M. de Bellegarde stood in a well-balanced position before the fire, caressing one of his fair whiskers with one of his white hands, and looking at Newman, half askance, with eyes from which a particular ray of observation made its way through a general meaningless smile.  “It is very kind of you to make such an offer,” he said.  “If I am not mistaken, your occupations are such as to make your time precious.  You are in—­a—­as we say, dans les affaires.”

“In business, you mean?  Oh no, I have thrown business overboard for the present.  I am ‘loafing,’ as we say.  My time is quite my own.”

“Ah, you are taking a holiday,” rejoined M. de Bellegarde. “‘Loafing.’  Yes, I have heard that expression.”

“Mr. Newman is American,” said Madame de Bellegarde.

“My brother is a great ethnologist,” said Valentin.

“An ethnologist?” said Newman.  “Ah, you collect negroes’ skulls, and that sort of thing.”

The marquis looked hard at his brother, and began to caress his other whisker.  Then, turning to Newman, with sustained urbanity, “You are traveling for your pleasure?” he asked.’

“Oh, I am knocking about to pick up one thing and another.  Of course I get a good deal of pleasure out of it.”

“What especially interests you?” inquired the marquis.

“Well, everything interests me,” said Newman.  “I am not particular.  Manufactures are what I care most about.”

“That has been your specialty?”

“I can’t say I have any specialty.  My specialty has been to make the largest possible fortune in the shortest possible time.”  Newman made this last remark very deliberately; he wished to open the way, if it were necessary, to an authoritative statement of his means.

M. de Bellegarde laughed agreeably.  “I hope you have succeeded,” he said.

“Yes, I have made a fortune in a reasonable time.  I am not so old, you see.”

“Paris is a very good place to spend a fortune.  I wish you great enjoyment of yours.”  And M. de Bellegarde drew forth his gloves and began to put them on.

Newman for a few moments watched him sliding his white hands into the white kid, and as he did so his feelings took a singular turn.  M. de Bellegarde’s good wishes seemed to descend out of the white expanse of his sublime serenity with the soft, scattered movement of a shower of snow-flakes.  Yet Newman was not irritated; he did not feel that he was being patronized; he was conscious of no especial impulse to introduce a discord into so noble a harmony.  Only he felt himself suddenly in personal contact with the forces with which his friend Valentin had told him that he would have to contend, and he became sensible of their intensity.  He wished to make some answering manifestation, to stretch himself out at his own length, to sound a note at the uttermost end of his scale.  It must be added that if this impulse was not vicious or malicious, it was by no means void of humorous expectancy.  Newman was quite as ready to give play to that loosely-adjusted smile of his, if his hosts should happen to be shocked, as he was far from deliberately planning to shock them.