?" + +"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." + +"What the deuce HAVE you come for! You were glad enough to play +poker in St. Louis, I recollect, when you cleaned me out." + +"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." + +"The clever people? Much obliged. You set me down as a blockhead, then?" + +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. + +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!" + +"I don't turn up my nose at you, my dear fellow; nor at any one, +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." + +"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?" + +"I shall be happy to make their acquaintance; I want to cultivate society." + +Tristram seemed restless and suspicious; he eyed his friend askance, +and then, "What are you up to, any way?" he demanded. +"Are you going to write a book?" + +Christopher Newman twisted one end of his mustache 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 THAT!" 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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Oh, it's a real caprice de prince," 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." + +39 Newman looked at him a moment, and then, with his easy smile, +"How does one do it?" he asked. + +"Come, I like that!" cried Tristram. "It shows you are in earnest." + +"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." + +"You are not bashful, eh?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"But I can't settle down in Paris at this season, just as summer +is coming on." + +"Oh, for the summer go up to Trouville." + +"What is Trouville?" + +"The French Newport. Half the Americans go." + +"Is it anywhere near the Alps?" + +"About as near as Newport is to the Rocky Mountains." + +"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." + +"Ah," said Mr. Tristram, rising, "I see I shall have to introduce +you to my wife!" + + + +CHAPTER III + + +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 facades 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--" + +"And you will soon get over your homesickness," said Mrs. Tristram. + +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 installments. + +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. + +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 every one'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. + +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'Iena. 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 cocottes, 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. + +Christopher Newman dined several times in the Avenue d'Iena, 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. + +"Oh no, I never try, my love," he answered. "I know you loathe +me quite enough when I take my chance." + +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. + +"Really?" he asked, very gravely. "Do you think so? +How do you recognize a man of feeling?" + +"I can't make out," said Mrs. Tristram, "whether you are very simple +or very deep." + +"I'm very deep. That's a fact." + +"I believe that if I were to tell you with a certain air that you +have no feeling, you would implicitly believe me." + +"A certain air?" said Newman. "Try it and see." + +"You would believe me, but you would not care," said Mrs. Tristram. + +"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 DO them, to make myself felt." + +"I can imagine that you may have done that tremendously, sometimes." + +"Yes, there's no mistake about that." + +"When you are in a fury it can't be pleasant." + +"I am never in a fury." + +"Angry, then, or displeased." + +"I am never angry, and it is so long since I have been displeased +that I have quite forgotten it." + +"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." + +"I lose it perhaps once in five years." + +"The time is coming round, then," said his hostess. +"Before I have known you six months I shall see you in +a fine fury." + +"Do you mean to put me into one?" + +"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." + +"Well, I suppose I am happy," said Newman, meditatively. + +"You have been odiously successful." + +"Successful in copper," said Newman, "only so-so in railroads, +and a hopeless fizzle in oil." + +"It is very disagreeable to know how Americans have made their money. +Now you have the world before you. You have only to enjoy." + +"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." + +"One doesn't expect it of you," Mrs. Tristram answered. +Then in a moment, "Besides, you are!" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I don't mean that you are a Comanche chief, or that you wear +a blanket and feathers. There are different shades." + +"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." + +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." + +"Pray do," said Newman. + +"That has a little conceited sound!" his companion rejoined. + +"Oh," said Newman, "I have a very good opinion of myself." + +"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." + +"Your patriotism?" Christopher demanded. + +"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." + +Newman stood staring and wondering what under the sun he "represented." + +"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." + +"I shall remember everything you have told me," said Newman. +"There are so many forms and ceremonies over here--" + +"Forms and ceremonies are what I mean, of course." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, I am sure I shall never fumble over it!" said Newman. + +The next time that he dined in the Avenue d'Iena 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. + +"Listen to her; she has the audacity!" said Tristram, who on Sunday +evenings was always rather acrimonious. + +"I don't suppose you have made up your mind not to marry?" +Mrs. Tristram continued. + +"Heaven forbid!" cried Newman. "I am sternly resolved on it." + +"It's very easy," said Tristram; "fatally easy!" + +"Well, then, I suppose you do not mean to wait till you are fifty." + +"On the contrary, I am in a great hurry." + +"One would never suppose it. Do you expect a lady to come +and propose to you?" + +"No; I am willing to propose. I think a great deal about it." + +"Tell me some of your thoughts." + +"Well," said Newman, slowly, "I want to marry very well." + +"Marry a woman of sixty, then," said Tristram. + +" 'Well' in what sense?" + +"In every sense. I shall be hard to please." + +"You must remember that, as the French proverb says, the most beautiful +girl in the world can give but what she has." + +"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." + +"Voila ce qui s'appelle parler!" cried Mrs. Tristram. + +"Oh, I have thought an immense deal about it." + +"Perhaps you think too much. The best thing is simply to fall in love." + +"When I find the woman who pleases me, I shall love her enough. +My wife shall be very comfortable." + +"You are superb! There's a chance for the magnificent women." + +"You are not fair." Newman rejoined. "You draw a fellow out and put +him off guard, and then you laugh at him." + +"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?" + +"To hunt up a wife for me?" + +"She is already found. I will bring you together." + +"Oh, come," said Tristram, "we don't keep a matrimonial bureau. +He will think you want your commission." + +"Present me to a woman who comes up to my notions," said Newman, +"and I will marry her tomorrow." + +"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." + +Newman was silent a while. "Well," he said, at last, +"I want a great woman. I stick to that. That's one thing I +CAN 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." + +"Why didn't you tell a fellow all this at the outset?" Tristram demanded. +"I have been trying so to make you fond of ME!" + +"This is very interesting," said Mrs. Tristram. +"I like to see a man know his own mind." + +"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." + +"It strikes me that your marriage is to be rather a matter of vanity." + +"Well, it is certain," said Newman, "that if people notice my wife +and admire her, I shall be mightily tickled." + +"After this," cried Mrs. Tristram, "call any man modest!" + +"But none of them will admire her so much as I." + +"I see you have a taste for splendor." + +Newman hesitated a little; and then, "I honestly believe I have!" he said. + +"And I suppose you have already looked about you a good deal." + +"A good deal, according to opportunity." + +"And you have seen nothing that satisfied you?" + +"No," said Newman, half reluctantly, "I am bound to say in honesty +that I have seen nothing that really satisfied me." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"No Irish need apply," said Tristram. + +Newman meditated a while. "As a foreigner, no," he said at last; +"I have no prejudices." + +"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?" + +Newman administered a vigorous slap to his knee. "I would marry a Japanese, +if she pleased me," he affirmed. + +"We had better confine ourselves to Europe," said Mrs. Tristram. +"The only thing is, then, that the person be in herself to your taste?" + +"She is going to offer you an unappreciated governess!" Tristram groaned. + +"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!" + +"You talk like Sardanapalus!" exclaimed Tristram. + +"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." + +"The deuce!" cried Tristram, "you have kept very quiet about her. +Were you afraid of me?" + +"You have seen her," said his wife, "but you have no perception +of such merit as Claire's." + +"Ah, her name is Claire? I give it up." + +"Does your friend wish to marry?" asked Newman. + +"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." + +"Oh, she is a widow, then?" said Newman. + +"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." + +"So she is French?" + +"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'Universite, 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 monde; I am not now, either, but we sometimes meet. +They are terrible people--her monde; all mounted upon stilts a mile high, +and with pedigrees long in proportion. It is the skim of the milk of +the old noblesse. Do you know what a Legitimist is, or an Ultramontane? +Go into Madame de Cintre'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." + +"And this is the lady you propose to me to marry?" asked Newman. +"A lady I can't even approach?" + +"But you said just now that you recognized no obstacles." + +Newman looked at Mrs. Tristram a while, stroking his mustache. +"Is she a beauty?" he demanded. + +"No." + +"Oh, then it's no use--" + +"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." + +"I remember Madame de Cintre, now," said Tristram. +"She is as plain as a pike-staff. A man wouldn't look +at her twice." + +"In saying that HE would not look at her twice, my husband sufficiently +describes her," Mrs. Tristram rejoined. + +"Is she good; is she clever?" Newman asked. + +"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." + +"I should like to see her," said Newman, simply. + +"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." + +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. + +"Don't put your foot into THIS, my boy," he said, puffing the last whiffs +of his cigar. "There's nothing in it!" + +Newman looked askance at him, inquisitive. "You tell another story, eh?" + +"I say simply that Madame de Cintre is a great white doll of a woman, +who cultivates quiet haughtiness." + +"Ah, she's haughty, eh?" + +"She looks at you as if you were so much thin air, and cares +for you about as much." + +"She is very proud, eh?" + +"Proud? As proud as I'm humble." + +"And not good-looking?" + +Tristram shrugged his shoulders: "It's a kind of beauty you must be +INTELLECTUAL to understand. But I must go in and amuse the company." + +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. + +"Who is that lady?" he asked. + +"Miss Dora Finch. How do you like her?" + +"She's too noisy." + +"She is thought so bright! Certainly, you are fastidious," +said Mrs. Tristram. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +The stranger turned her face toward Newman, with a smile. +He was not embarrassed, for his unconscious sang-froid +was boundless; but as he became aware that this was the proud +and beautiful Madame de Cintre, 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. + +"I should have been most happy," said Madame de Cintre. +"Unfortunately, as I have been telling Mrs. Tristram, +I go on Monday to the country." + +Newman had made a solemn bow. "I am very sorry," he said. + +"Paris is getting too warm," Madame de Cintre added, taking her friend's +hand again in farewell. + +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 +Cintre's bonnet ribbons. + +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 Cintre was her dearest Claire, +and her especial admiration but Madame de Cintre had found it +impossible to dine with her and Madame de Cintre should for once +be forced gently to render tribute to Mrs. Tristram. + +"It would give me great pleasure," she said, looking at Mrs. Tristram. + +"That's a great deal," cried the latter, "for Madame de Cintre to say!" + +"I am very much obliged to you," said Newman. "Mrs. Tristram +can speak better for me than I can speak for myself." + +Madame de Cintre looked at him again, with the same soft brightness. +"Are you to be long in Paris?" she asked. + +"We shall keep him," said Mrs. Tristram. + +"But you are keeping ME!" and Madame de Cintre shook her friend's hand. + +"A moment longer," said Mrs. Tristram. + +Madame de Cintre looked at Newman again; this time without her smile. +Her eyes lingered a moment. "Will you come and see me?" she asked. + +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." + +"It was you who triumphed," said Newman. "You must not be too +hard upon her." + +Mrs. Tristram stared. "What do you mean?" + +"She did not strike me as so proud. I should say she was shy." + +"You are very discriminating. And what do you think of her face?" + +"It's handsome!" said Newman. + +"I should think it was! Of course you will go and see her." + +"To-morrow!" cried Newman. + +"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 Cintre's address. + +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 facade 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, graveled 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 +Cintre 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 Cintre. + +"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." + +Newman had been accompanied on his present errand by a slight sentiment, +I will not say of defiance--a readiness for aggression or defense, +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 Cintre. 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 Cintre," +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 Cintre is not at home." + +The younger man made a gesture, and then, turning to Newman, +"I am very sorry, sir," he said. + +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. + +"Who is the gentleman with the dog?" he asked of the old woman +who reappeared. He had begun to learn French. + +"That is Monsieur le Comte." + +"And the other?" + +"That is Monsieur le Marquis." + +"A marquis?" said Christopher in English, which the old woman fortunately +did not understand. "Oh, then he's not the butler!" + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"It has wonderful finesse," 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." + +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 Noemie, however, had apparently on this occasion +been vigorously indoctrinated, and he showed a certain tremulous eagerness +to cultivate unexpected opportunities. + +"How much do I owe you, then, with the frame?" asked Newman. + +"It will make in all three thousand francs," said the old man, +smiling agreeably, but folding his hands in instinctive suppliance. + +"Can you give me a receipt?" + +"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. + +Newman laid down the money, and M. Nioche dropped the napoleons one by one, +solemnly and lovingly, into an old leathern purse. + +"And how is your young lady?" asked Newman. "She made a great +impression on me." + +"An impression? Monsieur is very good. Monsieur admires her appearance?" + +"She is very pretty, certainly." + +"Alas, yes, she is very pretty!" + +"And what is the harm in her being pretty?" + +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." + +"Ah, but that is not the case with your daughter. +She is rich, now." + +"Very true; we are rich for six months. But if my daughter were a plain +girl I should sleep better all the same." + +"You are afraid of the young men?" + +"The young and the old!" + +"She ought to get a husband." + +"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." + +"Oh," said Newman, "her talent is in itself a dowry." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"How big a portion does your daughter want?" + +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. + +"Let your daughter paint half a dozen pictures for me, +and she shall have her dowry." + +"Half a dozen pictures--her dowry! Monsieur is not speaking inconsiderately?" + +"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. + +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? Voyons!" And he pressed his +forehead while he tried to think of something. + +"Oh, you have thanked me enough," said Newman. + +"Ah, here it is, sir!" cried M. Nioche. "To express my gratitude, +I will charge you nothing for the lessons in French conversation." + +"The lessons? I had quite forgotten them. Listening to your English," +added Newman, laughing, "is almost a lesson in French." + +"Ah, I don't profess to teach English, certainly," said M. Nioche. +"But for my own admirable tongue I am still at your service." + +"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." + +"Monsieur offers me my coffee, also?" cried M. Nioche. +"Truly, my beaux jours are coming back." + +"Come," said Newman, "let us begin. The coffee is almighty hot. +How do you say that in French?" + +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 cafe, where more newspapers were taken and his postprandial +demitasse 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--, charcutiere 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 Theatre Francais. + +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 per diem; +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 Noemie did not bring to this +task that zealous cooperation which might have been desired. + +"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." + +"But your daughter earns enough to pay for her own clothes," said Newman. + +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 Noemie'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." + +"But if Mademoiselle Noemie has this devotion to her art," +Newman once observed, "why should you have those fears for her +that you spoke of the other day?" + +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 franche coquette. +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!" + +"You were not happy with your wife?" Newman asked. + +M. Nioche gave half a dozen little backward jerks of his head. +"She was my purgatory, monsieur!" + +"She deceived you?" + +"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." + +"She is not living?" + +"She has gone to her account." + +"Her influence on your daughter, then," said Newman encouragingly, +"is not to be feared." + +"She cared no more for her daughter than for the sole of her shoe! +But Noemie has no need of influence. She is sufficient to herself. +She is stronger than I." + +"She doesn't obey you, eh?" + +"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 coup de tete. +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. Noemie 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 quartier 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 dame de compagnie. +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 Noemie discovered that she passed her life +in her arm-chair 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 Noemie 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. + +"Oh, I guess nothing will happen," said Newman. + +"I believe I should shoot her!" said the old man, solemnly. + +"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." + +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 Noemie 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. + +"What's the matter?" our hero demanded. + +"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!" + +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 Carre. +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. + +"Whenever you please, then," said Mademoiselle Noemie, +"we will pass the review." + +They walked slowly round the room, then passed into the others and strolled +about for half an hour. Mademoiselle Noemie 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. + +"What sort of pictures do you desire?" she asked. +"Sacred, or profane?" + +"Oh, a few of each," said Newman. "But I want something bright and gay." + +"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." + +"Oh, I am a bad subject," said Newman. "I am too old to learn a language." + +"Too old? Quelle folie!" cried Mademoiselle Noemie, +with a clear, shrill laugh. "You are a very young man. +And how do you like my father?" + +"He is a very nice old gentleman. He never laughs at my blunders." + +"He is very comme il faut, my papa," said Mademoiselle Noemie, +"and as honest as the day. Oh, an exceptional probity! +You could trust him with millions." + +"Do you always obey him?" asked Newman. + +"Obey him?" + +"Do you do what he bids you?" + +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. + +"Because I want to know." + +"You think me a bad girl?" And she gave a strange smile. + +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. + +"Oh, no," he said at last; "it would be very bad manners in me +to judge you that way. I don't know you." + +"But my father has complained to you," said Mademoiselle Noemie. + +"He says you are a coquette." + +"He shouldn't go about saying such things to gentlemen! +But you don't believe it." + +"No," said Newman gravely, "I don't believe it." + +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. + +"It doesn't please me," said Newman. "The young lady in the yellow +dress is not pretty." + +"Ah, you are a great connoisseur," murmured Mademoiselle Noemie. + +"In pictures? Oh, no; I know very little about them." + +"In pretty women, then." + +"In that I am hardly better." + +"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." + +"On a smaller scale? Why not as large as the original?" + +Mademoiselle Noemie 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." + +"I do like her," said Newman. "Decidedly, I must have her, as large as life. +And just as stupid as she is there." + +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. + +"What do you mean?" asked Newman, puzzled. + +She gave another little shrug. "Seriously, then, you want +that portrait--the golden hair, the purple satin, the pearl necklace, +the two magnificent arms?" + +"Everything--just as it is." + +"Would nothing else do, instead?" + +"Oh, I want some other things, but I want that too." + +Mademoiselle Noemie 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 en prince. +And you are going to travel about Europe that way?" + +"Yes, I intend to travel," said Newman. + +"Ordering, buying, spending money?" + +"Of course I shall spend some money." + +"You are very happy to have it. And you are perfectly free?" + +"How do you mean, free?" + +"You have nothing to bother you--no family, no wife, no fiancee?" + +"Yes, I am tolerably free." + +"You are very happy," said Mademoiselle Noemie, gravely. + +"Je le veux bien!" said Newman, proving that he had learned more French +than he admitted. + +"And how long shall you stay in Paris?" the young girl went on. + +"Only a few days more." + +"Why do you go away?" + +"It is getting hot, and I must go to Switzerland." + +"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." + +"Oh, take your time about it," said Newman. "Do them at your convenience." + +They walked farther and looked at a dozen other things. +Newman pointed out what pleased him, and Mademoiselle Noemie +generally criticised it, and proposed something else. +Then suddenly she diverged and began to talk about +some personal matter. + +"What made you speak to me the other day in the Salon Carre?" +she abruptly asked. + +"I admired your picture." + +"But you hesitated a long time." + +"Oh, I do nothing rashly," said Newman. + +"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." + +"It is very natural," observed Newman. + +"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?" + +"He was repenting of his unjust accusations," replied Newman. + +Mademoiselle Noemie 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 Medicis? +Just look at it and see how handsome it is." + +"Oh, yes; I should like that," said Newman. "Finish off with that." + +"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." + +"Oh, I am ignorant, certainly," said Newman, putting his hands +into his pockets. + +"It's ridiculous! I don't know how to paint." + +"You don't know how?" + +"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. + +Newman burst into a laugh. "Why do you tell me this?" he asked. + +"Because it irritates me to see a clever man blunder so. +My pictures are grotesque." + +"And the one I possess--" + +"That one is rather worse than usual." + +"Well," said Newman, "I like it all the same!" + +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." + +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 Noemie'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 aesthetic 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. + +"Are you joking," he said, "or are you serious?" + +"Oh, serious!" cried Mademoiselle Noemie, but with her extraordinary smile. + +"I know very little about pictures or now they are painted. +If you can't do all that, of course you can't. Do what you can, then." + +"It will be very bad," said Mademoiselle Noemie. + +"Oh," said Newman, laughing, "if you are determined it shall be bad, +of course it will. But why do you go on painting badly?" + +"I can do nothing else; I have no real talent." + +"You are deceiving your father, then." + +The young girl hesitated a moment. "He knows very well!" + +"No," Newman declared; "I am sure he believes in you." + +"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." + +"Of course it is much more amusing," said Newman. +"But for a poor girl isn't it rather an expensive amusement?" + +"Oh, I am very wrong, there is no doubt about that," +said Mademoiselle Noemie. "But rather than earn my living +as same girls do--toiling with a needle, in little black holes, +out of the world--I would throw myself into the Seine." + +"There is no need of that," Newman answered; "your father told +you my offer?" + +"Your offer?" + +"He wants you to marry, and I told him I would give you a chance +to earn your dot." + +"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?" + +"My interest was in your father. I hold to my offer; do what you can, +and I will buy what you paint." + +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. + +"Your father tells me he knows some very good young men." + +"Grocers and butchers and little maitres de cafes! +I will not marry at all if I can't marry well." + +"I would advise you not to be too fastidious," said Newman. +"That's all the advice I can give you." + +"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." + +"What good did you expect it to do you?" + +"I couldn't help it, simply." + +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-by!" And he put out his hand. