“I am very much obliged to you,” said Valentin. “I have nothing to conceal, but I can’t go into particulars now and here.”
“We will leave this place, then. You can tell me outside.”
“Oh no, I can’t leave this place, why should I hurry away? I will go to my orchestra-stall and sit out the opera.”
“You will not enjoy it; you will be preoccupied.”
Valentin looked at him a moment, colored a little, smiled, and patted him on the arm. “You are delightfully simple! Before an affair a man is quiet. The quietest thing I can do is to go straight to my place.”
“Ah,” said Newman, “you want her to see you there—you and your quietness. I am not so simple! It is a poor business.”
Valentin remained, and the two men, in their respective places, sat out the rest of the performance, which was also enjoyed by Mademoiselle Nioche and her truculent admirer. At the end Newman joined Valentin again, and they went into the street together. Valentin shook his head at his friend’s proposal that he should get into Newman’s own vehicle, and stopped on the edge of the pavement. “I must go off alone,” he said; “I must look up a couple of friends who will take charge of this matter.”
“I will take charge of it,” Newman declared. “Put it into my hands.”
“You are very kind, but that is hardly possible. In the first place, you are, as you said just now, almost my brother; you are about to marry my sister. That alone disqualifies you; it casts doubts on your impartiality. And if it didn’t, it would be enough for me that I strongly suspect you of disapproving of the affair. You would try to prevent a meeting.”
“Of course I should,” said Newman. “Whoever your friends are, I hope they will do that.”
“Unquestionably they will. They will urge that excuses be made, proper excuses. But you would be too good-natured. You won’t do.”
Newman was silent a moment. He was keenly annoyed, but he saw it was useless to attempt interference. “When is this precious performance to come off?” he asked.
“The sooner the better,” said Valentin. “The day after to-morrow, I hope.”
“Well,” said Newman, “I have certainly a claim to know the facts. I can’t consent to shut my eyes to the matter.”
“I shall be most happy to tell you the facts,” said Valentin. “They are very simple, and it will be quickly done. But now everything depends on my putting my hands on my friends without delay. I will jump into a cab; you had better drive to my room and wait for me there. I will turn up at the end of an hour.”
Newman assented protestingly, let his friend go, and then betook himself to the picturesque little apartment in the Rue d’Anjou. It was more than an hour before Valentin returned, but when he did so he was able to announce that he had found one of his desired friends, and that this gentleman had taken upon himself the care of securing an associate. Newman had been sitting without lights by Valentin’s faded fire, upon which he had thrown a log; the blaze played over the richly-encumbered little sitting-room and produced fantastic gleams and shadows. He listened in silence to Valentin’s account of what had passed between him and the gentleman whose card he had in his pocket—M. Stanislas Kapp, of Strasbourg—after his return to Mademoiselle Nioche’s box. This hospitable young lady had espied an acquaintance on the other side of the house, and had expressed her displeasure at his not having the civility to come and pay her a visit. “Oh, let him alone!” M. Stanislas Kapp had hereupon exclaimed. “There are too many people in the box already.” And he had fixed his eyes with a demonstrative stare upon M. de Bellegarde. Valentin had promptly retorted that if there were too many people in the box it was easy for M. Kapp to diminish the number. “I shall be most happy to open the door for you!” M. Kapp exclaimed. “I shall be delighted to fling you into the pit!” Valentin had answered. “Oh, do make a rumpus and get into the papers!” Miss Noémie had gleefully ejaculated. “M. Kapp, turn him out; or, M. de Bellegarde, pitch him into the pit, into the orchestra—anywhere! I don’t care who does which, so long as you make a scene.” Valentin answered that they would make no scene, but that the gentleman would be so good as to step into the corridor with him. In the corridor, after a brief further exchange of words, there had been an exchange of cards. M. Stanislas Kapp was very stiff. He evidently meant to force his offence home.
“The man, no doubt, was insolent,” Newman said; “but if you hadn’t gone back into the box the thing wouldn’t have happened.”
“Why, don’t you see,” Valentin replied, “that the event proves the extreme propriety of my going back into the box? M. Kapp wished to provoke me; he was awaiting his chance. In such a case—that is, when he has been, so to speak, notified—a man must be on hand to receive the provocation. My not returning would simply have been tantamount to my saying to M. Stanislas Kapp, ‘Oh, if you are going to be disagreeable’”– —
“‘You must manage it by yourself; damned if I’ll help you!’ That would have been a thoroughly sensible thing to say. The only attraction for you seems to have been the prospect of M. Kapp’s impertinence,” Newman went on. “You told me you were not going back for that girl.”
