
    »My mother goes to the point, with her usual honesty and intrepidity,« said
the marquis, toying with his watch-guard. »But it is perhaps well to say a
little more. We of course quite repudiate the charge of having broken faith with
you. We left you entirely at liberty to make yourself agreeable to my sister. We
left her quite at liberty to entertain your proposal. When she accepted you we
said nothing. We therefore quite observed our promise. It was only at a later
stage of the affair, and on quite a different basis, as it were, that we
determined to speak. It would have been better, perhaps, if we had spoken
before. But really, you see, nothing has yet been done.«
    »Nothing has yet been done?« Newman repeated the words, unconscious of their
comical effect. He had lost the sense of what the marquis was saying; M. de
Bellegarde's superior style was a mere humming in his ears. All that he
understood, in his deep and simple indignation, was that the matter was not a
violent joke, and that the people before him were perfectly serious, »Do you
suppose I can take this?« he asked. »Do you suppose it can matter to me what you
say? Do you suppose I can seriously listen to you? You are simply crazy!«
    Madame de Bellegarde gave a rap with her fan in the palm of her hand. »If
you don't take it you can leave it, sir. It matters very little what you do. My
daughter has given you up.«
    »She doesn't mean it,« Newman declared after a moment.
    »I think I can assure you that she does,« said the marquis.
    »Poor woman, what damnable thing have you done to her?« cried Newman.
    »Gently, gently!« murmured M. de Bellegarde.
    »She told you,« said the old lady. »I commanded her.«
    Newman shook his head heavily. »This sort of thing can't be, you know,« he
said. »A man can't be used in this fashion. You have got no right; you have got
no power.«
    »My power,« said Madame de Bellegarde, »is in my children's obedience.«
    »In their fear, your daughter said. There is something very strange in it.
Why should your daughter be afraid of you?« added Newman, after looking a moment
at the old lady.
