by Henry James
CHAPTER XV
Valentin de Bellegarde’s announcement of the secession of MademoiselleNioche from her father’s domicile and his irreverent reflections uponthe attitude of this anxious parent in so grave a catastrophe, receiveda practical commentary in the fact that M. Nioche was slow to seekanother interview with his late pupil. It had cost Newman some disgustto be forced to assent to Valentin’s somewhat cynical interpretation ofthe old man’s philosophy, and, though circumstances seemed to indicatethat he had not given himself up to a noble despair, Newman thought itvery possible he might be suffering more keenly than was apparent. M.Nioche had been in the habit of paying him a respectful little visitevery two or three weeks and his absence might be a proof quite as muchof extreme depression as of a desire to conceal the success with whichhe had patched up his sorrow. Newman presently learned from Valentinseveral details touching this new phase of Mademoiselle Noémie’s career.
“I told you she was remarkable,” this unshrinking observer declared,“and the way she has managed this performance proves it. She has hadother chances, but she was resolved to take none but the best. She didyou the honor to think for a while that you might be such a chance. Youwere not; so she gathered up her patience and waited a while longer. Atlast her occasion came along, and she made her move with her eyes wideopen. I am very sure she had no innocence to lose, but she had all herrespectability. Dubious little damsel as you thought her, she had kepta firm hold of that; nothing could be proved against her, and she wasdetermined not to let her reputation go till she had got her equivalent.About her equivalent she had high ideas. Apparently her ideal has beensatisfied. It is fifty years old, bald-headed, and deaf, but it is veryeasy about money.”
“And where in the world,” asked Newman, “did you pick up this valuableinformation?”
“In conversation. Remember my frivolous habits. In conversation with ayoung woman engaged in the humble trade of glove-cleaner, who keeps asmall shop in the Rue St. Roch. M. Nioche lives in the same house, upsix pair of stairs, across the court, in and out of whose ill-sweptdoorway Miss Noémie has been flitting for the last five years. Thelittle glove-cleaner was an old acquaintance; she used to be the friendof a friend of mine, who has married and dropped such friends. I oftensaw her in his society. As soon as I espied her behind her clear littlewindow-pane, I recollected her. I had on a spotlessly fresh pair ofgloves, but I went in and held up my hands, and said to her, ‘Dearmademoiselle, what will you ask me for cleaning these?’ ‘Dear count,’she answered immediately, ‘I will clean them for you for nothing.’ Shehad instantly recognized me, and I had to hear her history for the lastsix years. But after that, I put her upon that of her neighbors. Sheknows and admires Noémie, and she told me what I have just repeated.”
A month elapsed without M. Nioche reappearing, and Newman, who everymorning read two or three suicides in the _Figaro_, began to suspectthat, mortification proving stubborn, he had sought a balm for hiswounded pride in the waters of the Seine. He had a note of M. Nioche’saddress in his pocket-book, and finding himself one day in the_quartier_, he determined, in so far as he might, to clear up hisdoubts. He repaired to the house in the Rue St. Roch which bore therecorded number, and observed in a neighboring basement, behind adangling row of neatly inflated gloves, the attentive physiognomy ofBellegarde’s informant--a sallow person in a dressing-gown--peering intothe street as if she were expecting that amiable nobleman to passagain. But it was not to her that Newman applied; he simply asked ofthe portress if M. Nioche were at home. The portress replied, as theportress invariably replies, that her lodger had gone out barelythree minutes before; but then, through the little square hole of herlodge-window taking the measure of Newman’s fortunes, and seeing them,by an unspecified process, refresh the dry places of servitude tooccupants of fifth floors on courts, she added that M. Nioche would havehad just time to reach the Café de la Patrie, round the second cornerto the left, at which establishment he regularly spent his afternoons.Newman thanked her for the information, took the second turning tothe left, and arrived at the Café de la Patrie. He felt a momentaryhesitation to go in; was it not rather mean to “follow up” poor oldNioche at that rate? But there passed across his vision an image of ahaggard little septuagenarian taking measured sips of a glass of sugarand water and finding them quite impotent to sweeten his desolation.He opened the door and entered, perceiving nothing at first but a densecloud of tobacco smoke. Across this, however, in a corner, he presentlydescried the figure of M. Nioche, stirring the contents of a deepglass, with a lady seated in front of him. The lady’s back was turnedto Newman, but M. Nioche very soon perceived and recognized his visitor.Newman had gone toward him, and the old man rose slowly, gazing at himwith a more blighted expression even than usual.
“If you are drinking hot punch,” said Newman, “I suppose you are notdead. That’s all right. Don’t move.”
