THE AMERICAN
a fine moment. Sit down." She looked, it had to be owned, exceedingly pretty and perverse and animated and elegant, and quite as if she had had some very good news.
"Something has happened here!" Newman said while he kept his feet.
"You find me in a very fine moment," she repeated. "Two gentlemen—one of them's M. de Bellegarde, the pleasure of whose acquaintance I owe to you—have just had words about your humble servant. Very sharp words too. They can't come off without its going further. A meeting and a big noise—that will give me a push!" said Noémie, clapping with a soft thud her little pearl-coloured hands. C'est ça qui pose une femme!"
"You don't mean to say Bellegarde's going to fight about you!" Newman disgustedly cried.
"Nothing less!"—and she looked at him with a hard little smile. "No, no, you're not galant! And if you prevent this affair I shall owe you a grudge—and pay my debt!"
Newman uttered one of the least attenuated imprecations that had ever passed his lips, and then, turning his back without more ceremony on the pink dress, went out of the box. In the corridor he found Valentin and his companion walking toward him. The latter had apparently just thrust a card into his waistcoat pocket. Noémie's jealous votary was an immense, robust young man with a candid, excited glare, a thick nose and a thick mouth, the certainty of a thick articulation; also with a pair of very large white gloves and a very massive, voluminous watch-
350