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +When Newman related to Mrs. Tristram his fruitless visit +to Madame de Cintre, 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 Cintre 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 Cintre'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 Noemie; +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 Hotel 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. + +At the outset, on his leaving Paris, his curiosity had not been intense; +passive entertainment, in the Champs Elysees 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 BEST, 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 dilettante. 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 valets de place 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. + +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 table d'hote 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 NOBLE +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 aesthetic 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 malaise, 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!" + +"Oh, I mean," said Babcock, "was she possibly not to be considered +in a different light? Don't you think she really expected him +to marry her?" + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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 became necessary. +"Don't be afraid I'm tired of you," he said. + +"You are not tired of me?" demanded Babcock, fixing him with his +clear gray eye. + +"Why the deuce should I be? You are a very plucky fellow. +Besides, I don't grow tired of things." + +"We don't understand each other," said the young minister. + +"Don't I understand you?" cried Newman. "Why, I hoped I did. +But what if I don't; where's the harm?" + +"I don't understand YOU," said Babcock. And he sat down and rested his head +on his hand, and looked up mournfully at his immeasurable friend. + +"Oh Lord, I don't mind that!" cried Newman, with a laugh. + +"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." + +"You worry too much; that's what's the matter with you," said Newman. + +"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." + +"But we have agreed very well all along." + +"No, I haven't agreed," said Babcock, shaking his head. +"I am very uncomfortable. I ought to have separated from you +a month ago." + +"Oh, horrors! I'll agree to anything!" cried Newman. + +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." + +"Oh, you needn't give so many reasons," said Newman. +"You are simply tired of my company. You have a good right to be." + +"No, no, I am not tired!" cried the pestered young divine. +"It is very wrong to be tired." + +"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." + +"I think I will go back to Milan. I am afraid I didn't do justice to Luini." + +"Poor Luini!" said Newman. + +"I mean that I am afraid I overestimated him. I don't think +that he is a painter of the first rank." + +"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." + +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. + +A few days afterwards Newman received a note from his late companion +which ran as follows:-- + +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 DO remember that Life and Art ARE extremely serious. +Believe me your sincere friend and well-wisher, + +BENJAMIN BABCOCK + +P. S. I am greatly perplexed by Luini. + + +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. + +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 Cintre's. If he wanted to see more +of the world, should he find it in Madame de Cintre'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. + +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'Iena, 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:-- + +"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. 'L'appetit vient en mangeant,' 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'Universite. 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, + + C. N." + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +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." + +"That is not very grateful to me," said Mrs. Tristram, +"who introduced you last year to every creature I know." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Hideous, darling?" cried Tristram. + +"To-day I must say nothing wicked; otherwise I should use stronger language." + +"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." + +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. + +One day Mrs. Tristram told him that her beautiful friend, Madame de Cintre, +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. + +"And how were those eyes?" Newman asked. + +"Those eyes were red with weeping, if you please!" said Mrs. Tristram. +"She had been to confession." + +"It doesn't tally with your account of her," said Newman, +"that she should have sins to confess." + +"They were not sins; they were sufferings." + +"How do you know that?" + +"She asked me to come and see her; I went this morning." + +"And what does she suffer from?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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 ma mere, +and you have no right to judge her. You have simply to obey. +The thing has a fine side to it. Madame de Cintre bows her head +and folds her wings." + +"Can't she at least make her brother leave off?" + +"Her brother is the chef de la famille, 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." + +"I wonder what my family would like me to do!" exclaimed Tristram. + +"I wish you had one!" said his wife. + +"But what do they want to get out of that poor lady?" Newman asked. + +"Another marriage. They are not rich, and they want to bring +more money into the family." + +"There's your chance, my boy!" said Tristram. + +"And Madame de Cintre objects," Newman continued. + +"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 Cintre left a scanty property." + +"And to whom do they want to marry her now?" + +"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." + +"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 Cintre'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." + +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?" + +"I think it extremely probable. Those people are very capable +of that sort of thing." + +"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." + +"They have a still darker old house in the country Madame de Cintre tells me, +and there, during the summer this scheme must have been hatched." + +"MUST have been; mind that! said Tristram. + +"After all," suggested Newman, after a silence, "she may be in trouble +about something else." + +"If it is something else, then it is something worse," said Mrs. Tristram, +with rich decision. + +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?" + +"Helpless women, all over the world, have a hard time of it," +said Mrs. Tristram. "There is plenty of bullying everywhere." + +"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! +Some one ought to show them up." + +"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." + +"Listen to the voice of the spread eagle!" cried Tristram. + +"The spread eagle ought to use his wings," said Mrs. Tristram. +"Fly to the rescue of Madame de Cintre!" + +"To her rescue?" + +"Pounce down, seize her in your talons, and carry her off. +Marry her yourself." + +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." + +He heard of it, however, more than once afterward. Mrs. Tristram +again saw Madame de Cintre, 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 Cintre'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. + +"That's a comfort," said Newman, placidly. "I like people +to know about me." + +A few days after this, one dusky autumn afternoon, he went again +to the Rue de l'Universite. The early evening had closed in as he +applied for admittance at the stoutly guarded Hotel de Bellegarde. +He was told that Madame de Cintre 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 Cintre. 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. + +"Mrs. Tristram has spoken to me a great deal of you," +said Madame de Cintre gently, as she resumed her former place. + +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 Cintre, 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 Cintre 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. + +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 Cintre'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. + +"You have a beautiful country," said Madame de Cintre, presently. + +"Oh, magnificent!" said Newman. "You ought to see it." + +"I shall never see it," said Madame de Cintre with a smile. + +"Why not?" asked Newman. + +"I don't travel; especially so far." + +"But you go away sometimes; you are not always here?" + +"I go away in summer, a little way, to the country." + +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. + +"Yes, it is very quiet," said Madame de Cintre; "but we like that." + +"Ah, you like that," repeated Newman, slowly. + +"Besides, I have lived here all my life." + +"Lived here all your life," said Newman, in the same way. + +"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. + +"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 mustache. + +"Your house is tremendously old, then," said Newman. + +"How old is it, brother?" asked Madame de Cintre. + +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." + +"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. + +"Are you interested in architecture?" asked the young man +at the chimney-piece. + +"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?" + +"Perhaps you are interested in theology," said the young man. + +"Not particularly. Are you a Roman Catholic, madam?" +And he turned to Madame de Cintre. + +"Yes, sir," she answered, gravely. + +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. + +She hesitated a moment, and then, "In former years," she said. + +Her brother had been watching Newman's movement. +"Perhaps you would like to examine the house," he said. + +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 mustaches 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 Cintre; 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. + +The young man gave a frank laugh, and laid his hand on one of +the candlesticks. "Good, good!" he exclaimed. "Come, then." + +But Madame de Cintre rose quickly and grasped his arm, "Ah, Valentin!" +she said. "What do you mean to do?" + +"To show Mr. Newman the house. It will be very amusing." + +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." + +"It is full of curious things," said the count, resisting. +"Besides, I want to do it; it is a rare chance." + +"You are very wicked, brother," Madame de Cintre answered. + +"Nothing venture, nothing have!" cried the young man. +"Will you come?" + +Madame de Cintre 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?" + +"A hundred times!" said Newman. "We will see the house some other day." + +The young man put down his candlestick with mock solemnity, and, +shaking his head, "Ah, you have defeated a great scheme, sir!" he said. + +"A scheme? I don't understand," said Newman. + +"You would have played your part in it all the better. +Perhaps some day I shall have a chance to explain it." + +"Be quiet, and ring for the tea," said Madame de Cintre. + +The young man obeyed, and presently a servant brought +in the tea, placed the tray on a small table, and departed. +Madame de Cintre, 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 Cintre and presented her forehead to be kissed. +Madame de Cintre 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. + +"That is my sister-in-law," said the Count Valentin, leaning towards him. + +"She is very pretty," said Newman. + +"Exquisite," answered the young man, and this time, again, Newman suspected +him of irony. + +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. + +"Is there any thing I can do for you, my dear lady?" the Count Valentin asked, +in a sort of mock-caressing tone. + +"Present monsieur," said his sister-in-law. + +The young man answered, "Mr. Newman!" + +"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. + +"Apparently!" he answered with a smile. Newman stood +a moment, and then he approached Madame de Cintre. +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 Cintre +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 marquise, 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. + +"Have you many friends in Paris; do you go out?" asked Madame de Cintre, +who had at last thought of something to say. + +"Do you mean do I dance, and all that?" + +"Do you go dans le monde, as we say?" + +"I have seen a good many people. Mrs. Tristram has taken me about. +I do whatever she tells me." + +"By yourself, you are not fond of amusements?" + +"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." + +"But you can be amused in America, too." + +"I couldn't; I was always at work. But after all, that was my amusement." + +At this moment Madame de Bellegarde came back for another cup of tea, +accompanied by the Count Valentin. Madame de Cintre, 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. + +"l was in business. I have been in business since I was fifteen years old." + +"And what was your business?" asked Madame de Bellegarde, +who was decidedly not so pretty as Madame de Cintre. + +"I have been in everything," said Newman. "At one time I sold leather; +at one time I manufactured wash-tubs." + +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. + +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." + +"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 Cintre is very proud; but I find that one gets much more +pleasure in this sad life if one doesn't look too close." + +"Just Heaven, dear madam, how you go at it," said the Count Valentin, +lowering his voice. + +"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." + +"Ah, you call them ideas," murmured the young man. + +"But Mrs. Tristram told me you had been in the army--in your war," +said Madame de Cintre. + +"Yes, but that is not business!" said Newman. + +"Very true!" said M. de Bellegarde. "Otherwise perhaps I +should not be penniless." + +"Is it true," asked Newman in a moment, "that you are so proud? +I had already heard it." + +Madame de Cintre smiled. "Do you find me so?" + +"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." + +Madame de Cintre began to laugh. "That would be pride in a +sad position!" she said. + +"It would be partly," Newman went on, "because I shouldn't want to know it. +I want you to treat me well." + +Madame de Cintre, whose laugh had ceased, looked at him with her head +half averted, as if she feared what he was going to say. + +"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." + +"Oh, pray come often," said Madame de Cintre. + +"But will you be at home?" Newman insisted. Even to himself he seemed +a trifle "pushing," but he was, in truth, a trifle excited. + +"I hope so!" said Madame de Cintre. + +Newman got up. "Well, we shall see," he said smoothing his hat +with his coat-cuff. + +"Brother," said Madame de Cintre, "invite Mr. Newman to come again." + +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. + +"Well, I hope so," said Newman. + +"I rather suspect so. In that case, come again." + +"Ah, what an invitation!" murmured Madame de Cintre, with something +painful in her smile. + +"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. + +"I shall not come to see you; I shall come to see Madame +de Cintre," said Newman. + +"You will need all the more courage." + +"Ah, Valentin!" said Madame de Cintre, appealingly. + +"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. + +Newman gave a laugh which was not altogether an assent, and took his leave. +Madame de Cintre did not take up her sister's challenge to be gracious, +but she looked with a certain troubled air at the retreating guest. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +One evening very late, about a week after his visit +to Madame de Cintre, 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 Cintre'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. + +"To begin with," said the young man, as he extended his hand, +"have I come too late?" + +"Too late for what?" asked Newman. + +"To smoke a cigar with you." + +"You would have to come early to do that," said Newman. +"I don't smoke." + +"Ah, you are a strong man!" + +"But I keep cigars," Newman added. "Sit down." + +"Surely, I may not smoke here," said M. de Bellegarde. + +"What is the matter? Is the room too small?" + +"It is too large. It is like smoking in a ball-room, or a church." + +"That is what you were laughing at just now?" Newman asked; +"the size of my room?" + +"It is not size only," replied M. de Bellegarde, "but splendor, and harmony, +and beauty of detail. It was the smile of admiration." + +Newman looked at him a moment, and then, "So it IS very ugly?" he inquired. + +"Ugly, my dear sir? It is magnificent." + +"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." + +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." + +"Well, here I am as large as life," said Newman, extending his legs. + +"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 WELL 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 mustache 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. + +"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?" + +"Rather so," said Newman. + +"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." + +"Oh, I guess you know what you are about," said Newman. + +"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?" + +"Give me a specimen," said Newman. + +"You live here all alone?" + +"Absolutely. With whom should I live?" + +"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?" + +Newman was silent a while. Then, at last, "Every one asks me that!" +he said with his mild slowness. "It sounds so awfully foolish." + +"But at any rate you had a reason." + +"Oh, I came for my pleasure!" said Newman. "Though it is foolish, +it is true." + +"And you are enjoying it?" + +Like any other good American, Newman thought it as well not to truckle +to the foreigner. "Oh, so-so," he answered. + +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 any one you desire +to know--anything you wish to see? It is a pity you should +not enjoy Paris." + +"Oh, I do enjoy it!" said Newman, good-naturedly. "I'm much +obligated to you." + +"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." + +"In what way are you a failure?" asked Newman. + +"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!" + +"Why not?" + +"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?" + +"That's another thing that it sounds foolish to say," said Newman. +"Hang it, no man is rich!" + +"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 morgue; +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." + +"Oh, I never quarrel," said Newman. + +"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. + +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 gentilhomme, of the purest source, and his rule of life, +so far as it was definite, was to play the part of a gentilhomme. +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 it's 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. + +"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." + +"It is your own fault; what is to hinder your ranging?" said Newman. + +"There is a delightful simplicity in that remark! +Everything is to hinder me. To begin with, I have not a penny." + +"I had not a penny when I began to range." + +"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 roturiere, and it was not proper that I should begin. +We shall have to come to it, yet. Marriageable heiresses, +de notre bord, 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." + +"So you have no profession--you do nothing," said Newman. + +"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." + +"Are you very religious?" asked Newman, in a tone which gave +the inquiry a grotesque effect. + +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." + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"It is the proud consciousness of honest toil--of having manufactured +a few wash-tubs," said Newman, at once jocose and serious. + +"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." + +"Then it's the privilege of being an American citizen," said Newman. +"That sets a man up." + +"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." + +"Oh, come," said Newman, "you will make me proud!" + +"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." + +"I don't know what I have to lose," said Newman, "but I certainly +have something to gain." + +"What is it?" asked his visitor. + +Newman hesitated a while. "I will tell you when I know you better." + +"I hope that will be soon! Then, if I can help you to gain it, +I shall be happy." + +"Perhaps you may," said Newman. + +"Don't forget, then, that I am your servant," M. de Bellegarde answered; +and shortly afterwards he took his departure. + +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 HONOR; 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. + +Valentin de Bellegarde lived in the basement of an old house +in the Rue d'Anjou St. Honore, 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 HIS +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-a-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. + +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. "C'est egal, 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 IDEALIST!" 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. + +"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." + +"Oh, I think there is something," said Newman. + +"What is it?" + +"Well," murmured Newman, "I will tell you some other time!" + +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 Cintre. 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 Cintre'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 Cintre. 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 TO him, +it would be well; if it might be FOR 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 Cintre 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. + +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 hotel garni. +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." + +"If she is going to throw herself away," Newman had said, +"you ought to stop her." + +"Stop her? How stop her?" + +"Talk to her; give her some good advice." + +Bellegarde laughed. "Heaven deliver us both! Imagine the situation! +Go and advise her yourself." + +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." + +"Oh, I give it up," said Newman, simply. + +"Then you are as bad as I!" said Bellegarde. + +"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?" + +Bellegarde stared. "Go and see Madame Dandelard--my sister?" + +"She might talk to her to very good purpose." + +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." + +"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 Cintre to go and talk to the foolish little Italian lady. + +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. + +"I have something better in mind," he said; "come home with me +and finish the evening before my fire." