only scanned with his eye; while _he_
looked, others drew in. The grace and mind of Paulina charmed these
thoughtful Frenchmen: the fineness of her beauty, the soft courtesy of
her manner, her immature, but real and inbred tact, pleased their
national taste; they clustered about her, not indeed to talk science;
which would have rendered her dumb, but to touch on many subjects in
letters, in arts, in actual life, on which it soon appeared that she
had both read and reflected. I listened. I am sure that though Graham
stood aloof, he listened too: his hearing as well as his vision was
very fine, quick, discriminating. I knew he gathered the conversation;
I felt that the mode in which it was sustained suited him
exquisitely--pleased him almost to pain.

In Paulina there was more force, both of feeling and character; than
most people thought--than Graham himself imagined--than she would ever
show to those who did not wish to see it. To speak truth, reader, there
is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable refinement,
without strength as excellent, as complete, as trustworthy. As well
might you look for good fruit and blossom on a rootless and sapless
tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble and relaxed nature.
For a little while, the blooming semblance of beauty may flourish round
weakness; but it cannot bear a blast: it soon fades, even in serenest
sunshine. Graham would have started had any suggestive spirit whispered
of the sinew and the stamina sustaining that delicate nature; but I who
had known her as a child, knew or guessed by what a good and strong
root her graces held to the firm soil of reality.

While Dr. Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle,
his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by chance
on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de
Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called "a
two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as a
tete-a-tete. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me how
I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own
thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to
me-a lapse of which he was not even conscious. He sat down, and became
silent. His wish was rather to look than converse. Ginevra and Paulina
were now opposite to him: he could gaze his fill: he surveyed both
forms--studied both faces.

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