s half-closed eyes as he leaned his head against the
back of his chair, seemed to her the most eloquent attestation of a mature
sentiment that she had ever encountered. Newman was, according to the French
phrase, only abounding in her own sense, but his temperate raptures exerted a
singular effect upon that ardour which she herself had so freely manifested a
few months before. She now seemed inclined to take a purely critical view of
Madame de Cintré, and wished to have it understood that she did not in the least
answer for her being a compendium of all the virtues. »No woman was ever so good
as that woman seems,« she said. »Remember what Shakespeare calls Desdemona: A
supersubtle Venetian. Madame de Cintré is a supersubtle Parisian. She is a
charming woman, and she has five hundred merits; but you had better keep that in
mind.« Was Mrs. Tristram simply finding out that she was jealous of her dear
friend on the other side of the Seine, and that in undertaking to provide Newman
with an ideal wife she had counted too much on her own disinterestedness? We may
be permitted to doubt it. The inconsistent little lady of the Avenue d'Iéna had
an insuperable need of changing her place, intellectually. She had a lively
imagination, and she was capable, at certain times, of imagining the direct
reverse of her most cherished beliefs, with a vividness more intense than that
of conviction. She got tired of thinking aright; but there was no serious harm
in it, as she got equally tired of thinking wrong. In the midst of her
mysterious perversities she had admirable flashes of justice. One of these
occurred when Newman related to her that he had made a formal proposal to Madame
de Cintré. He repeated in a few words what he had said, and in a great many what
she had answered. Mrs. Tristram listened with extreme interest.
    »But after all,« said Newman, »there is nothing to congratulate me upon. It
is not a triumph.«
    »I beg your pardon,« said Mrs. Tristram; »it is a great triumph. It is a
great triumph that she did not silence you at the first word, and request you
never to speak to her again.«
    »I don't see that,« observed Newman.
    »Of course you don't; heaven forbid you should! When I told you to go your
own way and do what came into your head, I had no idea you would go over the
ground so fast. I never dreamed you would offer