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +"Tell me something about your sister," Newman began abruptly. + +Bellegarde turned and gave him a quick look. "Now that I think of it, +you have never yet asked me a question about her." + +"I know that very well." + +"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." + +"Talk of her as you can," rejoined Newman. "Let yourself go." + +"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 grande dame 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." + +Newman was silent a while, as if he were turning over his companion's words. +"She is very good, eh?" he repeated at last. + +"Divinely good!" + +"Kind, charitable, gentle, generous?" + +"Generosity itself; kindness double-distilled!" + +"Is she clever?" + +"She is the most intelligent woman I know. Try her, some day, +with something difficult, and you will see." + +"Is she fond of admiration?" + +"Parbleu!" cried Bellegarde; "what woman is not?" + +"Ah, when they are too fond of admiration they commit all kinds +of follies to get it." + +"I did not say she was too fond!" Bellegarde exclaimed. +"Heaven forbid I should say anything so idiotic. She is not too 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." + +"Is she grave or gay?" asked Newman. + +"She is both; not alternately, for she is always the same. +There is gravity in her gayety, and gayety in her gravity. +But there is no reason why she should be particularly gay." + +"Is she unhappy?" + +"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." + +"She is a philosopher," said Newman. + +"No, she is simply a very nice woman." + +"Her circumstances, at any rate, have been disagreeable?" + +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." + +"No, on the contrary, I bargain for that," said Newman. + +"We shall have to appoint a special seance, 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 Cintre 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 Cintre, 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." + +"What was the promise?" + +"To do anything else, for the next ten years, that was asked +of her--anything, that is, but marry." + +"She had disliked her husband very much?" + +"No one knows how much!" + +"The marriage had been made in your horrible French way," Newman continued, +"made by the two families, without her having any voice?" + +"It was a chapter for a novel. She saw M. de Cintre 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 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 Cintre." + +"Your brother," said Newman, reflectively, "must be a very nice young man." + +"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. + +Newman perhaps discovered there what little there was, for he presently said, +"You don't love your brother." + +"I beg your pardon," said Bellegarde, ceremoniously; "well-bred people +always love their brothers." + +"Well, I don't love him, then!" Newman answered. + +"Wait till you know him!" rejoined Bellegarde, and this time he smiled. + +"Is your mother also very remarkable?" Newman asked, after a pause. + +"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." + +"She is the daughter, I believe, of an English nobleman." + +"Of the Earl of St. Dunstan's." + +"Is the Earl of St. Dunstan's a very old family?" + +"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." + +"There is no mistake about it?" said Newman. + +"I'm sure I hope not. We have been mistaken at least for several centuries." + +"And you have always married into old families?" + +"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 bourgoisie-- +married lawyers' daughters." + +"A lawyer's daughter; that's very bad, is it?" asked Newman. + +"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 petite noblesse. +There is, I believe, not a case on record of a misalliance +among the women." + +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?" + +"Remember? I have been counting the hours." + +"Very well; here's your chance. Do what you can to make your sister +think well of me." + +Bellegarde stared, with a smile. "Why, I'm sure she thinks as well of you +as possible, already." + +"An opinion founded on seeing me three or four times? +That is putting me off with very little. l 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 Cintre." + +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. + +"If you can't render me the service I ask," said Newman, +"say it out!" + +"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?" + +"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." + +At this, Bellegarde gave a little light laugh. + +"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 any thing +particular to be done, let me know and l will do it. I wouldn't +for the world approach Madame de Cintre 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 any one +you please. As I don't know any one else, I begin by telling you. +But that, if it is a social obligation, is a pleasure as well." + +"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! Ouf! It's a relief." + +"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." + +"Come!" said Bellegarde. "I am going to be tremendously frank. +I don't know whether I am pleased or horrified." + +"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." + +"That is quite right--that is your only possible attitude. +You are perfectly serious?" + +"Am I a Frenchman, that I should not be?" asked Newman. +"But why is it, by the bye, that you should be horrified?" + +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. + +"The devil I am not!" exclaimed Newman. + +"Oh," said Bellegarde a little more seriously, "I did not know +you had a title." + +"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." + +"But what have you to show, my dear fellow, what proofs?" + +"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." + +"That's easily done. You have manufactured wash-tubs." + +Newman stared a moment. "Therefore I am not noble? I don't see it. +Tell me something I have NOT done--something I cannot do." + +"You cannot marry a woman like Madame de Cintre for the asking." + +"I believe you mean," said Newman slowly, "that I am not good enough." + +"Brutally speaking--yes!" + +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." + +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?" + +"Not if I thought she would suit me. But I am very fastidious; +she might not at all." + +Bellegarde's amusement began to prevail. "And you should be surprised +if she refused you?" + +Newman hesitated a moment. "It sounds conceited to say yes, +but nevertheless I think I should. For I should make +a very handsome offer." + +"What would it be?" + +"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." + +"And these qualities that you require--what are they?" + +"Goodness, beauty, intelligence, a fine education, personal elegance-- +everything, in a word, that makes a splendid woman." + +"And noble birth, evidently," said Bellegarde. + +"Oh, throw that in, by all means, if it's there. +The more the better!" + +"And my sister seems to you to have all these things?" + +"She is exactly what I have been looking for. She is my dream realized." + +"And you would make her a very good husband?" + +"That is what I wanted you to tell her." + +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." + +"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." + +"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; vous m'imposez, +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." + +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 any one 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." + +"But you offered, a while ago, to make your court as we say, +to my mother and my brother." + +"Damn it!" cried Newman, "I want to be polite." + +"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!" + +"Do you think," asked Newman presently, "that Madame de Cintre +is determined not to marry?" + +"That is my impression. But that is not against you; +it's for you to make her change her mind." + +"I am afraid it will be hard," said Newman, gravely. + +"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." + +"And--in that way--is Madame de Cintre ambitious?" + +"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 IMPROBABLE. 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 any one else; be simply yourself, out and out. +Something or other can't fail to come of it; I am very curious +to see what." + +"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." + +"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 NEW" +And overcome with a sense of the novelty thus foreshadowed, +Valentin de Bellegarde threw himself into a deep arm-chair 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." + +"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." + +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." + +"It IS a pity," said Newman, "that I don't understand you. +I shall lose some very good jokes." + +"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!" + +"Very good," said Newman; "that's the sort of thing I came to Europe for. +You come into my programme." + +"Touchez-la, 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. + +"What is the other one?" + +"I am in the Opposition. I dislike some one else." + +"Your brother?" asked Newman, in his unmodulated voice. + +Bellegarde laid his fingers upon his lips with a whispered HUSH! +"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. + +Newman dropped into a chair before his fire, and sat a long time +staring into the blaze. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +He went to see Madame de Cintre 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 Cintre'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. + +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 Cintre'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 Cintre 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. + +"I am very glad to find you alone," he said. "You know I +have never had such good luck before." + +"But you have seemed before very well contented with your luck," +said Madame de Cintre. "You have sat and watched my visitors +with an air of quiet amusement. What have you thought of them?" + +"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. + +Madame de Cintre 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 some one will come in quickly." + +"I hope not," said Newman. "I have something particular to say to you. +Have you seen your brother?" + +"Yes, I saw him an hour ago." + +"Did he tell you that he had seen me last night?" + +"He said so." + +"And did he tell you what we had talked about?" + +Madame de Cintre 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. + +"It was not exactly a message--I asked him to render me a service." + +"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. + +"Yes, that is what it really amounts to," said Newman. +"Did he sing my praises?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Are you very deep?" said Madame de Cintre. "Are you trying to please +me by praising my brother? I confess it is a good way." + +"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." + +"Don't make too much of that," said Madame de Cintre. +"He can help you very little." + +"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." + +"I am seeing you," said Madame de Cintre, slowly and gravely, +"because I promised my brother I would." + +"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 Cintre, 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." + +During this speech, the longest that Newman had ever made, +Madame de Cintre 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." + +"Oh, don't say that!" cried Newman, in a tone absolutely naif +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 are unhappy. +You have no right to be, or to be made so. Let me come in and put +an end to it." + +Madame de Cintre 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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I don't know you," said Madame de Cintre. "Think how little +I know you." + +"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." + +Something was going on, rapidly, in Madame de Cintre'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 HAVE 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 AM 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. + +"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 SAFE. +As I said just now," he went on with a smile, "I have no bad ways. +I can DO 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 AM delicate! +You shall see!" + +Madame de Cintre 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. + +"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!" + +Madame de Cintre 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." + +"For how long?" + +"For six months. It must be a solemn promise." + +"Very well, I promise." + +"Good-by, then," she said, and extended her hand. + +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. + +That evening, on the Boulevard, he met Valentin de Bellegarde. +After they had exchanged greetings, Newman told him that he had seen +Madame de Cintre a few hours before. + +"I know it," said Bellegarde. "I dined in the Rue de l'Universite." +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. + +"It's none of my business, but what the deuce did you say to my sister?" + +"I am willing to tell you," said Newman, "that I made her +an offer of marriage." + +"Already!" And the young man gave a whistle. "'Time is money!' +Is that what you say in America? And Madame de Cintre?" he added, +with an interrogative inflection. + +"She did not accept my offer." + +"She couldn't, you know, in that way." + +"But I'm to see her again," said Newman. + +"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." + +"Whenever you please!" said Newman. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +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. + +"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'Iena 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 Cintre, 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 Cintre 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'Iena 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 Cintre. 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. + +"But after all," said Newman, "there is nothing to congratulate me upon. +It is not a triumph." + +"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." + +"I don't see that," observed Newman. + +"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." + +"That remains to be seen." + +"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 Cintre 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." + +"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 Cintre, +as adding to the prospective glory of possession. + +It was immediately after this conversation that Valentin de +Bellegarde came to conduct his friend to the Rue de l'Universite +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." + +"Do you suppose," asked Newman, "that Madame de Cintre has related +to your mother the last conversation I had with her?" + +"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 Cintre's +sitting-room, took, it appears, a fancy to you; she has described +you as having beaucoup de cachet. My mother, therefore, is curious +to see you." + +"She expects to laugh at me, eh?" said Newman. + +"She never laughs. If she does not like you, don't hope to purchase +favor by being amusing. Take warning by me!" + +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'Universite 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. + +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. + +"I ought to have seen you before," said Madame de Bellegarde. +"You have paid several visits to my daughter." + +"Oh, yes," said Newman, smiling; "Madame de Cintre and I are old +friends by this time." + +"You have gone fast," said Madame de Bellegarde. + +"Not so fast as I should like," said Newman, bravely. + +"Oh, you are very ambitious," answered the old lady. + +"Yes, I confess I am," said Newman, smiling. + +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. + +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 Cintre 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 Cintre'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. + +"You are an American?" she said presently. "I have seen several Americans." + +"There are several in Paris," said Newman jocosely. + +"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 some one--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 every one." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"That is a little better," said Bellegarde in the same tone, +"but it leaves a good deal to be desired." + +"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?" + +"I called you a gad-about," said the old lady. "But I might call +you something else, too." + +"A gad-about? What an ugly word! What does it mean?" + +"A very beautiful person," Newman ventured to say, seeing that it +was in French. + +"That is a pretty compliment but a bad translation," said the young marquise. +And then, looking at him a moment, "Do you dance?" + +"Not a step." + +"You are very wrong," she said, simply. And with another look +at her back in the mirror she turned away. + +"Do you like Paris?" asked the old lady, who was apparently wondering +what was the proper way to talk to an American. + +"Yes, rather," said Newman. And then he added with a +friendly intonation, "Don't you?" + +"I can't say I know it. I know my house--I know my friends-- +I don't know Paris." + +"Oh, you lose a great deal," said Newman, sympathetically. + +Madame de Bellegarde stared; it was presumably the first time +she had been condoled with on her losses. + +"I am content with what I have," she said with dignity. + +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. + +"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?" + +"My acquaintance with Mr. Newman has not gone very far," +said Madame de Bellegarde. "I can as yet only appreciate +his great politeness." + +"My mother is a great judge of these matters," said Valentin to Newman. +"If you have satisfied her, it is a triumph." + +"I hope I shall satisfy you, some day," said Newman, looking at the old lady. +"I have done nothing yet." + +"You must not listen to my son; he will bring you into trouble. +He is a sad scatterbrain." + +"Oh, I like him--I like him," said Newman, genially. + +"He amuses you, eh?" + +"Yes, perfectly." + +"Do you hear that, Valentin?" said Madame de Bellegarde. +"You amuse Mr. Newman." + +"Perhaps we shall all come to that!" Valentin exclaimed. + +"You must see my other son," said Madame de Bellegarde. +"He is much better than this one. But he will not amuse you." + +"I don't know--I don't know!" murmured Valentin, reflectively. +"But we shall very soon see. Here comes Monsieur mon frere." + +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 Cintre. +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. + +"This is my excellent friend Mr. Newman," he said very blandly. +"You must know him." + +"I am delighted to know Mr. Newman," said the marquis with a low bow, +but without offering his hand. + +"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. + +"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 facade. + +"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." + +"That is a good idea," murmured Valentin. + +"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." + +"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. + +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, dans les affaires." + +"In business, you mean? Oh no, I have thrown business +overboard for the present. I am 'loafing,' as WE say. +My time is quite my own." + +"Ah, you are taking a holiday," rejoined M. de Bellegarde. +"'Loafing.' Yes, I have heard that expression." + +"Mr. Newman is American," said Madame de Bellegarde. + +"My brother is a great ethnologist," said Valentin. + +"An ethnologist?" said Newman. "Ah, you collect negroes' +skulls, and that sort of thing." + +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.' + +"Oh, I am knocking about to pick up one thing and another. +Of course I get a good deal of pleasure out of it." + +"What especially interests you?" inquired the marquis. + +"Well, everything interests me," said Newman. "I am not particular. +Manufactures are what I care most about." + +"That has been your specialty?" + +"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. + +M. de Bellegarde laughed agreeably. "I hope you have succeeded," he said. + +"Yes, I have made a fortune in a reasonable time. +I am not so old, you see." + +"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. + +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 HIS 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. + +"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." + +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. + +"You began to earn your living when you were a mere baby?" +said the marquise. + +"Hardly more--a small boy." + +"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." + +"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. + +"You have some sisters?" asked old Madame de Bellegarde. + +"Yes, two sisters. Splendid women!" + +"I hope that for them the hardships of life commenced less early." + +"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." + +"Ah, you make houses also of india-rubber?" inquired the marquise. + +"You can stretch them as your family increases," said young Madame +de Bellegarde, who was muffling herself in a long white shawl. + +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. + +"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." + +"Very likely," said Newman; "if he did, you may be very sure +they are well made." + +"Well, you must not be discouraged," said M. de Bellegarde, +with vague urbanity. + +"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." + +"It is a very good project, but I am no matchmaker," +said the old lady. + +Newman looked at her an instant, and then, with perfect sincerity, +"I should have thought you were," he declared. + +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. + +"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." + +"Claire will go with us!" cried the young marquise. +"En voila, du nouveau!" + +"She has changed her mind; she decided half an hour ago, and she +is sticking the last diamond into her hair," said Valentin. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"You should have referred Claire to her mother, my brother," +said M. de Bellegarde, in French. "This is very strange." + +"I refer her to the whole company!" said Valentin. "Here she comes!" +And he went to the open door, met Madame de Cintre 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 Cintre almost fiercely. +With her back turned to the others, Madame de Cintre held her cloak +apart to show her dress. + +"What do you think of me?" she asked. + +"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?" + +"I wish to please myself, dear mother," said Madame de Cintre +And she bent over and kissed the old lady. + +"I don't like surprises, my sister," said Urbain de Bellegarde; +"especially when one is on the point of entering a drawing-room." + +Newman at this juncture felt inspired to speak. +"Oh, if you are going into a room with Madame de Cintre, +you needn't be afraid of being noticed yourself!" + +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 Cintre 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. + +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. + +"She is very strange," said Madame de Bellegarde. + +"I am glad to hear it," Newman rejoined, smiling. "It makes me hope." + +"Hope what?" + +"That she will consent, some day, to marry me." + +The old lady slowly rose to her feet. "That really is your project, then?" + +"Yes; will you favor it?" + +"Favor it?" Madame de Bellegarde looked at him a moment and then +shook her head. "No!" she said, softly. + +"Will you suffer it, then? Will you let it pass?" + +"You don't know what you ask. I am a very proud and meddlesome old woman." + +"Well, I am very rich," said Newman. + +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?" + +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. + +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." + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +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 Noemie; +and M. Nioche, at first, for answer, simply looked at him +in lachrymose silence. + +"Don't ask me, sir," he said at last. "I sit and watch her, +but I can do nothing." + +"Do you mean that she misconducts herself?" + +"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." + +"Does she continue to go to the Louvre? Has she made any +of those copies for me?" + +"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 Elysees, +she said some things to me that frightened me." + +"What were they?" + +"Excuse an unhappy father from telling you," said M. Nioche, +unfolding his calico pocket-handkerchief. + +Newman promised himself to pay Mademoiselle Noemie 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 some +one to contradict. + +"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." + +"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 ennuis; I feel vicious." + +"If the Louvre has so little comfort for you, why in the world +did you come here?" Newman asked. + +"That is one of my ennuis. 