Necker had retired in triumph to bed. One might even fancy that there
was a tacit allusion by Madame Necker to the dialogue recorded by
Gibbon to Holroyd, when his smile checked her indirect pride in her
own wealth, and that she remembered that smile with just a touch of
resentment. If so, nothing was more natural and comforting than to
charge him with the failing that he had detected in her. But here are
the facts. Eight months after her marriage, Madame Necker admits that
she had Gibbon every day to her house. He says that she was very
cordial. She would have it understood that she received him only for
the sake of gratifying a feminine vanity. For her own sake one might
prefer his interpretation to hers. It is difficult to believe that the
essentially simple-minded Madame Necker would have asked a man every
day to her house merely to triumph over him; and more difficult still
to believe that the man would have gone if such had been the object. A
little tartness in these first interviews, following on a relation of
some ambiguity, cannot surprise one. But it was not the dominant
ingredient, or the interviews must have ceased of their own accord.
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