I don't say
anything against your family--understand that!" added Newman, with
an eagerness which might have made a perspicacious observer smile.
"Whatever way you feel toward them is the right way, and anything that
you should wish me to do to make myself agreeable to them I will do as
well as I know how. Depend upon that!"
Madame de Cintre rose again and came toward the fireplace, near which
Newman was standing. The expression of pain and embarrassment had passed
out of her face, and it was illuminated with something which, this time
at least, Newman need not have been perplexed whether to attribute to
habit or to intention, to art or to nature. She had the air of a woman
who has stepped across the frontier of friendship and, looking around
her, finds the region vast. A certain checked and controlled exaltation
seemed mingled with the usual level radiance of her glance. "I will not
refuse to see you again," she said, "because much of what you have said
has given me pleasure. But I will see you only on this condition: that
you say nothing more in the same way for a long time."
"For how long?"
"For six months. It must be a solemn promise."
"Very well, I promise."
"Good-by, then," she said, and extended her hand.
He held it a moment, as if he were going to say something more.
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