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 valet de place 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is not exactly a rendezvous," said Newman. "But I have in fact +come to see a person, not a picture." + +"A woman, presumably?" + +"A young lady." + +"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." + +"I don't know much about her feet, but she has very pretty hands." + +Valentin gave a sigh. "And on that assurance I must part with you?" + +"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." + +"Is she pretty?" + +"I guess you will think so." + +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." + +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 Noemie 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. + +"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." + +Valentin made a bow which must have seemed to Mademoiselle Noemie 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. + +"I shall never forget you," said Newman. "You may be sure of that." + +"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. + +"Have you painted anything for me?" said Newman. +"Have you been industrious?" + +"No, I have done nothing." And taking up her palette, +she began to mix her colors at hazard. + +"But your father tells me you have come here constantly." + +"I have nowhere else to go! Here, all summer, it was cool, at least." + +"Being here, then," said Newman, "you might have tried something." + +"I told you before," she answered, softly, "that I don't know +how to paint." + +"But you have something charming on your easel, now," said Valentin, +"if you would only let me see it." + +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. + +"It is the only thing about you that is not, then, mademoiselle," +quoth Valentin, gallantly. + +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." + +"Yes," he answered, "I am." + +"You know, then, that that is very bad." + +"Mon Dieu," said Valentin, shrugging his shoulders "let us distinguish." + +"You know that I ought not to attempt to paint," the young girl continued. + +"Frankly, then, mademoiselle, I think you ought not." + +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. + +"Where have you been all these months?" asked Mademoiselle +Noemie of our hero. "You took those great journeys, +you amused yourself well?" + +"Oh, yes," said Newman. "I amused myself well enough." + +"I am very glad," said Mademoiselle Noemie 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. + +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 Noemie extremely interesting; +the blue devils had departed, leaving the field clear. + +"Tell me something about your travels," murmured the young girl. + +"Oh, I went to Switzerland,--to Geneva and Zermatt and Zurich 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. + +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?" + +"I would rather talk to you out of my own head," Valentin declared. + +"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." + +"And we French, mademoiselle," said Valentin, "are accused +of being false flatterers!" + +"I don't want any flattery, I want only the truth. +But I know the truth." + +"All I say is that I suspect there are some things that you can +do better than paint," said Valentin. + +"I know the truth--I know the truth," Mademoiselle Noemie repeated. +And, dipping a brush into a clot of red paint, she drew a great horizontal +daub across her unfinished picture. + +"What is that?" asked Newman. + +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. + +The two men looked at each other, and Valentin indulged in another flash +of physiognomical eloquence. "You have spoiled your picture," said Newman. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Everything I have is for sale," said Mademoiselle Noemie. + +"How much is this thing?" + +"Ten thousand francs," said the young girl, without a smile. + +"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." + +"Monsieur will lose nothing by it," said the young girl, looking at Valentin. +And she began to put up her utensils. + +"I shall have gained a charming memory," said Valentin. +"You are going away? your day is over?" + +"My father is coming to fetch me," said Mademoiselle Noemie. + +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 Noemie to make a parcel of her implements, +he let his mild, oblique gaze hover toward Bellegarde, who was +watching Mademoiselle Noemie 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 Noemie made the young men the salute of a duchess, +and followed her father. + +"Well," said Newman, "what do you think of her?" + +"She is very remarkable. Diable, diable, diable!" repeated M. de +Bellegarde, reflectively; "she is very remarkable." + +"I am afraid she is a sad little adventuress," said Newman. + +"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." + +"A beautiful type? What the deuce do you mean?" asked Newman. + +"I mean from the artistic point of view. She is an artist,-- +outside of her painting, which obviously is execrable." + +"But she is not beautiful. I don't even think her very pretty." + +"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." + +"In what way," asked Newman, who was much amused at his +companion's immediate philosophization of Mademoiselle Nioche, +"does her intelligence strike you as so remarkable?" + +"She has taken the measure of life, and she has determined +to BE 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." + +"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 Noemie in a quarter of an hour. +Let that suffice; don't follow up your researches." + +"My dear fellow," cried Bellegarde with warmth, "I hope I +have too good manners to intrude." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I verily believe that you are accusing the poor gentleman of being +capable of rejoicing in his daughter's dishonor." + +"Voyons," said Valentin; "who is he? what is he?" + +"He is what he looks like: as poor as a rat, but very high-toned." + +"Exactly. I noticed him perfectly; be sure I do him justice. +He has had losses, des malheurs, 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 Noemie 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." + +"I don't know what Virginius did, but M. Nioche will shoot Miss Noemie," +said Newman. "After that, I suppose his future will be assured +in some snug prison." + +"I am not a cynic; I am simply an observer," Valentin rejoined. +"Mademoiselle Noemie 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?" + +"Do you mean to bribe him?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Three days after his introduction to the family of Madame +de Cintre, 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. + +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 +Cintre 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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +But this charming privilege was lost upon our hero, who was +already making his way across the room to Madame de Cintre. +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. + +"But in the end the young prince married the beautiful Florabella," +said Madame de Cintre, "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." + +"She had had nothing to eat for six months," said little Blanche. + +"Yes, but when the six months were over, she had a +plum-cake as big as that ottoman," said Madame de Cintre. +"That quite set her up again." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Ecstatically!" + +"Now you are talking the nonsense that we talk in society," said Newman. +"I don't believe that." + +"It was my own fault if I was not happy. The ball was very pretty, +and every one very amiable." + +"It was on your conscience," said Newman, "that you had annoyed +your mother and your brother." + +Madame de Cintre 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. + +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 Cintre 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 Cintre 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 Cintre 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Valentin, be a little proper!" murmured the marquis, with a look of the most +delicate irritation contracting the bridge of his high nose. + +"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 Legislatif. +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." + +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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, I don't mind him, sir," said Newman, good-humoredly. "I +know what he amounts to." + +"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." + +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." + +"That I desired to marry your sister?" said Newman. + +"That you wished to arrange a marriage," said the marquis, slowly, +"with my sister, the Comtesse de Cintre. 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." + +Newman got up and came nearer to the marquis. "You will do nothing +to hinder me, and all you can to help me, eh?" + +"I will recommend my sister to accept you." + +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." + +"I take note of the promise," said Valentin, "I register the vow." + +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." + +"So I told you, you know," said Valentin raising his finger at Newman. + +"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." + +"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'?" + +"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." + +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 ME so." + +"My brother means that with the lapse of time you may get used to the change"-- +and Valentin paused, to light another cigarette. + +"What change?" asked Newman in the same tone. + +"Urbain," said Valentin, very gravely, "I am afraid that Mr. Newman does +not quite realize the change. We ought to insist upon that." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"You had better receive the last word from my mother," +said the marquis. + +"Very good; I will go and get it," said Newman; and he prepared +to return to the drawing-room. + +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 Cintre 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. + +"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. +C'est un beau choix. 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!" + +"You have spoken to Madame de Cintre?" said Newman. + +"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." + +"I am much, obliged to you," said Newman, laughing; "but you can't." + +"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." + +"I am very sure of it," said Newman. + +"Don't be too sure. If you like Madame de Cintre 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." + +"Oh no, I don't!" interrupted Newman. "I only want to take Madame +de Cintre out of it." + +"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." + +"Perhaps a stranger one will be easier to answer," said Newman. +"You might try me." + +"Oh, you get off very well; the old Comte de la Rochefidele, +yonder, couldn't do it better. I told them that if we only +gave you a chance you would be a perfect talon rouge. I know +something about men. Besides, you and I belong to the same camp. +I am a ferocious democrat. By birth I am vieille roche; a good +little bit of the history of France is the history of my family. +Oh, you never heard of us, of course! Ce que c'est que la gloire! +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"-- +le gens forts--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." + +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 Cintre. + +"I have been telling Madame de la Rochefidele 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." + +Madame de la Rochefidele 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. + +"Madame de la Rochefidele says that she is convinced that she must +have seen Americans without knowing it," Madame de Cintre 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 Cintre-- +that she wished she had known it. + +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 Rochefidele, 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. + +"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." + +"Ah?" said Newman, sympathetically. + +"The great Dr. Franklin," said M. de la Rochefidele. +"Of course I was very young. He was received very well +in our monde." + +"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." + +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 marquise 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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, your son said it very well; didn't you?" said Newman. + +"Not so well as my mother," declared the marquis. + +"I can only repeat--I am much obliged." + +"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." + +"Well," said Newman, "I can only say, in return, that I am NOT proud; +I shan't mind you! But you speak as if you intended to be very disagreeable." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Our word is our word," said Urbain. "We have given it." + +"Well, now," said Newman, "I am very glad you are so proud. +It makes me believe that you will keep it." + +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." + +"Don't be too sure," said Newman, laughing. + +"I am so sure that I will ask you to take me back to my arm-chair 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. + +M. de la Rochefidele and his wife were preparing to take their leave, +and Madame de Cintre'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. + +"Your mother has given me leave--very solemnly--to come here often," he said. +"I mean to come often." + +"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." + +"Well, yes; I do, rather." + +"Do you remember what my brother Valentin said, the first time +you came to see me--that we were a strange, strange family?" + +"It was not the first time I came, but the second, said Newman. + +"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 Cintre turned away. + +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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Well, it's the most precious one they have ever received," said Newman. + +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." + +"He was yesterday at my rooms," Newman answered. + +"What did he tell you?" + +"Nothing particular." + +"You didn't see the muzzle of a pistol sticking out of his pocket?" + +"What are you driving at?" Newman demanded. "I thought he seemed +rather cheerful for him." + +Valentin broke into a laugh. "I am delighted to hear it! +I win my bet. Mademoiselle Noemie 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-FOR HIM! +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." + +"My protest be hanged!" murmured Newman, disgustedly. + +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!" + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Newman kept his promise, or his menace, of going often to +the Rue de l'Universite, and during the next six weeks he saw +Madame de Cintre 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 heart-ache; +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 Cintre 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 Cintre +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 Cintre'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. + +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 absense 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. + +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 Cintre 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 gayety. +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 +Cintre'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. + +He often passed his evenings, when Madame de Cintre 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 some one 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. + +"And is it by that elegant term," said Mrs. Tristram, "that you +designate the Marquise de Bellegarde?" + +"Well," said Newman, "she is wicked, she is an old sinner." + +"What is her crime?" asked Mrs. Tristram. + +"I shouldn't wonder if she had murdered some one--all from a sense +of duty, of course." + +"How can you be so dreadful?" sighed Mrs. Tristram. + +"I am not dreadful. I am speaking of her favorably." + +"Pray what will you say when you want to be severe?" + +"I shall keep my severity for some one else--for the marquis. +There's a man I can't swallow, mix the drink as I will." + +"And what has HE done?" + +"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 some one else was committing it." + +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 aesthetic 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. + +One afternoon, on his calling on Madame de Cintre, 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. + +"Madame de Cintre begs you will kindly wait," she said. +"She has just come in; she will soon have finished dressing." + +"Oh, I will wait as long as she wants," said Newman. +"Pray tell her not to hurry." + +"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. + +"You are English?" he asked. + +"Yes, sir, please," she answered, quickly and softly; +"I was born in Wiltshire." + +"And what do you think of Paris?" + +"Oh, I don't think of Paris, sir," she said in the same tone. +"It is so long since I have been here." + +"Ah, you have been here very long?" + +"It is more than forty years, sir. I came over with Lady Emmeline." + +"You mean with old Madame de Bellegarde?" + +"Yes, sir. I came with her when she was married. +I was my lady's own woman." + +"And you have been with her ever since?" + +"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." + +"You look very strong and well," said Newman, observing the erectness +of her figure, and a certain venerable rosiness in her cheek. + +"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." + +"Oh, speak out," said Newman, curiously. "You needn't be afraid of me." + +"Yes, sir. I think you are kind. I have seen you before." + +"On the stairs, you mean?" + +"Yes, sir. When you have been coming to see the countess. +I have taken the liberty of noticing that you come often." + +"Oh yes; I come very often," said Newman, laughing. "You need +not have been wide-awake to notice that." + +"I have noticed it with pleasure, sir," said the ancient tire-woman, 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. + +"You take a great interest in the family?" said Newman. + +"A deep interest, sir. Especially in the countess." + +"I am glad of that," said Newman. And in a moment he added, +smiling, "So do I!" + +"So I suppose, sir. We can't help noticing these things and having our ideas; +can we, sir?" + +"You mean as a servant?" said Newman. + +"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." + +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 Cintre." + +"And to take her away to America?" + +"I will take her wherever she wants to go." + +"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." + +"Yes, it's not very lively," said Newman. "But Madame de Cintre +is gay herself." + +"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." + +Newman was delighted to gather this testimony to the prosperity +of his suit, but he repressed all violent marks of elation. +"Has Madame de Cintre been in bad spirits before this?" he asked. + +"Poor lady, she had good reason. M. de Cintre 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." + +"I hope she will!" said Newman. + +"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." + +"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 Cintre +marries me you must come and live with her." + +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." + +"Why, it's just the time to say it," said Newman, fervently. +"After forty years one wants a change." + +"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 IS worth something." + +"How much, please?" said Newman. + +"Simply this: a promise not to hint to the countess that I +have said these things." + +"If that is all, you have it," said Newman. + +"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 Cintre came in by an opposite door. +She noticed the movement of the other portiere and asked Newman who had +been entertaining him. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Mrs. Cake, she ought to be called," said Newman. "She is very sweet. +She is a delicious old woman." + +Madame de Cintre looked at him a moment. "What can she have said to you? +She is an excellent creature, but we think her rather dismal." + +"I suppose," Newman answered presently, "that I like her +because she has lived near you so long. Since your birth, +she told me." + +"Yes," said Madame de Cintre, simply; "she is very faithful; +I can trust her." + +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 Cintre 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 Cintre 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. + +"It is too kindly," said Madame de Cintre. "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." + +"Respect him? Why I think I do." + +"You think? If you are not sure, it is no respect." + +"Do you respect him?" said Newman. "If you do, I do." + +"If one loves a person, that is a question one is not bound to answer," +said Madame de Cintre. + +"You should not have asked it of me, then. I am very fond +of your brother." + +"He amuses you. But you would not like to resemble him." + +"I shouldn't like to resemble any one. It is hard enough work +resembling one's self." + +"What do you mean," asked Madame de Cintre, "by resembling one's self?" + +"Why, doing what is expected of one. Doing one's duty." + +"But that is only when one is very good." + +"Well, a great many people are good," said Newman. +"Valentin is quite good enough for me." + +Madame de Cintre was silent for a short time. "He is not good enough for me," +she said at last. "I wish he would do something." + +"What can he do?" asked Newman. + +"Nothing. Yet he is very clever." + +"It is a proof of cleverness," said Newman, "to be happy +without doing anything." + +"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 l fancy he will have some great trouble-- +perhaps an unhappy end." + +"Oh, leave him to me," said Newman, jovially. "I will watch +over him and keep harm away." + +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 habitues. 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 Cintre 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. + +"For Heaven's sake," she said, with peculiar eagerness, +"go to the piano and play something." + +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." + +"It is absurd for me to play when you are present," said Madame de Cintre. +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 Cintre coming towards him +across the vestibule. + +"Shall you be at home on Friday?" Newman asked. + +She looked at him a moment before answering his question. +"You don't like my mother and my brother," she said. + +He hesitated a moment, and then he said softly, "No." + +She laid her hand on the balustrade and prepared to ascend the stairs, +fixing her eyes on the first step. + +"Yes, I shall be at home on Friday," and she passed up +the wide dusky staircase. + +On the Friday, as soon as he came in, she asked him to please +to tell her why he disliked her family. + +"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." + +"I wish you would tell me what you think of them," said Madame de Cintre. + +"I don't think of any of them but you." + +"That is because you dislike them. Speak the truth; +you can't offend me." + +"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." + +"You are too good-natured," said Madame de Cintre 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. + +But he remained standing before her and said presently, +"What is of much more importance is that they don't like me." + +"No--they don't," she said. + +"And don't you think they are wrong?" Newman asked. +"I don't believe I am a man to dislike." + +"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?" + +"Yes, sometimes." + +"You have never shown it." + +"So much the better." + +"Yes, so much the better. They think they have treated you very well." + +"I have no doubt they might have handled me much more roughly," said Newman. +"I am much obliged to them. Honestly." + +"You are generous," said Madame de Cintre. "It's a disagreeable position." + +"For them, you mean. Not for me." + +"For me," said Madame de Cintre. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"That's a poor reason," said Madame de Cintre, smiling. + +"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." + +"They have let me alone, as you say. They have not talked ill of you." + +"In that case," cried Newman, "I declare they are only too good +for this world!" + +Madame de Cintre 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 some one 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 Cintre 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. + +"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." + +Madame de Cintre 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." + +"And how long have you been here now?" asked Madame de Cintre. + +"Oh, for the last two months," said Lord Deepmere. + +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 Cintre, that they constituted only a naivete. +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 Cintre +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 Cintre, +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. + +"Is he Irish?" asked Newman, nodding in the direction of the visitor. + +"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." + +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." + +The marquis stared. "Really, I have done nothing that I can +boast of," he said. + +"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. