“Be quiet, and ring for the tea,” said Madame de Cintre.

The young man obeyed, and presently a servant brought in the tea, placed the tray on a small table, and departed.  Madame de Cintre, from her place, busied herself with making it.  She had but just begun when the door was thrown open and a lady rushed in, making a loud rustling sound.  She stared at Newman, gave a little nod and a “Monsieur!” and then quickly approached Madame de Cintre and presented her forehead to be kissed.  Madame de Cintre saluted her, and continued to make tea.  The new-comer was young and pretty, it seemed to Newman; she wore her bonnet and cloak, and a train of royal proportions.  She began to talk rapidly in French.  “Oh, give me some tea, my beautiful one, for the love of God!  I’m exhausted, mangled, massacred.”  Newman found himself quite unable to follow her; she spoke much less distinctly than M. Nioche.

“That is my sister-in-law,” said the Count Valentin, leaning towards him.

“She is very pretty,” said Newman.

“Exquisite,” answered the young man, and this time, again, Newman suspected him of irony.

His sister-in-law came round to the other side of the fire with her cup of tea in her hand, holding it out at arm’s-length, so that she might not spill it on her dress, and uttering little cries of alarm.  She placed the cup on the mantel-shelf and begun to unpin her veil and pull off her gloves, looking meanwhile at Newman.

“Is there any thing I can do for you, my dear lady?” the Count Valentin asked, in a sort of mock-caressing tone.

“Present monsieur,” said his sister-in-law.

The young man answered, “Mr. Newman!”

“I can’t courtesy to you, monsieur, or I shall spill my tea,” said the lady.  “So Claire receives strangers, like that?” she added, in a low voice, in French, to her brother-in-law.

“Apparently!” he answered with a smile.  Newman stood a moment, and then he approached Madame de Cintre.  She looked up at him as if she were thinking of something to say.  But she seemed to think of nothing; so she simply smiled.  He sat down near her and she handed him a cup of tea.  For a few moments they talked about that, and meanwhile he looked at her.  He remembered what Mrs. Tristram had told him of her “perfection” and of her having, in combination, all the brilliant things that he dreamed of finding.  This made him observe her not only without mistrust, but without uneasy conjectures; the presumption, from the first moment he looked at her, had been in her favor.  And yet, if she was beautiful, it was not a dazzling beauty.  She was tall and moulded in long lines; she had thick fair hair, a wide forehead, and features with a sort of harmonious irregularity.  Her clear gray eyes were strikingly expressive; they were both gentle and intelligent, and Newman liked them immensely; but they had not those depths of splendor—­those many-colored rays—­which illumine the brows