“They won’t thank me—­they won’t thank me,” Valentin murmured.  “They will pass an atrocious night, and Urbain doesn’t like the early morning air.  I don’t remember ever in my life to have seen him before noon—­before breakfast.  No one ever saw him.  We don’t know how he is then.  Perhaps he’s different.  Who knows?  Posterity, perhaps, will know.  That’s the time he works, in his cabinet, at the history of the Princesses.  But I had to send for them—­hadn’t I?  And then I want to see my mother sit there where you sit, and say good-by to her.  Perhaps, after all, I don’t know her, and she will have some surprise for me.  Don’t think you know her yet, yourself; perhaps she may surprise you.  But if I can’t see Claire, I don’t care for anything.  I have been thinking of it—­and in my dreams, too.  Why did she go to Fleurieres to-day?  She never told me.  What has happened?  Ah, she ought to have guessed I was here—­this way.  It is the first time in her life she ever disappointed me.  Poor Claire!”

“You know we are not man and wife quite yet,—­your sister and I,” said Newman.  “She doesn’t yet account to me for all her actions.”  And, after a fashion, he smiled.

Valentin looked at him a moment.  “Have you quarreled?”

“Never, never, never!” Newman exclaimed.

“How happily you say that!” said Valentin.  “You are going to be happy—­Va!” In answer to this stroke of irony, none the less powerful for being so unconscious, all poor Newman could do was to give a helpless and transparent stare.  Valentin continued to fix him with his own rather over-bright gaze, and presently he said, “But something is the matter with you.  I watched you just now; you haven’t a bridegroom’s face.”

“My dear fellow,” said Newman, “how can I show you a bridegroom’s face?  If you think I enjoy seeing you lie there and not being able to help you”—­

“Why, you are just the man to be cheerful; don’t forfeit your rights!  I’m a proof of your wisdom.  When was a man ever gloomy when he could say, ‘I told you so?’ You told me so, you know.  You did what you could about it.  You said some very good things; I have thought them over.  But, my dear friend, I was right, all the same.  This is the regular way.”

“I didn’t do what I ought,” said Newman.  “I ought to have done something else.”

“For instance?”

“Oh, something or other.  I ought to have treated you as a small boy.”

“Well, I’m a very small boy, now,” said Valentin.  “I’m rather less than an infant.  An infant is helpless, but it’s generally voted promising.  I’m not promising, eh?  Society can’t lose a less valuable member.”

Newman was strongly moved.  He got up and turned his back upon his friend and walked away to the window, where he stood looking out, but only vaguely seeing.  “No, I don’t like the look of your back,” Valentin continued.  “I have always been an observer of backs; yours is quite out of sorts.”