第49章

"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.