wife on these terms, and he was sure one or other of them must be very unhappy. He knew it was not Tristram. Mrs. Tristram had a balcony before her windows, upon which, during the June evenings, she was fond of sitting, and Newman used frankly to say that he preferred the balcony to the club. It had a fringe of perfumed plants in tubs, and enabled you to look up the broad street and see the Arch of Triumph vaguely massing its heroic sculptures in the summer starlight. Sometimes Newman kept his promise of following Mr. Tristram, in half an hour, to the Occidental, and sometimes he forgot it. His hostess asked him a great many questions about himself, but on this subject he was an indifferent talker. He was not what is called subjective, though when he felt that her interest was sincere, he made an almost heroic attempt to be. He told her a great many things he had done, and regaled her with anecdotes of Western life; she was from Philadelphia, and with her eight years in Paris, talked of herself as a languid Oriental. But some other person was always the hero of the tale, by no means always to his advantage; and Newman’s own emotions were but scantily chronicled. She had an especial wish to know whether he had ever been in love—seriously, passionately—and, failing to gather any satisfaction from his allusions, she at last directly inquired. He hesitated a while, and at last he said, “No!” She declared that she was delighted to hear it, as it confirmed her private conviction that he was a man of no feeling. 

 “Really?” he asked, very gravely. “Do you think so? How do you recognize a man of feeling?” 

 “I can’t make out,” said Mrs. Tristram, “whether you are very simple or very deep.” 

 “I’m very deep. That’s a fact.” 

 “I believe that if I were to tell you with a certain air that you have no feeling, you would implicitly believe me.” 

 “A certain air?” said Newman. “Try it and see.” 

 “You would believe me, but you would not care,” said Mrs. Tristram. 

 “You have got it all wrong. I should care immensely, but I shouldn’t believe you. The fact is I have never had time to feel things. I have had to do them, to make myself felt.” 

 “I can imagine that you may have done that tremendously, sometimes.” 

 “Yes, there’s no mistake about that.” 

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