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.
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