by Henry James
CHAPTER XXIV
Sunday was as yet two days off; but meanwhile, to beguile hisimpatience, Newman took his way to the Avenue de Messine and gotwhat comfort he could in staring at the blank outer wall of Madame deCintré’s present residence. The street in question, as some travelerswill remember, adjoins the Parc Monceau, which is one of the prettiestcorners of Paris. The quarter has an air of modern opulence andconvenience which seems at variance with the ascetic institution,and the impression made upon Newman’s gloomily-irritated gaze by thefresh-looking, windowless expanse behind which the woman he loved wasperhaps even then pledging herself to pass the rest of her days was lessexasperating than he had feared. The place suggested a convent with themodern improvements--an asylum in which privacy, though unbroken,might be not quite identical with privation, and meditation, thoughmonotonous, might be of a cheerful cast. And yet he knew the case wasotherwise; only at present it was not a reality to him. It was toostrange and too mocking to be real; it was like a page torn out of aromance, with no context in his own experience.
On Sunday morning, at the hour which Mrs. Tristram had indicated, herang at the gate in the blank wall. It instantly opened and admittedhim into a clean, cold-looking court, from beyond which a dull, plainedifice looked down upon him. A robust lay sister with a cheerfulcomplexion emerged from a porter’s lodge, and, on his stating hiserrand, pointed to the open door of the chapel, an edifice whichoccupied the right side of the court and was preceded by the high flightof steps. Newman ascended the steps and immediately entered the opendoor. Service had not yet begun; the place was dimly lighted, and it wassome moments before he could distinguish its features. Then he saw itwas divided by a large close iron screen into two unequal portions.The altar was on the hither side of the screen, and between it and theentrance were disposed several benches and chairs. Three or four ofthese were occupied by vague, motionless figures--figures that hepresently perceived to be women, deeply absorbed in their devotion. Theplace seemed to Newman very cold; the smell of the incense itself wascold. Besides this there was a twinkle of tapers and here and there aglow of colored glass. Newman seated himself; the praying women keptstill, with their backs turned. He saw they were visitors like himselfand he would have liked to see their faces; for he believed that theywere the mourning mothers and sisters of other women who had had thesame pitiless courage as Madame de Cintré. But they were better offthan he, for they at least shared the faith to which the others hadsacrificed themselves. Three or four persons came in; two of them wereelderly gentlemen. Everyone was very quiet. Newman fastened his eyesupon the screen behind the altar. That was the convent, the realconvent, the place where she was. But he could see nothing; no lightcame through the crevices. He got up and approached the partition verygently, trying to look through. But behind it there was darkness, withnothing stirring. He went back to his place, and after that a priest andtwo altar boys came in and began to say mass.
Newman watched their genuflections and gyrations with a grim, stillenmity; they seemed aids and abettors of Madame de Cintré’s desertionthey were mouthing and droning out their triumph. The priest’s long,dismal intonings acted upon his nerves and deepened his wrath; therewas something defiant in his unintelligible drawl; it seemed meant forNewman himself. Suddenly there arose from the depths of the chapel, frombehind the inexorable grating, a sound which drew his attention fromthe altar--the sound of a strange, lugubrious chant, uttered by women’svoices. It began softly, but it presently grew louder, and as itincreased it became more of a wail and a dirge. It was the chant ofthe Carmelite nuns, their only human utterance. It was their dirge overtheir buried affections and over the vanity of earthly desires. At firstNewman was bewildered--almost stunned--by the strangeness of the sound;then, as he comprehended its meaning, he listened intently and his heartbegan to throb. He listened for Madame de Cintré’s voice, and in thevery heart of the tuneless harmony he imagined he made it out. (We areobliged to believe that he was wrong, inasmuch as she had obviously notyet had time to become a member of the invisible sisterhood.) Thechant kept on, mechanical and monotonous, with dismal repetitions anddespairing cadences. It was hideous, it was horrible; as it continued,Newman felt that he needed all his self-control. He was growing moreagitated; he felt tears in his eyes. At last, as in its full force thethought came over him that this confused, impersonal wail was all thateither he or the world she had deserted should ever hear of the