“As a rule; though in so long a stretch of time there have been some exceptions. Three or four Bellegardes, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, took wives out of the bourgeoisie—married lawyers’ daughters.”
“A lawyer’s daughter; that’s very bad, is it?” asked Newman.
“Horrible! one of us, in the Middle Ages, did better: he married a beggar-maid, like King Cophetua. That was really better; it was like marrying a bird or a monkey; one didn’t have to think about her family at all. Our women have always done well; they have never even gone into the petite noblesse. There is, I believe, not a case on record of a misalliance among the women.”
Newman turned this over for a while, and, then at last he said, “You offered, the first time you came to see me to render me any service you could. I told you that some time I would mention something you might do. Do you remember?”
“Remember? I have been counting the hours.”
“Very well; here’s your chance. Do what you can to make your sister think well of me.”
Bellegarde stared, with a smile. “Why, I’m sure she thinks as well of you as possible, already.”
“An opinion founded on seeing me three or four times? That is putting me off with very little. I want something more. I have been thinking of it a good deal, and at last I have decided to tell you. I should like very much to marry Madame de Cintré.”
Bellegarde had been looking at him with quickened expectancy, and with the smile with which he had greeted Newman’s allusion to his promised request. At this last announcement he continued to gaze; but his smile went through two or three curious phases. It felt, apparently, a momentary impulse to broaden; but this it immediately checked. Then it remained for some instants taking counsel with itself, at the end of which it decreed a retreat. It slowly effaced itself and left a look of seriousness modified by the desire not to be rude. Extreme surprise had come into the Count Valentin’s face; but he had reflected that it would be uncivil to leave it there. And yet, what the deuce was he to do with it? He got up, in his agitation, and stood before the chimney-piece, still looking at Newman. He was a longer time thinking what to say than one would have expected.
“If you can’t render me the service I ask,” said Newman, “say it out!”