I will do my best to understand."
"No," said Bellegarde, "it's disagreeable to me; I give it up. I liked
you the first time I saw you, and I will abide by that. It would be
quite odious for me to come talking to you as if I could patronize you.
I have told you before that I envy you; vous m'imposez, as we say. I
didn't know you much until within five minutes. So we will let things
go, and I will say nothing to you that, if our positions were reversed,
you would not say to me."
I do not know whether in renouncing the mysterious opportunity to which
he alluded, Bellegarde felt that he was doing something very generous.
If so, he was not rewarded; his generosity was not appreciated. Newman
quite failed to recognize the young Frenchman's power to wound his
feelings, and he had now no sense of escaping or coming off easily.
He did not thank his companion even with a glance. "My eyes are open,
though," he said, "so far as that you have practically told me that your
family and your friends will turn up their noses at me. I have never
thought much about the reasons that make it proper for people to turn up
their noses, and so I can only decide the question off-hand. Looking at
it in that way I can't see anything in it. I simply think, if you want
to know, that I'm as good as the best.
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