"
Valentin shook his hands in the air and then buried his face in them. "I
have less tact than I might have, no doubt; but oh, my brother, if you
knew what you yourself were saying!" And he went off into a long laugh.
M. de Bellegarde's face flushed a little, but he held his head higher,
as if to repudiate this concession to vulgar perturbability. "I am sure
you understand me," he said to Newman.
"Oh no, I don't understand you at all," said Newman. "But you needn't
mind that. I don't care. In fact, I think I had better not understand
you. I might not like it. That wouldn't suit me at all, you know. I want
to marry your sister, that's all; to do it as quickly as possible, and
to find fault with nothing. I don't care how I do it. I am not marrying
you, you know, sir. I have got my leave, and that is all I want."
"You had better receive the last word from my mother," said the marquis.
"Very good; I will go and get it," said Newman; and he prepared to
return to the drawing-room.
M. de Bellegarde made a motion for him to pass first, and when Newman
had gone out he shut himself into the room with Valentin. Newman had
been a trifle bewildered by the audacious irony of the younger brother,
and he had not needed its aid to point the moral of M. de Bellegarde's
transcendent patronage.
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