The young man gave a frank laugh, and laid his hand on one of the candlesticks."Good, good!" he exclaimed."Come, then."But Madame de Cintre rose quickly and grasped his arm, "Ah, Valentin!"she said."What do you mean to do?"
"To show Mr.Newman the house.It will be very amusing."She kept her hand on his arm, and turned to Newman with a smile.
"Don't let him take you," she said; "you will not find it amusing.
It is a musty old house, like any other.""It is full of curious things," said the count, resisting.
"Besides, I want to do it; it is a rare chance.""You are very wicked, brother," Madame de Cintre answered.
"Nothing venture, nothing have!" cried the young man.
"Will you come?"
Madame de Cintre stepped toward Newman, gently clasping her hands and smiling softly."Would you not prefer my society, here, by my fire, to stumbling about dark passages after my brother?""A hundred times!" said Newman."We will see the house some other day."The young man put down his candlestick with mock solemnity, and, shaking his head, "Ah, you have defeated a great scheme, sir!" he said.
"A scheme? I don't understand," said Newman.
"You would have played your part in it all the better.
Perhaps some day I shall have a chance to explain it.""Be quiet, and ring for the tea," said Madame de Cintre.
The young man obeyed, and presently a servant brought in the tea, placed the tray on a small table, and departed.
Madame de Cintre, from her place, busied herself with making it.
She had but just begun when the door was thrown open and a lady rushed in, making a loud rustling sound.She stared at Newman, gave a little nod and a "Monsieur!" and then quickly approached Madame de Cintre and presented her forehead to be kissed.
Madame de Cintre saluted her, and continued to make tea.
The new-comer was young and pretty, it seemed to Newman;she wore her bonnet and cloak, and a train of royal proportions.
She began to talk rapidly in French."Oh, give me some tea, my beautiful one, for the love of God! I'm exhausted, mangled, massacred." Newman found himself quite unable to follow her;she spoke much less distinctly than M.Nioche.
"That is my sister-in-law," said the Count Valentin, leaning towards him.
"She is very pretty," said Newman.
"Exquisite," answered the young man, and this time, again, Newman suspected him of irony.
His sister-in-law came round to the other side of the fire with her cup of tea in her hand, holding it out at arm's-length, so that she might not spill it on her dress, and uttering little cries of alarm.
She placed the cup on the mantel-shelf and begun to unpin her veil and pull off her gloves, looking meanwhile at Newman.
"Is there any thing I can do for you, my dear lady?" the Count Valentin asked, in a sort of mock-caressing tone.
"Present monsieur," said his sister-in-law.
The young man answered, "Mr.Newman!"
"I can't courtesy to you, monsieur, or I shall spill my tea," said the lady.
"So Claire receives strangers, like that?" she added, in a low voice, in French, to her brother-in-law.
"Apparently!" he answered with a smile.Newman stood a moment, and then he approached Madame de Cintre.
She looked up at him as if she were thinking of something to say.
But she seemed to think of nothing; so she simply smiled.
He sat down near her and she handed him a cup of tea.For a few moments they talked about that, and meanwhile he looked at her.
He remembered what Mrs.Tristram had told him of her "perfection"and of her having, in combination, all the brilliant things that he dreamed of finding.This made him observe her not only without mistrust, but without uneasy conjectures; the presumption, from the first moment he looked at her, had been in her favor.
And yet, if she was beautiful, it was not a dazzling beauty.
She was tall and moulded in long lines; she had thick fair hair, a wide forehead, and features with a sort of harmonious irregularity.
Her clear gray eyes were strikingly expressive; they were both gentle and intelligent, and Newman liked them immensely;but they had not those depths of splendor--those many-colored rays--which illumine the brows of famous beauties.Madame de Cintre was rather thin, and she looked younger than probably she was.
In her whole person there was something both youthful and subdued, slender and yet ample, tranquil yet shy; a mixture of immaturity and repose, of innocence and dignity.What had Tristram meant, Newman wondered, by calling her proud? She was certainly not proud now, to him; or if she was, it was of no use, it was lost upon him;she must pile it up higher if she expected him to mind it.
She was a beautiful woman, and it was very easy to get on with her.
Was she a countess, a marquise, a kind of historical formation?
