than were dreamt of in my
philosophy. Yet, as I sat there stroking my hat and balancing the
account between nature and art in my affable hostess, I felt like a very
competent philosopher. She had said she wished me to tell her everything
about our friend, and she questioned me as to his family, his fortune,
his antecedents, and his character. All this was natural in a woman who
had received a passionate declaration of love, and it was expressed with
an air of charmed solicitude, a radiant confidence that there was really
no mistake about his being a most distinguished young man, and that if I
chose to be explicit, I might deepen her conviction to disinterested
ecstasy, which might have almost provoked me to invent a good opinion, if
I had not had one ready made. I told her that she really knew Pickering
better than I did, and that until we met at Homburg I had not seen him
since he was a boy.

"But he talks to you freely," she answered; "I know you are his
confidant. He has told me certainly a great many things, but I always
feel as if he were keeping something back; as if he were holding
something behind him, and showing me only one hand at once. He seems
often to be hovering on the edge of a secret. I have had several
friendships in my life--thank Heaven! but I have had none more dear to me
than this one. Yet in the midst of it I have the painful sense of my
friend being half afraid of me; of his thinking me terrible, strange,
perhaps a trifle out of my wits. Poor me! If he only knew what a plain
good soul I am, and how I only want to know him and befriend him!"

These words were full of a plaintive magnanimity which made mistrust seem
cruel. How much better I might play providence over Pickering's
experiments with life if I could engage the fine instincts of this
charming woman on the providential side! Pickering's secret was, of
course, his engagement to Miss Vernor; it was natural enough that he
should have been unable to bring himself to talk of it to Madame
Blumenthal. The simple sweetness of this young girl's face had not faded
from my memory; I could not rid myself of the suspicion that in going
further Pickering might fare much worse. Madame Blumenthal's professions
seemed a virtual promise to agree with me, and, after some hesitation, I
said that my friend had, in fact, a substantial secret, and that perhaps
I might do him a good turn by putting her in possession of it. In as few
words as pos