“Oh, don’t mention that girl any more,” murmured Valentin. “She’s a bore.”
“With all my heart. But if that is the way you feel about her, why couldn’t you let her alone?”
Valentin shook his head with a fine smile. “I don’t think you quite understand, and I don’t believe I can make you. She understood the situation; she knew what was in the air; she was watching us.”
“A cat may look at a king! What difference does that make?”
“Why, a man can’t back down before a woman.”
“I don’t call her a woman. You said yourself she was a stone,” cried Newman.
“Well,” Valentin rejoined, “there is no disputing about tastes. It’s a matter of feeling; it’s measured by one’s sense of honor.”
“Oh, confound your sense of honor!” cried Newman.
“It is vain talking,” said Valentin; “words have passed, and the thing is settled.”
Newman turned away, taking his hat. Then pausing with his hand on the door, “What are you going to use?” he asked.
“That is for M. Stanislas Kapp, as the challenged party, to decide. My own choice would be a short, light sword. I handle it well. I’m an indifferent shot.”
Newman had put on his hat; he pushed it back, gently scratching his forehead, high up. “I wish it were pistols,” he said. “I could show you how to lodge a bullet!”
Valentin broke into a laugh. “What is it some English poet says about consistency? It’s a flower, or a star, or a jewel. Yours has the beauty of all three!” But he agreed to see Newman again on the morrow, after the details of his meeting with M. Stanislas Kapp should have been arranged.
In the course of the day Newman received three lines from him, saying that it had been decided that he should cross the frontier, with his adversary, and that he was to take the night express to Geneva. He should have time, however, to dine with Newman. In the afternoon Newman called upon Madame de Cintré, but his visit was brief. She was as gracious and sympathetic as he had ever found her, but she was sad, and she confessed, on Newman’s charging her with her red eyes, that she had been crying. Valentin had been with her a couple of hours before, and his visit had left her with a painful impression. He had laughed and gossiped, he had brought her no bad news, he had only been, in his manner, rather more affectionate than usual. His fraternal tenderness had touched her, and on his departure she had burst into tears. She had felt as if something strange and sad were going to happen; she had tried to reason away the fancy, and the effort had only given her a headache. Newman, of course, was perforce tongue-tied about Valentin’s projected duel, and his dramatic talent was not equal to satirizing Madame de Cintré’s presentiment as pointedly as perfect security demanded. Before he went away he asked Madame de Cintré whether Valentin had seen his mother.
“Yes,” she said, “but he didn’t make her cry.”
It was in Newman’s own apartment that Valentin dined, having brought his portmanteau, so that he might adjourn directly to the railway. M. Stanislas Kapp had positively declined to make excuses, and he, on his side, obviously, had none to offer. Valentin had found out with whom he was dealing. M. Stanislas Kapp was the son of and heir of a rich brewer of Strasbourg, a youth of a sanguineous—and sanguinary—temperament. He was making ducks and drakes of the paternal brewery, and although he passed in a general way for a good fellow, he had already been observed to be quarrelsome after dinner. “Que voulez-vous?” said Valentin. “Brought up on beer, he can’t stand champagne.” He had chosen pistols. Valentin, at dinner, had an excellent appetite; he made a point, in view of his long journey, of eating more than usual. He took the liberty of suggesting to Newman a slight modification in the composition of a certain fish-sauce; he thought it would be worth mentioning to the cook. But Newman had no thoughts for fish-sauce; he felt thoroughly discontented. As he sat and watched his amiable and clever companion going through his excellent repast with the delicate deliberation of hereditary epicurism, the folly of so charming a fellow traveling off to expose his agreeable young life for the sake of M. Stanislas and Mademoiselle Noémie struck him with intolerable force. He had grown fond of Valentin, he felt now how fond; and his sense of helplessness only increased his irritation.
“Well, this sort of thing may be all very well,” he cried at last, “but I declare I don’t see it. I can’t stop you, perhaps, but at least I can protest. I do protest, violently.”
“My dear fellow, don’t make a scene,” said Valentin. “Scenes in these cases are in very bad taste.”
“Your duel itself is a scene,” said Newman; “that’s all it is! It’s a wretched theatrical affair. Why don’t you take a band of music with you outright? It’s d—d barbarous and it’s d—d corrupt, both.”
