“An old lady who curtsies and expresses herself?...  Ah, you mean poor Mrs. Bread.  I happen to know that you have made a conquest of her.”

“Mrs. Cake, she ought to be called,” said Newman.  “She is very sweet.  She is a delicious old woman.”

Madame de Cintre looked at him a moment.  “What can she have said to you?  She is an excellent creature, but we think her rather dismal.”

“I suppose,” Newman answered presently, “that I like her because she has lived near you so long.  Since your birth, she told me.”

“Yes,” said Madame de Cintre, simply; “she is very faithful; I can trust her.”

Newman had never made any reflections to this lady upon her mother and her brother Urbain; had given no hint of the impression they made upon him.  But, as if she had guessed his thoughts, she seemed careful to avoid all occasion for making him speak of them.  She never alluded to her mother’s domestic decrees; she never quoted the opinions of the marquis.  They had talked, however, of Valentin, and she had made no secret of her extreme affection for her younger brother.  Newman listened sometimes with a certain harmless jealousy; he would have liked to divert some of her tender allusions to his own credit.  Once Madame de Cintre told him with a little air of triumph about something that Valentin had done which she thought very much to his honor.  It was a service he had rendered to an old friend of the family; something more “serious” than Valentin was usually supposed capable of being.  Newman said he was glad to hear of it, and then began to talk about something which lay upon his own heart.  Madame de Cintre listened, but after a while she said, “I don’t like the way you speak of my brother Valentin.”  Hereupon Newman, surprised, said that he had never spoken of him but kindly.

“It is too kindly,” said Madame de Cintre.  “It is a kindness that costs nothing; it is the kindness you show to a child.  It is as if you didn’t respect him.”

“Respect him?  Why I think I do.”

“You think?  If you are not sure, it is no respect.”

“Do you respect him?” said Newman.  “If you do, I do.”

“If one loves a person, that is a question one is not bound to answer,” said Madame de Cintre.

“You should not have asked it of me, then.  I am very fond of your brother.”

“He amuses you.  But you would not like to resemble him.”

“I shouldn’t like to resemble any one.  It is hard enough work resembling one’s self.”

“What do you mean,” asked Madame de Cintre, “by resembling one’s self?”

“Why, doing what is expected of one.  Doing one’s duty.”

“But that is only when one is very good.”

“Well, a great many people are good,” said Newman.  “Valentin is quite good enough for me.”

Madame de Cintre was silent for a short time.  “He is not good enough for me,” she said at last.  “I wish he would do something.”