ming, I should say 'Beware!'
But in proportion as Claire seems charming you may fold your arms and
let yourself float with the current; you are safe. She is so good!
I have never seen a woman half so perfect or so complete. She has
everything; that is all I can say about her. There!" Bellegarde
concluded; "I told you I should rhapsodize."

Newman was silent a while, as if he were turning over his companion's
words. "She is very good, eh?" he repeated at last.

"Divinely good!"

"Kind, charitable, gentle, generous?"

"Generosity itself; kindness double-distilled!"

"Is she clever?"

"She is the most intelligent woman I know. Try her, some day, with
something difficult, and you will see."

"Is she fond of admiration?"

"Parbleu!" cried Bellegarde; "what woman is not?"

"Ah, when they are too fond of admiration they commit all kinds of
follies to get it."

"I did not say she was too fond!" Bellegarde exclaimed. "Heaven forbid
I should say anything so idiotic. She is not too anything! If I were
to say she was ugly, I should not mean she was too ugly. She is fond
of pleasing, and if you are pleased she is grateful. If you are not
pleased, she lets it pass and thinks the worst neither of you nor of
herself. I imagine, though, she hopes the saints in heaven are, for I
am sure she is incapable of trying to please by any means of which they
would disapprove."

"Is she grave or gay?" asked Newman.

"She is both; not alternately, for she is always the same. There is
gravity in her gayety, and gayety in her gravity. But there is no reason
why she should be particularly gay."

"Is she unhappy?"

"I won't say that, for unhappiness is according as one takes things, and
Claire takes them according to some receipt communicated to her by the
Blessed Virgin in a vision. To be unhappy is to be disagreeable, which,
for her, is out of the question. So she has arranged her circumstances
so as to be happy in them."

"She is a philosopher," said Newman.

"No, she is simply a very nice woman."

"Her circumstances, at any rate, have been disagreeable?"

Bellegarde hesitated a moment--a thing he very rarely did. "Oh, my dear
fellow, if I go into the history of my family I shall give you more than
you bargain for."

"No, on the contrary, I bargain for that," said Newman.

"We shall have to appoint a special seance, then, beginning early.
Suffice it for the present that Claire has not slept on roses. She
made at eighteen