 you don't understand me, that you don't know just what I am
doing.«
    »Oh,« said Newman laughing, »don't do anything wrong. Leave me to myself,
rather, or defy me, out and out. I wouldn't lay any load on your conscience.«
    Bellegarde sprang up again; he was evidently excited; there was a warmer
spark even than usual in his eye. »You never will understand - you never will
know,« he said; »and if you succeed, and I turn out to have helped you, you will
never be grateful, not as I shall deserve you should be. You will be an
excellent fellow always, but you will not be grateful. But it doesn't matter,
for I shall get my own fun out of it.« And he broke into an extravagant laugh.
»You look puzzled,« he added; »you look almost frightened.«
    »It is a pity,« said Newman, »that I don't understand you. I shall lose some
very good jokes.«
    »I told you, you remember, that we were very strange people,« Bellegarde
went on. »I give you warning again. We are! My mother is strange, my brother is
strange, and I verily believe that I am stranger than either. You will even find
my sister a little strange. Old trees have crooked branches, old houses have
queer cracks, old races have odd secrets. Remember that we are eight hundred
years old!«
    »Very good,« said Newman; »that's the sort of thing I came to Europe for.
You come into my programme.«
    »Touchez-là, then,« said Bellegarde, putting out his hand. »It's a bargain:
I accept you; I espouse your cause. It's because I like you, in a great measure;
but that is not the only reason.« And he stood holding Newman's hand and looking
at him askance.
    »What is the other one?«
    »I am in the Opposition. I dislike someone else.«
    »Your brother?« asked Newman, in his unmodulated voice.
    Bellegarde laid his finger on his lips with a whispered hush! »Old races
have strange secrets!« he said. »Put yourself into motion, come and see my
sister, and be assured of my sympathy!« And on this he took his leave.
    Newman dropped into a chair before his fire, and sat a long