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +The next time Newman came to the Rue de l'Universite +he had the good fortune to find Madame de Cintre 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. + +"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?" + +"You have acted with great delicacy," said Madame de Cintre. + +"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 AM 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 MUST 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 Cintre do that. Do it." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 l 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." + +"That's nothing against me," said Newman with an immense smile; +"your taste was not formed." + +His smile made Madame de Cintre smile. "Have you formed it?" she asked. +And then she said, in a different tone, "Where do you wish to live?" + +"Anywhere in the wide world you like. We can easily settle that." + +"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." + +"They would have said I was a queer monster, eh?" said Newman. + +"They would have said I could never be happy with you-- +you were too different; and I would have said it was just +BECAUSE 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. + +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 Cintre reconciled herself to this one. + +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 up-stairs. 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. + +"I know the good news, sir," she murmured. + +"You have a good right to be first to know it," said Newman. +"You have taken such a friendly interest." + +Mrs. Bread turned away and began to blow the dust off the statue, +as if this might be mockery. + +"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." + +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." + +"You are very sharp," said Newman. "I am sure that in your quiet +way you see everything." + +"I am not a fool, sir, thank God. I have guessed something else beside," +said Mrs. Bread. + +"What's that?" + +"I needn't tell you that, sir; I don't think you would believe it. +At any rate it wouldn't please you." + +"Oh, tell me nothing but what will please me," laughed Newman. +"That is the way you began." + +"Well, sir, I suppose you won't be vexed to hear that the sooner +everything is over the better." + +"The sooner we are married, you mean? The better for me, certainly." + +"The better for every one." + +"The better for you, perhaps. You know you are coming to live +with us," said Newman. + +"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." + +"Whom are you afraid of?" + +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 every one," she said. + +"What an uncomfortable state of mind!" said Newman. +"Does 'every one' wish to prevent my marriage?" + +"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 Cintre's salon. + +Newman indulged in a brief and silent imprecation when he found that Madame +de Cintre 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 Cintre, 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. + +"I have not told my mother," said Madame de Cintre abruptly, +looking at him. + +"Told me what?" demanded the marquise. "You tell me too little; +you should tell me everything." + +"That is what I do," said Madame Urbain, with a little laugh. + +"Let ME tell your mother," said Newman. + +The old lady stared at him again, and then turned to her daughter. +"You are going to marry him?" she cried, softly. + +"Oui ma mere," said Madame de Cintre. + +"Your daughter has consented, to my great happiness," said Newman. + +"And when was this arrangement made?" asked Madame de Bellegarde. +"I seem to be picking up the news by chance!" + +"My suspense came to an end yesterday," said Newman. + +"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. + +Madame de Cintre stood silent, with her eyes on the ground. +"It is over now," she said. + +"Where is my son--where is Urbain?" asked the marquise. +"Send for your brother and inform him." + +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. + +"Send for your brother," said the old lady. + +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. + +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." + +"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." + +"My mother does not often make jokes," said Madame de Cintre; +"but when she does they are terrible." + +"She is ravishing," the Marquise Urbain resumed, +looking at her sister-in-law, with her head on one side. +"Yes, I congratulate you." + +Madame de Cintre 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. + +"Arrivez donc, messieurs!" cried young Madame de Bellegarde. +"We have great news for you." + +"Speak to your brother, my daughter," said the old lady. + +Madame de Cintre had been looking at her tapestry. +She raised her eyes to her brother. "I have accepted Mr. Newman." + +"Your sister has consented," said Newman. "You see after all, +I knew what I was about." + +"I am charmed!" said M. de Bellegarde, with superior benignity. + +"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." + +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. + +"I feel no emotion that I was not perfectly prepared for," +said his mother. + +"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!" + +"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." + +"You forgot me, dear madame," said the young marquise demurely. + +"Yes, she is very beautiful," said Newman. + +"And when is the wedding, pray?" asked young Madame de Bellegarde; +"I must have a month to think over a dress." + +"That must be discussed," said the marquise. + +"Oh, we will discuss it, and let you know!" Newman exclaimed. + +"I have no doubt we shall agree," said Urbain. + +"If you don't agree with Madame de Cintre, you will be very unreasonable." + +"Come, come, Urbain," said young Madame de Bellegarde, +"I must go straight to my tailor's." + +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 NOT expect it! You are a fortunate man," she added, +turning to Newman, with an expressive nod. + +"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." + +Madame de Bellegarde narrowed her lips. "Pray don't," she said. + +"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." + +"Telegraphed it to America?" the old lady murmured. + +"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." + +"Have you many?" asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone of which I +am afraid that Newman but partly measured the impertinence. + +"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." + +"They will not use the telegraph," said the marquise, taking her departure. + +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. + +Valentin stood looking from his sister to our hero. +"I hope you both reflected seriously," he said. + +Madame de Cintre smiled. "We have neither your powers of reflection +nor your depth of seriousness; but we have done our best." + +"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." + +"Valentin holds that women should marry, and that men should not," +said Madame de Cintre. "I don't know how he arranges it." + +"I arrange it by adoring you, my sister," said Valentin ardently. +"Good-by." + +"Adore some one whom you can marry," said Newman. +"I will arrange that for you some day. I foresee that I am +going to turn apostle." + +Valentin was on the threshold; he looked back a moment with a face +that had turned grave. "I adore some one I can't marry!" he said. +And he dropped the portiere and departed. + +"They don't like it," said Newman, standing alone before Madame de Cintre. + +"No," she said, after a moment; "they don't like it." + +"Well, now, do you mind that?" asked Newman. + +"Yes!" she said, after another interval. + +"That's a mistake." + +"I can't help it. I should prefer that my mother were pleased." + +"Why the deuce," demanded Newman, "is she not pleased? +She gave you leave to marry me." + +"Very true; I don't understand it. And yet I do 'mind it,' as you say. +You will call it superstitious." + +"That will depend upon how much you let it bother you. +Then I shall call it an awful bore." + +"I will keep it to myself," said Madame de Cintre, "It shall not bother you." +And then they talked of their marriage-day, and Madame de Cintre assented +unreservedly to Newman's desire to have it fixed for an early date. + +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 Cintre, 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 +FEEL 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. + +"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." + +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 are people of honor, and they will do whatever is necessary." + +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." + +"To a festival?" + +"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 Theatre Francais, and I will +give an entertainment." + +"And whom will you invite?" + +"You, first of all. And then the old lady and her son. +And then every one among her friends whom I have met +at her house or elsewhere, every one 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 every one shall know what it is about, that is, +to celebrate my engagement to the Countess de Cintre. +What do you think of the idea?" + +"I think it is odious!" said Mrs. Tristram. And then in a moment: +"I think it is delicious!" + +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. + +The marquise stared a moment. "My dear sir," she cried, +"what do you want to do to me?" + +"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." + +"You mean to give a concert?" + +"Something of that sort." + +"And to have a crowd of people?" + +"All my friends, and I hope some of yours and your daughter's. +I want to celebrate my engagement." + +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 fete champetre-- +a lady with a guitar, singing, and a group of dancers round +a garlanded Hermes. + +"We go out so little, murmured the marquis, "since my poor father's death." + +"But MY 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." + +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 fete," 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 any one so fine as +Madame Frezzolini, but we shall have some very good people. +After that you may talk of your own fete." The old lady +spoke with a certain quick eagerness, smiling more agreeably +as she went on. + +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. + +Valentin de Bellegarde walked away with Newman that evening, +and when they had left the Rue de l'Universite 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 fete of the 25th was an invention of the moment. +She had no idea whatever of giving a fete, 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." + +"Dear me!" said Newman, divided between relish and compassion. +"I don't care a straw for her fete, I am willing to take the will +for the deed." + +"No, no," said Valentin, with a little inconsequent touch of family pride. +"The thing will be done now, and done handsomely." + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +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 Noemie's career. + +"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." + +"And where in the world," asked Newman, "did you pick up +this valuable information?" + +"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 Noemie 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 Noemie, and she told me what I +have just repeated." + +A month elapsed without M. Nioche reappearing, and Newman, +who every morning read two or three suicides in the "Figaro," +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 quartier, 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 Cafe 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 Cafe 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. + +"If you are drinking hot punch," said Newman, "I suppose you are not dead. +That's all right. Don't move." + +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?" + +"Did you come--did you come after ME? asked M. Nioche very softly. + +"I went to your house to see what had become of you. +I thought you might be sick," said Newman. + +"It is very good of you, as always," said the old man. +"No, I am not well. Yes, I am SEEK." + +"Ask monsieur to sit down," said Mademoiselle Nioche. +"Garcon, bring a chair." + +"Will you do us the honor to SEAT?" said M. Nioche, timorously, and with +a double foreignness of accent. + +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 Noemie, 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 Noemie went on. +"You didn't expect to find me here?" + +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 aplomb 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." + +"Quelle horreur!" cried Mademoiselle Nioche with a smile. +"Does one leave one's father? You have the proof of the contrary." + +"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. + +"Who told you that?" Noemie demanded. "I know very well. +It was M. de Bellegarde. Why don't you say yes? +You are not polite." + +"I am embarrassed," said Newman. + +"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." + +"No," said Newman, with a sturdy grin; "I won't carry any messages for you." + +"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." + +"Oh, he is a great contrast to me, I have no doubt" said Newman. +"But I don't exactly know how you mean it." + +"I mean it in this way. First of all, he never offered to help me +to a dot 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." + +"Oh yes, I did," said Newman. + +"How so?" + +"It would have given me real pleasure to see you married +to a respectable young fellow." + +"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 galant; you were not what you might have been." + +Newman flushed a trifle fiercely. "Come!" he exclaimed "that's +rather strong. I had no idea I had been so shabby." + +Mademoiselle Nioche smiled as she took up her muff. +"It is something, at any rate, to have made you angry." + +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 Noemie 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. + +"You had better have remained an honest girl," Newman said, quietly. + +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 a while," she added. +"I mean to succeed; that's what I mean to do. I leave you; +I don't mean to be seen in cafes, 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. Au revoir, 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 ME!" +And she turned and departed, the white-aproned waiter, +with a bow, holding the door wide open for her. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh no," said Newman, "it is none of my business. +It's a good plan to take things easily." + +"I made you too many fine speeches," M. Nioche added. +"I meant them at the time." + +"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. + +"Neither," said M. Nioche. "You despise me, and I can't explain to you. +I hoped I shouldn't see you again." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Ah, well, you are quieter now." + +M. Nioche was silent a moment. "As quiet as the grave," +he whispered softly. + +"Are you very unhappy?" + +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." + +"Well," said Newman, rather disgusted at the smooth operation +of the old man's philosophy, "that's as you please." + +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. + +"Your experience?" inquired Newman, both amused and amazed. + +"My experience of business," said M. Nioche, gravely. + +"Ah, yes," said Newman, laughing, "that will be a great advantage to her!" +And then he said good-by, and offered the poor, foolish old man his hand. + +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!" + +"That's right; don't," said Newman. "She's a bad case." + +"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." + +"Why did you accept the money?" Newman asked. + +"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." + +"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 cafe, on reaching the street, he saw +the old man motioning the waiter, with a melancholy gesture, +to replenish his glass. + +One day, a week after his visit to the Cafe 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. + +"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." + +"He remarked, indeed," said Newman, "that he has not forgiven her. +But she'll never find it out." + +"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." + +"Oh, come," said Newman, impatiently, "you take the little +baggage too seriously." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Annoying, my dear fellow," laughed Valentin; "not the least!" + +"Hanged if I should want to have a greedy little adventuress like that know +I was giving myself such pains about her!" said Newman. + +"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." + +"You had better go and tell her," Newman rejoined. +"She gave me a message for you of some such drift." + +"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." + +"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.' " + +"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." + +"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." + +Reentering 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. + +"And what have they put into the corner?" he asked. +"Not the customary 'music,' 'dancing,' or 'tableaux vivants'? +They ought at least to put 'An American.'" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +Valentin looked at him a moment in silence and then dropped himself +into a chair with an unwonted air of weariness. + +"Happy man!" he said with a sigh. "Take care you don't become offensive." + +"If any one chooses to take offense, he may. I have a +good conscience," said Newman. + +"So you are really in love with my sister." + +"Yes, sir!" said Newman, after a pause. + +"And she also?" + +"I guess she likes me," said Newman. + +"What is the witchcraft you have used?" Valentin asked. +"How do YOU make love?" + +"Oh, I haven't any general rules," said Newman. +"In any way that seems acceptable." + +"I suspect that, if one knew it," said Valentin, laughing, "you are +a terrible customer. You walk in seven-league boots." + +"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." + +"And when does your marriage take place?" + +"About six weeks hence." + +Valentin was silent a while, and then he said, "And you feel +very confident about the future?" + +"Confident. I knew what I wanted, exactly, and I know what I have got." + +"You are sure you are going to be happy?" + +"Sure?" said Newman. "So foolish a question deserves a foolish answer. Yes!" + +"You are not afraid of anything?" + +"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?" + +"You are not afraid it may be rather a mistake for an American +man of business to marry a French countess?" + +"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. + +"Je suis triste," said Valentin, with Gallic simplicity. + +"You are sad, eh? It is about the lady you said the other night +that you adored and that you couldn't marry?" + +"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?" + +"Oh, it's Noemie, is it? Lord deliver us! You don't mean to say +you are lovesick about her?" + +"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, en somme? You can't warrant my future, +as you do your own." + +"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." + +"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 Noemie. Besides, I'll not have her suppose I am +afraid of her." + +"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." + +"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 mots. +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. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The next ten days were the happiest that Newman had ever known. +He saw Madame de Cintre every day, and never saw either old Madame +de Bellegarde or the elder of his prospective brothers-in-law. +Madame de Cintre 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. + +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 papier-mache!" 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." + +"Have them green or yellow," said Newman. + +"Malheureux!" the little marquise would cry. "Green bows would +break your marriage--your children would be illegitimate!" + +Madame de Cintre 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 some one else." + +"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." + +These observations seemed to make Madame de Cintre 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?" + +"She was never anything else," Newman said. + +"I really believe," Madame de Cintre 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!" + +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 Cintre, and he gave an account +of the expedition. + +"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 Cintre; 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 chere belle, and Madame de Cintre 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 arm-chair, 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 Cintre 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." + +"Oh," said Newman, "my mother-in-law desires nothing better +than to let me alone." + +Betimes, on the evening of the 27th, he went to Madame de Bellegarde's ball. +The old house in the Rue de l'Universite 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 Cintre 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 Cintre, 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. + +"You don't say anything about my dress," she said to Newman. + +"I feel," he answered, "as if I were looking at you through a telescope. +It is very strange." + +"If it is strange it matches the occasion. But I am not a heavenly body." + +"I never saw the sky at midnight that particular shade +of crimson," said Newman. + +"That is my originality; any one 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." + +"Moonshine and bloodshed," said Newman. + +"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 disponible. +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." + +"Oh, it's very jolly making love to married women," said Lord Deepmere, +"because they can't ask you to marry them." + +"Is that what the others do, the spinsters?" Newman inquired. + +"Oh dear, yes," said Lord Deepmere; "in England all the girls +ask a fellow to marry them." + +"And a fellow brutally refuses," said Madame de Bellegarde. + +"Why, really, you know, a fellow can't marry any girl that asks him," +said his lordship. + +"Your cousin won't ask you. She is going to marry Mr. Newman." + +"Oh, that's a very different thing!" laughed Lord Deepmere. + +"You would have accepted HER, I suppose. That makes me hope +that after all you prefer me." + +"Oh, when things are nice I never prefer one to the other," +said the young Englishman. "I take them all." + +"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 Cintre to any conceivable creature or thing." + +"Well, you can't help my being her cousin," said Lord Deepmere to Newman, +with candid hilarity. + +"Oh, no, I can't help that," said Newman, laughing back; +"neither can she!" + +"And you can't help my dancing with her," said Lord Deepmere, +with sturdy simplicity. + +"I could prevent that only by dancing with her myself," said Newman. +"But unfortunately I don't know how to dance." + +"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. + +"This is a very splendid entertainment," said Newman, cheerfully. +"The old house looks very bright." + +"If YOU are pleased, we are content," said the marquis, +lifting his shoulders and bending them forward. + +"Oh, I suspect every one 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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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 every one 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?" + +"Oh, I will shake hands with any one 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." + +"Who are the gentlemen to whom my mother presented you?" + +"Upon my word, I forgot them," said Newman, laughing. +"The people here look very much alike." + +"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 arm-chair, +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. + +"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." + +"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 beaux noms. +"I wanted extremely to see you," the duchess went on. +"C'est positif. 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. +Voyons, are they true?" + +"I don't know what you can have heard," said Newman. + +"Oh, you have your legende. We have heard that you +have had a career the most checkered, the most bizarre. +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 +newcomers 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." + +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." + +"The secret is with Madame de Cintre," said Newman. +"You must ask her for it. It consists in her having a great +deal of charity." + +"Very pretty!" said the duchess. "That's a very nice specimen, +to begin with. What, Bellegarde, are you already taking monsieur away?" + +"I have a duty to perform, dear friend," said the marquis, +pointing to the other groups. + +"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." + +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 every +thing else were absent. Every one gave Newman extreme attention, +every one smiled, every one was charmed to make his acquaintance, +every one 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 mustaches; +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 Cintre 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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +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 Cintre's youngest brother to Mrs. Tristram, +for whose merits Valentin professed a discriminating relish and to whom +he had paid several visits. + +"Did you ever read Keats's Belle Dame sans Merci?" asked Mrs. Tristram. +"You remind me of the hero of the ballad:-- + + 'Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, + Alone and palely loitering?'" + +"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." + +"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 cafe glace." + +"I told you we should do things grandly," said Valentin. +"I don't allude to the cafes glaces. But every one is here, +and my sister told me just now that Urbain had been adorable." + +"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." + +"Let it be something very polite indeed," said Valentin. +"It may be the last time you will feel so much like it!" + +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. + +Lord Deepmere looked up as Newman approached, met his eyes, +and changed color. + +"I am afraid I disturb an interesting interview," said Newman. + +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." + +"Oh, I'm not polite!" cried his lordship. "But it was interesting." + +"Madame de Bellegarde was giving you some good advice, eh?" said Newman; +"toning you down a little?