University of California Berkeley 
 
 ESTATE OF YNEZ GHIRARDELLI 
 
i&e Coffege Cfaeetce 
 
 THE AMERICAN 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO DALLAS 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 Cambridge 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1877, BY H. O. HOUGHTON & CO. AND JAMES R. OSGOOD i COb 
 COPYRIGHT, IQO7, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Vfir ibf rsflsr 
 
 CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS 
 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 i 
 
 ON a brilliant day in May, of the year 1868, a gentle- 
 man was reclining at his ease on the great circular 
 divan which at that period occupied the centre of the 
 Salon Carre, in the Museum of the Louvre. This 
 commodious ottoman has since been removed, to the 
 extreme regret of all weak-kneed lovers of the fine 
 arts; but our visitor had taken serene possession of its 
 softest spot, and, with his head thrown back and his 
 legs outstretched, was staring at Murillo's beautiful 
 moon-borne Madonna in deep enjoyment of his pos- 
 ture. He had removed his hat and flung down beside 
 him a little red guide-book and an opera-glass. The 
 day was warm; he was heated with walking, and he 
 repeatedly, with vague weariness, passed his hand' 
 kerchief over his forehead. And yet he was evidently 
 not a man to whom fatigue was familiar; long, lean, 
 and muscular, he suggested an intensity of uncon- 
 scious resistance. His exertions on this particular day, 
 however, had been of an unwonted sort, and he had 
 often performed great physical feats that left him 
 less jaded than his quiet stroll through the Louvre. 
 He had looked out all the pictures to which an asterisk 
 was affixed in those formidable pages of fine print m 
 his Badeker; his attention had been strained and his 
 eyes dazzled; he had sat down with an aesthetic 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 headache. He had looked, moreover, not only at all 
 the pictures, but at all the copies that were going 
 forward around them in the hands of those innumer- 
 able young women in long aprons, on high stools, 
 who devote themselves, in France, to the reproduc- 
 tion of masterpieces; and, if the truth must be told, 
 he had often admired the copy much more than the 
 original. His physiognomy would have sufficiently 
 indicated that he was a shrewd and capable person, 
 and in truth he had often sat up all night over a 
 bristling bundle of accounts and heard the cock 
 crow without a yawn. But Raphael and Titian and 
 Rubens were a new kind of arithmetic, and they 
 made him for the first time in his life wonder at his 
 vaguenesses. 
 
 An observer with anything of an eye for local types 
 would have had no difficulty in referring this candid 
 connoisseur to the scene of his origin, and indeed such 
 an observer might have made an ironic point of the 
 almost ideal completeness with which he filled out 
 the mould of race. The gentleman on the divan was 
 the superlative American; to which affirmation of 
 character he was partly helped by the general easy 
 magnificence of his manhood. He appeared to possess 
 that kind of health and strength which, when found 
 in perfection, are the most impressive the physical 
 tone which the owner does nothing to "keep up." 
 If he was a muscular Christian it was quite without 
 doctrine. If it was necessary to walk to a remote spot 
 he walked, but he had never known himself to 
 "exercise." He had no theory with regard to cold 
 bathing or the use of Indian clubs; he was neither an 
 
 2 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 oarsman, a rifleman nor a fencer he had never 
 had time for these amusements and he was quite 
 unaware that the saddle is recommended for certain 
 forms of indigestion. He was by inclination a tem- 
 perate man; but he had supped the night before his 
 visit to the Louvre at the Cafe Anglais some one 
 had told him it was an experience not to be omitted 
 and he had slept none the less the sleep of the just. 
 His usual attitude and carriage had a liberal loose- 
 ness, but when, under a special inspiration, he 
 straightened himself he looked a grenadier on parade. 
 He had never tasted tobacco. He had been assured 
 such things are said that cigars are excellent for 
 the health, and he was quite capable of believing it; 
 but he would no more have thought of "taking" one 
 than of taking a dose of medicine. His complexion 
 was brown and the arch of his nose bold and well- 
 marked. His eye was of a clear, cold grey, and save 
 for the abundant droop of his moustache he spoke, 
 as to cheek and chin, of the joy of the matutinal steel. 
 He had the flat jaw and the firm, dry neck which are 
 frequent in the American type; but the betrayal of 
 native conditions is a matter of expression even more 
 than of feature, and it was in this respect that our 
 traveller's countenance was supremely eloquent. The 
 observer we have been supposing might, however, 
 perfectly have measured its expressiveness and yet 
 have been at a loss for names and terms to fit it. It 
 had that paucity of detail which is yet not empti- 
 ness, that blankness which is not simplicity, that look 
 of being committed to nothing in particular, of stand- 
 ing in a posture of general hospitality to the chances 
 
 3 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of life, of being very much at one's own disposal, 
 characteristic of American faces of the clear strain. 
 It was the eye, in this case, that chiefly told the story; 
 an eye in which the unacquainted and the expert were 
 singularly blended. It was full of contradictory sug- 
 gestions; and though it was by no means the glowing 
 orb of a hero of romance you could find in it almost 
 anything you looked for. Frigid and yet friendly, 
 frank yet cautious, shrewd yet credulous, positive yet 
 sceptical, confident yet shy, extremely intelligent and 
 extremely good-humoured, there was something 
 vaguely defiant in its concessions and something 
 profoundly reassuring in its reserve. The wide yet 
 partly folded wings of this gentleman's moustache, 
 with the two premature wrinkles in the cheek 
 above it, and the fashion of his garments, in 
 which an exposed shirt-front and a blue satin necktie 
 of too light a shade played perhaps an obtrusive part, 
 completed the elements of his identity. We have ap- 
 proached him perhaps at a not especially favourable 
 moment; he is by no means sitting for his portrait. 
 But listless as he lounges there, rather baffled on the 
 aesthetic question and guilty of the damning fault (as 
 we have lately discovered it to be) of confounding the 
 aspect of the artist with that of his work (for he ad- 
 mires the squinting Madonna of the young lady with 
 the hair that somehow also advertises "art," because 
 he thinks the young lady herself uncommonly taking), 
 he is a sufficiently promising acquaintance. Decision, 
 salubrity, jocosity, prosperity, seem to hover within 
 his call; he is evidently a man of business, but the 
 term appears to confess, for his particular benefit, to 
 
 4 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 undefined and mysterious boundaries which invite the 
 imagination to bestir itself. 
 
 As the little copyist proceeded with her task, her 
 attention addressed to her admirer, from time to time, 
 for reciprocity, one of its blankest, though not of its 
 briefest, missives. The working-out of her scheme 
 appeared to call, in her view, for a great deal of vivid 
 by-play, a great standing off with folded arms and 
 head dropping from side to side, stroking of a dim- 
 pled chin with a dimpled hand, sighing and frowning 
 and patting of the foot, fumbling in disordered tresses 
 for wandering hair-pins. These motions were accom- 
 panied by a far-straying glance, which tripped up, 
 occasionally, as it were, on the tall arrested gentle- 
 man. At last he rose abruptly and, putting on his hat 
 as if for emphasis of an austere intention, approached 
 the young lady. He placed himself before her picture 
 and looked at it for a time during which she pre- 
 tended to be quite unconscious of his presence. Then, 
 invoking her intelligence with the single word that 
 constituted the strength of his French vocabulary, 
 and holding up one finger in a manner that appeared 
 to him to illuminate his meaning, " Combien ? " he 
 abruptly demanded. 
 
 The artist stared a moment, gave a small pout, 
 shrugged her shoulders, put down her palette and 
 brushes and stood rubbing her hands. 
 
 "How much ?" said our friend in English. "Com- 
 lien?" 
 
 " Monsieur wishes to buy it 1" she asked in French 
 
 "Very pretty. Splendide. Combien?' 9 repeated the 
 American. 
 
 5 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "It pleases monsieur, my little picture ? It's a very 
 beautiful subject," said the young lady. 
 
 "The Madonna, yes; I'm not a real Catholic, but 
 I want to buy it. Combien ? Figure it right there." 
 And he took a pencil from his pocket and showed her 
 the fly-leaf of his guide-book. She stood looking at 
 him and scratching her chin with the pencil. "Is n't 
 it for sale ?" he asked. And as she still stood reflect- 
 ing, probing him with eyes which, in spite of her de- 
 sire to treat this avidity of patronage as a very old 
 story, added to her flush of incredulity, he was afraid 
 he had offended her. She was simply trying to look 
 indifferent, wondering how far she might go. "I 
 have n't made a mistake pas insulte, no ? " her 
 interlocutor continued. "Don't you understand a 
 little English?" 
 
 The young lady's aptitude for playing a part at 
 short notice was remarkable. She fixed him with all 
 her conscious perception and asked him if he spoke 
 no French. Then "Donnez!" she said briefly, and 
 took the open guide-book. In the upper corner of 
 the fly-leaf she traced a number in a minute and 
 extremely neat hand. On which she handed back the 
 book and resumed her palette. 
 
 Our friend read the number: "2000 francs." He 
 said nothing for a time, but stood looking at the pic- 
 ture while the copyist began actively to dabble with 
 her paint. "For a copy, is n't that a good deal ?" he 
 inquired at last. "Pas beaucoup?" 
 
 She raised her eyes from her palette, scanned him 
 from head to foot, and alighted with admirable sagac- 
 ity upon exactly the right answer. "Yes, it's a good 
 
 6 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 deal. But my copy is extremely soigne. That's its 
 value." 
 
 The gentleman in whom we are interested under- 
 stood no French, but 1 have said he was intelligent, 
 and here is a good chance to prove it. He appre- 
 hended, by a natural instinct, the meaning of the 
 young woman's phrase, and it gratified him to find 
 her so honest. Beauty, therefore talent, rectitude; 
 she combined everything! "But you must finish it," 
 he said. " Finish, you know ; " and he pointed to 
 the unpainted hand of the figure. 
 
 "Oh, it shall be finished in perfection in the per- 
 fection of perfections!" cried mademoiselle; and to 
 confirm her promise she deposited a rosy blotch in the 
 middle of the Madonna's cheek. 
 
 But the American frowned. " Ah, too red, too red ! " 
 he objected. "Her complexion," pointing to the 
 Murillo, "is more delicate." 
 
 "Delicate ? Oh it shall be delicate, monsieur; deli- 
 cate as Sevres biscuit. I'm going to tone that down; 
 I promise you it shall have a surface! And where 
 will you allow us to send it to you ? Your address." 
 
 "My address ? Oh yes!" And the gentleman drew 
 a card from his pocket-book and wrote something 
 on it. Then hesitating a moment: "If I don't like it 
 when it is finished, you know, I shall not be obliged 
 to pay for it." 
 
 The young lady seemed as good a guesser as him- 
 self. " Oh, I 'm very sure monsieur 's not capricious ! " 
 
 "Capricious?" And at this monsieur began to 
 laugh. "Oh no, I 'm not capricious. I 'm very faith- 
 ful. I'm very constant. Comprenez?" 
 
 7 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Monsieur's constant; I understand perfectly. 
 It 's not the case of all the world. To recompense you, 
 you shall have your picture on the first possible day; 
 next week as soon as it 's dry. 1 '11 take the card 
 of monsieur." And she took it and read his name: 
 "Christopher Newman." Then she tried to repeat it 
 aloud and laughed at her bad accent. " Your English 
 names are not commodes to say!" 
 
 "Well, mine's partly celebrated," said Mr. New- 
 man, laughing too. "Did you never hear of Christo- 
 pher Columbus ?" 
 
 " Bien sur ! He first showed Americans the way to 
 Europe; a very great man. And is he your patron ?" 
 
 "My patron?" 
 
 "Your patron saint, such as we all have." 
 
 "Oh, exactly; my parents named me after him." 
 
 "Monsieur is American then too?" 
 
 "Does n't it stick right out ?" monsieur enquired. 
 
 "And you mean to carry my dear little picture away 
 over there ? " She explained her phrase with a gesture. 
 
 "Oh, I mean to buy a great many pictures beau- 
 coup, beaucoup" said Christopher Newman. 
 
 "The honour's not less for me," the young lady 
 answered, "for I 'm sure monsieur has a great deal of 
 
 taste." 
 
 " But you must give me your card," Newman went 
 on; "your card, you know." 
 
 The young lady looked severe an instant. "My 
 father will wait on you." 
 
 But this time Mr. Newman's powers of divination 
 were at fault. "Your card, your address," he simply 
 repeated. 
 
 8 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "My address ?" said mademoiselle. Then, with a 
 little shrug: ** Happily for you, you're a stranger 
 of a distinction qui se voit. It 's the first time I ever 
 gave my card to a gentleman." And, taking from her 
 pocket a well-worn flat little wallet, she extracted from 
 it a small glazed visiting-card and presented the latter 
 to her client. It was neatly inscribed in pencil, with a 
 great many flourishes, " Mile. Noemie Nioche." But 
 Mr. Newman, unlike his companion, read the name 
 with perfect gravity; all French names to him were 
 equally incommodes. 
 
 44 And precisely how it happens! here's my 
 father; he has come to escort me home," said Made- 
 moiselle Noemie. "He speaks English beautifully. 
 He '11 arrange with you/' And she turned to welcome 
 a little old gentleman who came shuffling up and peer- 
 ing over his glasses at Newman. 
 
 M. Nioche wore a glossy wig, of an unnatural 
 colour, which overhung his little meek, white, vacant 
 face, leaving it hardly more expressive than the un- 
 featured block upon which these articles are dis- 
 played in the barber's window. He was an exquisite 
 image of shabby gentility. His scant, ill-made coat, 
 desperately brushed, his darned gloves, his highly 
 polished boots, his rusty, shapely hat, told the story of 
 a person who had "had losses " and who clung to the 
 spirit of nice habits even though the letter had been 
 hopelessly effaced. Among other things M. Nioche 
 had lost courage. Adversity had not only deprived 
 him of means, it had deprived him of confidence so 
 frightened him that he was going through his rem- 
 nant of life on tiptoe, lest he should wake up afresh 
 
 9 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the hostile fates. If this strange gentleman should be 
 saying anything improper to his daughter M. Nioche 
 would entreat him huskily, as a particular favour, to 
 forbear; but he would admit at the same time that he 
 was very presumptuous to ask for particular favours. 
 
 " Monsieur has bought my picture/' said Mademoi- 
 selle Noemie. "When it 's finished you'll carry it to 
 him in a cab." 
 
 "In a cab!" cried M. Nioche; and he stared, in 
 a bewildered way, as if he had seen the sun rising at 
 midnight. 
 
 " Are you the young lady's father ? " said Newman, 
 "I think she said you speak English." 
 
 "Spick English yes." The old man slowly 
 rubbed his hands. "I'll bring it in a cab." 
 
 " Say something then," cried his da ughter. " Thank 
 him a little not too much." 
 
 "A little, my daughter, a little ?" he murmured in 
 distress. "How much?" 
 
 "Two thousand!" said Mademoiselle Noemie. 
 "Don't make a fuss or he '11 take back his word." 
 
 "Two thousand!" gasped the old man; and he 
 began to fumble for his snuff-box. He looked at New- 
 man from head to foot ; he looked at his daughter 
 and then at the picture. "Take care you don't spoil 
 it!" he cried almost sublimely. 
 
 "We must go home," said Mademoiselle Noemie. 
 'This is a good day's work. Take care how you carry 
 it!" And she began to put up her utensils. 
 
 "How can I thank you ?" asked M. Nioche. "My 
 English is far from sufficing." 
 
 "I wish I spoke French half so well," said New- 
 
 10 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 man good-naturedly. "Your daughter too, you see, 
 makes herself understood." 
 
 "Oh sir!" and M. Nioche looked over his spec- 
 tacles with tearful eyes, nodding out of his depths of 
 sadness. " She has had an education tres-supen- 
 eurel Nothing was spared. Lessons in pastel at ten 
 francs the lesson, lessons in oil at twelve francs. 1 
 did n't look at the francs then. She 's a serious 
 worker." 
 
 "Do I understand you to say that you've had a bad 
 time?" asked Newman. 
 
 "A bad time ? Oh sir, misfortunes terrible!" 
 
 "Unsuccessful in business?" 
 
 "Very unsuccessful, sir." 
 
 "Oh, never fear; you'll get on your legs again," 
 said Newman cheerily. 
 
 The old man cast his head to one side; he wore an 
 expression of pain, as if this were an unfeeling jest: 
 whereupon "What is it he says?" Mademoiselle 
 Noemie demanded. 
 
 M. Nioche took a pinch of snuff. " He says I shall 
 make my fortune again." 
 
 " Perhaps he '11 help you. And what else ? " 
 
 "He says thou hast a great deal of head." 
 
 "It's very possible. You believe it yourself, my 
 father." 
 
 "Believe it, my daughter? With this evidence!" 
 And the old man turned afresh, in staring, wondering 
 homage, to the audacious daub on the easel. 
 
 "Ask him then if he'd not like to learn French." 
 
 "To learn French?" 
 
 "To take lessons." 
 
 . II 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "To take lessons, my daughter ? From thee ?" 
 
 "From thee." 
 
 " From me, my child ? How should I give lessons ? " 
 
 "Pas de raisons ! Ask him immediately!" said 
 Mademoiselle Noemie with soft shortness. 
 
 M. Nioche stood aghast, but under his daughter's 
 eye he collected his wits and, doing his best to assume 
 an agreeable smile, executed her commands. "Would 
 it please you to receive instruction in our beautiful 
 language ? " he brought out with an appealing qua- 
 ver. 
 
 "To study French ?" Newman was rather struck. 
 
 M. Nioche pressed his finger-tips together and 
 slowly raised his shoulders. "A little practice in 
 conversation!" 
 
 "Practice, conversation that's it!" murmured 
 Mademoiselle Noemie, who had caught the words. 
 "The conversation of the best society." 
 
 "Our French conversation is rather famous, you 
 know," M. Nioche ventured to continue. "It's the 
 genius of our nation." 
 
 "But except for your nation isn't it almost 
 impossible?" asked Newman very simply. 
 
 "Not to a man of esprit like monsieur, an admirer 
 of beauty in every form! " And M. Nioche cast a sig- 
 nificant glance at his daughter's Madonna. 
 
 "I can't fancy myself reeling off fluent French!" 
 Newman protested. "And yet I suppose the more 
 things, the more names of things, a man knows, the 
 better he can get round." 
 
 " Monsieur expresses that very happily. The better 
 he can get round. Helas, oui! " 
 
 12 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I suppose it would help me a great deal, knocking 
 about Paris, to be able to try at least to talk." 
 
 "Ah, there are so many things monsieur must 
 want to say: remarkable things, and proportionately 
 difficult." 
 
 "Everything I want to say is proportionately diffi- 
 cult. But you 're in the habit of giving lessons ? " 
 
 Poor M. Nioche was embarrassed; he smiled more 
 appealingly. "I'm not a regular professor," he ad- 
 mitted. "I can't pourtant tell him I've a diploma," 
 he said to his daughter. 
 
 "Tell him it's a very exceptional chance," an- 
 swered mademoiselle; "an homme du monde one 
 perfect gentleman conversing with another. Remem- 
 ber what you are. Remember what you have been." 
 
 "A teacher of languages in neither case! Much 
 more dans le temps and much less to-day 1 And if he 
 asks the price of the lessons ?" 
 
 "He won't ask it," said the girl. 
 
 "What he pleases, I may say?" 
 
 "Never! That's bad style." 
 
 "But if he wants to know ?" 
 
 Mademoiselle Noemie had put on her bonnet and 
 was tying the ribbons. She smoothed them out, her 
 shell-like little chin thrust forward. "Ten francs," 
 she said quickly. 
 
 "Oh my daughter! I shall never dare." 
 
 "Don't dare then! He won't ask till the end of the 
 lessons, and you '11 let me make out the bill." 
 
 M. Nioche turned to the confiding foreigner again 
 and stood rubbing his hands with his air of standing 
 convicted of almost any counsel of despair. It never 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 occurred to Newman to plead for a guarantee of his 
 skill in imparting instruction; he supposed of course 
 M. Nioche knew the language he so beautifully pro- 
 nounced, and his brokenness of spring was quite the 
 perfection of what the American, for vague reasons, 
 had always associated with all elderly foreigners of the 
 lesson-giving class Newman had never reflected upon 
 philological processes. His chief impression with 
 regard to any mastery of those mysterious correla- 
 tives of his familiar English vocables which were cur- 
 rent in this extraordinary city of Paris was that it 
 would be simply a matter of calling sharply into play 
 latent but dormant muscles and sinews. "How did 
 you learn so much English?" he asked of the old 
 man. 
 
 "Oh, I could do things when I was young before 
 my miseries. I was wide awake then. My father was 
 a great commer^ant; he placed me for a year in a 
 counting-house in England. Some of it stuck to me, 
 but much I've forgotten!" 
 
 "How much French can I learn in about a month ?" 
 
 "What does he say?'* asked mademoiselle; and 
 then when her father had explained: "He'll speal 
 like an angel!" 
 
 But the native integrity which had been vainly 
 exerted to secure M. Nioche's commercial prosperity 
 flickered up again. "Dame* monsieur!" he an- 
 swered. "All I can teach you! " And then, recovering 
 himself at a sign from his daughter: "I '11 wait upon 
 you at your hotel." 
 
 "Oh yes, I should like to converse with elegance," 
 Newman went on, giving his friends the benefit of any 
 
 H 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 vagueness. "Hang me if I should ever have thought 
 of it! I seemed to feel it too far off. But you've 
 brought it quite near, and if you could catch on at all 
 to our grand language that of Shakespeare and 
 Milton and Holy Writ why should n't I catch on to 
 yours ? " His frank, friendly laugh drew the sting from 
 the jest. " Only, if we 're going to converse, you know, 
 you must think of something cheerful to converse 
 about." 
 
 "You're very good, sir; I'm overcome!" And 
 M. Nioche threw up his hands. "But you've cheer- 
 fulness and happiness for two!" 
 
 "Oh no," said Newman more seriously. "You 
 must be bright and lively; that's part of the bargain." 
 
 M. Nioche bowed with his hand on his heart. 
 "Very well, sir; you've struck up a tune I could 
 almost dance to!" 
 
 "Come and bring me my picture then; I'll pay 
 you for it, and we'll talk about that. That will be 
 a cheerful subject!" 
 
 Mademoiselle Noemie had collected her access- 
 ories and she gave the precious Madonna in charge 
 to her father, who retreated backwards, out of sight, 
 holding it at arm's length and reiterating his obeis- 
 ances. The young lady gathered her mantle about her 
 like a perfect Parisienne, and it was with the "An 
 revoir, monsieur!" of a perfect Parisienne that she 
 took leave of her patron. 
 
II 
 
 THIS personage wandered back to the divan and 
 seated himself, on the other side, in view of the great 
 canvas on which Paul Veronese has spread, to swarm 
 and glow there for ever, the marriage-feast of Cana of 
 Galilee. Weary as he was his spirit went out to the 
 picture; it had an illusion for him; it satisfied his con- 
 ception, which was strenuous, of what a splendid ban- 
 quet should be. In the left-hand corner is a young 
 woman with yellow tresses confined in a golden head- 
 dress; she bends forward and listens, with the smile 
 of a charming person at a dinner-party, to her festal 
 neighbour. Newman detected her in the crowd, ad- 
 mired her and perceived that she too had her votive 
 copyist a young man whose genius, like that of 
 Samson, might have been in his bristling hair. Sud- 
 denly he was aware of the prime throb of the mania 
 of the "collector." He had taken the first step why 
 should he not go on ? It was only twenty minutes 
 before that he had bought the first picture of his life, 
 and now he was already thinking of art-patronage as a 
 pursuit that might float even so heavy a weight as him- 
 self. His reflexions quickened his good-humour and 
 he was on the point of approaching the young man 
 with another " Combienf" Two or three facts in this 
 relation are noticeable, although the logical chain 
 that connects them may seem imperfect. He knew 
 
 16 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Mademoiselle Nioche had asked too much; he bore 
 her no grudge for doing so, and he was determined to 
 pay the young man exactly the proper sum. At this 
 moment, however, his attention was attracted by a 
 gentleman who had come from another part of the 
 room and whose manner was that of a stranger to the 
 gallery, though he was equipped neither with guide- 
 book nor with opera-glass. He carried a white sun- 
 umbrella lined with blue silk, and he strolled in front 
 of the great picture, vaguely looking at it but much 
 too near to see anything but the grain of the canvas. 
 Opposite Christopher Newman he paused and turned, 
 and then our friend, who had been observing him, had 
 a chance to verify a suspicion roused by an imperfect 
 view of his face. The result of the larger scrutiny 
 was that he presently sprang to his feet, strode across 
 the room and, with an outstretched hand, arrested 
 this blank spectator. The gaping gentleman gaped 
 afresh, but put out his hand at a venture. He was 
 large, smooth and pink, with the air of a successfully 
 potted plant, and though his countenance, orna- 
 mented with a beautiful flaxen beard carefully di- 
 vided in the middle and brushed outward at the sideSy 
 was not remarkable for intensity of expression, it was 
 exclusive only in the degree of the open door of air 
 hotel it would have been closed to the undesirable. 
 It was for Newman in fact as if at first he had been 
 but invited to "register." 
 
 "Oh come, come," he said, laughing; "don't say 
 now you don't know me if I 've not got a white 
 parasol!" 
 
 His tone penetrated; the other's face expanded to 
 ;% 17 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 its fullest capacity and then broke into gladness, 
 "Why, Christopher Newman I'll be Mowed! 
 Where in the world ? Who would have thought ? 
 You've carried out such extensive alterations." 
 
 "Well, I guess you've not," said Newman. 
 
 "Oh no, I hold together very much as I was. But 
 when did you get here?" 
 
 " Three days ago." 
 
 "Then why did n't you let me know ?" 
 
 "How was I to be aware - ?" 
 
 "Why, I've been located here quite a while." 
 
 "Yes, it 's quite a while since we last met." 
 
 "Well, it feels long since the War." 
 
 "It was in Saint Louis, at the outbreak. You 
 were going for a soldier," Newman said. 
 
 "Oh no, not I. It was you. Have you forgotten ?" 
 
 "You bring it unpleasantly back." 
 
 "Then you did take your turn?" 
 
 "Oh yes, I took my turn. But that was nothing, 
 I seem to feel, to this turn." 
 
 "How long then have you been in Europe?" 
 
 "Just seventeen days." 
 
 "First time you've been ?" 
 
 "Yes, quite immensely the first." 
 
 Newman's friend had been looking him all over, 
 "Made your everlasting fortune?" 
 
 Our gentleman was silent a little, and then with 
 a tranquil smile, "Well, I've grubbed," he answered. 
 
 "And come to buy Paris up ? Paris i'j for sale, you 
 know." 
 
 "Well, I shall see what I can do about it. So they 
 carry those parasols here the men-folk?" 
 
 18 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Of course they do. They're great things, these 
 parasols. They understand detail out here." 
 
 "Where do you buy them?" 
 
 "Anywhere, everywhere." 
 
 "Well, Tristram, I'm glad to get hold of you. 1 
 guess you can tell me a good deal. I suppose you know 
 Paris pretty correctly," Newman pursued. 
 
 Mr. Tristram's face took a rosy light. "Well, 1 
 guess there are not many men that can show me 
 much. I '11 take care of you." 
 
 "It's a pity you were not here a few minutes ago. 
 I've just bought a picture. You might have put the 
 thing through for me." 
 
 "Bought a picture?" said Mr. Tristram, locking 
 vaguely round the walls. " Why, do they sell them ?" 
 
 "I mean a copy." 
 
 "Oh, I see. These" and Mr. Tristram nodded 
 at the Titians and Vandykes "these, I suppose, are 
 originals ?" 
 
 "I hope so," said Newman. "1 don't want a copy 
 of a copy." 
 
 "Ah," his friend sagaciously returned, "you can 
 never tell. They imitate, you know, so deucedly well. 
 It 's like the jewellers with their false stones. Go into 
 the Palais Royal there; you see * Imitation' on half 
 the windows. The law obliges them to stick it on, you 
 know; but you can't tell the things apart. To tell the 
 truth," Mr. Tristram continued and his grimace 
 seemed a turn of the screw of discrimination "I 
 don't do so very much in pictures. They're one of the 
 things 1 leave to my wife." 
 
 "Ah, you've acquired a wife?" 
 
 19 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Did n't 1 mention it ? She's a very smart \\oman. 
 You must come right round. She's up there in the 
 Avenue d'lena." 
 
 "So you're regularly fixed house and children 
 and all'?" 
 
 "Yes; a tip-top house, and a couple of charming 
 cubs." 
 
 "Well," sighed Christopher Newman, stretching his 
 arms a little, "you affect me with a queer feeling that 
 1 suppose to be envy." 
 
 "Oh no, I don't," answered Mr. Tristram, giving 
 him a little poke with his parasol. 
 
 "1 beg your pardon; you do." 
 
 "Well, 1 shan't then, when when !" 
 
 "You don't certainly mean when I've seen your 
 pleasant home ?" 
 
 " When you 've made your*, my boy. When you 've 
 seen Paris. You want to be in light marching order 
 here." 
 
 "Oh, 1 've skipped about in my bhiit all my life, and 
 I've had about enough of it." 
 
 "Well, try it on the basis of Paris. That makes 
 a new thing of it. How old may you be ?" 
 
 "Forty-two and a half, 1 guess." 
 
 "C'est le bet age, as they say here." 
 
 Newman reflected. "Does that mean the age of the 
 belly?" 
 
 "It means that a man shouldn't send away his 
 plate till he has eaten his fill." 
 
 "It comes to the same thing. I've just made ar- 
 rangements, anyhow, to take lessons in the language." 
 
 "Oh, you don't want any lessons. You'll pick it 
 
 20 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 right up. I never required nor received any instruc- 
 
 tion." 
 
 "You speak it then as easily as English ?" 
 
 "Easier!" said Mr. Tristram roundly. "It's a 
 splendid language. You can say all sorts of gay 
 things in it.*' 
 
 " But I suppose," said Christopher Newman with 
 an earnest desire for information, "that you must be 
 pretty gay to begin with." 
 
 "Not a bit: that's just the beauty of it!" 
 
 The two friends, as they exchanged these remarks, 
 which dropped from them without a pause, had 
 remained standing where they met and leaning against 
 the rail which protected the pictures. Mr. Tristram at 
 last declared that he was overcome with lassitude and 
 should be happy to sit down. Newman recommended 
 in the highest terms the great divan on which he had 
 been lounging, and they prepared to seat themselves. 
 "This is a great place, is n't it ?" he broke out with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "Great place, great place. Finest thing in the 
 world." And then suddenly Mr. Tristram hesitated 
 and looked about. "I suppose they won't let you 
 smoke?" 
 
 Newman stared. "Smoke ? I 'm sure I don't know. 
 You know the regulations better than I." 
 
 " I ? I never was here before." 
 
 "Never! all your six years ?" 
 
 "I believe my wife dragged me here once when we 
 first came to Paris, but I never found my way back." 
 
 "But you say you know Paris so well!" 
 
 "I don't call this Paris!" cried Mr. Tristram with 
 *V 21 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 assurance. "Come; let's go over to the Palais Royal 
 and have a smoke." 
 
 "I don't smoke," said Newman. 
 
 "What's that for?" Mr. Tristram growled as he 
 led his companion away. They passed through the 
 glorious halls of the Louvre, down the staircases, 
 along the cool, dim galleries of sculpture and out into 
 the enormous court. Newman looked about him as he 
 went, but made no comments; and it was only when 
 they at last emerged into the open air that he said to 
 his friend: "It seems to me that in your place I'd 
 have come here once a week." 
 
 "Oh no, you wouldn't!" said Mr. Tristram. 
 "You think so, but you would n't. You would n't 
 have had time. You 'd always mean to go, but you 
 never would go. There's better fun than that here in 
 Paris. Italy's the place to see pictures; wait till you 
 get there. There you have to go; you can't do any- 
 thing else. It's an awful country; you can't get a 
 decent cigar. I don't know why 1 went into that place 
 to-day. I was strolling along, rather hard up for 
 amusement. I sort of took in the Louvre as I passed, 
 and I thought I might go up and see what was going 
 on. But if I had n't found you there I should have felt 
 rather sold. Hang it, I don't care for inanimate can- 
 vas or for cold marble beauty; I prefer the real 
 thing!" And Mr. Tristram tossed off this happy 
 formula with an assurance which the numerous class 
 of persons suffering from an overdose of prescribed 
 taste might have envied him. 
 
 The two gentlemen proceeded along the Rue dc 
 Rivoli and into the Palais Royal, where they seated 
 
 22 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 themselves at one of the little tables stationed at the 
 door of the cafe which projects, or then projected, 
 into the great open quadrangle. The place was filled 
 with people, the fountains were spouting, a band was 
 playing, clusters of chairs were gathered beneath 
 all the lime-trees and buxom, white-capped nurses, 
 seated along the benches, were offering to their infant 
 charges the amplest facilities for nutrition. There was 
 an easy, homely gaiety in the whole scene, and Chris- 
 topher Newman felt it to be characteristically, richly 
 Parisian. 
 
 "And now," began Mr. Tristram when they had 
 tasted the decoction he had caused to be served to 
 them, "now just give an account of yourself. Wha; 
 are your ideas, what are your plans, where have you 
 come from and where are you going? In the first 
 place, where are you hanging out ?" 
 
 "At the Grand Hotel." 
 
 He put out all his lights. "That won't do! You 
 must change." 
 
 "Change?" demanded Newman. "Why, it's the 
 finest hotel I ever was in." 
 
 "You don't want a 'fine* hotel; you want some- 
 thing small and quiet and superior, where your bell's 
 answered and your personality recognised." 
 
 "They keep running to see if I 've rung before I Ve 
 touched the bell," said Newman, "and as for my per- 
 sonality they 're always bowing and scraping to it." 
 
 "I suppose you're always tipping them. That's 
 very bad style." 
 
 "Always? By no means. A man brought me some- 
 thing yesterday and then stood loafing about in a beg- 
 
THE AMEPICAN 
 
 garly manner. I offered him a chair and asked him if 
 he'd sit down. Was that bad style?" 
 
 "I'll tell my wife!" Tristram simply answered. 
 
 "Tell the police if you like! He bolted right away, 
 at any rate. The place quite fascinates me. Hang 
 your ' superior ' if it bores me. I sat in the court of the 
 Grand Hotel last night until two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, watching the coming and going and the people 
 knocking about." 
 
 "You're easily pleased. But you can do as you 
 choose a man in your shoes. You 've made a pile 
 of money, hey ? " 
 
 "I've made about enough." 
 
 "Happy the man who can say that! But enough 
 for what?" 
 
 "Enough to let up a while, to forget the whole ques- 
 tion, to look about me, to see the world, to have a good 
 time, to improve my mind and, if my hour strikes, to 
 marry a wife." Newman spoke slowly, with a quaint 
 effect of dry detachment and with frequent pauses. 
 This was his habitual mode of utterance, but it was 
 especially marked in the words just recorded. 
 
 "Jupiter, there's an order!" cried Mr. Tristram. 
 "Certainly all that takes money, especially the wife; 
 unless indeed she gives it, as mine did. And what's 
 the story ? How have you done it ?" 
 
 Newman had pushed his hat back from his fore- 
 head, folded his arms and stretched his legs. He 
 listened to the music, he looked about him at the 
 bustling crowd, at the plashing fountains, at the nurses 
 and the babies. "Well, I have n't done it by sitting 
 round this way." 
 
 24 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Tristram considered him again, allowing a finer 
 curiosity to measure his generous longitude and 
 retrace the blurred lines of his resting face. "What 
 have you been in ?" 
 
 "Oh, in more things than 1 care to remember." 
 " T suppose you're a real live man, hey?" 
 Newman continued to look at the nurses and 
 oabies; they imparted to the scene a kind of primor- 
 dial, pastoral simplicity. "Yes," he said at last, "I 
 guess I am." And then in answer to his companion's 
 enquiries he briefly exposed his record since their last 
 meeting. It was, with intensity, a tale of the Western 
 world, and it showed, in that bright alien air, very 
 much as fine dessicated, articulated "specimens," 
 bleached, monstrous, probably unique, show in the 
 high light of museums of natural history. It dealt 
 with elements, incidents, enterprises, which it will be 
 needless to introduce to the reader in detail; the deeps 
 and the shallows, the ebb and the flow, of great finan- 
 cial tides. Newman had come out of the war with 
 a brevet of brigadier-general, an honour which in this 
 case without invidious comparisons had lighted 
 upon shoulders amply competent to carry it. But 
 though he had proved he could handle his men, and 
 still more the enemy's, with effect, when need was, he 
 heartily disliked the business; his four years in the 
 army had left him with a bitter sense of the waste 
 of precious things life and time and money and in- 
 genuity and opportunity; and he had addressed him- 
 self to the pursuits of peace with passionate zest and 
 energy. His " interests," already mature, had mean- 
 while, however, waited for him, so that the capital at 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 his disposal had ceased to be solely his whetted, knife- 
 edged resolution and his lively perception of ends and 
 means. Yet these were his real arms, and exertion and 
 action as natural to him as respiration: a more com- 
 pletely healthy mortal had never trod the elastic soil 
 of great States of his option. His experience moreover 
 had been as wide as his capacity; necessity had in his 
 fourteenth year taken him by his slim young shoulders 
 and pushed him into the street to earn that night's 
 supper. He had not earned it, but he had earned the 
 next night's, and afterwards, whenever he had had 
 none, it was because he had gone without to use the 
 money for something else, a keener pleasure or a finer 
 profit. He had turned his hand, with his brain in it, 
 to many things; he had defied example and precedent 
 and probability, had adventured almost to madness 
 and escaped almost by miracles, drinking alike of the 
 flat water, when not the rank poison, of failure, and of 
 the strong wine of success. 
 
 A born experimentalist, he had always found some- 
 thing to enjoy in the direct pressure of fate even when 
 it was as irritating as the haircloth shirt of the medi- 
 aeval monk. Atone time defeat had seemed inexorably 
 his portion; ill-luck had become his selfish bed-fel- 
 low, and whatever he touched had turned to ashes 
 out of which no gleaming particle could be raked. His 
 most vivid conception of a supernatural element in the 
 world's affairs had come to him once when he felt 
 his head all too bullyingly pummelled; there seemed 
 ro him something stronger in life than his personal, 
 intimate will. But the mysterious something could 
 only be a demon as personal as himself, and he accord- 
 
 26 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ingly found himself in fine working opposition to this 
 rival concern. He had known what it was to have 
 utterly exhausted his credit, to be unable to raise a 
 dollar and to find himself at nightfall in a strange 
 city, without a penny to mitigate its strangeness. It 
 was under these circumstances that he had made his 
 entrance into San Francisco, the scene subsequently 
 of his most victorious engagements. If he did not, like 
 Dr. Franklin in Philadelphia, march along the street 
 munching a penny loaf it was only because he had 
 not the penny loaf necessary to the performance. In 
 his darkest days he had had but one simple, practical 
 impulse the desire, as he would have phrased it, to 
 conclude the affair. He had ended by concluding 
 many, had at last buffeted his way into smooth waters, 
 had begun and continued to add dollars to dollars. 
 It must be rather nakedly owned that Newman's 
 only proposal had been to effect that addition ; 
 what he had been placed in the world for was, to his 
 own conception, simply to gouge a fortune, the bigger 
 the better, out of its hard material. This idea com- 
 pletely filled his horizon and contented his imagina- 
 tion. Upon the uses of money, upon what one might 
 do with a life into which one had succeeded in inject- 
 ing the golden stream, he had up to the eve of his 
 fortieth 'year very scantly reflected. Life had been for 
 him an open game, and he had played for high stakes. 
 He had finally won and had carried off his winnings; 
 and now what was he to do with them ? He was a 
 man to whom, sooner or later, the question was sure 
 to present itself, and the answer to it belongs to oui 
 story. A vague sense that more answers were pos- 
 .* 27 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 sible than his philosophy had hitherto dreamt of had 
 already taken possession of him, and it seemed softly 
 and agreeably to deepen as he lounged in this rich 
 corner of Paris with his friend. 
 
 "I must confess," he presently went on, "that 1 
 don't here at all feel my value. My remarkable talents 
 seem of no use. It's as if I were as simple as a little 
 child, and as if a little child might take me by the 
 hand and lead me about." 
 
 "Oh, I'll be your little child," said Tristram jovi- 
 ally; "I'll take you by the hand. Trust yourself to 
 
 me." 
 
 "I'm a grand good worker," Newman continued, 
 "but I've come abroad to amuse myself; though I 
 doubt if I very well know how." 
 
 "Oh, that's easily learned." 
 
 "Well, I may perhaps learn it, but I 'm afraid I shall 
 never do it by rote. I 've the best will in the world 
 about it, but my genius does n't lie in that direction. 
 Besides," Newman pursued, "I don't want to work 
 at pleasure, any more than ever 1 played at work. 
 I want to let myself, let everything go. I feel coarse 
 and loose and I should like to spend six months as 
 I am now, sitting under a tree and listening to a band. 
 There's only one thing: I want to hear some first- 
 class music." 
 
 "First-class music and first-class pictures? Lord v 
 what refined tastes! You 've what my wife calls a rare 
 mind. 1 have n't a bit. But we can find something 
 better for you to do than to sit under a tree. To begin 
 with, you must come to the club." 
 
 "What club?" 
 
 28 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "The Occidental. You'll see all the Americans 
 there; all the best of them at least. Of course you 
 play poker ?" 
 
 44 Oh, I say/' cried Newman, with energy, "you're 
 not going to lock me up in a club and stick me down 
 at a card-table! I have n't come all this way for 
 that." 
 
 "What the deuce then have you come for? You 
 were glad enough to play poker in Saint Louis, I re- 
 collect, when you cleaned me out." 
 
 " I 've come to see Europe, to get the best out of it 
 I can. I want to see all the great things and do what 
 the best people do." 
 
 "The 'best' people? Much obliged. You set me 
 down then as one of the worst ?" 
 
 Newman was sitting sidewise in his chair, his elbow 
 on the back and his head leaning on his hand. With- 
 out moving he played a while at his companion his 
 dry, guarded, half-inscrutable and yet altogether 
 good-natured smile. "Introduce me to your wife!" 
 
 Tristram bounced about on his seat. "Upon my 
 word I '11 do nothing of the sort. She does n't want 
 any help to turn up her nose at me, nor do you 
 either." 
 
 "I don't turn up my nose at you, my dear fellow; 
 nor at any one nor anything. J 'm not proud, I assure 
 you I 'm not proud. That's why I 'm willing to takt 
 example by the best." 
 
 " Well, if I 'm not the rose, as they say here, I 've 
 lived near it. I can show you some rare minds too. 
 Do you know General Packard ? Do you know C. P, 
 Hatch ? Do you know Miss Kitty Upjohn ?" 
 v 20 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I shall be happy to make their acquaintance. I 
 want to cultivate society." 
 
 Tristram seemed restless and suspicious; he eyed 
 his friend askance, and then, "What are you up to, 
 anyway?" he demanded. "Are you going to write 
 a heavy hook ?" 
 
