The American
Page 10
CHAPTER X
Newman continued to see his friends the Tristrams with a good deal offrequency, though if you had listened to Mrs. Tristram’s account of thematter you would have supposed that they had been cynically repudiatedfor the sake of grander acquaintance. “We were all very well so longas we had no rivals--we were better than nothing. But now that you havebecome the fashion, and have your pick every day of three invitations todinner, we are tossed into the corner. I am sure it is very good of youto come and see us once a month; I wonder you don’t send us your cardsin an envelope. When you do, pray have them with black edges; it will befor the death of my last illusion.” It was in this incisive strain thatMrs. Tristram moralized over Newman’s so-called neglect, which was inreality a most exemplary constancy. Of course she was joking, butthere was always something ironical in her jokes, as there was alwayssomething jocular in her gravity.
“I know no better proof that I have treated you very well,” Newmanhad said, “than the fact that you make so free with my character.Familiarity breeds contempt; I have made myself too cheap. If I had alittle proper pride I would stay away a while, and when you asked me todinner say I was going to the Princess Borealska’s. But I have not anypride where my pleasure is concerned, and to keep you in the humor tosee me--if you must see me only to call me bad names--I will agree toanything you choose; I will admit that I am the biggest snob in Paris.” Newman, in fact, had declined an invitation personally given by thePrincess Borealska, an inquiring Polish lady to whom he had beenpresented, on the ground that on that particular day he always dinedat Mrs. Tristram’s; and it was only a tenderly perverse theory ofhis hostess of the Avenue d’Iéna that he was faithless to his earlyfriendships. She needed the theory to explain a certain moral irritationby which she was often visited; though, if this explanation was unsound,a deeper analyst than I must give the right one. Having launched ourhero upon the current which was bearing him so rapidly along, sheappeared 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 inperceiving that, in essentials, the feeling which lay beneath it was.Indeed, the mild, expansive brevity with which it was uttered, anda certain look, at once appealing and inscrutable, that issued fromNewman’s half-closed eyes as he leaned his head against the back of hischair, seemed to her the most eloquent attestation of a mature sentimentthat she had ever encountered. Newman was, according to the Frenchphrase, only abounding in her own sense, but his temperate rapturesexerted a singular effect upon the ardor which she herself had so freelymanifested a few months before. She now seemed inclined to take a purelycritical view of Madame de Cintré, and wished to have it understood thatshe did not in the least answer for her being a compendium of all thevirtues. “No woman was ever so good as that woman seems,” she said.“Remember what Shakespeare calls Desdemona; ‘a supersubtle Venetian.’Madame de Cintré is a supersubtle Parisian. She is a charming woman, andshe has five hundred merits; but you had better keep that in mind.” WasMrs. Tristram simply finding out that she was jealous of her dear friendon the other side of the Seine, and that in undertaking to provideNewman with an ideal wife she had counted too much on her owndisinterestedness? We may be permitted to doubt it. The inconsistentlittle lady of the Avenue d’Iéna had an insuperable need of changingher place, intellectually. She had a lively imagination, and she wascapable, at certain times, of imagining the direct reverse of hermost cherished beliefs, with a vividness more intense than that ofconviction. She got tired of thinking aright; but there was no seriousharm in it, as she got equally tired of thinking wrong. In the midst ofher mysterious perversities she had admirable flashes of justice. Oneof these occurred when Newman related to her that he had made a formalproposal to Madame de Cintré. He repeated in a few words what he hadsaid, and in a great many what she had answered. Mrs. Tristram listenedwith 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 isa great triumph that she did not silence you at the first word, andrequest 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 onyour own way and do what came into your head, I had no idea you would goover the ground so fast. I never dreamed you would offer yourself afterfive or six morning-calls. As yet, what had you done to make her likeyou? You had simply sat--not very straight--and stared at her. But shedoes like you.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“No, that is proved. What will come of it remains to be seen. That youshould propose to marry her, without more ado, could never have comeinto her head. You can form very little idea of what passed through hermind as you spoke; if she ever really marries you, the affair will becharacterized by the usual justice of all human beings towards women.You will think you take generous views of her; but you will never beginto know through what a strange sea of feeling she passed before sheaccepted you. As she stood there in front of you the other day, sheplunged into it. She said ‘Why not?’ to something which, a few hoursearlier, had been inconceivable. She turned about on a thousand gatheredprejudices and traditions as on a pivot, and looked where she had neverlooked hitherto. When I think of it--when I think of Claire de Cintréand all that she represents, there seems to me something very fine init. When I recommended you to try your fortune with her I of coursethought well of you, and in spite of your sins I think so still. But Iconfess I don’t see quite what you are and what you have done, to makesuch 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 thatthere was something fine in it. He had not the least doubt of ithimself, but he had already begun to value the world’s admiration ofMadame de Cintré, as adding to the prospective glory of possession.