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"If you are pleased I am satisfied," said Madame de Bellegarde. +"My desire was to please you." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I have been indorsing your advice," said Newman, bending over +her and laughing, "I suppose I must swallow that!" + +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. +"Every one seems to know every one and to be glad to see every one. +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." + +"I think it is an occasion that we shall none of us forget," +said the marquise, with her pure, neat enunciation. + +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 every one, 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 Cintre. 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 rez-de-chaussee 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 Cintre. 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. + +"It is almost a pity not to tell Mr. Newman," she said softly, +but in a tone that Newman could hear. + +"Tell him if you like!" the gentleman answered, in the voice +of Lord Deepmere. + +"Oh, tell me by all means!" said Newman advancing. + +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 Cintre'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 Cintre, +smiling frankly enough. + +"He wouldn't like it any better for that!" said my lord, +with his awkward laugh. + +"Come; what's the mystery?" Newman demanded. "Clear it up. +I don't like mysteries." + +"We must have some things we don't like, and go without some we do," +said the ruddy young nobleman, laughing still. + +"It's to Lord Deepmere's credit, but it is not to every one's," +said Madam de Cintre. "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. + +"Oh yes, I feel awfully like dancing!" he answered. "I shall +go and get tipsy." And he walked away with a gloomy guffaw. + +"What has happened between you?" Newman asked. + +"I can't tell you--now," said Madame de Cintre. +"Nothing that need make you unhappy." + +"Has the little Englishman been trying to make love to you?" + +She hesitated, and then she uttered a grave "No! he's a very +honest little fellow." + +"But you are agitated. Something is the matter." + +"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!" + +"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 Cintre 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. + +He had to wait a moment for the answer; but it came at last, +low yet distinct: "I am very happy." + +It was presently followed by a few words from another source, +which made them both turn round. "I am sadly afraid Madame de +Cintre will take a chill. I have ventured to bring a shawl." +Mrs. Bread stood there softly solicitous, holding a white drapery +in her hand. + +"Thank you," said Madame de Cintre, "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." + +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." + +"Well then, sir, if you will," she answered, "you have not seen +the last of me!" + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +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. + +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 coiffure 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 Noemie 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 baignoire of Mademoiselle Noemie. +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 foyer +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. + +"What in the world are you thinking of so hard?" asked Newman. + +"A subject that requires hard thinking to do it justice," said Valentin. +"My immeasurable idiocy." + +"What is the matter now?" + +"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 au serieux." + +"You mean the young lady below stairs, in a baignoire in a +pink dress?" said Newman. + +"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." + +"White or black, as you please. But you have stopped going to see her?" + +"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 MUST be amused." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Yes, it makes me feel better!" said Valentin, gayly. 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." + +"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." + +Valentin turned round in his place and looked a while +at Newman, wrinkling his forehead and rubbing his knees. +"Vous parlez d'or. But she has wonderfully pretty arms. +Would you believe I didn't know it till this evening?" + +"But she is a vulgar little wretch, remember, all the same," said Newman. + +"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!" + +"Why, she cares no more for her father than for her door-mat," said Newman. +"I discovered that the first time I saw her." + +"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, gayly. + +"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." + +Valentin made a genial grimace. "My head is much obliged to you. +Do you mean the place in a bank?" + +"There are several places, but I suppose you would consider the bank +the most aristocratic." + +Valentin burst into a laugh. "My dear fellow, at night all cats are gray! +When one derogates there are no degrees." + +Newman answered nothing for a minute. Then, "I think you will find +there are degrees in success," he said with a certain dryness. + +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?" + +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." + +"Do you really think I can make some money? I should like to see +how it feels to have a little." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"What do you think of the opera?" asked our hero. +"What do you think of the Don?" + +"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." + +"I am very curious to see how it ends," said Newman. + +"You speak as if it were a feuilleton in the 'Figaro,' " observed +the marquis. "You have surely seen the opera before?" + +"Never," said Newman. "I am sure I should have remembered it. +Donna Elvira reminds me of Madame de Cintre; I don't mean +in her circumstances, but in the music she sings." + +"It is a very nice distinction," laughed the marquis lightly. +"There is no great possibility, I imagine, of Madame de +Cintre being forsaken." + +"Not much!" said Newman. "But what becomes of the Don?" + +"The devil comes down--or comes up, said Madame de Bellegarde, +"and carries him off. I suppose Zerlina reminds you of me." + +"I will go to the foyer 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. + +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!" + +"I never sign a paper without reading it first," said Newt man. +"Show me your document." + +"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." + +"If it is so amusing," said Newman, "it will be in even better +season after I am married." + +"In other words," cried Madame de Bellegarde, "you will not do it at all. +You will be afraid of your wife." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Well, then, after I am married," said Newman serenely. + +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." + +"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. + +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 SHALL 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." + +"To the Bal Bullier?" repeated Newman, for whom the words +at first meant nothing. + +"The ball in the Latin Quarter, where the students dance with +their mistresses. Don't tell me you have not heard of it." + +"Oh yes," said Newman; "I have heard of it; I remember now. +I have even been there. And you want to go there?" + +"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 drole. +My friends go everywhere; it is only I who sit moping at home." + +"It seems to me you are not at home now," said Newman, +"and I shouldn't exactly say you were moping." + +"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 contrat; 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 any one 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!" + +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. + +He observed that Valentin de Bellegarde had taken his place +in the baignoire 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." + +"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 raffine; +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." + +"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'Universite, 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." + +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 naivete 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." + +They had passed into the corridor which encircled the row of baignoires, +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. + +"Mon Dieu, oui," said Valentin. + +"Haven't you another place?" + +"Yes, I have my usual place, in the stalls." + +"You had better go and occupy it, then." + +"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." + +"Oh, I give you up," said Newman. "You are infatuated!" + +"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." + +"I am sorry to hear it," said Newman. "Can't you leave +the poor fellow alone?" + +"No, he has given me cause. The box is not his. +Noemie 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 ouvreuse +had carried off. In my absence this gentleman came in and +took the chair beside Noemie 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." + +"My dear fellow," said Newman, remonstrantly, "what child's play! +You are not going to pick a quarrel about that girl, I hope." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +And they separated. At the end of the act Newman observed that Valentin +was still in the baignoire. 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 baignoire; +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. + +"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. + +"Something has happened here!" said Newman, without sitting down. + +"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 Noemie clapping +her little hands. "C'est ca qui pose une femme!" + +"You don't mean to say that Bellegarde is going to fight about YOU!" +exclaimed Newman, disgustedly. + +"Nothing else!" and she looked at him with a hard little smile. +"No, no, you are not galant! And if you prevent this affair I +shall owe you a grudge--and pay my debt!" + +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 Noemie'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. + +"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." + +"So you are going to fight?" said Newman. + +"My dear fellow, don't look so mortally disgusted. It was not my choice. +The thing is all arranged." + +"I told you so!" groaned Newman. + +"I told HIM so," said Valentin, smiling. + +"What did he do to you?" + +"My good friend, it doesn't matter what. He used an expression-- +I took it up." + +"But I insist upon knowing; I can't, as your elder brother, +have you rushing into this sort of nonsense." + +"I am very much obliged to you," said Valentin. "I have nothing to conceal, +but I can't go into particulars now and here." + +"We will leave this place, then. You can tell me outside." + +"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." + +"You will not enjoy it; you will be preoccupied." + +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." + +"Ah," said Newman, "you want her to see you there--you and your quietness. +I am not so simple! It is a poor business." + +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." + +"I will take charge of it," Newman declared. "Put it into my hands." + +"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." + +"Of course I should," said Newman. "Whoever your friends are, +I hope they will do that." + +"Unquestionably they will. They will urge that excuses be made, +proper excuses. But you would be too good-natured. You won't do." + +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. + +"The sooner the better," said Valentin. "The day after to-morrow, I hope." + +"Well," said Newman, "I have certainly a claim to know the facts. +I can't consent to shut my eyes to the matter." + +"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." + +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 YOU!" 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 Noemie 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. + +"The man, no doubt, was insolent," Newman said; "but if you hadn't +gone back into the box the thing wouldn't have happened." + +"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'"-- + +" '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." + +"Oh, don't mention that girl any more," murmured Valentin. +"She's a bore." + +"With all my heart. But if that is the way you feel about her, +why couldn't you let her alone?" + +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." + +"A cat may look at a king! What difference does that make?" + +"Why, a man can't back down before a woman." + +"I don't call her a woman. You said yourself she was a stone," cried Newman. + +"Well," Valentin rejoined, "there is no disputing about tastes. +It's a matter of feeling; it's measured by one's sense of honor." + +"Oh, confound your sense of honor!" cried Newman. + +"It is vain talking," said Valentin; "words have passed, +and the thing is settled." + +Newman turned away, taking his hat. Then pausing with his hand on the door, +"What are you going to use?" he asked. + +"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." + +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!" + +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. + +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 Cintre, 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 +Cintre's presentiment as pointedly as perfect security demanded. +Before he went away he asked Madame de Cintre whether Valentin +had seen his mother. + +"Yes," she said, "but he didn't make her cry." + +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. +"Que voulez-vous?" 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 Noemie 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. + +"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." + +"My dear fellow, don't make a scene," said Valentin. +"Scenes in these cases are in very bad taste." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Haul him up, into court? Oh, that is very nasty!" said Valentin. + +"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." + +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." + +"The more fool it is!" said Newman. + +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. + +"About what?" + +"About that matter--about one's honor." + +"Fancy what you please," said Newman. "Fancy while you are at it +that I care about YOU--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." + +"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. + +"Blast that girl!" said Newman as the door closed upon Valentin. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Newman went the next morning to see Madame de Cintre, timing his visit +so as to arrive after the noonday breakfast. In the court of the hotel, +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. + +"What is the matter?" asked Newman. "Is Madame la Comtesse +at home, or not?" + +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. + +"Left it? Is she out? Is she gone away?" + +"She is going away, sir; she is leaving town," said Mrs. Bread. + +"Leaving town!" exclaimed Newman. "What has happened?" + +"It is not for me to say, sir," said Mrs. Bread, with her eyes on the ground. +"But I thought it would come." + +"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?" + +"I don't think she expected you this morning," the old waiting-woman replied. +"She was to leave immediately." + +"Where is she going?" + +"To Fleurieres." + +"To Fleurieres? But surely I can see her?" + +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 Cintre'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 Cintre; 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 arm-chair, 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 Cintre and seized her by the hand. + +"What is the matter?" he asked, commandingly; "what is happening?" + +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 Cintre 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. + +"Something very grave has happened," she said. "I cannot marry you." + +Newman dropped her hand and stood staring, first at her and then +at the others. "Why not?" he asked, as quietly as possible. + +Madame de Cintre almost smiled, but the attempt was strange. +"You must ask my mother, you must ask my brother." + +"Why can't she marry me?" said Newman, looking at them. + +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. + +"It's improper," said Madame de Bellegarde. + +Newman began to laugh. "Oh, you are fooling!" he exclaimed. + +"My sister, you have no time; you are losing your train," +said the marquis. + +"Come, is he mad?" asked Newman. + +"No; don't think that," said Madame de Cintre. "But I am going away." + +"Where are you going?" + +"To the country, to Fleurieres; to be alone." + +"To leave me?" said Newman, slowly. + +"I can't see you, now," said Madame de Cintre. + +"NOW--why not?" + +"I am ashamed," said Madame de Cintre, simply. + +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. + +"It means that I have given you up," said Madame de Cintre. +"It means that." + +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. + +"It would be only more painful. I hoped I should not see you-- +I should escape. I wrote to you. Good-by." And she put out +her hand again. + +Newman put both his own into his pockets. "I will go with you," he said. + +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-by." + +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?" + +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?" + +"Don't appeal, my son," said the marquise, "your word is sufficient." + +"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 Cintre, +"you DID accept me?" + +Something in the tone seemed to move her strongly. +She turned away, burying her face in her hands. + +"But you have interfered now, haven't you?" inquired Newman +of the marquis. + +"Neither then nor now have I attempted to influence my sister. +I used no persuasion then, I have used no persuasion to-day." + +"And what have you used?" + +"We have used authority,"' said Madame de Bellegarde in +a rich, bell-like voice. + +"Ah, you have used authority," Newman exclaimed. "They have +used authority," he went on, turning to Madame de Cintre. +"What is it? how did they use it?" + +"My mother commanded," said Madame de Cintre. + +"Commanded you to give me up--I see. And you obey--I see. +But why do you obey?" asked Newman. + +Madame de Cintre looked across at the old marquise; +her eyes slowly measured her from head to foot. +"I am afraid of my mother," she said. + +Madame de Bellegarde rose with a certain quickness, crying, "This is +a most indecent scene!" + +"I have no wish to prolong it," said Madame de Cintre; +and turning to the door she put out her hand again. +"If you can pity me a little, let me go alone." + +Newman shook her hand quietly and firmly. "I'll come down there," he said. +The portiere 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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, I'll do you justice," said Newman. "Don't be afraid. +Please proceed." + +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." + +"Is THAT 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." + +"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." + +"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!" + +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." + +"She doesn't mean it," Newman declared after a moment. + +"I think I can assure you that she does," said the marquis. + +"Poor woman, what damnable thing have you done to her?" cried Newman. + +"Gently, gently!" murmured M. de Bellegarde. + +"She told you," said the old lady. "I commanded her." + +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." + +"My power," said Madame de Bellegarde, "is in my children's obedience." + +"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." + +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." + +"It was a bold experiment!" said the marquis. + +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." + +"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." + +"You would have waited long before any one 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"In all this matter," said the marquis, smiling, "I really see +nothing but our humility." + +"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." + +"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 HURT her. +What was it you did to her?" + +"I did very little! said Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone which gave +Newman a chill when he afterwards remembered it. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"I have no doubt her promise is worth a great deal more than your own," +said Newman; "nevertheless I don't give her up." + +"Just as you please! But if she won't even see you,--and she won't,-- +your constancy must remain purely Platonic." + +Poor Newman was feigning a greater confidence than he felt. +Madame de Cintre'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!" + +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." + +"Well, then," said Newman, "where is this place of yours--Fleurieres? +I know it is near some old city on a hill." + +"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." + +"It is Poitiers, is it? Very good," said Newman. +"I shall immediately follow Madame de Cintre." + +"The trains after this hour won't serve you," said Urbain. + +"I shall hire a special train!" + +"That will be a very silly waste of money," said Madame de Bellegarde. + +"It will be time enough to talk about waste three days hence," +Newman answered; and clapping his hat on his head, he departed. + +He did not immediately start for Fleurieres; 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 enceinte +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 Cintre 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 Cintre 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. + +"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. + +"SHE marry that poor little cub!" cried Newman. "Oh, Lord! +And yet, why did she refuse me?" + +"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." + +Newman frowned most ruefully, and took up his hat again. "I thought +you would encourage me!" he said, with almost childlike sadness. + +"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 Cintre 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." + +"Please say nothing against her," said Newman. + +"Poor woman, she IS 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 Cintre 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." + +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 Chateau de Fleurieres. +But he wrote to Madame de Cintre these few lines; they were +all he had time for:-- + +"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." + +After this he had only time to catch the night express to Geneva. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +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 mustache, 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?" + +"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." + +"And how is Bellegarde?" said Newman. "He was badly hit?" + +"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 cure of the nearest French village, who spent an hour with him. +The cure was quite satisfied." + +"Heaven forgive us!" groaned Newman. "I would rather the doctor +were satisfied! And can he see me--shall he know me?" + +"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." + +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 commode. +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 proces-verbal; +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 cure he had consented, +and a telegram had been dispatched to his mother. +"But the marquise had better hurry!" said Newman's conductor. + +"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. + +"Ah, you don't approve?" questioned his conductor, with curious urbanity. + +"Approve?" cried Newman. "I wish that when I had him there, +night before last, I had locked him up in my cabinet de toilette!" + +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 finger tips. +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 bonne. +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 down-stairs +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 Helvetique 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. + +"Do you call him an Englishman?" Newman asked. + +M. Ledoux smiled a moment and then made an epigram. "C'est plus +qu'un Anglais--c'est un Anglomane!" 