The next time Newman came to the Rue de l’Université he had the good
fortune to find Madame de Cintré alone. He had come with a definite
intention, and he lost no time in executing it. She wore, moreover, a
look which he eagerly interpreted as expectancy.
“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 here. I have never ceased to want what I wanted
then. Only now I am more sure of it, if possible; I am more sure of
myself, and more sure of you. I know you better, though I don’t know
anything I didn’t believe three months ago. You are everything—you are
beyond everything—I can imagine or desire. You know me now; you _must_
know me. I won’t say that you have seen the best—but you have seen the
worst. I hope you have been thinking all this while. You must have seen
that I was only waiting; you can’t suppose that I was changing. What
will you say to me, now? Say that everything is clear and reasonable,
and that I have been very patient and considerate, and deserve my
reward. And then give me your hand. Madame de 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. She
looked at him for a moment, and he saw her eyes fill with tears. “With
me,” he went on, “you will be as safe—as safe”—and even in his ardor he
hesitated a moment for a comparison—“as safe,” he said, with a kind of
simple solemnity, “as in your father’s arms.”
Still she looked at him and her tears increased. Then, abruptly, she
buried her face on the cushioned arm of the sofa beside her chair, and
broke into noiseless sobs. “I am weak—I am weak,” he heard her say.
“All the more reason why you should give yourself up to me,” he
answered. “Why are you troubled? There is nothing but happiness. Is
that so hard to believe?”
“To you everything seems so simple,” she said, raising her head. “But
things are not so. I like you extremely. I liked you six months ago,
and now I am sure of it, as you say you are sure. But it is not easy,
simply for that, to decide to marry you. There are a great many things
to think about.”
“There ought to be only one thing to think about—that we love each
other,” said Newman. And as she remained silent he quickly added, “Very
good, if you can’t accept that, don’t tell me so.”
“I should be very glad to think of nothing,” she said at last; “not to
think at all; only to shut both my eyes and give myself up. But I
can’t. I’m cold, I’m old, I’m a coward; I never supposed I should marry
again, and it seems to me very strange 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 a wish to hurry a golden sunrise. “Your being so different, which
at first seemed a difficulty, a trouble, began one day to seem to me a
pleasure, a great pleasure. I was glad you were different. And yet if I
had said so, no one would have understood me; I don’t mean simply to my
family.”
“They would have said I was a queer monster, eh?” said Newman.
“They would have said I could never be happy with you—you were too
different; and I would have said it was just _because_ you were so
different that I might be happy. But they would have given better
reasons than I. My only reason”—and she paused again.
But this time, in the midst of his golden sunrise, Newman felt the
impulse to grasp at a rosy cloud. “Your only reason is that you love
me!” he murmured with an eloquent gesture, and for want of a better
reason Madame de 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 curtsies. Then turning to the servant who had admitted him,
she said, with the combined majesty of her native superiority and of a
rugged English accent, “You may retire; I will have the honor of
conducting monsieur.” In spite of this combination, however, it
appeared to Newman that her voice had a slight quaver, as if the tone
of command were not habitual to it. The man gave her an impertinent
stare, but he walked slowly away, and she led Newman upstairs. At half
its course the staircase gave a bend, forming a little platform. In the
angle of the wall stood an indifferent statue of an eighteenth-century
nymph, simpering, sallow, and cracked. Here Mrs. Bread stopped and
looked with shy kindness at her companion.
“I know the good news, sir,” she murmured.
“You have a good right to be first to know it,” said Newman. “You have
taken such a friendly interest.”
Mrs. Bread turned away and began to blow the dust off the statue, as if
this might be mockery.
“I suppose you want to congratulate me,” said Newman. “I am greatly
obliged.” And then he added, “You gave me much pleasure the other day.”
She turned around, apparently reassured. “You are not to think that I
have been told anything,” she said; “I have only guessed. But when I
looked at you, as you came in, I was sure I had guessed aright.”
“You are very sharp,” said Newman. “I am sure that in your quiet way
you see everything.”
“I am not a fool, sir, thank God. I have guessed something else
beside,” said Mrs. Bread.
“What’s that?”
“I needn’t tell you that, sir; I don’t think you would believe it. At
any rate it wouldn’t please you.”
“Oh, tell me nothing but what will please me,” laughed Newman. “That is
the way you began.”
“Well, sir, I suppose you won’t be vexed to hear that the sooner
everything is over the better.”
“The sooner we are married, you mean? The better for me, certainly.”
“The better for everyone.”
“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 everyone,” she said.
“What an uncomfortable state of mind!” said Newman. “Does ‘everyone’
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 mère_,” 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. I
congratulate you.”
“I congratulate you, sir,” said Madame de Bellegarde, with extreme
solemnity. “My daughter is an extraordinarily good woman. She may have
faults, but I don’t know them.”
“My mother does not often make jokes,” said Madame de Cintré; “but when
she does they are terrible.”
“She is ravishing,” the Marquise Urbain resumed, looking at her
sister-in-law, with her head on one side. “Yes, I congratulate you.”
Madame de Cintré turned away, and, taking up a piece of tapestry, began
to ply the needle. Some minutes of silence elapsed, which were
interrupted by the arrival of M. de Bellegarde. He came in with his hat
in his hand, gloved, and was followed by his brother Valentin, who
appeared to have just entered the house. M. de Bellegarde looked around
the circle and greeted Newman with his usual finely-measured courtesy.