M. Nioche stood staring, with a fallen jaw, not daring to put outhis hand. The lady, who sat facing him, turned round in her placeand glanced upward with a spirited toss of her head, displaying theagreeable features of his daughter. She looked at Newman sharply, to seehow he was looking at her, then--I don’t know what she discovered--shesaid graciously, “How d’ ye do, monsieur? won’t you come into our littlecorner?”
“Did you come--did you come after _me?_” asked M. Nioche very softly.
“I went to your house to see what had become of you. I thought you mightbe sick,” said Newman.
“It is very good of you, as always,” said the old man. “No, I am notwell. Yes, I am _seek_.”
“Ask monsieur to sit down,” said Mademoiselle Nioche. “Garçon, bring achair.”
“Will you do us the honor to _seat?_” said M. Nioche, timorously, andwith a double foreignness of accent.
Newman said to himself that he had better see the thing out and he tooka chair at the end of the table, with Mademoiselle Nioche on his leftand her father on the other side. “You will take something, of course,” said Miss Noémie, who was sipping a glass of madeira. Newman said thathe believed not, and then she turned to her papa with a smile. “What anhonor, eh? he has come only for us.” M. Nioche drained his pungentglass at a long draught, and looked out from eyes more lachrymose inconsequence. “But you didn’t come for me, eh?” Mademoiselle Noémie wenton. “You didn’t expect to find me here?”
Newman observed the change in her appearance. She was very elegantand prettier than before; she looked a year or two older, and it wasnoticeable that, to the eye, she had only gained in respectability.She looked “lady-like.” She was dressed in quiet colors, and wore herexpensively unobtrusive toilet with a grace that might have come fromyears of practice. Her present self-possession and _aplomb_ struckNewman as really infernal, and he inclined to agree with Valentin deBellegarde that the young lady was very remarkable. “No, to tell thetruth, I didn’t come for you,” he said, “and I didn’t expect to findyou. I was told,” he added in a moment “that you had left your father.”
“_Quelle horreur!_” cried Mademoiselle Nioche with a smile. “Does oneleave one’s father? You have the proof of the contrary.”
“Yes, convincing proof,” said Newman glancing at M. Nioche. The old mancaught his glance obliquely, with his faded, deprecating eye, and then,lifting his empty glass, pretended to drink again.
“Who told you that?” Noémie demanded. “I know very well. It was M. deBellegarde. Why don’t you say yes? You are not polite.”
“I am embarrassed,” said Newman.
“I set you a better example. I know M. de Bellegarde told you. He knowsa great deal about me--or he thinks he does. He has taken a great dealof trouble to find out, but half of it isn’t true. In the first place,I haven’t left my father; I am much too fond of him. Isn’t it so, littlefather? M. de Bellegarde is a charming young man; it is impossible to becleverer. I know a good deal about him too; you can tell him that whenyou next see him.”
“No,” said Newman, with a sturdy grin; “I won�
��t carry any messages foryou.”
“Just as you please,” said Mademoiselle Nioche, “I don’t depend uponyou, nor does M. de Bellegarde either. He is very much interested in me;he can be left to his own devices. He is a contrast to you.”
“Oh, he is a great contrast to me, I have no doubt” said Newman. “But Idon’t exactly know how you mean it.”
“I mean it in this way. First of all, he never offered to help me to a_dot_ and a husband.” And Mademoiselle Nioche paused, smiling. “I won’tsay that is in his favor, for I do you justice. What led you, by theway, to make me such a queer offer? You didn’t care for me.”
“Oh yes, I did,” said Newman.
“How so?”
“It would have given me real pleasure to see you married to arespectable young fellow.”
“With six thousand francs of income!” cried Mademoiselle Nioche. “Doyou call that caring for me? I’m afraid you know little about women. Youwere not _galant_; you were not what you might have been.”
Newman flushed a trifle fiercely. “Come!” he exclaimed “that’s ratherstrong. I had no idea I had been so shabby.”
Mademoiselle Nioche smiled as she took up her muff. “It is something, atany rate, to have made you angry.”
Her father had leaned both his elbows on the table, and his head, bentforward, was supported in his hands, the thin white fingers of whichwere pressed over his ears. In his position he was staring fixedly atthe bottom of his empty glass, and Newman supposed he was not hearing.Mademoiselle Noémie buttoned her furred jacket and pushed back herchair, casting a glance charged with the consciousness of an expensiveappearance first down over her flounces and then up at Newman.
“You had better have remained an honest girl,” Newman said quietly.