 Christopher Newman twisted one end of his mous- 
 tache in silence and finally made answer. "One day, 
 a couple of months ago, something very curious hap- 
 pened to me. I had come on to New York on some 
 important business; it's too long and too low a story 
 to tell you now a question of getting in ahead of 
 another party on a big transaction and on informa- 
 tion that was all my own. This other party had once 
 played off on me one of the clever meannesses the 
 feeling of which works in a man like strong poison. I 
 owed him a good one, the best one he was ever to have 
 got in his life, and as his chance here for he was 
 after it, but on the wrong tip would have been a 
 remarkably sweet thing, a matter of half a million, I 
 saw my way to show him the weight of my hand. The 
 good it was going to do me, you see, to feel it come 
 down on him! I jumped into a hack and went about 
 my business, and it was in this hack this immortal 
 historical hack that the curious thing I speak of 
 occurred. It was a hack like any other, only a trifle 
 dirtier, with a greasy line along the top of the drab 
 cushions, as if it had been used for a great many 
 Irish funerals. It's possible I took a nap; I had been 
 travelling all night and, though I was excited with my 
 errand, I felt the want of sleep. At all events 1 woke 
 up suddenly, from a sleep or from a kind of reverie, 
 
 30 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 with the most extraordinary change of heart a mor- 
 tal disgust for the whole proposition. It came upon 
 me like that!" and he snapped his fingers "as 
 abruptly as an old wound that begins to ache. I 
 could n't tell the meaning of it; I only realised I had 
 turned against myself worse than against the man 
 I wanted to smash. The idea of not coming by that 
 half-million in that particular way, of letting it utterly 
 slide and scuttle and never hearing of it again, became 
 the one thing to save my life from a sudden danger. 
 And all this took place quite independently of my will, 
 and I sat watching it as if it were a play at the theatre. 
 I could feel it going on inside me. You may depend 
 upon it that there are things going on inside us that we 
 understand mighty little about." 
 
 " Jupiter, you make my flesh creep!" cried Tris- 
 tram. "And while you sat in your hack watching the 
 play, as you call it, the other man looked in and 
 collared your half-million?" 
 
 "I haven't the least idea. I hope so, poor brute, 
 but I never found out. We pulled up in front of the 
 place I was going to in Wall Street, but I sat still in 
 the carriage, and at last the driver scrambled down 
 off his seat to see whether his hack had n't turned 
 into a hearse. I could n't have got out any more than 
 if I had been a corpse. What was the matter with 
 me ? Momentary brain-collapse, you '11 say. What 
 I wanted to get out of was Wall Street. I told the man 
 to drive to the Brooklyn ferry and cross over. When 
 we were over I told him to drive me out into the coun- 
 try. As I had told him originally to drive for dear life 
 down town, I suppose he thought I had lost my wits 
 
 3* 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 on the way. Perhaps I had, but in that case my sacri- 
 fice of them has become, in another way, my biggest 
 stroke of business. [ spent the morning looking at the 
 first green leaves on Long Island. I had been so hot 
 that it seemed as if I should never be cool enough 
 again. As for the damned old money, I Ve enough, 
 already, not to miss it you see how that spoils my 
 beauty. I seemed to feel a new man under my old 
 skin; at all events I longed for a new world. When 
 you want a thing so very badly you probably had bet- 
 ter have it an^l ~ee. I did n't understand my case in 
 the least, but gave the poor beast the bridle and let 
 him find his way. As soon as I could get out of har- 
 ness I sailed for Europe. That's how I come to be 
 sitting here." 
 
 "You ought to have bought up that hack," said 
 Tristram; "it is n't a safe vehicle to have about. And 
 you 've really wound up and sold out then ? you 've 
 formally retired from business?" 
 
 "Well, I'm not at present transacting any on 
 any terms. There '11 be plenty to be done again if I 
 don't hold out, but I shall hold out as long as possible. 
 I dare say, however, that a twelvemonth hence the 
 uncanny operation will be repeated in the opposite 
 sense and the pendulum swing back again. I shall 
 be sitting in a gondola or on a dromedary, or on 
 a cushion at the feet of Beauty, and all of a sudden 
 I shall want to clear out. But for the present I 'm 
 perfectly free. I Ve even arranged that I 'm to receive 
 no business letters." 
 
 "Oh, it's a real caprice de prince" said Tristram. 
 "1 back out; a poor devil like me can't help you to 
 
 32 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 spend such very magnificent leisure as that. You 
 should get introduced to the crowned heads." 
 
 Newman considered a moment and then with all his 
 candour, "How does one do itf" he asked. 
 
 "Come, I like that!" cried Tristram. "It shows 
 you're in earnest." 
 
 "Of course ['m in earnest. Did n't I say I wanted 
 the best ? I know the best can't be had for mere 
 money, but I 'm willing to take a good deal of trouble." 
 
 "You're not too shrinking, hey?" 
 
 " I have n't the least idea I must see. I want the 
 biggest kind of entertainment a man can get. People, 
 places, art, nature, everything! I want to see the 
 tallest mountains, and the bluest lakes, and the finest 
 pictures, and the handsomest churches, and the most 
 celebrated men, and the most elegant women." 
 
 "Settle down in Paris then. There are no moun- 
 tains that [ know of, higher than Montmartre, and 
 the only lake 's in the Bois de Boulogne and not par- 
 ticularly blue. But there's everything else: plenty of 
 pictures and churches, no end of celebrated men, and 
 several elegant women." 
 
 "But I can't settle down in Paris at this season, just 
 as summer's coming on." 
 
 "Oh, for the summer go right up to Trouville." 
 
 "And what may Trouville be?" 
 
 " Well, a sort of French Newport as near as they 
 can come. All the Americans go." 
 
 "Is it anywhere near the Alps?" 
 
 "About as near as Newport to the Rocky Moun- 
 
 tains." 
 
 Oh, I want to see Mont Blanc," said Newman* 
 33 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "and Amsterdam, and the Rhine, and a lot of places, 
 Venice in particular. I 've grand ideas for Venice." 
 
 "Ah," said Mr. Tristram, rising, "I see T shall have 
 to introduce you to my wife. She'll have grand ideal 
 foryoul" 
 
Ill 
 
 HE performed that ceremony the following day, 
 when, by appointment, Christopher Newman went 
 to dine with him. Mr. and Mrs. Tristram lived 
 behind one of those chalk-coloured facades which 
 decorate with their pompous sameness the broad 
 avenues distributed by Baron Haussmann over the 
 neighbourhood of the Arc de Triomphe. Their apart- 
 ment was rich in the modern conveniences, and Tris- 
 tram lost no time in calling his visitor's attention to 
 their principal household treasures, the thick-scattered 
 gas-lamps and the frequent furnace-holes. "When- 
 ever you feel homesick," he said, "you must come 
 right up here. We'll stick you down before a register, 
 under a good big burner, and " 
 
 "And you'll soon get over your homesickness," 
 said Mrs. Tristram. 
 
 Her husband stared; this lady often had a tone 
 that defied any convenient test; he could n't tell for 
 his life to whom her irony might be directed. The 
 truth is that circumstances had done much to culti- 
 vate in Mrs. Tristram the need for any little intel- 
 lectual luxury she could pick up by the way. Her 
 taste on many points differed from that of her hus- 
 band; and though she made frequent concessions 
 to the dull small fact that he had married her it 
 must be confessed that her reserves were not always 
 muffled in pink gauze. They were founded upon th 
 
 35 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 vague project of her some day affirming herself in 
 her totality; to which end she was in advance getting 
 herself together, building herself high, enquiring, in 
 short, into her dimensions. 
 
 It should be added, without delay, to anticipate 
 misconception, that if she was thus saving herself 
 up it was yet not to cover the expense of any fore- 
 seen outlay of that finest part of her substance that 
 was known to her tacitly as her power of passion. 
 She had a very plain face and was entirely without 
 illusions as to her appearance. She had taken its 
 measure to a hair's breadth, she knew the worst and 
 the best, she had accepted herself. It had not been 
 indeed without a struggle. As a mere mortified 
 maiden she had spent hours with her back to her 
 mirror, crying her eyes out; and later she had, from 
 desperation and bravado, adopted the habit of pro- 
 claiming herself the most ill-favoured of women, 
 in order that she might as in common politeness 
 was inevitable be contradicted and reassured. 
 It was since she had come to live in Europe that she 
 had begun to take the matter philosophically. Her 
 observation, acutely exercised here, had suggested 
 to her that a woman's social service resides not in 
 what she is but in what she appears, and that in the 
 labyrinth of appearances she may always make 
 others lose their clue if she only keeps her own. She 
 had encountered so many women who pleased with- 
 out beauty that she began to believe she had discov- 
 ered her refuge. She had once heard an enthusiastic 
 musician, out of patience with a gifted bungler, de- 
 clare that a fine voice is really an obstacle to sing- 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ing properly; and it occurred to her that it might 
 perhaps be equally true that a beautiful face is an 
 obstacle to the acquisition of charming manners. Mrs. 
 Tristram then undertook to persuade by grace, and 
 she brought to the task no small ingenuity. 
 
 How well she would have succeeded I am unable 
 to say; unfortunatel) she broke off in the middle. 
 Her own excuse was the want of encouragement in 
 her immediate circle. But she had presumably not 
 a real genius for the charming art, or she would have 
 pursued it for itself. The poor lady was after all 
 incomplete. She fell back upon the harmonies of 
 dress, which she thoroughly understood, and con- 
 tented herself with playing in its lock that ke^ to 
 the making of impressions. She lived in Paris, 
 which she pretended to detest, because it was only 
 in Paris that one could find things to exactly suit 
 one's complexion. Besides, out of Paris it was al- 
 ways more or less of a trouble to get ten-button 
 gloves. When she railed at this serviceable city and 
 you asked her where she would prefer to reside she 
 returned some very unexpected answer. She would 
 say in Copenhagen or in Barcelona; having, while 
 making the tour of Europe, spent a couple of days 
 at each of these places. On the whole, with her 
 poetic furbelows and her misshapen, intelligent little 
 face, she was, when known, a figure to place, in 
 the great gallery of the wistful, somewhere apart. 
 She was naturally timid, and if she had been born 
 a beauty she would (content with it) probably have 
 taken no risks. At present she was both reckless 
 and diffident; extremely reserved sometimes with her 
 
 37 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 friends and strangely expansive with strangers. She 
 overlooked her husband; overlooked him too much, 
 for she had been perfectly at liberty not to marry 
 him. She had been in love with a clever man who 
 had eventually slighted her, and she had married 
 a fool in the hope that the keener personage, re- 
 flecting on it, would conclude that she had had no 
 appreciation of his keenness and that he had flattered 
 her in thinking her touched. Restless, discontented, 
 visionary, without personal ambitions but with a 
 certain avidity of imagination, she was interesting 
 from this sense she gave of her looking for her ideals 
 by a lamp of strange and fitful flame. She was full 
 both for good and for ill of beginnings that came to 
 nothing; but she had nevertheless, morally, a spark 
 of the sacred fire. 
 
 Newman was fond, in all circumstances, of the 
 society of women; and now that he was out of his 
 native element and deprived of his habitual interests 
 he turned to it for compensation. He took a great 
 fancy to Mrs. Tristram; she frankly repaid it, and 
 after their first meeting he passed a great many 
 hours in her drawing-room. Two or three long 
 talks had made them fast friends. Newman's manner 
 with women was peculiar, and it required some 
 diligence on a lady's part to discover that he admired 
 her. He had no gallantry in the usual sense of the 
 term; no compliments, no graces, no speeches. 
 Fond enough of a large pleasantry in his dealings 
 with men, he never found himself on a sofa beside 
 a member of the softer sex without feeling that such 
 situations appealed, like beautiful views, or cele- 
 
 38 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 brated operas, or line portraits, or handsome "sets" 
 of the classics, or even elegant "show" cemeteries, 
 to his earnest side. He was not shy and, so far as 
 awkwardness proceeds from a struggle with shyness, 
 was not awkward: grave, attentive, submissive, 
 often silent, he was simply swimming in a sort ci 
 rapture of respect. This emotion was not at all 
 theoretic, it was not even in a high degree romantic; 
 he had thought very little about the "position" of 
 women, and he was not familiar, either sympathetic- 
 ally or otherwise, with the image of a President 
 in petticoats. His attitude was simply the flower 
 of his general good-nature and a part of his in- 
 stinctive and genuinely democratic assumption of 
 every one's right to lead an easy life. If a shaggy 
 pauper had a right to bed and board and wages and 
 a vote, women, of course, who were weaker than 
 paupers, and whose physical tissue was in itself an 
 appeal, should be maintained, sentimentally, at the 
 public expense. Newman was willing to be taxed 
 for this purpose, largely, in proportion to his means. 
 Moreover many of the common traditions with 
 regard to women were with him fresh personal im- 
 pressions. He had never read a page of printed 
 romance. 
 
 He spent a great deal of time in listening to advice 
 from Mrs. Tristram; advice, it must be added, for 
 which he had never asked. He would have been 
 incapable of asking for it, inasmuch as he had no 
 perception of difficulties and consequently no curi- 
 osity about remedies. The complex Parisian world 
 about him seemed a very simple affair; it was an 
 
 39 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 immense, surprising spectacle, but it neither in- 
 flamed his imagination nor irritated his curiosity. 
 He kept his hands in his pockets, looked on good- 
 humouredly, desired to miss nothing important, 
 observed a great many things in detail, and never 
 reverted to himself. Mrs. Tristram's "advice" 
 was a part of the show and a more entertaining 
 element of her free criticism than any other. He 
 enjoyed her talking about him it seemed a part 
 of her beautiful culture ; but he never made an 
 application of anything she said or remembered 
 it when he was away from her. For herself, she 
 appropriated him : he was the most interesting 
 thing she had had to think about for many a month. 
 She wished to do something with him she hardly 
 knew what. There was so much of him; he was so 
 rich and robust, so easy, friendly, well-disposed, 
 that he kept her imagination constantly on the alert. 
 For the present the only thing she could do was to 
 like him. She told him he was beyond everything 
 a child of nature, but she repeated it so often that it 
 could have been but a term of endearment. She led 
 him about with her, introduced him to fifty people, 
 took extreme satisfaction in her conquest. Newman 
 accepted every proposal, shook hands universally 
 and promiscuously, and seemed equally unversed 
 in trepidation and in " cheek." Tom Tristram com- 
 plained of his wife's rapacity, declaring he could 
 never have a clear five minutes with his friend. If 
 he had known how things were going to turn out he 
 never would have brought him to the Avenue d'lena, 
 The two men had formerly not been intimate, but 
 
 40 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Newman recalled his earlier impression of his host 
 and did Mrs. Tristram, who had by no means taken 
 him into her confidence, but whose secret he pre- 
 sently discovered, the justice to admit that her 
 husband had somehow found means to be degenerate 
 without the iridescence of decay. People said he was 
 veiy sociable, but this was as much a matter of 
 course as for a dipped sponge to expand; and ii was 
 a sociability affirmed, on its anecdotic side, too 
 much at the expense of those possible partakers 
 who were not there to guard their interest in it. He 
 was patient at poker; he was infallible upon the 
 names and the other attributes of all the cocottes ; 
 his criticism of cookery, his comparative view of the 
 great "years" of champagne, enjoyed the authority 
 of the last word. And then he was idle, spiritless, 
 sensual, snobbish. He irritated our friend by the 
 tone of his allusions to their native country, and 
 Newman was at a loss to understand wherein such 
 a country, as a whole, could fall short of Mr. Tris- 
 tram's stomach. He had never been a very systematic 
 patriot, but it vexed him to see the United States 
 treated as little better than a vulgar smell in his 
 friend's nostril, and he finally spoke up for them 
 quite as if it had been Fourth of July, proclaiming 
 that any American who ran them down ought to be 
 carried home in irons and compelled to live in Boston 
 which for Newman was putting it very vindio 
 tively. Tristram was a comfortable man to snub; 
 he bore no malice and he continued to insist on 
 Newman's finishing his evenings at the Occidental 
 Club. The latter dined several times in the Avenue 
 
 41 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 d'lena, and his host always proposed an early ad- 
 journment to this institution. Mrs. Tristram pro- 
 tested, declaring as promptly that her husband ex- 
 hausted a low cunning in trying to displease her. 
 
 "Oh no, I never try, my love," he answered; "I 
 know you loathe me quite enough when I take my 
 chance." But their visitor hated to see a married 
 couple on these terms, and he was sure one or 
 other of them must be very unhappy. Yet he knew 
 it was not Tristram. The lady had a balcony before 
 her windows, upon which, during the June evenings, 
 she was fond of sitting, and Newman used frankly 
 to say that he preferred the balcony to the club. It 
 had a fringe of perfumed plants in tubs and enabled 
 you to look up the broad street and see the Arch of 
 Triumph vaguely massing its heroic sculptures in the 
 summer starlight. Sometimes he kept his promise 
 of following Mr. Tristram in half an hour to the 
 Occidental and sometimes forgot it. His companion 
 asked him a great many questions about himself, 
 but on this subject he was an indifferent talker. He 
 was not "subjective," though when he felt her 
 interest sincere he made a real effort to meet it. He 
 told her many things he had done, and regaled her 
 with pictures of that "nature" as the child of which 
 he figured for her; she herself was from Philadel- 
 phia 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, though by no means 
 always to his advantage; and the states of Newman's 
 own spirit were but scantily chronicled. She had an 
 especial wish to know whether he had ever beeu 
 
 4-2 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 in love seriously, passionately and, failing to 
 gather any satisfaction from his allusions, at last 
 closely pressed him. He hesitated a while, but finally 
 said "Hang it then, no!" She declared that she was 
 delighted to hear it, as it confirmed her private con- 
 viction that he was a man of no real feeling. 
 
 "Is that so ?" he asked very gravely. "But how 
 do you recognise a man of real feeling ? " 
 
 "I can't make out," said Mrs. Tristram, "whether 
 you're very simple or very deep." 
 
 "I'm very deep. That's a fact." 
 
 " I believe that if I were to tell you with a certain 
 air that you're as cold as a fish you would implicitly 
 believe me." 
 
 "A certain air?" Newman echoed. "Well, try 
 your air and see." 
 
 "You'd believe me, but you would n't care," said 
 Mrs. Tristram. 
 
 "You've got it all wrong. I should care immensely, 
 but I should n 't believe you. The fact is I have 
 never had time to 'feel' things so very beautifully. 
 I 've had to do them, had to make myself felt." 
 
 "Oh, I can imagine indeed that you may have 
 sometimes done that tremendously." 
 
 "Yes, there's no mistake about that." 
 
 "When you're in one of your furies it can't be 
 pleasant." 
 
 "Ah, I don't have to get into a fury to do it." 
 
 "I don't, nevertheless, see you always as you are 
 now. You've something or other behind, beneath. 
 You get harder or you get softer. You're more 
 displeased or you're more pleased." 
 
 * 43 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Well, a man of any sense does n't lay his plans 
 to be angry," said Newman, "and it's in fact so 
 long since I've been displeased that I've quite 
 forgotten it." 
 
 "I don't believe," she returned "that you're 
 never angry. A man ought to be angry sometimes, 
 and you're neither good enough nor bad enough 
 always to keep your temper." 
 
 "I lose it perhaps every five years." 
 
 "The time's coming round then," said his hostess. 
 " Before I 've known you six months I shall see you 
 in a magnificent rage." 
 
 "Do you mean to put me into one?" 
 
 " I should n't be sorry. You take things too coolly. 
 It quite exasperates me. And then you're too happy. 
 You 've what must be the most agreeable thing in the 
 world the consciousness of having bought your 
 pleasure beforehand, having paid for it in advance. 
 You 've not a day of reckoning staring you in the face. 
 Your reckonings are over." 
 
 "Well, I suppose I'm happy," said Newman 
 almost pensively. 
 
 "You've been odiously successful." 
 
 "Successful in copper," he recalled, "but very 
 mixed in other mining ventures. And I've had to 
 take quite a back seat on oil." 
 
 "It's very disagreeable to know how Americans 
 have come by their money," his companion sighed. 
 "Now, at all events, you've the world before you. 
 You've only to enjoy." 
 
 "Oh, I suppose I'm all right," said Newman, 
 "Only I'm tired of having it thrown up at me. 
 
 44 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Besides, there are several drawbacks. I don't come 
 up to my own standard of culture." 
 
 "One does n't expect it of you," Mrs. Tristram 
 answered. Then in a moment: "Besides, you do 
 come up. You are up!" 
 
 "Well, I mean to have a good time, wherever I 
 am," said Newman. "I find I take notice as I go, 
 and I guess I shan't have missed much by the time 
 I've done. I feel something under my ribs here," 
 he added in a moment, "that I can't explain a 
 sort of strong yearning, a desire to stretch out and 
 haul in." 
 
 "Bravo!" Mrs. Tristram cried; "that's what I 
 want to hear you say. You're the great Western 
 Barbarian, stepping forth in his innocence and 
 might, gazing a while at this poor corrupt old world 
 and then swooping down on it." 
 
 "Oh come," Newman protested; "I'm not an 
 honest barbarian either, by a good deal. I'm a 
 great fall-off from him. I 've seen honest barbarians, 
 I know what they are." 
 
 "I don't mean you're a Comanche chief or that 
 you wear a blanket and feathers. There are different 
 shades." 
 
 " I have the instincts have them deeply if 
 I have n't the forms of a high old civilisation," 
 Newman wenron. "I stick to that. If you don't 
 believe it I should like to prove it to you." 
 
 Mrs. Tristram was silent a while. "I should like 
 to make you prove it," she said at last. "I should 
 like to put you in a difficult place." 
 
 "Well, put me!" said Newman. 
 
 ^ 45 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Vous ne doutez de rien!" his companion rejoined. 
 
 "Oh," he insisted, "I've a very good opinion of 
 myself." 
 
 " I wish I could put it to the test. Give me time 
 and I will." And Mrs. Tristram remained silent a 
 minute, as if trying to keep her pledge. It did n't 
 appear that evening that she succeeded; but as he 
 was rising to take his leave she passed suddenly, 
 as she was very apt to do, from the tone of ingenious 
 banter to that of almost* tremulous sympathy. 
 "Speaking seriously," she said, "I believe in you, 
 Mr. Newman. You flatter my latent patriotism." 
 
 "Your latent?" 
 
 "Deep within me the eagle shrieks, and I've 
 known my heart at times to bristle with more 
 feathers than my head. It would take too long to 
 explain, and you probably would n't understand. 
 Besides, you might take it really you might take 
 it for a declaration. Yet it has nothing to do with 
 you personally; the question is of what you almost 
 unconsciously represent. Fortunately you don't know 
 all that, or your conceit would increase insuffer- 
 ably." And then as Newman stood wondering what 
 this great quantity might be: "Forgive all my med- 
 dlesome chatter and forget my advice. It's very silly 
 in me to undertake to tell you what to do. When 
 you're embarrassed do as you think best, and you'll 
 do very well. When you're in a difficulty judge 
 for yourself. Only let it then be all you." 
 
 "I shall remember everything you 've told me." he 
 made answer. "There are so many twists and turns 
 over here, so many forms and ceremonies " 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Forms and ceremonies are what I mean of 
 course." 
 
 "Ah, but I don't want not to take account of 
 them," he declared. " Have n't I as good a right as 
 another ? They don't scare me, and you need it't 
 give me leave to ignore them. I want to know all 
 about 'em." 
 
 "That's not what I mean. I mean that you're 
 to deal with them in your own way. Settle delicate 
 questions by your own light. Cut the knot or untie 
 it, as you choose." 
 
 " Oh, if there 's ever a big knot," he returned 
 "and they all seem knots of ribbon over here I 
 shall simply pull it off and wear it!" 
 
 The next time he dined in the Avenue d'lena was 
 a Sunday, a day on which Mr. Tristram left the 
 cards unshuffled, so that there was a trio in the 
 evening on the balcony. The talk was of many 
 things, and at last Mrs. Tristram suddenly observed 
 to their visitor that it was high time that he should 
 take a wife. 
 
 "Listen to her: she has the toupet!" said Tris- 
 tram, who on Sunday evenings was always a little 
 peevish. 
 
 "I don't suppose you've made up your mind not 
 to marry?" Mrs. Tristram continued. 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" cried Newman. "I'm quite 
 viciously bent on it." 
 
 "It's a very easy mistake," said Tristram; "and 
 when it 's made it's made." 
 
 "Well then," his wife went on, "I suppose you 
 don't mean to wait till you're fifty." 
 
 47 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " On the contrary, I 'm in an almost indecent hurry." 
 
 " One would never guess it. Do you expect a lady 
 to come and propose to you ?" 
 
 "No; I 'm willing to put the case before her myself. 
 I think a great deal about it." 
 
 "Tell me some of your thoughts." 
 
 "Well," said Newman slowly, "I want to marry 
 about as well as you can." 
 
 "'Well' in what sense?" 
 
 "In every sense. I shall be hard to suit." 
 
 "You must remember that, as the French proverb 
 puts it, the finest girl in the world can give but 
 what she has." 
 
 "Since you ask me," said Newman, "let me be 
 frank about it I want quite awfully to marry. It's 
 time, to begin with; before I know it I shall be forty- 
 five. And then I 'm lonely, and I really kind of pine 
 for a mate. There are things for which I want help. 
 But if I marry now, so long as I did n't do it in hot 
 haste when I was twenty, I must do it, you see, with 
 my eyes open. I want to set about it rather grandly. 
 1 not only want to make no mistakes, but I want to 
 make a great hit. I want to take my pick. My wife 
 must be a pure pearl. I 've thought an immense deal 
 about it." 
 
 "Perhaps you think too much. The best thing 's 
 simply to fall in love." 
 
 "When I find the woman who satisfies me I shall 
 rise to the occasion. My wife shall be as satisfied as 
 I shall." 
 
 " You begin grandly enough," said Mrs. Tristram, 
 "'There's a chance for the pure pearls!" 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "You're not fair/' Newman presently broke out. 
 "You draw a fellow on and put him off his guard and 
 then you gibe at him." 
 
 " I assure you," she answered, "that 1 'm very seri- 
 ous. To prove it I make you a proposal. Should you 
 like me, as they say here, to marry you ?" 
 
 "To hunt up a wife for me ?" 
 
 "She's already found. I'll bring you together." 
 
 "Oh come," said Tristram, "we don't keep a 
 bureau de placement. He '11 think you want your com- 
 
 mission." 
 
 "Present me to a woman who comes up to my 
 notion," Newman declared, "and I'll marry her 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "You've a strange tone about it, and I don't quite 
 understand you. i did n't suppose you conld be so 
 cold-blooded." 
 
 Newman was silent a while. "Well, 1 want a great 
 woman. I stick to that. That's one thing I can treat 
 myself to, and if it 's to be had I mean to have it. What 
 else have 1 toiled and struggled for all these years ? 
 I've succeeded, and now what am I to do with my 
 success ? To make it perfect, as I see it, there must be 
 a lovely being perched on the pile like some shining 
 statue crowning some high monument. She must be 
 as good as she's beautiful and as clever as she's good. 
 I can give my wife many things, so 1 'm not afraid to 
 ask certain others myself. She shall have everything a 
 woman can desire; I shall not even object to her being 
 too good for me. She may be cleverer and wiser than 
 I can understand, and I shall only be the better pleased. 
 I want, in a word, the best article in the market." 
 
 49 
 
 - 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Why did n't you tell a fellow all this at the out- 
 set?" Tristram demanded. "I've been trying so tc 
 make you fond of me!" 
 
 "It's remarkablv interesting," said Mrs. Tristram 
 ,"1 like to see a man know his own mind/' 
 
 "I've known mine for a long time," Newman 
 went on. "I made up my mind tolerably early in 
 life that some rare creature all one's own is the best 
 kind of property to hold. It's the greatest victory 
 over circumstances. When I say rare 1 mean rare 
 all through grown as a rarity and recognised as 
 one. It's a thing every man has an equal right to; 
 he may get it if he can get it. He does n't have to be 
 born with certain faculties on purpose; he needs 
 only to be well, whatever he really is. Then he 
 need only use his will, and such wits as he can muster, 
 and go in." 
 
 "It strikes me," said Mrs. Tristram, "that your 
 marriage is to be rather a matter of heartless pomp." 
 
 "Well, it's certain," Newman granted, "that if 
 people notice my wife and admire her I shall count 
 it as part of my success." 
 
 "After this," cried Mrs. Tristram, "speak of any 
 man's modesty!" 
 
 "But none of them will admire her so much as I." 
 
 " You really have the imagination of greatness." 
 
 He hesitated as if in fear of her mockery, but he 
 kept it up, repeating his dry formula: " 1 want the best 
 thing going." 
 
 "And I suppose you've already looked about you 
 a good deal." 
 
 " More or less, according to opportunity. 
 
 50 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " And you 've seen nothing that has tempted you ?" 
 
 "No," said Newman half reluctantly, "I'm bound 
 to say in honesty that I 've seen nothing that has come 
 up to my idea." 
 
 "You remind me of the heroes of the French 
 romantic poets, Rolla and Fortunio and all those 
 other insatiable gentlemen for whom nothing in this 
 world was handsome enough. But I see you 're in 
 earnest, and 1 should like to help you," Mrs. Tristram 
 wound up. 
 
 " Who the deuce is it, darling, that you're going to 
 palm off upon him?" her husband asked. "We 
 know a good many pretty girls, thank goodness, but 
 nobody to be mentioned in that blazing light." 
 
 "Have you any objections to a foreigner?" Mrs. 
 Tristram continued, addressing their friend, who had 
 tilted back his chair and, with his feet on a bar of the 
 balcony railing and his hands in his pockets, sat look- 
 ing at the stars. 
 
 "No Irish need apply," said Tristram. 
 
 Newman remained pensive. k * Just as a foreigner, 
 no. I've no prejudices." 
 
 " My dear fellow, you've no suspicions!" Tristram 
 cried. "You don't know what terrible customers 
 these foreign women are; especially those grown, as 
 you call it, for the use of millionaires. How should 
 you like an expensive Circassian with a dagger in 
 her baggy trousers ?" 
 
 Newman administered a vigorous slap to his knee. 
 "I'd marry a Patagonian if she pleased me." 
 
 "We had better confine ourselves to Europe," said 
 Mrs. Tristram. "The only thing is then that the 
 
 5 1 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 young person herself should square with youi tre- 
 mendous standard ?" 
 
 " She 's going to offer you an unappreciated gov- 
 erness!" Tristram groaned. 
 
 "Of course I won't deny that, other things being 
 equal, I should like one of my own countrywomen 
 best," Newman pursued. "We should speak the 
 same language, and that would be a comfort. But 
 I'm not afraid of any foreigner who's the best thing 
 in her own country. Besides, I rather like the idea 
 of taking in Europe too. It enlarges the field of selec- 
 tion. When you choose from a greater number you 
 can bring your choice to a finer point." 
 
 "Sardanapalus!" Tristram sighed. 
 
 "Well, you've come to the right market," New- 
 man's hostess brought out after a pause. "I happen 
 to number among my friends the finest creature in 
 the world. Neither more nor less. I don't say a very 
 charming person or a very estimable woman or a very 
 great beauty: 1 say simply the finest creature in the 
 world." 
 
 "I'm bound to say then," cried Tristram, "that 
 you've kept very quiet about her. Were you afraid 
 of me ?" 
 
 "You've seen her," said his wife, "but you've no 
 perception of such quality as Claire's." 
 
 "Ah, her name 's Claire ? I give it up." 
 
 "Does your friend wish to marry?" Newman 
 asked. 
 
 "Not in the least. It's for you to make her change 
 her mind. It won't be easy; she has had one husband 
 and he gave her a low opinion of the species." 
 
 52 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Oh, she's a widow then ?" 
 
 "Are you already afraid ? She was married at 
 eighteen, by her parents, in the French fashion, to 
 a man with advantages of fortune, but objectionable, 
 detestable, on other grounds, and many years too old. 
 He had, however, the discretion to die a couple of 
 years afterwards, and she's now twenty-eight." 
 
 "So she's French?" 
 
 "French by her father, English by her mother. 
 She's really more English than French, and she 
 speaks English as well as you or I or rather much 
 better. She belongs, as they say here, to the very top 
 of the basket. Her family, on each side, is of fabulous 
 antiquity; her mother 's the daughter of an English 
 Catholic peer. Her father's dead, and since her 
 widowhood she has lived with her mother and a 
 married brother. There's another brother, younger, 
 who I believe is rather amusing but quite impossible. 
 They have an old hotel in the Rue de 1'Universite, 
 but their fortune 's small and they make, for eco- 
 nomy's sake, a common household. When I was a 
 girl of less than fifteen 1 was put into a convent here 
 for my education while my father made the tour of 
 Europe. It was a fatuous thing to do with me, but it 
 had the advantage that it made me acquainted with 
 Claire de Bellegarde. She was younger than 1, yet 
 we became fast friends. 1 took a tremendous fancy 
 to her, and she returned my adoration so far as she 
 could. They kept such a tight rein on her that she 
 could do very little, and when I left the convent she 
 had to give me up. I was not of her monde ; 1 'm not 
 now either, but we sometimes meet. They're terrible 
 
 53 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 people her mondc; all mounted upon stilts a mile 
 high and with pedigrees long in proportion. It's the 
 skim of the milk of the old noblesse. Did you ever 
 hear of such a prehistoric monster as a Legitimist or 
 an Ultramontane? Go into Madame de Cintre's , 
 drawing-room some afternoon at five o'clock and I 
 you'll see the best-preserved specimens. I say go, 
 but no one is admitted to intimacy who can't 
 show good cause in the form of a family tree." 
 
 " And this is the lady you propose to me to marry ?" 
 asked Newman. " A lady I can't even approach ? " 
 
 44 But you said just now that you recognised no 
 reasons against you." 
 
 Newman looked at Mrs. Tristram a while, stroking 
 his moustache. **ls she a very great beauty?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 She hung fire a little. "No." 
 
 44 Oh then it's no use !" 
 
 44 She's not a very great beauty, but she's very, 
 very beautiful; two quite different things. A beauty 
 has no faults in her face; the face of a beautiful 
 woman may have faults that only deepen its charm." 
 
 4 * I remember Madame de Cintre now," said Tris- 
 tram. 44 She 's as plain as a copy in a copy-book 
 all round o's and uprights a little slanting. She just 
 slants toward us. A man of your large appetite 
 would swallow her down without tasting her." 
 
 " In telling how little use he has for her my husband 
 sufficiently describes her," Mrs. Tristram pursued. 
 
 "Is she good, is she clever ?" Newman asked. 
 
 "She's perfect! I won't say more than that. When 
 you're praising a person to another who's to know 
 
 54 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 her, it's bad policy to go into details. I won't exag- 
 gerate, I simply recommend her. Among all the 
 women I've known she stands alone; she's of a 
 different clay." 
 
 "I should like to see her," said Newman simply. 
 
 "I'll try to manage it. The only way will be to 
 invite her to dinner. T Ve never invited her before, 
 and I'm not sure she'll be able to come. Her old 
 feudal countess of a mother rules the family with an 
 iron hand and allows her to have no friends but of her 
 own choosing and to visit only in a certain sacred 
 circle. But I can at least invite her." 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Tristram was interrupted; a 
 servant stepped out upon the balcony and announced 
 that there were visitors in the drawing-room. When 
 she had gone in to receive her friends Tom Tristram 
 approached his guest. 
 
 " Don't put your foot into this, my boy," he said, 
 puffing the last whiffs of his cigar. "There's nothing 
 in it!" 
 
 Newman eyed him with oblique penetration. "You 
 tell another story, eh ? " 
 
 "I say simply that Madame de Cintre's a great 
 white doll of a woman and that she cultivates quiet 
 haughtiness." 
 
 "Ah, she's really haughty, eh ?" 
 
 " She looks at you as if you were so much thin air, 
 and blows you away as easily." 
 
 "She's really proud, eh?" Newman pursued with 
 interest. 
 
 " Proud ? As proud as they make 'em over here." 
 
 "And not good-looking?" 
 
 55 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Tristram shrugged his shoulders. "She leaves me 
 cold. She's as cold herself as a porcelain stove, and 
 has about as much expression. But I must go in and 
 amuse the company." 
 
 Some time elapsed before Newman followed his 
 friends into the drawing-room. When he at last joined 
 them there he remained but a short time, and during 
 this period sat perfectly silent, listening to a lady 
 to whom Mrs. Tristram had straightway introduced 
 him and who treated him, without drawing breath, 
 to the full force of an extraordinarily high-pitched 
 voice. He could but gaze and attend. Presently he 
 came to bid his hostess good-night. "Who is that 
 lady?" 
 
 " Miss Dora Finch. How do you like her ? " 
 
 "Well, as I like the gong that sounds for dinner. 
 She's good for a warning." 
 
 "She's thought so sweet! Certainly you have 
 ideas," said Mrs. Tristram. 
 
 He hung about, but at last, "Don't forget about 
 your friend," he said, "the lady of the proud people. 
 Do make her come, and give me good notice." And 
 with this he departed. 
 
 Some days later he came back; it was in the after- 
 noon. He found Mrs. Tristram in her drawing-room 
 and entertaining a visitor, a woman young and pretty 
 and dressed in white. The two had risen and the 
 visitor was apparently taking leave. After Newman 
 had approached he received from Mrs. Tristram, 
 who had turned to her companion, a glance of the 
 most vivid significance, which he was yet not imme- 
 diately able to interpret. "This is a good friend of 
 
 56 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ours, Mr. Christopher Newman. 1 J ve spoken of you 
 to him, and he has an extreme desire to make your 
 acquaintance. If you had consented to come and dine 
 1 should have offered him an opportunity." 
 
 The stranger presented her face with a still bright- 
 ness of kindness. He was not embarrassed, for his 
 unconscious equanimity was boundless; but as he 
 became aware that this was the proud and beautiful 
 Madame de Cintre, the finest creature in the world, 
 the promised perfection, the proposed ideal, he made 
 an instinctive movement to gather his wits together. 
 Through the slight preoccupation it produced he had 
 a sense of a longish fair face and of the look of a pair 
 of eyes that were both intense and mild. 
 
 "1 should have been most happy," said Madame 
 de Cintre. " Unfortunately, as 1 have been telling 
 Mrs. Tristram, 1 go next week to the country." 
 
 Newman had made a solemn bow. "I'm very very 
 sorry/' 
 
 "Paris is really getting too hot," Madame de 
 Cintre added, taking her friend's hand again in fare- 
 well. 
 
 Mrs. Tristram seemed to have formed a sudden 
 and somewhat venturesome resolution, and she 
 smiled more gaily, as women do when they become 
 more earnest. " I want Mr. Newman to know you," 
 she said, dropping her head on one side and looking 
 at Madame de Cintre's bonnet-ribbons. 
 
 Christopher Newman stood gravely silent, and 
 his native penetration admonished him. Mrs. Tris- 
 tram was determined to force her friend to address 
 him a word of encouragement which should be more 
 
 V 57 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 than one of the common formulas of politeness; and 
 if she was prompted by charity it was by the charity 
 that begins at home. Madame de Cintre was her 
 dearest Claire and her especial admiration; but 
 Madame de Cintre had found it impossible to dine 
 with her and Madame de Cintre should for once be 
 forced gently to render tribute to Mrs. Tristram. 
 " It would give me great pleasure," she said, looking 
 at Mrs. Tristram. 
 
 " That's a great deal," cried the latter, "for 
 Madame de Cintre to say!" 
 
 44 I'm very much obliged to you," said Newman. 
 "Mrs. Tristram can speak better for me than I can 
 speak for myself." 
 
 Madame de Cintre turned on him again her soft 
 lustre. "Are you for long in Paris ?" 
 
 "We shall keep him," said Mrs. Tristram. 
 
 "But you're keeping me!" And Madame de 
 Cintre disengaged her hand. 
 
 "A moment longer," said Mrs. Tristram. 
 
 Madame de Cintre looked at Newman again; this 
 time without her smile. Her eyes lingered a little. 
 "Will you come and see rne?" 
 
 Mrs. Tristram kissed her at this; Newman ac- 
 knowledged it more formally, and she took her de- 
 parture. Her hostess went with her to the door,, 
 leaving Newman briefly alone. Presently she re- 
 turned, clasping her hands together and shaking 
 them at him. " It was a fortunate chance. She had 
 come to decline my invitation. You triumphed on 
 the spot, making hei ask you, at the end of three 
 minutes, to her house." 
 
 58 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "It was you who triumphed," said Newman, 
 " You must n't see too much in her." 
 
 Mrs. Tristram stared. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "She did n't strike me as so very proud. I should 
 call her quite timid." 
 
 "I should call you quite deep! And what do you 
 think of her face ?" 
 
 "Well, I guess I like her face," said Newman. 
 
 "I should think you might! May I guess, on my 
 side, that you'll go and see her?" 
 
 "To-morrow!" cried Newman. 
 
 "No, not to-morrow; next day. That will be Sun- 
 day; she leaves Paris on Monday. If you don't see 
 her it will at least be a beginning." And she gave 
 him Madame de Cintre's address. 
 
 He walked across the Seine late in the summer 
 afternoon and made his way through those grey and 
 silent streets of the Faubourg Saint Germain whose 
 houses present to the outer world a face as impassive 
 and as suggestive of the concentration of privacy 
 within as the blank walls of Eastern seraglios. New- 
 man thought it a perverse, verily a " mean " way for 
 rich people to live; his ideal of grandeur was a splen- 
 did facade, diffusing its brilliancy outward too, 
 irradiating hospitality. The house to which he had 
 been directed had a dark, dusty, painted portal, 
 which swung open in answer to his ring. It admitted 
 him into a wide, gravelled court, surrounded on 
 three sides with closed windows; here was a doorway 
 facing the street, approached by three steps and 
 surmounted by a tent-like canopy. The place was 
 all in the shade; it answered to Newman's conception 
 
 59 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of a convent. The portress couldn't say if Madame 
 de Cintre were visible; he would please to apply at 
 the further door. He crossed the court; a gentle- 
 man was sitting, bareheaded, on the steps of the 
 portico, in play with a beautiful pointer. He rose 
 as Newman approached, and, as he laid his hand on 
 the bell, said, almost sociably, in English, that he 
 was ashamed a visitor should be kept waiting: the 
 servants were scattered; he himself had been ringing; 
 he did n't know what the deuce was in them. This 
 gentleman was young; his English was excellent, his 
 expression easy. Newman pronounced the name of 
 Madame de Cintre. 
 
 "I dare say/' said the young man, "that my sister 
 will be visible. Come in, and if you Ml give me your 
 card I '11 carry it to her myself." 
 
 Newman had been accompanied on his present 
 errand by a sentiment I will not say of defiance 
 a readiness for aggression or for defence, as either 
 might prove needful but rather of meditative, 
 though quite undaunted and good-humoured sus- 
 picion. He took from his pocket, while he stood on 
 the portico, a card upon which, under his name, he 
 had written the words "San Francisco," and while 
 he presented it he looked warily at his interlocutor. 
 His glance found quick reassurance: he liked the 
 young man's face; it strongly resembled that of 
 Madame de Cintre, whose brother he would clearly 
 be. The young man, on his side, had made a rapid 
 inspection of Newman's person. He had taken the 
 card and was about to enter the house with it when 
 another figure appeared on the threshold an older 
 
 60 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 man, of a fine presence, habited in evening-dress. 
 He looked hard at Newman and Newman met his 
 examination. "Madame de Cintre," the younger 
 man repeated as an introduction of the visitor. The 
 other took the card from his hand, read it in a sus- 
 tained stare, looked again at Newman from head to 
 foot, hesitated a moment and then said, gravely but 
 urbanely: "Madame de Cintre is not at home." 
 
 The younger man made a gesture and turned to 
 Newman. " I 'm very sorry, sir." 
 
 Newman gave a friendly nod, to show that he bore 
 him no malice, and retraced his steps. At the porter's 
 lodge he stopped; the two men were still standing 
 on the portico. "Who may the gentleman with the 
 dog be?" he asked of the old woman who re^p- 
 peared. He had begun to learn French. 
 
 "That's Monsieur le Comte." 
 
 "And the other?" 
 
 "That's Monsieur le Marquis." 
 
 "A marquis?" said Christopher in English, which 
 the old woman fortunately did not understand. 
 "Oh then he's not the major-domo 1" 
 
IV 
 
 EARLY one morning, before he was dressed, a little 
 old man was ushered into his apartment, followed 
 by a youth in a blouse who carried a picture in a 
 shining frame. Newman, among the distractions of 
 Paris, had forgotten M. Nioche and his accomplished 
 daughter; but this was an effective reminder. 
 
