hat is my impression. But that is not against you; it's for you to
make her change her mind."

"I am afraid it will be hard," said Newman, gravely.

"I don't think it will be easy. In a general way I don't see why a
widow should ever marry again. She has gained the benefits of
matrimony--freedom and consideration--and she has got rid of the
drawbacks. Why should she put her head into the noose again? Her usual
motive is ambition: if a man can offer her a great position, make her a
princess or an ambassadress she may think the compensation sufficient."

"And--in that way--is Madame de Cintre ambitious?"

"Who knows?" said Bellegarde, with a profound shrug. "I don't pretend to
say all that she is or all that she is not. I think she might be touched
by the prospect of becoming the wife of a great man. But in a certain
way, I believe, whatever she does will be the IMPROBABLE. Don't be too
confident, but don't absolutely doubt. Your best chance for success will
be precisely in being, to her mind, unusual, unexpected, original. Don't
try to be any one else; be simply yourself, out and out. Something or
other can't fail to come of it; I am very curious to see what."

"I am much obliged to you for your advice," said Newman. "And," he added
with a smile, "I am glad, for your sake, I am going to be so amusing."

"It will be more than amusing," said Bellegarde; "it will be inspiring.
I look at it from my point of view, and you from yours. After all,
anything for a change! And only yesterday I was yawning so as to
dislocate my jaw, and declaring that there was nothing new under the
sun! If it isn't new to see you come into the family as a suitor, I am
very much mistaken. Let me say that, my dear fellow; I won't call it
anything else, bad or good; I will simply call it NEW" And overcome with
a sense of the novelty thus foreshadowed, Valentin de Bellegarde threw
himself into a deep arm-chair before the fire, and, with a fixed,
intense smile, seemed to read a vision of it in the flame of the logs.
After a while he looked up. "Go ahead, my boy; you have my good wishes,"
he said. "But it is really a pity you don't understand me, that you
don't know just what I am doing."

"Oh," said Newman, laughing, "don't do anything wrong. Leave me to
myself, rather, or defy me, out and out. I wouldn't lay any load on your
conscience."

Bellegarde sprang up again; he was evidently excited; there was a warmer
spark even than usual in his eye.