last was enjoying, purely, freely, deeply. Certain
of Madame de Cintre's personal qualities--the luminous sweetness of
her eyes, the delicate mobility of her face, the deep liquidity of her
voice--filled all his consciousness. A rose-crowned Greek of old, gazing
at a marble goddess with his whole bright intellect resting satisfied
in the act, could not have been a more complete embodiment of the wisdom
that loses itself in the enjoyment of quiet harmonies.

He made no violent love to her--no sentimental speeches. He never
trespassed on what she had made him understand was for the present
forbidden ground. But he had, nevertheless, a comfortable sense that she
knew better from day to day how much he admired her. Though in general
he was no great talker, he talked much, and he succeeded perfectly in
making her say many things. He was not afraid of boring her, either by
his discourse or by his silence; and whether or no he did occasionally
bore her, it is probable that on the whole she liked him only the better
for his absense of embarrassed scruples. Her visitors, coming in
often while Newman sat there, found a tall, lean, silent man in a
half-lounging attitude, who laughed out sometimes when no one had
meant to be droll, and remained grave in the presence of calculated
witticisms, for appreciation of which he had apparently not the proper
culture.

It must be confessed that the number of subjects upon which Newman had
no ideas was extremely large, and it must be added that as regards those
subjects upon which he was without ideas he was also perfectly without
words. He had little of the small change of conversation, and his stock
of ready-made formulas and phrases was the scantiest. On the other hand
he had plenty of attention to bestow, and his estimate of the importance
of a topic did not depend upon the number of clever things he could say
about it. He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with
whom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence
meant displeasure. What it was that entertained him during some of his
speechless sessions I must, however, confess myself unable to determine.
We know in a general way that a great many things which were old stories
to a great many people had the charm of novelty to him, but a complete
list of his new impressions would probably contain a number of surprises
for us. He told Madame de Cintre a hundred long stories; he explained
to her, in talking