The Parc Monceau is a very pretty piece of landscape-gardening, but Newman, passing into it, bestowed little attention upon its elegant vegetation, which was full of the freshness of spring.  He found Madame de Bellegarde promptly, seated in one of the quiet corners of which she had spoken, while before her, in the alley, her little girl, attended by the footman and the lap-dog, walked up and down as if she were taking a lesson in deportment.  Newman sat down beside the mamma, and she talked a great deal, apparently with the design of convincing him that—­if he would only see it—­poor dear Claire did not belong to the most fascinating type of woman.  She was too tall and thin, too stiff and cold; her mouth was too wide and her nose too narrow.  She had no dimples anywhere.  And then she was eccentric, eccentric in cold blood; she was an Anglaise, after all.  Newman was very impatient; he was counting the minutes until his victims should reappear.  He sat silent, leaning upon his cane, looking absently and insensibly at the little marquise.  At length Madame de Bellegarde said she would walk toward the gate of the park and meet her companions; but before she went she dropped her eyes, and, after playing a moment with the lace of her sleeve, looked up again at Newman.

“Do you remember,” she asked, “the promise you made me three weeks ago?” And then, as Newman, vainly consulting his memory, was obliged to confess that the promise had escaped it, she declared that he had made her, at the time, a very queer answer—­an answer at which, viewing it in the light of the sequel, she had fair ground for taking offense.  “You promised to take me to Bullier’s after your marriage.  After your marriage—­you made a great point of that.  Three days after that your marriage was broken off.  Do you know, when I heard the news, the first thing I said to myself?  ’Oh heaven, now he won’t go with me to Bullier’s!’ And I really began to wonder if you had not been expecting the rupture.”

“Oh, my dear lady,” murmured Newman, looking down the path to see if the others were not coming.

“I shall be good-natured,” said Madame de Bellegarde.  “One must not ask too much of a gentleman who is in love with a cloistered nun.  Besides, I can’t go to Bullier’s while we are in mourning.  But I haven’t given it up for that.  The partie is arranged; I have my cavalier.  Lord Deepmere, if you please!  He has gone back to his dear Dublin; but a few months hence I am to name any evening and he will come over from Ireland, on purpose.  That’s what I call gallantry!”

Shortly after this Madame de Bellegarde walked away with her little girl.  Newman sat in his place; the time seemed terribly long.  He felt how fiercely his quarter of an hour in the convent chapel had raked over the glowing coals of his resentment.  Madame de Bellegarde kept him waiting, but she proved as good as her word.  At last she reappeared at the end of the path, with her little girl and her footman;