 "I was afraid you had given me up, sir," M. 
 Nioche confessed after many apologies nd saluta- 
 tions. "We have made you wait so many days. You 
 accused us perhaps of a want of respectability, of 
 bad faith, what do I know ? But behold me at last! 
 And behold also the pretty 'Madonna/ Place it on 
 a chair, my friend, in a good light, so that monsieur 
 may admire it." And M. Nioche, addressing his 
 companion, helped him to dispose the work of art. 
 
 It had been endued with a layer of varnish an inch 
 thick, and its frame, of an elaborate pattern, was at 
 least a foot wide. It glittered and twinkled in the 
 morning light and looked to Newman's eyes won- 
 derfully splendid and precious. He thought of it as 
 a very happy purchase and felt rich in his acquisition. 
 He stood taking it in complacently while he pro- 
 ceeded with his dressing, and M. Nioche, who had 
 dismissed his own attendant, hovered near, smiling 
 and rubbing his hands. 
 
 "It has wonderful finesse" he critically pro- 
 nounced. "And here and there are marvellous 
 
 62 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 touches; you probably perceive them, sir. It attracted 
 great attention on the Boulevard as we came along. 
 And then a gradation of tones! That's what it is 
 really to know how to paint. I don't say it because 
 I 'm her father, sir; but as one man of taste address- 
 ing another I can't help observing that you've ac- 
 quired an object of price. It's hard to produce such 
 things and to have to part with them. If our meam 
 only allowed us the luxury of keeping it! I in fact 
 may say, sir" and M. Nioche showed a feebly 
 insinuating gaiety "I really may say that I envy 
 you your privilege. You see," he added in a moment, 
 "we've taken the liberty of offering you a frame. 
 It increases by a trifle the value of the work and it 
 will save you the annoyance so great for a person 
 of your delicacy of going about to bargain at the 
 shops." 
 
 The language spoken by M. Nioche was a singular 
 compound, which may not here be reproduced in its 
 integrity. He had apparently once possessed a cer- 
 tain knowledge of English, and his accent was oddly 
 tinged with old cockneyisms and vulgarisms, things 
 quaint and familiar. But his learning had grown 
 rusty with disuse and his vocabulary was defective 
 and capricious. He had repaired it with large patches 
 of French, with words anglicised by a process of his 
 own, with native idioms literally translated. The 
 result, in the form in which he in all humility pre- 
 sented it, would be scarcely comprehensible to the 
 reader, so that I have ventured to attempt for it some 
 approximate notation. Newman only half followed, 
 but he was always amused, and the old man's decent 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 forlornness appealed to his democratic instincts. 
 The assumption of any inevitability in the depressed 
 state always irritated his strong good-nature it was 
 almost the only thing that did so; and he felt the 
 impulse to pass over it the dipped sponge of his own 
 prosperity. Mademoiselle Noemie's parent, however, 
 had apparently on this occasion been vigorously in- 
 doctrinated and showed a certain tremulous eagerness 
 to cultivate unexpected opportunities. 
 
 "How much do I owe you then with the frame ?" 
 Newman asked. 
 
 "It will make in all three thousand francs," said 
 the old man, smiling agreeably but folding his hands 
 in instinctive suppliance. 
 
 "Can you give me a receipt?" 
 
 "I've brought one," said M. Nioche. "I took the 
 liberty of drawing it up in case monsieur should hap- 
 pen to desire to discharge his debt." And he drew 
 a paper from his pocket-book and presented it to his 
 patron. The document, Newman judged, had the 
 graces alike of penmanship and of style. He laid 
 down the money, and M. Nioche dropped the na- 
 poleons one by one, solemnly and lovingly, into 
 an old leathern purse. 
 
 "And how's your young lady?" he proceeded. 
 "She made a great impression on me." 
 
 "An impression ? monsieur is very good. Mon- 
 sieur finds her ?" the old man quavered. 
 
 "I find her remarkably pretty." 
 
 "Alas, yes, she's very very pretty!" 
 
 "And what's the harm in her being so ?" 
 
 M. Nioche fixed his eyes upon a spot in the car- 
 
 64 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 pet and </hook his head. Then raising them to a more 
 intimate intelligence: "Monsieur knows what Paris 
 is. Dangerous to beauty when beauty has n't the 
 
 sou." 
 
 "Ah, but that's not the case with your daughter, 
 Isn't she rich now?" 
 
 "We're rich yes, for six months. But if my 
 daughter were less attractive I should sleep none the 
 
 worse." 
 
 "You 're afraid of the young men ?" 
 
 "The young and the old!" 
 
 "She ought to get a husband." 
 
 "Ah, monsieur, one does n't get a husband for 
 nothing. Her husband must take her as she is; I 
 can't give her a Hard. But the young men don't see 
 with that eye." 
 
 "Oh," said Newman, "her talent's in itself a good 
 outfit." 
 
 "Heiih y for that it needs first to be converted into 
 specie!" and M. Nioche slapped his purse ten- 
 derly before he stowed it away. "The miracle does n't 
 take place every day." 
 
 "Well, your young men have very little grit; that's 
 all I can say. They ought to pay for your daughter," 
 Newman said, "and not ask money themselves." 
 
 "Those are very noble ideas, monsieur; but what 
 will you have ? They're not the ideas of this country. 
 W T e want to know where we are when we marry." 
 
 "Well, how much will it take to show where your 
 daughter is ?" M. Nioche stared as if he wondered 
 what might be coming next; but he prompdy re- 
 covered himself, at a venture, and replied that he 
 
 65 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 knew a very nice young man, employed by an in- 
 surance company, who would content himself with 
 fifteen thousand francs. "Let your daughter paint 
 half a dozen pictures for me," his benefactor then 
 resumed, "and you can offer him his figure." 
 
 "Half a dozen pictures his figure? Monsieur 
 is n't speaking inconsiderately ?" 
 
 " If she '11 make me six or eight copies in the Louvre 
 as pretty as that 'Madonna/ I '11 pay her the same 
 price, " said Newman. 
 
 Poor M. Nioche was speechless a moment, with 
 amazement and gratitude; after which he seized 
 Newman's hand and pressed it between his own ten 
 fingers, gazing at him with watery eyes. "As pretty 
 as that ? They shall be a thousand times prettier 
 they shall be perfect little loves. Ah, if I only knew 
 how to paint myself, sir, so that I might lend a hand! 
 What can I do to thank you? Voyons!" and he 
 pressed his forehead while he tried to think of some- 
 thing. 
 
 "Oh, you've thanked me enough," said Newman. 
 
 "Ah, here it is, sir!" cried M. Nioche. "To ex- 
 press my gratitude I'll charge you nothing for our 
 lessons!" 
 
 "Our lessons? I had quite forgotten them. Lis- 
 tening to your English," Newman laughed, "is 
 really quite a lesson in French." 
 
 "Ah, I don't profess to teach English, certainly," 
 said M. Nioche. " But for my own admirable tongue 
 I J m still at your service." 
 
 "Since you're here then we'll begin. This is a 
 very good hour, I'm going to have my coffee. Come 
 
 66 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 every morning at half-past nine and have yours with 
 
 me." 
 
 "Monsieur offers me my coffee also?" cried M. 
 Nioche. "Truly my beaux jours are coming back." 
 
 "Allans, enfants de la patrie" said Newman; "let's 
 begin! The coffee's ripping hot. How do you say 
 that in French ?" 
 
 Every day then, for the following three weeks, the 
 minutely respectable figure of M. Nioche made its 
 appearance, with a series of little enquiring and 
 apologetic obeisances, among the aromatic fumes 
 of Newman's morning beverage. I know not what 
 progress he made; but, as he himself said, if he 
 did n't learn a great deal, at least he did n't learn 
 much harm. And it amused him; it gratified that 
 irregularly sociable side of his nature which had al- 
 ways expressed itself in a relish for ungrammatical 
 conversation and which often, even in his busy and 
 preoccupied days, had made him sit on rail fences 
 in the twilight of young Western towns and gossip 
 scarce less than fraternally with humorous loafers 
 and obscure fortune-seekers. He had notions, wher- 
 ever he went, about talking with the natives; he 
 had been assured, and his judgement approved the 
 advice, that in travelling abroad it was an excellent 
 thing to look into the life of the country. M. Nioche 
 was very much of a native, and though his life might 
 not be particularly worth looking into he was a 
 palpable and smoothly-rounded unit in that "stiff" 
 sum of civilisation and sophistication which offered 
 our hero so much easy entertainment and proposed so 
 many curious problems to his idle but active mind. 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Newman had a theory that his intelligence was 
 lying down, but at least it could n't sleep. He was 
 fond of statistics; he liked to know how things were 
 done; it gratified him to learn what taxes were paid, 
 what profits were gathered, what commercial habits 
 prevailed, how the battle of life was fought. M. 
 Nioche, as a reduced capitalist, was familiar with 
 these considerations, and he formulated his infor- 
 mation, which he was proud to be able to impart, 
 in the neatest possible terms and with a pinch of 
 snuff between finger and thumb. As a Frenchman 
 quite apart from Newman's napoleons M. 
 Nioche loved conversation, and even in his decay 
 his urbanity had not declined. As a Frenchman too 
 he could give a clear account of things, and still 
 as a Frenchman when his knowledge was at fault he 
 could supply its lapses with the most convenient and 
 ingenious hypotheses. The small shrunken bourgeois 
 rejoiced, ever, to have questions asked him, and he 
 scraped together information by frugal processes, he 
 took in his little greasy pocket-book notes of matters 
 that might interest his munificent friend. He read old 
 almanacks at the book-stalls on the quays and be- 
 gan to frequent another cafe, where more news- 
 papers were taken and his post-prandial demi-tasse 
 cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the 
 tattered sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature 
 and strange coincidences. He would relate with 
 solemnity the next morning that a child of five years 
 of age had lately died at Bordeaux, whose brain had 
 been found to weigh sixty ounces the brain of a 
 Napoleon or a Washington! or that Madame X, 
 
 68 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 char cutler e in the Rue de Clichy, had found in the 
 wadding of an old petticoat the sum of three hundred 
 and sixty francs, which she had lost five years before. 
 He pronounced his words with great pomp and cir- 
 cumstance, and Newman assured him that his way 
 of dealing with the French tongue was very superior 
 to the bewildering chatter that he heard in other 
 mouths. Upon this M. Nioche's accent became 
 more flutelike than ever; he offered to read extracts 
 from Lamartine and protested that, although he did 
 endeavour according to his feeble lights to cultivate 
 authority of diction, monsieur, if he wanted the real 
 thing, should go to the Comedie. 
 
 Newman took an interest in the wondrous French 
 thrift and conceived a lively admiration for Parisian 
 economies. His own economic genius was so entirely 
 for operations on a larger scale, and, to move at his 
 ease, he needed so imperatively the sense of great 
 risks and great prizes, that he found diversion akin 
 to the watching of ants in the spectacle of fortunes 
 made by the aggregation of copper coins and in the 
 minute subdivision of labour and profit. He ques- 
 tioned M. Nioche about his own manner of life and 
 felt a friendly mixture of compassion and respect 
 for the mystery of these humilities. The worthy 
 man told him how he and his daughter had at one 
 period supported existence comfortably on the sum 
 of fifteen sous per diem; recently, having succeeded 
 in dragging ashore the last floating fragments of the 
 wreck of his fortune, his budget had been a trifle 
 more ample. But they still had to butter their bread 
 very thin, and M. Nioche intimated with a sigh that 
 
 69 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 his young companion did n't bring to this task the 
 zealous co-operation that might have been desired. 
 " But what will you have ? One is in the flower of 
 youth, one is pretty, one needs new dresses and fresh 
 gloves; one can't wear shabby gowns among the 
 splendours of the Louvre." 
 
 " Yet she must earn what will pay for her clothes," 
 Newman felt enlisted enough to suggest. 
 
 M. Nioche looked at him with weak, uncertain 
 eyes. He would have liked to be able to say that his 
 daughter's talents were appreciated and that her 
 crooked little daubs commanded a market; but it 
 seemed a scandal to abuse the credulity of this free- 
 handed stranger, who, without a suspicion or a 
 question, had admitted him to equal social rights. He 
 compromised, he declared that while it was obvious 
 that Mademoiselle Noemie's reproductions of the old 
 masters had only to be seen to be coveted, the prices 
 which, in consideration of their altogether peculiar 
 degree of finish, she felt obliged to ask for them, had 
 kept purchasers at a respectful distance. " Poor little 
 cherished one!" said M. Nioche with a sigh; "it's 
 almost a pity that her work 's so perfect! It would be 
 in her interest to be a bit of an impostor." 
 
 " But if she has this spark of the flame," Newman 
 benevolently reasoned, "why should you have those 
 fears for her that you spoke of the other day ? " 
 
 M. Nioche meditated; there was an inconsistency 
 in his position; it made him particularly uncom- 
 fortable. Though he had no desire to destroy the 
 goose with the golden eggs Newman's benevol- 
 ent confidence he felt a weary need to speak out 
 
 70 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 all his trouble. "Ah, she has a spark of that flame, 
 my dear sir, most assuredly. But, to tell you the truth, 
 she has also more than a mere spark of another. 
 She's a franche coquette if there ever was one. I'm 
 sorry to say," he added in a moment, shaking his 
 head with a world of accepted melancholy, "it was 
 to come to her as straight as a letter in the post. Her 
 poor mother had that sad vice." 
 
 ** Why, you were n't happy with your wife ?" New- 
 man almost incredulously asked. 
 
 M. Nioche gave half a dozen little backward jerks 
 ot his head. "She was my heavy cross, monsieur!" 
 
 "She was n't very good ?" 
 
 "She was good for some things and some people, 
 but not for a pooi man like me. She deceived me, 
 under my nose, year after yeai. 1 was too srupid, 
 and the temptation was too great. But 1 found her 
 out at last I 've only been once in my life a man to 
 be afraid of; 1 know it very well: it was in that 
 hour! Nevertheless 1 don't like to think of it. 1 loved 
 her I can't tell you why nor how much. Oh, she 
 was if I must say so bad." 
 
 "She's not living?" 
 
 "She's gone to her account." 
 
 " Her influence on your daughter then," said New- 
 man encouragingly, "is not to be feared." 
 
 "She cared no more for her daughter than for the 
 wind in the chimney. But Noemie has no more use 
 for bad examples than for good. She's sufficient 
 to herself. She's stronger than I." 
 
 "She does n't mind what you say ?" 
 
 "There is n't much to mind, sir 1 say so little 
 
 7* 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 What's the use of my saying anything ? It would 
 only irritate her and drive her to some coup de tete. 
 She's very clever, like her poor mother; she would 
 waste no time about it. As a child when 1 was 
 happy, or supposed 1 was she studied drawing and 
 painting with first-class professors, and they assured 
 me she had the gift. I was delighted to believe it, and 
 when I went into society 1 used to carry her little 
 water-colours with me in a portfolio and hand them 
 round to the company. I remember how a lady once 
 thought I was offering them lor sale and that I took 
 it very ill. We don't know what we may come to! 
 Then came my dark days and my final rupture 
 with Madame Nioche Noemie had no more twenty- 
 franc lessons; but in the course of time, when she 
 grew older and it became highly expedient that she 
 should do something that would help to keep us alive, 
 she bethought herself of her palette and brushes. 
 Some of our friends in the quartier pronounced the 
 idea fantastic: they recommended her to try bonnet- 
 making, to get a situation in a shop, or if she was 
 more ambitious to advertise for a place of dame 
 de compagnie. She did advertise, and an old lady 
 wrote her a letter and bade her come and see her. 
 The old lady liked her and made her an offer of her 
 living and six hundred francs a year; but Noemie 
 discovered that she passed her life in her arm-chair 
 and had only two visitors, her confessor and her 
 nephew: the confessor very strict, and the nephew 
 a man of fifty, with a broken nose and a government 
 clerkship of two thousand francs. She threw her old 
 lady over, bought a paint-box, a canvas and a new 
 
 72 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 dress, and went and set up her easel in the Louvre. 
 There, in one place and another, she has passed the 
 last two years; I can't say it has made us millionaires. 
 But she tells me Rome was n't built in a day, that 
 she's making great progress, that I must leave her 
 to her own devices. The fact is, without prejudice to 
 her 'gift,' that she has no idea of burying herself 
 alive. She likes to see the world and to be seen of the 
 world. She says herself that she can't work in the 
 dark. Her appearance itself holds up the lamp for 
 others! Only I can't help worrying and trembling 
 I can't help wondering what may happen to her 
 there all alone, day after day, amid that prowling of 
 people from the ends of the earth. I can't be always 
 at her side. I go with her in the morning, and I come 
 to fetch her away, but she won't have me near her in 
 the interval; she says I give on her nerves. As if it 
 did n't give on mine to keep walking up and down 
 outside! Ah, if anything were to happen to her!" 
 cried M. Nioche, clenching his two fists and jerking 
 back his head again portentously. 
 
 "Oh, I guess she'll come out all right," his friend 
 soothingly returned. 
 
 "I believe I should shoot her otherwise!" said the 
 old man solemnly. 
 
 "Well, we'll marry her quick enough," insisted 
 Newman "since that's how you manage it; and 
 I'll go and see her to-morrow at the Louvre and pick 
 out the pictures she's to copy for me." 
 
 M. Nioche had brought a message from his daugh- 
 ter in acceptance of their patron's magnificent com- 
 mission, the young lady declaring herself his most 
 
 73 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 devoted servant, promising her most zealous endeav- 
 our and regretting that the proprieties forbade hei 
 coming to thank him in person. The morning after 
 the conversation just narrated Newman reverted to 
 his intention of meeting his young friend at the 
 Louvre. M. Nioche appeared preoccupied and left 
 his budget of anecdotes unopened; he took a great 
 deal of snuff and sent certain oblique, appealing 
 glances toward his stalwart pupil. At last, when 
 taking his leave, he stood a moment, after he had 
 polished his hat with his calico pocket-handkerchief, 
 and fixed his small pale eyes strangely on that per- 
 sonage. 
 
 "Well, what's the matter?" 
 
 "Pardon the solicitude of a father's heart! You 
 inspire me with boundless confidence, but I can't 
 help making you an appeal. After all you're a man, 
 and so fine a one; you're young and at liberty. Let 
 me beseech you then to respect an innocence !" 
 
 Newman had wondered what was coming, yet had 
 already burst into mirth. He was on the point of 
 pronouncing his own innocence the more exposed, 
 but he contented himself with promising to treat the 
 young lady with nothing less than veneration. He 
 found her, awaiting him, seated on the great divan 
 of the Salon Carre. She was not in the garb of labour, 
 but wore her bonnet and gloves and carried her 
 parasol in honour of the occasion. These articles 
 had been selected with unerring taste, and a fresher, 
 prettier image of youthful alertness and blooming 
 discretion was not to be conceived. She made New- 
 man a most respectful curtsey, she expressed hei 
 
 74 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 gratitude for his liberality in the neatest of little 
 speeches. It annoyed him to have so charming a 
 girl stand there thanking him, and it made him feel 
 uncomfortable to think that this perfect young lady, 
 with her excellent manners and her finished intona- 
 tion, was literally in his pay. He assured her, in such 
 French as he could muster, that the thing was not 
 worth mentioning and that he regarded her services 
 as a particular favour. 
 
 "Whenever you please then," she said, "we'll 
 pass the review." 
 
 They walked slowly round the room and then 
 into the others; they strolled about with high dig- 
 nity for half an hour. His companion evidently rel- 
 ished her situation and had no desire to bring to 
 a close her public interview with a patron of such 
 striking type. Newman perceived that prosperity 
 agreed with her and that the little firm-lipped, 
 peremptory air with which she had addressed her 
 father on the occasion of their former meeting had 
 given place to the prettiest, easiest prattle. 
 
 " What sort of pictures have you in mind ?" she 
 asked. "Sacred or profane?" 
 
 "Oh, a few of each. But I want something bright 
 and gay." 
 
 "Something gay? There's nothing very gay in 
 this solemn old Louvre. But we'll see what we can 
 find. You speak French to-day like a charm. My 
 father has done wonders." 
 
 ' Oh, I'm a thankless subject," said Newman. 
 "I'm too old to learn a language." 
 
 "Too old ? Quelle folie!" she cried with a clear, 
 
 75 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 shrill laugh. "You're a very beau jeune humme. 
 And how do you like my father?" 
 
 "He's a very nice old gentleman. He nevei laughs 
 at my blunders." 
 
 "He's very comme il faut, dear papa," said Ma- 
 demoiselle Noemie, "and as honest as the day. Oh, 
 a probity that would take a prize! You could trust 
 him with millions." 
 
 "Do you always mind what he says?" asked 
 Newman. 
 
 "'Mind' it?" 
 
 "Do you do what he bids you." 
 
 The girl stopped and looked at him; she had a 
 spot of colour in either cheek, and in her prompt 
 French eye, too protrusive for perfect beauty, was a 
 sharp spark of freedom. ** Why do you ask me 
 that?" 
 
 "Because I want to know." 
 
 "You think me a bad little girl?" And she gave 
 a strange smile. 
 
 Newman looked at her a moment; he saw she was 
 pretty, but he was not in the least dazzled. He re- 
 membered poor M. Nioche's solicitude for her inno- 
 cence, and he laughed out again as his eyes met this 
 odd quantity. Her face was a rare mixture of youth 
 and maturity, and beneath her clear, charming fore- 
 head her searching little smile seemed to contain a 
 world of ambiguous intentions. She was pretty 
 enough, certainly, to make her father uneasy; but 
 as regards her innocence Newman felt ready on the 
 spot to affirm that she had never yet sacrificed it. 
 She had simply never had any to lose; she had been 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 looking at the wonderful world about her since 
 was ten years old, and he would have been a wise 
 man who could tell her any secret of the town. In her 
 long mornings at the Louvre she had not only studied 
 Madonnas and Saint Johns; she had kept an eye 
 upon the variously-embodied human nature in which 
 the scene no less abounded, and she had formed her 
 conclusions. In a degree, it seemed to Newman, 
 M. Nioche might be at rest; if his daughter should 
 assert her liberty in some unmistakeable way she 
 would yet never publish her imprudence. Newman, 
 with his long-drawn, leisurely smile and his articu- 
 lation that suggested confidence in nothing but its 
 motive, was always mentally taking his time; so he 
 asked himself now what she was looking at him in 
 that way for. He had an impression she would like 
 him to confess that he did think her a wretch. "Oh 
 no," he said at last; " it would be very impolite in 
 me to judge you in any such way. I don't know 
 you." 
 
 " But my father has complained to you." 
 
 "He says you're a free spirit." 
 
 "He shouldn't go about saying such things to 
 gentlemen! But you don't believe it?" 
 
 "Well," said Newman conscientiously, "I don't 
 believe he meant any harm by it." 
 
 She looked at him again, gave a shrug and a smile, 
 and then pointed to a small Italian picture, a Marriage 
 of Saint Catherine. "How should you like that ?" 
 
 "It doesn't please me," he presently answered. 
 "The young lady in the yellow dress is n't pretty 
 enough." 
 
 ' 77 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Ah, you're a great connoisseur!" his companion 
 sighed. 
 
 "In pictures? Oh no; I'm only picking up the 
 rudiments of knowledge." 
 
 "In pretty women then ?" 
 
 "In that I may be coming on, but I've ground tc 
 make up." 
 
 "What do you say to this?" the girl asked, indi- 
 cating a superb Italian portrait of a lady. "I'll do 
 it for you on a smaller scale." 
 
 " On a smaller scale ? Why not as large as the 
 original ?" 
 
 She glanced at the glowing splendour of the Vene- 
 tian masterpiece and gave a toss of her head. "I 
 don't like that woman. She looks stupid." 
 
 "Well, she makes an impression on me," said 
 Newman. "Decidedly I must have her, and as large 
 as life. And just as shiningly stupid as she stands 
 there." 
 
 The girl fixed her eyes on him again, and with her 
 mocking smile: "It certainly ought to be easy for 
 me to make her look stupid!" And then as he but 
 opposed his vagueness she gave another shrug. 
 "Seriously, you want that portrait the golden 
 hair, the purple satin, the pearl necklace, the two 
 magnificent arms ?" 
 
 "Everything just as it is." 
 
 "Would nothing else do instead ?" 
 
 "Oh, 1 want some other things, but I want that 
 
 too." 
 
 She turned away a moment, walked to the other 
 side of the hall and stood there looking vaguely 
 
 78 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 about her. At last she came back. "It must be 
 charming to be able to order pictures at such a rate. 
 Venetian portraits as large as life! You go at it en 
 prince. And you're going to travel about Europe 
 that way ?" 
 
 "Yes, I intend to travel," said Newman. 
 
 "Ordering, buying, spending money?" 
 
 "Of course I shall spend a certain amount of 
 money." 
 
 "You're very happy to have it. And you're per- 
 fectly free?" 
 
 "How do you mean, free?" 
 
 "You have nothing to embeter you no father, 
 no family, no wife, no fiancee?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm tolerably free." 
 
 "You're very very happy," said Mademoiselle 
 Noemie gravely. 
 
 "Je le veux bien!" said Newman, proving that he 
 had learned more French than he admitted. 
 
 "And how long shall you stay in Paris?" the 
 girl went on. 
 
 "Only a few days more." 
 
 "Why do you go away?" 
 
 "It 's getting hot, and I must go to Switzerland." 
 
 "To Switzerland ? That's a fine country. I would 
 give the clothes on my back to see it! Lakes and 
 mountains, deep green valleys, ranz-des-vaches! Oh 
 I congratulate you! Meanwhile I shall sit here 
 through all the hot summer daubing at your pic- 
 tures." 
 
 "Ah, take your time about it," Newman urged, 
 "Do them at your convenience." 
 - : 79 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 They walked further and looked at a dozen other 
 things. He pointed out what pleased him, and 
 Mademoiselle Noemie generally criticised it and 
 proposed something else. Then suddenly she di- 
 verged into the intimate. "What made you speak 
 to me the other day in the Salon Carre?" 
 
 "I admired your picture/' 
 
 " But you hesitated a long time." 
 
 "Oh, I do nothing foolish," he said. 
 
 "Yes, I saw you watching me. But I never sup- 
 posed you were going to speak to me. I never dreamed 
 1 should be walking about here with you to-day. 
 It's very remarkable." 
 
 "It's sufficiently natural," he calmly pleaded. 
 
 "Ah, I beg your pardon: not to me. 'Free spirit* 
 in other words horrid creature as you think 
 me, I have never walked about in public with a 
 gentleman before. What was my father thinking of 
 when he consented to our interview?" 
 
 "He was repenting of his unjust accusations," 
 Newman returned. 
 
 Mademoiselle Noemie remained silent; at last she 
 dropped into a seat. "Well then, for those five it's 
 fixed," she presently said. "Five copies as brilliant 
 and beautiful as I can make them. We 've one more 
 to choose. Should n't you like one of those great 
 Rubenses the Marriage of Marie de Medicis ? 
 Just look at it and see how handsome it is." 
 
 "Oh yes; I should like that," he allowed. "Finish 
 off with that." 
 
 "Finish off with that good!" she laughed. She 
 sat a moment looking at him, then suddenly rose 
 
 80 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 and stood before him with her arms expressively 
 folded. "Ah $a y I don't understand you," she 
 bravely broke out. "I don't understand how a man 
 can be so ignorant." 
 
 "Oh, I'm ignorant certainly." And he put his 
 hands in his packets. 
 
 "It's too ridiculous! I don't know how to paint 
 pour deux sous." 
 
 "You don't know how?" 
 
 "I paint like a cat; I can't draw a straight line. 
 I never sold a picture until you bought that thing 
 the other day." And as she offered this surprising 
 information she continued to smile. 
 
 Newman met it with a grimace of his own. "Why 
 do you make that statement?" 
 
 "Because it irritates me to see a clever man so 
 bete. My copies are grotesque." 
 
 "And the one I possess ?" 
 
 "That one 's the flower of the dreadful family." 
 
 "Well," said Newman, "I never outgrew a mis- 
 take but in my own time and in my own way." 
 
 She looked at him askance. "Your patience is 
 very gentille ; it's my duty to warn you before you go 
 further. This commande of yours is impossible, you 
 know. What do you take me for ? It's work for ten 
 strong men. You pick out the six most difficult 
 pictures in the place, and you expect me to go to work 
 as if I were sitting down to hem a dozen pocket- 
 handkerchiefs. I wanted to see how far you'd go." 
 
 Newman considered her in some perplexity. In 
 spite of the blunder of which he stood convicted he 
 was very far from being a simpleton, and he had a 
 . Si 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 lively suspicion that her burst of confidence was not 
 essentially more honest than her original pretence. 
 She was playing a great game; she was not simply 
 taking pity on the bloom of his barbarism. What 
 was it she expected to gain ? The stakes were high 
 and the risk not small; the prize therefore must 
 have been commensurate. But even granting that 
 the prize might be great Newman could scarce resist 
 a movement of admiration for his young friend's 
 intrepidity. She was throwing away with one hand, 
 whatever she might intend to do with the other, a 
 substantial sum of money. "Are you joking or 
 serious ?" 
 
 "Oh, d'un serieux!" she cried, but with hei extra- 
 ordinary smile. 
 
 "I know very little about pictures or how they'ie 
 really painted. If you can't do all, why then do what 
 you conveniently can.'* 
 
 " It will all be bad a faire pleurer" said Mademoi- 
 selle Noemie. 
 
 "Oh," Newman laughed, "if you want to swindle 
 me of course you can. But why do you go on paint- 
 ing badly?" 
 
 "I can do nothing else; I've neither eye nor hand 
 nor training. Above all I have n't patience." 
 
 "You're deceiving your father then." 
 
 The girl just hesitated. "He perfectly knows." 
 
 "No," Newman declared; "I'm sure he believes 
 in you " 
 
 "He's afraid of me, poor dear. I go on painting 
 badly, as you say, because it passes the time. I like 
 being here; it's a place to come to every day; it's 
 
 82 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 better than sitting in a little dark damp room on 
 a court or than selling buttons and whalebones over 
 
 a counter." 
 
 "Of course it's much more amusing," said New- 
 man. " But for a poor girl is n't it rather an expen- 
 sive amusement?'* 
 
 " Oh, I 'm very wrong; there 's no doubt about that/' 
 she answered. "But rather than earn my living as 
 some girls do toiling with a needle in little black 
 holes out of the world I'd throw myself into the 
 Seine." 
 
 "There's no need of that," he presently observed. 
 "Your father must have mentioned to you the reason 
 of my offer ?" 
 
 "The reason ?" 
 
 "He wants you to marry, and I told him I'd give 
 you a chance to earn your dot" 
 
 "He told me all about it, and you see the account 
 I make of it! Why should you take such an interest 
 in my marriage ?" 
 
 "My interest was in your father. I hold to my 
 engagement. Do what you can, and I'll buy what 
 you do." 
 
 She stood some time in thought, her eyes on the 
 ground, At last looking up, "What sort of a hus- 
 band can you get for twelve thousand francs ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Your father tells me he knows some very good 
 young men." 
 
 "Grocers and butchers and little maitres de cafes? 
 1 won't marry at all if I can't marry more proprement 
 than that." 
 
 83 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I'd advise you not to be too fastidious," said 
 Newman. "That's all the advice I can give you/* 
 
 "I'm vexed at what I've said!" cried his com- 
 panion. "It has done me no good. But I could n't 
 help it." 
 
 "What good did you expect it to do you ?" 
 
 "I could n't help it, simply." 
 
 He looked at her a moment. "Well, your painting 
 may be a fraud, but you're too honest for me all the 
 same. I don't understand you. Good-bye!" And he 
 put out his hand. 
 
 She made no response, she granted him no fare- 
 well. She turned away and seated herself sidewise 
 on a bench, leaning her head on the back of her 
 hand, which clasped the rail in front of the pictures. 
 Newman stood near her another moment, then he 
 turned on his heel and retreated. He had understood 
 her better than he confessed; this singular scene 
 was a practical commentary upon her father's de- 
 scription of her as a free spirit. 
 
WHEN he had told Mrs. Tristram the story of his 
 fruitless visit to Madame de Cintre she urged him not 
 to be discouraged, but to carry out his plan of " seeing 
 Europe" during the summer after which he might 
 return to Paris for the autumn and then settle down 
 comfortably for the winter. "Claire de Cintre will 
 be kept in a cool place for you," she reasoned; " she's 
 not a woman who'll change her condition from one 
 day to another." Newman made no distinct affirma- 
 tion that he would come back to Paris; he even 
 talked about Rome and the Nile, and abstained 
 from professing any especial interest in Madame de 
 Cintre's continued widowhood. This was a little 
 of a false note in his usual distinctness, and may 
 perhaps be regarded as characteristic of the incipient 
 stage of that passion which is more particularly 
 known as the romantic one. The truth is that the 
 expression of a pair of eyes, that were both intense 
 and mild, had become very familiar to his memory, 
 and he would not easily have resigned himself to the 
 prospect of never looking into them again. He com- 
 municated to Mrs. Tristram a number of other facts, 
 of greater or less importance, as you choose; but on 
 this particular point he kept his own counsel. He 
 took a kindly leave of M. Nioche, having assured 
 him that so far as he was concerned the blue-cloaked 
 Madonna herself might have been present at his 
 
 85 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 interview with Mademoiselle Noemie; and left the 
 old man nursing his breast-pocket in an ecstasy 
 which the sharpest paternal discomposure might have 
 been defied to dissipate. 
 
 He started on his travels with all his usual appear- 
 ance of slow-strolling leisure and all his essential 
 directness and intensity of aim. No man seemed 
 less in a hurry and yet no man enabled brief periods 
 to serve him more liberally. He had practical in- 
 stincts which signally befriended him in his trade 
 of tourist. He found his way in foreign cities by 
 divination, his memory was excellent when once his 
 attention had been at all cordially given, and he 
 emerged from dialogues in foreign tongues, of which 
 he had formally not understood a word, in full pos- 
 session of the particular item he had desired to elicit. 
 His appetite for items was large, and although many 
 of those he noted might have seemed woefully dry 
 and colourless to the ordinary sentimental traveller, 
 a careful inspection of the list would have shown 
 that his toughness had sensitive spots. In the charm- 
 ing city of Brussels his first stopping-place after 
 leaving Paris he asked a great many questions 
 about the street-cars and took extreme satisfaction 
 in the reappearance of this familiar symbol of Ameri- 
 can civilisation; but he was also greatly struck with 
 the beautiful Gothic tower of the Hotel de Ville and 
 wondered if they might n't "get up" something like 
 it in San Francisco. He stood long in the crowded 
 square before this edifice, in imminent danger from 
 carriage- wheels, listening to a toothless old cicerone 
 mumble in broken English the touching history of 
 
 86 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Counts Egmont and Horn; and he wrote the names 
 of these gentlemen for reasons best known to him- 
 self on the back of an old letter. 
 
 At the outset, on his leaving Paris, his curiosity 
 had not been intense; passive entertainment, in the 
 Champs Elysees and at the theatres, seemed about 
 as much as he need expect of himself, and although, 
 as he had said to Tristram, he wanted to see the 
 mysterious and satisfying best, he had not the grand 
 tour in the least on his conscience and was not given 
 to worrying the thing that amused him. He believed 
 serenely that Europe was made for him and not he 
 for Europe. He had said he wanted to improve his 
 mind, but he would have felt a certain embarrass- 
 ment, a certain shame even a false shame pos- 
 sibly if he had caught himself looking intellect- 
 ually into the mirror. Neither in this nor in any other 
 respect had he a high sense of responsibility; it was 
 his prime conviction that a man's life should be a 
 man's ease and that no privilege was really great 
 enough to take his breath away. The world, to his 
 vision, was a great bazaar where one might stroll 
 about and purchase handsome things; but he was 
 no more conscious, individually, of social pressure 
 than he admitted the claim of the obligatory pur- 
 chase. He had not only a dislike but a sort of moral 
 mistrust of thoughts too admonitory; one should n't 
 hunt about for a standard as a lost dog hunts for 
 a master. One's standard was the idea of one's own 
 good-humoured prosperity, the prosperity which 
 enabled one to give as well as take. To expand 
 without too much ado without "mean" timidity 
 
 8? 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 on one side or the bravado of the big appetite on the 
 other to the full compass of any such experience 
 as was held to stir men's blood represented his nearest 
 approach to a high principle. He had always hated 
 to hurry to catch railroad-trains, and yet had always 
 caught them; and just so an undue solicitude for 
 the right side seemed a sort of silly dawdling at the 
 station, a proceeding properly confined to women, 
 foreigners and invalids. All this admitted, he enjoyed 
 his journey, when once he had fairly entered the cur- 
 rent, as intimately as if he had kept a diary of rap- 
 tures. He lounged through Belgium and Holland 
 and the Rhineland, through Switzerland and North- 
 ern Italy, planning about nothing and seeing all 
 things. The guides and valets de place found him an 
 excellent subject. He was always approachable, 
 for he was much addicted to large lapses and long 
 intervals, to standing about in the vestibules and 
 porticoes of inns, and he availed himself little of the 
 opportunities for impressive seclusion so liberally 
 offered in Europe to gentlemen travelling with long 
 purses. When an excursion, a church, a gallery, a 
 ruin was proposed to him the first thing he usually 
 did, after surveying his postulant in silence and 
 from head to foot, was to sit down at a little table 
 and order some light refreshment, of which he more 
 often than not then forgot to partake. The cicerone, 
 during this process, commonly retreated to a respect- 
 ful distance; otherwise I am not sure that Newman 
 would not have bidden him sit down and share, sit 
 down and tell him as a decent creature if his church 
 or his gallery were really worth one's trouble. At lasc 
 
 88 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 he rose and stretched his long legs, beckoned to the 
 man of monuments, looked at his watch and fixed 
 his eye on his adversary "What is it and how far ?" 
 And whatever the case, though he might seem to 
 hesitate he never declined He stepped into an open 
 cab, made his conductor sit beside him to answer 
 questions, bade the driver go fast (he had a particular 
 aversion to slow driving), and rolled, in all prob- 
 ability through a dusty suburb, to the goal of his 
 pilgrimage. When the goal was a disappointment, 
 when the church was meagre or the ruin a heap of 
 rubbish, he never protested nor berated his adviser; 
 he looked with an impartial eye upon great monu- 
 ments and small, made the guide recite his lesson, 
 listened to it religiously, asked if there were nothing 
 else to be seen in the neighbourhood, and drove 
 back again at a rattling pace. It is to be feared that 
 his perception of the difference between the florid 
 and the refined had not reached the stage of con- 
 fidence, and that he might often have been seen 
 as we have already seen him gazing with culpable 
 serenity at inferior productions. The wrong occasion 
 was a part of his pastime in Europe as well as the 
 right, and his tour was altogether a pastime. But 
 there is sometimes nothing like the imagination of 
 those people who have none, and Newman now and 
 then, in an unguided stroll through a foreign city, 
 before some lonely, sad-towered church or some 
 angular image of one who had rendered civic service 
 in an unknown past, had felt a singular deep com- 
 motion. It was not an excitement, not a perplexity; 
 it involved an extraordinary sense of recreation. 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 He encountered by chance in Holland a young 
 American with whom he fell for a time into a tacit 
 travellers' partnership. They were men of different 
 enough temper, but each in his way so true to his 
 type that each might seem to have something of 
 value to contribute to the association. Newman's 
 comrade, whose name was Babcock, was a young 
 Unitarian minister; a small, spare, neatly-attired 
 man, with a strikingly candid countenance. He was 
 a native of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and had 
 spiritual charge of a small congregation in another 
 suburb of the New England capital. His digestion 
 was weak and he lived chiefly on Graham bread 
 and hominy a regimen to which he was so much 
 attached that his tour seemed to him destined to be 
 blighted when, on landing on the Continent, he 
 found these delicacies fail to flourish under the table 
 d'hote system. In Paris he had purchased a bag of 
 hominy at an establishment which called itself an 
 American Agency and at which the New York il- 
 lustrated papers were also to be procured, and he 
 had carried it about with him and shown extreme 
 serenity and fortitude in the somewhat delicate posi- 
 tion of having his hominy prepared for him and 
 served on odd occasions at the hotels he successively 
 visited. Newman had once spent a morning, in the 
 course of business, at Mr. Babcock's birthplace, 
 and, for reasons too recondite to unfold, the memory 
 of his visit always pressed the spring of mirth. To 
 carry out his joke, which certainly seems poor so 
 long as it is not explained, he used often to address 
 his companion as "Dorchester." Fellow-aliens cling 
 
 90 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 together, on a strange soil, in spite of themselves; 
 but it was probable that at home these unnatural 
 intimates must have met only to part. They had 
 indeed by habit and form as little in common as 
 possible. Newman, who never reflected on such 
 matters, accepted the situation with great equanimity, 
 but Babcock used to meditate over it privately; used 
 often indeed to retire to his room early in the evening 
 for the express purpose of considering it conscien- 
 tiously and, as he would have said, with detachment. 
 He was not sure it was a good thing for him to have 
 given himself up so unreservedly to our hero, whose 
 way of taking life was so little his own. 
 
 Newman was a spirit of easy power; Mr. Babcock 
 even at times saw it clear that he was one of nature's 
 noblemen, and certainly it was impossible not to 
 feel strongly drawn to him But would it not be 
 desirable to try to produce an effect on him, to try to 
 quicken his moral life and raise his sense of respon- 
 sibility to a higher plane? He liked everything, he 
 accepted everything, he found amusement in every- 
 thing; he was not discriminating, his values were 
 as vague and loose as if he had carried them in his 
 trousers pocket. The young man from Dorchester 
 accused Newman of a fault that he considered very 
 grave and did his best himself to avoid of what 
 he would have called a want of moral reaction. Poor 
 Mr. Babcock was extremely fond of pictures and 
 churches, and kept Mrs. Jameson's volumes in his 
 trunk; he regarded works of art as questions and 
 his relations with them as experiences, and received 
 peculiar impressions from everything he saw. Bui 
 
 91 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 nevertheless in his secret soul he detested Europe 
 and felt an irritated need to protest against Newman's 
 easy homage to so compromised a charmer, mistress 
 of a cynicism that appeared at times to have made him 
 cynical. Mr. Babcock's moral malaise, I am afraid, 
 lay deeper than where any definition of mine can 
 reach it. He mistrusted the "European" tempera- 
 ment, he suffered from the "European" climate, he 
 hated the "European" dinner hour; "European" 
 life seemed to him unscrupulous and impure. And 
 yet he had what he called an intimate sense of the 
 true beautiful in life, and as this element was often 
 inextricably associated with the above displeasing 
 conditions, as he wished above all to be just and 
 dispassionate and as he was furthermore extremely 
 bent on putting his finger on the boundary-line, in 
 the life of a School, between the sincere time and the 
 insincere, he could not bring himself to decide that 
 the kingdoms of the earth were utterly rotten. But 
 he thought them in a bad way, and his quarrel with 
 Newman was over some of the elements, insidious 
 forms of evil, that this promiscuous feeder at the 
 feast could swallow with no wry face Babcock him- 
 self really knew as little about the forms of evil, in 
 any quarter of the world, as about the forms of bank- 
 ing; his most vivid realisation of the most frequent 
 form had been the discovery that one of his college 
 classmates, a student of architecture in Paris, was 
 carrying on a love-afFair with a young woman who 
 did n't in the least count on his marrying her. Bab- 
 cock had described this situation to Newman, and 
 our hero had applied an epithet marked by a rough 
 
 92 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 but not unfriendly justice to the girl. The next day 
 his companion asked him if he were certain he had 
 used exactly the right word to chaiacterise the young 
 architect's mistress. Newman wondered and seemed 
 amused. "There are a great many words to express 
 that idea," he said, "you can take your choice!" 
 
 **Oh, i mean," said Babcock, "was she possibly 
 not tu be considered in a different light ? Don't 
 you thmk she really had believed in his higher 
 nature ?" 
 
 "I'm afraid 1 don't know," Newman replied. 
 "Very likely she had; I've no doubt she judged it 
 by her own." He was willing to meet his friend on 
 anv view of her. 
 