voicehe had found so sweet, he felt that he could bear it no longer. He roseabruptly and made his way out. On the threshold he paused, listenedagain to the dreary strain, and then hastily descended into the court.As he did so he saw the good sister with the high-colored cheeks and thefanlike frill to her coiffure, who had admitted him, was in conferenceat the gate with two persons who had just come in. A second glanceinformed him that these persons were Madame de Bellegarde and her son,and that they were about to avail themselves of that method of approachto Madame de Cintré which Newman had found but a mockery of consolation.As he crossed the court M. de Bellegarde recognized him; the marquis wascoming to the steps, leading his mother. The old lady also gave Newmana look, and it resembled that of her son. Both faces expressed a frankerperturbation, something more akin to the humbleness of dismay, thanNewman had yet seen in them. Evidently he startled the Bellegardes, andthey had not their grand behavior immediately in hand. Newman hurriedpast them, guided only by the desire to get out of the convent walls andinto the street. The gate opened itself at his approach; he strode overthe threshold and it closed behind him. A carriage which appeared tohave been standing there, was just turning away from the sidewalk.Newman looked at it for a moment, blankly; then he became conscious,through the dusky mist that swam before his eyes, that a lady seated init was bowing to him. The vehicle had turned away before he recognizedher; it was an ancient landau with one half the cover lowered. Thelady’s bow was very positive and accompanied with a smile; a little girlwas seated beside her. He raised his hat, and then the lady bade thecoachman stop. The carriage halted again beside the pavement, and shesat there and beckoned to Newman--beckoned with the demonstrative graceof Madame Urbain de Bellegarde. Newman hesitated a moment beforehe obeyed her summons, during this moment he had time to curse hisstupidity for letting the others escape him. He had been wondering howhe could get at them; fool that he was for not stopping them then andthere! What better place than beneath the very prison walls to whichthey had consigned the promise of his joy? He had been too bewilderedto stop them, but now he felt ready to wait for them at the gate. MadameUrbain, with a certain attractive petulance, beckoned to him again, andthis time he went over to the carriage. She leaned out and gave him herhand, looking at him kindly, and smiling.
“Ah, monsieur,” she said, “you don’t include me in your wrath? I hadnothing to do with it.”
“Oh, I don’t suppose _you_ could have prevented it!” Newman answered ina tone which was not that of studied gallantry.
“What you say is too true for me to resent the small account it makes ofmy influence. I forgive you, at any rate, because you look as if you hadseen a ghost.”
“I have!” said Newman.
“I am glad, then, I didn’t go in with Madame de Bellegarde and myhusband. You must have seen them, eh? Was the meeting affectionate?Did you hear the chanting? They say it’s like the lamentations of thedamned. I wouldn’t go in: one is certain to hear that soon enough. PoorClaire--in a white shroud and a big brown cloak! That’s the _toilette_of the Carmelites, you know. Well, she was always fond of long, loosethings. But I must not speak of her to you; only I must say that I amvery sorry for you, that if I could have helped you I would, and thatI think everyone has been very shabby. I was afraid of it, you know; Ifelt it in the air for a fortnight before it came. When I saw you atmy mother-in-law’s ball, taking it all so easily, I felt as if you weredancing on your grave. But what could I do? I wish you all the good Ican think of. You will say that isn’t much! Yes; they have been veryshabby; I am not a bit afraid to say it; I as
sure you everyone thinksso. We are not all like that. I am sorry I am not going to see youagain; you know I think you very good company. I would prove it byasking you to get into the carriage and drive with me for a quarterof an hour, while I wait for my mother-in-law. Only if we wereseen--considering what has passed, and everyone knows you have beenturned away--it might be thought I was going a little too far, even forme. But I shall see you sometimes--somewhere, eh? You know”--this wassaid in English--“we have a plan for a little amusement.”
Newman stood there with his hand on the carriage-door listening to thisconsolatory murmur with an unlighted eye. He hardly knew what Madamede Bellegarde was saying; he was only conscious that she was chatteringineffectively. But suddenly it occurred to him that, with her prettyprofessions, there was a way of making her effective; she might helphim to get at the old woman and the marquis. “They are coming backsoon--your companions?” he said. “You are waiting for them?”
