She was too good-hearted to make use of it."The old lady appeared for an instant to hesitate, and then, "She was my husband's mistress," she said, softly.This was the only concession to self-defense that she condescended to make.
"I doubt that," said Newman.
Madame de Bellegarde got up from her bench."It was not to your opinions I undertook to listen, and if you have nothing left but them to tell me I think this remarkable interview may terminate."And turning to the marquis she took his arm again."My son,"she said, "say something!"
M.de Bellegarde looked down at his mother, passing his hand over his forehead, and then, tenderly, caressingly, "What shall I say?" he asked.
"There is only one thing to say," said the Marquise.
"That it was really not worth while to have interrupted our walk."But the marquis thought he could improve this."Your paper's a forgery,"he said to Newman.
Newman shook his head a little, with a tranquil smile.
"M.de Bellegarde," he said, "your mother does better.
She has done better all along, from the first of my knowing you.
You're a mighty plucky woman, madam," he continued.
"It's a great pity you have made me your enemy.
I should have been one of your greatest admirers.""Mon pauvre ami," said Madame de Bellegarde to her son in French, and as if she had not heard these words, "you must take me immediately to my carriage."Newman stepped back and let them leave him; he watched them a moment and saw Madame Urbain, with her little girl, come out of a by-path to meet them.
The old lady stooped and kissed her grandchild."Damn it, she is plucky!"said Newman, and he walked home with a slight sense of being balked.
She was so inexpressively defiant! But on reflection he decided that what he had witnessed was no real sense of security, still less a real innocence.
It was only a very superior style of brazen assurance."Wait till she reads the paper!" he said to himself; and he concluded that he should hear from her soon.
He heard sooner than he expected.The next morning, before midday, when he was about to give orders for his breakfast to be served, M.de Bellegarde's card was brought to him.
"She has read the paper and she has passed a bad night,"said Newman.He instantly admitted his visitor, who came in with the air of the ambassador of a great power meeting the delegate of a barbarous tribe whom an absurd accident had enabled for the moment to be abominably annoying.
The ambassador, at all events, had passed a bad night, and his faultlessly careful toilet only threw into relief the frigid rancor in his eyes and the mottled tones of his refined complexion.
He stood before Newman a moment, breathing quickly and softly, and shaking his forefinger curtly as his host pointed to a chair.
"What I have come to say is soon said," he declared "and can only be said without ceremony.""I am good for as much or for as little as you desire," said Newman.
The marquis looked round the room a moment, and then, "On what terms will you part with your scrap of paper?""On none!" And while Newman, with his head on one side and his hands behind him sounded the marquis's turbid gaze with his own, he added, "Certainly, that is not worth sitting down about."M.de Bellegarde meditated a moment, as if he had not heard Newman's refusal.
"My mother and I, last evening," he said, "talked over your story.
You will be surprised to learn that we think your little document is--a"--and he held back his word a moment--"is genuine.""You forget that with you I am used to surprises!" exclaimed Newman, with a laugh.
"The very smallest amount of respect that we owe to my father's memory,"the marquis continued, "makes us desire that he should not be held up to the world as the author of so--so infernal an attack upon the reputation of a wife whose only fault was that she had been submissive to accumulated injury.""Oh, I see," said Newman."It's for your father's sake."And he laughed the laugh in which he indulged when he was most amused--a noiseless laugh, with his lips closed.
But M.de Bellegarde's gravity held good."There are a few of my father's particular friends for whom the knowledge of so--so unfortunate an--inspiration--would be a real grief.
Even say we firmly established by medical evidence the presumption of a mind disordered by fever, il en resterait quelque chose.
At the best it would look ill in him.Very ill!""Don't try medical evidence," said Newman."Don't touch the doctors and they won't touch you.I don't mind your knowing that I have not written to them."Newman fancied that he saw signs in M.de Bellegarde's discolored mask that this information was extremely pertinent.But it may have been merely fancy; for the marquis remained majestically argumentative.
"For instance, Madame d'Outreville," he said, "of whom you spoke yesterday.
