e
gray! When one derogates there are no degrees."

Newman answered nothing for a minute. Then, "I think you will find there
are degrees in success," he said with a certain dryness.

Valentin had leaned forward again, with his elbows on his knees, and he
was scratching the pavement with his stick. At last he said, looking up,
"Do you really think I ought to do something?"

Newman laid his hand on his companion's arm and looked at him a moment
through sagaciously-narrowed eyelids. "Try it and see. You are not good
enough for it, but we will stretch a point."

"Do you really think I can make some money? I should like to see how it
feels to have a little."

"Do what I tell you, and you shall be rich," said Newman. "Think of it."
And he looked at his watch and prepared to resume his way to Madame de
Bellegarde's box.

"Upon my word I will think of it," said Valentin. "I will go and listen
to Mozart another half hour--I can always think better to music--and
profoundly meditate upon it."

The marquis was with his wife when Newman entered their box; he was
bland, remote, and correct as usual; or, as it seemed to Newman, even
more than usual.

"What do you think of the opera?" asked our hero. "What do you think of
the Don?"

"We all know what Mozart is," said the marquis; "our impressions
don't date from this evening. Mozart is youth, freshness, brilliancy,
facility--a little too great facility, perhaps. But the execution is
here and there deplorably rough."

"I am very curious to see how it ends," said Newman.

"You speak as if it were a feuilleton in the 'Figaro,'" observed the
marquis. "You have surely seen the opera before?"

"Never," said Newman. "I am sure I should have remembered it.
Donna Elvira reminds me of Madame de Cintre; I don't mean in her
circumstances, but in the music she sings."

"It is a very nice distinction," laughed the marquis lightly. "There is
no great possibility, I imagine, of Madame de Cintre being forsaken."

"Not much!" said Newman. "But what becomes of the Don?"

"The devil comes down--or comes up," said Madame de Bellegarde, "and
carries him off. I suppose Zerlina reminds you of me."

"I will go to the foyer for a few moments," said the marquis, "and give
you a chance to say that the commander--the man of stone--resembles me."
And he passed out of the box.

The little marquise stared an instant at the velvet ledge of the
balcony, and then murmured, "Not a man of stone, a man