The American

XIII.

NEWMAN kept his promise, or his menace, of going often to the Rue de l’Université, and during the next six weeks he saw Madame de Cintré more times than he could have numbered. He flattered himself that he was not in love, but his biographer may be supposed to know better. He claimed, at least, none of the exemption 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, allconsuming 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 phase in which it becomes identical with pain, a man may admit that the reign of wisdom is temporarily suspended. Newman wished Madame de Cintré so well that nothing he could think of doing for her in the future rose to the high standard which his present mood had set itself. She seemed to him so felicitous a product of nature and circumstance that his invention, musing on future combination, was constantly catching its breath with the fear of stumbling into some brutal compression or mutilation of her beautiful personal harmony. This is what I mean by Newman’s tenderness: Madame de Cintré pleased him so, exactly as she was, that his desire to interpose between her and the troubles of life had the quality of a young mother’s eagerness to protect the sleep of her first-born child. Newman was simply charmed, and he handled his charm as if it were a music-box, which would stop if one shook it. There can be no better proof of the hankering epicure that is hidden in every man’s temperament, waiting for a signal from some divine confederate that he may safely peep out. Newman at last was enjoying, purely, freely, deeply. Certain of Madame de Cintré’s personal qualities — the luminous sweetness of her eyes, the delicate mobility of her face, the deep liquidity of her voice — filled all his consciousness. A rose - crowned Greek of old, gazing at a marble goddess with his whole bright intellect resting satisfied in the act, could not have been a more complete embodiment of the wisdom that bases 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 absence of embarrassed scruples. Her visitors, coming in often while Newman sat there, found a tall, lean, silent man in a halflounging attitude, who laughed out sometimes when no one had meant to be droll, and remained grave in the presence of calculated witticisms, for the 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 give, and his estimate of the importance of a topic did not depend upon the number of clever things he could say about it. He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with whom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence meant displeasure. What it was that entertained him during some of his speechless sessions I must, however, confess myself unable to determine. We know in a general way that a great many things which were old stories to a great many people had the charm of novelty to him, but a complete list of his new impressions would probably contain a number of surprises for us. He told Madame de Cintré a hundred long stories; he explained to her, in talking of the United States, the working of various local institutions and mercantile customs. Judging by the sequel she was interested, but one would not have been sure of it beforehand. As regards her own talk, Newman was very sure himself that she herself enjoyed it: this was as a sort of amendment to the portrait that Mrs. Tristram had drawn of her. He discovered that she had naturally an abundance of 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 sometime, and even when it went it left something behind it which for a while performed the same office. Was this the tearful secret of which Mrs. Tristram had had a glimpse, and of which, as of her friend’s reserve, her high-breeding, and her profundity, she had given a sketch of which the outlines were, perhaps, rather too heavy? Newman supposed so, but he found himself wondering less every day what Madame de Cintré’s secrets might be, and more convinced that secrets were, in themselves, hateful things to her. She was a woman for the light, not for the shade; and her natural line was not picturesque reserve and mysterious melancholy, but frank, joyous, brilliant action, with just so much meditation as was necessary, and not a grain more. To this, apparently, he had succeeded in bringing her back. He felt, himself, that he was an antidote to oppressive secrets; what he offered her was, in fact, above all things a vast, sunny immunity from the need of having any.

He often passed his evenings, when Madame de Cintré had so appointed it, at the chilly fireside of Madame de Bellegarde, contenting himself with looking across the room, through narrowed eyelids, at his mistress, who always made a point, before her family, of talking to 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 should n’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 æsthetic theory, but something as natural and organic as a physical appetite which had never been put on a scanty allowance and consequently was innocent of ungraceful eagerness. His tranquil unsuspectingness of this 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 he 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 polities, but he liked to have a general idea of wliat 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 would 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 Cintré, Newman was requested by the servant to wait a few moments, as his hostess was not at liberty. He walked about the room a while, taking up her books, smelling her flowers, and looking at her prints and photographs (which he thought prodigiously pretty), and at last he heard the opening of a door to which his back was turned. On the threshold stood an old woman whom he remembered to have met several times in entering and leaving the house. She was tall and straight and dressed in black, and she wore a cap which, if Newman had been initiated into such mysteries, would have been a sufficient assurance that she was not a Frenchwoman; a cap of pure British composition. She had a pale, decent, depressedlooking 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 courtesy.

“Madam the countess 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 weal, to a table and began to arrange certain books and knickknacks. 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 Bellcgarde? ”

“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 need n’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 very wide-awake to notice that.”

“I have noticed it with pleasure, sir,” said this ancient tirewoman, gravely. And she stood looking at Newman with a strange expression of face. The old instinct of deference and humility was there; the habit of decent self-effacement and knowledge of her “own place.” But there mingled with it a certain mild audacity, born of the occasion and of a sense, probably, of Newman’s unprecedented approachableness, and, beyond this, a vague indifference to the old proprieties; as if my lady’s own woman had at last begun to reflect that, since my lady had taken another person, she had a slight reversionary property in herself.

