sagreeable to him. The least
disagreeable thing, under the circumstances, was to banish them from his
mind, and never think of them again. Indecision had not hitherto
been one of Newman's weaknesses, and in this case it was not of long
duration. For three days after this he did not, or at least he tried not
to, think of the Bellegardes. He dined with Mrs. Tristram, and on her
mentioning their name, he begged her almost severely to desist. This
gave Tom Tristram a much-coveted opportunity to offer his condolences.

He leaned forward, laying his hand on Newman's arm compressing his lips
and shaking his head. "The fact is my dear fellow, you see, that you
ought never to have gone into it. It was not your doing, I know--it was
all my wife. If you want to come down on her, I'll stand off; I give you
leave to hit her as hard as you like. You know she has never had a word
of reproach from me in her life, and I think she is in need of something
of the kind. Why didn't you listen to ME? You know I didn't believe in
the thing. I thought it at the best an amiable delusion. I don't profess
to be a Don Juan or a gay Lothario,--that class of man, you know; but I
do pretend to know something about the harder sex. I have never disliked
a woman in my life that she has not turned out badly. I was not at all
deceived in Lizzie, for instance; I always had my doubts about her.
Whatever you may think of my present situation, I must at least admit
that I got into it with my eyes open. Now suppose you had got into
something like this box with Madame de Cintre. You may depend upon it
she would have turned out a stiff one. And upon my word I don't see
where you could have found your comfort. Not from the marquis, my dear
Newman; he wasn't a man you could go and talk things over with in a
sociable, common-sense way. Did he ever seem to want to have you on the
premises--did he ever try to see you alone? Did he ever ask you to come
and smoke a cigar with him of an evening, or step in, when you had been
calling on the ladies, and take something? I don't think you would have
got much encouragement out of HIM. And as for the old lady, she struck
one as an uncommonly strong dose. They have a great expression here, you
know; they call it 'sympathetic.' Everything is sympathetic--or ought
to be. Now Madame de Bellegarde is about as sympathetic as that
mustard-pot. They're a d--d cold-blooded lot, any way; I felt it awfully
at that ball of theirs. I felt a