the means of obtaining more expensive pleasures, had taken, in his duller hours, to beating her.  She had a blue spot somewhere, which she showed to several persons, including Bellegarde.  She had obtained a separation from her husband, collected the scraps of her fortune (they were very meagre) and come to live in Paris, where she was staying at a hotel garni.  She was always looking for an apartment, and visiting, inquiringly, those of other people.  She was very pretty, very childlike, and she made very extraordinary remarks.  Bellegarde had made her acquaintance, and the source of his interest in her was, according to his own declaration, a curiosity as to what would become of her.  “She is poor, she is pretty, and she is silly,” he said, “it seems to me she can go only one way.  It’s a pity, but it can’t be helped.  I will give her six months.  She has nothing to fear from me, but I am watching the process.  I am curious to see just how things will go.  Yes, I know what you are going to say:  this horrible Paris hardens one’s heart.  But it quickens one’s wits, and it ends by teaching one a refinement of observation!  To see this little woman’s little drama play itself out, now, is, for me, an intellectual pleasure.”

“If she is going to throw herself away,” Newman had said, “you ought to stop her.”

“Stop her?  How stop her?”

“Talk to her; give her some good advice.”

Bellegarde laughed.  “Heaven deliver us both!  Imagine the situation!  Go and advise her yourself.”

It was after this that Newman had gone with Bellegarde to see Madame Dandelard.  When they came away, Bellegarde reproached his companion.  “Where was your famous advice?” he asked.  “I didn’t hear a word of it.”

“Oh, I give it up,” said Newman, simply.

“Then you are as bad as I!” said Bellegarde.

“No, because I don’t take an ‘intellectual pleasure’ in her prospective adventures.  I don’t in the least want to see her going down hill.  I had rather look the other way.  But why,” he asked, in a moment, “don’t you get your sister to go and see her?”

Bellegarde stared.  “Go and see Madame Dandelard—­my sister?”

“She might talk to her to very good purpose.”

Bellegarde shook his head with sudden gravity.  “My sister can’t see that sort of person.  Madame Dandelard is nothing at all; they would never meet.”

“I should think,” said Newman, “that your sister might see whom she pleased.”  And he privately resolved that after he knew her a little better he would ask Madame de Cintre to go and talk to the foolish little Italian lady.

After his dinner with Bellegarde, on the occasion I have mentioned, he demurred to his companion’s proposal that they should go again and listen to Madame Dandelard describe her sorrows and her bruises.

“I have something better in mind,” he said; “come home with me and finish the evening before my fire.”