“ 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 supposed, 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 could n’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 Cintré.”

“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 Cintré 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 Cintré been in bad spirits before this? ” he asked.

“ Poor lady, she had good reason. M. de Cintré was no husband for a sweet young lady like that. And then, as I say, it has been a sad house. It is better, in my humble opinion, if 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 does n'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 was n’t live 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 weddingday 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 Cintré 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 courtesy 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 Cintré came in by an opposite door. She noticed the movement of the other portière and asked Newman who had been entertaining him.

‘‘The British female!” said Newman. “ An old lady in a black dress and a cap, who courtesies up and down, and expresses herself ever so well.”

“ An old lady who courtesies 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 Cintré 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 Cintré, 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 domestics decrees; she never quoted the opinion of the marquis. They had talked, however, of Valentin, and she had made no secret of her extreme affection for her younger brother. Newman listened sometimes with a certain harmless jealousy; he would have liked to divert some of her tender allusions to his own credit. Once Madame de Cintré told him with a little air of triumph about something that Valentin had done which she thought very much to his honor. It was a service he had rendered to an old friend of the family; something more “ serious ” than Valentin was usually supposed capable of being. Newman said he was glad to hear of it, and then began to talk about something which lay upon his own heart. Madame de Cintré listened, but after a while she said, “ I don’t like the way you speak of my brother Valentin.” Hereupon Newman, surprised, said that he had never spoken of him but kindly.

“ It is too kindly,” said Madame de Cintré. “ It is a kindness that costs nothing; it is the kindness you show to a child. It is as if you did n’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 Cintré.

“ 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 Cintré, “ 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 Cintré 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 I 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 smoothfronted citadel of the proprieties; his mother sat staring at the fire; young Madame de Bellegarde worked at an enormous band of tapestry. Usually there were three or four visitors, but on this occasion a violent storm sufficiently accounted for the absence of even the most devoted habitués. In the long silences the howling of the wind and the beating of the rain were distinctly audible. Newman sat perfectly still, watching the clock, determined to stay till the stroke of eleven, but not a moment longer. Madame de Cintré had turned her back to the circle, and had been standing for some time within the uplifted curtain of a window, with her forehead against the pane, gazing out into the deluged darkness. Suddenly she turned round toward her sister-in-law.

“ 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 Cintré. But the next moment she went to the piano and began to strike the keys with a sort of 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 hat and coat. He had just put on the latter when he saw Madame de Cintré 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 be 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 Cintré.

“ 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 Cintré, gravely. Then, as if to avoid the appearance of inviting him to speak ill of the marquis, she turned away, motioning him to sit down.

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 maybe 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 Cintré. “It’s a disagreeable position.”

“ For them, you mean. Not forme.”

“ For me,” said Madame de Cintré.

“ 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 Cintré, 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 on them.”

“ They have let me alone, as you say. They have not talked ill of you.”

“ In that case,” cried Newman, “ I proclaim them unspotted saints! ”

Madame de Cintré appeared to find something startling, almost painfully 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 Cintré rose, as she always did before her mother. The marquis, who had greeted Newman almost genially, stood apart, slowly rubbing his hands. His mother came forward with her companion. She gave a majestic little nod at Newman, and then she released the strange gentleman, that he might make his bow to her daughter.

“ 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 Cintré smiled, and offered Lord Deepmere her hand. “It is very extraordinary,” said this noble laggard, “but this is the first time that I have ever been in Paris for more than three or four weeks.”

“ And how long have you been here now? ” asked Madame de Cintré.

“ 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 Cintré, that they constituted only a naïvetê. When his companions were seated, Newman, who was out of the conversation, occupied himself with observing the new comer. 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 a probable failure in the past to profit by rare educational advantages. He remarked that Paris was awfully jolly, but that for real, thorough - paced entertainment it was nothing to Dublin. He even preferred Dublin to London. Had Madame de Cintré ever been to Dublin? They must all come over there some day, and he would show them some Irish sport. He always went to Ireland for the fishing, and he came to Paris for the new Offenbach things. They always brought them out in Dublin, but he could n’t wait. He had been nine times to hear La Pomme de Paris. Madame de Cintré, leaning back, with her arms folded, looked at Lord Deepmere with a more visibly puzzled face than she usually showed to society. Madame de Bellegarde, on the other hand, wore a fixed smile. The marquis said that among light operas his favorite was the Gazza Ladra. The marquise then began a series of inquiries about the duke and the cardinal, the old countess and Lady Barbara, after listening to which, and to Lord Deepmere’s somewhat irreverent responses, for a quarter of an hour, Newman rose to take his leave. The marquis went with him three steps into the hall.

“ Is he Irish? ” asked Newman, nodding in the direction of the visitor.