“They will hear the mass out; there is nothing to keep them longer.Claire has refused to see them.”
“I want to speak to them,” said Newman; “and you can help me, you can dome a favor. Delay your return for five minutes and give me a chance atthem. I will wait for them here.”
Madame de Bellegarde clasped her hands with a tender grimace. “My poorfriend, what do you want to do to them? To beg them to come back to you?It will be wasted words. They will never come back!”
“I want to speak to them, all the same. Pray do what I ask you. Stayaway and leave them to me for five minutes; you needn’t be afraid; Ishall not be violent; I am very quiet.”
“Yes, you look very quiet! If they had _le cœur tendre_ you would movethem. But they haven’t! However, I will do better for you than what youpropose. The understanding is not that I shall come back for them. I amgoing into the Parc Monceau with my little girl to give her a walk, andmy mother-in-law, who comes so rarely into this quarter, is to profitby the same opportunity to take the air. We are to wait for her in thepark, where my husband is to bring her to us. Follow me now; just withinthe gates I shall get out of my carriage. Sit down on a chair in somequiet corner and I will bring them near you. There’s devotion for you!_Le reste vous regarde_.”
This proposal seemed to Newman extremely felicitous; it revived hisdrooping spirit, and he reflected that Madame Urbain was not such agoose as she seemed. He promised immediately to overtake her, and thecarriage drove away.
The Parc Monceau is a very pretty piece of landscape-gardening, butNewman, passing into it, bestowed little attention upon its elegantvegetation, which was full of the freshness of spring. He found Madamede Bellegarde promptly, seated in one of the quiet corners of which shehad spoken, while before her, in the alley, her little girl, attended bythe footman and the lap-dog, walked up and down as if she were taking alesson in deportment. Newman sat down beside the mamma, and she talkeda great deal, apparently with the design of convincing him that--ifhe would only see it--poor dear Claire did not belong to the mostfascinating type of woman. She was too tall and thin, too stiff andcold; her mouth was too wide and her nose too narrow. She had no dimplesanywhere. And then she was eccentric, eccentric in cold blood; she wasan Anglaise, after all. Newman was very impatient; he was counting theminutes until his victims should reappear. He sat silent, leaning uponhis cane, looking absently and insensibly at the little marquise. Atlength Madame de Bellegarde said she would walk toward the gate of thepark and meet her companions; but before she went she dropped her eyes,and, after playing a moment with the lace of her sleeve, looked up againat Newman.
“Do you remember,” she asked, “the promise you made me three weeksago?” And then, as Newman, vainly consulting his memory, was obliged toconfess that the promise had escaped it, she declared that he had madeher, at the time, a very queer answer--an answer at which, viewing itin the light of the sequel, she had fair ground for taking offense.“You promised to take me to Bullier’s after your marriage. After yourmarriage--you made a great point of that. Three days after that yourmarriage was broken off. Do you know, when I heard the news, thefirst thing I said to myself? ‘Oh heaven, now he won’t go with me toBullier’s!’ And I really began to wonder if you had not been expectingthe rupture.”
“Oh, my dear lady,” murmured Newman, looking down the path to see if theothers were not coming.
“I shall be good-natured,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “One must not asktoo much of a gentleman who is in love with a cloistered nun. Besides,I can’t go to Bullier’s while we are in mourning. But I haven’t givenit up for that. The _partie_ is arranged; I have my cavalier. LordDeepmere, if you please! He has gone back to his dear Dublin; but afew months hence I am to name any evening and he will come over fromIreland, on purpose. That’s what I call gallantry!”
