ush him on to make up to you."

"Who told you this?" said Madame de Cintre softly.

"Not Valentin. I observed it. I guessed it. I didn't know at the time
that I was observing it, but it stuck in my memory. And afterwards, you
recollect, I saw Lord Deepmere with you in the conservatory. You said
then that you would tell me at another time what he had said to you."

"That was before--before THIS," said Madame de Cintre.

"It doesn't matter," said Newman; "and, besides, I think I know. He's an
honest little Englishman. He came and told you what your mother was up
to--that she wanted him to supplant me; not being a commercial person.
If he would make you an offer she would undertake to bring you over and
give me the slip. Lord Deepmere isn't very intellectual, so she had to
spell it out to him. He said he admired you 'no end,' and that he wanted
you to know it; but he didn't like being mixed up with that sort of
underhand work, and he came to you and told tales. That was about the
amount of it, wasn't it? And then you said you were perfectly happy."

"I don't see why we should talk of Lord Deepmere," said Madame de
Cintre. "It was not for that you came here. And about my mother, it
doesn't matter what you suspect and what you know. When once my mind
has been made up, as it is now, I should not discuss these things.
Discussing anything, now, is very idle. We must try and live each as we
can. I believe you will be happy again; even, sometimes, when you think
of me. When you do so, think this--that it was not easy, and that I did
the best I could. I have things to reckon with that you don't know. I
mean I have feelings. I must do as they force me--I must, I must. They
would haunt me otherwise," she cried, with vehemence; "they would kill
me!"

"I know what your feelings are: they are superstitions! They are the
feeling that, after all, though I AM a good fellow, I have been
in business; the feeling that your mother's looks are law and your
brother's words are gospel; that you all hang together, and that it's
a part of the everlasting proprieties that they should have a hand in
everything you do. It makes my blood boil. That is cold; you are right.
And what I feel here," and Newman struck his heart and became more
poetical than he knew, "is a glowing fire!"

A spectator less preoccupied than Madame de Cintre's distracted wooer
would have felt sure from the first that her appealing calm of manner
was the result of violent