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 cure, 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 mustache up under his nose) +and an explanation. Savoir-vivre--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, que diable! 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. + +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 Cintre +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 grave-yard 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 "Faublas." +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. + +"It can't be about me 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!" + +"Oh, I shall not scold you," said Newman. "I feel too badly. +And how are you getting on?" + +"Oh, I'm getting off! They have quite settled that; haven't they?" + +"That's for you to settle; you can get well if you try," +said Newman, with resolute cheerfulness. + +"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 today. +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!" + +"That's a reason for keeping quiet now," said Newman. +"We know how well you talk, you know." + +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?" + +Newman was embarrassed. "Yes, by this time she must know." + +"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. + +"I didn't see her after I got your telegram," said Newman. +"I wrote to her." + +"And she sent you no answer?" + +Newman was obliged to reply that Madame de Cintre had left Paris. +"She went yesterday to Fleurieres." + +"Yesterday--to Fleurieres? Why did she go to Fleurieres? +What day is this? What day was yesterday? Ah, then I shan't +see her," said Valentin, sadly. "Fleurieres 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 Fleurieres?" + +"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." + +"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 cabinet, 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-by 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 YOU. +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 Fleurieres 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!" + +"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. + +Valentin looked at him a moment. "Have you quarreled?" + +"Never, never, never!" Newman exclaimed. + +"How happily you say that!" said Valentin. "You are going +to be happy--VA!" 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 is the matter with you. +I watched you just now; you haven't a bridegroom's face." + +"My dear fellow," said Newman, "how can I show YOU a bridegroom's face? +If you think I enjoy seeing you lie there and not being able to help you"-- + +"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." + +"I didn't do what I ought," said Newman. "I ought to have +done something else." + +"For instance?" + +"Oh, something or other. I ought to have treated you as a small boy." + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +"I told you you were in trouble! How can I help you?" Valentin asked. + +"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. + +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 what 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." + +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!" + +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!" + +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." + +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'Universite 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 any one 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. + +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 down-stairs. 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. + +"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." + +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 Fleurieres. +Why was it? It sticks in my crop. I have been thinking it over, +and if you don't tell me I shall guess." + +"I had better not tell you," said Newman. "It won't do you any good." + +"If you think it will do me any good not to tell me, you are +very much mistaken. There is trouble about your marriage." + +"Yes," said Newman. "There is trouble about my marriage." + +"Good!" And Valentin was silent again. "They have stopped it." + +"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!" + +Valentin gave a sort of groan, lifted his hands a moment, +and then let them drop. + +"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." + +Valentin moaned gaspingly, as if his wound were throbbing. +"Broken faith, broken faith!" he murmured. "And my sister-- +my sister?" + +"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." + +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. + +"And Claire,"--said Bellegarde,--"Claire? She has given you up?" + +"I don't really believe it," said Newman. + +"No. Don't believe it, don't believe it. She is gaining time; excuse her." + +"I pity her!" said Newman. + +"Poor Claire!" murmured Valentin. "But they--but they"--and he paused again. +"You saw them; they dismissed you, face to face?" + +"Face to face. They were very explicit." + +"What did they say?" + +"They said they couldn't stand a commercial person." + +Valentin put out his hand and laid it upon Newman's arm. +"And about their promise--their engagement with you?" + +"They made a distinction. They said it was to hold good only until +Madame de Cintre accepted me." + +Valentin lay staring a while, and his flush died away. +"Don't tell me any more," he said at last. "I'm ashamed." + +"You? You are the soul of honor," said Newman simply. + +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. +Voila!" he added, softly. + +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 some one outside. This was M. le cure, +who carried in his hand an object unknown to Newman, and covered +with a white napkin. M. le cure 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 arm-chair, 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 cure 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 cure, who looked back at him; +and then the doctor and the cure, together, gave a shrug. +"Alone--for five minutes," Valentin repeated. "Please leave us." + +The cure 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. + +"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." + +"Oh, don't think of it," said Newman. + +But Valentin went on, without heeding him. "Even if they should come +round again, the shame--the baseness--is there." + +"Oh, they won't come round!" said Newman. + +"Well, you can make them." + +"Make them?" + +"I can tell you something--a great secret--an immense secret. +You can use it against them--frighten them, force them." + +"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 key-hole. 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,-- + +"There was something done--something done at Fleurieres. +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." + +"Something happened to your father?" said Newman, urgently. + +Valentin looked at him, still more wide-eyed. "He didn't get well." + +"Get well of what?" + +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 Fleurieres. +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, every one. +It will--it will"--here Valentin's voice sank to the feeblest murmur--"it +will avenge you!" + +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 cure reentered, bearing his +sacred vessel and followed by the three gentlemen and by Valentin's servant. +It was almost processional. + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +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 Cintre, 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 +church-yard of Fleurieres, 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 Cintre's +answer to his letter enabled him to time his arrival at Fleurieres. +This answer was very brief; it ran as follows:-- + +"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." + +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 Fleurieres. +But here, preoccupied though he was, he could not fail to notice +the picturesqueness of the place. It was what the French call +a petit bourg; 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 inclose 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 Cintre a note, +saying that he would call upon her in the afternoon, and in +accordance with this he again took his way to Fleurieres. +He left his vehicle at the tavern in the village street, +and obeyed the simple instructions which were given him for +finding the chateau. + +"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 chateau 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 facade 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. But the great feature was +a wide, green river which washed the foundations of the chateau. +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 chateau he waited for some moments, and this +gave him a chance to observe that Fleurieres 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'Universite. 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 chateau. 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 Cintre 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. + +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. + +"I was at your brother's funeral," Newman said. "Then I waited three days. +But I could wait no longer." + +"Nothing can be lost or gained by waiting," said Madame de Cintre. +"But it was very considerate of you to wait, wronged as you have been." + +"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. + +"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!" + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +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." + +"And don't you believe in me now?" + +"More than ever. But now it doesn't matter. I have given you up." + +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." + +"I know that; it's not worthy of me. But it's the only one I have to give. +After all," said Madame de Cintre, throwing out her hands, "think me an idiot +and forget me! That will be the simplest way." + +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 Cintre 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?" + +Madame de Cintre shook her head. "I remember; I was sorry afterwards." + +"You were sorry when she came down and put on the thumb-screws. +In God's name what IS it she does to you?" + +"Nothing. Nothing that you can understand. And now that I have given you up, +I must not complain of her to you." + +"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." + +Madame de Cintre 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 WAS, 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." + +"And you call marrying me uncomfortable!" said Newman staring. + +Madame de Cintre 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. + +"When what?" said Newman. + +"When others have been most unhappy!" + +"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." + +"Yes, I contradict myself; that shows you that I am not even intelligent." + +"You are laughing at me!" cried Newman. "You are mocking me!" + +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. + +"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." + +"I am cold," said Madame de Cintre, "I am as cold as that flowing river." + +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?" + +Madame de Cintre 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." + +"She has made you feel them, I'll promise you!" said Newman. + +"It's my conscience that makes me feel them." + +"Your conscience seems to me to be rather mixed!" +exclaimed Newman, passionately. + +"It has been in great trouble, but now it is very clear," +said Madame de Cintre. "I don't give you up for any worldly +advantage or for any worldly happiness." + +"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." + +"Who told you this?" said Madame de Cintre softly. + +"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." + +"That was before--before THIS," said Madame de Cintre. + +"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." + +"I don't see why we should talk of Lord Deepmere," said Madame de Cintre. +"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!" + +"I know what your feelings are: they are superstitions! +They are the feeling that, after all, though I AM 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 is 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!" + +A spectator less preoccupied than Madame de Cintre'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 gayety 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 Cintre 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!" + +"No," said Newman, bitterly; "I must change--if I break in two +in the effort!" + +"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." + +"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." + +Madame de Cintre fixed him a moment with her swimming eyes. +"You believe I am hard, then?" + +Newman answered her look, and then broke out, "You are a perfect, +faultless creature! Stay by me!" + +"Of course I am hard," she went on. "Whenever we give pain +we are hard. And we MUST 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-by!" And she +put out her hand. + +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?" + +"Where I shall give no more pain and suspect no more evil. +I am going out of the world." + +"Out of the world?" + +"I am going into a convent." + +"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--YOU!" + +"I told you that it was not for my worldly advantage or pleasure +I was leaving you." + +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?" + +"A nun--a Carmelite nun," said Madame de Cintre. "For life, +with God's leave." + +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. + +"Madame de Cintre, don't, don't!" he said. "I beseech you! +On my knees, if you like, I'll beseech you." + +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." + +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. + +"You can't prevent it," said Madame de Cintre, "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-by, good-by." + +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. + +Newman made his way out as he could. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +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, or which reflection +by no means diminished the weight. He feared that Madame +de Cintre 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 Fleurieres +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 Cintre'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 Cintre. 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. + +The twenty-four hours wore themselves away, and the next morning +Newman sprang to his feet with the resolution to return to +Fleurieres 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 +caleche 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 last! He arrived at +Fleurieres 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 Cintre, 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? + +Newman, as he had done before, left his conveyance at the inn +and walked the short remaining distance to the chateau. +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. + +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." + +"I am glad to see you," said Newman; "I think you are my friend." + +Mrs. Bread looked at him opaquely. "I wish you well sir; +but it's vain wishing now." + +"You know, then, how they have treated me?" + +"Oh, sir," said Mrs. Bread, dryly, "I know everything." + +Newman hesitated a moment. "Everything?" + +Mrs. Bread gave him a glance somewhat more lucent. +"I know at least too much, sir." + +"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." + +"My lady is always at home," Mrs. Bread replied, "and the marquis +is mostly with her." + +"Please then tell them--one or the other, or both--that I am +here and that I desire to see them." + +Mrs. Bread hesitated. "May I take a great liberty, sir?" + +"You have never taken a liberty but you have justified it," +said Newman, with diplomatic urbanity. + +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 Cintre returned this morning to Paris." + +"Ah, she's gone!" And Newman, groaning, smote the pavement +with his stick. + +"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." + +"Ah, she had kept it back, then?" cried Newman. "Good, good! +And they are very fierce?" + +"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 HER there! +If I was one that cried, sir, I could cry." + +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. + +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?" + +"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. + +"It would be a sad pleasure, sir." + +"I can tell you everything. Can you sometimes leave this place?" + +"The chateau, sir? I really don't know. I never tried." + +"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." + +Mrs. Bread stared, wondering, with parted lips. +"Is it from the count, sir?" she asked. + +"From the count--from his death-bed," said Newman. + +"I will come, then. I will be bold, for once, for HIM." + +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. + +"You see I have come back," he said. "I have come to try again." + +"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." + +"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 Cintre at liberty-- +and I will retire instantly." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 Soeur Catherine than Mrs. Newman." + +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!" + +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?" + +"This language, sir," said the marquis, "addressed to people +in bereavement and grief is beyond all qualification." + +"In most cases," Newman answered, "your objection would have +some weight, even admitting that Madame de Cintre'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." + +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, "Le miserable!" + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"You simply misunderstood him," said the marquis, beginning to rally. +"You affirm the impossible!" + +"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 any one else; +he was the soul of honor. But it shows how he took it." + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"Continue," said M. de Bellegarde. + +Newman lifted a finger and made it waver a little in the air. +"Need I continue? You are trembling." + +"Pray where did you obtain this interesting information?" +M. de Bellegarde asked, very softly. + +"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 WILL find out. Change it, +let your sister go in peace, and I will leave you alone. +It's a bargain?" + +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. + +"My brother told you this," he said, looking up. + +Newman hesitated a moment. "Yes, your brother told me." + +The marquis smiled, handsomely. "Didn't I say that he was out of his mind?" + +"He was out of his mind if I don't find out. He was very much +in it if I do." + +M. de Bellegarde gave a shrug. "Eh, sir, find out or not, +as you please." + +"I don't frighten you?" demanded Newman. + +"That's for you to judge." + +"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 Cintre 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 YES or NO on paper will do. Only, you know, in case of a +yes 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. + +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:-- + +"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. + + HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE." + +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 salle +of the Armes de Prance 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. + +"Are you a Catholic, Mrs. Bread?" he asked. + +"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." + +"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 chateau. +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +I am very much obliged to you for coming," Newman said. +"I hope it won't get you into trouble." + +"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. + +"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." + +"They have not done well--I must say it," said Mrs. Bread. +"But you mustn't blame the poor countess; they pressed her hard." + +"I would give a million of dollars to know what they did +to her!" cried Newman. + +Mrs. Bread sat with a dull, oblique gaze fixed upon the lights of +the chateau. "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." + +"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. + +"It was because she was so good that she gave up--poor sweet lady!" +added Mrs. Bread. + +"But she was better to them than to me," said Newman. + +"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." + +This singular attestation of Madame de Cintre's delicacy, +for all its singularity, set Newman's wound aching afresh. +"I see," he presently said; "she knew something bad +about her mother." + +"No, sir, she knew nothing," said Mrs. Bread, holding her head very stiff +and keeping her eyes fixed upon the glimmering windows of the chateau. + +"She guessed something, then, or suspected it." + +"She was afraid to know," said Mrs. Bread. + +"But YOU know, at any rate," said Newman. + +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." + +"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." + +"Oh, he would always be clever, sir," said Mrs. Bread. +"And did he know of your trouble?" + +"Yes, he guessed it of himself." + +"And what did he say to it?" + +"He said it was a disgrace to his name--but it was not the first." + +"Lord, Lord!" murmured Mrs. Bread. + +"He said that his mother and his brother had once put their heads +together and invented something even worse." + +"You shouldn't have listened to that, sir." + +"Perhaps not. But I DID listen, and I don't forget it. +Now I want to know what it is they did." + +Mrs. Bread gave a soft moan. "And you have enticed me up into this +strange place to tell you?" + +"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." + +"Did he say that?" + +"He said it with his last breath--'Tell Mrs. Bread I told you +to ask her.' " + +"Why didn't he tell you himself?" + +"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." + +"But how will it help you, sir?" said Mrs. Bread. + +"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." + +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 MUST ask you that; +must I not, sir?" + +"There's no offense. It is the solemn truth; I solemnly swear it. +Mr. Valentin himself would certainly have told me more if he had been able." + +"Oh, sir, if he knew more!" + +"Don't you suppose he did?" + +"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." + +"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 ME." + +"Mercy on us!" cried the old waiting-woman, "how wicked we all are!" + +"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." + +Mrs. Bread seemed to hold her breath. "You want to publish them-- +you want to shame them?" + +"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." + +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 Cintre." + +"Madame de Cintre is buried alive," cried Newman. +"What are honor or dishonor to her? The door of the tomb +is at this moment closing behind her." + +"Yes, it's most awful," moaned Mrs. Bread. + +"She has moved off, like her brother Valentin, to give me room to work. +It's as if it were done on purpose." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"And will they hang her, Sir?" + +"That depends upon what she has done." And Newman eyed Mrs. Bread intently. + +"It would break up the family most terribly, sir!" + +"It's time such a family should be broken up!" said Newman, +with a laugh. + +"And me at my age out of place, sir!" sighed Mrs. Bread. + +"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." + +"Dear, dear, sir, you think of everything." And she seemed +to fall a-brooding. + +Newman watched her a while, and then he said suddenly. +"Ah, Mrs. Bread, you are too fond of my lady!" + +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!" + +"And what IS your grudge?" Newman asked. + +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. + +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." + +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 any one 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." + +"Oh, immensely," said Newman. + +"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." + +"Decidedly not," said Newman. "Go on, Mrs. Bread." + +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 Cintre, 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 Cintre 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 Cintre 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 Cintre. 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 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 Cintre. +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 Fleurieres, 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. + +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 down-stairs. +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 HE 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, 'Mon pere, +mon pere.' 