ld not have done better
than this. He hastened to add that on the present occasion he would have
made a point of not doing so well. It was not an occasion for that
sort of murderous work, que diable! He would have picked out some quiet
fleshy spot and just tapped it with a harmless ball. M. Stanislas Kapp
had been deplorably heavy-handed; but really, when the world had come to
that pass that one granted a meeting to a brewer's son!... This was M.
de Grosjoyaux's nearest approach to a generalization. He kept looking
through the window, over the shoulder of M. Ledoux, at a slender tree
which stood at the end of a lane, opposite to the inn, and seemed to be
measuring its distance from his extended arm and secretly wishing that,
since the subject had been introduced, propriety did not forbid a little
speculative pistol-practice.

Newman was in no humor to enjoy good company. He could neither eat nor
talk; his soul was sore with grief and anger, and the weight of his
double sorrow was intolerable. He sat with his eyes fixed upon his
plate, counting the minutes, wishing at one moment that Valentin would
see him and leave him free to go in quest of Madame de Cintre and his
lost happiness, and mentally calling himself a vile brute the next, for
the impatient egotism of the wish. He was very poor company, himself,
and even his acute preoccupation and his general lack of the habit of
pondering the impression he produced did not prevent him from reflecting
that his companions must be puzzled to see how poor Bellegarde came to
take such a fancy to this taciturn Yankee that he must needs have him at
his death-bed. After breakfast he strolled forth alone into the village
and looked at the fountain, the geese, the open barn doors, the brown,
bent old women, showing their hugely darned stocking-heels at the ends
of their slowly-clicking sabots, and the beautiful view of snowy
Alps and purple Jura at either end of the little street. The day was
brilliant; early spring was in the air and in the sunshine, and the
winter's damp was trickling out of the cottage eaves. It was birth
and brightness for all nature, even for chirping chickens and waddling
goslings, and it was to be death and burial for poor, foolish, generous,
delightful Bellegarde. Newman walked as far as the village church, and
went into the small grave-yard beside it, where he sat down and looked
at the awkward tablets which were planted around. They were all sordid
and hideo