Madame de Cintre was bending a listening head to the historic confidences of an old lady who was presumably the wife of the old gentleman in the neckcloth, an old lady in a red satin dress and an ermine cape, who wore across her forehead a band with a topaz set in it.Young Madame de Bellegarde, when Newman came in, left some people among whom she was sitting, and took the place that she had occupied before dinner.
Then she gave a little push to the puff that stood near her, and by a glance at Newman seemed to indicate that she had placed it in position for him.He went and took possession of it;the marquis's wife amused and puzzled him.
"I know your secret," she said, in her bad but charming English;"you need make no mystery of it.You wish to marry my sister-in-law.
C'est un beau choix.A man like you ought to marry a tall, thin woman.
You must know that I have spoken in your favor; you owe me a famous taper!""You have spoken to Madame de Cintre?" said Newman.
"Oh no, not that.You may think it strange, but my sister-in-law and I are not so intimate as that.No; I spoke to my husband and my mother-in-law;I said I was sure we could do what we chose with you.""I am much, obliged to you," said Newman, laughing; "but you can't.""I know that very well; I didn't believe a word of it.
But I wanted you to come into the house; I thought we should be friends.""I am very sure of it," said Newman.
"Don't be too sure.If you like Madame de Cintre so much, perhaps you will not like me.We are as different as blue and pink.
But you and I have something in common.I have come into this family by marriage; you want to come into it in the same way.""Oh no, I don't!" interrupted Newman."I only want to take Madame de Cintre out of it.""Well, to cast your nets you have to go into the water.
Our positions are alike; we shall be able to compare notes.
What do you think of my husband? It's a strange question, isn't it?
But I shall ask you some stranger ones yet.""Perhaps a stranger one will be easier to answer," said Newman.
"You might try me."
"Oh, you get off very well; the old Comte de la Rochefidele, yonder, couldn't do it better.I told them that if we only gave you a chance you would be a perfect talon rouge.I know something about men.Besides, you and I belong to the same camp.
I am a ferocious democrat.By birth I am vieille roche; a good little bit of the history of France is the history of my family.
Oh, you never heard of us, of course! Ce que c'est que la gloire!
We are much better than the Bellegardes, at any rate.
But I don't care a pin for my pedigree; I want to belong to my time.
I'm a revolutionist, a radical, a child of the age!
I am sure I go beyond you.I like clever people, wherever they come from, and I take my amusement wherever I find it.
I don't pout at the Empire; here all the world pouts at the Empire.
Of course I have to mind what I say; but I expect to take my revenge with you." Madame de Bellegarde discoursed for some time longer in this sympathetic strain, with an eager abundance which seemed to indicate that her opportunities for revealing her esoteric philosophy were indeed rare.She hoped that Newman would never be afraid of her, however he might be with the others, for, really, she went very far indeed."Strong people"--le gens forts--were in her opinion equal, all the world over.
Newman listened to her with an attention at once beguiled and irritated.
He wondered what the deuce she, too, was driving at, with her hope that he would not be afraid of her and her protestations of equality.
In so far as he could understand her, she was wrong; a silly, rattling woman was certainly not the equal of a sensible man, preoccupied with an ambitious passion.Madame de Bellegarde stopped suddenly, and looked at him sharply, shaking her fan.
"I see you don't believe me," she said, "you are too much on your guard.
You will not form an alliance, offensive or defensive?
You are very wrong; I could help you."
Newman answered that he was very grateful and that he would certainly ask for help; she should see."But first of all," he said, "I must help myself."And he went to join Madame de Cintre.
"I have been telling Madame de la Rochefidele that you are an American," she said, as he came up."It interests her greatly.
Her father went over with the French troops to help you in your battles in the last century, and she has always, in consequence, wanted greatly to see an American.
But she has never succeeded till to-night.You are the first--to her knowledge--that she has ever looked at."Madame de la Rochefidele had an aged, cadaverous face, with a falling of the lower jaw which prevented her from bringing her lips together, and reduced her conversations to a series of impressive but inarticulate gutturals.
She raised an antique eyeglass, elaborately mounted in chased silver, and looked at Newman from head to foot.
Then she said something to which he listened deferentially, but which he completely failed to understand.
"Madame de la Rochefidele says that she is convinced that she must have seen Americans without knowing it," Madame de Cintre explained.
Newman thought it probable she had seen a great many things without knowing it; and the old lady, again addressing herself to utterance, declared--as interpreted by Madame de Cintre--that she wished she had known it.
At this moment the old gentleman who had been talking to the elder Madame de Bellegarde drew near, leading the marquise on his arm.
His wife pointed out Newman to him, apparently explaining his remarkable origin.M.de la Rochefidele, whose old age was rosy and rotund, spoke very neatly and clearly, almost as prettily, Newman thought, as M.Nioche.When he had been enlightened, he turned to Newman with an inimitable elderly grace.
"Monsieur is by no means the first American that I have seen," he said.
"Almost the first person I ever saw--to notice him--was an American.""Ah?" said Newman, sympathetically.
"The great Dr.Franklin," said M.de la Rochefidele.