But Valentin, without heeding him, went on in the same weak, dying drawl. “I wanted to see you because you have seen my sister. Does she know—will she come?”
Newman was embarrassed. “Yes, by this time she must know.”
“Didn’t you tell her?” Valentin asked. And then, in a moment, “Didn’t you bring me any message from her?” His eyes rested upon Newman’s with a certain soft keenness.
“I didn’t see her after I got your telegram,” said Newman. “I wrote to her.”
“And she sent you no answer?”
Newman was obliged to reply that Madame de Cintré had left Paris. “She went yesterday to Fleurières.”
“Yesterday—to Fleurières? Why did she go to Fleurières? What day is this? What day was yesterday? Ah, then I shan’t see her,” said Valentin sadly. “Fleurières is too far!” And then he closed his eyes again. Newman sat silent, summoning pious invention to his aid, but he was relieved at finding that Valentin was apparently too weak to reason or to be curious. Bellegarde, however, presently went on. “And my mother—and my brother—will they come? Are they at Fleurières?”
“They were in Paris, but I didn’t see them, either,” Newman answered. “If they received your telegram in time, they will have started this morning. Otherwise they will be obliged to wait for the night-express, and they will arrive at the same hour as I did.”
“They won’t thank me—they won’t thank me,” Valentin murmured. “They will pass an atrocious night, and Urbain doesn’t like the early morning air. I don’t remember ever in my life to have seen him before noon—before breakfast. No one ever saw him. We don’t know how he is then. Perhaps he’s different. Who knows? Posterity, perhaps, will know. That’s the time he works, in his cabinet, at the history of the Princesses. But I had to send for them—hadn’t I? And then I want to see my mother sit there where you sit, and say good-bye to her. Perhaps, after all, I don’t know her, and she will have some surprise for me. Don’t think you know her yet, yourself; perhaps she may surprise you. But if I can’t see Claire, I don’t care for anything. I have been thinking of it—and in my dreams, too. Why did she go to Fleurières to-day? She never told me. What has happened? Ah, she ought to have guessed I was here—this way. It is the first time in her life she ever disappointed me. Poor Claire!”
“You know we are not man and wife quite yet,—your sister and I,” said Newman. “She doesn’t yet account to me for all her actions.” And, after a fashion, he smiled.