Oh, you never
heard of us, of course! Ce que c'est que la gloire! We are much better than the
Bellegardes, at any rate. But I don't care a pin for my pedigree; I want to
belong to my time. I'm a revolutionist, a radical, a child of the age! I am sure
I go beyond you. I like clever people, wherever they come from, and I take my
amusement wherever I find it. I don't pout at the Empire; here all the world
pouts at the Empire. Of course I have to mind what I say; but I expect to take
my revenge with you.« Madame de Bellegarde discoursed for some time longer in
this sympathetic strain, with an eager abundance which seemed to indicate that
her opportunities for revealing her esoteric philosophy were indeed rare. She
hoped that Newman would never be afraid of her, however he might be with the
others, for, really, she went very far indeed. Strong people - les gens forts -
were in her opinion equal, all the world over. Newman listened to her with an
attention at once beguiled and irritated. He wondered what the deuce she, too,
was driving at, with her hope that he would not be afraid of her and her
protestations of equality. In so far as he could understand her, she was wrong;
a silly rattling woman was certainly not the equal of a sensible man,
preoccupied with an ambitious passion. Madame de Bellegarde stopped suddenly,
and looked at him sharply, shaking her fan. »I see you don't believe me,« she
said, »you are too much on your guard. You will not form an alliance, offensive
or defensive? You are very wrong; I could help you.«
    Newman answered that he was very grateful and that he would certainly ask
for help; she should see. »But first of all,« he said, »I must help myself.« And
he went to join Madame de Cintré.
    »I have been telling Madame de la Rochefidèle that you are an American,« she
said, as he came up. »It interests her greatly. Her father went over with the
French troops to help you in your battles in the last century, and she has
always, in consequence, wanted greatly to see an American. But she has never
succeeded till tonight. You are the first - to her knowledge - that she has ever
looked at.«
    Madame de la Rochefidèle had an aged cadaverous face, with a falling of