Shortly after this Madame de Bellegarde walked away with her littlegirl. Newman sat in his place; the time seemed terribly long. He felthow fiercely his quarter of an hour in the convent chapel had rakedover the glowing coals of his resentment. Madame de Bellegarde kept himwaiting, but she proved as good as her word. At last she reappeared atthe end of the path, with her little girl and her footman; beside herslowly walked her husband, with his mother on his arm. They were a longtime advancing, during which Newman sat unmoved. Tingling as he waswith passion, it was extremely characteristic of him that he was ableto moderate his expression of it, as he would have turned down a flaringgas-burner. His native coolness, shrewdness, and deliberateness, hislife-long submissiveness to the sentiment that words were acts and actswere steps in life, and that in this matter of taking stepscurveting and prancing were exclusively reserved for quadrupedsand foreigners--all this admonished him that rightful wrath had noconnection with being a fool and indulging in spectacular violence. Soas he rose, when old Madame de Bellegarde and her son were close tohim, he only felt very tall and light. He had been sitting beside someshrubbery, in such a way as not to be noticeable at a distance; but M.de Bellegarde had evidently already perceived him. His mother and hewere holding their course, but Newman stepped in front of them, and theywere obliged to pause. He lifted his hat slightly, and looked at themfor a moment; they were pale with amazement and disgust.
“Excuse me for stopping you,” he said in a low tone, “but I must profitby the occasion. I have ten words to say to you. Will you listen tothem?”
The marquis glared at him and then turned to his mother. “Can Mr. Newmanpossibly have anything to say that is worth our listening to?”
“I assure you I have something,” said Newman, “besides, it is my duty tosay it. It’s a notification--a warning.”
“Your duty?” said old Madame de Bellegarde, her thin lips curving likescorched paper. “That is your affair, not ours.”
Madame Urbain meanwhile had seized her little girl by the hand, with agesture of surprise and impatience which struck Newman, intent as he wasupon his own words, with its dramatic effectiveness. “If Mr. Newman isgoing to make a scene in public,” she exclaimed, “I will take my poorchild out of the _mêlée_. She is too young to see such naughtiness!” andshe instantly resumed her walk.
“You had much better listen to me,” Newman went on. “Whether you do ornot, things will be disagreeable for you; but at any rate you will beprepared.”
“We have already heard something of your threats,” said the marquis,“and you know what we think of them.”
“You think a good deal more than you admit. A moment,” Newman added inreply to an exclamation of the old lady. “I remember perfectly that weare in a public place, and you see I am very quiet. I am not going totell your secret to the passers-by; I shall keep it, to begin with, forcertain picked listeners. Anyone who observes us will think that we arehaving a friendly chat, and that I am complimenting you, madam, on yourvenerable virtues.”
The marquis gave three short sharp raps on the ground with his stick. “Idemand of you to step out of our path!” he hissed.
Newman instantly complied, and M. de Bellegarde stepped forward with hismother
. Then Newman said, “Half an hour hence Madame de Bellegarde willregret that she didn’t learn exactly what I mean.”
The marquise had taken a few steps, but at these words she paused,looking at Newman with eyes like two scintillating globules of ice. “Youare like a peddler with something to sell,” she said, with a little coldlaugh which only partially concealed the tremor in her voice.
“Oh, no, not to sell,” Newman rejoined; “I give it to you for nothing.” And he approached nearer to her, looking her straight in the eyes. “Youkilled your husband,” he said, almost in a whisper. “That is, you triedonce and failed, and then, without trying, you succeeded.”
Madame de Bellegarde closed her eyes and gave a little cough, which, asa piece of dissimulation, struck Newman as really heroic. “Dear mother,” said the marquis, “does this stuff amuse you so much?”
“The rest is more amusing,” said Newman. “You had better not lose it.”
Madame de Bellegarde opened her eyes; the scintillations had gone out ofthem; they were fixed and dead. But she smiled superbly with her narrowlittle lips, and repeated Newman’s word. “Amusing? Have I killed someoneelse?”
“I don’t count your daughter,” said Newman, “though I might! Yourhusband knew what you were doing. I have a proof of it whose existenceyou have never suspected.” And he turned to the marquis, who wasterribly white--whiter than Newman had ever seen anyone out of apicture. “A paper written by the hand, and signed with the name, ofHenri-Urbain de Bellegarde. Written after you, madam, had left him fordead, and while you, sir, had gone--not very fast--for the doctor.”
The marquis looked at his mother; she turned away, looking vaguely roundher. “I must sit down,” she said in a low tone, going toward the benchon which Newman had been sitting.
“Couldn’t you have spoken to me alone?” said the marquis to Newman, witha strange look.
“Well, yes, if I could have been sure of speaking to your mother alone,too,” Newman answered. “But I have had to take you as I could get you.”
