many, says Madame Blumenthal, people play at roulette as they
play at billiards, and her own venerable mother originally taught her the
rules of the game. It is a recognised source of subsistence for decent
people with small means. But I confess Madame Blumenthal might do worse
things than play at roulette, and yet make them harmonious and beautiful.
I have never been in the habit of thinking positive beauty the most
excellent thing in a woman. I have always said to myself that if my
heart were ever to be captured it would be by a sort of general grace--a
sweetness of motion and tone--on which one could count for soothing
impressions, as one counts on a musical instrument that is perfectly in
tune. Madame Blumenthal has it--this grace that soothes and satisfies;
and it seems the more perfect that it keeps order and harmony in a
character really passionately ardent and active. With her eager nature
and her innumerable accomplishments nothing would be easier than that she
should seem restless and aggressive. You will know her, and I leave you
to judge whether she does seem so! She has every gift, and culture has
done everything for each. What goes on in her mind I of course can't
say; what reaches the observer--the admirer--is simply a sort of fragrant
emanation of intelligence and sympathy."

"Madame Blumenthal," I said, smiling, "might be the loveliest woman in
the world, and you the object of her choicest favours, and yet what I
should most envy you would be, not your peerless friend, but your
beautiful imagination."

"That's a polite way of calling me a fool," said Pickering. "You are a
sceptic, a cynic, a satirist! I hope I shall be a long time coming to
that."

"You will make the journey fast if you travel by express trains. But
pray tell me, have you ventured to intimate to Madame Blumenthal your
high opinion of her?"

"I don't know what I may have said. She listens even better than she
talks, and I think it possible I may have made her listen to a great deal
of nonsense. For after the first few words I exchanged with her I was
conscious of an extraordinary evaporation of all my old diffidence. I
have, in truth, I suppose," he added in a moment, "owing to my peculiar
circumstances, a great accumulated fund of unuttered things of all sorts
to get rid of. Last evening, sitting there before that charming woman,
they came swarming to my lips. Very likely I poured them all out. I
have a sense of hav