discover the effect they produced.

"Now that you have seen them," he said, "let us talk of them a little.
If you knew me better, my dear sir, you would know that I am frankness
itself, and in business my principle is to tell everything, the good and
the bad, so that my clients are responsible for the decisions they make.
In reality, there is nothing bad about these two persons, because, if
there were, I would not propose them to you. But there are certain
things that my delicacy compels me to point out to you, which I do
frankly, feeling certain that a man like you is not the slave of narrow
prejudices."

An expression of pain passed over his face, and he clasped his jaw with
both hands.

"You suffer?" Saniel asked.

"Yes, from my teeth, cruelly. Pardon me that I show it; I know by myself
that nothing is more annoying than the sight of the sufferings of
others."

"At least not to doctors."

"Never mind; we will return to my clients. This one"--and he touched
the portrait of the bejewelled woman--" is, as you have divined already,
a widow, a very amiable widow. Perhaps she is a little older than you
are, but that is nothing. Your experience must have taught you that the
man who wishes to be loved, tenderly loved, pampered, caressed, spoiled,
should marry a woman older than himself, who will treat him as a husband
and as a son. Her first husband was a careful merchant, who, had he