“Wait till you know him!” rejoined Bellegarde, and this time he smiled.
“Is your mother also very remarkable?” Newman asked, after a pause.
“For my mother,” said Bellegarde, now with intense gravity, “I have the highest admiration. She is a very extraordinary woman. You cannot approach her without perceiving it.”
“She is the daughter, I believe, of an English nobleman.”
“Of the Earl of St. Dunstan’s.”
“Is the Earl of St. Dunstan’s a very old family?”
“So-so; the sixteenth century. It is on my father’s side that we go back—back, back, back. The family antiquaries themselves lose breath. At last they stop, panting and fanning themselves, somewhere in the ninth century, under Charlemagne. That is where we begin.”
“There is no mistake about it?” said Newman.
“I’m sure I hope not. We have been mistaken at least for several centuries.”
“And you have always married into old families?”