第95章

"They have backed out!" she said."Well, you may think it strange, but I felt something the other night in the air."Presently he told her his story; she listened, with her eyes fixed on him.When he had finished she said quietly, "They want her to marry Lord Deepmere." Newman stared.

He did not know that she knew anything about Lord Deepmere.

"But I don't think she will," Mrs.Tristram added.

"SHE marry that poor little cub!" cried Newman."Oh, Lord!

And yet, why did she refuse me?"

"But that isn't the only thing," said Mrs.Tristram."They really couldn't endure you any longer.They had overrated their courage.I must say, to give the devil his due, that there is something rather fine in that.

It was your commercial quality in the abstract they couldn't swallow.

That is really aristocratic.They wanted your money, but they have given you up for an idea."Newman frowned most ruefully, and took up his hat again."I thought you would encourage me!" he said, with almost childlike sadness.

"Excuse me," she answered very gently."I feel none the less sorry for you, especially as I am at the bottom of your troubles.

I have not forgotten that I suggested the marriage to you.

I don't believe that Madame de Cintre has any intention of marrying Lord Deepmere.It is true he is not younger than she, as he looks.

He is thirty-three years old; I looked in the Peerage.

But no--I can't believe her so horribly, cruelly false.""Please say nothing against her," said Newman.

"Poor woman, she IS cruel.But of course you will go after her and you will plead powerfully.Do you know that as you are now,"Mrs.Tristram pursued, with characteristic audacity of comment, "you are extremely eloquent, even without speaking?

To resist you a woman must have a very fixed idea in her head.

I wish I had done you a wrong, that you might come to me in that fine fashion! But go to Madame de Cintre at any rate, and tell her that she is a puzzle even to me.

I am very curious to see how far family discipline will go."Newman sat a while longer, leaning his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and Mrs.Tristram continued to temper charity with philosophy and compassion with criticism.

At last she inquired, "And what does the Count Valentin say to it?"Newman started; he had not thought of Valentin and his errand on the Swiss frontier since the morning.The reflection made him restless again, and he took his leave.He went straight to his apartment, where, upon the table of the vestibule, he found a telegram.It ran (with the date and place) as follows:

"I am seriously ill; please to come to me as soon as possible.

V.B." Newman groaned at this miserable news, and at the necessity of deferring his journey to the Chateau de Fleurieres.

But he wrote to Madame de Cintre these few lines; they were all he had time for:--"I don't give you up, and I don't really believe you give me up.

I don't understand it, but we shall clear it up together.

I can't follow you to-day, as I am called to see a friend at a distance who is very ill, perhaps dying.

But I shall come to you as soon as I can leave my friend.

Why shouldn't I say that he is your brother? C.N."After this he had only time to catch the night express to Geneva.