“If you don’t agree with Madame de Cintré, you will be very unreasonable.”
“Come, come, Urbain,” said young Madame de Bellegarde, “I must go straight to my tailor’s.”
The old lady had been standing with her hand on her daughter’s arm, looking at her fixedly. She gave a little sigh, and murmured, “No, I did not expect it! You are a fortunate man,” she added, turning to Newman, with an expressive nod.
“Oh, I know that!” he answered. “I feel tremendously proud. I feel like crying it on the housetops,—like stopping people in the street to tell them.”
Madame de Bellegarde narrowed her lips. “Pray don’t,” she said.
“The more people that know it, the better,” Newman declared. “I haven’t yet announced it here, but I telegraphed it this morning to America.”
“Telegraphed it to America?” the old lady murmured.
“To New York, to St. Louis, and to San Francisco; those are the principal cities, you know. To-morrow I shall tell my friends here.”
“Have you many?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone of which I am afraid that Newman but partly measured the impertinence.
“Enough to bring me a great many hand-shakes and congratulations. To say nothing,” he added, in a moment, “of those I shall receive from your friends.”