“ That is quite right—that is your only possible attitude. You are perfectly serious?”
“ Am I a Frenchman, that I should not be?” asked Newman. “But why is it, by the bye, that you should be horrified?”
Bellegarde raised his hand to the back of his head and rubbed his hair quickly up and down, thrusting out the tip of his tongue as he did so. “Why, you are not noble, for instance,” he said.
“ The devil I am not!” exclaimed Newman.
“ Oh,” said Bellegarde a little more seriously, “I did not know you had a title.”
“ A title? What do you mean by a title?” asked Newman. “A count, a duke, a marquis? I don’t know anything about that, I don’t know who is and who is not. But I say I am noble. I don’t exactly know what you mean by it, but it’s a fine word and a fine idea; I put in a claim
