It had quite the plumage of a swan, and it sailed along the stream of life with an extraordinary lightness of motion.

He asked himself indeed at times whether Blanche were really so silly as she seemed; he doubted whether any woman could be so silly as Blanche seemed.

He had a suspicion at times that, for ends of her own, she was playing a part--the suspicion arising from the fact that, as usually happens in such cases, she over-played it.

Her empty chatter, her futility, her childish coquetry and frivolity--such light wares could hardly be the whole substance of any woman's being; there was something beneath them which Blanche was keeping out of sight.

She had a scrap of a mind somewhere, and even a little particle of a heart.