bon that for going farther and
not marrying him she had not fared worse. The rather acid allusion to
"opulence" is found in both letters; but much more pronounced in hers
than in his. Each hints that the other thought too much of wealth. But
he does so with delicacy, and only by implication; she charges him
coarsely with vulgar admiration for it. We may reasonably suspect that
riches had been the subject of not altogether smooth conversation
between them, in the later part of the evening, perhaps, after M.
Necker had retired in triumph to bed. One might even fancy that there
was a tacit allusion by Madame Necker to the dialogue recorded by
Gibbon to Holroyd, when his smile checked her indirect pride in her
own wealth, and that she remembered that smile with just a touch of
resentment. If so, nothing was more natural and comforting than to
charge him with the failing that he had detected in her. But here are
the facts. Eight months after her marriage, Madame Necker admits that
she had Gibbon every day to her house. He says that she was very
cordial. She would have it understood that she received him only for
the sake of gratifying a feminine vanity. For her own sake one might
prefer his interpretation to hers. It is difficult to believe that the
essentially simple-minded Madame Necker would have asked a man every
day to her house merely to triumph over him; and more difficult still
to believe that the man would have gone if such had been the object. A
little tartness in these first interviews, following on a relation of
some ambiguity, cannot surprise one. But it was not the dominant
ingredient, or the interviews must have ceased of their own accord. In
any case few will admit that either of the persons concerned would
have written as they did if Moultou's statement were correct. In
neither epistle is there any trace of a grand passion felt or
slighted. We discover the much lower level of vanity and badinage. And
the subsequent relations of Gibbon and Madame Necker all tend to prove
that this was the real one.

CHAPTER V.

LITERARY SCHEMES.--THE HISTORY OF SWITZERLAND.--DISSERTATION ON THE
SIXTH AENEID.--FATHER'S DEATH.--SETTLEMENT IN LONDON.

Gibbon now (June, 1765) returned to his father's house, and remained
there till the latter's death in 1770. He describes these five years
as having been the least pleasant and satisfactory of his whole life.
The reasons were not far to seek. The unthrifty habits of the e