M. Nioche continued to stare at the bottom of his glass, and hisdaughter got up, still bravely smiling. “You mean that I look so muchlike one? That’s more than most women do nowadays. Don’t judge me yetawhile,” she added. “I mean to succeed; that’s what I mean to do. Ileave you; I don’t mean to be seen in cafés, for one thing. I can’tthink what you want of my poor father; he’s very comfortable now. Itisn’t his fault, either. _Au revoir_, little father.” And she tapped theold man on the head with her muff. Then she stopped a minute, lookingat Newman. “Tell M. de Bellegarde, when he wants news of me, to comeand get it from _me!_” And she turned and departed, the white-apronedwaiter, with a bow, holding the door wide open for her.
M. Nioche sat motionless, and Newman hardly knew what to say to him. Theold man looked dismally foolish. “So you determined not to shoot her,after all,” Newman said presently.
M. Nioche, without moving, raised his eyes and gave him a long, peculiarlook. It seemed to confess everything, and yet not to ask for pity, norto pretend, on the other hand, to a rugged ability to do without it. Itmight have expressed the state of mind of an innocuous insect, flatin shape and conscious of the impending pressure of a boot-sole, andreflecting that he was perhaps too flat to be crushed. M. Nioche’s gazewas a profession of moral flatness. “You despise me terribly,” he said,in the weakest possible voice.
“Oh no,” said Newman, “it is none of my business. It’s a good plan totake things easily.”
“I made you too many fine speeches,” M. Nioche added. “I meant them atthe time.”
“I am sure I am very glad you didn’t shoot her,” said Newman. “I wasafraid you might have shot yourself. That is why I came to look you up.” And he began to button his coat.
“Neither,” said M. Nioche. “You despise me, and I can’t explain to you.I hoped I shouldn’t see you again.”
“Why, that’s rather shabby,” said Newman. “You shouldn’t drop yourfriends that way. Besides, the last time you came to see me I thoughtyou particularly jolly.”
“Yes, I remember,” said M. Nioche musingly; “I was in a fever. I didn’tknow what I said, what I did. It was delirium.”
“Ah, well, you are quieter now.”
M. Nioche was silent a moment. “As quiet as the grave,” he whisperedsoftly.
“Are you very unhappy?”
M. Nioche rubbed his forehead slowly, and even pushed back his wig alittle, looking askance at his empty glass. “Yes--yes. But that’s an oldstory. I have always been unhappy. My daughter does what she will withme. I take what she gives me, good or bad. I have no spirit, and whenyou have no spirit you must keep quiet. I shan’t trouble you any more.”
“Well,” said Newman, rather disgusted at the smooth operation of the oldman’s philosophy, “that’s as you please.”
M. Nioche seemed to have been prepared to be despised but neverthelesshe made a feeble movement of appeal from Newman’s faint praise. “Afterall,” he said, “she is my daughter, and I can still look after her. Ifshe will do wrong, why she will. But there are many differentpaths, there are degrees. I can give her the benefit--give her thebenefit”--and M. Nioche paused, staring vaguely at Newman, who began tosuspect that his brain had softened--“the benefit of my experience,” M.Nioche added.
“Your experience?” inquired Newman, both amused and amazed.
“My experience of business,” said M. Nioche, gravely.
“Ah, yes,” said Newman, laughing, “that will be a great advantage toher!” And then he said good-bye, and offered the poor, foolish old manhis hand.
M. Nioche took it and leaned back against the wall, holding it a momentand looking up at him. “I suppose you think my wits are going,” hesaid. “Very likely; I have always a pain in my head. That’s why I can’texplain, I can’t tell you. And she’s so strong, she makes me walk as shewill, anywhere! But there’s this--there’s this.” And he stopped, stillstaring up at Newman. His little white eyes expanded and glittered for amoment like those of a cat in the dark. “It’s not as it seems. I haven’tforgiven her. Oh, no!”
“That’s right; don’t,” said Newman. “She’s a bad case.”
“It’s horrible, it’s horrible,” said M. Nioche; “but do you want to knowthe truth? I hate her! I take what she gives me, and I hate hermore. To-day she brought me three hundred francs; they are here in mywaistcoat pocket. Now I hate her almost cruelly. No, I haven’t forgivenher.”
“Why did you accept the money?” Newman asked.
“If I hadn’t,” said M. Nioche, “I should have hated her still more.That’s what misery is. No, I haven’t forgiven her.”
“Take care you don’t hurt her!” said Newman, laughing again. And withthis he took his leave. As he passed along the glazed side of the café,on reaching the street, he saw the old man motioning the waiter, with amelancholy gesture, to replenish his glass.
