“Adventures?” I inquired.  “Has she had adventures?”

“Of the most wonderful sort!” cried Pickering, with rapture.  “She hasn’t vegetated, like me!  She has lived in the tumult of life.  When I listen to her reminiscences, it’s like hearing the opening tumult of one of Beethoven’s symphonies as it loses itself in a triumphant harmony of beauty and faith!”

I could only lift my eyebrows, but I desired to know before we separated what he had done with that troublesome conscience of his.  “I suppose you know, my dear fellow,” I said, “that you are simply in love.  That’s what they happen to call your state of mind.”

He replied with a brightening eye, as if he were delighted to hear it—­“So Madame Blumenthal told me only this morning!” And seeing, I suppose, that I was slightly puzzled, “I went to drive with her,” he continued; “we drove to Konigstein, to see the old castle.  We scrambled up into the heart of the ruin and sat for an hour in one of the crumbling old courts.  Something in the solemn stillness of the place unloosed my tongue; and while she sat on an ivied stone, on the edge of the plunging wall, I stood there and made a speech.  She listened to me, looking at me, breaking off little bits of stone and letting them drop down into the valley.  At last she got up and nodded at me two or three times silently, with a smile, as if she were applauding me for a solo on the violin.  ’You are in love,’ she said.  ‘It’s a perfect case!’ And for some time she said nothing more.  But before we left the place she told me that she owed me an answer to my speech.  She thanked me heartily, but she was afraid that if she took me at my word she would be taking advantage of my inexperience.  I had known few women; I was too easily pleased; I thought her better than she really was.  She had great faults; I must know her longer and find them out; I must compare her with other women—­women younger, simpler, more innocent, more ignorant; and then if I still did her the honour to think well of her, she would listen to me again.  I told her that I was not afraid of preferring any woman in the world to her, and then she repeated, ’Happy man, happy man! you are in love, you are in love!’”

I called upon Madame Blumenthal a couple of days later, in some agitation of thought.  It has been proved that there are, here and there, in the world, such people as sincere impostors; certain characters who cultivate fictitious emotions in perfect good faith.  Even if this clever lady enjoyed poor Pickering’s bedazzlement, it was conceivable that, taking vanity and charity together, she should care more for his welfare than for her own entertainment; and her offer to abide by the result of hazardous comparison with other women was a finer stroke than her reputation had led me to expect.  She received me in a shabby little sitting-room littered with uncut books and newspapers, many of which I saw at a glance were French.