“Oh, speak out,” said Newman, curiously.  “You needn’t be afraid of me.”

“Yes, sir.  I think you are kind.  I have seen you before.”

“On the stairs, you mean?”

“Yes, sir.  When you have been coming to see the countess.  I have taken the liberty of noticing that you come often.”

“Oh yes; I come very often,” said Newman, laughing.  “You need not have been wide-awake to notice that.”

“I have noticed it with pleasure, sir,” said the ancient tire-woman, gravely.  And she stood looking at Newman with a strange expression of face.  The old instinct of deference and humility was there; the habit of decent self-effacement and knowledge of her “own place.”  But there mingled with it a certain mild audacity, born of the occasion and of a sense, probably, of Newman’s unprecedented approachableness, and, beyond this, a vague indifference to the old proprieties; as if my lady’s own woman had at last begun to reflect that, since my lady had taken another person, she had a slight reversionary property in herself.

“You take a great interest in the family?” said Newman.

“A deep interest, sir.  Especially in the countess.”

“I am glad of that,” said Newman.  And in a moment he added, smiling, “So do I!”

“So I suppose, sir.  We can’t help noticing these things and having our ideas; can we, sir?”

“You mean as a servant?” said Newman.

“Ah, there it is, sir.  I am afraid that when I let my thoughts meddle with such matters I am no longer a servant.  But I am so devoted to the countess; if she were my own child I couldn’t love her more.  That is how I come to be so bold, sir.  They say you want to marry her.”

Newman eyed his interlocutress and satisfied himself that she was not a gossip, but a zealot; she looked anxious, appealing, discreet.  “It is quite true,” he said.  “I want to marry Madame de Cintre.”

“And to take her away to America?”

“I will take her wherever she wants to go.”

“The farther away the better, sir!” exclaimed the old woman, with sudden intensity.  But she checked herself, and, taking up a paper-weight in mosaic, began to polish it with her black apron.  “I don’t mean anything against the house or the family, sir.  But I think a great change would do the poor countess good.  It is very sad here.”

“Yes, it’s not very lively,” said Newman.  “But Madame de Cintre is gay herself.”

“She is everything that is good.  You will not be vexed to hear that she has been gayer for a couple of months past than she had been in many a day before.”

Newman was delighted to gather this testimony to the prosperity of his suit, but he repressed all violent marks of elation.  “Has Madame de Cintre been in bad spirits before this?” he asked.

“Poor lady, she had good reason.  M. de Cintre was no husband for a sweet young lady like that.  And then, as I say, it has been a sad house.  It is better, in my humble opinion, that she were out of it.  So, if you will excuse me for saying so, I hope she will marry you.”