The portress could not tell him whether Madame de Cintre was
visible; he would please to apply at the farther door. He crossed the
court; a gentleman was sitting, bareheaded, on the steps of the portico,
playing with a beautiful pointer. He rose as Newman approached, and, as
he laid his hand upon the bell, said with a smile, in English, that he
was afraid Newman would be kept waiting; the servants were scattered, he
himself had been ringing, he didn't know what the deuce was in them. He
was a young man, his English was excellent, and his smile very frank.
Newman pronounced the name of Madame de Cintre.
"I think," said the young man, "that my sister is visible. Come in, and
if you will give me your card I will carry it to her myself."
Newman had been accompanied on his present errand by a slight sentiment,
I will not say of defiance--a readiness for aggression or defense, as
they might prove needful--but of reflection, good-humored suspicion. He
took from his pocket, while he stood on the portico, a card upon which,
under his name, he had written the words "San Francisco," and while
he presented it he looked warily at his interlocutor. His glance was
singularly reassuring; he liked the young man's face; it strongly
resembled that of Madame de Cintre. He was evidently her brother.
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