It was immediately after this conversation that Valentin de Bellegardecame to conduct his friend to the Rue de l’Université to present him tothe other members of his family. “You are already introduced,” he said,“and you have begun to be talked about. My sister has mentioned yoursuccessive visits to my mother, and it was an accident that my motherwas present at none of them. I have spoken of you as an American ofimmense wealth, and the best fellow in the world, who is looking forsomething very superior in the way of a wife.”
“Do you suppose,” asked Newman, “that Madame de Cintré has related toyour 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 muchis known about you: you have made a great fortune in trade, you area little eccentric, and you frankly admire our dear Claire. Mysister-in-law, whom you remember seeing in Madame de Cintré’ssitting-room, took, it appears, a fancy to you; she has described youas having _beaucoup de cachet_. My mother, therefore, is curious to seeyou.”
“She expects to laugh at me, eh?” said Newman.
“She never laughs. If she does not like you, don’t hope to purchasefavor by being amusing. Take warning by me!”
This conversation took place in the evening, and half an hour laterValentin ushered his companion into an apartment of the house of the Ruede l’Université into which he had not yet penetrated, the salon of thedowager Marquise de Bellegarde. It was a vast, high room, with elaborateand ponderous mouldings, painted a whitish gray, along the upper portionof the walls and the ceiling; with a great deal of faded and carefullyrepaired tapestry in the doorways and chair-backs; a Turkey carpet inlight colors, still soft and deep, in spite of great antiquity, on thefloor, and portraits of each of Madame de Bellegarde’s children, at theage of ten, suspended against
an old screen of red silk. The room wasillumined, 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 roomanother person was seated at the piano, playing a very expressivewaltz. In this latter person Newman recognized the young Marquise deBellegarde.
Valentin presented his friend, and Newman walked up to the old lady bythe fire and shook hands with her. He received a rapid impression of awhite, delicate, aged face, with a high forehead, a small mouth, and apair of cold blue eyes which had kept much of the freshness of youth.Madame de Bellegarde looked hard at him, and returned his hand-shakewith a sort of British positiveness which reminded him that she wasthe daughter of the Earl of St. Dunstan’s. Her daughter-in-law stoppedplaying and gave him an agreeable smile. Newman sat down and lookedabout him, while Valentin went and kissed the hand of the youngmarquise.
“I ought to have seen you before,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “You havepaid several visits to my daughter.”
“Oh, yes,” said Newman, smiling; “Madame de Cintré and I are old friendsby 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 hereturned her gaze, reflecting that she was a possible adversary andtrying to take her measure. Their eyes remained in contact for somemoments. Then Madame de Bellegarde looked away, and without smiling, “Iam 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 wasutterly unlike her. The coloring in Madame de Cintré was the same, andthe high delicacy of her brow and nose was hereditary. But her face wasa larger and freer copy, and her mouth in especial a happy divergencefrom that conservative orifice, a little pair of lips at once plump andpinched, that looked, when closed, as if they could not open wider thanto swallow a gooseberry or to emit an “Oh, dear, no!” which probably hadbeen thought to give the finishing touch to the aristocratic prettinessof the Lady Emmeline Atheling as represented, forty years before, inseveral Books of Beauty. Madame de Cintré’s face had, to Newman’s eye,a range of expression as delightfully vast as the wind-streaked,cloud-flecked distance on a Western prairie. But her mother’s white,intense, respectable countenance, with its formal gaze, and itscircumscribed smile, suggested a document signed and sealed; a thingof parchment, ink, and ruled lines. “She is a woman of conventions andproprieties,” he said to himself as he looked at her; “her world is theworld of things immutably decreed. But how she is at home in it, andwhat a paradise she finds it. She walks about in it as if it were ablooming park, a Garden of Eden; and when she sees ‘This is genteel,’ or‘This is improper,’ written on a mile-stone she stops ecstatically, asif she were listening to a nightingale or smelling a rose.” Madame deBellegarde wore a little black velvet hood tied under her chin, and shewas wrapped in an old black cashmere shawl.
