"You would have accepted HER, I suppose.That makes me hope that after all you prefer me.""Oh, when things are nice I never prefer one to the other,"said the young Englishman."I take them all.""Ah, what a horror! I won't be taken in that way; I must be kept apart,"cried Madame de Bellegarde."Mr.Newman is much better; he knows how to choose.Oh, he chooses as if he were threading a needle.
He prefers Madame de Cintre to any conceivable creature or thing.""Well, you can't help my being her cousin," said Lord Deepmere to Newman, with candid hilarity.
"Oh, no, I can't help that," said Newman, laughing back;"neither can she!"
"And you can't help my dancing with her," said Lord Deepmere, with sturdy simplicity.
"I could prevent that only by dancing with her myself," said Newman.
"But unfortunately I don't know how to dance.""Oh, you may dance without knowing how; may you not, milord?" said Madame de Bellegarde.But to this Lord Deepmere replied that a fellow ought to know how to dance if he didn't want to make an ass of himself;and at this moment Urbain de Bellegarde joined the group, slow-stepping and with his hands behind him.
"This is a very splendid entertainment," said Newman, cheerfully.
"The old house looks very bright."
"If YOU are pleased, we are content," said the marquis, lifting his shoulders and bending them forward.
"Oh, I suspect every one is pleased," said Newman.
"How can they help being pleased when the first thing they see as they come in is your sister, standing there as beautiful as an angel?""Yes, she is very beautiful," rejoined the marquis, solemnly.
"But that is not so great a source of satisfaction to other people, naturally, as to you.""Yes, I am satisfied, marquis, I am satisfied," said Newman, with his protracted enunciation."And now tell me," he added, looking round, "who some of your friends are."M.de Bellegarde looked about him in silence, with his head bent and his hand raised to his lower lip, which he slowly rubbed.A stream of people had been pouring into the salon in which Newman stood with his host, the rooms were filling up and the spectacle had become brilliant.
It borrowed its splendor chiefly from the shining shoulders and profuse jewels of the women, and from the voluminous elegance of their dresses.
There were no uniforms, as Madame de Bellegarde's door was inexorably closed against the myrmidons of the upstart power which then ruled the fortunes of France, and the great company of smiling and chattering faces was not graced by any very frequent suggestions of harmonious beauty.It is a pity, nevertheless, that Newman had not been a physiognomist, for a great many of the faces were irregularly agreeable, expressive, and suggestive.
If the occasion had been different they would hardly have pleased him;he would have thought the women not pretty enough and the men too smirking;but he was now in a humor to receive none but agreeable impressions, and he looked no more narrowly than to perceive that every one was brilliant, and to feel that the sun of their brilliancy was a part of his credit.
"I will present you to some people," said M.de Bellegarde after a while.
"I will make a point of it, in fact.You will allow me?""Oh, I will shake hands with any one you want," said Newman.
"Your mother just introduced me to half a dozen old gentlemen.
Take care you don't pick up the same parties again.""Who are the gentlemen to whom my mother presented you?""Upon my word, I forgot them," said Newman, laughing.
"The people here look very much alike."
"I suspect they have not forgotten you," said the marquis.
And he began to walk through the rooms.Newman, to keep near him in the crowd, took his arm; after which for some time, the marquis walked straight along, in silence.At last, reaching the farther end of the suite of reception-rooms, Newman found himself in the presence of a lady of monstrous proportions, seated in a very capacious arm-chair, with several persons standing in a semicircle round her.
This little group had divided as the marquis came up, and M.de Bellegarde stepped forward and stood for an instant silent and obsequious, with his hat raised to his lips, as Newman had seen some gentlemen stand in churches as soon as they entered their pews.The lady, indeed, bore a very fair likeness to a reverend effigy in some idolatrous shrine.
She was monumentally stout and imperturbably serene.
Her aspect was to Newman almost formidable; he had a troubled consciousness of a triple chin, a small piercing eye, a vast expanse of uncovered bosom, a nodding and twinkling tiara of plumes and gems, and an immense circumference of satin petticoat.
With her little circle of beholders this remarkable woman reminded him of the Fat Lady at a fair.She fixed her small, unwinking eyes at the new-comers.
"Dear duchess," said the marquis, "let me present you our good friend Mr.Newman, of whom you have heard us speak.
Wishing to make Mr.Newman known to those who are dear to us, I could not possibly fail to begin with you.""Charmed, dear friend; charmed, monsieur," said the duchess in a voice which, though small and shrill, was not disagreeable, while Newman executed his obeisance."I came on purpose to see monsieur.I hope he appreciates the compliment.
You have only to look at me to do so, sir," she continued, sweeping her person with a much-encompassing glance.
Newman hardly knew what to say, though it seemed that to a duchess who joked about her corpulence one might say almost anything.
On hearing that the duchess had come on purpose to see Newman, the gentlemen who surrounded her turned a little and looked at him with sympathetic curiosity.The marquis with supernatural gravity mentioned to him the name of each, while the gentleman who bore it bowed; they were all what are called in France beaux noms.
"I wanted extremely to see you," the duchess went on.
"C'est positif.In the first place, I am very fond of the person you are going to marry; she is the most charming creature in France.