Madame de Bellegarde, with a movement very eloquent of what he wouldhave called her “grit,” her steel-cold pluck and her instinctive appealto her own personal resources, drew her hand out of her son’s arm andwent and seated herself upon the bench. There she remained, with herhands folded in her lap, looking straight at Newman. The expression ofher face was such that he fancied at first that she was smiling; but hewent and stood in front of her and saw that her elegant features weredistorted by agitation. He saw, however, equally, that she was resistingher agitation with all the rigor of her inflexible will, and there wasnothing like either fear or submission in her stony stare. She had beenstartled, but she was not terrified. Newman had an exasperating feelingthat she would get the better of him still; he would not have believedit possible that he could so utterly fail to be touched by the sight ofa woman (criminal or other) in so tight a place. Madame de Bellegardegave a glance at her son which seemed tantamount to an injunction to besilent and leave her to her own devices. The marquis stood beside her,with his hands behind him, looking at Newman.
“What paper is this you speak of?” asked the old lady, with an imitationof tranquillity which would have been applauded in a veteran actress.
“Exactly what I have told you,” said Newman. “A paper written by yourhusband after you had left him for dead, and during the couple of hoursbefore you returned. You see he had the time; you shouldn’t have stayedaway so long. It declares distinctly his wife’s murderous intent.”
“I should like to see it,” Madame de Bellegarde observed.
“I thought you might,” said Newman, “and I have taken a copy.” And hedrew from his waistcoat pocket a small, folded sheet.
“Give it to my son,” said Madame de Bellegarde. Newman handed it to themarquis, whose mother, glancing at him, said simply, “Look at it.” M. deBellegarde’s eyes had a pale eagerness which it was useless for him totry to dissimulate; he took the paper in his light-gloved fingers andopened it. There was a silence, during which he read it. He had morethan time to read it, but still he said nothing; he stood staring at it.“Where is the original?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a voice whichwas really a consummate negation of impatience.
“In a very safe place. Of course I can’t show you that,” said Newman.“You might want to take hold of it,” he added with conscious quaintness.“But that’s a very correct copy--except, of course, the handwriting. Iam keeping the original to show someone else.”
M. de Bellegarde at last looked up, and his eyes were still very eager.“To whom do you mean to show it?”
“Well, I’m thinking of beginning with the duchess,” said Newman; “thatstout lady I saw at your ball. She asked me to come and see her, youknow. I thought at the moment I shouldn’t have much to say to her; butmy little document will give us something to talk about.”
“You had better keep it, my son,” said Madame de Bellegarde.
“By all means,” said Newman; “keep it and show it to your mother whenyou get home.”
“And after showing it to the duchess?”--asked the marquis, folding thepaper and putting it away.
“Well, I’ll take up the dukes,” said Newman. “Then the counts and thebarons--all the people you had the cruelty to introduce me to in acharacter of which you meant immediately to deprive me. I have made outa list.”
For a moment neither Madame de Bellegarde nor her son said a word; theold lady sat with her eyes upon the ground; M. de Bellegarde’s blanchedpupils were fixed upon her face. Then, looking at Newman, “Is that allyou have to say?” she asked.
“No, I want to say a few words more. I want to say that I hope youquite understand what I’m about. This is my revenge, you know. You havetreated me before the world--convened for the express purpose--as if Iwere not good enough for you. I mean to show the world that, however badI may be, you are not quite the people to say it.”
Madame de Bellegarde was silent again, and then she broke her silence.Her self-possession continued to be extraordinary. “I needn’t ask youwho has been your accomplice. Mrs. Bread told me that you had purchasedher services.”
“Don’t accuse Mrs. Bread of venality,” said Newman. “She has kept yoursecret all these years. She has given you a long respite. It was beneathher eyes your husband wrote that paper; he put it into her hands witha solemn injunction that she was to make it public. She was toogood-hearted to make use of it.”
The old lady appeared for an instant to hesitate, and then, “She was myhusband’s mistress,” she said, softly. This was the only concession toself-defense that she condescended to make.
“I doubt that,” said Newman.