“Oh, I can’t begin, at this time of day, to defend the theory of dueling,” said Valentin. “It is our custom, and I think it is a good thing. Quite apart from the goodness of the cause in which a duel may be fought, it has a kind of picturesque charm which in this age of vile prose seems to me greatly to recommend it. It’s a remnant of a higher-tempered time; one ought to cling to it. Depend upon it, a duel is never amiss.”
“I don’t know what you mean by a higher-tempered time,” said Newman. “Because your great-grandfather was an ass, is that any reason why you should be? For my part I think we had better let our temper take care of itself; it generally seems to me quite high enough; I am not afraid of being too meek. If your great-grandfather were to make himself unpleasant to me, I think I could manage him yet.”
“My dear friend,” said Valentin, smiling, “you can’t invent anything that will take the place of satisfaction for an insult. To demand it and to give it are equally excellent arrangements.”
“Do you call this sort of thing satisfaction?” Newman asked. “Does it satisfy you to receive a present of the carcass of that coarse fop? does it gratify you to make him a present of yours? If a man hits you, hit him back; if a man libels you, haul him up.”
“Haul him up, into court? Oh, that is very nasty!” said Valentin.
“The nastiness is his—not yours. And for that matter, what you are doing is not particularly nice. You are too good for it. I don’t say you are the most useful man in the world, or the cleverest, or the most amiable. But you are too good to go and get your throat cut for a prostitute.”
Valentin flushed a little, but he laughed. “I shan’t get my throat cut if I can help it. Moreover, one’s honor hasn’t two different measures. It only knows that it is hurt; it doesn’t ask when, or how, or where.”
“The more fool it is!” said Newman.
Valentin ceased to laugh; he looked grave. “I beg you not to say any more,” he said. “If you do I shall almost fancy you don’t care about—about”—and he paused.
“About what?”
“About that matter—about one’s honor.”
“Fancy what you please,” said Newman. “Fancy while you are at it that I care about you—though you are not worth it. But come back without damage,” he added in a moment, “and I will forgive you. And then,” he continued, as Valentin was going, “I will ship you straight off to America.”
“Well,” answered Valentin, “if I am to turn over a new page, this may figure as a tail-piece to the old.” And then he lit another cigar and departed.
“Blast that girl!” said Newman as the door closed upon Valentin.
CHAPTER XVIII
Newman went the next morning to see Madame de Cintré, timing his visit so as to arrive after the noonday breakfast. In the court of the hôtel, before the portico, stood Madame de Bellegarde’s old square carriage. The servant who opened the door answered Newman’s inquiry with a slightly embarrassed and hesitating murmur, and at the same moment Mrs. Bread appeared in the background, dim-visaged as usual, and wearing a large black bonnet and shawl.
“What is the matter?” asked Newman. “Is Madame la Comtesse at home, or not?”
Mrs. Bread advanced, fixing her eyes upon him: he observed that she held a sealed letter, very delicately, in her fingers. “The countess has left a message for you, sir; she has left this,” said Mrs. Bread, holding out the letter, which Newman took.
“Left it? Is she out? Is she gone away?”
“She is going away, sir; she is leaving town,” said Mrs. Bread.
“Leaving town!” exclaimed Newman. “What has happened?”
“It is not for me to say, sir,” said Mrs. Bread, with her eyes on the ground. “But I thought it would come.”
“What would come, pray?” Newman demanded. He had broken the seal of the letter, but he still questioned. “She is in the house? She is visible?”
“I don’t think she expected you this morning,” the old waiting-woman replied. “She was to leave immediately.”
“Where is she going?”
“To Fleurières.”
“To Fleurières? But surely I can see her?”
Mrs. Bread hesitated a moment, and then clasping together her two hands, “I will take you!” she said. And she led the way upstairs. At the top of the staircase she paused and fixed her dry, sad eyes upon Newman. “Be very easy with her,” she said; “she is most unhappy!” Then she went on to Madame de Cintré’s apartment; Newman, perplexed and alarmed, followed her rapidly. Mrs. Bread threw open the door, and Newman pushed back the curtain at the farther side of its deep embrasure. In the middle of the room stood Madame de Cintré; her face was pale and she was dressed for traveling. Behind her, before the fire-place, stood Urbain de Bellegarde, looking at his finger-nails; near the marquis sat his mother, buried in an armchair, and with her eyes immediately fixing themselves upon Newman. He felt, as soon as he entered the room, that he was in the presence of something evil; he was startled and pained, as he would have been by a threatening cry in the stillness of the night. He walked straight to Madame de Cintré and seized her by the hand.
