“Why not?” asked Newman.
“I don’t travel; especially so far.”
“But you go away sometimes; you are not always here?”
“I go away in summer, a little way, to the country.”
Newman wanted to ask her something more, something personal, he hardly knew what. “Don’t you find it rather—rather quiet here?” he said; “so far from the street?” Rather “gloomy,” he was going to say, but he reflected that that would be impolite.
“Yes, it is very quiet,” said Madame de Cintré; “but we like that.”
“Ah, you like that,” repeated Newman, slowly.
“Besides, I have lived here all my life.”
“Lived here all your life,” said Newman, in the same way.
“I was born here, and my father was born here before me, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfathers. Were they not, Valentin?” and she appealed to her brother.