 "I didn't mean that either," said Babcock; "I'm 
 not sure that she ha* a higher nature I'm not sure 
 not very sure every one has. I was only afraid 
 I might have seemed yesterday not to remember 
 not to consider. Well, 1 think I'll write to Percival 
 about it." 
 
 And he had written to Percival (who had answered 
 him in a manner that was indubitably cynical) and 
 had reflected that Newman ought n't to be encouraged, 
 after all, to read a cheap idealism into flagrant cases 
 of immorality. The levity and brevity of his com- 
 rade's judgements very often shocked and depressed 
 him. He had a way of damning people without further 
 appeal, or else of appearing almost in sympathy 
 with their sinister side, which seemed unworthy of a 
 man whose conscience could still pretend to a squirm. 
 And yet poor Babcock yearned toward him and 
 remembered that even if, decidedly, his sensibiVity 
 
 93 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 would never work straight, this was not a reason for 
 giving him up. Goethe recommended seeing human 
 nature in the most various forms, and Mr. Babcoek 
 thought Goethe perfectly splendid. He often tried in 
 odd half-hours of conversation to explain what lie 
 meant by some of his principal doubts, but it was 
 like offering to read from a technical treatise. The 
 volume might deal lucidly with Mi. Babcock's sub- 
 ject, but what was Mr. Babcock's subject without 
 Mr. Babcock's interest in it? Newman could enter- 
 tain a respect for any man's subject and thought his 
 friend fortunate to have so special a one He accepted 
 all the proofs of its importance that were thus anx- 
 iously offered him, and put them away in what he 
 supposed a very safe place; but poor Babcoek never 
 afterwards recognised his gifts among the articles that 
 Newman had in daily use. 
 
 They travelled together through Germany and 
 into Switzerland, where for three or four weeks they 
 trudged over rough passes and smooth and lounged 
 by the edge and on the bosom of blue lakes. At last 
 they crossed the Simplon and made their way to 
 Venice. Mr. Babcoek had become gloomy and even 
 a trifle irritable; he seemed moody, absent, pre- 
 occupied ; he got his plans into a tangle and talked 
 one moment of doing one thing and the next of doing 
 another. Newman led his own usual life, recklessly 
 made acquaintances, took his ease in the galleries 
 and churches, spent an unconscionable amount of 
 time in strolling in Piazza San Marco, bought several 
 spurious pictures and for a fortnight enjoyed Venice 
 grossly. One evening, coming back to his inn, ne 
 
 94 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 found Babcock waiting for him in the little garden 
 beside it. The young man walked up to him, looking 
 very dismal, thrust out his hand and said with solemn- 
 ity that he was afraid they must part. Newman 
 expressed his surprise and regret; he wondered why 
 a parting had become necessary. "Don't be afraid 
 I'm tired of you," he said. 
 
 " You 're not tired of me ?" his companion asked, 
 fixing him with clear but almost tragic eyes. 
 
 ** Why the deuce should 1 be ? You're a very nice 
 man. Besides, I don't break down so easily." 
 
 " We don't understand each other," said poor 
 Dorchester. 
 
 "Don't 1 understand you f " cried Newman. 
 "Why, 1 hoped i did. But what if 1 don't; where 's 
 the harm r" 
 
 "1 don't understand you" said Babcock. And he 
 sat down and rested his head on his hand and looked 
 up mournfully at his immeasurable friend. 
 
 " But why should you mind that if 1 don't ?" 
 
 "Ic's very distressing to me. It keeps me in a state 
 of unrest. Ii irritates me; 1 can't settle anything. 1 
 don't think it's good for me." 
 
 "You worry too much; that's what's the matter 
 with you," said Newman. 
 
 "Of course it must seem so to you. You think I 
 take all questions too hard, and 1 think you take them 
 too superficially. We can never agree. ' 
 
 "But we've agreed very well all along." 
 
 "No, / haven't agreed," said Babcock, shaking 
 his head. "I'm very uncomfortable. 1 ought to have 
 separated from you a month ago." 
 < 95 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 **Oh, shucks! I'll agree to anything!" cried 
 Newman. 
 
 Mr. Babcock buried his head in both hands. At 
 last, looking up, "1 don't think you appreciate my 
 position," he observed. "I try to arrive at the truth 
 about everything. And then you go too fast. There 
 are things of which you take too little account. I 
 feel as if I ought to go over ail this ground we've 
 traversed again by myself. I'm afraid 1 have made 
 a great many mistakes." 
 
 "Oh, you need n't give so many reasons," said 
 Newman. "You've simply had enough of me. 
 You've all your right to that." 
 
 "No, no, I've not had enough of you!" his friend 
 insisted. " It would be very wrong of me to have had 
 enough." 
 
 "I give it up!" laughed Newman. "But of course 
 it will never do to go on making mistakes. Go your 
 way, by all means. I shall miss you; but you've seen 
 I make friends very easily. You'll be lonely your- 
 self ; but drop me a line when you feel like it, and 
 I'll wait for you anywhere." 
 
 "1 think I'll go back to Milan. I'm afraid I 
 did n't do justice to Luini." 
 
 "Pour old Luini!" said Newman. 
 
 "1 mean I'm afraid I went too far about him. I 
 don't think he's as true as he at first seems." 
 
 "Luini?" Newman exclaimed. "There's some- 
 thing in the look of his genius that's like the face of 
 a beautiful woman. It's as if she were coming 
 straight at you, or standing very ciose." 
 
 His companion frowned ajid winced. And it must 
 
 96 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 be added that this was, for Newman, an unusually 
 metaphysical flight, though in passing through Milan 
 ne had found a great attraction in the painter. " There 
 you are again!" said Mr. Babcock. "Yes, we had 
 better separate." And on the morrow he retraced his 
 steps and proceeded to his revisions of judgement. 
 But presently Newman heard from him. 
 
 My dear Mr. Newman, I am afraid that my 
 conduct at Venice a week ago seemed to you strange 
 and ungrateful, and 1 wish to explain my position, 
 which, as 1 said at the time, 1 do not think you 
 appreciate. 1 had long had it on my mind to pro- 
 pose that we should part company, and this step 
 was not really so abrupt as it appeared. In the first 
 place, you know, I am travelling in Europe on funds 
 supplied by my congregation, who kindly offered me 
 a vacation and an opportunity to enrich my mind 
 with the treasures of nature and art in these coun- 
 tries. 1 feel therefore that I ought to use my time 
 to the very best advantage. I've a high sense of 
 responsibility. You appear to care only for the 
 pleasure of the hour, and you give yourself up to it 
 with a violence which I confess I'm not able to 
 emulate. I consider that I must arrive at some con- 
 clusion and fix my convictions on certain points. 
 Art and Life seem to me intensely serious things, and 
 in our travels in Europe we should especially re- 
 member the rightful, indeed the solemn, message of 
 Art. You seem to hold that if a thing amuses you for 
 the moment this is all you need ask of it; and your 
 relish for mere amusement is also much higher than 
 
 97 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 mine. You put moreover a kind of reckless finality 
 into your pleasures which at times, 1 confess, has 
 seemed to me shall 1 say it? almost appalling 
 Your way, at any rate, is not my way, and it's un- 
 wise that we should attempt any longer to pull to- 
 gether. And yet let me add that 1 know there is 
 1 great deal to be said for your way; 1 have felt its 
 attraction, in your society, very strongly. Save for this 
 1 should have left you long ago. But 1 was so deeply 
 perplexed. 1 hope 1 have not done wrong. 1 feel as 
 if I had a great deal of lost time to make up. 1 heg 
 you take all this as 1 mean it, which heaven knows 
 is not harshly. 1 have a great personal esteem for 
 you and hope that some day when I have recovered 
 my balance we shall meet again. But 1 must recover 
 my balance first. I hope you will continue to enjoy 
 your travels; only du remember that Life and Art 
 are extremely solemn. 
 
 Believe me your sincere friend and well-wisher, 
 
 BENJAMIN BABCOCK. 
 
 P. S. I am very unhappy about Luini. 
 
 This letter produced in Newman's mind a singular 
 mixture of exhilaration and awe. Mr. Babcock's 
 tender conscience at first seemed to him as funny as 
 a farce, and his travelling back to Milan only to get 
 into a deeper muddle to be, for reward of his ped- 
 antry, exquisitely and ludicrously just. Then he 
 reflected that these are mighty mysteries; that pos- 
 sibly he himself was indeed almost unmentionably 
 "appalling," and that his manner of considering the 
 treasures of art and the privileges of life lacked the 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 last* or perhaps even the very first, refinement. New- 
 man had a grear esteem, after all, for refinement, and 
 that evening, during the half-hour that he watched 
 the star-sheen on the warm Adriatic, he felt rebuked 
 and humiliated. He was unable to decide how to 
 answer this communication His good-nature checked 
 his snubbing his late companion's earnestness, and 
 his tough, inelastic sense of humour forbade his 
 caking it seriously. He wrote no answer at all, but 
 a day or two after he found in a curiosity-shop a gro- 
 tesque little statuette in ivory, of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, which he sent off to Babcock without a com- 
 mentary. It represented a gaunt, ascetic-looking 
 monk, in a tattered gown and cowl, kneeling with 
 clasped hands and pulling a portentously long face. 
 It was a wonderfully delicate piece of carving, and 
 in a moment, through one of the rents of his gown, 
 you espied a fat capon hung round the monk's 
 waist. In Newman's intention what did the figure 
 symbolise ? Did it mean that he was going to try to 
 be as impressed with the solemnity of things as the 
 monk looked at first, but that he feared he should 
 succeed no better than this personage proved on a 
 closer inspection to have done ? It is not supposable 
 he intended a satire on Babcock's own asceticism, 
 for this would have been a truly cynical stroke. He 
 at any rate made his late companion a valuable little 
 present. 
 
 He went, on leaving Venice, through the Tyrol 
 to Vienna and then returned, westward, through 
 South Germany. The autumn found him at Baden- 
 Baden, where he spent several weeks. The charming 
 
 99 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 place kept him from day to day ; he was looking 
 about him and deciding what to do for the winter. 
 His summer had been very full, and as he sat under 
 the great trees beside the miniature river that trickles 
 past the Baden flower-beds he slowly rummaged it 
 over. He had seen and done a great deal, enjoyed 
 nnd observed a great deal; he felt older, yet felt it 
 somehow, even at the age he had reached, as an 
 Advantage. He remembered Mr. Babcock and his 
 desire to learn the great lesson, and he remembered 
 also that he had profited little by his friend's exhorta- 
 tion to cultivate, the same respectable habit. Could n't 
 he scrape together a few great lessons ? Baden- 
 Baden was the prettiest place he had seen yet, and 
 orchestral music in the evening, under the stars, was 
 decidedly a great institution. This was the lesson 
 that was clearest. But he went on to reflect that he 
 had done very wisely to pull up stakes and come 
 abroad; the world was apparently such an interest- 
 ing thing to see. He had drawn a few morals of his 
 own; he could n't say just which, but he had them 
 there under his hat-band. He had done what he 
 wanted; he had tackled the great sights and closed 
 with the great occasions, he had given his mind a 
 chance to "improve" if it would. He fondly believed 
 it had improved a good deal. Yes, these waters of the 
 free curiosity were very soothing, and he would 
 splash in them till they ran dry. Forty-two years as 
 he was on the point of numbering, he had a long 
 course in his eye, and if the haze of the future was 
 thick it was that of a golden afternoon. Where should 
 he take the world next ? I have said he remembered 
 
 100 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the eyes of the lady whom he had found standing in 
 Mrs. Tristram's drawing-room; four months had 
 elapsed and he had not forgotten them yet. He had 
 looked he had made a point of looking into a 
 great many other eyes in the interval, but the only 
 ones he thought of now were Madame de Cintre's. 
 If he wanted to make out where the golden afternoon 
 hung heaviest would n't the place perhaps be in 
 Madame de Cintre's eyes ? He would certainly find 
 something of interest there, call it all bravely bright 
 or call it engagingly obscure. 
 
 But there came to him sometimes too, through this 
 vague rich forecast, the thought of his past life and 
 the long array of years (they had begun so early) 
 during which he had had nothing in his head but his 
 possible "haul." They seemed far away now, for 
 his present attitude was more than a holiday, it was 
 almost a repudiation. He had told Tom Tristram 
 the pendulum was swinging back, and the back- 
 ward swing, visibly, had not yet ended. Still, the 
 possibility of hauls, which had dropped in the other 
 quarter, wore to his mind a different aspect at different 
 hours. In its train a thousand forgotten episodes 
 came trooping before him. Some of them he looked 
 complacently enough in the face; from some he 
 averted his head. They were old triumphs of nerve, 
 even of bluff, mere cold memories of the heat of 
 battle, the high competitive rage. Some of them, as 
 they lived again, he felt decidedly proud of; he ad- 
 mired himself as if he had been looking at another 
 man. And in fact many of the qualities that make 
 a great deed were there; the decision, the resolution 
 v 10 1 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the courage, the celerity, the clear eye and the firm 
 hand. Of certain other performances it would be 
 going too far to say he was ashamed of them, for he 
 had doubtless never had a stomach for dirty work. 
 He had been blessed from the first with a natural 
 impulse to disfigure with a direct unreasoning blow 
 the painted face of temptation. In no man, verily, 
 could a want of the stricter scruple have been less 
 excusable. Newman knew the crooked from the 
 straight at a glance, and the former had received 
 at his hands, early and late, much putting in its place. 
 None the less, however, some of his memories wore 
 at present a graceless and sordid mien, and it struck 
 him that if he had never incurred any quite inefface- 
 able stain he had never on the other hand followed 
 the line of beauty, as a sought direction, for a single 
 mile of its course. He had spent his years in the un- 
 remitting effort to add thousands to thousands, and 
 now that he stood so well outside of it the business 
 of mere money-getting showed only, in its ugliness, 
 as vast and vague and dark, a pirate-ship with lights 
 turned inward, ft is very well, of a truth, to think 
 meanly of money-getting after you have filled your 
 pockets, and our friend, it may be said, should have 
 begun somewhat earlier to moralise with this super- 
 iority. To that it may be answered that he might 
 have made another fortune if he chose ; and we 
 ought to add that he was not exactly moralising. It 
 had come back to him simply that what he had been 
 looking at all summer was a very brave and bristling 
 world, and that it had not all been made by men 
 "live" in his old mean sense. 
 
 102 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 During his stay at Baden-Baden he received a 
 letter from Mrs. Tristram, scolding him for the 
 scant tidings he had sent his friends and begging to 
 be definitely assured that he had not even thought of 
 not wintering within call of the Avenue d'lena. 
 Newman replied as to the blast of a silver bugle. 
 
 "I supposed you knew I was a miserable letter- 
 writer and did n't expect anything of me. ] guess 
 I've not struck off twenty letters of pure friendship 
 in my whole life; in America 1 conducted my cor- 
 respondence altogether by telegrams and by dicta- 
 tion to a shorthand reporter. This is a letter of 
 friendship undefiled; you've got hold of a curiosity 
 you could really get something for it. If you want to 
 know everything that has happened to me these three 
 months the best way to tell you, I think, would be to 
 t>end you my half-dozen guide-books with my pencil 
 marks in the margin. Wherever you find a scratch or 
 a cross or a * Beautiful!' or a * So true!' or a *Too 
 thin!' you may know that I've had some one or other 
 of the sensations I was after. That has been about 
 my history ever since I left you. Belgium, Holland, 
 Switzerland, Germany, Italy I've taken the whole 
 list as the bare-backed rider takes the paper hoops 
 at the circus, and I'm not even yet out of breath. 
 I carry about six volumes of Ruskin in my trunk; 
 I've seen some grand old things and shall perhaps 
 talk them over this winter by your fireside. You see 
 my face is n't altogether set against Paris. I have had 
 all kinds of plans and visions, but your letter has 
 blown most of them away. ^ U ap petit vient en mange- 
 says your proverb, and I find that the more 
 103 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 sweet things I taste the more greedily I look over the 
 table. Now that I'm in the shafts why should n't 
 I trot to the end of the course ? Sometimes I think 
 of the far East and keep rolling the names of Eastern 
 cities under my tongue; Damascus and Bagdad, 
 Trebizond, Samarcand, Bokhara. 1 spent a week 
 last month in the company of a returned missionary 
 who told me I ought to be ashamed to be loafing 
 about Europe when there is such a treat to be had 
 out there. I do want more treats, but I think frankly 
 I should like best to look for them in the Rue de 
 1'Universite. Do you ever hear from that handsome 
 tall lady ? If you can get her to promise she'll be at 
 home the next time I call I'll go back to Paris straight. 
 So there you have a bargain. I'm more than ever 
 in the state of mind I told you about that evening; 
 I want a companion for life and still want her to be 
 a star of the first magnitude. I've kept an eye on all 
 the possible candidates for the position who have 
 come up this summer, but none of them has filled 
 the bill or anything like it. 1 should have enjoyed the 
 whole thing a thousand times more if I had had 
 the lady just mentioned under my arm. The nearest 
 approach to her was a cultivated young man from 
 Dorchester Mass., who, however, very soon de- 
 manded of me a separation for incompatibility of 
 temper. He told me I had n't it in me ever to raise 
 a "tone," and he really made me half-believe him. 
 But shortly afterwards I met an Englishman with 
 whom I struck up an acquaintance which at first 
 seemed to promise well a very bright man who 
 writes in the London papers and knows Paris nearly 
 
 104 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 as well as Tristram. We knocked about for a week 
 together, but he very soon gave me up in disgust. 
 He pronounced me a poor creature, incapable of the 
 joy of life he talked to me as if 1 had come from 
 Dorchester. This was rather bewildering. Which of 
 my two critics was I to believe ? I did n't worry about 
 it and very soon made up my mind they don't know 
 everything. You come nearer that than any one I've 
 met, and I defy any one to pretend I'm wrong when 
 I'm more than ever your faithful friend C N.*' 
 
VI 
 
 HE gave up Bagdad and Bokhara and, returning 
 to Paris before the autumn was over, established 
 himself in rooms selected by Tom Tristram in ac- 
 cordance with the latter's estimate of his "social 
 standing." When Newman learned that this occult 
 attribute was to be taken into account he professed 
 himself utterly incompetent and begged Tristram to 
 relieve him of the care of it. " I did n't know I * stood/ 
 socially, at all I thought 1 only sat round inform- 
 ally, rather sprawling than anything else. Is n't 
 a social standing to know some two or three thou- 
 sand people and invite them to dinner ? I know you 
 and your wife and little old Mr. Nioche, who gave 
 me French lessons last spring. Can 1 invite you to 
 dinner to meet each other ? If 1 can you must come 
 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "That's not very grateful to me," said Mrs. Tris- 
 tram, "who introduced you last year to every crea- 
 ture of my acquaintance." 
 
 "So you did; I had quite forgotten. But I thought 
 you wanted me to forget," said Newman in that 
 tone of surpassing candour which frequently marked 
 his utterance and which an observer would not have 
 known whether to pronounce a whimsical affectation 
 of ignorance or a modest aspiration to knowledge. 
 "You told me you yourself disliked them all." 
 
 "Ah, the way you remember what 1 say is at least 
 106 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 very flattering. But in future,"' added Mrs. Tris- 
 tram, "pray forget all the 'mean' things and remem- 
 ber only the good. It will be easily done and won't 
 fatigue your memory. Only I forewarn you that if 
 you trust my husband to pick out your rooms you 're 
 in for something hideous." 
 
 "Hideous, darling?" her husband cried. 
 
 "To-day I utter nothing base; otherwise I should 
 use stronger language." 
 
 "What do you think she would say, Newman?" 
 Tristram asked. "If she really tried now? She can 
 polish one off for a wretch volubly in two or three 
 languages; that's what it is to have high culture. 
 It gives her the start of me completely, since I can't 
 swear, for the life of me, except in pure Anglo- 
 Saxon. When I get mad I have to fall back on our 
 dear old mother tongue. There 's nothing like it after 
 all." 
 
 Newman declared that he knew nothing about 
 tables and chairs and would accept, in the way of a 
 lodging, with his eyes shut, anything that Tristram 
 should offer him. This was partly pure veracity on 
 our hero's part, but it was also partly charity. He 
 knew that to pry about and count casseroles and 
 make people open windows, to poke into beds and 
 sofas with his cane, to gossip with landladies and 
 ask who lived above and who below he knew that 
 this was of all pastimes the dearest to his friend's 
 heart, and he felt the more disposed to put it in his 
 way as he was conscious he had suffered the warmth 
 of their ancient fellowship somewhat to abate. He 
 had besides no taste for upholstery; he had even 
 
 . 107 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 no very exquisite sense of comfort or convenience. 
 He had a relish for luxury and splendour, but it was 
 satisfied by rather gross contrivances. He scarcely 
 knew a hard chair from a soft, and used an art iff 
 stretching his legs which quite dispensed with ad- 
 ventitious aids. His idea of material ease was to 
 inhabit very large rooms, have a great many of 
 them, and be conscious in them of a number of 
 patented mechanical devices, half of which he should 
 never have occasion to use. The apartments should 
 be clear and high and what he called open, and he 
 had once said that he liked rooms best in which 
 you should want to keep on your hat. For the rest 
 he was satisfied with the assurance of any respect- 
 able person that everything was of the latest model. 
 Tristram accordingly secured for him an habitation 
 over the price of which the Prince of Morocco had 
 been haggling. It was situated on the Boulevard 
 Haussmann,was a first floor, and consisted of a series 
 of rooms gilded from floor to ceiling a foot thick, 
 draped in various light shades of satin and chiefly 
 furnished with mirrors and clocks. Newman thought 
 them magnificent, did n't haggle, thanked Tristram 
 heartily, immediately took possession, and had one 
 of his trunks standing for three months in the draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 One day Mrs. Tristram told him that their tall 
 handsome lady had returned from the country and 
 that she had met her three days before coming out of 
 the church of Saint Sulpice; she herself having jour- 
 neyed to that distant quarter in quest of an obscure 
 lace-mender of whose skill she had heard high praise. 
 
 108 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "And how were those intense mild eyes?" New- 
 man asked. 
 
 "They were red with weeping neither more nor 
 less. She had been to confession." 
 
 "It doesn't tally with your account of her," he 
 said, "that she should have sins to cry about." 
 
 "They were not sins they were sufferings." 
 
 "How do you know that?" 
 
 "She asked me to come and see her. I went this 
 morning." 
 
 "And what does she suffer from ?" 
 
 "I did n't press her to tell me. With her, some- 
 how, one is very discreet. But I guessed easily enough. 
 She suffers from her grim old mother and from the 
 manner in which her elder brother, the technical head 
 of the family, abets and hounds on the Marquise. 
 They keep at her hard, they keep at her all the while. 
 But I can almost forgive them, because, as I told you, 
 she's simply a saint, and a persecution is all that she 
 needs to bring out what I call her quality." 
 
 "That's a comfortable theory for her. I hope 
 you'll never mention it to the old folks. But why 
 does she let them persecute her ? Is n't she, as a 
 married woman, her own mistress?" 
 
 "Legally yes, I suppose; but morally no. Ir 
 France you may never say Nay to your mother, 
 whatever she requires of you. She may be the most 
 abominable old woman in the world and make your 
 life a purgatory; but after all she's ma mere, and 
 you've no right to judge her. You've simply to obey. 
 The thing has a fine side to it. Madame de Cintrc 
 bows her head and folds her wings." 
 ^ IOQ 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Can't she at least make her brother quit?" 
 
 "Her brother's the chef de la famille, the head of 
 the clan. With those people the family's everything; 
 you must act not for your own pleasure but for the 
 advantage of your race and name." 
 
 44 But what do they want to get out of our lovely 
 friend?" Newman asked. 
 
 44 Her submission to another marriage. They're 
 not rich, and they want to bring more money into 
 the house." 
 
 "There's where you come in, my boy!" Tristram 
 interposed. 
 
 44 And Madame de Ciritre doesn't see it?" New- 
 man continued. 
 
 44 She has been sold for a price once; she naturally 
 objects to being sold a second time, it appears that 
 the first time they greatly bungled their bargain. 
 M. de Cintre, before he died, managed to get through 
 almost everything." 
 
 "And to whom do they want then to marry her 
 now?" 
 
 "I thought it best not to ask; but you may be sure 
 it is to some horrid old nabob or to some dissipated 
 little duke." 
 
 44 There's Mrs. Tristram as large as life!" her 
 husband cried. 44 Observe the wealth of her imagin- 
 ation. She has not asked a single question it's 
 vulgar to ask questions and yet she knows it all 
 inside out. She has the history of Madame de Cintre's 
 marriage at her fingers' ends. She has seen the lovely 
 Claire on her knees with loosened tresses and stream- 
 ing eyes and the rest of them standing over her with 
 
 no 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 spikes and goads and red-hot irons, ready to come 
 down if she refuses Bluebeard. The simple truth 
 is that they've made a fuss about her milliner's 
 bill or refused her an opera-box." 
 
 Newman looked from Tristram to his wife with 
 a certain reserve in each direction. "Do you really 
 mean," he asked of the latter, "that your friend is 
 being really hustled into a marriage she really shrinks 
 from?" 
 
 "I think it extremely probable. Those people are 
 very capable of that sort of thing." 
 
 "It's like something in a regular old play," said 
 Newman. "That dark old house over there looks 
 as if wicked things had been done in it and might 
 be done again." 
 
 "They have a still darker old house in the coun- 
 try, she tells me, and there, during the summer, 
 this scheme must have been hatched." 
 
 "Must have been; mind that!" Tristram echoed. 
 
 "After all," their visitor suggested after a pause, 
 "she may be in trouble about something else." 
 
 "If it's something else then it's something worse." 
 Mrs. Tristram spoke as with high competence. 
 
 Newman, silent a while, seemed lost in meditation. 
 "Is it possible," he asked at last, "that they can do 
 that sort of thing over here ? that helpless women 
 
 are thumb-screwed sentimentally, socially, I mean 
 into marrying men they object to." 
 
 "Helpless women, all over the world, have a hard 
 time of it," said Mrs. Tristram. "There's plenty 
 of the thumb-screw for them everywhere." 
 
 "A great deal of that kind of thing goes OD in 
 ^ ill 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 New York," said Tristram. "Girls are bullied or 
 coaxed or bribed, or all three together, into marry- 
 ing, for money, horrible cads. There's no end of 
 that always going on in Fifth Avenue, and other bad 
 things besides. The Morals of Murray Hill! Some 
 one ought to show them up." 
 
 "I don't believe it!" Newman took it very 
 gravely. "I don't see how, in America, such cases 
 can ever have occurred; for the simple reason that 
 the men themselves would be the first to make them 
 impossible. The American man sometimes takes 
 advantage I 've known him to. But he does n't 
 take advantage of women." 
 
 "Listen to the voice of the spread eagle!" cried 
 Tristram. 
 
 "The spread eagle should use his wings," said his 
 wife. " He should fly to the rescue of the woman of 
 whom advantage is being taken !" 
 
 " To her rescue ? " Newman seemed to wonder. 
 
 " Pounce down, seize her in your talons and carry 
 her off. Marry her yourself." 
 
 Newman, for some moments, answered nothing; 
 but presently, "I guess she has heard enough of 
 marrying," he saic!. "The kindest way to treat her 
 would be to care for her and yet never speak of it. 
 But that sort of thing's infamous," he added. "It's 
 none of my business, but it makes me feel kind of 
 swindled to hear of it." 
 
 He heard of it, however, more than once after- 
 wards. Mrs. Tristram again saw Madame de Cintre 
 and again found her looking very very sad. But on 
 these occasions there had been no tears; the intense 
 
 112 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 mild eyes were clear and still. "She's cold, calm 
 and hopeless," Mrs. Tristram declared, and she 
 added that on her mentioning that her friend Mr. 
 Newman was again in Paris and was faithful in his 
 desire to make Madame de Cintre's acquaintance, 
 this lovely woman had found a smile in her despair 
 and expressed her regret at having missed his visit 
 in the spring and her hope that he had not lost cour- 
 age. "I told her something about you," Newman's 
 hostess wound up. 
 
 "That's a comfort," he patiently answered. "I 
 seem to want people to know about me." 
 
 A few days after this, one dusky autumn after- 
 noon, he went again to the Rue de 1'Universite. 
 The early evening had closed in as he applied for 
 admittance at the stoutly-guarded Hotel de Belle- 
 garde. He was told that Madame la Comtesse was 
 at home, on which he crossed the court, entered 
 the further door and was conducted through a ves- 
 tibule, vast, dim and cold, up a broad stone staircase 
 with an ancient iron balustrade, to an apartment 
 on the first floor. Announced and ushered in, 
 he found himself in a large panelled boudoir, at one 
 end of which a lady and a gentleman were seated 
 by the fire. The gentleman was smoking a cigar- 
 ette; there was no light in the room save that of $ 
 couple of candles and the glow from the hearth. 
 Both persons rose to welcome Newman, who in 
 the firelight recognised Madame la Comtesse. She 
 gave him her hand with a smile which seemed in 
 itself an illumination, and, pointing to her com- 
 panion, murmured an allusion, "One of my bro- 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 thers." The gentleman struck Newman as taking 
 him, with great good-nature, for a friend already 
 made, and our hero then perceived him to be the 
 young man he had met in the court of the hotel on his 
 former visit, the one who had appeared of an easy 
 commerce. " Mrs. Tristram has often mentioned you 
 to us." It had an effect of prodigious benignity as 
 Madame de Cintre resumed her former place. 
 
 Newman, noticing in especial her "us," began, 
 after he had seated himself, to consider what in 
 truth might be his errand. He had an unusual, un- 
 expected sense of having wandered into a strange 
 corner of the world. He was not given, as a gen- 
 eral thing, to "borrowing trouble" or to suspecting 
 danger, and he had had no social tremors on this 
 particular occasion. He was not without presence 
 of mind, though he had no formed habit of prompt 
 chatter. But his exercised acuteness sometimes pre- 
 cluded detachment; with every disposition to take 
 things simply he could n't but feel that some of them 
 were less simple than others. He felt as one feels in 
 missing a step, in an ascent, where one has expected 
 to find it. This strange pretty woman seated at fire- 
 side talk with her brother in the grey depths of her 
 inhospitable-looking house what had he to say 
 to her ? She seemed enveloped in triple defences 
 of privacy; by what encouragement had he pre- 
 sumed on his having effected a breach ? It was for 
 a moment as if he had plunged into some medium 
 as deep as the ocean and must exert himself to keep 
 from sinking. Meanwhile he was looking at Madame 
 la Comtesse and she was settling herself in her chair 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 and drawing in her long dress and vaguely, rather 
 indirectly, turning her face to him. Their eyes met; 
 a moment later she looked away and motioned to 
 her brother to put a log on the fire. But the moment, 
 and the glance that lived in it, had been sufficient 
 to relieve Newman of the first and the last fit of sharp 
 personal embarrassment he was ever to know. He 
 performed the movement frequent with him and 
 which was always a symbol of his taking mental 
 possession of a scene he extended his long legs. 
 The impression his hostess had made on him at their 
 first meeting came back in an instant; it had been 
 deeper than he knew. She took on a light and a 
 grace, or, more definitely, an interest; he had opened 
 a book and the first lines held his attention. 
 
 She asked him questions as if unable to do less: 
 how lately he had seen Mrs. Tristram, how long 
 he had been in Paris, how long he expected to re- 
 main there, how he liked it. She spoke English 
 without an accent, or rather with that absence of 
 any one of those long familiar to him which on his 
 arrival in Europe had struck him as constituting by 
 itself a complete foreignness a foreignness that 
 in women he had come to like extremely. Here and 
 there her utterance slightly exceeded this measure, 
 but at the end of ten minutes he found himself wait- 
 ing for these delicate discords. He enjoyed them, 
 marvelling to hear the possible slip become the 
 charming glide. "You have a beautiful country of 
 your own," she safely enough risked. 
 
 "Oh, very fine, very fine. You ought to come 
 over and see it." 
 
 "5 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I shall never go over and see it," she answered 
 with a smile. 
 
 "Well, why should n't you ?" 
 
 "We don't travel; especially so far." 
 
 "But you go away sometimes; you don't always 
 ^tay right here ?" 
 
 "I go away in summer a little way, to the 
 country." 
 
 He wanted to ask her something more, something 
 personal and going rather far he hardly knew 
 what. " Don't you find it rather lifeless here," he said ; 
 "so far from the street?" Rather "lonesome" he 
 was going to say, but he deflected nervously, for 
 discretion, and then felt his term an aggravation 
 
 "Yes, it's very lifeless, if you mean very quiet; 
 but that's exactly what we like." 
 
 "Ah, that's exactly what you like," he repeated. 
 He was touched by her taking it so. 
 
 "Besides, I've lived here all my life." 
 
 "Lived here all your life," Newman found he 
 could but echo. 
 
 "I was born here, and my father was born here 
 before me, and my grandfather and my great-grand- 
 fathers. Were they not, Valentin ? " and she ap- 
 pealed to her brother. 
 
 "Yes, it seems a condition of our being born at 
 all," the young man smiled as he rose and threw the 
 remnant of his cigarette into the fire. He remained 
 leaning against the chimney-piece, and an observer 
 would have guessed that he wished to take a better 
 look at their guest, whom he covertly examined 
 while he stroked his moustache. 
 
 116 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Your house is tremendously old then?" New- 
 man pursued. 
 
 "How old is it, brother?" asked Madame de 
 Cintre. 
 
 The young man took the two candles from the 
 mantel, lifted one high in each hand and looked up, 
 above the objects on the shelf, toward the cornice of 
 the room. The chimney-piece was in white marble 
 of the Louis-Quinze period, but much aloft was a 
 panelling of an earlier date, quaintly carved, painted 
 white and here and there gilded. The white had 
 turned to yellow and the gilding was tarnished. 
 On the top the figures ranged themselves into a 
 shield, on which an armorial device was cut. Above 
 it, in relief, was a number 1627. "There you 
 have a year," said the young man. "That's old or 
 new, according to your point of view." 
 
 "Well, over here," Newman replied, "one's point 
 of view gets shifted round considerably." And he 
 threw back his head and looked about. "Your house 
 is of a very fine style of architecture." 
 
 "Are you interested in questions of architecture ?" 
 asked the gentleman at the chimney-piece. 
 
 "Well, I took the trouble this summer to ex- 
 amine as well as I can calculate some four 
 hundred and seventy churches. Do you call that in- 
 terested ?" 
 
 "Perhaps you're interested in religion," said his 
 amiable host. 
 
 Newman thought. "Not actively." He found 
 himself speaking as if it were a railroad or a mine; 
 so that the next moment, to correct this, " Are you a 
 
 "7 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Roman Catholic, madam ?" he inquired of Madame 
 de Cintre. 
 
 "I'm of the faith of my fathers," she gravely 
 replied. 
 
 He was struck with a sort of richness in the effect 
 of it he threw back his head again for contem- 
 plation. "Had you never noticed that number up 
 there ? " he presently asked. 
 
 She hesitated a moment and then, "In former 
 years," she returned. 
 
 Her brother had been watching Newman's move- 
 ment. "Perhaps you would like to examine the 
 house." 
 
 Our friend slowly brought down his eyes for re- 
 cognition of this; he received the impression that 
 the young man at the chimney-piece had his forms, 
 and sought his own opportunities, of amusement. 
 He was a handsome figure of a young man; his face 
 wore a smile, his moustachios were curled up at 
 the ends and there was something more than the 
 firelight that played in his eyes. "Damn his 
 French impudence!" Newman was on the point of 
 inwardly growling. "What the deuce is he grin- 
 ning at?" He glanced at Madame de Cintre, who 
 was only looking at the floor. But she raised her eyes, 
 which again met his, till she carried them to her 
 brother. He turned again to this companion and 
 observed that he strikingly resembled his sister. 
 This was in his favour, and our hero's first impres- 
 sion of Count Valentin had moreover much engaged 
 him. His suspicion expired and he said he should 
 rejoice to see the house. 
 
 118 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 The young man surrendered to gaiety, laying his 
 hand again on a light. "It will repay your curiosity. 
 Come then." 
 
 But Madame de Cintre rose quickly and grasped 
 his arm. "Ah Valentin, what do you mean to do ?" 
 
 "To show Mr. Newman the house. It will be very 
 amusing to show Mr. Newman the house." 
 
 She kept her hand on his arm and turned to their 
 visitor with a smile. "Don't let him take you; you 
 won't find it remarkable. It is a musty old house 
 like any other." 
 
 "Ah, not like any other," the Count still gaily 
 protested. "It's full of curious things. Besides 
 a visit like Mr. Newman's is just what it wants and 
 has never had. It 's a rare chance all round." 
 
 "You 're very wicked, brother," Madame de Cintre 
 insisted. 
 
 "Nothing venture, nothing have!" cried the young 
 man. "Will you come?" 
 
 She stepped toward Newman, clasping her hands 
 and speaking, to his sense, with an exquisite grave 
 appeal. "Would n't you prefer my society here by 
 my fire to stumbling about dark passages after 
 well, after nothing at all ? " 
 
 "A hundred times! We'll see the house some 
 other day." 
 
 The young man put down his light with mock 
 solemnity, and, shaking his head, "Ah, you've de- 
 feated a great scheme, sir!" he sighed. 
 
 "A scheme? I don't understand," said Newman, 
 
 "You'd have played your part in it all the better. 
 Perhaps some day I shall have a chance to explain it." 
 
 IIQ 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Be quiet and ring for tea," Madame de Cintre 
 gently concluded. 
 
 Count Valentin obeyed, and presently a servant 
 brought in a tray, which he placed on a small table. 
 Madame de Cintre, when he had gone, busied her- 
 self, from her place, with making tea. She had but 
 just begun when the door was thrown open and a 
 lady rushed in with a loud rustling sound. She 
 stared at Newman, gave a little nod and a "Mon- 
 sieur!" and then quickly approached Madame de 
 Cintre and presented her forehead to be kissed. 
 Madame de Cintre saluted her, but continued to 
 watch the kettle. The rustling lady was young and 
 pretty, it seemed to Newman; she wore her bonnet 
 and cloak and a train of royal proportions. She be- 
 gan to talk rapidly in French. "Oh, give me some 
 tea, my beautiful one, for the love of God ' I 'm 
 aneantie, annihilated." Newman found himself quite 
 unable to follow her; she spoke much less distinctly 
 than M. Nioche. 
 
 "That's my wonderful sister-in-law," the young 
 man mentioned to him. 
 
 "She's very attractive," Newman promptly re- 
 sponded. 
 
 "Fascinating," the Count said; and this time again 
 his guest suspected him of latent malice. His sister-in- 
 law came round to the other side of the fire with 
 her tea in her hand, holding it out at arm's length 
 so that she might n't spill it on her dress and utter- 
 ing little cries of alarm. She placed the cup on the 
 chimney and began to unpin her veil and pull off her 
 gloves, looking meanwhile at Newman. " Is there any- 
 
 120 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 thing I can do for you, my dear lady?" the young 
 man asked with quite extravagant solicitude. 
 
 "Present me to monsieur," said his sister-in-law. 
 And then when he had pronounced their visitor's 
 name: "I can't curtsey to you, monsieur, or I shall 
 spill my tea. So Claire receives strangers like this ?" 
 she covertly added, in French to her brother-in-law. 
 
 "Apparently! Is n't it fun ?" he returned with en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 Newman stood a moment and then approached 
 Madame de Cintre, who looked up at him as if she 
 were thinking of something to say. She seemed to 
 think of nothing, however she simply smiled. He 
 sat down near her and she handed him his cup. For 
 a few moments they talked about that, and mean- 
 while he kept taking her in. He remembered what 
 Mrs. Tristram had told him of her "perfection" 
 and of her having, in combination, all the brilliant 
 things that he dreamed of finding. This made him 
 consider her not only without mistrust, but with- 
 out uneasy conjectures; the presumption, from the 
 first moment he looked at her, had been so in her 
 favour. And yet if she was beautiful it was not from 
 directly dazzling him. She was tall and moulded in 
 long lines; she had thick fair hair and features un- 
 even and harmonious. Her wide grey eyes were like 
 a brace of deputed and garlanded maidens waiting 
 with a compliment at the gate of a city, but they 
 failed of that lamplike quality and those many-col- 
 oured fires that light up, as in a constant celebra- 
 tion of anniversaries, the fair front of the conquering 
 type. Madame de Cintre was of attenuated substance 
 
 121 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 and might pass for younger than she probably was. 
 In her whole person was something still young and 
 still passive, still uncertain and that seemed still to 
 expect to depend, and which yet made, in its dig- 
 nity, a presence withal, and almost represented, in its 
 serenity, an assurance. What had Tristram meant, 
 Newman wondered, by calling her proud ? She was 
 certainly not proud, now, to him; or if she was it 
 was of no use and lost on him. she must pile it 
 up higher if she expected him to mind it. She was 
 a clear, noble person it was very easy to get on 
 with her. And was she then subject to that appli- 
 cation of the idea of "rank" which made her a 
 kind of historical formation ? Newman had known 
 rank but in the old days of the army where it 
 had not always amounted to very much either; and 
 he had never seen it attributed to women, unless 
 perhaps to two or three rather predominant wives 
 of generals. But the designations representing it in 
 France struck him as ever so pretty and becoming, 
 with a property in the bearer, this particular one, 
 that might match them and make a sense some- 
 thing fair and softly bright, that had motions of ex- 
 traordinary lightness and indeed a whole new and 
 unfamiliar play of emphasis and pressure, a new 
 way, that is, of not insisting and not even, as one 
 might think, wanting or knowing, yet all to the effect 
 of attracting and pleasing. She had at last thought of 
 something to say. 4< Have you many friends in Paris 
 so that you go out a great deal ?" 
 
 He considered about going out. "Do you mean 
 if I go to parties ? " 
 
 122 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Do you go dans le monde, as we say ? " 
 
 "I've seen a good many people. Mrs. Tristram 
 at least tells me I have. She has taken me about. I do 
 whatever she bids me." 
 
 " By yourself then you're not fond of amusements ?" 
 
 "Oh yes, of some sorts. I 'm not fond of very fast 
 rushing about, or of sitting up half the night; I'm 
 too old and too heavy. But I want to be amused; 
 I came to Europe for that." 
 
 She appeared to think a moment, and then with 
 a smile: " But I thought one can be so much amused 
 in America." 
 
 "I could n't; perhaps I was too much part of the 
 show. That's never such fun, you know, for the 
 animals themselves." 
 
 At this moment young Madame de Bellegarde 
 came back for another cup of tea, accompanied by 
 Count Valentin. Madame de Cintre, when she had 
 served her, began to talk again with Newman and 
 recalled what he had last said. "In your own coun- 
 try you were very much occupied ?" 
 
 "I was in active business. I've been in active 
 business since I was fifteen years old." 
 
 "And what was your active business?" asked 
 Madame de Bellegarde, who was decidedly not so 
 pretty as Madame de Cintre. 
 
 "I've been in everything," said Newman. "At 
 one time I sold leather; at one time I manufactured 
 wash-tubs." 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde made a little grimace. 
 "Leather? I don't like that. Wash-tubs are better. 
 I prefer the smell of soap. I hope at least they made 
 - 123 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 your fortune." She rattled this off with the air of a 
 woman who had the reputation of saying everything 
 that came into her head, and with a strong French 
 accent. 
 
 Newman had spoken with conscientious clearness, 
 but Madame de Bellegarde's tone made him go on, 
 after a meditative pause, with a certain light grim- 
 ness of pleasantry. " No, I lost money on wash-tubs, 
 but I came out pretty square on leather." 
 
 "I've made up my mind, after all," said the Mar- 
 quise, "that the great point is how do you call it ? 
 to come out square. I 'm on my knees to money 
 and my worship is as public as you like. If you have 
 it I ask no questions. For that I 'm a real radical 
 like you, monsieur; at least as I suppose you. My 
 belle-sceur is very proud; but I find that one gets 
 much more pleasure in this sad life if one does n't 
 make too many difficulties." 
 