“What is the matter?” he asked commandingly; “what is happening?”
Urbain de Bellegarde stared, then left his place and came and leaned upon his mother’s chair, behind. Newman’s sudden irruption had evidently discomposed both mother and son. Madame de Cintré stood silent, with her eyes resting upon Newman’s. She had often looked at him with all her soul, as it seemed to him; but in this present gaze there was a sort of bottomless depth. She was in distress; it was the most touching thing he had ever seen. His heart rose into his throat, and he was on the point of turning to her companions, with an angry challenge; but she checked him, pressing the hand that held her own.
“Something very grave has happened,” she said. “I cannot marry you.”
Newman dropped her hand and stood staring, first at her and then at the others. “Why not?” he asked, as quietly as possible.
Madame de Cintré almost smiled, but the attempt was strange. “You must ask my mother, you must ask my brother.”
“Why can’t she marry me?” said Newman, looking at them.
Madame de Bellegarde did not move in her place, but she was as pale as her daughter. The marquis looked down at her. She said nothing for some moments, but she kept her keen, clear eyes upon Newman, bravely. The marquis drew himself up and looked at the ceiling. “It’s impossible!” he said softly.
“It’s improper,” said Madame de Bellegarde.
Newman began to laugh. “Oh, you are fooling!” he exclaimed.
“My sister, you have no time; you are losing your train,” said the marquis.
“Come, is he mad?” asked Newman.
“No; don’t think that,” said Madame de Cintré. “But I am going away.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the country, to Fleurières; to be alone.”
“To leave me?” said Newman, slowly.
“I can’t see you, now,” said Madame de Cintré.
“Now—why not?”
“I am ashamed,” said Madame de Cintré, simply.
Newman turned toward the marquis. “What have you done to her—what does it mean?” he asked with the same effort at calmness, the fruit of his constant practice in taking things easily. He was excited, but excitement with him was only an intenser deliberateness; it was the swimmer stripped.
“It means that I have given you up,” said Madame de Cintré. “It means that.”
Her face was too charged with tragic expression not fully to confirm her words. Newman was profoundly shocked, but he felt as yet no resentment against her. He was amazed, bewildered, and the presence of the old marquise and her son seemed to smite his eyes like the glare of a watchman’s lantern. “Can’t I see you alone?” he asked.
“It would be only more painful. I hoped I should not see you—I should escape. I wrote to you. Good-bye.” And she put out her hand again.
Newman put both his own into his pockets. “I will go with you,” he said.
She laid her two hands on his arm. “Will you grant me a last request?” and as she looked at him, urging this, her eyes filled with tears. “Let me go alone—let me go in peace. I can’t call it peace—it’s death. But let me bury myself. So—good-bye.”
Newman passed his hand into his hair and stood slowly rubbing his head and looking through his keenly-narrowed eyes from one to the other of the three persons before him. His lips were compressed, and the two lines which had formed themselves beside his mouth might have made it appear at a first glance that he was smiling. I have said that his excitement was an intenser deliberateness, and now he looked grimly deliberate. “It seems very much as if you had interfered, marquis,” he said slowly. “I thought you said you wouldn’t interfere. I know you don’t like me; but that doesn’t make any difference. I thought you promised me you wouldn’t interfere. I thought you swore on your honor that you wouldn’t interfere. Don’t you remember, marquis?”
The marquis lifted his eyebrows; but he was apparently determined to be even more urbane than usual. He rested his two hands upon the back of his mother’s chair and bent forward, as if he were leaning over the edge of a pulpit or a lecture-desk. He did not smile, but he looked softly grave. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “I assured you that I would not influence my sister’s decision. I adhered, to the letter, to my engagement. Did I not, sister?”
“Don’t appeal, my son,” said the marquise, “your word is sufficient.”
“Yes—she accepted me,” said Newman. “That is very true, I can’t deny that. At least,” he added, in a different tone, turning to Madame de Cintré, “you did accept me?”
Something in the tone seemed to move her strongly. She turned away, burying her face in her hands.
“But you have interfered now, haven’t you?” inquired Newman of the marquis.
