o see what had become of you. I thought you might
be sick," said Newman.

"It is very good of you, as always," said the old man. "No, I am not
well. Yes, I am SEEK."

"Ask monsieur to sit down," said Mademoiselle Nioche. "Garcon, bring a
chair."

"Will you do us the honor to SEAT?" said M. Nioche, timorously, and with
a double foreignness of accent.

Newman said to himself that he had better see the thing out and he took
a chair at the end of the table, with Mademoiselle Nioche on his left
and her father on the other side. "You will take something, of course,"
said Miss Noemie, who was sipping a glass of madeira. Newman said that
he believed not, and then she turned to her papa with a smile. "What an
honor, eh? he has come only for us." M. Nioche drained his pungent
glass at a long draught, and looked out from eyes more lachrymose in
consequence. "But you didn't come for me, eh?" Mademoiselle Noemie went
on. "You didn't expect to find me here?"

Newman observed the change in her appearance. She was very elegant
and prettier than before; she looked a year or two older, and it was
noticeable that, to the eye, she had only gained in respectability.
She looked "lady-like." She was dressed in quiet colors, and wore her
expensively unobtrusive toilet with a grace that might have come from
years of practice. Her present self-possession and aplomb struck Newman
as really infernal, and he inclined to agree with Valentin de Bellegarde
that the young lady was very remarkable. "No, to tell the truth, I
didn't come for you," he said, "and I didn't expect to find you. I was
told," he added in a moment "that you had left your father."

"Quelle horreur!" cried Mademoiselle Nioche with a smile. "Does one
leave one's father? You have the proof of the contrary."

"Yes, convincing proof," said Newman glancing at M. Nioche. The old man
caught his glance obliquely, with his faded, deprecating eye, and then,
lifting his empty glass, pretended to drink again.

"Who told you that?" Noemie demanded. "I know very well. It was M. de
Bellegarde. Why don't you say yes? You are not polite."

"I am embarrassed," said Newman.

"I set you a better example. I know M. de Bellegarde told you. He knows
a great deal about me--or he thinks he does. He has taken a great deal
of trouble to find out, but half of it isn't true. In the first place,
I haven't left my father; I am much too fond of him. Isn't it so, little
father? M. de Bellegarde is a ch