One afternoon, on his calling on Madame de Cintre, Newman was requested by the servant to wait a few moments, as his hostess was not at liberty.He walked about the room a while, taking up her books, smelling her flowers, and looking at her prints and photographs (which he thought prodigiously pretty), and at last he heard the opening of a door to which his back was turned.
On the threshold stood an old woman whom he remembered to have met several times in entering and leaving the house.
She was tall and straight and dressed in black, and she wore a cap which, if Newman had been initiated into such mysteries, would have been a sufficient assurance that she was not a Frenchwoman;a cap of pure British composition.She had a pale, decent, depressed-looking face, and a clear, dull, English eye.
She looked at Newman a moment, both intently and timidly, and then she dropped a short, straight English curtsey.
"Madame de Cintre begs you will kindly wait," she said.
"She has just come in; she will soon have finished dressing.""Oh, I will wait as long as she wants," said Newman.
"Pray tell her not to hurry."
"Thank you, sir," said the woman, softly; and then, instead of retiring with her message, she advanced into the room.She looked about her for a moment, and presently went to a table and began to arrange certain books and knick-knacks.Newman was struck with the high respectability of her appearance; he was afraid to address her as a servant.
She busied herself for some moments with putting the table in order and pulling the curtains straight, while Newman walked slowly to and fro.
He perceived at last from her reflection in the mirror, as he was passing that her hands were idle and that she was looking at him intently.
She evidently wished to say something, and Newman, perceiving it, helped her to begin.
"You are English?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, please," she answered, quickly and softly;"I was born in Wiltshire."
"And what do you think of Paris?"
"Oh, I don't think of Paris, sir," she said in the same tone.
"It is so long since I have been here."
"Ah, you have been here very long?"
"It is more than forty years, sir.I came over with Lady Emmeline.""You mean with old Madame de Bellegarde?""Yes, sir.I came with her when she was married.
I was my lady's own woman."
"And you have been with her ever since?"
"I have been in the house ever since.My lady has taken a younger person.
You see I am very old.I do nothing regular now.But I keep about.""You look very strong and well," said Newman, observing the erectness of her figure, and a certain venerable rosiness in her cheek.
"Thank God I am not ill, sir; I hope I know my duty too well to go panting and coughing about the house.
But I am an old woman, sir, and it is as an old woman that Iventure to speak to you."
"Oh, speak out," said Newman, curiously."You needn't be afraid of me.""Yes, sir.I think you are kind.I have seen you before.""On the stairs, you mean?"
"Yes, sir.When you have been coming to see the countess.
I have taken the liberty of noticing that you come often.""Oh yes; I come very often," said Newman, laughing."You need not have been wide-awake to notice that.""I have noticed it with pleasure, sir," said the ancient tire-woman, gravely.
And she stood looking at Newman with a strange expression of face.
The old instinct of deference and humility was there; the habit of decent self-effacement and knowledge of her "own place." But there mingled with it a certain mild audacity, born of the occasion and of a sense, probably, of Newman's unprecedented approachableness, and, beyond this, a vague indifference to the old proprieties; as if my lady's own woman had at last begun to reflect that, since my lady had taken another person, she had a slight reversionary property in herself.
"You take a great interest in the family?" said Newman.
"A deep interest, sir.Especially in the countess.""I am glad of that," said Newman.And in a moment he added, smiling, "So do I!""So I suppose, sir.We can't help noticing these things and having our ideas;can we, sir?"
"You mean as a servant?" said Newman.
"Ah, there it is, sir.I am afraid that when I let my thoughts meddle with such matters I am no longer a servant.
But I am so devoted to the countess; if she were my own child Icouldn't love her more.That is how I come to be so bold, sir.
They say you want to marry her."
Newman eyed his interlocutress and satisfied himself that she was not a gossip, but a zealot; she looked anxious, appealing, discreet.
"It is quite true," he said."I want to marry Madame de Cintre.""And to take her away to America?"
"I will take her wherever she wants to go.""The farther away the better, sir!" exclaimed the old woman, with sudden intensity.But she checked herself, and, taking up a paper-weight in mosaic, began to polish it with her black apron.
"I don't mean anything against the house or the family, sir.
But I think a great change would do the poor countess good.
It is very sad here."
"Yes, it's not very lively," said Newman."But Madame de Cintre is gay herself.""She is everything that is good.You will not be vexed to hear that she has been gayer for a couple of months past than she had been in many a day before."Newman was delighted to gather this testimony to the prosperity of his suit, but he repressed all violent marks of elation.
"Has Madame de Cintre been in bad spirits before this?" he asked.
"Poor lady, she had good reason.M.de Cintre was no husband for a sweet young lady like that.And then, as I say, it has been a sad house.
It is better, in my humble opinion, that she were out of it.So, if you will excuse me for saying so, I hope she will marry you.""I hope she will!" said Newman.
"But you must not lose courage, sir, if she doesn't make up her mind at once.That is what I wanted to beg of you, sir.Don't give it up, sir.You will not take it ill if I say it's a great risk for any lady at any time;all the more when she has got rid of one bad bargain.