“Neither then nor now have I attempted to influence my sister. I used no persuasion then, I have used no persuasion to-day.”
“And what have you used?”
“We have used authority,” said Madame de Bellegarde in a rich, bell-like voice.
“Ah, you have used authority,” Newman exclaimed. “They have used authority,” he went on, turning to Madame de Cintré. “What is it? how did they use it?”
“My mother commanded,” said Madame de Cintré.
“Commanded you to give me up—I see. And you obey—I see. But why do you obey?” asked Newman.
Madame de Cintré looked across at the old marquise; her eyes slowly measured her from head to foot. “I am afraid of my mother,” she said.
Madame de Bellegarde rose with a certain quickness, crying, “This is a most indecent scene!”
“I have no wish to prolong it,” said Madame de Cintré; and turning to the door she put out her hand again. “If you can pity me a little, let me go alone.”
Newman shook her hand quietly and firmly. “I’ll come down there,” he said. The portière dropped behind her, and Newman sank with a long breath into the nearest chair. He leaned back in it, resting his hands on the knobs of the arms and looking at Madame de Bellegarde and Urbain. There was a long silence. They stood side by side, with their heads high and their handsome eyebrows arched.
“So you make a distinction?” Newman said at last. “You make a distinction between persuading and commanding? It’s very neat. But the distinction is in favor of commanding. That rather spoils it.”
“We have not the least objection to defining our position,” said M. de Bellegarde. “We understand that it should not at first appear to you quite clear. We rather expected, indeed, that you should not do us justice.”
“Oh, I’ll do you justice,” said Newman. “Don’t be afraid. Please proceed.”
The marquise laid her hand on her son’s arm, as if to deprecate the attempt to define their position. “It is quite useless,” she said, “to try and arrange this matter so as to make it agreeable to you. It can never be agreeable to you. It is a disappointment, and disappointments are unpleasant. I thought it over carefully and tried to arrange it better; but I only gave myself a headache and lost my sleep. Say what we will, you will think yourself ill-treated, and you will publish your wrongs among your friends. But we are not afraid of that. Besides, your friends are not our friends, and it will not matter. Think of us as you please. I only beg you not to be violent. I have never in my life been present at a violent scene of any kind, and at my age I can’t be expected to begin.”
“Is that all you have got to say?” asked Newman, slowly rising out of his chair. “That’s a poor show for a clever lady like you, marquise. Come, try again.”
“My mother goes to the point, with her usual honesty and intrepidity,” said the marquis, toying with his watch-guard. “But it is perhaps well to say a little more. We of course quite repudiate the charge of having broken faith with you. We left you entirely at liberty to make yourself agreeable to my sister. We left her quite at liberty to entertain your proposal. When she accepted you we said nothing. We therefore quite observed our promise. It was only at a later stage of the affair, and on quite a different basis, as it were, that we determined to speak. It would have been better, perhaps, if we had spoken before. But really, you see, nothing has yet been done.”
“Nothing has yet been done?” Newman repeated the words, unconscious of their comical effect. He had lost the sense of what the marquis was saying; M. de Bellegarde’s superior style was a mere humming in his ears. All that he understood, in his deep and simple indignation, was that the matter was not a violent joke, and that the people before him were perfectly serious. “Do you suppose I can take this?” he asked. “Do you suppose it can matter to me what you say? Do you suppose I can seriously listen to you? You are simply crazy!”
Madame de Bellegarde gave a rap with her fan in the palm of her hand. “If you don’t take it you can leave it, sir. It matters very little what you do. My daughter has given you up.”
“She doesn’t mean it,” Newman declared after a moment.
“I think I can assure you that she does,” said the marquis.
“Poor woman, what damnable thing have you done to her?” cried Newman.
“Gently, gently!” murmured M. de Bellegarde.
“She told you,” said the old lady. “I commanded her.”
Newman shook his head, heavily. “This sort of thing can’t be, you know,” he said. “A man can’t be used in this fashion. You have got no right; you have got no power.”
“My power,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “is in my children’s obedience.”
“In their fear, your daughter said. There is something very strange in it. Why should your daughter be afraid of you?” added Newman, after looking a moment at the old lady. “There is some foul play.”
The marquise met his gaze without flinching, and as if she did not hear or heed what he said. “I did my best,” she said, quietly. “I could endure it no longer.”
“It was a bold experiment!” said the marquis.