 "Goodness gracious, chere madame, how you rush 
 in!" Count Valentin gaily groaned. 
 
 "He's a man one can speak to, I suppose, since 
 my sister receives him," the lady more covertly an- 
 swered. " Besides, it 's very true; those are my ideas." 
 
 "Ah, you call them ideas?" the young man re- 
 turned in a tone that Newman thought lovely. 
 
 " But Mrs. Tristram told me you had been in the 
 army in your great war," his beautiful sister pur- 
 sued. 
 
 "Yes, but that was not business in the paying 
 sense. I could n't afford it often." 
 
 "Very true!" said Count Valentin, who looked 
 at our hero from head to foot with his peculiar 
 
 124 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 facial play, in which irony and urbanity seemed per- 
 plexingly commingled. "Are you a brave man?" 
 
 "Well, try me." 
 
 "Ah then, there you are! In that case come 
 again." 
 
 "Dear me, what an invitation!" Madame de 
 Cintre murmured with a smile that betrayed em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 "Oh, I want Mr. Newman to come particu- 
 larly," her brother returned. "It will give me great 
 pleasure. I shall feel the loss if I miss one of his visits. 
 But I maintain he must be of high courage. A stout 
 heart, sir, and a firm front." And he offered New- 
 man his hand. 
 
 "I shall not come to see you; I shall come to see 
 Madame de Cintre," said Newman, bent on dis- 
 tinctness. 
 
 "You '11 need, exactly for that, all your arms." 
 
 "Ah de grace! 11 she appealed. 
 
 "Decidedly," cried Madame de Bellegarde, "I'm 
 the only person here capable of saying something 
 polite! Come to see me; you '11 need no courage 
 at all, monsieur." 
 
 Newman gave a laugh which was not altogether 
 an assent; then, shaking hands all round, marched 
 away. Madame de Cintre failed to take up her sis- 
 ter's challenge to be gracious, but she looked with 
 a certain troubled air at the retreating guest. 
 
VII 
 
 ONE evening very late, about five days after this 
 episode, Newman's servant brought him a card which 
 proved to be that of young M. de Bellegarde. When 
 a few moments later he went to receive his visitor 
 he found him standing in the middle of the greatest 
 of his gilded saloons and eyeing it from cornice to 
 carpet. Count Valentin's face, it seemed to him, ex- 
 pressed not less than usual a sense of the inherent 
 comedy of things. "What the devil is he laughing 
 at now?" our hero asked himself; but he put the 
 question without acrimony, for he felt in Madame 
 de Cintre's brother a free and adventurous nature, 
 and he had a presentiment that on this basis of the 
 natural and the bold they were destined to under- 
 stand each other. Only if there was food for mirth 
 he wished to have a glimpse of it too. 
 
 "To begin with," said the young man as he ex- 
 tended his hand, "have 1 come too late?" 
 
 "Too late for what?" 
 
 "To smoke a cigar with you." 
 
 "You would have to come early to do that," New- 
 man said. "1 don't know how to smoke." 
 
 "Ah, you're a strong man!" 
 
 " But I keep cigars," he added. " Sit down." 
 
 His visitor looked about. "Surely I may n't smoke 
 here." 
 
 "What's the matter ? Is the room too small?" 
 126 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "It's too large. It's like smoking in a ball-room 
 or a church." 
 
 "That's what you were laughing at just now?" 
 Newman asked; "the size of my room ?" 
 
 "It's not size only, but splendour and harmony, 
 beauty of detail. It was the smile of sympathy and 
 of admiration." 
 
 Newman looked at him harder and then, "So it 
 is very ridiculous?" he enquired. 
 
 "Ridiculous, my dear sir? It's sublime." 
 
 "That of course is the same thing," said New- 
 man. "Make yourself comfortable. Your coming 
 to see me, I take it, is an act of sympathy and a sign 
 of confidence. You were not obliged to. Therefore 
 if anything round here amuses you it will be all in 
 a pleasant way. Laugh as loud as you please; I like 
 to have my little entertainment a success. Only I 
 must make this request: that you explain the joke 
 to me as soon as you can speak. I don't want to 
 lose anything myself." 
 
 His friend gave him a long look of unresentful 
 perplexity. He laid his hand on his sleeve and seemed 
 on the point of saying something, but suddenly 
 checked himself, leaned back in his chair and puffed 
 at his cigar. At last, however, breaking silence, 
 "Certainly," he began, "my coming to see you is the 
 frank demonstration you recognise. I have been, 
 nevertheless, in a measure encouraged or urged 
 to the step. My sister, in a word, has asked it of me, 
 and a request from my sister is, for me, a law. I was 
 near you just now and I observed lights in what I 
 supposed to be your rooms. It was not a ceremonious 
 ^ 127 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 hour for making a call, but I was not sorry to do 
 something that would show me as not performing 
 a mere ceremony." 
 
 "Well, here I am for you as large as life," saitf 
 Newman as he extended his legs. 
 
 "I don't know what you mean," the young man 
 went on, "by giving me unlimited leave to laugh. 
 Certainly I'm a great laugher; it's the only way, 
 in general, is n't it ? not to well, not to crever 
 d* ennui. But it's not in order that we may laugh 
 together or separately that I have, I may say, 
 sought your acquaintance. To speak with a con- 
 fidence and a candour which I find rapidly getting 
 the better of me, you have interested me without 
 having done me the honour, I think, in the least 
 to try for it by having acted so consistently in 
 your own interest: that, I mean, of your enlight- 
 ened curiosity." All this was uttered, to Newman's 
 sense, with a marked proficiency, as from a habit of 
 intercourse that was yet not "office" intercourse, 
 and, in spite of the speaker's excellent English, with 
 the perfect form, as our friend supposed, of the 
 superlative Frenchman; but there was at the same 
 time something in it of a more personal and more 
 pressing intention. What this might prove to have 
 foi him Newman suddenly found himself rather 
 yearning to know. M. de Bellegarde was a foreigner 
 to the last roll of his so frequent rotary r; and if he 
 had met him out in bare Arizona he would have felt 
 it proper to address him with a "How-d'ye-do, 
 Mosseer?" Yet there was that in his physiognomy 
 which seemed to suspend a bold bridge of gilt wire 
 
 128 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 over the impassable gulf produced by difference of 
 race. He was but middling high and of robust and 
 agile aspect. Valentin de Bellegaide, his host was 
 afterwards to learn, had a mortal dread of not keep- 
 ing the robustness down sufficiently to keep the 
 agility up; he was afraid of growing stout; he was 
 too short a story as he said, to afford an important 
 digression. He rode and fenced and practised gym- 
 nastics with unremitting zeal, and you could n*t 
 congratulate him on his appearance without making 
 him turn pale at yout imputation of its increase. He 
 had a round head, high above the ears, a crop of 
 hair at once dense and silky, a broad, low forehead, 
 a short nose, of the ironical and enquiring rather 
 than of the dogmatic or sensitive cast, and a mous- 
 tache as delicate as that of a page in a romance. He 
 resembled his sister riot in feature, but in the ex- 
 pression of his fair open eyes, completely void, as 
 they were in his case, of introspection, and in the fine 
 freshness of his smile, which was like a gush of crys- 
 talline water. The charm of his face was above all 
 in its being intensely, being frankly, ardently, gal- 
 lantly alive. You might have seen it in the form of 
 a bell with the long "pull" dangling in the young 
 man's conscious soul; at a touch of the silken cord 
 the silver sound would fill the air. There was some- 
 thing in this quick play which assured you he was 
 not economising his consciousness, not living in a 
 corner of it to spare the furniture of the rest. He waf 
 squarely encamped in the centre and was keeping 
 open house. When he flared into gaiety it was the 
 movement of a hand that in emptying a cup turn* 
 * 120 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 it upside down; he gave you all the strength of the 
 liquor. He inspired Newman with something of 
 the kindness our hero used to feel in his earlier 
 years for those of his companions who could per- 
 form strange and clever tricks make their joint;; 
 crack in queer places or whistle at the back of theii 
 mouths. "My sister told me," he said, "that i ought 
 to come and remove the impression 1 had taken such 
 apparent pains to produce on you; the impression of 
 my labouring under some temporary disorder. Did 
 it strike you that what 1 said did n't make a sense ?" 
 
 "Well, I thought I had never seen any one like 
 you in real life/' Newman returned. "Not in real 
 quiet home life." 
 
 "Ah then Claire's right." And Count Valentin 
 watched his host for a moment through his smoke- 
 wreaths. " And yet even if it is the case 1 think we 
 had better let it stand. 1 had no idea of putting you 
 oft" by any violence of any kind; 1 wanted on the 
 contrary to produce a favourable impression. Since 
 I did nevertheless make a fool of myself 1 was per- 
 haps luckily inspired, for 1 must n't seem to set up 
 a claim for consistency which, in the sequel of our 
 acquaintance, 1 may by no means justify. Set me 
 down as a shocking trifler with intervals of high 
 lucidity and even of extraordinary energy." 
 
 "Oh, 1 guess you know what you're about," 
 said Newman. 
 
 "When I'm sane I'm very sane; that I admit," 
 his guest returned. " But 1 did n't come here to talk 
 about myself. I should like to ask you a few ques- 
 tions. You allow me?" 
 
 130 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Well, give me a specimen." 
 
 **You live here all alone?" 
 
 "Absolutely. With whom should I live?" 
 
 "For the moment," smiled M. de Bellegarde, "I'm 
 asking questions, not answering them. You've come 
 over to Paris for your pleasure?" 
 
 Newman had a pause. "Every one asks me that!" 
 he said with his almost pathetic plainness. "It 
 sounds quite foolish as if I were to get my pleas- 
 ure somehow under a writ of extradition." 
 
 "But at any rate you've a reason for being 
 here." 
 
 "Oh, call it for my pleasure!" said Newman. 
 "Though it represents me as trying to reclaim a hope- 
 less absentee it describes well enough the logic of my 
 conduct." 
 
 "And you're enjoying what you find ?" 
 
 "Well, I'm keeping my head." 
 
 Count Valentin puffed his cigar again in silence. 
 "For myself," he resumed at last, "I'm entirely at 
 your service. Anything I can do for you will make 
 me very happy. Call on me at your convenience. Is 
 there any one you wish to know anything you 
 wish to see ? It 's a pity you should n't fully avail 
 yourself of Paris." 
 
 "Well, I guess I avail myself," said Newman 
 serenely. "I'm much obliged to you." 
 
 " Honestly speaking," his visitor went on, " there 's 
 something absurd to me in hearing myself make 
 you these offers. They represent a great deal of 
 good-will, but they represent little else. You're 
 a successful man, and I am a rate by which we 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 mean a dead failure and it's a turning of the 
 tables to talk as if 1 could lend you a hand." 
 
 "How does it come that you have n't succeeded ?" 
 Newman ingenuously asked. 
 
 "Oh, I'm not a failure to wring your heart," 
 the young man returned. "I've not fallen from a 
 height, and rny fiasco has made no noise and luckily 
 no scandal. But you stand up, so very straight, for 
 tccomplished facts. You've made a fortune, you've 
 raised an edifice, you're a financial, practical power, 
 you can travel about the world till you've found a 
 soft spot and lie down on it with the consciousness 
 of having earned your rest. And all so fabulously! 
 in the flower of your magnificent manhood. Is 
 not that true ? Well, imagine the exact reverse of 
 all that and you have votre serviteur. I 've done 
 nothing, and there 's not a poor pitiful thing for me 
 to do." 
 
 "Why what's the matter with all the things ?" 
 
 "It would take me time to say. Some day I'll tell 
 you. Meanwhile I 'm right, eh ? You 're a horrid 
 success? You've made more money than was ever 
 made before by one so young and so candid? It's 
 none of my business, but in short you're beastly 
 rich?" 
 
 "That's another thing it sounds foolish to say," 
 said Newman. " Do you think that 's all I am ? " 
 
 "No, I think you're original that's why I'm 
 here. We're very different, you and I, as products, 
 I'm sure; I don't believe there's a subject on which 
 we judge or feel alike. But I rather guess we 
 shall get on, for there 's such a thing, you know. 
 
 13* 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 as being like fish and fowl too different to 
 quarrel." 
 
 "Oh, I never quarrel," said Newman rather 
 shortly. 
 
 "You mean you just shoot? Well, I notify you 
 that till I'm shot," his visitor declared, "I shall have 
 had a greater sense of safety with you than I have 
 perhaps ever known in any relation of life. And as 
 a sense of danger is clearly a thing impossible to you, 
 we shall therefore be all right." 
 
 With the preamble embodied in these remarks 
 he paid our hero a long visit; as the two men sat with 
 their heels on Newman's glowing hearth they heard 
 the small hours of the morning strike larger from 
 a far-off belfry. Valentin de Bellegarde was by his 
 own confession at all times a great chatterer, and on 
 this occasion the habit of promptness of word and 
 tone was on him almost as a fever. It was a tradition 
 of his race that people of its blood always conferred 
 a favour by their attentions, and, as his real con- 
 fidence was as rare as his general surface was bright, 
 he had a double reason for never fearing his friend- 
 ship could be importunate. Late blossom though 
 he might be, moreover, of an ancient stem, tradi- 
 tion (since 1 have used the word) had in his nature 
 neither visible guards nor alarms, but was as muffled 
 in sociability and urbanity as an old dowager in her 
 laces and strings of pearls. Valentin was by the 
 measure of the society about him a gentilhomme 
 of purest strain, and his rule of life, so far as it was 
 definite, had been to keep up the character. This, 
 it seemed to him, might agreeably engage a young 
 
 133 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 man of ordinary good parts. But he attained his 
 best values by instinct rather than by theory, and 
 the amiability of his character was so great that 
 certain of the aristocratic virtues lost, at his touch, 
 their rigour without losing, as it were, their temper. 
 In his younger years he had been suspected of low 
 tastes, and his mother had greatly feared from him 
 some such slip in the common mire as might be- 
 spatter the family shield. He had been treated 
 therefore to more than his share of schooling and 
 drilling, but his instructors had not succeeded in 
 mounting him upon stilts. They had never troubled 
 his deepest depths of serenity, and he had remained 
 somehow as fortunate as he was rash. He had long 
 been tied with so short a rope, however, that he had 
 now a mortal grudge against family discipline. He 
 had been known to say within the limits bf the fam- 
 ily that, featherhead though he might be, the honour 
 of the name was safer in his hands than in those of 
 some of its other members, and that if a day ever 
 came to try it they would see. He had missed no 
 secret for making high spirits consort with good 
 manners, and he seemed to Newman, as afterwards 
 young members of the Latin races often seemed to 
 him, now almost infantile and now appallingly ma- 
 ture. In America, Newman reflected, " growing " men 
 had old heads and young hearts, or at least young 
 morals ; here they had young heads and very aged 
 hearts, morals the most grizzled and wrinkled. 
 
 "What I envy you is your liberty," Count Valentin 
 found occasion to observe ; "your wide range, your 
 freedom to come and go, your not having a lot of 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 people, who take themselves all too seriously, ex- 
 pecting something of you. I live/' he added with 
 a sigh, "beneath the eyes of my admirable mother/' 
 
 "Is n't it then your own fault ? What's to hinder 
 your ranging?" Newman asked. 
 
 "There's a delightful simplicity in that question. 
 Everything in life is to hinder it. To begin with I 
 have n't a penny." 
 
 "Well, 1 had n't a penny when 1 began to range." 
 
 "Ah, but your poverty was your capital! Being 
 of your race and stamp, it was impossible you should 
 remain what you were born, and being born poor 
 do I understand it ? it was therefore inevitable 
 you should become as different from that as possible. 
 You were in a position that makes one's mouth water; 
 you looked round you and saw a world full of things 
 you had only to step up to and take hold of. When 
 I was twenty 1 looked round me and saw a world 
 with everything ticketed * Don't touch,' and the 
 deuce of it was that the ticket seemed meant only 
 for me. 1 could n't go into business, I could n't 
 make money, because I was a Bellegarde. I could n't 
 go into politics because 1 was a Bellegarde the 
 Bellegardes don't recognise the Bonapartes. I 
 could n't go into literature because I was a dunce. 
 I could n't marry a rich girl because no Bellegarde 
 had for ages married a rotunere and it was n't urgent 
 I should deviate. We shall have to face it, how- 
 ever you'll see. Marriageable heiresses, de notre 
 lord, are not to be had for nothing; it must be name 
 for name and fortune for fortune. The only thing 
 I could do was to go and fight for the Pope. That 
 
 -135 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 I did, punctiliously, and received an apostolic flesn- 
 wound at Castelfidardo. It did neither the Holy 
 Father nor me any good that I could make out, 
 Rome was doubtless a very amusing place in the 
 days of Heliogabalus, but it has sadly fallen off since. 
 I was immured for three years, like some of the 
 choicest scoundrels in history, in the castle of Saint 
 Angelo, and then I came back to secular life." 
 
 Newman followed very much as he had followed 
 ciceroni through museums. "So you've no active 
 interest ? you do absolutely nothing ? " 
 
 "As hard as ever I can. Pm supposed to amuse 
 myself and to pass my time, and, to tell the truth, 
 I've had some good moments. They come some- 
 how, in spite of one, and the thing is then to recog- 
 nise them. But you can't keep on the watch for them 
 for ever. I'm good for three or four years more 
 perhaps, but I foresee that after that I shall spring 
 a leak and begin to sink. I shan't float any more, 
 I shall go straight to the bottom. Then, at the bot- 
 tom, what shall I do ? 1 think I shall turn monk. 
 Seriously, I think I shall tie a rope round my waist 
 and go into a monastery. It was an old custom and 
 she old customs were very good. People understood 
 life quite as well as we do. They kept the pot boiling 
 till it cracked, and then put it on the shelf altogether." 
 
 " Do you attend church regularly ? " asked New- 
 man in a tone which gave the enquiry a quaint effect. 
 
 His friend evidently appreciated this element, yet 
 looked at him with due decorum. *' I 'm a very good 
 Catholic. I cherish the Faith. I adore the blessed 
 Virgin. I fear the Father of Lies." 
 
 136 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Well then," said Newman, "you're very well 
 fixed. You've got pleasure in the present and para- 
 dise in the future: what do you complain of?" 
 
 44 It 's a part of one's pleasure to complain. There 's 
 something in your own situation that rubs me up. 
 You're the first man about whom I've ever found 
 myself saying *Oh, if I were he !' It's singular, 
 r>ut so it is. I 've known many men who, besides any 
 factitious advantages that I may possess, had money 
 and brains into the bargain, yet they've never dis- 
 turbed my inward peace. You've got something it 
 worries me to have missed. It's not money, it's not 
 even brains though evidently yours have been 
 excellent for your purpose. It 's not your superfluous 
 stature, though I should have rather liked to be a 
 couple of inches taller. It's a sort of air you have 
 of being imperturbably, being irremoveably and 
 indestructibly (that's the thing!) at home in the 
 world. When I was a boy my father assured me 
 it was by just such an air that people recognised a 
 Bellegarde. He called my attention to it. He did n'l 
 advise me to cultivate it; he said that as we grew 
 up it always came of itself. I supposed it had come 
 to me because 1 think I've always had the feeling 
 it represents. My place in life had been made for 
 me and it seemed easy to occupy. But you who, as 
 I understand it, have made your own place, you who, 
 as you told us the other day, have made and solrf 
 articles of vulgar household use you strike me, 
 in a fashion of your own, as a man who stands about 
 at his ease and looks straight over ever so many high 
 walls. I seem to see you move everywhere like a big 
 
 137 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 stockholder on his favourite railroad. You make me 
 feel awfully my want of shares. And yet the world 
 used to be supposed to be ours. What is it 1 miss ?" 
 
 "It's the proud consciousness of honest toil, of 
 having produced something yourself that somebody 
 has been willing to pay you for since that 's the 
 definite measure. Since you speak of my wash-tubs 
 which were lovely is n't it just they and their 
 loveliness that make up my good conscience ? " 
 
 "Oh no; I've seen men who had gone beyond 
 wash-tubs, who had made mountains of soap 
 strong-smelling yellow soap, in great bars; and 
 they've left me perfectly cold." 
 
 "Then it's just the regular treat of being an 
 American citizen/' said Newman. "That sets a man 
 right up." 
 
 "Possibly," his guest returned; "but I'm forced 
 to say I 've seen a great many American citizens who 
 did n't seem at all set up or in the least like large 
 stockholders. I never envied them. 1 rather think 
 the thing's some diabolical secret of your own." 
 
 "Oh come," Newman laughed, "you'll persuade 
 me against my humility " 
 
 "No, I shall persuade you of nothing. You've 
 nothing to do with humility any more than with 
 swagger: that's just the essence of your confounded 
 coolness. People swagger only when they've some- 
 thing to lose, and show their delicacy only when 
 they 've something to gain." 
 
 **I don't know what I may have to lose," said 
 Newman, "but I can quite see a situation in which 
 I should have something to gain." 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 His visitor looked at him hard. ** A situation ?" 
 
 Newman hesitated. " Well, 1 '11 tell you more about 
 it when I know you better." 
 
 44 Ah, you'll soon know me by heart!" the young 
 man sighed as he departed. 
 
 During the next three weeks they met again several 
 times arid, without formally swearing an eternal 
 friendship, fell, for their course of life, instinctively 
 into step together. Valentin de Bellegarde was to 
 Newman the typical, ideal Frenchman, the French- 
 man of tradition and romance, so far as our hero was 
 acquainted with these mystic fields. Gallant, ex- 
 pansive, amusing, more pleased himself with the 
 effect he produced than those (even when they were 
 quite duly pleased) for whom he produced it; a 
 master of all the distinctively social virtues and a 
 votary of all the agreeable sensations; a devotee of 
 something mysterious and sacred to which he occa- 
 sionally alluded in terms more ecstatic even than 
 those in which he spoke of the last pretty woman, 
 and which was simply the beautiful though some- 
 what superannuated image of personal Honour; 
 he was irresistibly entertaining and enlivening, and 
 he formed a character to which Newman was as 
 capable of doing justice when he had once been 
 placed in contact with it as he was unlikely, in musing 
 upon the possible combinations of the human mix- 
 ture, mentally to have foreshadowed it. No two 
 parties to an alliance could have come to it from a 
 wider separation, but it was what each brought out 
 of the queer dim distance that formed the odd attrac- 
 tion for the other. 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Valentin lived in the basement of an old house in 
 the Rue d'Anjou Saint Honore, and his small apart* 
 ments lay between the court of the house and a gar- 
 den of equal antiquity, which spread itself behind 
 one of those large, sunless, humid gardens into 
 which you look unexpectingly in Paris from back 
 windows, wondering how among the grudging habita- 
 tions they find their space. When Newman presently 
 called on him it was to hint that such quarters 
 were, though in a different way, at least as funny 
 as his own. Their oddities had another sense than 
 those of our hero's gilded saloons on the Boulevard 
 Haussmann: the place was low, dusky, contracted, 
 and was crowded with curious bric-a-brac. Their pro- 
 prietor, penniless patrician though he might be, was 
 an insatiable collector, and his walls were covered 
 with rusty arms and ancient panels and platters, his 
 doorways draped in faded tapestries, his floors muffled 
 in the skins of beasts. Here and there was one of 
 those uncomfortable tributes to elegance in which the 
 French upholsterer's an is prolific; a curtained recess 
 with a sheet of looking-glass as dark as a haunted 
 pool; a divan on which, for its festoons and furbe- 
 lows, you could no more sit down than on a dow- 
 ager's lap; a fireplace draped, flounced, frilled, by 
 the same analogy, to the complete exclusion of fire. 
 The young man's possessions were in picturesque 
 disorder, and his apartment pervaded by the odour 
 of cigars, mingled, for inhalation, with other dim 
 ghosts of past presences. Newman thought it, as 
 a home, damp, gloomy and perverse, and was pua> 
 xled by the romantic incoherence of the furniture. 
 
 140 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 The charming Count, like most of his country- 
 men, hid none of his lights under a bushel and made 
 little of a secret of the more interesting passages of 
 his personal history. He had inevitably a vast deal 
 to say about women, and could frequently indulge 
 in sentimental and ironical apostrophes to these 
 authors of his joys and woes. "Oh, the women, the 
 women, and the things they've made me do!" he 
 would exclaim with a wealth of reference. " C 'est 
 egal^ of all the follies and stupidities I 've committed 
 for them there is n't one I would have missed!" On 
 this subject Newman maintained an habitual re- 
 serve; to make it shine in the direct light of one's 
 own experience had always seemed to him a pro- 
 ceeding vaguely analogous to the cooing of pigeons 
 and the chattering of monkeys, and even inconsistent 
 with a fully-developed human character. But his 
 friend's confidences greatly amused and rarely dis- 
 pleased him, for the garden of the young man's past 
 appeared to have begun from the earliest moment to 
 bloom with rare flowers, amid which memory was 
 as easy as a summer breeze. "I really think," he 
 once said, "that I'm not more depraved than most 
 of my contemporaries. They 're joliment depraved, 
 my contemporaries!" He threw off wonderfully 
 pretty things about his female friends and, numerous 
 and various as they had been, declared that his curt 
 osity had survived the ordeal. " But you *re not to 
 take that as advice," he added, "for as an authority 
 I must be misleading. I 'm prejudiced in their favour; 
 I'm a sentimental in other words a donkey." 
 Newman listened with an uncommitted smile and 
 
 .141 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 was glad, for his own sake, that he had line feelings; 
 but he mentally repudiated the idea of a Frenchman's 
 having discovered any merit in the amiable sex he 
 himself did n't suspect. Count Valentin, however, 
 was not merely anecdotic and indiscreet; he wel- 
 comed every light on our hero's own life, and so far 
 as his revelations might startle and waylay Newman 
 could cap them as from the long habit of capping. 
 He narrated his career, in fact, from the beginning, 
 through all its variations, and whenever his com- 
 panion's credulity or his "standards" appeared to 
 protest it amused him to heighten the colour of the 
 episode. He had sat with Western humourists in 
 circles round cast-iron stoves and seen "tall" stories 
 grow taller without toppling over, and his imagina- 
 tion had learnt the trick of building straight and 
 high. The Count's regular attitude became at last 
 that of lively self-defence; to mark the difference 
 of his type from that of the occasionally witless he 
 cultivated the wit of never being caught swallowing. 
 The result of this was that Newman found it impos- 
 sible to convince him of certain time-honoured ver- 
 ities. 
 
 "But the details don't matter," Valentin said, 
 "since you've evidently had some such surprising 
 adventures. You've seen some strange sides of life, 
 you 've revolved to and fro over a continent as 1 walk 
 up and down the Boulevard. You're a man of the 
 world to a livelier tune than ours. You've spent 
 some awful, some deadly days, and you 've done 
 some extremely disagreeable things: you've shov- 
 elled sand, as a boy, for supper, and you 've eaten 
 
 142 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 boiled cat in a gold-digger's camp. You 've stood 
 casting up figures for ten hours at a time and you've 
 sat through Methodist sermons for the sake of look- 
 ing at a pretty girl in another pew. It can't all have 
 been very folichon. But at any rate you've done 
 something and you arc something; you've used your 
 faculties and you've developed your character. 
 You've not akruti yourself with debauchery, and 
 you've not mortgaged your fortune to social con- 
 veniencies. You take things as it suits you, and you 've 
 fewer prejudices even than I, who pretend to have 
 none, but who in reality have three or four that stand 
 in my way. Happy man, you 're strong and you 're 
 free nothing stands in yours. But what the 
 deuce," he wound up, ** do you propose to do with 
 such advantages ? Really to use them you need a 
 better world than this. There's nothing worth your 
 while here." 
 
 "Oh, I guess there's something," Newman said. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Well," he sighed, "I'll tell you some other 
 time!" 
 
 In this way he delayed from day to day broaching 
 a subject he had greatly at heart. Meanwhile, how- 
 ever, he was growing practically familiar with it; 
 in other words he had called again, three times, on 
 Madame de Cintre. On but two of these occasions 
 had he found her at home and on each of them she 
 had other visitors. Her visitors were numerous and, 
 to our hero's sense, vociferous, and they exacted much 
 of their hostess's attention. She found time none the 
 less to bestow a little of it on the stranger, a quantity 
 
 H3 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 represented in an occasional vague smile the very 
 vagueness of which pleased him by allowing him to 
 fill it out mentally, both at the time and afterwards, 
 with such meanings as most fitted. He sat by without 
 speaking, looking at the entrances and exits, the 
 greetings and chatterings, of Madame de Cintre's 
 guests. He felt as if he were at the play and as if his 
 own speaking would be an interruption; some- 
 times he wished he had a book to follow the dialogue; 
 he half expected to see a woman in a white cap and 
 pink ribbons come and offer him one for two francs. 
 Some of the ladies gave him a very hard or a very 
 soft stare, as he chose; others seemed profoundly 
 unconscious of his presence. The men looked only 
 at the mistress of the scene. This was inevitable, 
 for whether one called her beautiful or not she en- 
 tirely occupied and filled one's vision, quite as an 
 ample, agreeable sound filled one's ear. Newman 
 carried away after no more than twenty distinct 
 words with her an impression to which solemn pro- 
 mises could not have given a higher value. She was 
 part of the play he was seeing acted, as much a part 
 of it as her companions, but how she filled the stage 
 and how she bore watching, not to say studying and 
 throwing bouquets to! Whether she rose or seated 
 herself; whether she went with her departing friends 
 to the door and lifted up the heavy curtain as they 
 passed out and stood an instant looking after them 
 and giving them the last nod; or whether she leaned 
 back in her chair with her arms crossed and her eyes 
 quiet, her face listening and smiling, she made this 
 particular guest desire to have her always before him, 
 
 U4 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 moving through every social office open to the genius 
 of woman, or in other words through the whole range 
 of exquisite hospitality. If it might be hospitality to 
 him it would be well; if it might be hospitality for 
 him it would be still better. She was so high yet so 
 slight, so active yet so still, so elegant yet so simple, 
 so present yet so withdrawn! It was this unknown 
 quantity that figured for him as a mystery; it was 
 what she was off the stage, as he might feel, that 
 interested him most of all. He could not have told 
 you what warrant he had for talking of mysteries; 
 if it had been his habit to express himself in poetic 
 figures he might have said that in observing her he 
 seemed to see the vague circle sometimes attending 
 the partly-filled disc of the moon. It was not that 
 she was effaced, and still less that she was "shy"; 
 she was, on the contrary, as distinct as the big figure 
 on a banknote and of as straightforward a pro- 
 fession. But he was sure she had qualities as yet 
 unguessed even by herself and that it was kept for 
 Christopher Newman to bring out. 
 
 He had abstained for several reasons from saying 
 some of these things to her brother. One reason was 
 that before proceeding to any act he was always cir- 
 cumspect, conjectural, contemplative; he had little 
 eagerness, as became a man who felt that whenever 
 he really began to move he walked with long steps. 
 And then it just pleased, it occupied and excited him, 
 not to give his case, as he would have said, prematurely 
 away. But one day Valentine as Newman con- 
 venientlv sounded the name had been dining with 
 him on the boulevard and their sociability was such 
 
 .145 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 that they had sat long over their dinner. Cn rising 
 from it the young man proposed that, to help them 
 through the rest of the evening, they should go and 
 see Madame Dandelard. Madame Dandelard was 
 a little Italian lady married to a Frenchman who 
 had proved a rake and a brute and the torment of her 
 life. Her husband had spent all her money and then, 
 lacking further means for alien joys, had taken, in 
 his more intimate hours, to beating her. She had 
 a blue spot somewhere which she showed to several 
 persons, including the said Valentine. She had ob- 
 tained a legal separation, collected the scraps of her 
 fortune, which were meagre, and come to live in 
 Paris, where she was staying at an hotel garni. She 
 was always looking for an apartment and visiting, 
 with a hundred earnest questions and measurements, 
 those of other people. She was very pretty and child- 
 like and made very extraordinary remarks. Valentin 
 enjoyed her acquaintance, and the source of his in- 
 terest in her was, according to his declaration, an 
 anxious curiosity as to what would become of her. 
 "She's poor, she's pretty and she's silly," he said; 
 "it seems to me she can go only one way. It's a pity, 
 but it can't be helped. I '11 give her six months. 
 She has nothing to fear from me, but I 'm watching 
 the process. It's merely a question of the how and 
 the when and the where. Yes, I know what you 're 
 going to say; this horrible Paris hardens one's heart. 
 But it quickens one's wits, and it ends by teaching 
 one a refinement of observation. To see this little 
 woman's little drama play itself out is now for me 
 a pleasure of the mind." 
 
 146 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " IF she 's going to throw herself away," Newman 
 had said, "you ought to stop her." 
 
 " Stop her ? How stop her ? " 
 
 "Talk to her; give her some good advice." 
 
 At which the young man laughed. "'Some'? 
 How much? Heaven deliver us both! Imagine the 
 situation. Try giving her yourself exactly the right 
 
 amount." 
 
 After which it was that Newman had gone 
 with him to see Madame Dandelard. When they 
 came away Valentin reproached his companion. 
 " Where was your famous advice ? I did n't hear 
 a word of it." 
 
 "Oh, I give it up," Newman simply answered. 
 
 "Then you 're as bad as I!" 
 
 "No, because I don't find it a pleasure of the mind 
 to watch her prospective adventures. I don't in the 
 least want to see her going down hill. I had rather 
 look the other way. But why," our friend asked in 
 a moment, " don't you get your sister to go and see 
 her?" 
 
 His companion stared. "Go and see Madame 
 Dandelard my sister ? " 
 
 "She might talk to her to very good purpose." 
 
 Valentin shook his head with sudden gravity. 
 " My sister does n't have relations with that sort of 
 person. Madame Dandelard 's nothing at all; they'd 
 
 never meet." 
 
 "I should think," Newman returned, "that Ma- 
 dame de Cintre might see whom she pleased." And 
 he privately resolved that, after he should know her 
 a little better, he would ask her to go and pick up, 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 for such "pressing" as might be possible, the little 
 spotted blown leaf in the dusty Parisian alley. When 
 they had dined, at all events, on the occasion I have 
 mentioned, he demurred to the latter's proposal that 
 they should go again and "draw" the lady on the 
 subject of her bruises. "I've something better in 
 mind; come home with me and finish the evening 
 before my fire." 
 
 Valentin always rose to any implied appeal to his 
 expository gift, and before long the two men sat 
 watching the blaze play over the pomp of Newman's 
 high saloon. 
 
VIII 
 
 here I want to know about your sister," 
 the elder abruptly began. 
 
 His visitor arched fine eyebrows. "Now that I 
 think of it you Ve never yet made her the subject of 
 a question." 
 
 "Well, I guess I know why." 
 
 "If it's because you don't trust me, you're very 
 right," said Valentin. "I can't talk of her rationally. 
 I admire her too much." 
 
 "Talk of her as you can," Newman returned, 
 " and if I don't like it I '11 stop you." 
 
 "Well we're very good friends; such a brother 
 and sister as have n't been known since Orestes and 
 Electra. You've seen her enough to have taken her 
 in: tall, slim, imposing, gentle, half a grande dame 
 and half an angel; a mixture of 'type' and sim- 
 plicity, of the eagle and the dove. She looks like 
 a statue that has failed as cold stone, resigned itself 
 to its defects and come to life as flesh and blood, to 
 wear white capes and long soft trains. All I can say 
 is that she really possesses every merit that the face 
 she has, the eyes she has, the smile she has, the 
 tone of voice she has, the whole way she has, lead 
 you to expect; and is n't it saying quite enough ? As 
 a general thing when a woman seems from the first 
 as right as that, she's altogether wrong you've 
 only to look out. But in proportion as you take 
 
 149 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Claire for right you may fold your arms and let 
 yourself float with the current; you're safe. You'll 
 only never imagine a person so true and so straight. 
 She's so honest and so gentille. I've never seen a 
 woman half so charming. She has every blessed 
 thing a man wants and more; that's all I can say 
 p-bout her. There!" Valentin concluded: "I told you 
 how much I should bore you." 
 
 Newman uttered no assurance that he was not 
 bored; he only said after a little: "She's remark- 
 ably good, eh ? " 
 
 "She'd have invented goodness if it did n't exist. 1 ' 
 
 " It seems to me," Newman remarked, "that you 'd 
 have invented her ! But it's all right," he added 
 "I'd have invented you! Is she clever?" he then 
 asked. 
 
 "Try her with something you think so yourself. 
 Then you'll see." 
 
 "Oh, how can I try her?" sighed Newman with 
 a lapse. But he picked himself up. "Is she fond of 
 admiration ?" 
 
 "Pardieu!" cried Valentin. "She'd be no sister 
 of mine if she were n't. What woman 's not ? " 
 
 "Well, when they're too fond of it," Newman 
 heard himself hypocritically temporise, "they com- 
 mit all kinds of follies to get it." 
 
 "I did n't say she was 'too' fond!" Valentin ex- 
 claimed. "Heaven forbid I should say anything so 
 idiotic. She 's not too anything. If I were to say she 's 
 ugly I should n't mean she's <too' ugly. She's fond 
 of pleasing, and if you 're pleased she leaves it so. If 
 you're not pleased she lets it pass, and thinks the 
 
 150 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 worse neither of you nor of herself. I imagine, though, 
 she hopes the saints in heaven are, for I 'm sure 
 she 's incapable of trying to please by any means of 
 which they 'd disapprove." 
 
 "Is she happy then ?" Newman presently pursued. 
 
 "Oh, oh, oh! That 's much to ask." 
 
 "Do you mean for me ? " 
 
 "I mean for her. What should she be happy 
 about ? " 
 
 Newman wondered. "Then she has troubles ?" 
 
 "My dear man, she has what we all have. even 
 you, strange to say. She has a history." 
 
 "That's just what I want to hear," said Newman. 
 
 Valentin hesitated an embarrassment rare with 
 him. "Then we shall have to appoint a special 
 seance, with music or refreshments or a turn outside 
 between the acts. Suffice it for the present that my 
 sister's situation has been far from folichonne. She 
 made, at eighteen, a marriage that was expected to be 
 brilliant, but that, like a lamp that goes out, turned all 
 to smoke and bad smell. M. de Cintre was fifty-five 
 years old and pas du tout aimable. He lived, how- 
 ever, but three or four years, and after his death 
 his family pounced upon his money, brought a law- 
 suit against his widow, pushed things very hard. 
 Their case was good, for M. de Cintre, who had been 
 trustee for some of his relatives, appeared to have 
 been guilty of some very irregular practices. In the 
 course of the suit some revelations were made as to 
 his private history which my sister found so little to 
 her taste that she ceased to defend herself and washed 
 her hands of all her interests. This required some 
 
 151 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 strength of conviction, for she was between two fires, 
 her husband's family opposing her and her own 
 family denouncing. My mother and my brother 
 wished her to cleave to what they regarded as her 
 rights. But she resisted firmly and at last bought 
 her freedom obtained my mother's assent to her 
 compromising the suit at the price of a promise." 
 
 "What was the promise?" 
 
 "To do anything else whatever, for the next ten 
 years, that might be asked of her anything, that 
 is, but rnarry." 
 
 "She had disliked her husband very much ?" 
 
 "No one knows how much!" 
 
 "The marriage had been made in your vicious 
 French way," Newman continued "by the two 
 families and without her having a voice?" 
 
 " It was a first act for a melodrama. She saw M. de 
 Cintr for the first time a month before the wedding, 
 after everything, to the minutest detail, had been 
 arranged. She turned white when she looked at him 
 and white she remained I shall never forget her 
 face till her wedding-day. The evening before the 
 ceremony her nerves completely gave way and she 
 spent the whole night in sobs. My mother sat holding 
 her two hands and my brother walked up and down 
 the room. I declared it was revolting and told my 
 sister publicly that if she would really hold out I 
 would stand by her against all comers. I was sent 
 about my business and she became Comtesse de 
 Cintre." 
 
 "Your brother," said Newman reflectively, "must 
 be a very nice young man." 
 
 10 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " He 's very nice, though he 's not very young. He 's 
 now upwards of fifty; fifteen years my senior. He has 
 been a father to my sister and me. He's a type apart; 
 he has the best manners in France. He's extremely 
 clever; indeed he's full of accomplishment. He's 
 writing a history of The Unmarried Princesses of 
 the Maison de France." This was said by Valentin 
 with extreme gravity, in a tone that betokened no 
 mental reservation or that at least almost be- 
 tokened none. 
 
 Our friend perhaps discovered there what little 
 there was, for he presently said: "You could struggle 
 along without your brother." 
 
 " I beg your pardon " the young man still as 
 gravely protested. "A house like ours is inevitably 
 
 yy 
 
 one. 
 
 "Then you want some one to come right in and 
 break it up." 
 
 "Hem?" said Valentin. 
 
 On which Newman, after an instant, put the 
 matter another way. "Well, I'm glad I'm free not 
 to like him!" 
 
 "Wait till you know him!" Valentin returned 
 and this time he smiled. 
 
 "Is your mother also then a type apart?" his 
 friend asked after a pause. 
 
 " For my mother," the young man said, now with 
 intense gravity, "I have the highest admiration. 
 She's a very extraordinary person. You can't ap* 
 proach her without feeling it." 
 
 "She's the daughter, I believe, of an Englisl 
 nobleman?" 
 
 '53 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 u Of Lord Saint Dunstans." 
 
 "And was he very grand ?" 
 
 "Not as grand as we. They date only from the 
 sixteenth century. It is on my father's side that we 
 go back back, back, back. The family antiquaries 
 themselves lose breath. At last they stop, panting 
 and fanning themselves, somewhere in the ninth 
 century, under Charlemagne. That's where we 
 begin." 
 
 " There is no mistake about it ? " Newman de- 
 manded. 
 
 "I'm sure I hope not. We've been mistaken at 
 least for several centuries." 
 
 " And you 've always married into what do you 
 call them ? * ancient houses ' ? " 
 
 "As a rule; though in so long a stretch of time 
 there have been some exceptions. Three or four 
 Bellegardes, in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies, took wives out of the bourgeoisie accepted 
 lawyers' daughters." 
 
 "A lawyer's daughter that's a come-down?" 
 Newman went on. 
 
 "A condescension. But one of us, in the Middle 
 Ages, did better: he married a beggar-maid, like 
 King Cophetua. That was really more convenient^ 
 it was like pairing with a bird or a monkey; one 
 did n't have to think about her family at all. Our 
 women have always done well; they've never ever* 
 gone into the petite noblesse. There is, I believe, not 
 a case on record of a misalliance among ces dames" 
 
 Newman turned this over a while and then at 
 last: "You offered, the first time you came to see 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 me, to render me any service you could. I told you 
 I 'd sometime mention something you might do. Do 
 you remember ? " 
 
 " Remember ? I Ve been counting the hours." 
 
 "Very well; here's your chance. Do what you 
 can to make your sister think well of me." 
 
 The young man had a strange bright stare. "Why, 
 I 'm sure she thinks as well of you as possible al 
 ready." 
 
 "An opinion founded on seeing me three or four 
 rimes? That's putting me off with very little. I want 
 something more. I Ve been thinking of it a good deal 
 and at last I've decided to tell you. I should like 
 very much to marry Madame de Cintre." 
 
 Valentin had been looking at him with quickened 
 expectancy and with the smile with which he had 
 greeted his allusion to the promised request. At this 
 last announcement he kept his eyes on him, but their 
 expression went through two or three curious phases. 
 It felt, apparently, an impulse to let itself go further; 
 but this it immediately checked. Then it remained 
 for some instants taking counsel with the danger of 
 hilarity at the end of which it decreed a retreat. 
 It slowly effaced itself and left a sobriety modified 
 by the desire not to be rude. Extreme surprise had 
 in fine come into M. de Bellegarde's face; but he had 
 reflected that it would be uncivil to leave it there. 
 And yet what the deuce was he to do with it ? He got 
 up in his agitation and stood before the chimney- 
 piece, still looking at his host. He was a longer time 
 thinking what to say than one would have expected. 
 
