we were
better than nothing. But now that you have become the fashion, and have your
pick every day of three invitations to dinner, we are tossed into the corner. I
am sure it is very good of you to come and see us once a month; I wonder you
don't send us your cards in an envelope. When you do, pray have them with black
edges; it will be for the death of my last illusion.« It was in this incisive
strain that Mrs. Tristram moralised over Newman's so-called neglect, which was
in reality a most exemplary constancy. Of course she was joking, but there was
always something ironical in her jokes, as there was always something jocular in
her gravity.
    »I know no better proof that I have treated you very well,« Newman had said,
»than the fact that you make so free with my character. Familiarity breeds
contempt; I have made myself too cheap. If I had a little proper pride I would
stay away awhile, and when vou asked me to dinner say I was going to the
Princess Borealska's. But I have not any pride where my pleasure is concerned,
and to keep you in the humour to see me - if you must see me only to call me bad
names - I will agree to anything you choose; I will admit that I am the biggest
snob in Paris.« Newman, in fact, had declined an invitation personally given by
the Princess Borealska, an inquiring Polish lady to whom he had been presented,
on the ground that on that particular day he always dined at Mrs. Tristram's;
and it was only a tenderly perverse theory of his hostess of the Avenue d'Iéna
that he was faithless to his early friendships. She needed the theory to explain
a certain moral irritation by which she was often visited; though, if this
explanation was unsound, a deeper analyst than I must give the right one. Having
launched our hero upon the current which was bearing him so rapidly along, she
appeared but half-pleased at its swiftness. She had succeeded too well; she had
played her game too cleverly, and she wished to mix up the cards. Newman had
told her, in due season, that her friend was satisfactory. The epithet was not
romantic, but Mrs. Tristram had no difficulty in perceiving that, in essentials,
the feeling which lay beneath it was. Indeed, the mild expansive brevity with
which it was uttered, and a certain look, at once appealing and inscrutable,
that issued from Newman'