Madame de Bellegarde got up from her bench. “It was not to your opinionsI undertook to listen, and if you have nothing left but them to tellme I think this remarkable interview may terminate.” And turning to themarquis she took his arm again. “My son,” she said, “say something!”
M. de Bellegarde looked down at his mother, passing his hand over hisforehead, and then, tenderly, caressingly, “What shall I say?” he asked.
“There is only one thing to say,” said the Marquise. “That it was reallynot worth while to have interrupted our walk.”
But the marquis thought he could improve this. “Your paper’s a forgery,” he said to Newman.
Newman shook his head a little, with a tranquil smile. “M. deBellegarde,” he said, “your mother does better. She has done better allalong, from the first of my knowing you. You’re a mighty plucky woman,madam,” he continued. “It’s a great pity you have made me your enemy. Ishould have been one of your greatest admirers.”
“_Mon pauvre ami_,” said Madame de Bellegarde to her son in French, andas if she had not heard these words, “you must take me immediately to mycarriage.”
Newman stepped back and let them leave him; he watched them a moment andsaw Madame Urbain, with her little girl, come out of a by-path to meetthem. The old lady stooped and kissed her grandchild. “Damn it, she
_is_plucky!” said Newman, and he walked home with a slight sense of beingbalked. She was so inexpressively defiant! But on reflection he decidedthat what he had witnessed was no real sense of security, still less areal innocence. It was only a very superior style of brazen assurance.“Wait till she reads the paper!” he said to himself; and he concludedthat he should hear from her soon.
He heard sooner than he expected. The next morning, before midday,when he was about to give orders for his breakfast to be served, M. deBellegarde’s card was brought to him. “She has read the paper and shehas passed a bad night,” said Newman. He instantly admitted his visitor,who came in with the air of the ambassador of a great power meeting thedelegate of a barbarous tribe whom an absurd accident had enabled forthe moment to be abominably annoying. The ambassador, at all events, hadpassed a bad night, and his faultlessly careful toilet only threwinto relief the frigid rancor in his eyes and the mottled tones of hisrefined complexion. He stood before Newman a moment, breathing quicklyand softly, and shaking his forefinger curtly as his host pointed to achair.
“What I have come to say is soon said,” he declared “and can only besaid without ceremony.”
“I am good for as much or for as little as you desire,” said Newman.
The marquis looked round the room a moment, and then, “On what termswill you part with your scrap of paper?”
“On none!” And while Newman, with his head on one side and his handsbehind him sounded the marquis’s turbid gaze with his own, he added,“Certainly, that is not worth sitting down about.”
M. de Bellegarde meditated a moment, as if he had not heard Newman’srefusal. “My mother and I, last evening,” he said, “talked over yourstory. You will be surprised to learn that we think your little documentis--a”--and he held back his word a moment--“is genuine.”
“You forget that with you I am used to surprises!” exclaimed Newman,with a laugh.
“The very smallest amount of respect that we owe to my father’s memory,” the marquis continued, “makes us desire that he should not be held up tothe world as the author of so--so infernal an attack upon the reputationof a wife whose only fault was that she had been submissive toaccumulated injury.”
“Oh, I see,” said Newman. “It’s for your father’s sake.” And he laughedthe laugh in which he indulged when he was most amused--a noiselesslaugh, with his lips closed.
But M. de Bellegarde’s gravity held good. “There are a few of myfather’s particular friends for whom the knowledge of so--so unfortunatean--inspiration--would be a real grief. Even say we firmly establishedby medical evidence the presumption of a mind disordered by fever, _ilen resterait quelque chose_. At the best it would look ill in him. Veryill!”
“Don’t try medical evidence,” said Newman. “Don’t touch the doctors andthey won’t touch you. I don’t mind your knowing that I have not writtento them.”
Newman fancied that he saw signs in M. de Bellegarde’s discolored maskthat this information was extremely pertinent. But it may have beenmerely fancy; for the marquis remained majestically argumentative. “Forinstance, Madame d’Outreville,” he said, “of whom you spoke yesterday. Ican imagine nothing that would shock her more.”
“Oh, I am quite prepared to shock Madame d’Outreville, you know. That’son the cards. I expect to shock a great many people.”
