largely characterized by that eminently prosaic sentiment -
curiosity. It was true, as Acton with his quietly cogitative habit observed to
himself, that curiosity, pushed to a given point, might become a romantic
passion; and he certainly thought enough about this charming woman to make him
restless and even a little melancholy. It puzzled and vexed him at times to feel
that he was not more ardent. He was not in the least bent upon remaining a
bachelor. In his younger years he had been - or he had tried to be - of the
opinion that it would be a good deal jollier not to marry, and he had flattered
himself that his single condition was something of a citadel. It was a citadel,
at all events, of which he had long since leveled the outworks. He had removed
the guns from the ramparts; he had lowered the drawbridge across the moat. The
draw-bridge had swayed lightly under Madame Münster's step; why should he not
cause it to be raised again, so that she might be kept prisoner? He had an idea
that she would become - in time at least, and on learning the conveniences of
the place for making a lady comfortable - a tolerably patient captive. But the
draw-bridge was never raised, and Acton's brilliant visitor was as free to
depart as she had been to come. It was part of his curiosity to know why the
deuce so susceptible a man was not in love with so charming a woman. If her
various graces were, as I have said, the factors in an algebraic problem, the
answer to this question was the indispensable unknown quantity. The pursuit of
the unknown quantity was extremely absorbing; for the present it taxed all
Acton's faculties.
    Toward the middle of August he was obliged to leave home for some days; an
old friend, with whom he had been associated in China, had begged him to come to
Newport, where he lay extremely ill. His friend got better, and at the end of a
week Acton was released. I use the word released advisedly; for in spite of his
attachment to his Chinese comrade he had been but a half-hearted visitor. He
felt as if he had been called away from the theatre during the progress of a
remarkably interesting drama. The curtain was up all this time, and he was
losing the fourth act; that fourth act which would have been so essential to a
just appreciation of the fifth. In other words, he was thinking about the
Baroness, who, seen at this distance, seemed a truly brilliant figure.