“But that is only when one is very good.”
“Well, a great many people are good,” said Newman. “Valentin is quite good enough for me.”
Madame de Cintré was silent for a short time. “He is not good enough for me,” she said at last. “I wish he would do something.”
“What can he do?” asked Newman.
“Nothing. Yet he is very clever.”
“It is a proof of cleverness,” said Newman, “to be happy without doing anything.”
“I don’t think Valentin is happy, in reality. He is clever, generous, brave; but what is there to show for it? To me there is something sad in his life, and sometimes I have a sort of foreboding about him. I don’t know why, but I fancy he will have some great trouble—perhaps an unhappy end.”
“Oh, leave him to me,” said Newman, jovially. “I will watch over him and keep harm away.”
One evening, in Madame de Bellegarde’s salon, the conversation had flagged most sensibly. The marquis walked up and down in silence, like a sentinel at the door of some smooth-fronted citadel of the proprieties; his mother sat staring at the fire; young Madame de Bellegarde worked at an enormous band of tapestry. Usually there were three or four visitors, but on this occasion a violent storm sufficiently accounted for the absence of even the most devoted habitués. In the long silences the howling of the wind and the beating of the rain were distinctly audible. Newman sat perfectly still, watching the clock, determined to stay till the stroke of eleven, but not a moment longer. Madame de Cintré had turned her back to the circle, and had been standing for some time within the uplifted curtain of a window, with her forehead against the pane, gazing out into the deluged darkness. Suddenly she turned round toward her sister-in-law.
“For Heaven’s sake,” she said, with peculiar eagerness, “go to the piano and play something.”