“You are an American?” she said presently. “I have seen severalAmericans.”
“There are several in Paris,” said Newman jocosely.
“Oh, really?” said Madame de Bellegarde. “It was in England I sawthese, or somewhere else; not in Paris. I think it must have been in thePyrenees, many years ago. I am told your ladies are very pretty. One ofthese ladies was very pretty! such a wonderful complexion! She presentedme a note of introduction from someone--I forgot whom--and she sent withit a note of her own. I kept her letter a long time afterwards, it wasso strangely expressed. I used to know some of the phrases by heart. ButI have forgotten them now, it is so many years ago. Since then I haveseen no more Americans. I think my daughter-in-law has; she is a greatgad-about, she sees everyone.”
At this the younger lady came rustling forward, pinching in a veryslender waist, and casting idly preoccupied glances over the frontof her dress, which was apparently designed for a ball. She was, in asingular way, at once ugly and pretty; she had protuberant eyes, andlips strangely red. She reminded Newman of his friend, MademoiselleNioche; this was what that much-obstructed young lady would have likedto be. Valentin de Bellegarde walked behind her at a distance, hoppingabout 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 mirrordescended low, and yet it reflected nothing but a large unclad fleshsurface. The young marquise put her hands behind her and gave a downwardpull to the waist of her dress. “Like that, you mean?” she asked.
“That is a little better,” said Bellegarde in the same tone, “but itleaves a good deal to be desired.”
“Oh, I never go to extremes,” said his sister-in-law. And then, turningto 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 yousomething 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 inFrench.
“That is a pretty compliment but a bad translation,” said the youngmarquise. 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 herback in the mirror she turned away.
“Do you like Paris?” asked the old lady, who was apparently wonderingwhat was the proper way to talk to an American.
“Yes, rather,” said Newman. And then he added with a friendlyintonation, “Don’t you?”
“I can’t say I know it. I know my house--I know my friends--I don’t knowParis.”
“Oh, you lose a great deal,” said Newman, sympathetically.
Madame de Bellegarde stared; it was presumably the first time she hadbeen 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, whichstruck him as rather sad and shabby; passing from the high casements,with their small, thickly-framed panes, to the sallow tints of two orthree portraits in pastel, of the last century, which hung betweenthem. He ought, obviously, to have answered that the contentment of hishostess was quite natural--she had a great deal; but the idea did notoccur to him during the pause of some moments which followed.
“Well, my dear mother,” said Valentin, coming and leaning against thechimney-piece, “what do you think of my dear friend Newman? Is he notthe excellent fellow I told you?”
“My acquaintance with Mr. Newman has not gone very far,” said Madame deBellegarde. “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 oldlady. “I have done nothing yet.”
“You must not listen to my son he will bring you into trouble. He is asad 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 muchbetter than this one. But he will not amuse you.”
“I don’t know--I don’t know!” murmured Valentin, reflectively. “But weshall very soon see. Here comes _Monsieur mon frère_.”
“This is my excellent friend Mr. Newman,” he said very blandly. “Youmust 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 hereturned M. de Bellegarde’s greeting. And this was the starting-point ofa speculative theory, in his mind, that the late marquis had been a veryamiable foreigner, with an inclination to take life easily and a sensethat it was difficult for the husband of the stilted little lady by thefire to do so. But if he had taken little comfort in his wife he hadtaken 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 asyou are also acquainted with my sister, it was time we should meet.” Heturned to his mother and gallantly bent over her hand, touching it withhis lips, and then he assumed an attitude before the chimney-piece. Withhis long, lean face, his high-bridged nose and his small, opaque eye helooked much like an Englishman. His whiskers were fair and glossy, andhe had a large dimple, of unmistakably British origin, in the middle ofhis handsome chin. He was “distinguished” to the tips of his polishednails, and there was not a movement of his fine, perpendicular personthat was not noble and majestic. Newman had never yet been confrontedwith such an incarnation of the art of taking one’s self seriously; hefelt a sort of impulse to step backward, as you do to get a view of agreat façade.
