Valentin had leaned forward again, with his elbows on his knees, and he was scratching the pavement with his stick.  At last he said, looking up, “Do you really think I ought to do something?”

Newman laid his hand on his companion’s arm and looked at him a moment through sagaciously-narrowed eyelids.  “Try it and see.  You are not good enough for it, but we will stretch a point.”

“Do you really think I can make some money?  I should like to see how it feels to have a little.”

“Do what I tell you, and you shall be rich,” said Newman.  “Think of it.”  And he looked at his watch and prepared to resume his way to Madame de Bellegarde’s box.

“Upon my word I will think of it,” said Valentin.  “I will go and listen to Mozart another half hour—­I can always think better to music—­and profoundly meditate upon it.”

The marquis was with his wife when Newman entered their box; he was bland, remote, and correct as usual; or, as it seemed to Newman, even more than usual.

“What do you think of the opera?” asked our hero.  “What do you think of the Don?”

“We all know what Mozart is,” said the marquis; “our impressions don’t date from this evening.  Mozart is youth, freshness, brilliancy, facility—­a little too great facility, perhaps.  But the execution is here and there deplorably rough.”

“I am very curious to see how it ends,” said Newman.

“You speak as if it were a feuilleton in the ‘Figaro,’” observed the marquis.  “You have surely seen the opera before?”

“Never,” said Newman.  “I am sure I should have remembered it.  Donna Elvira reminds me of Madame de Cintre; I don’t mean in her circumstances, but in the music she sings.”

“It is a very nice distinction,” laughed the marquis lightly.  “There is no great possibility, I imagine, of Madame de Cintre being forsaken.”

“Not much!” said Newman.  “But what becomes of the Don?”

“The devil comes down—­or comes up,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “and carries him off.  I suppose Zerlina reminds you of me.”

“I will go to the foyer for a few moments,” said the marquis, “and give you a chance to say that the commander—­the man of stone—­resembles me.”  And he passed out of the box.

The little marquise stared an instant at the velvet ledge of the balcony, and then murmured, “Not a man of stone, a man of wood.”  Newman had taken her husband’s empty chair.  She made no protest, and then she turned suddenly and laid her closed fan upon his arm.  “I am very glad you came in,” she said.  “I want to ask you a favor.  I wanted to do so on Thursday, at my mother-in-law’s ball, but you would give me no chance.  You were in such very good spirits that I thought you might grant my little favor then; not that you look particularly doleful now.  It is something you must promise me; now is the time to take you; after you are married you will be good for nothing.  Come, promise!”