Part 57 (1/2)

”Oh, I see,” said Newman. ”It's for your father's sake.” And he laughed the laugh in which he indulged when he was most amused--a noiseless laugh, with his lips closed.

But M. de Bellegarde's gravity held good. ”There are a few of my father's particular friends for whom the knowledge of so--so unfortunate an--inspiration--would be a real grief. Even say we firmly established by medical evidence the presumption of a mind disordered by fever, il en resterait quelque chose. At the best it would look ill in him. Very ill!”

”Don't try medical evidence,” said Newman. ”Don't touch the doctors and they won't touch you. I don't mind your knowing that I have not written to them.”

Newman fancied that he saw signs in M. de Bellegarde's discolored mask that this information was extremely pertinent. But it may have been merely fancy; for the marquis remained majestically argumentative. ”For instance, Madame d'Outreville,” he said, ”of whom you spoke yesterday. I can imagine nothing that would shock her more.”

”Oh, I am quite prepared to shock Madame d'Outreville, you know. That's on the cards. I expect to shock a great many people.”

M. de Bellegarde examined for a moment the st.i.tching on the back of one of his gloves. Then, without looking up, ”We don't offer you money,” he said. ”That we supposed to be useless.”

Newman, turning away, took a few turns about the room and then came back. ”What DO you offer me? By what I can make out, the generosity is all to be on my side.”

The marquis dropped his arms at his side and held his head a little higher. ”What we offer you is a chance--a chance that a gentleman should appreciate. A chance to abstain from inflicting a terrible blot upon the memory of a man who certainly had his faults, but who, personally, had done 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 a gentleman. That's your great point you know. It's a poor rule that won't work both ways. The second is that--well, in a word, you are talking great nonsense!”

Newman, who in the midst of his bitterness had, as I have said, kept well before his eyes a certain ideal of saying nothing rude, was immediately somewhat regretfully conscious of the sharpness of these words. But he speedily observed that the marquis took them more quietly than might have been expected. M. de Bellegarde, like the stately amba.s.sador that he was, continued the policy of ignoring what was disagreeable in his adversary's replies. He gazed at the gilded arabesques on the opposite wall, and then presently transferred his glance to Newman, as if he too were a large grotesque in a rather vulgar system of chamber-decoration. ”I suppose you know that as regards yourself it won't do at all.”

”How do you mean it won't do?”

”Why, of course you d.a.m.n yourself. But I suppose that's in your programme. You propose to throw mud at us; you believe, you hope, that some of it may stick. We know, of course, it can't,” explained the marquis in a tone of conscious lucidity; ”but you take the chance, and are 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. ”I take the chance of something sticking. But as regards my hands, they are clean. I have taken the matter up with my finger-tips.”

M. de Bellegarde looked a moment into his hat. ”All our friends are quite 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 think better of human nature.”

The marquis looked into his hat again. ”Madame de Cintre was extremely fond of her father. If she knew of the existence of the few written words of which you propose to make this scandalous use, she would demand of you proudly for his sake to give it up to her, and she would destroy it without reading it.”

”Very possibly,” Newman rejoined. ”But she will not know. I was in that convent yesterday and I know what SHE is doing. Lord deliver us! You can guess whether it made me feel forgiving!”

M. de Bellegarde appeared to have nothing more to suggest; but he continued to stand there, rigid and elegant, as a man who believed that his mere personal presence had an argumentative value. Newman watched him, and, without yielding an inch on the main issue, felt an incongruously 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 Cintre in the same state in which you took her from 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 her marriage nothing is changed.”

”'Deprecate' is good!” cried Newman. ”It was hardly worth while to come here only to tell me that you are not ashamed of yourselves. I could have guessed that!”

The marquis slowly walked toward the door, and Newman, following, opened it for him. ”What you propose to do will be very disagreeable,” M. de Bellegarde said. ”That is very evident. But it will be nothing more.”

”As I understand it,” Newman answered, ”that will be quite enough!”