“Urbain,” said young Madame de Bellegarde, who had apparently beenwaiting for her husband to take her to her ball, “I call your attentionto 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,” objectedNewman. “I am very sure we shall meet again. Indeed, if you would liketo converse with me I will gladly name an hour.” He was eager to makeit known that he would readily answer all questions and satisfy allexactions.
M. de Bellegarde stood in a well-balanced position before the fire,caressing one of his fair whiskers with one of his white hands, andlooking at Newman, half askance, with eyes from which a particular rayof observation made its way through a general meaningless smile. “It isvery 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 arein--a--as we say, _dans les affaires_.”
“In business, you mean? Oh no, I have thrown business overboard for thepresent. 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, andthat sort of thing.”
The marquis looked hard at his brother, and began to caress his otherwhisker. Then, turning to Newman, with sustained urbanity, “You aretraveling for your pleasure?” he asked.’
“Oh, I am knocking about to pick up one thing and another. Of course Iget 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 thelargest possible fortune in the shortest possible time.” Newman madethis last remark very deliberately; he wished to open the way, if itwere necessary, to an authoritative statement of his means.
M. de Bellegarde laughed agreeably. “I hope you have succeeded,” hesaid.
“Yes, I have made a fortune in a reasonable time. I am not so old, yousee.”
“Paris is a very good place to spend a fortune. I wish you greatenjoyment of yours.” And M. de Bellegarde drew forth his gloves andbegan to put them on.
Newman for a few moments watched him sliding his white hands into thewhite kid, and as he did so his feelings took a singular turn. M. deBellegarde’s good wishes seemed to descend out of the white expanse ofhis sublime serenity with the soft, scattered movement of a shower ofsnow-flakes. Yet Newman was not irritated; he did not feel that he wasbeing patronized; he was conscious of no especial impulse to introducea discord into so noble a harmony. Only he felt himself suddenly inpersonal contact with the forces with which his friend Valentin hadtold him that he would have to contend, and he became sensible of theirintensity. He wished to make some answering manifestation, to stretchhimself 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 ormalicious, it was by no means void of humorous expectancy. Newman wasquite as ready to give play to that loosely-adjusted smile of his, ifhis hosts should happen to be shocked, as he was far from deliberatelyplanning to shock them.
“Paris is a very good place for idle people,” he said, “or it is a verygood place if your family has been settled here for a long time, and youhave made acquaintances and got your relations round you; or if you havegot a good big house like this, and a wife and children and mother andsister, and everything comfortable. I don’t like that way of living allin 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 aretoo deep-seated. Then, I haven’t any house to call my own, or anythingin the way of a family. My sisters are five thousand miles away, mymother died when I was a youngster, and I haven’t any wife; I wish Ihad! So, you see, I don’t exactly know what to do with myself. I am notfond of books, as you are, sir, and I get tired of dining out and goingto the opera. I miss my business activity. You see, I began to earn myliving when I was almost a baby, and until a few months ago I have neverhad my hand off the plow. Elegant leisure comes hard.”
This speech was followed by a profound silence of some moments, on thepart of Newman’s entertainers. Valentin stood looking at him fixedly,with his hands in his pockets, and then he slowly, with a half-sidlingmotion, went out of the door. The marquis continued to draw on hisgloves and to smile benignantly.
“You began to earn your living when you were a mere baby?” said themarquise.
“Hardly more--a small boy.”
“You say you are not fond of books,” said M. de Bellegarde; “butyou must do yourself the justice to remember that your studies wereinterrupted early.”
“That is very true; on my tenth birthday I stopped going to school. Ithought it was a grand way to keep it. But I picked up some informationafterwards,” 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 inour Western country. One of them is married to the owner of the largestindia-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 deBellegarde, who was muffling herself in a long white shawl.
Newman indulged in a burst of hilarity, and explained that the house inwhich his brother-in-law lived was a large wooden structure, but that hemanufactured and sold india-rubber
on a colossal scale.
“My children have some little india-rubber shoes which they put onwhen they go to play in the Tuileries in damp weather,” said the youngmarquise. “I wonder whether your brother-in-law made them.”