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." + +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 WAS dead!" he exclaimed. + +"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 child-birth, +but that he promised to set out for Fleurieres 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 chateau, 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 Fleurieres. 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." + +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?" + +"I can't tell you, sir," answered Mrs. Bread. "I couldn't read it; +it was in French." + +"But could no one else read it?" + +"I never asked a human creature." + +"No one has ever seen it?" + +"If you see it you'll be the first." + +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!" + +Mrs. Bread got up with a certain majesty. "It is not so easy as that, sir. +If you want the paper, you must wait." + +"But waiting is horrible, you know," urged Newman. + +"I am sure I have waited; I have waited these many years," +said Mrs. Bread. + +"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 some one?" + +"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." + +"But evidently there were suspicions," said Newman. +"Where did Mr. Valentin get his ideas?" + +"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?" + +"But you say the little doctor from Poitiers made a talk," said Newman. +"Did no one take it up?" + +"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 any one. +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 any one would listen to. My lady is so very respectable." + +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." + +"I don't know, sir; no one saw it." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Well, you are a very intelligent woman; you have shown great discretion," +said Newman. "I shall value your services as housekeeper extremely." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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!" + +"You are a mighty bold gentleman, sir," murmured Mrs. Bread, +looking at him round the edge of her great bonnet. + +He walked with her back to the chateau; the curfew had tolled for the +laborious villagers of Fleurieres, 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 chateau from behind. +Newman arranged with her that he should await outside the wall her return +with the coveted document. + +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. + +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 MUST take care of me now. +You are a terribly positive gentleman." + +"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:-- + + +"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 Cintre. +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. + +"HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE" + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +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'Universite 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 Hotel 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 mustache 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 +Cintre's relatives. Confidence--excessive confidence, perhaps--quite as +much as timidity prompted his retreat. He was nursing his thunder-bolt; +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!" + +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 Fleurieres. +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. + +"I truly hope I am not forgetting my place, sir," she murmured. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Never mind your gown," said Newman, cheerfully. "You shall +have a better gown than that." + +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. + +"I hope you have left those wicked people, at any rate," said Newman. + +"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." + +"Oh, come, Mrs. Bread," said Newman, almost caressingly, "don't make +yourself uncomfortable. Now's the time to feel lively, you know." + +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. + +"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. + +"If I could give up everything, sir! All I should ask is +a decent Protestant burial." + +"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?" + +"My box is locked and corded; but I haven't yet spoken to my lady." + +"Speak to her, then, and have done with it. I should like to have +your chance!" cried Newman. + +"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." + +"Well," said Newman, "so long as you can tax her with murder--" + +"Oh, sir, I can't; not I," sighed Mrs. Bread. + +"You don't mean to say anything about it? So much the better. +Leave that to me." + +"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." + +"And then you will come to me and I shall be your gentleman," +said Newman; "that will be more respectable still!" + +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." + +"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." + +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 Cintre." + +"What can you tell me?" Newman demanded. "Not that you have seen her?" + +She shook her head. "No, indeed, sir, nor ever shall. +That's the dullness of it. Nor my lady. Nor M. de Bellegarde." + +"You mean that she is kept so close." + +"Close, close," said Mrs. Bread, very softly. + +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?" + +"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 Cintre won't see them now, and now is her only chance. +A while hence she will have no chance." + +"You mean the other women--the mothers, the daughters, the sisters; +what is it they call them?--won't let her?" + +"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 femme de chambre 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!" + +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. + +"Where is this place--where is the convent?" Newman asked +at last, looking up. + +"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 Cintre +is there. The other is in the Rue d'Enfer. That's a terrible name; +I suppose you know what it means." + +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?" + +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." + +"I want to go there, at all events," said Newman. "Avenue de Messine, +you say? And what is it they call themselves?" + +"Carmelites," said Mrs. Bread. + +"I shall remember that." + +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 her voice in fifty." + +Newman looked at his visitor very gratefully; then he held out his hand +and shook hers. "Thank you," he said. "If any one 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. + +"Well, have you picked one out?" asked Newman. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +"I should think so!" cried Newman. "And does she know you +have come to me?" + +"She asked me where I was going, and I mentioned your name," +said Mrs. Bread. + +"What did she say to that?" + +"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." + +Newman slapped his knee. "She IS scared! she IS scared!" +he cried, exultantly. + +"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." + +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 +WAS scared--she WAS scared! + +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 Cintre that the two hemispheres contained. + +"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 abbe, is that it?-- +I have seen him here, you know; that motherly old gentleman +with the big waist-band. Please ask him if I need a special +leave to go in, and if I do, beg him to obtain it for me." + +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 abbe is disfrocked +for his share in it." And two days afterwards she told him +that it was all arranged; the abbe was enchanted to serve him, +and if he would present himself civilly at the convent gate +there would be no difficulty. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +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 Cintre'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. + +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 Cintre. 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. Every one 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. +Newman watched their genuflections and gyrations with a grim, +still enmity; they seemed aids and abettors of Madame de +Cintre'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 Cintre'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 Cintre +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. + +"Ah, monsieur," she said, "you don't include me in your wrath? +I had nothing to do with it." + +"Oh, I don't suppose YOU could have prevented it!" +Newman answered in a tone which was not that of studied gallantry. + +"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." + +"I have!" said Newman. + +"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 toilette 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 every one 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 every one 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 every one 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." + +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?" + +"They will hear the mass out; there is nothing to keep them longer. +Claire has refused to see them." + +"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." + +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!" + +"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." + +"Yes, you look very quiet! If they had le coeur tendre 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! Le reste vous regarde." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh, my dear lady," murmured Newman, looking down the path to see +if the others were not coming. + +"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 partie 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!" + +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. + +"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?" + +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?" + +"I assure you I have something," said Newman, "besides, it is my duty +to say it. It's a notification--a warning." + +"Your duty?" said old Madame de Bellegarde, her thin lips curving +like scorched paper. "That is your affair, not ours." + +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 melee. +She is too young to see such naughtiness!" and she instantly +resumed her walk. + +"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." + +"We have already heard something of your threats," said the marquis, +"and you know what we think of them." + +"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. +Any one who observes us will think that we are having a friendly chat, +and that I am complimenting you, madam, on your venerable virtues." + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +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?" + +"The rest is more amusing," said Newman. "You had better not lose it." + +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 +some one else?" + +"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 any one out of a picture. +"A paper written by the hand, and signed with the name, +of Henri-Urbain de Bellegarde. Written after you, madame, had left +him for dead, and while you, sir, had gone--not very fast-- +for the doctor." + +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. + +"Couldn't you have spoken to me alone?" said the marquis to Newman, +with a strange look. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"I should like to see it," Madame de Bellegarde observed. + +"I thought you might," said Newman, "and I have taken a copy." +And he drew from his waistcoat pocket a small, folded sheet. + +"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. + +"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 some one else." + +M. de Bellegarde at last looked up, and his eyes were still very eager. +"To whom do you mean to show it?" + +"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." + +"You had better keep it, my son," said Madame de Bellegarde. + +"By all means," said Newman; "keep it and show it to your mother +when you get home." + +"And after showing it to the duchess?"--asked the marquis, +folding the paper and putting it away. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"I doubt that," said Newman. + +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!" + +M. de Bellegarde looked down at his mother, passing his hand +over his forehead, and then, tenderly, caressingly, "What shall +I say?" he asked. + +"There is only one thing to say," said the Marquise. +"That it was really not worth while to have interrupted our walk." + +But the marquis thought he could improve this. "Your paper's a forgery," +he said to Newman. + +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." + +"Mon pauvre ami," 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." + +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 is 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. + +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. + +"What I have come to say is soon said," he declared "and can +only be said without ceremony." + +"I am good for as much or for as little as you desire," said Newman. + +The marquis looked round the room a moment, and then, "On what terms +will you part with your scrap of paper?" + +"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." + +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." + +"You forget that with you I am used to surprises!" exclaimed Newman, +with a laugh. + +"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." + +"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. + +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, il en resterait quelque chose. +At the best it would look ill in him. Very ill!" + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +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." + +Newman, turning away, took a few turns about the room and then came back. +"What DO you offer me? By what I can make out, the generosity is all to be +on my side." + +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." + +"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!" + +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." + +"How do you mean it won't do?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"I shall believe that when I hear them say it. Meanwhile I shall +think better of human nature." + +The marquis looked into his hat again. "Madame de Cintre 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." + +"Very possibly," Newman rejoined. "But she will not know. +I was in that convent yesterday and I know what SHE is doing. +Lord deliver us! You can guess whether it made me feel forgiving!" + +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. + +"Your visit's a failure, you see," he said. "You offer too little." + +"Propose something yourself," said the marquis. + +"Give me back Madame de Cintre in the same state in which you +took her from me." + +M. de Bellegarde threw back his head and his pale face flushed. +"Never!" he said. + +"You can't!" + +"We wouldn't if we could! In the sentiment which led us to deprecate +her marriage nothing is changed." + +" '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!" + +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." + +"As I understand it," Newman answered, "that will be quite enough!" + +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!" + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +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 arm-chair, 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 mots 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 any one else can +trust them or not, they can certainly trust each other." + +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 charmante. +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 mot 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. + +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 mots, 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 per se. 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. + +"You can't stay longer?" she asked, very graciously. + +"I am afraid not," he said. + +She hesitated a moment, and then, "I had an idea you had something +particular to say to me," she declared. + +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. + +"Don't teach Mr. Newman to say fadaises," said the duchess. +"It is his merit that he doesn't know how." + +"Yes, I don't know how to say fadaises," said Newman, "and I +don't want to say anything unpleasant." + +"I am sure you are very considerate," said the duchess with a smile; +and she gave him a little nod for good-by with which he took his departure. + +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 any one +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. + +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 ME? 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 Cintre. +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 HIM. +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 some one else's without working so hard for it. +It isn't worth finding out. It may be that it was not Madame de Cintre +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 des la Concorde." + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +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?" + +Newman stared a moment, and then shook his head. "That's weak," +he said; "that won't do." + +"Well," said Mrs. Tristram with a more triumphant bravery, +"I don't believe you would have been happy." + +Newman gave a little laugh. "Say I should have been miserable, then; +it's a misery I should have preferred to any happiness." + +Mrs. Tristram began to muse. "I should have been curious to see; +it would have been very strange." + +"Was it from curiosity that you urged me to try and marry her?" + +"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." + +"So you didn't believe," said Newman, resentfully. + +"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. BUT," 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!" + +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 YOU, +at least, would do me good--and cost me very little effort. +You are growing cynical, you shock me and pain me." + +"Very good," said Mrs. Tristram, good-naturedly or cynically, +as may be thought most probable. "I shall certainly see you again." + +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. + +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. + +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 Cintre: +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 +Noemie 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. + +"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." + +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 Noemie'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 some one was staring at him. +M. Nioche continued to stare; he appeared afraid to move, +even to the extent of evading Newman's glance. + +"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 Cafe 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?" + +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." + +"I suspect you have a bad conscience, sir," said Newman. + +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. + +"Then why should you want to slink away from me?" + +"Because--because you don't understand my position." + +"Oh, I think you once explained it to me," said Newman. +"But it seems improved." + +"Improved!" exclaimed M. Nioche, under his breath. +"Do you call this improvement?" And he glanced at the treasures +in his arms. + +"Why, you are on your travels," Newman rejoined. "A visit to London +in the season is certainly a sign of prosperity." + +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. + +"Do you want me to stay?" said Newman. + +"I should have left you--from consideration. But my dignity +suffers at your leaving me--that way." + +"Have you got anything particular to say to me?" + +M. Nioche looked around him to see that no one was listening, and then +he said, very softly but distinctly, "I have NOT forgiven her!" + +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." + +"What has she done?" M. Nioche softly questioned, turning round again. +"I don't know what she does, you know." + +"She has done a devilish mischief; it doesn't matter what," said Newman. +"She's a nuisance; she ought to be stopped." + +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." + +"I see," said Newman, laughing briefly again. +"She is running away and you are running after her. +You have run a long distance!" + +But M. Nioche stared insistently: "I shall stop her!" +he softly repeated. + +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. Noemie, 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, "Tiens, 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." + +"It seems to agree wonderfully well with his mistress," said Newman. + +"Do you mean me? I have never been better, thank you," +Miss Noemie declared. "But with MILORD"--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. + +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 Noemie. +Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him, and he said, turning to Newman, +"Oh, you know her?" + +"Yes," said Newman, "I know her. I don't believe you do." + +"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 HER morals--SHE 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--a-- 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. + +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. + +"You will see it some day in the papers,"' murmured M. Nioche. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +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 Cintre--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 WAS 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 +aesthetic 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 Cintre 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; 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. + +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. + +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 here, +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. + +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 inclosed +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 Abbe Aubert, that Madame de Cintre 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 life-time before her!" + +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 +Cintre'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. + +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. + +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--" + +"More what?" Newman asked. + +"More unforgiving." + +"Good God!" cried Newman; "do you expect me to forgive?" + +"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." + +"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. + +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. +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. + +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." + +"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 +Sevres vase on the drawing-room mantel-shelf. + +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 resume +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." + +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 + +"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." + +"I only went over to the other side of the river-- +to the Carmelites," said Newman. + +Mrs. Tristram looked at him a moment and smiled. "What did you do there? +Try to scale the wall?" + +"I did nothing. I looked at the place for a few minutes and then came away." + +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." + +"No, I didn't meet him, I am happy to say," Newman answered, +after a pause. + +"They are in the country," Mrs. Tristram went on; "at--what is the name +of the place?--Fleurieres. 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!" + +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. + +Mrs. Tristram sat with her embroidery needle suspended. +"What is that paper?" she asked. + +Newman leaning against the fire-place, 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." + +Mrs. Tristram dropped her embroidery with a reproachful moan. +"Ah, why didn't you show it to me?" + +"I thought of showing it to you--I thought of showing it to every one. +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." + +Mrs. Tristram began to take slow stitches again. +"Have you quite given it up?" + +"Oh yes." + +"Is it very bad, this secret?" + +"Yes, very bad." + +"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?" + +"It's a long story. But honestly, at any rate." + +"And they knew you were master of it?" + +"Oh, I told them." + +"Dear me, how interesting!" cried Mrs. Tristram. +"And you humbled them at your feet?" + +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." + +"Are you very sure?" + +Newman stared a moment. "Yes, I'm sure." + +Mrs. Tristram resumed her slow stitches. "They defied you, eh?" + +"Yes," said Newman, "it was about that." + +"You tried by the threat of exposure to make them retract?" +Mrs. Tristram pursued. + +"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 were frightened," Newman added, "and I have had all +the vengeance I want." + +"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. + +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." + +Newman instinctively turned to see if the little paper was in fact consumed; +but there was nothing left of it. + + + +End of Project Gutenberg edition of The American by Henry James + + + |