Anything I can do for you
I shall be very happy to do. Call upon me at your convenience. Is there
any one you desire to know--anything you wish to see? It is a pity you
should not enjoy Paris."
"Oh, I do enjoy it!" said Newman, good-naturedly. "I'm much obligated to
you."
"Honestly speaking," M. de Bellegarde went on, "there is something
absurd to me in hearing myself make you these offers. They represent
a great deal of goodwill, but they represent little else. You are a
successful man and I am a failure, and it's a turning of the tables to
talk as if I could lend you a hand."
"In what way are you a failure?" asked Newman.
"Oh, I'm not a tragical failure!" cried the young man with a laugh.
"I have fallen from a height, and my fiasco has made no noise. You,
evidently, are a success. You have made a fortune, you have built up an
edifice, you are a financial, commercial power, you can travel about
the world until you have found a soft spot, and lie down in it with
the consciousness of having earned your rest. Is not that true? Well,
imagine the exact reverse of all that, and you have me. I have done
nothing--I can do nothing!"
"Why not?"
"It's a long story. Some day I will tell you. Meanwhile, I'm right, eh?
You are a success? You have made a fortune? It's none of my business,
but, in short, you are rich?"
"That's another thing that it sounds foolish to say," said Newman.
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