“I can’t just exactly make ’em out,” said Gibbon, and withdrew in good order.

Before Necker was forty he had accumulated a fortune, and retired from business to devote himself to literature and the polite arts.

“I have earned a rest,” he said; “besides, I must have leisure to educate my daughter.”

Men are constantly “retiring” from business, but someway the expected Elysium of leisure forever eludes us.  Necker had written several good pamphlets and showed the world that he had ability outside of money-making.  He was appointed Resident Minister of Geneva at the Court of France.  Soon after he became President of the French East India Company, because there was no one else with mind broad enough to fill the place.  His house was the gathering-place of many eminent scholars and statesmen.  Necker was quiet and reserved; his wife coldly brilliant, cultured, dignified, religious.  The daughter made good every deficiency in both.

She was tall, finely formed, but her features were rather heavy, and in repose there was a languor in her manner and a blankness in her face.  This seeming dulness marks all great actors, but the heaviness is only on the surface; it often covers a sleeping volcano.  On recognizing an acquaintance, Germaine Necker’s face would be illumined, and her smile would light a room.  She could pronounce a man’s name so he would be ready to throw himself at her feet, or over a precipice for her.  And she could listen in a way that complimented; and by a sigh, a nod, an exclamation, bring out the best—­such thoughts as a man never knew he had.  She made people surprise themselves with their own genius; thus proving that to make a good impression means to make the man pleased with himself.  “Any man can be brilliant with her,” said a nettled competitor; “but if she wishes, she can sink all women in a room into creeping things.”

She knew how to compliment without flattering; her cordiality warmed like wine, and her ready wit, repartee, and ability to thaw all social ice and lead conversation along any line, were accomplishments which perhaps have never been equaled.  The women who “entertain” often only depress; they are so glowing that everybody else feels himself punk.  And these people who are too clever are very numerous; they seem inwardly to fear rivals, and are intent on working while it is called the day.

Over against these are the celebrities who sit in a corner and smile knowingly when they are expected to scintillate.  And the individual who talks too much at one time is often painfully silent at another—­as if he had made New-Year resolves.  But the daughter of Necker entered into conversation with candor and abandon; she gave herself to others, and knew whether they wished to talk or to listen.  On occasion, she could monopolize conversation until she seemed the only person in the room; but all talent was brighter for the added luster of her own.  This simplicity, this utter frankness, this complete absence of self-consciousness, was like the flight of a bird that never doubts its power, simply because it never thinks of it.  Yet continual power produces arrogance, and the soul unchecked finally believes in its own omniscience.