Valentin saluted his mother and his sisters, and, as he shook hands
with Newman, gave him a glance of acute interrogation.
“_Arrivez donc, messieurs!_” cried young Madame de Bellegarde. “We have
great news for you.”
“Speak to your brother, my daughter,” said the old lady.
Madame de 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 over a dress.”
“That must be discussed,” said the marquise.
“Oh, we will discuss it, and let you know!” Newman exclaimed.
“I have no doubt we shall agree,” said Urbain.
“If you don’t agree with Madame de 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 haven’t
yet announced it here, but I telegraphed it this morning to America.”
“Telegraphed it to America?” the old lady murmured.
“To New York, to St. Louis, and to San Francisco; those are the
principal cities, you know. To-morrow I shall tell my friends here.”
“Have you many?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone of which I am
afraid that Newman but partly measured the impertinence.
“Enough to bring me a great many hand-shakes and congratulations. To
say nothing,” he added, in a moment, “of those I shall receive from
your friends.”
“They will not use the telegraph,” said the marquise, taking her
departure.
M. de Bellegarde, whose wife, her imagination having apparently taken
flight to the tailor’s, was fluttering her silken wings in emulation,
shook hands with Newman, and said with a more persuasive accent than
the latter had ever heard him use, “You may count upon me.” Then his
wife led him away.
Valentin stood looking from his sister to our hero. “I hope you both
reflected seriously,” he said.
Madame de 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 young people. But I am not satisfied, on the whole, that
you belong to that small and superior class—that exquisite group
composed of persons who are worthy to remain unmarried. These are rare
souls; they are the salt of the earth. But I don’t mean to be
invidious; the marrying people are often very nice.”
“Valentin holds that women should marry, and that men should not,” said
Madame de Cintré. “I don’t know how he arranges it.”
“I arrange it by adoring you, my sister,” said Valentin ardently.
“Good-bye.”
“Adore someone whom you can marry,” said Newman. “I will arrange that
for you some day. I foresee that I am going to turn apostle.”
Valentin was on the threshold; he looked back a moment with a face that
had turned grave. “I adore someone I can’t marry!” he said. And he
dropped the _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 pocket-book, and the next
time he encountered old Madame de Bellegarde drew them forth and
displayed them to her. This, it must be confessed, was a slightly
malicious stroke; the reader must judge in what degree the offense was
venial. Newman knew that the marquise disliked his telegrams, though he
could see no sufficient reason for it. Madame de Cintré, on the other
hand, liked them, and, most of them being of a humorous cast, laughed
at them immoderately, and inquired into the character of their authors.
Newman, now that his prize was gained, felt a peculiar desire that his
triumph should be manifest. He more than suspected that the Bellegardes
were keeping quiet about it, and allowing it, in their select circle,
but a limited resonance; and it pleased him to think that if he were to
take the trouble he might, as he phrased it, break all the windows. No
man likes being repudiated, and yet Newman, if he was not flattered,
was not exactly offended. He had not this good excuse for his somewhat
aggressive impulse to promulgate his felicity; his sentiment was of
another quality. He wanted for once to make the heads of the house of
Bellegarde _feel_ him; he knew not when he should have another chance.
He had had for the past six months a sense of the old lady and her son
looking straight over his head, and he was now resolved that they
should toe a mark which he would give himself the satisfaction of
drawing.
“It is like seeing a bottle emptied when the wine is poured too
slowly,” he said to Mrs. Tristram. “They make me want to joggle their
elbows and force them to spill their wine.”
To this Mrs. Tristram answered that he had better leave them alone and
let them do things in their own way. “You must make allowances for
them,” she said. “It is natural enough that they should hang fire a
little. They thought they accepted you when you made your application;
but they are not people of imagination, they could not project
themselves into the future, and now they will have to begin again. But
they _are_ people of honor, and they will do whatever is necessary.”
Newman spent a few moments in narrow-eyed meditation. “I am not hard on
them,” he presently said, “and to prove it I will invite them all to a
festival.”
“To a festival?”
“You have been laughing at my great gilded rooms all winter; I will
show you that they are good for something. I will give a party. What is
the grandest thing one can do here? I will hire all the great singers
from the opera, and all the first people from the Théâtre Français, 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
everyone among her friends whom I have met at her house or elsewhere,
everyone who has shown me the minimum of politeness, every duke of them
and his wife. And then all my friends, without exception: Miss Kitty
Upjohn, Miss Dora Finch, General Packard, C. P Hatch, and all the rest.
And everyone shall know what it is about, that is, to celebrate my
engagement to the Countess de Cintré. What do you think of the idea?”
“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 anyone so fine as Madame Frezzolini, but
we shall have some very good people. After that you may talk of your
own fête.” The old lady spoke with a certain quick eagerness, smiling
more agreeably as she went on.
It seemed to Newman a handsome proposal, and such proposals always
touched the sources of his good-nature. He said to Madame de Bellegarde
that he should be glad to come on the 25th or any other day, and that
it mattered very little whether he met his friends at her house or at
his own. I have said that Newman was observant, but it must be admitted
that on this occasion he failed to notice a certain delicate glance
which passed between Madame de Bellegarde and the marquis, and which we
may presume to have been a commentary upon the innocence displayed in
that latter clause of his speech.
Valentin de Bellegarde walked away with Newman that evening, and when
they had left the Rue de l’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 family
pride. “The thing will be done now, and done handsomely.”