Newman felt disposed to walk to him, clutch his neck with his fingers and press his windpipe with his thumb. “I needn’t tell you how you strike me,” he said; “of course you know that. But I should think you would be afraid of your friends—all those people you introduced me to the other night. There were some very nice people among them; you may depend upon it there were some honest men and women.”
“Our friends approve us,” said M. de Bellegarde, “there is not a family among them that would have acted otherwise. And however that may be, we take the cue from no one. The Bellegardes have been used to set the example, not to wait for it.”
“You would have waited long before anyone would have set you such an example as this,” exclaimed Newman. “Have I done anything wrong?” he demanded. “Have I given you reason to change your opinion? Have you found out anything against me? I can’t imagine.”
“Our opinion,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “is quite the same as at first—exactly. We have no ill-will towards yourself; we are very far from accusing you of misconduct. Since your relations with us began you have been, I frankly confess, less—less peculiar than I expected. It is not your disposition that we object to, it is your antecedents. We really cannot reconcile ourselves to a commercial person. We fancied in an evil hour that we could; it was a great misfortune. We determined to persevere to the end, and to give you every advantage. I was resolved that you should have no reason to accuse me of want of loyalty. We let the thing certainly go very far; we introduced you to our friends. To tell the truth, it was that, I think, that broke me down. I succumbed to the scene that took place on Thursday night in these rooms. You must excuse me if what I say is disagreeable to you, but we cannot release ourselves without an explanation.”
“There can be no better proof of our good faith,” said the marquis, “than our committing ourselves to you in the eyes of the world the other evening. We endeavored to bind ourselves—to tie our hands, as it were.”
“But it was that,” added his mother, “that opened our eyes and broke our bonds. We should have been most uncomfortable! You know,” she added in a moment, “that you were forewarned. I told you we were very proud.”
Newman took up his hat and began mechanically to smooth it; the very fierceness of his scorn kept him from speaking. “You are not proud enough,” he observed at last.
“In all this matter,” said the marquis, smiling, “I really see nothing but our humility.”
“Let us have no more discussion than is necessary,” resumed Madame de Bellegarde. “My daughter told you everything when she said she gave you up.”
“I am not satisfied about your daughter,” said Newman; “I want to know what you did to her. It is all very easy talking about authority and saying you commanded her. She didn’t accept me blindly, and she wouldn’t have given me up blindly. Not that I believe yet she has really given me up; she will talk it over with me. But you have frightened her, you have bullied her, you have hurt her. What was it you did to her?”
“I did very little!” said Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone which gave Newman a chill when he afterwards remembered it.
“Let me remind you that we offered you these explanations,” the marquis observed, “with the express understanding that you should abstain from violence of language.”
“I am not violent,” Newman answered, “it is you who are violent! But I don’t know that I have much more to say to you. What you expect of me, apparently, is to go my way, thanking you for favors received, and promising never to trouble you again.”
“We expect of you to act like a clever man,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “You have shown yourself that already, and what we have done is altogether based upon your being so. When one must submit, one must. Since my daughter absolutely withdraws, what will be the use of your making a noise?”
“It remains to be seen whether your daughter absolutely withdraws. Your daughter and I are still very good friends; nothing is changed in that. As I say, I will talk it over with her.”
“That will be of no use,” said the old lady. “I know my daughter well enough to know that words spoken as she just now spoke to you are final. Besides, she has promised me.”
“I have no doubt her promise is worth a great deal more than your own,” said Newman; “nevertheless I don’t give her up.”
“Just as you please! But if she won’t even see you,—and she won’t,—your constancy must remain purely Platonic.”
Poor Newman was feigning a greater confidence than he felt. Madame de Cintré’s strange intensity had in fact struck a chill to his heart; her face, still impressed upon his vision, had been a terribly vivid image of renunciation. He felt sick, and suddenly helpless. He turned away and stood for a moment with his hand on the door; then he faced about and after the briefest hesitation broke out with a different accent. “Come, think of what this must be to me, and let her alone! Why should you object to me so—what’s the matter with me? I can’t hurt you. I wouldn’t if I could. I’m the most unobjectionable fellow in the world. What if I am a commercial person? What under the sun do you mean? A commercial person? I will be any sort of a person you want. I never talked to you about business. Let her go, and I will ask no questions. I will take her away, and you shall never see me or hear of me again. I will stay in America if you like. I’ll sign a paper promising never to come back to Europe! All I want is not to lose her!”