 "If you can't render me the service I ask," New- 
 
 '55 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 man pursued, "don't be afraid to tell me, foi I'll 
 be hanged if I won't get on without you." 
 
 "Let me hear it again distinctly, the service you 
 ask. It 's very important, you know," Valentin went 
 on. "I'm to plead your cause with my sister be- 
 cause you want you want to marry her? That's 
 it, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't say plead my cause exactly; I shall 
 try and do that myself. But say a good word for me 
 now and then let her know at least what you take 
 me for." 
 
 This was, visibly, for the young man, a droll 
 simplification. " I shall have first, my dear fellow, to 
 know myself!" 
 
 But Newman went on unheeding. "What I want 
 chiefly, after all, is just to make you aware of what 
 I have in mind. I suppose that's what you all expect, 
 making you formally aware, is n't it ? I want always 
 to do, over here, what's customary, what you've 
 been used to. You seem more lost without what 
 you 've been used to than we are. If there 's anything 
 particular to be done let me know and I '11 make it 
 right. I would n't for the world approach Madame 
 de Cintre save by schedule. I 'd go in to her on all- 
 fours if that's what's required. If I ought to speak 
 to your mother first why I '11 speak to her. If I ought 
 to speak even to your brother I'll speak to him. 
 I'll speak to any one you like, to the porter in his 
 lodge or the policeman on his beat. As I don't know 
 any one else I begin by speaking to you. But that, if 
 k ; s a social obligation, is a pleasure as well." 
 
 "Yes, I see I see," said Valentin, lightly strok* 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ing his chin. "You've a very right feeling about it, 
 but I'm glad you've begun with me." He paused, 
 hesitated, and then turned away and walked slowly 
 the length of the room. Newman got up and stood 
 leaning against the chimney with his hands in his 
 pockets and his eyes on his friend's evolution. This 
 personage came back and stopped in front of him. 
 " I give it up. I '11 not pretend I 'm not well, im- 
 pressed, lam hugely! Ouf! It's a relief." 
 
 "That sort of news is always a surprise," said New- 
 man. "No matter what you've done, people are 
 never prepared. But if you're impressed I hope at 
 least you 're impressed favourably." 
 
 "Come!" the young man broke out; "I'm going 
 to let you have it. I don't know whether it lays me 
 flat or makes me soar." 
 
 "Well, if it corners you too much I'm afraid 
 you've got to stay there, for I assure you I mean 
 myself to fight out in the open." 
 
 "My dear man, Samson was in the open when he 
 pulled down the temple, but there was n't much left 
 of any one else." To which Valentin added : " You 're 
 perfectly serious ?" 
 
 "Am I a futile Frenchman that I should n't be ?" 
 Newman asked. " But why is it, by the by come 
 to talk that you are prostrated ? " 
 
 The Count raised his hand to the back of his head 
 and rubbed his hair quickly up and down, thrust- 
 ing out the tip of his tongue as he did so. "Well, 
 for instance you're not, as we call it, if I'm not 
 mistaken, 'born." 
 
 "The devil I'm not!" Newman exclaimed. 
 IS7 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Oh," said his friend a little more seriously, ' I 
 did n't know you had well, your quarterings." 
 
 "Ah, your quarterings are your little local mat- 
 ter!" 
 
 Valentin just hesitated. " But are n't we all 
 isn't my admirable sister in particular our little 
 5ocal matter?" 
 
 Newman met his eyes with a long, hard look 
 exhaling at last, however, a sigh as long. "Do you 
 mean that I must claim a social standing and hang 
 out my sign ? What sort of swagger 's that ? If it 's 
 a question of pretensions pretensions, that is, to 
 effectively existing let me make, to meet you on 
 your own ground, the very highest. Only it is n't, it 
 seems to me, for me vulgarly to make them; it's for 
 you, assuming them, to invalidate them. On you, in 
 other words, the burden of disproof." 
 
 Valentin's fine smile suffered a further strain. 
 "Haven't you manufactured and placed in the 
 market certain admirable wash-tubs?" 
 
 "With great temporary success. But it isn't a 
 question of my achievements it 's a question of 
 my failures. You might catch me," said our friend, 
 "on two or three of those. Only then, you know," 
 he added, " I should have the right to ask you about 
 yours." 
 
 "Oh, ours have partaken of our general brilliancy! 
 They have n't at any rate prevented the great thing." 
 
 " And what do you call the great thing ? " 
 
 "Well," Valentin smiled, "our being interesting." 
 
 Newman considered. "To yourselves ?" 
 
 "To the world. That has been our value that 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 we've had the world's attention. We've been felt 
 i]o be worth it." 
 
 "Oh," said Newman, "if it's but a question of 
 what you're worth !" He hung fire an instant, 
 and then, "Should you like to know what / am?" 
 he demanded. 
 
 He had held his companion by his pause, and his 
 words prolonged a little the situation. "No, thanks," 
 Valentin then replied. "It's none of my business. 
 It's enough for me that you're worth, delightfully, 
 my acquaintance and my wonder." 
 
 In recognition of these last words Newman for a mo- 
 ment said nothing. He only coloured as with a flush 
 of hope. Then he raised his eyes to the ceiling and 
 stood looking at one of the rosy cherubs painted on 
 it. "Of course I don't expect to marry any woman 
 for the asking,'* he observed at last: "I expect first to 
 make myself acceptable to her. She must like me 
 to begin with. But what I feel is how she must 
 from the moment she knows me as I want." 
 
 "As the prince of husbands ?" 
 
 " Well yes call it the prince, as you speak of 
 such people." 
 
 "I believe," said Valentin after a moment, "that 
 you'd be as good a prince as another." 
 
 "I should be as good a husband." 
 
 "And that's what you want me to tell my sister ?" 
 
 "That's what I want you to tell her." 
 
 The young man laid his hand on his companion's 
 
 I arm, looked at him critically, from head to foot, and 
 then, with a loud laugh and shaking the other hand 
 in the air, turned away. He walked again the length 
 
 159 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of the room and again he came back and stationed 
 himself in front of Newman. "All this is very in- 
 teresting and very curious. In what I said just now 
 I was speaking not for myself, but for my tradition' 
 and my superstitions. For myself really your idea stir., 
 me up. It startled me at first, but the more I think 
 of it the more I see in it. It's no use attempting to 
 explain anything; you would n't, I think, follow me. 
 After all, I don't see why you need; it's no great 
 loss." 
 
 "Oh, if there's anything more to explain try me 
 with it. I guess I 've had to understand some queerer 
 things than any you're likely to tell." 
 
 "No," said Valentin, "we'll do without them; 
 we '11 let them go. I took you for somebody God 
 knows whom or what the first time I saw you, and 
 I '11 abide by that. It would be quite odious for me 
 to come talking to you as if I could patronise you. 
 I've told you before that I envy you; vous mim- 
 posez, as we say I did n't know you much till these 
 last five minutes. So we'll let things go, and I'll 
 say nothing to you that, with our positions reversed, 
 you would n't say to me." 
 
 I know not whether in renouncing the mysterious 
 opportunity to which he alluded Valentin felt him- 
 self do something very generous. If so he was not 
 rewarded; his generosity was not appreciated. New- 
 man failed to recognise any power to disconcert or 
 to wound him, and he had now no sense of coming 
 off easily. He had not at his command the gratitude 
 even of a glance; and he was in truth occupied with 
 a particular fear, which he presently expressed. "Do 
 
 160 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 you think she may be by chance determined not to 
 marry at all ? " 
 
 "Oh, I quite think it I But that's not necessarily 
 too much against you. Such a determination never 
 yet spoiled a right opportunity." 
 
 " But suppose I don't seem a right one. I 'in afraid 
 it will be hard," Newman said with a gravity that 
 appeared to signify at the same time a sort of lucid 
 respect for the fact. 
 
 " I don't think it will be easy. In a general way 
 I don't see why a widow should ever marry again. 
 She has gained the benefits of matrimony freedom 
 and consideration and she has got rid of the draw- 
 backs. Why should she put her head back into the 
 noose ? Her usual motive is ambition if a man can 
 offer her a great position, make her a princess or an 
 ambassadress." 
 
 "And in that way is Madame de Cintre 
 ambitious ?" 
 
 "Who knows?" her brother asked with slightly 
 depressing detachment. "I don't pretend to say all 
 she is or all she is n't. I think she might be touched 
 by the prospect of becoming the wife of a great man. 
 But in a certain way, I believe, whatever she does 
 will be the improbable. Don't be too confident, but 
 don't absolutely doubt. Your best chance for success 
 will be precisely in affecting her as unusual, unex- 
 pected, original. Don't try to be any one else; be 
 simply yourself as hard as ever you can, and harder 
 perhaps indeed (if you understand) than you've ever 
 been before. Something or other can't fail to come of 
 that. I 'm veiy curious to see what." 
 
 161 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I'm much obliged to you for your curiosity," 
 Newman said "if I may take it as your advice 
 I 'm glad for your sake at least that I 'm likely to prove 
 so amusing." 
 
 His friend, who had been staring at the fire a 
 minute, looked up. " It 's a pity you don't fully under- 
 stand me, that you don't know just what I'm doing." 
 
 "Oh," laughed Newman, "don't do anything 
 wrong! Leave me to myself rather, or defy me out 
 and out to try it. I would n't lay any load on your 
 
 conscience." 
 
 Valentin sprang up again, evidently quite inflamed. 
 "You'll never understand you'll never know; 
 and if you succeed and I turn out to have helped you 
 you '11 never be grateful, not as I shall deserve you 
 should be. You '11 be an excellent fellow always, but 
 you '11 not be grateful. But it does n't matter, for I 
 shall get my own fun out of it." And he broke into 
 an extravagant laugh. "You look worried," he added: 
 "you look almost alarmed." 
 
 "It's a pity," said Newman, "that I don't wholly 
 catch on. I shall lose some very good sport." 
 
 " I told you, you remember, that we 're very strange 
 people," his visitor pursued. " Well, I give you warn- 
 ing again. We 're fit for a museum or a Balzac novel. 
 My mother's strange, my brother's strange, and I 
 verily believe I'm stranger than either. You'll 
 even find my sister a little strange. Old trees have 
 crooked branches, old houses have queer cracks, old 
 races have odd secrets. Remember that we're eight 
 hundred years old!" 
 
 "Very good," said Newman; "that's the sort of 
 162 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 thing I came to Europe for. You're made for me to 
 work right in." 
 
 "Touchez-la then," Bellegarde returned, putting 
 out his hand. "It's a bargain; I accept you, I es- 
 pouse your cause. It's because I like you, in a great 
 measure; but that's not the only reason." And he 
 stood holding Newman's hand and looking at him 
 askance. 
 
 "What's the other one?" 
 
 "Well, I'm in the Opposition. I've a positive 
 aversion !" 
 
 "To your brother?" asked Newman in his un- 
 modulated voice. 
 
 Valentin laid a finger on his lips with a whispered 
 hush! "Old races have strange secrets! Put your- 
 self into motion. Come and see my sister and be 
 assured of my sympathy!" With which he took 
 leave while his host dropped into a chair before th* 
 fire. Newman stared long and late into the blaze. 
 
IX 
 
 HE called on Madame de Cintre the very next day, 
 and learnt from the servant that she was at home, 
 He passed as usual up the large cold staircase and 
 through a spacious vestibule above, where the walls 
 seemed all composed of small door-panels touched 
 with long-faded gilding; whence he was ushered 
 into the sitting-room in which he had already been 
 received. It was empty, but the footman told him 
 that Madame la Comtesse would presently appear. 
 He had time, while he waited, to wonder if Belle- 
 garde had seen his sister since the evening before 
 and if in this case he had spoken to her of their talk. 
 In that event Madame de Cintre's receiving him 
 was not, as he would have said, a bucket of cold 
 water. He felt a certain trepidation as he reflected 
 that she might come in with the knowledge of his 
 supreme admiration and of the project he had built 
 on it in her eyes; but the apprehension conveyed no 
 chill. Her face could wear no look that would make 
 it less beautiful, and he was sure beforehand that, 
 however she might take the proposal he had in re- 
 serve, she would n't make him pay for it in the least 
 to his ruin. He had a belief that if she could only 
 look at the bottom of his heart and see it all bared 
 to the quick for her she would be entirely kind. 
 
 She came in at last, after so long an interval that he 
 wondered if she had been hesitating. She smiled 
 
 164 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 at him, as usual, without constraint, and her great 
 mild eyes, while she held out her hand, seemed to 
 shine at him perhaps even straighter than before. 
 She then remarkably observed, without a tremor in 
 her voice, that she was glad to see him and that she 
 hoped he was well. He found in her what he had 
 found before that faint perfume of a personal 
 diffidence worn away by contact with the world, but 
 the more perceptible the more closely she was ap- 
 proached. This subtle shyness gave a peculiar value 
 to what was definite and assured in her manner, 
 making it an acquired accomplishment, a beautiful 
 talent, something that one might compare to an 
 exquisite touch in a pianist. It was, in fact, her 
 "authority," as they say of artists, that especially 
 impressed and fascinated him; he always came back 
 to the feeling that, when he should have rounded out 
 his "success" by the right big marriage, this was the 
 way he should like his wife to express the size of it 
 to the world. The only trouble indeed was that when 
 the instrument was so perfect it seemed to interpose 
 too much between the audience and the composer. 
 She gave him, the charming woman, the sense of an 
 elaborate education, of her having passed through 
 mysterious ceremonies and processes of culture in 
 her youth, of her having been fashioned and made 
 flexible to certain deep social needs. All this, as 
 I have noted, made her seem rare and precious 
 a very expensive article, as he would have said, and 
 one which a man with an ambition to have every- 
 thing about him of the best would taste of triumph 
 in possessing. Yet looking at the matter with an eye 
 
 I0 5 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to private felicity he asked himself where, in so ex- 
 quisite a compound, nature and art showed their 
 dividing-line. Where did the special intention separ- 
 ate from the habit of good manners ? Where did 
 fine urbanity end and fine sincerity begin ? He in- 
 dulged in these questions even while he stood ready 
 to accept the admired object in all its complexity; 
 he felt indeed he could do so in profound security, 
 examining its mechanism afterwards and at leisure. 
 "I'm very glad to find you alone. You know I've 
 never had such good luck before." 
 
 "But you've seemed before very well contented 
 with your luck," said Madame de Cintre. " You've 
 sat and watched my visitors as comfortably as from 
 a box at the opera. What have you thought of our 
 poor performance ?" 
 
 " Oh, I 've thought the ladies very bright and very 
 graceful, wonderfully quick at repartee. But what 
 I've chiefly thought has been that they only help 
 me to admire you." This was not the habit of the 
 pretty speech on Newman's part, the art of the pretty 
 speech never having attained great perfection with 
 him. It was simply the instinct of the practical man 
 who had made up his mind to what he wanted 
 and was now beginning to take active steps to ob- 
 tain it. 
 
 She started slightly and raised her eyebrows; she 
 had evidently not expected so straight an advance. 
 "Oh, in that case," she none the less gaily said, "your 
 finding me alone is n't good luck for me. I hope 
 some one will come in quickly." 
 
 "I hope not," Newman returned. "I've some- 
 166 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 rhing particular to say to you. Have you seen your 
 brother Valentine ?" 
 
 "Yes, I saw him an hour ago." 
 
 44 Did he tell you that he had seen me last night ?" 
 
 '*! think he spoke of it/' 
 
 " And did he tell you what we had talked about ?" 
 
 She visibly hesitated. While Newman made rhese 
 enquiries she had grown a little pale, as if taking 
 what might impend for inevitable rather than con- 
 venient. ** Did you give him a message to me ?" 
 
 "It was not exactly a message. I asked him to 
 render me a service." 
 
 "The service was to sing your praises, was it not ?" 
 She had been clearly careful to utter this question in 
 the tone of trifling. 
 
 "Yes, that is what it really amounts to," said New- 
 man. "Did he therefore sing my praises?" 
 
 "He spoke very well of you. But when I know 
 that it was by special request I must of course take 
 his eulogy with a grain of salt." 
 
 "Ah, that makes no difference," Newman went 
 on. "Your brother wouldn't have spoken well of 
 me unless he believed what he was saying. He's 
 too honest for that." 
 
 "Are you a great diplomatist?" she answered. 
 "Are you trying to please me by praising my bro- 
 ther ? I confess it 's a good way." 
 
 " For me any way that succeeds will be good. I '11 
 praise your brother all day if that will help me. I just 
 love him, you know, and I regard him as perfectly 
 straight. He has made me feel, in promising to do 
 what he can to help me, that I can depend upon him." 
 
 167 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Don't make too much of that," said Madame de 
 Cintre. "He can help you very little." 
 
 "Of course 1 must work my way myself. I know 
 that very well; I only want a chance to. In consent- 
 ing to see me, after what he told you, you almost 
 seem to be giving me a chance." 
 
 "I'm seeing you," she slowly and gravely pro- 
 nounced, " because I promised my brother I would." 
 
 "Blessings on your brother's head then!" New- 
 man cried. "What I told him last evening was this: 
 that I admired you more than any woman I had ever 
 seen and that 1 should like extraordinarily to make 
 you my wife." He spoke these words with great 
 directness and firmness and without any sense of 
 confusion. He was full of his idea, he had completely 
 mastered it, and he seemed to look down on the 
 woman he addressed, and on all her gathered graces, 
 from the height of his bracing good conscience. It 
 is probable that this particular tone and manner were 
 the very best he could have adopted; yet the light, 
 just visibly forced smile with which she had listened 
 to him died away and she sat looking at him with 
 her lips parted and her face almost as portentous 
 as a tragic mask. There was evidently an incon- 
 venience amounting to pain for her in this extrava- 
 gant issue; her impatience of it, however, found no 
 angry voice. Newman wondered if he were hurting 
 her; he could n't imagine why the liberal devotion 
 he meant to express should be offensive. He got up 
 and stood before her, leaning one hand on the chim- 
 ney-piece. "I know I've seen you very little to say 
 this, so little that it may make what I say seem dis- 
 
 168 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 respectful. But that s my misfortune. I could have 
 said it at the first time I saw you. Really I had seen 
 you before; I had seen you in imagination; you 
 seemed almost an old friend. So what I say, you 
 can at least believe, is not mere grand talk in the air, 
 an exaggerated compliment. I can't talk for any 
 effect but one I want very much to bring about, and 
 I would n't to you if I could. What I say is as serious 
 as such words can be. I feel as if I knew you and 
 knew how fine and rare and true you are. I shall 
 know better perhaps some day, but I have a general 
 notion now. You're just the woman I've been look- 
 ing for, except that you 're far more perfect. I won't 
 make any protestations and vows, but you can trust 
 me. It's very soon, I know, to say all this; it may 
 almost shock you. But why not gain time if one can ? 
 And if you want time to reflect as of course you 'd 
 do the sooner you begin the better for me. I don't 
 know what you think of me; but there's no great 
 mystery, nor anything at all difficult to tell, about 
 me nor difficult to understand. Your brother told 
 me that my antecedents and occupations will be 
 against me; that your family has a social standing so 
 high that I can't be taken as coming up to it. Well, 
 I don't know about coming 'up' I don't think 
 you can very well keep me down, anywhere. You 
 can't make a man feel low unless you can make 
 him feel base; and if you may fit yourself into any 
 class you see your way to, you can*t fit him where 
 he won't go. But I don't believe you care anything 
 about that. I can assure you there's quite enough 
 of me to last, and that if I give my mind to it I can 
 
 169 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 arrange things so that in a very few years I shall not 
 need to waste time in explaining who I am and how 
 much I matter. You '11 decide for yourself if you like 
 me or not. I honestly believe I've no hidden vices 
 nor nasty tricks. I'm kind, kind, kind! Everything 
 that a man can give a woman I'll give you. I've 
 a large fortune, a very large fortune; some day, if 
 you J ll allow me, I '11 go into details. If you want 
 grandeur, everything in the way of grandeur that 
 money can give you, why you shall have it. And as 
 regards anything you may give up, don't take for 
 granted too much that its place can't be filled. Leave 
 that to me I 've filled some places. I '11 take care 
 of you; I shall know what you need. I would n't 
 talk if I did n't believe I knew how. I want you to 
 feel I 'm strong, because if you do that will be enough. 
 There; I have said what I had on my heart. It was 
 better to get it off. I'm very sorry if it worries you; 
 but the air's clearer don't you already see? If 
 I 've made a mistake we had better not have met at 
 all; and I can't think that, Madame de Cintre, can 
 you?" Newman asked. "Don't answer me now, if 
 you don't wish it. Think about it; think about it 
 only a little at a time, if you want. Of course I have n't 
 said, I can't say, half I mean, especially about my 
 admiration for you. But take a favourable view of 
 me; it will only be just." 
 
 During this speech, the longest personal plea, of any 
 kind, that he h'ad ever uttered in his life, she kept her 
 gaze fixed on him, and it expanded at the last into 
 a sort of fascinated stare. When he ceased speaking 
 she lowered it and sat for some moments looking 
 
 170 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 down and straight before her. Then she slowly rose 
 to her feet, and a pair of exceptionally keen eyes 
 would have made out in her an extraordinarily fine 
 tremor. She still looked extremely serious. "I'm 
 very much obliged to you for your offer. It seems 
 to me very strange, but I 'm glad you spoke without 
 waiting any longer. It's better the subject should 
 be dismissed between us. I appreciate immensely 
 all you say; you do me great honour. But I've de- 
 cided not to marry." 
 
 "Oh, don't say that!" cried Newman with the 
 very innocence of pleading desire. She had turned 
 away, and it made her stop a moment with her back 
 to him. "Think better of that. You're too young, 
 too beautiful, too much made to be happy and to 
 make others happy. If you 're afraid of losing your 
 freedom I can assure you that this freedom here, 
 the life you now lead, is a dreary bondage to what 
 I '11 offer you. You shall do things that I don't think 
 you 've ever thought of. I '11 take you to live anywhere 
 in the wide world you may want. Are you unhappy ? 
 You give me a feeling that you are unhappy. You 've 
 no right to be, or to be made so. Let me come in 
 and put an end to it." 
 
 The young woman waited, but looking again all 
 away from him. If she was touched by the way he 
 spoke the thing was conceivable. His voice, always 
 very mild, almost flatly soft and candidly interroga- 
 tive for so full an organ, had become as edgeless 
 and as tenderly argumentative as if he had been talk- 
 ing to a much-loved child. He stood watching her, 
 and she presently turned again, but with her face 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 not really meeting his own; and she spoke with r 
 quietness in which there was a visible trace of effort. 
 "There are a great many reasons why I should n't 
 marry more, I beg you to believe, than I can ex- 
 plain to you. As for my happiness, I'm perfectly 
 content. If I call your proposal * strange ' it 's also 
 for more reasons than I can say. Of course you Ve 
 a perfect right to make it. But I can't accept it 
 that 's impossible. Please never speak of the matter 
 again. If you can't promise me this I must ask you 
 not to come back." 
 
 "Why is it impossible?" he demanded with an 
 insistence that came easily to him now. "You may 
 think it is at first without its really being so. I did n't 
 expect you to be pleased at first, but I do believe that 
 if you '11 think of it a good while you may finally be 
 satisfied." 
 
 " I don't know you," she returned after a moment. 
 "Think how little I know you!" 
 
 "Very little of course, and therefore I don't ask 
 for your ultimatum on the spot. I only ask you not 
 simply to put me off. I only ask you to let me * stay 
 round/ and by so doing to let me hope. I'll wait as 
 long as ever you want. Meanwhile you can see mon 
 of me and know me better, look at me in the light 
 well, of my presumption, yes, but of other things too. 
 You can make up your mind." 
 
 Something was going on, rapidly, in her spirit; 
 she was weighing a question there beneath his eyes, 
 weighing it and deciding it. "From the moment 
 I don't very respectfully beg you to leave the house 
 and never return I listen to you I seem to give 
 
 172 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 you hope. I have listened to you against my judge- 
 ment. It's because, you see, you're eloquent. Yes," 
 she almost panted, "you touch me. If I had been 
 told this morning that I should consent to consider 
 you as a person wishing to come so very near me 
 I should have thought my informant a little crazy. 
 I am listening to you, you see!" And she threw her 
 arms up for a moment and let them drop with a 
 gesture in which there was just an expression of 
 surrendering weakness. 
 
 "Well, as far as saying goes, I've said everything," 
 Newman replied. " I believe in you without restric- 
 tion, and I think all the good of you it's possible to 
 think of a human creature. I firmly believe that in 
 marrying me you'll be safe. As I said just now," 
 he went on with his smile as of hard experience, 
 "I've no bad ways. I can really do so much for you! 
 And if you 're afraid that I 'm not what you 've been 
 accustomed to, not as refined and cultivated, or even 
 as pleasant all round, as your standard requires, you 
 may easily carry that too far. I am refined I am 
 pleasant. Just you try me!" 
 
 Claire de Cintre got still further away and paused 
 before a great plant, an azalea, which flourished in 
 a porcelain tub before her window. She plucked off 
 one of the flowers and, twisting it in her fingers, 
 retraced her steps. Then she sat down in silence, 
 and her attitude seemed a consent that he should say 
 more. She might almost be liking it. 
 
 "Why should you say it's impossible you should 
 marry?" he therefore continued. "The only thing 
 that could make it really impossible would be your 
 
 173 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 being already subject to that tie! which must be 
 awful, I admit, when it's only a grind. Is it because 
 you J ve been unhappy in marriage ? That 's all the 
 more reason. Is it because your family exert a press- 
 ure on you, interfere with you or worry you ? That's 
 still another reason: you ought to be perfectly free, 
 and marriage will make you so. I don't say anything 
 against your family understand that!" added 
 Newman with an eagerness which might have made 
 a perspicacious witness smile. "Whatever way you 
 feel about them is the right way, and anything you 
 should wish me to do to make myself agreeable to 
 them I '11 do as well as I know how. They may put 
 me through what they like I guess I shall hold out!" 
 
 She rose again and came to the fire near which he 
 had hovered. The expression of pain and embarrass- 
 ment had passed out of her face, and it had sub- 
 mitted itself with a kind of grace in which there 
 might have been indeed a kind of art. She had the 
 air of a woman who had stepped across the frontier of 
 friendship and looks round her a little bewildered 
 to find the spaces larger than those marked in her 
 customary chart. A certain checked and controlled 
 exaltation played through the charm of her dignity. 
 "I won't refuse to see you again, because much of 
 what you've said has given me pleasure. But I will 
 see you only on this condition : that you say nothing 
 more in the same way for a long long time." 
 
 "What do you mean by 'long long' ?" 
 
 "Well, I mean six months. It must be a solemn 
 promise." 
 
 "Very good; I promise." 
 174 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Good-bye then." And she put out her hand. 
 
 He held it a moment as if to say more. But he only 
 looked at her "long, long"; then he took his 
 departure. 
 
 That evening, on the Boulevard, he met Valentin 
 de Bellegarde. After they had exchanged greetings 
 he told him he had seen his sister a few hours before. 
 
 "I know it, pardieu!" said Valentin. "I dined 
 la-las" With which, for some moments, both men 
 were silent. Newman wished to ask what visible 
 impression his visit had made, but the Count had 
 a question of his own and he ended by speaking first. 
 "It's none of my business, but what the deuce did 
 you say to Claire ?" 
 
 " I 'm quite willing to tell you I made her an offer 
 of marriage." 
 
 "Already!" And the young man gave a whistle. 
 'Time is money! ' Is that what you say in America ? 
 And my sister ?" he discreetly added. 
 
 "She did n't close with me." 
 
 " She could n't, you know, in that way." 
 
 "But I'm to see her again," said Newman. 
 
 "Oh, the strangeness of ces dames!" Then he 
 stopped and held Newman off at arm's length. " I 
 look at you with respect! You've achieved what we 
 call a personal success! Immediately, now, I must 
 present you to my brother." 
 
 "Whenever you like 1" said Newman. 
 
NEWMAN continued to see his other good friends 
 with scarce-diminished frequency, though if you had 
 listened to Mrs. Tristram's account of the matter 
 you would have supposed they had been cynically 
 repudiated for the sake of grander acquaintance. 
 "We were all very well so long as we had no rivals 
 we were better than nothing. But now that you 've 
 become the fashion and have your pick every day 
 of three invitations to dinner, we're tossed into the 
 corner. I 'm sure it is very good of you to come and 
 see us once a month; I wonder you don't send us 
 your cards in an envelope. When you do, pray have 
 them with black edges; it will be for the death of my 
 last illusion." It was in this incisive strain she moral- 
 ised over Newman's so-called neglect, which was in 
 truth a most excellent constancy. Of course she was 
 joking, but she embroidered with a sharp needle. 
 
 " 1 know no better proof that 1 've treated you very 
 well," Newman had said, "than the fact that you 
 make so free with my character. I 've let you tweak 
 my nose, I 've allowed you the run of the animal's 
 cage. If I had a little proper pride I 'd stay away a 
 while and, when you should ask me to dinner, say 
 I'm going to Princess Borealska's. But I haven't 
 any pride where my pleasure's concerned, and to 
 keep you in the humour to see me if you must see 
 me only to call me bad names I '11 agree to any- 
 
 176 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 thing you choose; I'll admit I 'm the biggest kind of 
 a sneak." Newman in fact had declined an invita- 
 tion personally given by the Princess Borealska, an 
 enquiring Polish lady to whom he had been pre- 
 sented, on the ground that on that particular day he 
 always dined at Mrs. Tristram's; and it was only a 
 tenderly perverse theory of his hostess of the Avenue 
 d'lena that he was faithless to his early friendships. 
 She needed the theory to explain one of her fine 
 exasperations. Having launched our hero on the 
 current that was bearing him so rapidly along she 
 felt but half-pleased at its swiftness. She had suc- 
 ceeded too well; she had played her game too cleverly 
 and wished to mix up the cards. Newman had told her, 
 in due season, that her friend was " quite satisfactory." 
 The epithet was not romantic, but Mrs. Tristram had 
 no difficulty in perceiving that in essentials the feeling 
 which lay beneath it was. Indeed the mild expansive 
 brevity with which it was uttered, and a certain look, 
 at once appealing and inscrutable, that issued from 
 her guest's half-closed eyes as he leaned his head 
 against the back of his chair, seemed to her the most 
 eloquent attestation of a mature sentiment that she 
 had ever encountered. He was only abounding in her 
 own sense, but his temperate raptures exerted a sin- 
 gular effect on that enthusiasm with which she had 
 overflowed a few months before. She now seemed 
 inclined to take a purely critical view of Madame 
 de Cintre, and wished to have it understood that she 
 did n't in the least pretend to have gone into a final 
 analysis of her life, or in other words of her honesty. 
 "No woman M she played with this idea "can 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 be so good as that one seems. Remember what 
 Shakespeare calls Desdemona: 'a supersubtle Vene- 
 tian.' Claire de Cintre's a supersubtle Parisian. 
 She's a charming creature and has five hundred 
 merits; but you had better keep her supersubtlety in 
 mind." Was Mrs. Tristram simply finding herself 
 jealous of her special favourite on the other side of 
 the Seine, so that in undertaking to provide Newman 
 with an ideal wife she had counted too much on the 
 lapse of her own passions and her immunity from 
 wild yearnings ? We may be permitted to doubt it. 
 The inconsistent little lady of the Avenue d'lena had 
 an insuperable need of intellectual movement, of 
 critical, of ironic exercise. She had a lively imagina- 
 tion, and was capable at times of holding views, of 
 entertaining be'iefs, directly opposed to her most 
 cherished opinions and convictions. She got tired of 
 thinking right, but there was no serious harm in it> 
 as she got equally tired of thinking wrong. In the 
 midst of her mysterious perversities she had ad- 
 mirable flashes of justice. One of these occurred 
 when Newman mentioned to her that he had made 
 their beautiful friend a formal offer of his hand. He 
 repeated in a few words what he had said, and in 
 a great many what she had answered, and Mrs. Tris- 
 tram listened with extreme interest. 
 
 "But after all," he admitted, "there's nothing to 
 congratulate me upon. It is not much of a triumph." 
 
 "I beg your pardon; it's a great triumph. It's 
 really dazzling that she did n't silence you at the 
 first word and request you never to come near her 
 again." 
 
 178 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Well, she would n't have got much by that," he 
 made answer. 
 
 She looked at him a moment. "No one, I think, 
 gets as much by anything as you. When I told you 
 to go your own way and do what came into your head 
 I had no idea you 'd go over the ground so fast. I 
 never dreamed you'd propose after five or six morn- 
 ing calls. What had you done as yet to make her like 
 you ? You had simply sat not very straight 
 and stared at her. But she does like you." 
 
 "That remains to be seen." 
 
 "No, it only remains to be criticised. What will 
 come of it remains to be seen. That you should 
 make but a mouthful of her marrying you without 
 more ado could never have come into her head. You 
 can form very little idea of what passed through her 
 mind as you spoke; if she ever really takes you the 
 affair will be marked by the usual justice of all human 
 judgements of women. You'll think you take gener- 
 ous views of her, but you'll never begin to know 
 through what a strange sea of feeling she'll have 
 passed before accepting you. As she stood there in 
 front of you the other day she plunged into it. She 
 said 'Well, why not ?' to something that a few hours 
 earlier Jiad been inconceivable. She turned about on 
 a thousand gathered prejudices and traditions as on 
 a pivot and looked where she had never looked till 
 that instant. When I think of it, when I think of 
 Claire de Cintre and all that she represents, there 
 seems to me something very fine in it. When 1 re- 
 commended you to try your fortune with her I of 
 course thought well of you, and in spite of your base 
 
 179 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ingratitude I think so still. But I confess I don't sec 
 quite what you are and what you've done to make 
 such a woman go these extravagant lengths for you." 
 
 "Oh, there's something very fine in it!" New- 
 man laughed as he repeated her words. He took an 
 extreme satisfaction in hearing that there was some- 
 thing very fine in it. He had not the least doubt of 
 this himself, but he had already begun to value the 
 world's view of his possible prize as adding to the 
 prospective glory of possession. 
 
 It was immediately after this passage that Valentin 
 de Bellegarde came to conduct his friend to the Rue 
 de PUniversite and present him to the other members 
 of his family. " You 're already introduced and you 've 
 begun to be talked about. My sister has mentioned 
 your successive visits to my mother, and it was an 
 accident that my mother was present at none of them. 
 I've spoken of you as an American of immense 
 wealth, and the best fellow in the world, who's 
 looking for something quite superior in the way of 
 a wife." 
 
 "Do you suppose," asked Newman, "that Madame 
 de Cintre has reported to your mother the last con- 
 versation I had with her?" 
 
 " I 'm very certain she has n't; she '11 keep her own 
 counsel. Meanwhile," Valentin said, "you must 
 make your way with the rest of the family. Thus 
 much is known about you that you 've made a 
 great fortune in trade, that you're a frank outsider 
 and an honest eccentric, and that you furiously ad- 
 mire our charming Claire. My sister-in-law, whom 
 you remember seeing in Claire's sitting-room, took, 
 
 1 80 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 it appears, a marked fancy to you; she has described 
 you as having beaucoup de cachet. My mother is 
 therefore curious to see you." 
 
 "She expects to laugh at me, eh ?" said Newman. 
 
 "She never laughs or at least never expects to. 
 If she does n't like you don't hope to purchase favour 
 iy being funny. I 'm funny take warning by me!" 
 
 This conversation took place in the evening, and 
 half an hour later Valentin ushered his companion 
 into an apartment of the house of the Rue de PUni- 
 versite into which he had not yet penetrated, the 
 salon of the dowager Marquise. It was a vast high 
 room, with elaborate and ponderous mouldings, 
 painted a whiteish grey, along the upper portion of 
 the walls and the ceiling; with a great deal of faded 
 and carefully-repaired tapestry in the doorways and 
 chair-backs; with a Turkey carpet, in light colours, 
 still soft and rich despite great antiquity, on the floor; 
 and with portraits of each of Madame de Bellegarde's 
 children at the age of ten suspended against an old 
 screen of red silk. The dimness was diminished, 
 exactly enough for conversation, by half a dozen 
 candles placed in odd corners and at a great distance 
 apart. In a deep armchair near the fire sat an old 
 lady in black; at the other end of the room another 
 person was seated at the piano and playing a very 
 expressive waltz. In this latter person Newman re- 
 cognised the younger Marquise. 
 
 Valentin presented his friend, and Newman came 
 sufficiently near to the old lady by the fire to take in 
 that she would offer him no handshake so that 
 he knew he had the air of waiting, and a little like 
 
 181 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a customer in a shop, to see what she would offer. He 
 received a rapid impression of a white, delicate, aged 
 face, with a hi!h forehead, a small mouth and a pair 
 of cold blue eyes which had kept much of the clear- 
 ness of youth. Madame de Bellegarde looked hard 
 at him and refused what she did refuse with a sort 
 of British positiveness which reminded him that she 
 was the daughter of the Earl of Saint Dunstans. 
 Her daughter-in-law stopped playing and gave him 
 an agreeable smile. He sat down and looked about 
 him while Valentin went and kissed the hand of the 
 young Marquise. 
 
 "I ought to have seen you before," said Madame 
 de Bellegarde. "You've paid several visits to my 
 daughter." 
 
 "Oh yes," Newman liberally smiled; "Madame de 
 Cintre and I are old friends by this time." 
 
 "You've gone very fast," she went on. 
 
 "Not so fast as I should like." 
 
 "Ah, you're very ambitious," the old woman re- 
 turned. 
 
 "Well, if I don't know what I want by this time 
 I suppose I never shall/' 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde looked at him with her cold 
 fine eyes, and he returned her gaze, reflecting that 
 she was a possible adversary and trying to take her 
 measure. Their eyes remained for some moments 
 engaged; then she looked away and, without smiling, 
 " I 'm very ambitious too," she said. 
 
 Newman felt that taking her measure was not 
 easy; she was a formidable, inscrutable little woman. 
 She resembled her daughter as an insect might re- 
 
 182 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 semble a flower. The colouring in Madame de 
 Cintre was the same, and the high delicacy of her 
 brow and nose was hereditary. But her face was a 
 larger and freer copy, and her mouth in especial a 
 happy divergence from that conservative orifice, 
 a small pair of lips at once plump and pinched, that 
 suggested, when closed, that they could scarce open 
 wider than to swallow a gooseberry or to emit an 
 "Oh dear no!" and which had probably been 
 thought to give the finishing touch to the aristocratic 
 prettiness of the Lady Emmeline Atheling as repre- 
 sented, half a century before, in several Books of 
 Beauty. Madame de Cintre's face had, to Newman's 
 eye, a range of expression as delightfully vast as the 
 wind-streaked, cloud-flecked distance on a Western 
 prairie; but her mother's white, intense, respectable 
 countenance, with its formal gaze and its circum- 
 scribed smile, figured a document signed and sealed, 
 a thing of parchment, ink and ruled lines. "She's 
 a woman of conventions and proprieties," he said to 
 himself as he considered her; " her world 's the world 
 of things immutably decreed. Bat how she's at 
 home in it and what a paradise she finds it! She walks 
 about in it as if it were a blooming park, a Garden of 
 Eden; and when she sees 'This is genteel' or 'This 
 is improper' written on a milestone she stops as 
 ecstatically as if she were listening to a nightingale 
 or smelling a rose." Madame de Bellegarde wore a 
 little black velvet hood tied under her chin and was 
 wrapped in an old black cashmere shawl. "You're 
 an American ? " she went on presently. " I 've seen 
 several Americans." 
 
 183 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "There are several in Paris," Newman jocosely 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, really ? It was in England I saw these, or 
 somewhere else; not in Paris. I think it must have 
 been in the Pyrenees many years ago. I 'm told your 
 ladies are very pretty. One of these ladies was very 
 pretty with such a wonderful complexion. She 
 presented me a note of introduction from some one 
 I forget whom and she sent with it a note of 
 her own. I kept her letter a long time afterwards, 
 it was so strangely expressed. I used to know some 
 of the phrases by heart. But I've forgotten them 
 now it's so many years ago. Since then I 've seen 
 no more Americans. I think my daughter-in-law 
 has; she's a great gadabout; she sees every one." 
 
 At this the younger lady came rustling forward, 
 pinching in a very slender waist and casting idly 
 preoccupied glances over the front of her dress, 
 which was apparently designed for a ball. She was, 
 in a singular way, at once ugly and pretty; she had 
 protuberant eyes and lips that were strangely red. 
 She reminded Newman of his friend Mademoiselle 
 Nioche; this was what that much-hindered young 
 lady would have liked to be. Valentin de Bellegarde 
 walked behind her at a distance, hopping about to 
 keep off the far-spreading train of her dress. " You 
 ought to show more of the small of your back," he 
 said very gravely. " You might as well wear a stand- 
 ing ruff as such a dress as that." 
 
 The young woman turned to the mirror over the 
 chimney-piece the part of her person so designated, 
 and glanced behind her to verify this judgement. 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 The mirror descended low and yet reflected nothing 
 but a large unclad flesh-surface. Its possessor put 
 her hands behind her and gave a downward pull to 
 the waist of her dress. " Like that, you mean ? " 
 
 "That's a little better," said Valentin in the same 
 tone, " but it leaves a good deal to be desired." 
 
 "Oh, I never go to extremes." And then turning 
 to Madame de Bellegarde, "What were you calling 
 me just now, madame?" her daughter-in-law en- 
 quired. 
 
 "I called you a gadabout. But I might call you 
 something else too." 
 
 "A gadabout? What an ugly word! What does 
 it mean ? " 
 
 "A very beautiful lady," Newman ventured to say, 
 seeing that it was in French. 
 
 "That's a pretty compliment but a bad transla- 
 tion," the young Marquise returned. After which, 
 looking at him a moment : " Do you dance ? " 
 
 " Not a step." 
 
 "You lose a great deal," she said simply. And with 
 another look at her back in the mirror she turned away. 
 
 " Do you like Paris ?" asked the old lady, who was 
 apparently wondering what was the proper way to 
 talk to an American. 
 
 "I think that must be the matter with me," he 
 smiled. And then he added with a friendly intona- 
 tion : " Don't you like it ? " 
 
 " I can't say I know it. I know my house I 
 know my friends I don't know Paris." 
 
 "You lose a great deal, as your daughter-in-lavi 
 says," Newman replied. 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde stared; it was presumably 
 the first time she had been condoled with on her 
 losses. "I'm content, I think, with what I have," 
 she said with dignity. Her visitor's eyes were at this 
 moment wandering round the room, which struck 
 him as rather sad and shabby; passing from the high 
 casements, with their small thickly-framed panes, to 
 the sallow tints of two or three portraits in pastel, 
 of the last century, which hung between them. He 
 ought obviously to have answered that the content- 
 ment of his hostess was quite natural she had so 
 much; but the idea did n't occur to him during the 
 pause of some moments which followed. 
 
 "Well, my dear mother," said Valentin while he 
 came and leaned against the chimney-piece, "what 
 do you think of my good friend ? Is n't he the re- 
 markably fine man I told you of?" 
 
 "My acquaintance with Mr. Newman has not 
 gone very far," Madame de Bellegarde replied. "I can 
 as yet only appreciate his great politeness." 
 
 "My mother's a great judge of these matters," 
 Valentin went on to Newman. " If you 've satisfied 
 her it's a triumph." 
 
 " I hope I shall satisfy you some day," said New- 
 man to the old lady. "I've done nothing yet." 
 
 "You mustn't listen to my son; he'll bring you 
 into trouble. He's a sad scatterbrain," she de- 
 clared. 
 
 Newman took it genially. "Oh, I've got to like 
 him so that I can't do without him." 
 
 "He amuses you, eh ?" 
 
 "I think it must be that." 
 1 86 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Do you hear that, Valentin?" said his mother, 
 "You exist for the amusement of Mr. Newman." 
 
 "Perhaps we shall all come to that!" Valentin 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "You must see my other son," she pursued. 
 " He 's much better than this one. But he '11 not amuse 
 you." 
 
