Of course she was joking, but there was always something ironical in her jokes, as there was always something jocular in her gravity.
"I know no better proof that I have treated you very well," Newman had said, "than the fact that you make so free with my character.
Familiarity breeds contempt; I have made myself too cheap.

If I had a little proper pride I would stay away a while, and when you asked me to dinner say I was going to the Princess Borealska's.

But I have not any pride where my pleasure is concerned, and to keep you in the humor to see me--if you must see me only to call me bad names--I will agree to anything you choose; I will admit that I am the biggest snob in Paris." Newman, in fact, had declined an invitation personally given by the Princess Borealska, an inquiring Polish lady to whom he had been presented, on the ground that on that particular day he always dined at Mrs.Tristram's; and it was only a tenderly perverse theory of his hostess of the Avenue d'Iena that he was faithless to his early friendships.

She needed the theory to explain a certain moral irritation by which she was often visited; though, if this explanation was unsound, a deeper analyst than I must give the right one.

Having launched our hero upon the current which was bearing him so rapidly along, she appeared but half-pleased at its swiftness.