M. de Bellegarde examined for a moment the stitching on the back of oneof his gloves. Then, without looking up, “We don’t offer you money,” hesaid. “That we supposed to be useless.”
Newman, turning away, took a few turns about the room and then cameback. “What _do_ you offer me? By what I can make out, the generosity isall to be on my side.”
The marquis dropped his arms at his side and held his head a littlehigher. “What we offer you is a chance--a chance that a gentleman shouldappreciate. A chance to abstain from inflicting a terrible blot upon thememory of a man who certainly had his faults, but who, personally, haddone you no wrong.”
“There are two things to say to that,” said Newman. “The first is,as regards appreciating your ‘chance,’ that you don’t consider me agentleman. That’s your great point you know. It’s a poor rule that won’twork both ways. The second is that--well, in a word, you are talkinggreat nonsense!”
Newman, who in the midst of his bitterness had, as I have said, keptwell before his eyes a certain ideal of saying nothing rude, wasimmediately somewhat regretfully conscious of the sharpness of thesewords. But he speedily observed that the marquis took them more quietlythan might have been expected. M. de Bellegarde, like the statelyambassador that he was, continued the policy of ignoring what wasdisagreeable in his adversary’s replies. He gazed at the gildedarabesques on the opposite wall, and then presently transferred hisglance to Newman, as if he too were a large grotesque in a rathervulgar system of chamber-decoration. “I suppose you know that as regardsyourself it won’t do at all.”
“How do you mean it won’t do?”
“Why, of course you damn yourself. But I suppose that’s in yourprogramme. You propose to throw mud at us; you believe, you hope, thatsome of it may stick. We know, of course, it can’t,” explained themarquis in a tone of conscious lucidity; “but you take the chance, andare willing at any rate to show that you yourself have dirty hands.”
“That’s a good comparison at least half of it is,” said Newman. “Itake the chance of something sticking. But as regards my hands, they areclean. I have taken the matter up with my finger-tips.”
M. de Bellegarde looked a moment into his hat. “All our friends arequite with us,” he said. “They would have done exactly as we have done.”
“I shall believe that when I hear them say it. Meanwhile I shall thinkbetter of human nature.”
The marquis looked into his hat again. “Madame de Cintré was extremelyfond of her father. If she knew of the existence of the few writtenwords of which you propose to make this scandalous use, she would demandof you proudly for his sake to give it up to her, and she would destroyit without reading it.”
“Very possibly,” Newman rejoined. “But she will not know. I was in thatconvent yesterday and I know what _she_ is doing. Lord deliver us! Youcan guess whether it made me feel forgiving!”
M. de Bellegarde appeared to have nothing more to suggest; but hecontinued to stand there, rigid and elegant, as a man who believed thathis mere personal presence had an argumentative value. Newmanwatched him, and, without yielding an inch on the main issue, felt anincongruously good-natured impulse to help him to retreat in good order.
“Your visit’s a failure, you see,” he said. “You offer too little.”
“Propose something yourself,” said the marquis.
“Give me back Madame de Cintré in the same state in which you took herfrom me.”
M. de Bellegarde threw back his head and his pale face flushed. “Never!” he said.
“You can’t!”
“We wouldn’t if we could! In the sentiment which led us to deprecate hermarriage nothing is changed.”
“‘Deprecate’ is good!” cried Newman. “It was hardly worth while to comehere only to tell me that you are not ashamed of yourselves. I couldhave guessed that!”
The marquis slowly walked toward the door, and Newman, following, openedit for him. “What you propose to do will be very disagreeable,” M. deBellegarde said. “That is very evident. But it will be nothing more.”
“As I understand it,” Newman answered, “that will be quite enough!”
M. de Bellegarde stood for a moment looking on the ground, as if hewere ransacking his ingenuity to see what else he could do to save hisfather’s reputation. Then, with a little cold sigh, he seemed to signifythat he regretfully surrendered the late marquis to the penalty of histurpitude. He gave a hardly perceptible shrug, took his neat umbrellafrom the servant in the vestibule, and, with his gentlemanly walk,passed out. Newman stood listening till he heard the door close; then heslowly exclaimed, “Well, I ought to begin to be satisfied no
w!”