 " I don't know I don't know! " Valentin thought- 
 fully objected. "But we shall very soon see. Here 
 comes monsieur mon frere." The door had just 
 opened to give ingress to a gentleman who stepped 
 forward and whose face Newman remembered as 
 that of the author of his discomfiture the first time 
 of his calling. Valentin went to meet his brother, 
 looked at him a moment and then, taking him by the 
 arm, led him up to their guest. "This is my excellent 
 friend Mr. Newman," he said very blandly. "You 
 must know him if you can." 
 
 "I'm delighted to know Mr. Newman," said the 
 Marquis with an unaccompanied salutation. 
 
 "He's the old woman at second-hand," Newman 
 reflected with the sense of having his health drunk 
 from an empty glass. And this was the starting-point 
 of a speculative theory, in his mind, that the late 
 head of this noble family had been a very amiable 
 foreigner with an inclination to take life easily and 
 a sense that it was difficult for the husband of the 
 stilted little lady by the fire to do so. But if he had 
 found small comfort in his wife he had found much 
 in his two younger children, who were after his own 
 heart, while Madame de Bellegarde had paired with 
 her eldest-born. 
 
 'is? 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "My brother has spoken to me of you," said M. de 
 Bellegarde, "and as you are also acquainted with my 
 sister it was time we should meet." He turned to his 
 mother and gallantly bent over her hand, touching 
 it with his lips; after which he assumed a position 
 before the chimney-piece. With his long lean face, 
 his high-bridged nose and small opaque eyes he 
 favoured, in the old phrase, the English strain in his 
 blood. His whiskers were fair and glossy and he had 
 a large dimple, of unmistakeable British origin, in the 
 middle of his handsome chin. He was " distinguished " 
 to the tips of his polished nails, and there was not 
 a movement of his fine perpendicular person that was 
 not noble and majestic. Newman had never yet been 
 confronted with such an incarnation of the main- 
 tained attitude; he felt himself in presence of some- 
 thing high and unusual. 
 
 "Urbain," said young Madame de Bellegarde, 
 who had apparently been waiting for her husband 
 to take her to her ball, " I call your attention to the 
 fact that I'm dressed." 
 
 "That's a good idea to show what you claim 
 for it," Valentin commented. 
 
 "I'm at your orders, dear friend," said M. de 
 Bellegarde. "Only you must allow me first the 
 pleasure of a little conversation with Mr. Newman." 
 
 " Oh, if you 're going to a party don't let me keep 
 you; I'm so sure we shall meet again. Indeed if 
 you'd like to meet me I'll gladly name an hour." 
 He was eager to make it known that he would readily 
 answer all questions and satisfy all exactions. 
 
 M. de Beilegarde stood in a well-balanced position 
 1 88 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 before the fire, caressing one of his fair whiskers with 
 one of his white hands and looking at our friend, 
 half-askance, with eyes from which a particular ray 
 of observation made its way through a general mean- 
 ingless smile. "It's very kind of you to make such 
 an offer. If I 'm not mistaken your occupations are 
 such as to make your time precious. You 're in 
 a as we say a dans les affaires ?" 
 
 "In business, you mean? Oh no, I've thrown 
 business overboard for the present. I 'm regularly 
 ' loafing/ as we say. My time 's quite my own." 
 
 "Ah, you're taking a holiday," rejoined M. de 
 Bellegarde. "' Loafing/ Yes, I've heard that ex- 
 pression." 
 
 "Mr. Newman's a distinguished American," 
 Madame de Bellegarde observed. 
 
 "My brother's a great ethnologist," said Valentin. 
 
 "An ethnologist?" and Newman groped for 
 gaiety. "You collect negroes' skulls and that sort 
 of thing?" 
 
 The Marquis looked hard at his brother and began 
 to caress his other whisker. Then turning to their 
 new acquaintance with sustained urbanity: "You're 
 travelling for pure recreation ?" 
 
 "Well, I'm visiting your country, sir," Newman 
 replied with a certain conscious patience a pa^ 
 tience he felt he on his side too could push, should 
 need be, to stiffness; "and I confess I'm having a 
 good time in it. Of course I get a good deal of pleas- 
 ure out of it." 
 
 "What more especially interests you?" the Mar 
 Quis benevolently pursued. 
 
 i So 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Well," our friend continued, "the life of the 
 people, for one thing, interests me. Your people are 
 very taking. But economically, technically, as it were, 
 manufactures are what I care most about." 
 
 "Those a products have been your special- 
 ity?" 
 
 "I can't say I have had any speciality. My special- 
 ity has been to accumulate the largest convenient 
 competency in the shortest possible time." Newman 
 made this last remark very designedly and deliber- 
 ately; he wished to open the way, should it be neces- 
 sary, to an authoritative statement of his means. 
 
 M. de Bellegarde laughed agreeably. " I hope you 
 enjoy the sense of that success." 
 
 "Oh, one has stilly at my age, the sense also of 
 what's left to do. I'm not so very old," our hero 
 candidly explained. 
 
 "Well, Paris is a very good place to spend a for- 
 tune. I wish you all the advantages of yours." And 
 M. de Bellegarde drew forth his gloves and began to 
 put them on. 
 
 Newman for a few moments watched him sliding 
 his fair, fat hands into the pearly kid, and as he did 
 so his feelings took a singular turn. M. de Belle- 
 garde's good wishes seemed to flutter down on him 
 from the cold upper air with the soft, scattered move- 
 ment of a shower of snowflakes. Yet he was not irri- 
 tated; he did n't feel that he was being patronised; 
 he was conscious of no especial impulse to introduce 
 a discord into so noble a harmony. Only he felt him- 
 self suddenly in personal contact with the forces with 
 which his so valued backer had told him that nc 
 
 IQO 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 would have to contend, and he became sensible of 
 their intensity. He wished to make some answering 
 manifestation, to stretch himself out at his own 
 length, to sound a note at the uttermost end of his 
 scale. It must be added that if this impulse was 
 neither vicious nor malicious, it was yet by no means 
 unattended by the play in him of his occasional dis- 
 position to ironic adventure. He hated the idea of 
 shocking people, he respected the liability to be 
 shocked. But there were impressions that threw him 
 back, after all, on his own measures of proportion. 
 "Paris," he presently remarked, "is a very good 
 place for people who take a great deal of stock, as we 
 say, in their location, and want to be very much 
 aware of it all the time; or it's a very good place 
 if your family has been settled here for a long time 
 and you've made acquaintances and got your rela- 
 tions round you; or if you've got a big house like 
 this and a wife and children and mother and sister 
 everything right there. I don't like that way that 
 prevails in many of your districts of people 's living 
 all in rooms door to door with each other. But I 'm 
 not, as I may put it, a natural, a real inspired loafer. 
 I 'm a poor imitation and it goes against the grain. 
 My business habits are too deep-seated. Then I 
 have n't any house to call my own or anything in 
 the way of a family. My sisters are five thousand 
 miles away, my mother died when I was pretty 
 small, and I have n't what a man has when he 
 has taken the regular way to get it if I express 
 myself clearly; and I often miss that pleasantness 
 very much. So you see I'm sometimes rather conscious 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of a void. I'm not proficient in literature, as you 
 are, sir, and I get tired of dining out and going to 
 the opera. I miss my business activity. You see I 
 began to earn my living when I was almost a baby, 
 and until a few months ago I 've never had my hand 
 off the plough. I miss the regular call on my atten- 
 
 tion." 
 
 This speech was followed by a profound silence 
 of some moments on the part of Newman's enter- 
 tainers. Valentin stood looking at him fixedly, 
 hands in pockets, and then slowly, with a half- 
 sidling motion, went out of the room. The Marquis 
 continued to draw on his gloves and to smile benig- 
 nantly. "You began to earn your living in the 
 cradle?" said the old Marquise, who appeared to 
 wish to encourage, a little grimly, yet not wholly 
 without an effect of pleasantry, her guest's auto- 
 biographic strain. 
 
 " Well, madam, I 'm not absolutely convinced I had 
 a cradle!" 
 
 "You say you're not proficient in literature," 
 M. de Bellegarde resumed; "but you must do your- 
 self the justice to remember that your studies were 
 interrupted early." 
 
 "That's very true; on my tenth birthday my 
 schooling stopped short. 1 thought that a grand 
 way to keep it. Still, I have picked up knowledge," 
 Newman smiled. 
 
 "You have some sisters?" Madame de Belle- 
 garde enquired. 
 
 "Yes, two splendid sisters. I wish you knew 
 them!" 
 
 IQ2 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I hope that for ces dames the hardships of lif* 
 commenced less early." 
 
 "They married very early indeed, if you call that 
 a hardship as girls do in our Western country. 
 The husband of one of them is the owner of the larg- 
 est india-rubber house in the West." 
 
 "Ah, you make houses also of india-rubber?" 
 the Marquise asked. 
 
 "You can stretch them as your family increases," 
 said her daughter-in-law, now enveloped in a soft 
 shining cape. Newman indulged at this in a burst 
 of hilarity and explained that the house in which 
 his relatives lived was a large wooden structure, 
 but that they manufactured and sold india-rubber 
 on a colossal scale. "My children have some little 
 india-rubber shoes which they put on when they go 
 to play in the Tuileries in damp weather," the young 
 Marquise accordingly pursued. "I wonder if your 
 brother-in-law made them." 
 
 "I guess he did, and if he did you may be verj 
 sure you've got a good article." 
 
 "Well, you mustn't be too much discouraged," 
 said M. de Bellegarde with vague benevolence. 
 
 "Oh, I don't mean to be. I've a project really 
 a grand one which gives me plenty to think about, 
 and that's an occupation." And then Newmai 
 waited, hesitating yet debating rapidly; he wished 
 again to get near his point, though to do so forced 
 him to depart still further from the form of not ask- 
 ing favours. He had to ask that of their attention. 
 "Nevertheless," he continued, addressing himself ro 
 old Madame de Bellegarde, "I'll tell you my great 
 
 193 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 idea; perhaps you can help me. I want not only to 
 marry, but to marry remarkably well." 
 
 "It's a very good project, but I never made a 
 match in all my life/' said his hostess with her odd 
 mincing plainness. 
 
 Newman looked at her an instant and then all 
 sincerely, " I should have thought you a great hand," 
 he declared. 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde might well have thought 
 him too sincere. She murmured something sharply 
 in French and fixed her eyes on her son. At this 
 moment the door of the room was thrown open, 
 and with a rapid step Valentin reappeared. "I've 
 a message for you," he said to his sister-in-law. 
 "Claire bids me ask you not to start for your ball. 
 If you '11 wait a minute she '11 go with you." 
 
 " Claire will go with us ? " cried the young Mar- 
 quise. "En voila du nouveau!" 
 
 "She has changed her mind; she decided half an 
 hour ago and is sticking the last diamond into her 
 hair!" said Valentin. 
 
 "What on earth has taken possession of my daugh- 
 ter?" Madame de Bellegarde asked with a coldness 
 of amazement. "She has not been this age where 
 any candle was lighted. Does she take such a step 
 at half an hour's notice and without consulting 
 me?" 
 
 "She consulted me, dear mother, five minutes 
 since," said Valentin, "and I told her that such a 
 beautiful woman she 's more beautiful than ever, 
 you'll see has no right to bury herself alive." 
 
 "You should have referred Claire to her mother ; 
 194 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 my brother," said M. de Bellegarde in French, 
 "This is not the way ! " 
 
 "I refer her to the whole company!" Valentin 
 broke in. "Here she comes!" and he went to the 
 open door, met Madame de Cintre on the threshold, 
 took her by the hand and led her into the room. 
 She was dressed in white, but a cloak of dark blue, 
 which hung almost to her feet, was fastened across 
 her shoulders by a silver clasp. She had tossed it 
 back, however, and her long white arms were un- 
 covered. In her dense fair hair there glittered a dozen 
 diamonds. She looked serious and, Newman thought, 
 rather pale; but she glanced round her and, when 
 she saw him, smiled and put out her hand. He 
 thought her at this moment far and away the hand- 
 somest woman he had ever seen. He had a chance 
 to look her full in the face, for she stood a little in 
 the centre of the room, where she seemed to con- 
 sider what she should do, without meeting his eyes. 
 Then she went up to her mother, who sat in the deep 
 chair by the fire with an air of immeasurable detach- 
 ment. Her back turned to the others, Madame de 
 Cintre held her cloak apart to show her dress. 
 
 "What do you think of me ?" 
 
 "I think you seem to have lost your head. It was 
 but three days ago, when I asked you as a particular 
 favour to myself to go to the Duchesse de Lusig- 
 nan's, that you told me you were going nowhere and 
 that one must be consistent. Is this your consist- 
 ency ? Why should you distinguish Madame Robin- 
 eau ? Who is it you wish to please to-night ? " 
 
 "I wish to please myself, dear mother," said 
 
 195 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Madame de Cintre. And she bent over and kissed 
 the old lady. 
 
 "I don't like violent surprises, my sister," said 
 Urbain de Bellegarde; "especially when one's 'on 
 the point of entering a drawing-room." 
 
 Newman at this juncture felt inspired to speak. 
 "Oh, if you're going anywhere with this lady you 
 need n't be afraid of being noticed yourself ! " 
 
 M. de Bellegarde turned to his sister with an in- 
 tense little glare. "I hope you appreciate a compli- 
 ment that's paid at your brother's expense. Venez 
 done, madame." And offering Madame de Cintre 
 his arm he led her rapidly out of the room. Valentin 
 rendered the same service to young Madame de 
 Bellegarde, who had apparently been reflecting on 
 the fact that the ball-dress of her sister-in-law was 
 much less brilliant than her own, and yet had failed 
 to derive absolute comfort from the reflexion. With 
 a leave-taking smile she sought the complement of 
 her consolation in the eyes of the American visitor, 
 and, perceiving in them an almost unnatural glitter, 
 not improbably may have flattered herself she had 
 found it. 
 
 Newman, left alone with his hostess, if she might 
 so be called, stood before her a few moments in 
 silence. "Your daughter's very beautiful," he said 
 at last. 
 
 " She 's very perverse," the old woman returned. 
 
 "I'm glad to hear it," he smiled. "It makes me 
 hope." 
 
 "Hope what?" 
 
 "That she'll consent some day to marry me." 
 196 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 She slowly got up. "That really is your 'great 
 idea'?" 
 
 "Yes. Will you give it any countenance ?" 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde looked at him hard and 
 shook her head. Then her so peculiarly little mouth 
 rounded itself to a "No!" which she seemed to blow 
 at him as for a mortal chill. 
 
 "Will you then just let me alone with my chance ?" 
 
 "You don't know what you ask. I 'm a very proud 
 and meddlesome old person." 
 
 "Well, I'm very rich," he returned with a world 
 of desperate intention. 
 
 She fixed her eyes on the floor, and he thought it 
 probable she was weighing the reasons in favour of 
 resenting his so calculated directness. But at last 
 looking up, "How rich ?" she simply articulated. 
 
 He gave her, at this, the figure of his income 
 gave it in a round number which had the magnificent 
 sound that large aggregations of dollars put on when 
 translated into francs. He added to the enunciation 
 of mere brute quantity certain financial particulars 
 which completed a sufficiently striking presentment 
 of his resources. 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde had let him enjoy her 
 undisguised attention. "You're very frank," she 
 finally said, "and I'll be the same. I would rather, 
 on the whole, get all the good of you there is rather, 
 I mean, than, as you call it, let you alone. I would 
 rather," she coldly smiled, "take you in our waj 
 than in your way. I think it will be easier." 
 
 "I'm thankful for any terms," Newman quite 
 radiantly answered. "It's enough for me to feel 
 
 197 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 I 'm taken. But it need n't be, for you," he at the 
 same time rather grimly laughed, "in too big doses 
 to begin with. Good-nightl" and he rapidly 
 quitted her. 
 
XI 
 
 HE had not, on his return to Paris, resumed the study 
 of French conversation with M. Nioche; he had been 
 conscious of too many other uses for his time. That 
 amiable man, however, came to see him very promptly, 
 having ascertained his whereabouts by some art of 
 curiosity too subtle to be challenged. He repeated 
 his visit more than once; he seemed oppressed by 
 an humiliating sense of having been overpaid, and 
 wished apparently to redeem his debt by the offer 
 of grammatical and statistical information in small 
 instalments. He exhaled the same decent melancholy 
 as a few months before; a few months more or less 
 of brushing could make little difference in the an- 
 tique lustre of his coat and hat. But his spirit itself 
 was a trifle more threadbare; it had clearly received 
 some hard rubs during the summer. Newman asked 
 with interest about Mademoiselle Noemie, and 
 M. Nioche at first, for answer, simply looked at him 
 in lachrymose silence. 
 
 "Don't press me on that subject, sir. I sit and 
 watch her, but I can do nothing." 
 
 " Do you mean she gives you serious cause ? " 
 "I don't know, sir, what I mean! I can't follow 
 her. I don't understand her. She has something in 
 her head; who can say what's in the head of a little 
 person so independent, so dreadful and so pleas- 
 ing ? She 's too deep for her poor papa." 
 
 199 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Does she continue to go to the Musee ? Has she 
 made any of those copies for me ? " Newman con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " She goes to the Musee, but I see nothing of the 
 copies. She has something on her easel; I suppose 
 it's one of the pictures you ordered. Such a splendid 
 commission ought to give her fairy fingers. But she 's 
 not in earnest. I can't say anything to her; I'm 
 afraid of her, if you must know. One evening last 
 summer when I took her to walk in the Champs 
 Elysees she said to me things that made me turn 
 cold." 
 
 " And what things ? " 
 
 "Excuse an unhappy father from telling you," 
 said M. Nioche while he unfolded his calico pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 Newman promised himself to pay Mademoiselle 
 Noemie another visit at the Louvre. He was curious 
 of the progress of his copies, but it must be added 
 that he was still more curious of the personal pro* 
 gress of the copyist. He went one afternoon to the 
 great museum, but wandered through several of the 
 rooms without finding her; after which, on his way 
 to the long hall of the Italian masters, he stopped 
 face to face with Valentin de Bellegarde. The young 
 Frenchman eagerly greeted him, assuring him he was 
 a godsend. He himself was in the worst of humours 
 and wanted some one to contradict. "In a bad hu- 
 mour among all these beautiful things ? I thought 
 you were so fond of pictures, especially the grand old 
 black ones," Newman said. "There are two or three 
 here that ought to keep you in spirits." 
 
 200 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Oh, to-day," Valentin returned, "I'm not in a 
 mood for gimcracks, and the more remarkable they 
 are the less I like them. The great staring eyes and 
 fixed positions of all these dolls and mannikins irri- 
 tate me. I feel as if I were at some big dull party, 
 a roomful of people I should n't wish to speak to. 
 What should I care for their beauty ? It 's a bore 
 and, worse still, it's a reproach. I've a tas d' ennuis. 
 I feel damnably vicious." 
 
 " If this grand sight works you up so why do you 
 expose yourself?" Newman asked with his quiet 
 play of reason. 
 
 "That's one of my worries. I came to meet my 
 cousin a dreadful English cousin, a member of 
 my mother's family who 's in Paris for a week 
 with her husband and who wishes me to point out 
 the 'principal beauties.' Imagine a woman who 
 wears a green crape bonnet in December and has 
 straps sticking out of the ankles of her interminable 
 boots! My mother begged I would do something to 
 oblige them. I've undertaken to play valet de place 
 this afternoon. They were to have met me here at 
 two o'clock, and I've been waiting for them twenty 
 minutes. Why does n't she arrive ? She has at least 
 a pair of feet to carry her. I don't know whether to 
 be furious at their playing me false or to toss up my 
 hat for the joy of escaping them." 
 
 "I think in your place I'd be furious," said New- 
 man, "because they may arrive yet, and then youi 
 fury will still be of use to you. Whereas if you were, 
 delighted and they were afterwards to turn up, you 
 might n't know what to do well, with your hat M 
 
 201 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "You give me excellent advice, and I already feel 
 better. I'll be furious; I'll let them go to the deuce 
 and I myself will go with you unless by chance 
 you too have a rendezvous." 
 
 "It's not exactly a rendezvous," Newman re- 
 turned. "But I've in fact come to see a person, not 
 a picture." 
 
 "A woman, presumably?" 
 
 "A young lady." 
 
 "Well," said Valentin, "I hope for you, with all 
 my heart, that she's not clothed in green tulle and 
 that her feet are not too much out of focus." 
 
 "I don't know much about her feet, but she has 
 very pretty hands." 
 
 The young man breathed all his sadness. "And 
 on that assurance I must part with you ?" 
 
 "I'm not certain of finding my young lady," said 
 Newman, " and I 'm not quite prepared to lose your 
 company on the chance. It does n't strike me quite 
 as good business to introduce you to her, and yet I 
 should rather like to have your opinion of her." 
 
 " Is she formed to please ? " 
 
 "Well, I guess you '11 think so." 
 
 Valentin passed his arm into that of his compan- 
 ion. "Conduct me to her on the instant! I should 
 be ashamed to make a pretty woman wait for my 
 verdict " 
 
 Newman suffered himself to be gently propelled 
 in the direction in which he had been walking, but 
 his step was not rapid. He was turning something 
 over in his mind. The two men passed into the long 
 gallery of the Italian masters, and our friend, after 
 
 202 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 having scanned for a moment its brilliant vista, turned 
 aside into the smaller apartment devoted to the same 
 school on the left. It contained very few persons, but 
 at the further end of it Mademoiselle Nioche sat be- 
 fore her easel. She was not at work; her palette and 
 brushes had been laid down beside her, her hands 
 were folded in her lap and she had relapsed into her 
 seat to look intently at two ladies on the other side 
 of the hall, who, with their backs turned to her, had 
 stopped before one of the pictures. These ladies were 
 apparently persons of high fashion, they were dressed 
 with great splendour and their long silken trains and 
 furbelows were spread over the polished floor. It was 
 on their dresses the young woman had fixed her eyes, 
 though what she was thinking of I am unable to say. 
 I hazard the hypothesis of her mutely remarking 
 that to carry about such a mass of ponderable pleas- 
 ure would surely be one of the highest uses of free- 
 dom. Her reflections, at any rate, were disturbed by 
 the advent of her unannounced visitors, whom, as 
 she rose and stood before her easel, she greeted with 
 a precipitation of eye and lip that was like the glad 
 clap of a pair of hands. 
 
 " I came here on purpose to see you settlement 
 vous, expray, expray," Newman said in his fairest, 
 squarest, distinctest French. And then, like a good 
 American, he introduced Valentin formally: "Allow 
 me to make you acquainted with Comte Valentin 
 de Bellegarde." 
 
 Valentin made a bow which must have seemed to 
 her quite in harmony with the impressiveness of his 
 title, but the graceful brevity of her response was 
 
 203 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a negation of underbred surprise. She turned to 
 her generous patron, putting up her hands to her 
 hair and smoothing its delicately-felt roughness. 
 Then, rapidly, she turned the canvas that graced her 
 easel over on its face. "You've not forgotten me?" 
 
 "I shall never forget you. You may be sure of 
 that/' 
 
 " Oh," she protested, " there are a great many dif- 
 ferent ways of remembering a person." And she 
 looked straight at the Comte de Bellegarde, who was 
 looking at her as a gentleman may when a verdict is 
 expected of him. 
 
 "Have you painted me a pretty picture?" New- 
 man went on. "Have you shown beaucoup d* In- 
 dustrie?" 
 
 "No, I've done nothing." And, taking up her 
 palette, she began to mix her colours at random. 
 
 " But your father tells me your attendance has been 
 regular." 
 
 "I've nowhere else to go! Where do you suppose, 
 cher monsieur ? Here, all summer, one could 
 breathe at least." 
 
 "Being here then," said Newman, "don't you 
 think you might have tried something ? " 
 
 "I told you before," she sweetly answered, "that 
 I have n't the advantage of knowing how to paint." 
 
 "But you've something of interest on your easel 
 now," Valentin gaily objected, "if you'd only let me 
 
 see it." 
 
 She spread out her two hands, with the fingers ex- 
 panded, over the back of the canvas those hands 
 which Newman had called pretty and which, in spite 
 
 204 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of several little smudges of colour, Valentin could 
 now admire. " My painting is n't of interest." 
 
 "It's the only thing about you that is not, then, 
 mademoiselle," the young man gallantly returned. 
 
 She took up her shamefaced study and silently 
 passed it to him. He looked at it, and in a moment 
 she said: "I'm sure you're a great judge." 
 
 "Yes," he admitted; "I recognise merit." 
 
 "Only when it's there, I hope! I've given up," 
 she bravely declared, "trying to have it." 
 
 He faced her, with a smile, over her demoralised 
 little daub. "If one has n't one sort one can always 
 have another." 
 
 She considered with downcast eyes which, how- 
 ever, she presently raised. "We're talking of the 
 sort of which you're a judge." Then, as to antici- 
 pate too obvious a rejoinder, she turned, for more 
 urgent good manners, to Newman. " Where have you 
 been all these months ? You took those great jour- 
 neys, you amused yourself well ?" 
 
 " Oh yes," our hero returned " always beau- 
 coup, beaucoup!" 
 
 "Ah, so much the better." She spoke with charm- 
 ing unction and, having taken back her canvas from 
 Valentin, who meanwhile had looked at his friend 
 with eyes of rich meaning, began again to dabble in 
 her colours. She was singularly pretty, with the look 
 of serious sympathy she threw into her face. "Tell 
 me," she continued, "a little of all you've done." 
 
 " Oh, I went to Switzerland to Geneva and 
 Zermatt and Zurich and all those places, you know; 
 and down to Venice, and all through Germany, and 
 
 205 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 down the Rhine, and into Holland and Belgium 
 the regular round. How do you say that in French 
 the regular round?" Newman asked of Valentin. 
 
 Mademoiselle Nioche fixed her eyes an instant on 
 their companion, and then with all the candour of 
 her appeal: "I don't understand monsieur when he 
 says so much at once. Would you be so good as to 
 translate ? " 
 
 " I 'd rather talk to you out of my own head," Val- 
 entin boldly declared. 
 
 "No," said Newman gravely, still in his formal 
 French, "you must n't talk to Mademoiselle Nioche, 
 because you say discouraging things. You ought to 
 tell her to work, to persevere." 
 
 "And we Parisians, mademoiselle," the young 
 man exclaimed, "are accused of paying hollow com- 
 pliments and of being false flatterers!" 
 
 "Ah, I don't want any compliments," the girl pro- 
 tested, " I want only the cruel truth. But if I did n't 
 know it by this time !" 
 
 "I utter no truth more cruel," Valentin returned, 
 "than that there are probably many things you can 
 do very well." 
 
 "Oh, I can at least do this!" And dipping a brush 
 into a clot of red paint she drew a great horizontal 
 daub across her unfinished picture. 
 
 " What are you making that mark for ? " New- 
 man asked with his impartial interest. 
 
 Without answering, she drew another long crim- 
 son daub, in a vertical direction, down the middle of 
 her canvas and so in a moment completed the rough 
 mdica tion of a cross. " It 's the sign of the cruel truth." 
 
 206 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 The two men looked at each other, Valentin as 
 with vivid intelligence. "You've spoiled my pic- 
 ture," said his friend. 
 
 " I know that very well. It was the only thing to 
 do with it. I had sat looking at it all day without 
 touching it. I had begun to hate it. It seemed to me 
 something was going to happen." 
 
 "I like it better that way than as it was before," 
 said Valentin. "Now it's more interesting. It tells 
 a little story now. Is it for sale, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 "Everything I have is for sale," she promptly 
 replied. 
 
 "How much then is this object ?" 
 
 "Ten thousand francs and very cheap!" 
 
 "Everything mademoiselle may do at present is 
 mine in advance," Newman interposed. "It makes 
 part of an order I gave her some months ago. So you 
 can't have that!" 
 
 "Monsieur will lose nothing by it," said made- 
 moiselle with her charming eyes on Valentin. And 
 she began to put up her utensils. 
 
 "I shall have gained an ineffaceable memory," 
 Valentin smiled. "You're going away? your day's 
 over?" 
 
 " My father comes to fetch me," the young lady 
 replied. 
 
 She had hardly spoken when, through the door 
 behind her, which opens on one of the great white 
 stone staircases of the Louvre, M. Nioche made his 
 appearance. He came in with his usual patient shut- 
 fle, indulging in a low salute to the gentlemen who 
 had done him the honour to gather about his daugh- 
 
 207 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ter. Newman shook his hand with muscular friend- 
 liness and Valentin returned his greeting with high 
 consideration. While the old man stood waiting for 
 Noemie to make a parcel of her implements he let his 
 mild oblique gaze play over this new acquaintance, 
 who was watching her put on her bonnet and mantle. 
 Valentin was at no pains to disguise the benevolence 
 of his own interest. He looked at a pretty person as 
 he would have listened to a good piece of music. In- 
 telligent participation was in such a case simple good 
 manners. M. Nioche at last took his daughter's paint- 
 box in one hand and the bedaubed canvas, after giv- 
 ing it a solemn puzzled stare, in the other, and led the 
 way to the door. Noemie followed him after making 
 her late interlocutors the formal obeisance of the per- 
 fectly-educated female young. 
 
 "Well," said Newman, "what do you think of 
 her?" 
 
 "She's very remarkable. Diable, diable, diable !" 
 his friend reflectively repeated; "she's the perfection 
 of the type." 
 
 "I'm afraid she's a sad little trifler," Newman 
 conscientiously remarked. 
 
 "Not a little one rather an immense one. She 
 has all the material." And Valentin began to walk 
 slowly off, looking vaguely, though with eyes now so 
 opened, at the pictures on the walls. Nothing could 
 have appealed to his imagination more than the pos- 
 sible futility of a young lady so equipped for futility. 
 " She 's very interesting," he went on. " Yes, the type 
 shines out in her." 
 
 "'The type' ? The type of what ?" 
 208 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Well, of soaring, of almost sublime ambition! 
 She 's a very bad little copyist, but, endowed with the 
 artistic sense in another line, I suspect her none the 
 less of a strong feeling for her great originals." 
 
 Newman wondered, but presently followed. " Surely 
 her great originals will have had more beauty." 
 
 "Not always. She has enough to look as if she 
 had more, and that's always plenty. It's a face and 
 figure in which everything tells. If she were prettier 
 she would be less intelligent, and her intelligence is 
 half her charm." 
 
 "In what way does her intelligence strike you as 
 so remarkable?" asked Newman, at once puzzled ? 
 impressed and vaguely scandalised by his friend's 
 investment of such a subject with so much of the dig- 
 nity of demonstration. 
 
 "She has taken the measure of life, and she has 
 determined to be something to succeed at any cost. 
 Her smearing of colours is of course a mere trick to 
 gain time. She's waiting for her chance; she wishes 
 to launch herself, and to do it right. Nobody, my 
 dear man, can ever have had such a love of the right. 
 She knows her Paris. She's one of fifty thousand, so 
 far as her impatiences and appetites go, but I 'm sure 
 she has an exceptional number of ideas." 
 
 Newman raised his strong eyebrows. "Are you 
 also sure they're really good ones ?" 
 
 "Ah, 'good, good'!" cried Valentin: "you people 
 are too wonderful with your goodness. Good for 
 what, please ? They '11 be excellent, I warrant, for 
 some things! They'll be much better than the hope- 
 less game she has just given up. They'll be good 
 
 209 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 enough to make her, I dare say, one of the celebrities 
 of the future." 
 
 "Lord o' mercy, you have sized her up! But don't 
 I must really ask it of you let her quite run 
 away with you," Newman went on. "I shall owe it 
 to her good old father not to have upset her balance. 
 For he's a real nice man." 
 
 "Oh, oh, oh, her good old father!" Valentin in- 
 corrigibly mocked. And then as his companion looked 
 grave: "He expects her to assure his future." 
 
 "I thought he rather expected me! And don't you 
 judge him, as a friend of mine," Newman asked, 
 "too cruelly : He's as poor as a rat, but very high- 
 toned." 
 
 "Why, mon cher, I should adore his tone, and 
 you're right to do the same: it's much better than 
 mine, and he'll do you more good as a companion, 
 he'll protect your innocence better, than ever I shall. 
 I don't mean," Valentin explained, "that he would n't 
 much rather his daughter were a good girl, that she 
 remained as 'nice' as worthy, that is, say, of your 
 particular use as he may himself remain. But all 
 the same he won't, if the worst comes to the worst 
 well, he won't do what Virginius did. He does n't 
 want her to be a failure as why should he ? and 
 if she is n't a failure it 's plain she '11 be a success. On 
 the whole he has confidence." 
 
 "He has touching fears, sir I admit he has be- 
 trayed them to me." Newman felt himself loyally 
 concerned to defend a character that had struck him 
 as pleasingly complete though completeness was, 
 after all, what Valentin also claimed for it. The dif- 
 
 210 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Terence was in their view of that picturesque grace, 
 and Newman would, to an appreciable degree, have 
 sentimentally suffered from not being able to keep 
 Monsieur Nioche before him as he had first seen him. 
 He was, to an extent he never fully revealed, a col- 
 lector of impressions as romantically concrete, even 
 when profane, as the blest images and sanctified 
 relics of one of the systematically devout, and he at 
 bottom liked as little to hear anything he had picked 
 up with the hand of the spirit pronounced unauthen- 
 cic. "I don't quite remember what Virginius did/* 
 he presently pursued, "and I don't say for certain 
 that my old friend would shoot. He does n't affect 
 me no as a shooting man. But I guess he 
 would n't want to make very much out of anything." 
 
 "Then he'll be very different," Valentin laughed, 
 "from any of the rest of his species! Why, my dear 
 fellow, we all here in Paris want to make as much 
 as possible out of everything. That 's how we differ, 
 I conceive, from the people of your country: the ob- 
 jects of your exploitation appear to be fewer, and 
 above all of fewer kinds. I don't mind telling you," 
 he declared in the same tone, "that I don't see the 
 end of what I might be capable of making out of this." 
 
 "Of 'this' ?" 
 
 "Of the relation of Monsieur Nioche to his daugh- 
 ter, and of the relation of his daughter to well, to 
 as many other persons as you like!" 
 
 " I shan't at all like you to be one of them," New- 
 man still gravely returned. " I did n't ask you to come 
 round with me just to set you after her." 
 
 The young man appeared for an instant embar- 
 
 211 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 rassed. "Do you object then to her having engaged 
 my enlightened curiosity?" 
 
 Newman considered. "Well, no since, from 
 the moment I recognise she '11 never deliver my goods 
 I don't quite see where I stand or how I can improve 
 her." 
 
 "Oh, you certainly can't improve her!" Valentin 
 gaily cried. 
 
 Newman looked at him a moment. "I should like 
 then to improve you. I guess at any rate you had 
 better leave her alone." 
 
 "Oh, oh, oh!" his companion exclaimed, at this, 
 with an accent that made him pull up. "Do you 
 mean, my dear fellow, that you warn me off?" 
 
 They had stopped a minute before, and he stood 
 there staring. "Hanged if I don't believe you sup- 
 pose I'm afraid of you!" 
 
 Valentin had given a cock to his moustache, and 
 he stroked it an instant, meeting this exclamation 
 with a glance of some ambiguity and a smile just 
 slightly strained. "Oh, I should n't put it that way: 
 you don't even yet know me enough to fear me! 
 Which gives you the advantage for you 've your- 
 self attitudes that, I confess, make me tremble. I 
 think you're afraid, at most," he continued, "of my 
 bad example." 
 
 Newman had again for he had had it before 
 a strange fine sense of something he would have called, 
 in relation to this brilliant friend, the waste of anim- 
 adversion. It was somehow one with the accepted 
 economic need of keeping him pleasantly in view. 
 Even to argue with him was somehow to misuse a 
 
 212 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 luxury, and to think of him as perverse was some- 
 how to miss an occasion. No one had ever given him 
 that impression, which he might have compared to 
 the absolute pleasure, for the palate, of wine of the 
 highest savour. One didn't put anything "into" 
 such a vintage and there was a way of handling the 
 very bottle. The grace of him, of Valentin, was all 
 precious, the growth of him all fortunate, the quan- 
 tity of him elsewhere all doubtless limited. " I might 
 perhaps have been a factor in that young lady's 
 moral future," Newman presently said "but I don't 
 come in now. And evidently," he added "you've 
 no room for me in yours." 
 
 The young man gave a laugh, and the next mo- 
 ment, arm in arm, they had resumed their walk. " Oh, 
 on the contrary," Valentin then replied; "since what 
 I want, precisely, is to keep it spacious and capacious 
 at least on the scale, if you please, of my moral 
 past; which indeed seems to me, when I look back 
 on it, as boundless as the desert. It's a prospect that, 
 at all events, such figures as you and your wonderful 
 friends help to people. And I may say about them" 
 he went on, "that I should like really in the inter- 
 est of the impression that I confess the young lady 
 makes on me to propose to you a fair agreement." 
 
 On which, amusedly enough, Newman debated as 
 they went. "That I shall shut my eyes to what you 
 want to do ?" 
 
 "Well, yes say I may expect you'll shut them 
 to me as soon as I shall find you've opened them to 
 the grand manner in which your old gentleman is a 
 man of the world. You '11 be obliged, I 'm convinced, 
 
 213 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to recognise it, and I only ask you to let me know, in 
 all honesty, when you've done so." 
 
 " So that you, in all honesty ? " 
 
 "Well, call it in all delicacy!" Valentin suggested. 
 
 Newman continued to wonder. "May have a free 
 hand ?" 
 
 "Without your being shocked," the young man 
 gracefully said. 
 
 But it only made our friend rather quaintly groan. 
 "I think it's your delicacies, all round, that shock 
 me most!" 
 
 "Ah, don't say," Valentin pleaded, "that I'm not 
 at the worst a man of duty! See for yourself!" His 
 English cousins had come into view, and he advanced 
 gallantly to meet the lady in the green crape bonnet. 
 
xn 
 
 COMING in toward evening, three days after his in- 
 troduction to the family of Madame de Cintre, New- 
 man found on his table the card of the Marquis de 
 Bellegarde. On the following day he received a note 
 informing him that this gentleman's mother requested 
 the pleasure of his company at dinner. He went of 
 course, though he had first to disengage himself from 
 appeals that struck him as in comparison the babble 
 of vain things. He was ushered into the room in which 
 Madame de Bellegarde had received him before, and 
 here he found his venerable hostess surrounded by 
 her entire family. The room was lighted only by the 
 crackling fire, which illumined the very small pink 
 shoes of a lady who, from a low chair, stretched 
 out her toes to it. This lady was the younger Ma- 
 dame de Bellegarde, always less effectively present, 
 somehow, than perceptibly posted. Madame de Cin- 
 tre, not posted at all, but oh so present, was seated at 
 the other end of the room, holding a little girl against 
 her knee, the child of her brother Urbain, to whom 
 she was apparently relating a wonderful story. Val- 
 entin had perched on a puff close to his sister-in-law, 
 into whose ear he was certainly distilling the finest 
 nonsense. The Marquis was stationed before the 
 chimney, his head erect and his hands behind him in 
 an attitude <>f formal expectancy. 
 
 215 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 The old Marquise stood up to give Newman her 
 greeting, and there was that in the way she did so 
 which seemed to measure narrowly the quantity of 
 importance such a demonstration might appear to 
 attach to him. "We're all alone, you see; we've 
 asked no one else," she said austerely. 
 
 "I'm very glad you didn't; this is much more 
 sociable. I wish you good-evening, sir" and New- 
 man offered his hand to the Marquis. 
 
 M. de Bellegarde was affable, yet in spite of his 
 dignity was restless. He changed his place, fidgeted 
 about, looked out of the long windows, took up books 
 and laid them down again. Young Madame de Belle- 
 garde gave their guest her hand without moving and 
 without looking at him. 
 
 u You may think that's coldness," Valentin freely 
 explained; "but it's not, it's the last confidence, and 
 you'll grow up to it. It shows she's treating you 
 as an intimate. Now she detests me, and yet she's 
 always looking at me." 
 
 "No wonder I detest you if I'm always looking at 
 you!" cried the lady. "If Mr. Newman doesn't 
 like my way of shaking hands I '11 do it for him 
 again." 
 
 But this charming privilege was lost on our hero 
 who was already making his way over to Madame 
 de Cintre. She raised her eyes to him as she accepted 
 from him the customary form, but she went on with 
 the story she was telling her little niece. She had only 
 two or three phrases to add, but they were apparently 
 of great moment. She deepened her voice, smiling 
 as she did so, and the little girl immensely gazed at 
 
 216 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 her. "But in the end the young prince married the 
 beautiful Florabeila, and carried her off to live with 
 him in the Land of the Pink Sky. There she was so 
 happy that she forgot all her troubles and went out 
 to drive every day of her life in an ivory coach drawn 
 by five hundred white mice. Poor Florabeila," she 
 mentioned to Newman, "had suffered terribly." 
 
 "She had had nothing to eat for six months," said 
 little Blanche. 
 
 "Yes, but when the six months were over she had 
 a plum-cake as big as that ottoman," Madame de 
 Cintre insisted. "That quite set her up again." 
 
 "What a strong constitution and what a chequered 
 career!" said Newman. "Are you very fond of chil- 
 dren 5 He was certain she must be, but wished to 
 make her say it. 
 
 "I like to talk with them; we can talk with them 
 so much more seriously than with grown persons. 
 That 's great nonsense I 've been telling Blanche, but 
 it has much more value than most of what we say in 
 society." 
 
 "I wish you would talk to me then as if I were 
 Blanche's age," Newman laughed. " Were you happy 
 at your ball the other night ? " 
 
 "Extravagantly!" 
 
 "Now you're talking the nonsense that we talk in 
 society," said Newman. "I don't believe that." 
 
 " It was my own fault if I was n't happy. The ball 
 was very pretty and every one very amiable." 
 
 "It was on your conscience," he presently risked, 
 "that you had annoyed your mother and youi 
 brother." 
 
 217 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 She looked at him a moment in silence. "That's 
 possible I had undertaken more than I could carry 
 out. I've very little courage; I'm not a heroine." 
 She said this, he could feel, to be very true with him; 
 and it touched him as if she had pressed into his hand, 
 for reminder, some note she had scrawled or some 
 ribbon or ring she had worn. Then changing her 
 tone, " I could never have gone through the sufferings 
 of the beautiful Florabella," she added, "not even 
 for her prospective rewards." 
 