“Very likely,” said Newman; “if he did, you may be very sure they arewell made.”
“Well, you must not be discouraged,” said M. de Bellegarde, with vagueurbanity.
“Oh, I don’t mean to be. I have a project which gives me plenty to thinkabout, and that is an occupation.” And then Newman was silent a moment,hesitating, yet thinking rapidly; he wished to make his point, and yetto do so forced him to speak out in a way that was disagreeable tohim. Nevertheless he continued, addressing himself to old Madame deBellegarde, “I will tell you my project; perhaps you can help me. I wantto 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, “Ishould have thought you were,” he declared.
Madame de Bellegarde appeared to think him too sincere. She murmuredsomething sharply in French, and fixed her eyes on her son. At thismoment the door of the room was thrown open, and with a rapid stepValentin reappeared.
“I have a message for you,” he said to his sister-in-law. “Claire bidsme to request you not to start for your ball. She will go with you.”
“Claire will go with us!” cried the young marquise. “_En voilà, dunouveau!_”
“She has changed her mind; she decided half an hour ago, and she issticking the last diamond into her hair,” said Valentin.
“What has taken possession of my daughter?” demanded Madame deBellegarde, sternly. “She has not been into the world these threeyears. Does she take such a step at half an hour’s notice, and withoutconsulting me?”
“She consulted me, dear mother, five minutes since,” said Valentin,“and I told her that such a beautiful woman--she is beautiful, you willsee--had no right to bury herself alive.”
“You should have referred Claire to her mother, my brother,” said M. deBellegarde, in French. “This is very strange.”
“I refer her to the whole company!” said Valentin. “Here she comes!” Andhe went to the open door, met Madame de Cintré on the threshold, tookher 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 fastenedacross her shoulders by a silver clasp. She had tossed it back, however,and her long white arms were uncovered. In her dense, fair hair thereglittered a dozen diamonds. She looked serious and, Newman thought,rather pale; but she glanced round her, and, when she saw him, smiledand put out her hand. He thought her tremendously handsome. He had achance to look at her full in the face, for she stood a moment in thecentre of the room, hesitating, apparently, what she should do, withoutmeeting his eyes. Then she went up to her mother, who sat in her deepchair by the fire, looking at Madame de Cintré almost fiercely. With herback turned to the others, Madame de Cintré held her cloak apart to showher dress.
“What do you think of me?” she asked.
“I think you are audacious,” said the marquise. “It was but three daysago, when I asked you, as a particular favor to myself, to go to theDuchess de Lusignan’s, that you told me you were going nowhere andthat one must be consistent. Is this your consistency? Why should youdistinguish Madame Robineau? Who is it you wish to please to-night?”
“I wish to please myself, dear mother,” said Madame de Cintré. And shebent 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 goinginto a room with Madame de Cintré, you needn’t be afraid of beingnoticed yourself!”
M. de Bellegarde turned to his sister with a smile too intense to beeasy. “I hope you appreciate a compliment that is paid you at yourbrother’s expense,” he said. “Come, come, madame.” And offering Madamede Cintré his arm he led her rapidly out of the room. Valentin renderedthe same service to young Madame de Bellegarde, who had apparently beenreflecting on the fact that the ball-dress of her sister-in-law wasmuch less brilliant than her own, and yet had failed to derive absolutecomfort from the reflection. With a farewell smile she sought thecomplement of her consolation in the eyes of the American visitor, andperceiving in them a certain mysterious brilliancy, it is not improbablethat she may have flattered herself she had found it.
Newman, left alone with old Madame de Bellegarde, stood before her a fewmoments 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 shookher 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 oldwoman.”
“Well, I am very rich,” said Newman.
Madame de Bellegarde fixed her eyes on the floor, and Newman thoughtit probable she was weighing the reasons in favor of resenting thebrutality of this remark. But at last, looking up, she said simply, “Howrich?”
Newman expressed his income in a round number which had the magnificentsound that large aggregations of dollars put on when they are translatedinto francs. He added a few remarks of a financial character, whichcompleted a sufficiently striking presentment of his resources.
Madame de Bellegarde listened in silence. “You are very frank,” she saidfinally. “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, youhave suffered me long enough. Good night!” And he took his leave.