One day, a week after his visit to the Café de la Patrie, he called uponValentin de Bellegarde, and by good fortune found him at home. Newmanspoke of his interview with M. Nioche and his daughter, and said hewas afraid Valentin had judged the old man correctly. He had found thecouple hobnobbing together in all amity; the old gentleman’s rigor waspurely theoretic. Newman confessed that he was disappointed; he shouldhave expected to see M. Nioche take high ground.
“High ground, my dear fellow,” said Valentin, laughing; “there isno high ground for him to take. The only perceptible eminence in M.Nioche’s horizon is Montmartre, which is not an edifying quarter. Youcan’t go mountaineering in a flat country.”
“He remarked, indeed,” said Newman, “that he has not forgiven her. Butshe’ll never find it out.”
“We must do him the justice to suppose he doesn’t like the thing,” Valentin rejoined. “Mademoiselle Nioche is like the great artists whosebiographies we read, who at the beginning of their career havesuffered opposition in the domestic circle. Their vocation has notbeen recognized by their families, but the world has done it justice.Mademoiselle Nioche has a vocation.”
“Oh, come,” said Newman, impatiently, “you take the little baggage tooseriously.”
“I know I do; but when one has nothing to think about, one must think oflittle baggages. I suppose
it is better to be serious about light thingsthan not to be serious at all. This little baggage entertains me.”
“Oh, she has discovered that. She knows you have been hunting her upand asking questions about her. She is very much tickled by it. That’srather annoying.”
“Annoying, my dear fellow,” laughed Valentin; “not the least!”
“Hanged if I should want to have a greedy little adventuress like thatknow I was giving myself such pains about her!” said Newman.
“A pretty woman is always worth one’s pains,” objected Valentin.“Mademoiselle Nioche is welcome to be tickled by my curiosity, and toknow that I am tickled that she is tickled. She is not so much tickled,by the way.”
“You had better go and tell her,” Newman rejoined. “She gave me amessage for you of some such drift.”
“Bless your quiet imagination,” said Valentin, “I have been to seeher--three times in five days. She is a charming hostess; we talk ofShakespeare and the musical glasses. She is extremely clever and a verycurious type; not at all coarse or wanting to be coarse; determined notto be. She means to take very good care of herself. She is extremelyperfect; she is as hard and clear-cut as some little figure of asea-nymph in an antique intaglio, and I will warrant that she has nota grain more of sentiment or heart than if she was scooped out of abig amethyst. You can’t scratch her even with a diamond.Extremely pretty,--really, when you know her, she is wonderfullypretty,--intelligent, determined, ambitious, unscrupulous, capable oflooking at a man strangled without changing color, she is upon my honor,extremely entertaining.”
“It’s a fine list of attractions,” said Newman; “they would serve as apolice-detective’s description of a favorite criminal. I should sum themup by another word than ‘entertaining.’”
“Why, that is just the word to use. I don’t say she is laudable orlovable. I don’t want her as my wife or my sister. But she is avery curious and ingenious piece of machinery; I like to see it inoperation.”
“Well, I have seen some very curious machines too,” said Newman; “andonce, in a needle factory, I saw a gentleman from the city, who hadstopped too near one of them, picked up as neatly as if he had beenprodded by a fork, swallowed down straight, and ground into smallpieces.”
Re-entering his domicile, late in the evening, three days afterMadame de Bellegarde had made her bargain with him--the expression issufficiently correct--touching the entertainment at which she wasto present him to the world, he found on his table a card of goodlydimensions bearing an announcement that this lady would be at home onthe 27th of the month, at ten o’clock in the evening. He stuck it intothe frame of his mirror and eyed it with some complacency; it seemedan agreeable emblem of triumph, documentary evidence that his prize wasgained. Stretched out in a chair, he was looking at it lovingly, whenValentin de Bellegarde was shown into the room. Valentin’s glancepresently followed the direction of Newman’s, and he perceived hismother’s invitation.
“And what have they put into the corner?” he asked. “Not the customary‘music,’ ‘dancing,’ or _‘tableaux vivants’?_ They ought at least to put‘An American.’”
“Oh, there are to be several of us,” said Newman. “Mrs. Tristram told meto-day that she had received a card and sent an acceptance.”
“Ah, then, with Mrs. Tristram and her husband you will have support. Mymother might have put on her card ‘Three Americans.’ But I suspect youwill not lack amusement. You will see a great many of the best people inFrance. I mean the long pedigrees and the high noses, and all that. Someof them are awful idiots; I advise you to take them up cautiously.”
“Oh, I guess I shall like them,” said Newman. “I am prepared to likeevery one and everything in these days; I am in high good-humor.”
