of boring her, either by his discourse or by his silence; and whether or no he did occasionally bore her, it is probable that on the whole she liked him only the better for his absense of embarrassed scruples.  Her visitors, coming in often while Newman sat there, found a tall, lean, silent man in a half-lounging attitude, who laughed out sometimes when no one had meant to be droll, and remained grave in the presence of calculated witticisms, for appreciation of which he had apparently not the proper culture.

It must be confessed that the number of subjects upon which Newman had no ideas was extremely large, and it must be added that as regards those subjects upon which he was without ideas he was also perfectly without words.  He had little of the small change of conversation, and his stock of ready-made formulas and phrases was the scantiest.  On the other hand he had plenty of attention to bestow, and his estimate of the importance of a topic did not depend upon the number of clever things he could say about it.  He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with whom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence meant displeasure.  What it was that entertained him during some of his speechless sessions I must, however, confess myself unable to determine.  We know in a general way that a great many things which were old stories to a great many people had the charm of novelty to him, but a complete list of his new impressions would probably contain a number of surprises for us.  He told Madame de Cintre a hundred long stories; he explained to her, in talking of the United States, the working of various local institutions and mercantile customs.  Judging by the sequel she was interested, but one would not have been sure of it beforehand.  As regards her own talk, Newman was very sure himself that she herself enjoyed it:  this was as a sort of amendment to the portrait that Mrs. Tristram had drawn of her.  He discovered that she had naturally an abundance of gayety.  He had been right at first in saying she was shy; her shyness, in a woman whose circumstances and tranquil beauty afforded every facility for well-mannered hardihood, was only a charm the more.  For Newman it had lasted some time, and even when it went it left something behind it which for a while performed the same office.  Was this the tearful secret of which Mrs. Tristram had had a glimpse, and of which, as of her friend’s reserve, her high-breeding, and her profundity, she had given a sketch of which the outlines were, perhaps, rather too heavy?  Newman supposed so, but he found himself wondering less every day what Madame de Cintre’s secrets might be, and more convinced that secrets were, in themselves, hateful things to her.  She was a woman for the light, not for the shade; and her natural line was not picturesque reserve and mysterious melancholy, but frank, joyous, brilliant action, with just so much meditation as was necessary, and not a grain more.  To this, apparently, he had succeeded in bringing her back.  He felt, himself, that he was an antidote to oppressive secrets; what he offered her was, in fact, above all things a vast, sunny immunity from the need of having any.