"
Newman, in fact, had declined an invitation personally given by the
Princess Borealska, an inquiring Polish lady to whom he had been
presented, on the ground that on that particular day he always dined
at Mrs. Tristram's; and it was only a tenderly perverse theory of
his hostess of the Avenue d'Iena that he was faithless to his early
friendships. She needed the theory to explain a certain moral irritation
by which she was often visited; though, if this explanation was unsound,
a deeper analyst than I must give the right one. Having launched our
hero upon the current which was bearing him so rapidly along, she
appeared but half-pleased at its swiftness. She had succeeded too well;
she had played her game too cleverly and she wished to mix up the cards.
Newman had told her, in due season, that her friend was "satisfactory."
The epithet was not romantic, but Mrs. Tristram had no difficulty in
perceiving that, in essentials, the feeling which lay beneath it was.
Indeed, the mild, expansive brevity with which it was uttered, and
a certain look, at once appealing and inscrutable, that issued from
Newman's half-closed eyes as he leaned his head against the back of his
chair, seemed to her the most eloquent attestation of a mature sentiment
that she had ever encountered. Newman was, according to the French
phrase, only abounding in her own sense, but his temperate raptures
exerted a singular effect upon the ardor which she herself had so freely
manifested a few months before.
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