"He is married, is not he, and to a very beautiful woman?"
"Yes, Mrs. Lovell is very pretty."
"I had heard of his marriage," he continued, "but had doubted the truth of the report, from seeing him so constantly about in the world unaccompanied by a wife."
He looked at me inquiringly; but as I said nothing in answer, he went on:—
"I met them walking one day; and by Jove, if he is of a jealous turn of mind, he does well to shut her up. A more beautiful creature I never set eyes upon. Is she clever?"
This was one of those trifling questions which it is particularly disagreeable to answer, especially when put by a person with whom one wishes to converse as little as possible. Alice was not clever according to the common acceptation of the word; and to explain to a hardened man of the world in what consisted the superiority of her understanding, seemed to me like throwing pearls before swine; but in this I was mistaken; for when I answered, "I cannot exactly say whether she is or not," he immediately replied,
"I think I can guess at your meaning. She has no doubt a mind as fair as her face, but none of the tinsel which we so often take for gold. Is it not so?"
I nodded assent and he continued—
"Is she a saint, that she thus forswears the pomps and vanities of this world?"
"She is, no doubt," I replied, "one of those to whom the world is in the habit of giving the appellation of saints, whatever sense impiety on the one hand, or cant on the other, may attach to that designation."