fer it, then? Will you let it pass?"

"You don't know what you ask. I am a very proud and meddlesome old
woman."

"Well, I am very rich," said Newman.

Madame de Bellegarde fixed her eyes on the floor, and Newman thought
it probable she was weighing the reasons in favor of resenting the
brutality of this remark. But at last, looking up, she said simply, "How
rich?"

Newman expressed his income in a round number which had the magnificent
sound that large aggregations of dollars put on when they are translated
into francs. He added a few remarks of a financial character, which
completed a sufficiently striking presentment of his resources.

Madame de Bellegarde listened in silence. "You are very frank," she said
finally. "I will be the same. I would rather favor you, on the whole,
than suffer you. It will be easier."

"I am thankful for any terms," said Newman. "But, for the present, you
have suffered me long enough. Good night!" And he took his leave.

CHAPTER XI

Newman, on his return to Paris, had not resumed the study of French
conversation with M. Nioche; he found that he had too many other uses
for his time. M. Nioche, however, came to see him very promptly, having
learned his whereabouts by a mysterious process to which his patron
never obtained the key. The shrunken little capitalist repeated his
visit more than once. He seemed oppressed by a humiliating sense of
having been overpaid, and wished apparently to redeem his debt by the
offer of grammatical and statistical information in small installments.
He wore the same decently melancholy aspect as a few months before; a
few months more or less of brushing could make little difference in the
antique lustre of his coat and hat. But the poor old man's spirit was a
trifle more threadbare; it seemed to have received some hard rubs during
the summer. Newman inquired with interest about Mademoiselle Noemie;
and M. Nioche, at first, for answer, simply looked at him in lachrymose
silence.

"Don't ask me, sir," he said at last. "I sit and watch her, but I can do
nothing."

"Do you mean that she misconducts herself?"

"I don't know, I am sure. I can't follow her. I don't understand her.
She has something in her head; I don't know what she is trying to do.
She is too deep for me."

"Does she continue to go to the Louvre? Has she made any of those copies
for me?"

"She goes to the Louvre, but I see nothing of the copies. She has
something on her easel;