If it might be TO him, it would be
well; if it might be FOR him, it would be still better! She was so tall
and yet so light, so active and yet so still, so elegant and yet so
simple, so frank and yet so mysterious! It was the mystery--it was what
she was off the stage, as it were--that interested Newman most of
all. He could not have told you what warrant he had for talking about
mysteries; if it had been his habit to express himself in poetic figures
he might have said that in observing Madame de Cintre he seemed to see
the vague circle which sometimes accompanies the partly-filled disk of
the moon. It was not that she was reserved; on the contrary, she was
as frank as flowing water. But he was sure she had qualities which she
herself did not suspect.
He had abstained for several reasons from saying some of these things
to Bellegarde. One reason was that before proceeding to any act he was
always circumspect, conjectural, contemplative; he had little eagerness,
as became a man who felt that whenever he really began to move he
walked with long steps. And then, it simply pleased him not to speak--it
occupied him, it excited him. But one day Bellegarde had been dining
with him, at a restaurant, and they had sat long over their dinner. On
rising from it, Bellegarde proposed that, to help them through the
rest of the evening, they should go and see Madame Dandelard.
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