the impertinences it spares you.  But he had felt warmly the delicate sympathy with himself that underlay Valentin’s fraternal irreverence, and he was most unwilling that his friend should pay a tax upon it.  He paused a moment in the corridor, after he had gone a few steps, expecting to hear the resonance of M. de Bellegarde’s displeasure; but he detected only a perfect stillness.  The stillness itself seemed a trifle portentous; he reflected however that he had no right to stand listening, and he made his way back to the salon.  In his absence several persons had come in.  They were scattered about the room in groups, two or three of them having passed into a small boudoir, next to the drawing-room, which had now been lighted and opened.  Old Madame de Bellegarde was in her place by the fire, talking to a very old gentleman in a wig and a profuse white neck cloth of the fashion of 1820.  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.”