seemed to indicate a fine, nervous dread that something disagreeable might happen if the atmosphere were not purified by allusions of a thoroughly superior cast.  “What under the sun is the man afraid of?” Newman asked himself.  “Does he think I am going to offer to swap jack-knives with him?” It was useless to shut his eyes to the fact that the marquis was profoundly disagreeable to him.  He had never been a man of strong personal aversions; his nerves had not been at the mercy of the mystical qualities of his neighbors.  But here was a man towards whom he was irresistibly in opposition; a man of forms and phrases and postures; a man full of possible impertinences and treacheries.  M. de Bellegarde made him feel as if he were standing bare-footed on a marble floor; and yet, to gain his desire, Newman felt perfectly able to stand.  He wondered what Madame de Cintre thought of his being accepted, if accepted it was.  There was no judging from her face, which expressed simply the desire to be gracious in a manner which should require as little explicit recognition as possible.  Young Madame de Bellegarde had always the same manners; she was always preoccupied, distracted, listening to everything and hearing nothing, looking at her dress, her rings, her finger-nails, seeming rather bored, and yet puzzling you to decide what was her ideal of social diversion.  Newman was enlightened on this point later.  Even Valentin did not quite seem master of his wits; his vivacity was fitful and forced, yet Newman observed that in the lapses of his talk he appeared excited.  His eyes had an intenser spark than usual.  The effect of all this was that Newman, for the first time in his life, was not himself; that he measured his movements, and counted his words, and resolved that if the occasion demanded that he should appear to have swallowed a ramrod, he would meet the emergency.

After dinner M. de Bellegarde proposed to his guest that they should go into the smoking-room, and he led the way toward a small, somewhat musty apartment, the walls of which were ornamented with old hangings of stamped leather and trophies of rusty arms.  Newman refused a cigar, but he established himself upon one of the divans, while the marquis puffed his own weed before the fire-place, and Valentin sat looking through the light fumes of a cigarette from one to the other.

“I can’t keep quiet any longer,” said Valentin, at last.  “I must tell you the news and congratulate you.  My brother seems unable to come to the point; he revolves around his announcement like the priest around the altar.  You are accepted as a candidate for the hand of our sister.”

“Valentin, be a little proper!” murmured the marquis, with a look of the most delicate irritation contracting the bridge of his high nose.