and chatterings, of Madame de Cintre’s visitors.  He felt as if he were at the play, and as if his own speaking would be an interruption; sometimes he wished he had a book, to follow the dialogue; he half expected to see a woman in a white cap and pink ribbons come and offer him one for two francs.  Some of the ladies looked at him very hard—­or very soft, as you please; others seemed profoundly unconscious of his presence.  The men looked only at Madame de Cintre.  This was inevitable; for whether one called her beautiful or not she entirely occupied and filled one’s vision, just as an agreeable sound fills one’s ear.  Newman had but twenty distinct words with her, but he carried away an impression to which solemn promises could not have given a higher value.  She was part of the play that he was seeing acted, quite as much as her companions; but how she filled the stage and how much better she did it!  Whether she rose or seated herself; whether she went with her departing friends to the door and lifted up the heavy curtain as they passed out, and stood an instant looking after them and giving them the last nod; or whether she leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed and her eyes resting, listening and smiling; she gave Newman the feeling that he should like to have her always before him, moving slowly to and fro along the whole scale of expressive hospitality.  If it might be to him, it would be well; if it might be for him, it would be still better!  She was so tall and yet so light, so active and yet so still, so elegant and yet so simple, so frank and yet so mysterious!  It was the mystery—­it was what she was off the stage, as it were—­that interested Newman most of all.  He could not have told you what warrant he had for talking about mysteries; if it had been his habit to express himself in poetic figures he might have said that in observing Madame de Cintre he seemed to see the vague circle which sometimes accompanies the partly-filled disk of the moon.  It was not that she was reserved; on the contrary, she was as frank as flowing water.  But he was sure she had qualities which she herself did not suspect.

He had abstained for several reasons from saying some of these things to Bellegarde.  One reason was that before proceeding to any act he was always circumspect, conjectural, contemplative; he had little eagerness, as became a man who felt that whenever he really began to move he walked with long steps.  And then, it simply pleased him not to speak—­it occupied him, it excited him.  But one day Bellegarde had been dining with him, at a restaurant, and they had sat long over their dinner.  On rising from it, Bellegarde proposed that, to help them through the rest of the evening, they should go and see Madame Dandelard.  Madame Dandelard was a little Italian lady who had married a Frenchman who proved to be a rake and a brute and the torment of her life.  Her husband had spent all her money, and then, lacking