Page:Madame de Staël (1887 Bella Duffy).djvu/22

12 guest at the Neckers'. The friendship did not last long. The marquise, by this time infinitely weary of men and things, appears soon to have tired of Madame Necker's declamations and M. Necker's superiority. Her final judgment on the wife was very severe, rather ill-tempered, and therefore unjust. Madame Necker was, she says, "stiff and frigid, full of self-consciousness, but an upright woman." Her liking for the husband held out longer, but finally succumbed to the discovery that, while very intelligent, he failed to elicit wit from others. "One felt oneself more stupid in his company than when with other people or alone."

There is no trace of any variation in the friendship between Madame Necker and Madame Geoffrin. Perhaps the latter, with her habitual, gentle "Voilà, qui est bien," called her young friend to order, and early repressed the emphatic praises which could not but have wearied her.

We are told that she hated exaggeration in everything; and how could Madame Necker's heavy flattery have found favour in her eyes? Her delicate savoir-vivre, too, that preternaturally subtle sense which supplied the place in her of brilliancy and learning and early education, must have been vexed at Madame Necker's innocent but everlasting pedantry. We can fancy, however, that she managed, in her imperceptible, noiseless way, to elude all these disturbing manifestations; and then she was doubtless pleased at Madame Necker's good-humoured patience with her scoldings. All Madame Geoffrin's friends, as we know, had to submit to be scolded; but probably few showed under the infliction the magnanimity of Madame Necker, who must have possessed all the power of