Newman accepted every proposal, shook hands universally and promiscuously, and seemed equally unfamiliar with trepidation or with elation.

Tom Tristram complained of his wife's avidity, and declared that he could never have a clear five minutes with his friend.

If he had known how things were going to turn out, he never would have brought him to the Avenue d'Iena.

The two men, formerly, had not been intimate, but Newman remembered his earlier impression of his host, and did Mrs.Tristram, who had by no means taken him into her confidence, but whose secret he presently discovered, the justice to admit that her husband was a rather degenerate mortal.

At twenty-five he had been a good fellow, and in this respect he was unchanged; but of a man of his age one expected something more.