He has offered her everything, and she has not yet refused it." I
had handed my visitor a cigar, and he was puffing it in silence. At last
he abruptly asked if I had been introduced to Madame Blumenthal, and, on
my affirmative, inquired what I thought of her. "I will not tell you," I
said, "or you'll call _me_ soft."
He knocked away his ashes, eyeing me askance. "I have noticed your
friend about," he said, "and even if you had not told me, I should have
known he was in love. After he has left his adored, his face wears for
the rest of the day the expression with which he has risen from her feet,
and more than once I have felt like touching his elbow, as you would that
of a man who has inadvertently come into a drawing-room in his overshoes.
You say he has offered our friend everything; but, my dear fellow, he has
not everything to offer her. He evidently is as amiable as the morning,
but the lady has no taste for daylight."
"I assure you Pickering is a very interesting fellow," I said.
"Ah, there it is! Has he not some story or other? Isn't he an orphan,
or a natural child, or consumptive, or contingent heir to great estates?
She will read his little story to the end, and close the book very
tenderly and smooth down the cover; and then, when he least expects it,
she will toss it into the dusty limbo of her other romances.
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