Sometimes Newman kept his promise of following Mr.Tristram, in half an hour, to the Occidental, and sometimes he forgot it.

His hostess asked him a great many questions about himself, but on this subject he was an indifferent talker.

He was not what is called subjective, though when he felt that her interest was sincere, he made an almost heroic attempt to be.

He told her a great many things he had done, and regaled her with anecdotes of Western life; she was from Philadelphia, and with her eight years in Paris, talked of herself as a languid Oriental.

But some other person was always the hero of the tale, by no means always to his advantage; and Newman's own emotions were but scantily chronicled.