第103章

"It looks," said Newman to himself--and I give the comparison for what it is worth--"like a Chinese penitentiary."At last the door was opened by a servant whom he remembered to have seen in the Rue de l'Universite.The man's dull face brightened as he perceived our hero, for Newman, for indefinable reasons, enjoyed the confidence of the liveried gentry.

The footman led the way across a great central vestibule, with a pyramid of plants in tubs in the middle of glass doors all around, to what appeared to be the principal drawing-room of the chateau.Newman crossed the threshold of a room of superb proportions, which made him feel at first like a tourist with a guide-book and a cicerone awaiting a fee.

But when his guide had left him alone, with the observation that he would call Madame la Comtesse, Newman perceived that the salon contained little that was remarkable save a dark ceiling with curiously carved rafters, some curtains of elaborate, antiquated tapestry, and a dark oaken floor, polished like a mirror.He waited some minutes, walking up and down; but at length, as he turned at the end of the room, he saw that Madame de Cintre had come in by a distant door.

She wore a black dress, and she stood looking at him.

As the length of the immense room lay between them he had time to look at her before they met in the middle of it.

He was dismayed at the change in her appearance.

Pale, heavy-browed, almost haggard with a sort of monastic rigidity in her dress, she had little but her pure features in common with the woman whose radiant good grace he had hitherto admired.

She let her eyes rest on his own, and she let him take her hand;but her eyes looked like two rainy autumn moons, and her touch was portentously lifeless.

"I was at your brother's funeral," Newman said."Then I waited three days.

But I could wait no longer."

"Nothing can be lost or gained by waiting," said Madame de Cintre.

"But it was very considerate of you to wait, wronged as you have been.""I'm glad you think I have been wronged," said Newman, with that oddly humorous accent with which he often uttered words of the gravest meaning.

"Do I need to say so?" she asked."I don't think Ihave wronged, seriously, many persons; certainly not consciously.

To you, to whom I have done this hard and cruel thing, the only reparation I can make is to say, 'I know it, I feel it!'

The reparation is pitifully small!"

"Oh, it's a great step forward!" said Newman, with a gracious smile of encouragement.He pushed a chair towards her and held it, looking at her urgently.

She sat down, mechanically, and he seated himself near her;but in a moment he got up, restlessly, and stood before her.

She remained seated, like a troubled creature who had passed through the stage of restlessness.

"I say nothing is to be gained by my seeing you," she went on, "and yet I am very glad you came.Now I can tell you what I feel.

It is a selfish pleasure, but it is one of the last I shall have."And she paused, with her great misty eyes fixed upon him."I know how Ihave deceived and injured you; I know how cruel and cowardly I have been.

I see it as vividly as you do--I feel it to the ends of my fingers."And she unclasped her hands, which were locked together in her lap, lifted them, and dropped them at her side."Anything that you may have said of me in your angriest passion is nothing to what I have said to myself.""In my angriest passion," said Newman, "I have said nothing hard of you.

The very worst thing I have said of you yet is that you are the loveliest of women." And he seated himself before her again, abruptly.

She flushed a little, but even her flush was pale.

"That is because you think I will come back.But I will not come back.It is in that hope you have come here, I know;I am very sorry for you.I would do almost anything for you.

To say that, after what I have done, seems simply impudent;but what can I say that will not seem impudent? To wrong you and apologize--that is easy enough.I should not have wronged you."She stopped a moment, looking at him, and motioned him to let her go on."I ought never to have listened to you at first; that was the wrong.No good could come of it.

I felt it, and yet I listened; that was your fault.

I liked you too much; I believed in you.""And don't you believe in me now?"

"More than ever.But now it doesn't matter.I have given you up."Newman gave a powerful thump with his clenched fist upon his knee.

"Why, why, why?" he cried."Give me a reason--a decent reason.

You are not a child--you are not a minor, nor an idiot.

You are not obliged to drop me because your mother told you to.

Such a reason isn't worthy of you."

"I know that; it's not worthy of me.But it's the only one I have to give.

After all," said Madame de Cintre, throwing out her hands, "think me an idiot and forget me! That will be the simplest way."Newman got up and walked away with a crushing sense that his cause was lost, and yet with an equal inability to give up fighting.

He went to one of the great windows, and looked out at the stiffly embanked river and the formal gardens which lay beyond it.

When he turned round, Madame de Cintre had risen;she stood there silent and passive."You are not frank,"said Newman; "you are not honest.Instead of saying that you are imbecile, you should say that other people are wicked.

Your mother and your brother have been false and cruel;they have been so to me, and I am sure they have been so to you.

Why do you try to shield them? Why do you sacrifice me to them?

I'm not false; I'm not cruel.You don't know what you give up;I can tell you that--you don't.They bully you and plot about you; and I--I"--And he paused, holding out his hands.

She turned away and began to leave him."You told me the other day that you were afraid of your mother," he said, following her.

"What did you mean?"

Madame de Cintre shook her head."I remember; I was sorry afterwards.""You were sorry when she came down and put on the thumb-screws.