“ His mother was the daughter of Lord Fincnane,” 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.

XIV.

The next time Newman came to the Rue de 1'Université, he had the good fortune to find Madame de Cintré alone. He had come with a definite intention, and he lost no time in executing it. She wore, moreover, a certain 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 Cintré.

“ 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 there. 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 did n’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 Cintré, 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 I. 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 here that should trouble you. I offer you 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 I should ever have listened to you. When I used to think, as a girl, of what I should do if I were to marry freely, by my own choice, I thought of a very different man from you.”

“That’s nothing against me,” said Newman with an immense smile; “ your taste was not formed.”

His smile made Madame de Cintré smile. “Have you formed it?” she asked. And then she said, in a different tone, “ Where do you wish to live? ”

“ 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 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 Cintré 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 courtesies. Then turning to the servant who had admitted him, she said, with the combined majesty of her native superiority and of a rugged English accent, “ You may retire; I will have the honor of conducting monsieur.” In spite of this combination, however, it appeared to Newman that her voice had a slight quaver, as if the tone of command were not habitual to it. The man gave her an impertinent stare, but he walked slowly away, and she led Newman upstairs. At half its ascent the staircase gave a bend, forming a little platform. In the angle of the wall stood an old, 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 round, 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 need n’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 Cintré’s salon.

Newman indulged in a brief and silent imprecation when he found that Madame de Cintré was not alone. With her sat her mother, and in the middle of the room stood young Madame de Bellegarde, in her bonnet and mantle. The old marquise, who was leaning back in her chair with a hand clasping the knob of each arm, looked at him fixedly, without moving. She seemed barely conscious of his greeting; she appeared to be musing intently. Newman said to himself that her daughter had been announcing her engagement and that the old lady found the morsel hard to swallow. But Madame de Cintré, as she gave him her hand, gave him also a look by which she appeared to mean that he should understand something. Was it a warning or a request? Did she wish to enjoin speech or silence? He was puzzled, and young Madame de Bellegarde’s pretty grin gave him no information.

“ I have not told my mother,” said Madame de Cintré, 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 Cintré.

“ 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 Cintré 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. ! 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 Cintré; “but when she does they are terrible.”

“ She is ravishing,” the Marquise Urbain resumed, looking at her sisterin-law, with her head on one side. “Yes, I congratulate you.”

Madame de Cintré turned away, took up a piece of tapestry, and 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 done, messieurs! ” cried young Madame de Bellegarde. “ We have great news for you.”

“Speak to your brother, my daughter,” said the old lady.

Madame de Cintré 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 out 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 Cintré, 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 have n’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 have both reflected seriously,” he said.

Madame de Cintré 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 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 good.”

“ Valentin holds that women should marry and that men should not,” said Madame de Cintré. “I don’t know how he arranges it.”

“I arrange it by adoring you, my sister,” said Valentin, ardently. “ Goodby.”

“ 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 portière and departed.

“ They don’t like it,” said Newman, standing alone before Madame de Cintré.

“ 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 Cintré. “ It shall not bother you.” And then they talked of their marriage - day, and Madame de Cintré assented unreservedly to Newman’s desire to have it fixed for an early date.

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 pocketbook, and the next time he encountered old Madame de Bellegarde drew them forth and displayed them to her. This, it must be confessed, was a slightly malicious stroke; the reader must judge in what degree the offense was venial. Newman knew that the marquise disliked his telegrams, though he could see no sufficient reason for it. Madame de Cintré, on the other hand, liked them,and, most of them being of a humorous cast, laughed at them immoderately and inquired into the character of their authors. Newman, now that his prize was gained, felt a.peculiar desire that his triumph should be manifest. He more than suspected that the Bellegards 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 biggest thing one can do here? I will hire all the great singers from the opera, and all the first people from the Théâtre 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 Cintré. 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 fête champêtre — 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 fête,” she said, “ until I have offered you one. We want to present you to our friends; we will invite them all. We have it very much at heart. We must do things in order. Come to me about the 25th; I will let you know the exact day immediately. We shall not have Madame Frezzolini, but we shall have some very good people. After that you may talk of your own fête.” The old lady spoke with a certain quick eagerness, smiling more agreeably as she went on.

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 naïveté 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 I'Université some distance behind them he said reflectively, “My mother is very strong — very strong. ' Then in answer to an interrogative movement of Newman’s he continued, " She was driven to the wall, but you would never have thought it. Her fête of the 25th was an invention of the moment. She had no idea whatever of giving a fête, but, finding it the only issue from your proposal, she looked straight at the dose — excuse the expression — and bolted it, as you saw, without winking. She is very strong.”

“Dear me!” said Newman, divided between relish and compassion. “ I don’t care a straw for her fête; I am willing to take the will for the deed.”

“No, no,” said Valentin, with a little inconsequent touch of personal pride. “The thing will be done now, and done handsomely. ”

Henry James Jr.