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Rh what I thought of her. "I'll not tell you," I said, "or you'll call me soft."

He knocked away his ashes, eying me askance. "I've 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 've 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 n't everything to offer her. He's as amiable, evidently, as the morning, but madame has no taste for daylight."

"I assure you," said I, "Pickering is a very interesting fellow."

"Ah, there it is! Has n't he some story or other? is n't he an orphan, or natural child, or consumptive, or contingent heir to great estates? She 'll 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 'll toss it into the dusty limbo of all her old romances. She 'll let him dangle, but she 'll let him drop!"

"Upon my word," I cried with heat, "if she does, she 'll be a very unprincipled little creature!"

Niedermeyer shrugged his shoulders. "I never said she was a saint!"