Valentin looked at him a moment in silence and then dropped himself intoa chair with an unwonted air of weariness.
“Happy man!” he said with a sigh. “Take care you don’t becomeoffensive.”
“If anyone chooses to take offense, he may. I have a good conscience,” said Newman.
“So you are really in love with my sister.”
“Yes, sir!” said Newman, after a pause.
“And she also?”
“I guess she likes me,” said Newman.
“What is the witchcraft you have used?” Valentin asked. “How do _you_make love?”
“Oh, I haven’t any general rules,” said Newman. “In any way that seemsacceptable.”
“I suspect that, if one knew it,” said Valentin, laughing, “you are aterrible customer. You walk in seven-league boots.”
“There is something the matter with you to-night,” Newman said inresponse to this. “You are vicious. Spare me all discordant sounds untilafter my marriage. Then, when I have settled down for life, I shall bebetter able to take things as they come.”
“And when does your marriage take place?”
“About six weeks hence.”
Valentin was silent a while, and then he said, “And you feel veryconfident about the future?”
“Confident. I knew what I wanted, exactly, and I know what I have got.”
“You are sure you are going to be happy?”
“Sure?” said Newman. “So foolish a question deserves a foolish answer.Yes!”
“You are not afraid of anything?”
“What should I be afraid of? You can’t hurt me unless you kill me bysome violent means. That I should indeed consider a tremendous sell.I want to live and I mean to live. I can’t die of illness, I am tooridiculously tough; and the time for dying of old age won’t come roundyet a while. I can’t lose my wife, I shall take too good care of her. Imay lose my money, or a large part of it; but that won’t matter, for Ishall make twice as much again. So what have I to be afraid of?”
“You are not afraid it may be rather a mistake for an American man ofbusiness to marry a French countess?”
“For the countess, possibly; but not for the man of business, if youmean me! But my countess shall not be disappointed; I answer forher happiness!” And as if he felt the impulse to celebrate his happycertitude by a bonfire, he got up to throw a couple of logs upon thealready blazing hearth. Valentin watched for a few moments the quickenedflame, and then, with his head leaning on his hand, gave a melancholysigh. “Got a headache?” Newman asked.
“_Je suis triste_,” said Valentin, with Gallic simplicity.
“You are sad, eh? It is about the lady you said the other night that youadored and that you couldn’t marry?”
“Did I really say that? It seemed to me afterwards that the words hadescaped me. Before Claire it was bad taste. But I felt gloomy as Ispoke, and I feel gloomy still. Why did you ever introduce me to thatgirl?”
“Oh, it’s Noémie, is it? Lord deliver us! You don’t mean to say you arelovesick about her?”
“Lovesick, no; it’s not a grand passion. But the cold-blooded littledemon sticks in my thoughts; she has bitten me with those even littleteeth of hers; I feel as if I might turn rabid and do something crazyin consequence. It’s very low, it’s disgustingly low. She’s the mostmercenary little jade in Europe. Yet she really affects my peace ofmind; she is always running in my head. It’s a striking contrast to yournoble and virtuous attachment--a vile contrast! It is rather pitifulthat it should be the best I am able to do for myself at my presentrespectable age. I am a nice young man, eh, _en somme?_ You can’twarrant my future, as you do your own.”
“Drop that girl, short,” said Newman; “don’t go near her again, and yourfuture will do. Come over to America and I will get you a place in abank.”
“It is easy to say drop her,” said Valentin, with a light laugh. “Youcan’t drop a pretty woman like that. One must be polite, even withNoémie. Besides, I’ll not have her suppose I am afraid of her.”
“So, between politeness and vanity, you will get deeper into the mud?Keep them both for something better. Remember, too, that I didn’t wantto introduce you to her; you insisted. I had a sort of uneasy feelingab
out it.”
“Oh, I don’t reproach you,” said Valentin. “Heaven forbid! I wouldn’tfor the world have missed knowing her. She is really extraordinary. Theway she has already spread her wings is amazing. I don’t know when awoman has amused me more. But excuse me,” he added in an instant; “shedoesn’t amuse you, at second hand, and the subject is an impure one.Let us talk of something else.” Valentin introduced another topic, butwithin five minutes Newman observed that, by a bold transition, he hadreverted to Mademoiselle Nioche, and was giving pictures of her mannersand quoting specimens of her _mots_. These were very witty, and, fora young woman who six months before had been painting the most artlessmadonnas, startlingly cynical. But at last, abruptly, he stopped, becamethoughtful, and for some time afterwards said nothing. When he rose togo it was evident that his thoughts were still running upon MademoiselleNioche. “Yes, she’s a frightful little monster!” he said.