Madame de Cintre gave
Newman the sense of an elaborate education, of her having passed through
mysterious ceremonies and processes of culture in her youth, of her
having been fashioned and made flexible to certain exalted social needs.
All this, as I have affirmed, made her seem rare and precious--a very
expensive article, as he would have said, and one which a man with an
ambition to have everything about him of the best would find it highly
agreeable to possess. But looking at the matter with an eye to private
felicity, Newman wondered where, in so exquisite a compound, nature and
art showed their dividing line. Where did the special intention separate
from the habit of good manners? Where did urbanity end and sincerity
begin? Newman asked himself these questions even while he stood ready to
accept the admired object in all its complexity; he felt that he could
do so in profound security, and examine its mechanism afterwards, at
leisure.
"I am very glad to find you alone," he said. "You know I have never had
such good luck before."
"But you have seemed before very well contented with your luck," said
Madame de Cintre. "You have sat and watched my visitors with an air of
quiet amusement. What have you thought of them?"
"Oh, I have thought the ladies were very elegant and very graceful, and
wonderfully quick at repartee.
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