ccasional vague smile, the very vagueness of which
pleased him, allowing him as it did to fill it out mentally, both at the
time and afterwards, with such meanings as most pleased him. He sat by
without speaking, looking at the entrances and exits, the greetings and
chatterings, of Madame de Cintre's visitors. He felt as if he were at
the play, and as if his own speaking would be an interruption; sometimes
he wished he had a book, to follow the dialogue; he half expected to see
a woman in a white cap and pink ribbons come and offer him one for two
francs. Some of the ladies looked at him very hard--or very soft, as you
please; others seemed profoundly unconscious of his presence. The men
looked only at Madame de Cintre. This was inevitable; for whether one
called her beautiful or not she entirely occupied and filled one's
vision, just as an agreeable sound fills one's ear. Newman had but
twenty distinct words with her, but he carried away an impression to
which solemn promises could not have given a higher value. She was part
of the play that he was seeing acted, quite as much as her companions;
but how she filled the stage and how much better she did it! Whether she
rose or seated herself; whether she went with her departing friends to
the door and lifted up the heavy curtain as they passed out, and stood
an instant looking after them and giving them the last nod; or whether
she leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed and her eyes resting,
listening and smiling; she gave Newman the feeling that he should like
to have her always before him, moving slowly to and fro along the whole
scale of expressive hospitality. If it might be TO him, it would be
well; if it might be FOR him, it would be still better! She was so tall
and yet so light, so active and yet so still, so elegant and yet so
simple, so frank and yet so mysterious! It was the mystery--it was what
she was off the stage, as it were--that interested Newman most of
all. He could not have told you what warrant he had for talking about
mysteries; if it had been his habit to express himself in poetic figures
he might have said that in observing Madame de Cintre he seemed to see
the vague circle which sometimes accompanies the partly-filled disk of
the moon. It was not that she was reserved; on the contrary, she was
as frank as flowing water. But he was sure she had qualities which she
herself did not suspect.

He had abstained for several reasons from saying som