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 Cintre 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'Iena 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 Cintre. 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 on
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 yourself after
five or six morning-calls. As yet, what had you done to make her like
you? You had simply sat--not very straight--and stared at her. But she
does like you."

"That remains to be seen."

"No, that is proved. What will come of it remains to be seen. That you
should propose to marry her, without more ado, could never have come
into her head. You can form very little idea of what passed through her
mind as you spoke; if she ever really marries you, the affair will be
characterized by the usual justice of all human beings towards women.
You will think you take generous views of her; but you will never begin
to know through what a strang