I doubt whether Newman, who saw no harm in Tristram’s conversing with an ingenious mechanic, would have complied with this request; but at this moment Valentin de Bellegarde drew near. Newman, some weeks previously, had presented Madame de Cintré’s youngest brother to Mrs. Tristram, for whose merits Valentin professed a discriminating relish and to whom he had paid several visits.
“Did you ever read Keats’s Belle Dame sans Merci?” asked Mrs. Tristram. “You remind me of the hero of the ballad:—
‘Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?’”
“If I am alone, it is because I have been deprived of your society,” said Valentin. “Besides it is good manners for no man except Newman to look happy. This is all to his address. It is not for you and me to go before the curtain.”
“You promised me last spring,” said Newman to Mrs. Tristram, “that six months from that time I should get into a monstrous rage. It seems to me the time’s up, and yet the nearest I can come to doing anything rough now is to offer you a café glacé.”
“I told you we should do things grandly,” said Valentin. “I don’t allude to the cafés glacés. But everyone is here, and my sister told me just now that Urbain had been adorable.”
“He’s a good fellow, he’s a good fellow,” said Newman. “I love him as a brother. That reminds me that I ought to go and say something polite to your mother.”
“Let it be something very polite indeed,” said Valentin. “It may be the last time you will feel so much like it!”
Newman walked away, almost disposed to clasp old Madame de Bellegarde round the waist. He passed through several rooms and at last found the old marquise in the first saloon, seated on a sofa, with her young kinsman, Lord Deepmere, beside her. The young man looked somewhat bored; his hands were thrust into his pockets and his eyes were fixed upon the toes of his shoes, his feet being thrust out in front of him. Madame de Bellegarde appeared to have been talking to him with some intensity and to be waiting for an answer to what she had said, or for some sign of the effect of her words. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was looking at his lordship’s simple physiognomy with an air of politely suppressed irritation.
Lord Deepmere looked up as Newman approached, met his eyes, and changed color.