“ Well, a great many people are good,” said Newman. “Valentin is quite good enough for me.”
Madame de Cintré was silent for a short time. “He is not good enough for me,” she said at last. “I wish he would do something.”
“ What can he do?” asked Newman.
“ Nothing. Yet he is very clever.”
“ It is a proof of cleverness,” said Newman, “to be happy without doing anything.”
“ I don’t think Valentin is happy, in reality. He is clever, generous, brave; but what is there to show for it? To me there is something sad in his life, and sometimes I have a sort of foreboding about him. I don’t know why, but I fancy he will have some great trouble—perhaps an unhappy end.”
“ Oh, leave him to me,” said Newman, jovially. “I will watch over him and keep harm away.”
One evening, in Madame de Belle