 Dinner was announced and he betook himself to 
 the side of old Madame de Bellegarde. The dining- 
 room, at the end of a cold corridor, was vast and som- 
 bre; the dinner was simple and delicately excellent. 
 Newman wondered if the daughter of the house had 
 had to do with ordering the repast, and, with a fine 
 applied power of remote projection, hoped this might 
 have been. Once seated at table, with the various 
 members of so rigidly closed a circle round him, he 
 asked himself the meaning of his position. Was the 
 old lady responding to his advances ? Did the fact 
 that he was a solitary guest augment his credit or 
 diminish it ? Were they ashamed to show him to other 
 people or did they wish to give him a sign of sudden 
 adoption into their last reserve of favour ? He was 
 on his guard; he was watchful and conjectural, yet 
 at the same time he was vaguely indifferent. Whether 
 they gave him a long rope or a short he was there now, 
 and Madame de Cintre was opposite him. She had 
 a tall candlestick on each side of her; she would sit 
 there for the next hour, and that was enough. The 
 dinner was extremely solemn and measured; he won- 
 
 218 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 dered if this was always the state of things in old fam- 
 ilies. Madame de Bellegarde held her head very high 
 and fixed her eyes, which looked peculiarly sharp in 
 her little finely-wrinkled white face, very intently on 
 the table-service. The Marquis appeared to have 
 decided that the fine arts offered a safe subject of 
 conversation, as not leading to uncouth personal re- 
 velations. Every now and then, having learned from 
 Newman that he had been through the museums of 
 Europe, he uttered some polished aphorism on the 
 flesh-tints of Rubens or the good taste of Sansovino. 
 He struck his guest as precautionary, as apprehen- 
 sive; his manner seemed to indicate a fine nervous 
 dread that something disagreeable might happen if 
 the atmosphere were not kept clear of stray currents 
 from windows opened at hazard. "What under the 
 sun is he afraid of ? " Newman asked himself. " Does 
 he think I 'm going to offer to swap jack-knives with 
 him ? " It was useless to shut his eyes to the fact that 
 the Marquis was as disagreeable to him as some 
 queer, rare, possibly dangerous biped, perturbingly 
 akin to humanity, in one of the cages of a "show/* 
 He had never been a man of strong personal aver- 
 sions; his nerves had not been at the mercy of the 
 mystical qualities of his neighbours. But here was 
 a figure in respect to which he was irresistibly in op- 
 position; a figure of forms and phrases and postures; 
 a figure of possible impertinences and treacheries. 
 M. de Bellegarde made him feel as if he were stand- 
 ing barefooted on a marble floor; and yet to gain his 
 desire, he felt perfectly able to stand. He asked him- 
 self what Madame de Cintre thought of his bein& 
 
 219 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 accepted if it was acceptance that was thus con- 
 veyed to him. There was no judging from her face, 
 which expressed simply the desire to show kindness 
 in a manner requiring as little explicit recognition as 
 possible. Young Madame de Bellegarde had always 
 the same manner; preoccupied, distracted, listening 
 to everything and hearing nothing, looking at her 
 dress, her rings, her finger-nails and seeming inef- 
 fably bored, she yet defied you to pronounce on her 
 ideal of social diversion. Newman was enlightened 
 on this point later. Even Valentin failed quite to 
 seem master of his wits; his vivacity was fitful and 
 forced, but his friend felt his firm eyes shine through 
 the lapses of the talk very much as to the effect of 
 one's being pinched by him very hard in the dark. 
 Newman himself, for t he first time in his life, was not 
 himself; he measured his motions and counted his 
 words; he had the sense of sitting in a boat that re- 
 quired inordinate trimming and that a wrong move 
 ment might cause to overturn. 
 
 After dinner M. de Bellegarde proposed the smok- 
 ing-room and led the way to a small and somewhat 
 musty apartment, the walls of which were orna- 
 mented with old hangings of stamped leather and 
 trophies of rusty arms. Newman refused a cigar, bur 
 established himself on one of the divans while the 
 Marquis puffed his own weed before the fireplace 
 and Valentin sat looking through the light fumes of 
 a cigarette from one to the other. " I can't keep quiet 
 any longer," this member of the family broke out ar 
 last. " I must tell you the news and congratulate you. 
 My brother seems unable to come to the point; he 
 
 220 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 revohes round his announcement even as the priest 
 round the altar. You're accepted as a candidate for 
 the hand of our sister." 
 
 "Valentin, be a little proper!" murmured the 
 Marquis, the bridge of whose high nose yielded to 
 a fold of fine irritation. 
 
 "There has been a family council," his brother 
 nevertheless continued; "my mother and he have 
 put their heads together, and even my testimony 
 has not been altogether excluded. My mother and 
 Urbain sat at a table covered with green cloth; my 
 sister-in-law and I were on a bench against the wall. 
 It was like a committee at the Corps Legislatif. We 
 were called up one after the other to testify. We spoke 
 of you very handsomely. Madame de Bellegarde 
 said that if she had not been told who you were she'd 
 have taken you for a duke an American duke, the 
 Duke of California. I said I could warrant you grate- 
 ful for the smallest favours modest, humble, un- 
 assuming. I was sure you'd know your own place 
 always and never give us occasion to remind you of 
 certain differences. You could n't help it, after all r 
 if you had not come in for a dukedom. There were 
 none in your country; but if there had been it was 
 certain that with your energy and ability you 'd have 
 got the pick of the honours. At this point I was 
 ordered to sit down, but I think I made an impression 
 in your favour." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde looked at his brother as New- 
 man had seen those unfortunates looked at who have 
 told, before waiting auditors, stories of no effect. 
 Then he removed a spark of cigar-ashes from the 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 sleeve of his coat; he fixed his eyes for a while on 
 the cornice of the room, and at last he inserted one 
 of his white hands into the breast of his waistcoat. 
 "I must apologise to you for Valentin's inveterate 
 bad taste, as well as notify you that this is probably 
 not the last time that his want of tact will cause you 
 serious embarrassment." 
 
 "No, I confess, I've no tact," said Valentin. "Is 
 your embarrassment really serious, Newman ? Urbain 
 will put you right again; he'll know just how you 
 feel." 
 
 "My brother, I'm sorry to say," the Marquis 
 pursued, " has never had the real sense of his duties 
 or his opportunities of what one must after all call 
 his position. It has been a great pain to his mother, 
 who 's very fond of the old traditions. But you must 
 remember that he speaks for no one but himself." 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind him, sir" Newman was all 
 good-humour. "I know what the Valentines of this 
 world amount to." 
 
 "In the good old times," the young man said, 
 "marquises and counts used to have their appointed 
 buffoons and jesters to crack jokes for them. Now- 
 adays we see a great strapping democrat keeping 
 one of ' us,' as Urbain would say, about him to play 
 the fool. It 's a good situation, but I certainly am very 
 degenerate." 
 
 The Marquis fixed his eyes for some time on the 
 floor. "My mother has let me know," he presently 
 resumed, "of the announcement that you made her 
 other evening." 
 
 "That I want so much to marry your sister ?" 
 
 222 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "That you desire to approach the Comtesse de 
 Cintre with that idea, and ask of us therefore your 
 facility for so doing. The proposal gave my mother 
 you can perhaps even yourself imagine a great 
 deal to think about. She naturally took me into her 
 counsels, and the subject has had my most careful 
 attention. There was a great deal to be considered; 
 more than you perhaps appear to conceive. We 
 have viewed the question on all its faces, we have 
 weighed one thing against another. Our conclusion 
 has been that we see no reason to oppose your pre- 
 tension though of course the matter, the question of 
 your success, rests mainly with yourself. My mother 
 has wished me to inform you then of our favourable 
 attitude. She'll have the honour of saying a few 
 words to you on the subject herself. Meanwhile you 
 have our sanction, as heads of the family." 
 
 Newman got up and came nearer. "You person- 
 ally will do all you can to back me up, eh ?" 
 
 " I engage to you to throw my weight into the scale 
 of your success." 
 
 Newman passed his hand over his face and pressed 
 it for a moment upon his eyes. This promise had 
 a great sound, and yet the pleasure he took in it was 
 embittered by his having to stand there so and re- 
 ceive, as he might say, this prodigious person's 
 damned permission. The idea of having the elder 
 M. de Bellegarde mixed up with his wooing and 
 wedding was more and more unpleasant to him. 
 But he had resolved to go through the mill, as he 
 had imaged it, and he would n't cry out at the first 
 turn of the wheel. He was silent a while and then 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 said with a certain dryness which Valentin told him 
 afterwards had a very grand air: "I 'm much obliged 
 to you/' 
 
 "I take note of the promise," said Valentin; "I 
 register the vow." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde began to gaze at the cornice 
 again; he apparently had more to say. "I must do 
 my mother the justice, I must do myself the justice, 
 to make the point that our decision was not easy. 
 Such an arrangement was not what we had expected. 
 The idea that my sister should marry a gentleman 
 so intimately involved in a business, was some- 
 thing of a novelty." 
 
 "So I told you, you know!" Valentin recalled tc 
 Newman with a fine admonitory finger. 
 
 "The incongruity has not quite worn off, I confess," 
 the Marquis went on; "perhaps it never will entirely. 
 But possibly that's not altogether to be regretted"; 
 and he went through that odd dim form of a smile 
 that affected his guest as the scraping of a match that 
 does n't light. " It may be that the time has come 
 when we should make some concession to the spirit 
 of the day. There had been no such positive sacrifice 
 in our house for a great many years. I made the remark 
 to my mother, and she did me the honour to admit 
 that it was worthy of attention." 
 
 "My dear brother," interrupted Valentin, "is not 
 your memory just here leading you the least bit 
 astray ? Our mother is, I may say, distinguished by 
 her small respect for abstract reasoning. Are you 
 very sure she replied to your striking proposition in 
 the gracious manner you describe ? You know how, 
 
 224 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 when it suits her, she goes straight to the point 
 au pas de charge! Did n't she rather do you the 
 honour to say: *A fiddlestick for your fine phrases! 
 There are better reasons than that* ?" 
 
 "Other reasons were discussed," said the Marquis 
 without looking at Valentin, but with a slightly more 
 nasal pitch; "some of them possibly were better. 
 We're highly conservative, Mr. Newman, but we 
 have never, I trust, been stupidly narrow. We're 
 judging this so interesting question on its merits only. 
 We've no doubt we shall be fully justified. We've 
 no doubt everything will be comfortable." 
 
 Newman had stood listening to these remarks 
 with his arms folded and his eyes fastened on the 
 speaker. *' Justified ? " he echoed with his way of 
 putting rather less than more sense into words he 
 repeated. "Why shouldn't we be? I assure you 
 I 've no fear for myself. Why should n't we be com- 
 fortable ? If you're not it will be your own fault. 
 I 've everything to make me so." 
 
 "My brother means that with the lapse of time 
 you may get used to the difference." And Valentin 
 paused to light another cigarette. 
 
 " What difference ? " Newman unimaginatively 
 asked. 
 
 "Urbain," said Valentin very gravely, "I'm afraid 
 that Mr. Newman does n't quite realise the difference. 
 We ought to insist on that." 
 
 "My brother goes too far," M. de Bellegarde 
 observed to Newman. "He has no nice sense of 
 what should n't be said. It's my mother's wish and 
 mine that no comparisons should be made. Pray 
 
 225 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 never make them yourself. We prefer to assume 
 that the person accepted as the possible husband of 
 my sister is one of ourselves, and that he should feel 
 no explanations necessary. With a little tact on both 
 sides everything ought to be easy. That's exactly 
 what I wished to say that we quite understand 
 what we've undertaken and that you may depend on 
 our not breaking down." 
 
 Valentin shook his hands in the air and then 
 buried his face in them. "I don't quite steer clear 
 myself, no doubt, but oh, my brother, if you knew 
 what you are saying! " And he went off into a sound 
 that combined a long laugh with a long wail. 
 
 M. de Bellegarde's face flushed a little, but he 
 held his head higher, as if to repudiate this concession 
 to vulgar perturbability. " I 'm sure you quite know 
 what I mean," he said to Newman. 
 
 "Oh no, not quite or perhaps not at all," New- 
 man answered. " But you need n't mind that. I 
 don't care whether I know or even, really, care, 
 I think, what you say; for if I did there might be 
 things I should n't like, should in fact, quite J/jlike, 
 and that would n't suit me at all, you know. I want, 
 very originally, no doubt, but very obstinately, to 
 marry your sister and nobody other whomsoever 
 that's all; to do it as quickly as possible and to do 
 as little else among you besides. I don't care there- 
 fore how I do it as regards the rest of you! And 
 that's all I have to say." 
 
 "You had better, nevertheless, receive the last 
 word from my mother," said the Marquis, who 
 had n't blanched. 
 
 22& 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Very good; I'll go and get it." And Newman 
 prepared to return to the drawing-room. 
 
 M. de Bellegarde made a motion for him to pass 
 first, and on his doing so shut himself into the room 
 vrth Valentin. Newman had been a trifle bewildered 
 by the free play of his friend's wit and had not needed 
 its aid to feel the limits of the elder brother's. That 
 was what he had heard of as patronage a great 
 historic and traditionary force that he now per- 
 sonally encountered for the first time in his life. 
 Did n't it consist in calling your attention to the 
 impertinences it spared you ? But he had recognised 
 all the bravery of Valentin's backing that underlay 
 Vaientin's comedy, and he was unwilling so fine a 
 comedian should pay a tax on it. He paused a morrent 
 in the corridor, after he had gone a few steps, expect 
 ing to hear the resonance of M. de Bellegarde'i> 
 displeasure; but he detected only a perfect stillness. 
 The stillness itself seemed a trifle portentous; he 
 reflected, however, that he had no nght to stand 
 listening and made his way back to the salon. In his 
 absence several persons had come in. They were 
 scattered about the room in groups, two or three of 
 them having passed into a small boudoir, next to 
 the drawing-room, which had now been lighted and 
 opened. Madame de Bellegarde was in her place 
 by the fire, talking to an antique gentleman in a wig 
 and a profuse white neckcloth of the fasrron of 1820. 
 Madame de Cintre had bent a listening head to the 
 historic confidences of an old lady who was pre- 
 sumably the wife of this personage, an old lady in 
 a red satin dress and an ermine cape, whose forehead 
 
 227 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 was adorned with a topaz set in a velvet Dand. The 
 young Marquise, when he came in, left some people 
 among whom she was sitting and tooK the place she 
 had occupied before dmner. Then she gave a little 
 push to the puff that stood near her and seemed to 
 indicate by a glance that she had placed it in position 
 for him. He went and took possession of it; the 
 young Marquise amused and puzzled him. 
 
 "I know your secret," she said in her bad but 
 charming English; "you need make no mystery of it. 
 You wish to marry my sister-in law. C'est un beau 
 choix. A man like you ought in effect .o marry a very 
 tall and very thin woman. You must know that I 've 
 spoken in your favour, I'm really on your side and 
 in your interest. You owe me a ramous taper!" 
 
 "You 've spoken well of me to Madame de Cintre ? " 
 Newman asked 
 
 "Oh no, not that. You may think it strange, but 
 my sister in-law and I are not so intimate as that. 
 Taking my courage in my hands, I put in my word 
 for you to my husband and to my mother-in-law. 
 I said I was sure we could do what we choose with 
 you." 
 
 "I'm much obliged to you," laughed Newman, 
 "but I guess you'll find you can't." 
 
 "I know that very well; I did n't believe a word of 
 it. But I wanted you to come into the house; I thought 
 we should be friends." 
 
 "I'm very sure of it," said Newman. 
 
 " Don't be too sure. If you like the Comtesse so 
 much perhaps you won't like me. We're as differ- 
 ent well, as this fan and that poker. But you and 
 
 228 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 T have something in common. I've come '*nto this 
 family by marriage; you want to come into it in the 
 same way." 
 
 "Oh no, I don't want to come into it at all," he 
 interrupted "not a wee mite! I only want to take 
 Madame de Cintre out of it." 
 
 "Well, to cast your nets you have to go into the 
 water. Our positions are alike; we shall be able to 
 compare notes. What do you think of my husband ? 
 It's a strange question, is n't it ? But I shall ask you 
 some stranger ones yet." 
 
 " Perhaps a stranger one will be easier to answer," 
 Newman said. "You might try me." 
 
 "Oh, you get off very well; the old Comte de la 
 Rochefidele, yonder, could n't do it better. I told 
 them that if we only gave you a chance you'd be one 
 of our plus fins causeurs. I know something about 
 men. Besides, you and I belong to the same camp. 
 I 'm a ferocious modern. I 'm more modern than 
 you, you know because I 've been through this 
 and come out, very far out; which you have n't. 
 Oh, you don t know what this is. Vous allez lien 
 voir. By birth I'm vielle roche; a good little bit of 
 the history of France is the history of my family. 
 Oh, you never heard of us, of course! Ce que cesi 
 que la gloire de race. We're much better than the 
 Bellegardes at any rate. But I don't care a pin for 
 my pedigree I only want to belong to my time. 
 So, being a reactionary from the reaction I 'm 
 sure I go beyond you. That's what you look, you 
 know that you're not reactionary enough. But 
 l like clever people, wherever they come from, and 
 
 22Q 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 I take my amusement wherever I find it. i don't pout 
 at the Empire; here all the world pouts at the Em- 
 pire. Of course I 've to mind what I say, but I ex- 
 pect to take my revenge with you." The little lady 
 discoursed for some time longer in this sympathetic 
 strain, with an eager abundance indicating that her 
 opportunities for revealing her esoteric philosophy 
 were indeed rare. She hoped Newman would never 
 be afraid of her, however he might be with the others, 
 for really she went very far indeed. " Strong people " 
 les gens forts were in her opinion equal all the 
 world over. Newman listened to her with an atten- 
 tion at once beguiled and irritated. He wondered 
 what the deuce she too was driving at, with her hope 
 he would n't be afraid of her and her protestations 
 of equality. In so far as he could understand her she 
 was wrong he did n't admit her equality; a silly 
 rattling woman was never on a level with a sensible 
 man, a man preoccupied with an ambitious passion. 
 The young Marquise stopped suddenly and looked 
 at him sharply, shaking her fan. "I see you don't 
 believe me, you're too much on your guard. You 
 won't form an alliance, offensive or defensive ? 
 You're very wrong; I could really help you." 
 
 Newman answered that he was very grateful and 
 that he would certainly ask for help; she should 
 see. " But first of all," he said, " I must help myself." 
 And he went to join Madame de Cintre. 
 
 " I 've been telling Madame de la Rochefidele that 
 you're an' American,''" she said as he came up. "It 
 interests her greatly. Her favourite uncle went over 
 with the French troops to help you in your battles in 
 
 230 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the last century, and she has always, in consequence, 
 wanted greatly to see one of your people. But she has 
 never succeeded till to-night. You 're the first to 
 her knowledge that she has ever looked at." 
 
 Madame de la Rochefidele had an aged cadaverous 
 face, with a falling of the lower jaw which prevented 
 her bringing her lips together and reduced her con- 
 versation to a series of impressive but inarticulate 
 gutturals. She raised an antique eye-glass, elaborately 
 mounted in chased silver, and looked at Newman 
 from head to foot. Then she said something to which 
 he listenea deferentially but which conveyed to him 
 no idea whatever 
 
 "Madame de ia Rochefidele says she's convinced 
 she must have seen Americans without knowing it," 
 Madame de Cintre explained. Newman thought it 
 probable she had seen a great many things without 
 knowing if and the old lady, again addressing her- 
 self to utterance, declared as interpreted by 
 Madame de Cintre that she wished she had 
 known it. 
 
 At this moment the old gentleman who had been 
 talking to their hostess drew near, leading that lady 
 on his arm. His wife pointed out Newman to him, 
 apparently explaining his remarkable origin. M. de la 
 Rochefidele, whose old age was as rosy and round 
 and polished as an imitat/on apple, spoke very neatly 
 and cheerily; almost as prettily, Newman thought, 
 as M. Nioche, and much more hopefully. When he 
 had been enlightened he turned to Newman with an 
 inimitable elderly grace. "Monsieur is by no means 
 the first American I have seen. Almost the firs!; 
 
 231 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 person I ever saw to notice him was an Ameri 
 
 can." 
 
 "Ah!" said Newman sympathetically. 
 
 "The great Dr. Franklin. Of course I was very 
 very young. I believe I had but just come into the 
 world. He was received very well dans le noire" 
 
 "Not better than Mr. Newman," said Madame 
 de Bellegarde. " I beg he '11 offer me his arm into the 
 other room. I could have offered no higher privilege 
 to Dr. Franklin." Newman, complying with hei 
 request, perceived that her two sons had returned to 
 the drawing-room. He scanned their faces an instant 
 for traces of the scene that had followed his separa- 
 tion from them, but if the Marquis had been ruffled he 
 stepped all the more like some high-crested though 
 distinctly domestic fowl who had always the alter- 
 native of the perch. Valentin, on his side, was kissing 
 ladies' hands as much as ever as if there were nothing 
 else in the world but these and sundry other invita- 
 tions to the moustachioed lip. Madame de Bellegarde 
 gave a glance at her elder son, and by the time she 
 had crossed the threshold of her boudoir he was 
 at her side. The room was now empty and offered 
 a sufficient privacy. She disengaged herself from 
 Newman's arm and rested her hand on that of their 
 companion; and in this position she stood a moment^ 
 bridling, almost quivering, causing her ornaments, 
 her earrings and brooches and buckles, somehow 
 doubly to twinkle, and pursing, as from simple force 
 of character, her portentous little mouth. I am afraid 
 the picture was lost on Newman, but she was in 
 fact at this moment a striking image of the dignity 
 
 232 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 which even in the case of a small time-shrunken 
 old lady may reside in the habit of unquestioned 
 .authority and the absoluteness of a social theory 
 favourable to the person holding it. <: My son has 
 spoken to you as I desired, and you'll understand 
 that you 've nothing to fear from our opposition. The 
 rest will lie with yourself." 
 
 " M. de Bellegarde told me several things I did n't 
 understand," said Newman, "but I made out that. 
 You '11 let me stand on my merits. I 'm much obliged.'* 
 
 "I wish nevertheless to add a word that my son 
 probably did n't feel at liberty to say," the Marquise 
 pursued. " I must say it for my own peace of mind. 
 We Ve stretched a point; we've gone very far to meet 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, your son said it very well; didn't you, 
 Marquis ? " Newman asked. 
 
 "Not so well as my mother," the Marquis declared. 
 
 "Well," Newman returned, "i don't know what 
 I can do but make a note of it and try to profit by it." 
 
 " It 's proper I should tell you," Madame de Belle- 
 garde went on as if to relieve an ins ; stent inward need, 
 "that I'm a very stiff old person and that I don't 
 pretend not to be. I may be wrong to feel certain 
 things as I do, but :t 's too late for me to change. At 
 least I know it as i know also why. Don't flatter 
 yourself that my daughter also isn't proud. She's 
 proud in her own way a somewhat different way 
 from mine. You'll have to make your terms with 
 that. Even Valentin's proud, if you touch the right 
 spot or the wrong one. Urbain 's proud that 
 you see for yourself.. Sometimes I think he's a little 
 
 233 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 too proud; but I wouldn't change him. He's the 
 best of my children; he cleaves to his old mother. 
 I 've said, in any case, enough to show you that 
 we are all very much aware of ourselves and very 
 absurd and rather Impossible together. It's well 
 you should know the sort of people you have come 
 among." 
 
 "Well," said Newman, "I can only say that I hope 
 I 'm as little like you then as may be. But though 
 I don't think I 'm easy to scare, you speak as if you 
 quite intended to be as disagreeable as you know 
 how." 
 
 His hostess fixed him a moment. "I shall not en- 
 joy it if my daughter decides to marry you, and I shall 
 not pretend to enjoy it. If you don't mind that, so 
 much the better. V 
 
 " If you stick to your own side of the contract we 
 shall not quarrel; that's all I ask of you," Newman 
 replied. " Keep your hands off I shall mind my 
 o,vn business. I'm very much in earnest and there's 
 not the slightest danger of my getting discouraged 
 or backing out You'll have me constantly before 
 your eyes, so that if you don't like it I 'm sorry for 
 you. I '11 do for your daughter, if she !1 accept me, 
 everything thai: a man can do for a woman I 'm 
 happy to tell you that, as a promise a pledge. I 
 consider that on your side you take an equally de- 
 fin'te engagement. You'll not back out, eh ?" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by * backing out,'" 
 said the Marquise with no small majesty. "It sug- 
 gest? a movement of which I think no Bellegarde has 
 ever been guilty." 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Our word's our word," Urbain pronounced. 
 "We recognise that we've given it." 
 
 "Well then," said Newman, "I'm very glad of 
 your pride and your pretensions. You '11 have to keep 
 your word to keep them up." 
 
 The Marquise was silent a little; after which, sud- 
 denly, "I shall always be polite to you, Mr. New- 
 man," she declared, "but decidedly I shall never 
 like you." 
 
 "Don't be too sure, madam!" her visitor laughed. 
 
 "I'm so sure that I shall ask you to take me 
 back to my armchair without the least fear of hav- 
 ing my sentiments modified by the service you 
 render me." And Madame de Bellegarde took his 
 arm and returned to the salon and to her custom- 
 ary place. 
 
 M. de la Rochefidele and his wife were preparing 
 to take their leave, and Madame de Cintre's inter- 
 view with the mumbling old lady was at an end. She 
 stood looking about her, asking herself apparently 
 to whom she should next speak, when Newman ap- 
 proached. " Your mother has given me leave very 
 solemnly to come here often. I intend to come 
 often." 
 
 "I shall be glad to see you," she answered simply. 
 And then in a moment: "You probably think it very 
 strange that there should be such a solemnity as 
 you say about your coming." 
 
 "Well yes; I do, rather." 
 
 " Do you remember what my brother Valentin said 
 the first day you came to see me ? that we 're a 
 strange, strange family." 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " It was n't the first day I came, but the second," 
 Newman amended. 
 
 " Very true. Valentin annoyed me at the time, but 
 now I know you better I may tell you he was right. 
 If you come often you'll see!" And Madame de 
 Cintre turned away. 
 
 He watched her a while as she talked with other 
 people and then took his leave. It was practically 
 indeed to Valentin alone that he so addressed him- 
 self, and his friend followed him to the top of the 
 staircase. "Well, you've taken out your passport," 
 said that young man. "I hope you liked the process 
 and that you admire our red tape." 
 
 "I like your sister better than ever. But don't 
 worry your poor brother any more for my sweet sake," 
 Newman added. "There must be something the 
 matter with him." 
 
 "There's a good deal!" 
 
 "Well, I don't seem to mind him I don't seem 
 to mind anything!" Newman just a bit musingly 
 acknowledged. " I was only afraid he came down on 
 you in the smoking-room after I went out." 
 
 "When my brother comes down on me," said Val- 
 entin, "he drops hard. I've a particular way of re- 
 ceiving him. I must say," he continued, "that they've 
 fallen into line for it has been a muster of all our 
 forefathers too! sooner than I expected. I don't 
 understand it; they must really have put forward 
 their clock! It's a tribute to your solidity." 
 
 "Well, if my solidity 's all they want !" New- 
 man again rather pensively breathed. 
 
 "You can cut them a daily slice of it and let them 
 236 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 have it with their morning coffee ? " But he was 
 turning away when Valentin more effectually stopped 
 him. " I should like to know whether, within a few 
 days, you've seen your venerable friend M. Nioche." 
 
 "He was yesterday at my rooms." 
 
 "What had he to tell you?" 
 
 "Nothing particular." 
 
 "You did n't see the weapon of Virginius sticking 
 out of his pocket ? " 
 
 "What are you driving at ?" Newman demanded. 
 "I thought he seemed rather cheerful, for him." 
 
 Valentin broke into a laugh. "I'm delighted to 
 hear of his high spirits they make me so beauti- 
 fully right and so innocently happy. For what they 
 mean, you see, must be that his charming child is 
 favourably placed, at last, for the real exercise of her 
 talents, and that the pair are relieved, almost equally, 
 from the awkwardness of a false position. And M. 
 Nioche is rather cheerful for him! Don't brandish 
 your tomahawk at that rate," the young man went 
 on; "I've not seen her nor communicated with her 
 since that day at the Louvre. Andromeda has found 
 another Perseus than I. My information 's exact; on 
 such matters it always is. I suppose," he wound 
 up, "that I may now cease so elaborately to neglect 
 her?" 
 
 Newman, struggling up out of intenser inward 
 visions, listened as he could, and then, having listened, 
 remained with his eyes on his friend's face. " It would 
 do you good to fall in love. You want it badly," 
 he at last remarked. 
 
 "Well, that's perhaps exactly what, according tc 
 237 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 my perpetual happy instinct, I'm now trying to 
 do!" 
 
 "Oh hell!" said our hero impatiently as he broke 
 away again. 
 
XIII 
 
 HE kept his promise, or his menace, of presenting 
 himself often in the Rue de I'Universite, and during 
 the next six weeks saw Madame de Cintre more times 
 than he could have numbered. He flattered himself 
 he had not fallen, and had n't needed to fall, after 
 the fashion enjoined by him on Valentin, in love, but 
 his biographer may be supposed to know better what, 
 as he would have said, was the matter with him. He 
 claimed certainly none of the exemptions and emol- 
 uments of the merely infatuated state. That state, 
 he considered, was too consistent with asininity, and 
 he had never had a firmer control of his reason or 
 a higher opinion of his judgement. What he was con- 
 scious of, none the less, was an intense all-consum- 
 ing tenderness, which had for its object an extraor- 
 dinarily graceful and harmonious, yet at the same ( 
 time insidiously agitating woman who lived in a grand ' 
 grey house on the left bank of the Seine. His theory 
 of his relation to her was that he had become con- 
 scious of how beautifully she might, for the question 
 of his future, come to his aid; but this left unex- 
 plained the fact that his confidence had somehow 
 turned to a strange, muffled heartache. He was in 
 truth infinitely anxious, and, when he questioned his 
 anxiety, knew it was not all for himself. If she might 
 oome to his aid he might come to hers; and he had 
 the imagination more than he had ever had in his 
 
 239 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 life about anything of fantastic straits or splendid 
 miseries in the midst of which, standing before her 
 with wide arms out, he would have seen her let her- 
 self, even if still just desperately and blindly, make 
 for his close embrace as for a refuge. 
 
 He really would n't have minded if some harsh 
 need for mere money had most driven her; the creak 
 of that hinge would have been sweet to him had it 
 meant the giving way of the door of separation. What 
 he wanted was to take her, and that her feeling her- 
 self taken should come back to him for their com- 
 mon relief. The full surrender, so long as she did n't 
 make it, left the full assurance an unrest and a yearn- 
 ing from which all his own refuge was in the fine 
 ingenuity, the almost grim extravagance, of the pro- 
 spective provision he was allowing to accumulate. 
 She gave him the sense of "suiting" him so, exactly 
 as she was, that his desire to interpose for her and 
 close about her had something of the quality of that 
 solicitude with which a fond mother might watch 
 from the window even the restricted garden-play of 
 a child recovering from an accident. But he was 
 above all simply charmed, and the more for feeling 
 wonderstruck, as the days went on, at the proved 
 Tightness both of the instinct and of the calculation 
 that had originally moved him. It was as if there took 
 place for him, each day, such a revelation of the 
 possible number of forms of the "personal" appeal 
 as he could otherwise neverhave enjoyed, and as made 
 him yet ask himself how, how, all unaided (save as 
 Mrs. Tristram, subtle woman, had aided him!) he 
 could have known. For he had, amazingly, known. 
 
 24.0 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 And the impression must now thereby have been for 
 him, he thought, very much that of the wistful critic 
 or artist who studies "style" in some exquisite work 
 or some quiet genius, and who sees it come and come 
 and come, and still never fail, like the truth of a per- 
 fect voice* or the safety of a perfect temper. Just 
 as such a student might say to himself, "How could 
 I have got on without this particular research?" so 
 Christopher Newman could only say, "Fancy this 
 being to be had and with my general need my 
 not having it!" 
 
 He made no violent love and, as he would have 
 said, no obvious statements; he just attended regu- 
 larly, as he would also have said, in the manner of 
 the "interested party" present at some great liquida- 
 tion where he must keep his eye on what concerns 
 him. He never trespassed on ground she had made 
 him regard, ruefully enough, as forbidden; but he 
 had none the less a sustaining sense that she knew 
 better from day to day all the good he thought of 
 her. Though in general no great talker, and almost 
 incapable, on any occasion, of pitching his voice for 
 the gallery, he now had his advances as well as his 
 retreats, and felt that he often succeeded in bringing 
 her, as he might again have called it, into the open. 
 He determined early not to care if he should bore 
 her, whether by speech or by silence since he cer- 
 tainly meant she should so suffer, at need, before he 
 had done; and he seemed at least to know that even 
 if she actually suffered she liked him better, on the 
 whole, with too few fears than with too many. Her 
 visitors, coming in often while he sat there, found 
 
 241 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a tall, lean, slightly flushed and considerably silent 
 man, with a lounging, permanent-looking seat, who 
 laughed out sometimes when no one had meant to 
 be drolK and yet remained grave in presence of those 
 calculated witticisms and those initiated gaieties for 
 the appreciation of which he apparently lacked the 
 proper culture and the right acquaintances. It had 
 to be confessed that the number of the subjects upon 
 which he was without ideas was only equalled by the 
 number of the families to which he was not allied; 
 and it might have been added more gravely still that 
 as regards those subjects upon which he was without 
 ideas he was also quite without professions. He had 
 little of the small change of conversation and rarely 
 rose to reach down one of those ready-made forms 
 and phrases that drape, whether fresh or frayed, the 
 hooks and pegs of the general wardrobe of talk 
 that repository in which alone so many persons qual- 
 ify for the discipline of society, as supernumerary 
 actors prepare, amid a like provision, for the ordeal 
 of the footlights. He was able on the other hand, at 
 need, to make from where he sat one of the long arms 
 that stretch quite out of the place to the effect, as 
 might mostly be felt, of coming back with some pro- 
 position as odd as a single shoe. 
 
 Bent, at any rate, on possession, he had at his 
 command treasures of attention and never measured 
 the possibilities of interest in a topic by his own power 
 of contribution to it: he liked topics to grow at least 
 big enough for him to walk round them and see. 
 This made, for his advantage, to his being little ac- 
 quainted with satiety either of sound or of sense; he 
 
 242 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 was not himself more often bored than he was often 
 alarmed, and there was no man with whom it would 
 have been a greater mistake than to take his inter- 
 missions always for absences or his absences always 
 for holidays. What it was that entertained or that 
 occupied him during some of his speechless sessions 
 I shall not, however, undertake fully to say. The 
 Marquise Urbain had once found occasion to declare 
 to him that he reminded her, in company, of a swim- 
 ming-master she had once had who would never 
 himself go into the water and who yet, at the baths, 
 en costume de ville, managed to control and direct the 
 floundering scene without so much as getting splashed. 
 He had so made her angry, she professed, when he 
 turned her awkwardness to ridicule. Newman af- 
 fected her in like manner as keeping much too dry: 
 it was urgent for her that he should be splashed 
 otherwise what was he doing at the baths ? and 
 she even hoped to get him into the water. We know 
 in a general way that many things which were old 
 stories to those about him had for him the sharp high 
 note, but we should probably find a complete list of 
 his new impressions surprising enough. He told Ma- 
 dame de Cintre stories, sometimes not brief, from 
 his own repertory; he was full of reference to his own 
 great country, over the greatness of which it seldom 
 occurred to him that every one might n't, on occasion 
 offered, more or less insatiably yearn; and he ex- 
 plained to her, in so discoursing, the play of a hun- 
 dred of its institutions and the ingenuity of almost 
 all its arrangements. Judging by the sequel, judging 
 even by the manner, in which she suffered his good 
 
 2*3 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 faith to lay an apparent spell upon her attitude, 
 she was mildly oh mildly and inscrutably! be- 
 guiled; but one wouldn't have been sure before- 
 hand of the shade of her submission. As regards any 
 communication she herself meanwhile made him he 
 could n't nevertheless but guess that on the whole 
 she "wanted" to make it. This was in so far an 
 amendment to the portrait Mrs. Tristram had drawn 
 of her. 
 
 He had been right at first in feeling her a little 
 or more than a little proudly shy; her shyness, in 
 a woman whose circumstances and tranquil beauty 
 afforded every facility for sublime self-possession, was 
 only a charm the more. For Newman it had lasted 
 some time and had, even when it went, left something 
 behind it that for a while performed the same office. 
 Was this the uneasy secret of which Mrs. Tristram 
 had had a glimpse, and of which, as of her friend's 
 reserve, her high breeding and her profundity, she 
 had given a sketch marked by outlines perhaps rather 
 too emphatic ? He supposed so, yet to find himself, 
 as a result, wondering rather less what Madame de 
 Cintre's secrets might consist of, and convinced 
 rather more that secrets would be in themselves hate- 
 ful and inconvenient things, things as depressing and 
 detestable as inferior securities, for such a woman to 
 have to lug, as he inwardly put it, round with her. 
 She was a creature for the sun and the air, for no 
 sort of hereditary shade or equivocal gloom; and her 
 natural line was neither imposed reserve nor mys- 
 terious melancholy, but positive life, the life of the 
 great world his great world, not the grand monde as 
 
 244 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 there understood if he was n't mistaken, which seemed 
 squeezeable into a couple of rooms of that inconven- 
 ient and ill-warmed house : all with nothing worse to 
 brood about, when necessary, than the mystery per- 
 haps of the happiness that would so queerly have 
 come to her. To some perception of his view and his 
 judgement, and of the patience with which he was 
 prepared to insist on them, he fondly believed him- 
 self to be day by day bringing her round. She 
 might n't, she could n't yet, no doubt, wholly fall in 
 with them, but she saw, he made out, that he had 
 built a bridge which would bear the very greatest 
 weight she should throw on it, and it was for him 
 often, all charmingly, as if she were admiring from 
 this side and that the bold span of arch and the high 
 line of the parapet as if indeed on occasion she 
 stood straight there at the spring, just watching him 
 at his extremity and with nothing, when the hour 
 should strike, to prevent her crossing with a rush. 
 
 He often spent an evening's end, when she had so 
 appointed her motives and her method and her 
 logic being meanwhile something of her own, though 
 something thus beautifully between them, even if 
 never named, and which he would n't for the world 
 have asked -her to name he often passed a stiff 
 succession of minutes at the somewhat chill fireside 
 of Madame de Bellegarde; contenting himself there 
 for the most part with looking across the room, 
 through narrowed eyelids, at his mistress, who 
 always made a point, before her family, of talking 
 to some one else. Her mother, on that scene, would 
 sit by the fire conversing neatly and coldly with 
 
 245 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 whomsoever approached her and yet detaching foi 
 his own especial benefit a glance that seemed to say: 
 "See how completely I'm interested, how agreeably 
 I'm occupied, how deeply I'm absorbed." He often 
 wondered what those supposedly honoured by this 
 intensity of participation thought of her at such mo- 
 ments, and he sometimes answered her look by look- 
 ing at them; but no one, for all the fine community 
 of taste, that air in the place as of bitter convictions 
 dissolved in iced indifference and partaken of for 
 refreshment with small rare old "family" spoons, 
 appeared to meet him on any such particular ques- 
 tion any more intimately than on any other and all 
 by direct default of ability; which would have made 
 him again ask himself, but for his constant anxious 
 ache, what he was doing in so deadly a hole at all. 
 To ache very hard at one point, he found, was prac- 
 tically to be unconscious of punctures at any other. 
 When he at all events made his bow to the old lady 
 by the fire he always asked her with a laugh whether 
 she could " stand him " another evening, and she 
 replied without a laugh, that, thank God, she had 
 always been able to do her duty. Talking of her once 
 to Mrs. Tristram he had remarked that, after all, it 
 was very easy to get on with her; it always was easy 
 to get on with out-and-out rascals. 
 
 " And is it by that elegant term that you designate 
 the Marquise?" 
 
 "Well, she's a bad, bold woman. She's a wicked 
 old sinner." 
 
 "What then has been her sin ?" 
 
 He thought a little. " I should n't wonder if she 
 
 246 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 had done some one to death all of course from 
 a high sense of duty." 
 
 "How can you be so dreadful?" Mrs. Tristram 
 had luxuriously sighed. 
 
 "I'm not dreadful. I am speaking of her favour- 
 ably." 
 
 " Pray what will you say then when you want to be 
 severe?" 
 
 " I shall keep my severity for some one else say 
 for that prize donkey of a Marquis. There's a man 
 I can't swallow, mix the drink as I will." 
 
 "And what has he done ?" 
 
 "I can't quite make out, but it's something very 
 nice of its kind I mean of a kind elegantly sneak- 
 ing and fastidiously base; not redeemed as in his 
 mother's case by a fine little rage of passion at some 
 part of the business. If he has never committed 
 murder he has at least turned his back and looked 
 the other way while some one else was committing it." 
 
 In spite of this free fancy, which indeed struck his 
 friend as, for a specimen of American humour, ex- 
 ceptionally sardonic, Newman did his best to main- 
 tain an easy and friendly style of communication 
 with M. de Bellegarde. So long as he was in personal 
 contact with people he disliked extremely to have 
 anything to forgive them, and was capable of a good 
 deal of unsuspected imaginative effort (for the work- 
 ing of the relation) to assume them to be of a human 
 substance and a social elasticity not alien to his own. 
 He did his best to treat the Marquis as practically 
 akin to him; he believed honestly, moreover, that he 
 could n't in reasor be such a confounded fool as he 
 
 247 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 seemed. Newman's assumptions, none the less, were 
 never importunate $ his habit of sinking differences 
 and supposing equalities was not an aggressive taste 
 nor an aesthetic theory, but something as natural 
 and organic as a physical appetite which had never 
 been put on a scant allowance and had consequently 
 never turned rabid. His air as of not having to 
 account for his own place in the social scale was 
 probably irritating to Urbain, for whom it could but 
 represent a failure to conceive of other places either, 
 and who thus saw himself reflected in the mind of his 
 potential brother-in-law in a crude and colourless 
 form, unpleasantly dissimilar to the impressive image 
 thrown upon his own intellectual mirror. He never 
 forgot himself an instant, and replied with mechanical 
 politeness to the large bright vaguenesses that he was 
 apparently justified in regarding as this visitor's 
 wanton advances. Newman, who was constantly 
 forgetting himself and indulging in an unlimited 
 amount of irresponsible enquiry and conjecture, now 
 and then found himself confronted by these obscure 
 abysses of criticism. What in the world M. de Belle- 
 garde was falling back either from or on he was at 
 a loss to divine. M. de Bellegarde's general orderly 
 retreat may meanwhile be supposed to have been, 
 for himself, a compromise between a great many 
 emotions. So long as he ambiguously smiled and 
 what could make more for order ? he was polite, 
 and it was proper he should be polite. A smile more- 
 over committed him to nothing more than politeness; 
 it left the degree of politeness agreeably vague, 
 Civil ambiguity too and it was perfectly civil 
 
 248 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 was neither dissent, which was too serious, nor 
 agreement, which might have brought on terrible 
 complications. And then it covered his own personal 
 dignity, which at such a crisis he was resolved to 
 keep immaculate: it was quite enough that the glory 
 of his house should pass into eclipse. Between him and 
 Newman, his whole manner seemed to declare, there 
 could be no interchange of opinion; he could but hold 
 his breath so as not to inhale the strong smell 
 since who liked such very strong smells ? of a 
 democracy so gregarious as to be unable not to 
 engender heat and perspiration. 
 
 Newman was far from being versed in " European " 
 issues, as he liked to call them; but he was now on 
 the very basis of aspiring to light, and it had more 
 than once occurred to him that he might here both 
 arrive at it and give this acquaintance the pleasure of 
 his treating him as an oracle. Interrogated, however, 
 as to what he thought of public affairs, M. de Belle- 
 garde answered on each occasion, and quite indeed 
 as if thanking him for the opportunity, that he thought 
 as ill of them as possible, that they were going from 
 bad to worse, though there was always at least the 
 comfort of their being too dreadful to touch. This 
 gave our friend, momentarily, almost an indulgence 
 for a spirit so depressed; he pitied the man who had 
 to look at him in such a fashion when he ventured 
 to insist, particularly about their great shining 
 France, "Why, don't you see anything anywhere?" 
 and he was brought by it to an attempt, possibly 
 Indiscreet, to call attention to some of the great 
 features of the world's -progress. This had presently 
 
 249 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 led the Marquis to observe, once for all, that he enter- 
 tained but a single political conviction dearer to 
 him, however, than all the others, put together, that 
 other people might entertain: he believed, namely, 
 in the divine right of Henry of Bourbon, Fifth of his 
 name, to the throne of France. This had in truth, 
 upon Newman, as many successive distinct effects as 
 the speaker could conceivably have desired. It made 
 him in the first place look at the latter very hard, 
 harder than he had ever done before; which had the 
 appearance somehow of affording M. de Bellegarde 
 another of the occasions he personally appreciated. 
 It was as if he had never yet shown how he could 
 return such a look; whereby, producing that weapon 
 of his armoury, he made the demonstration brilliant. 
 Then he reduced his guest, further, just to staring 
 with a conscious, foolish failure of every resource, 
 at one of the old portraits on the wall, out of which 
 some dim light for him might in fact have presently 
 glimmered. Lastly it determined on Newman's part 
 a wise silence as to matters he did n't understand. 
 He relapsed, to his own sense, into silence very 
 much as he would have laid down, on consulting it 
 by mistake, some flat-looking back-number or some 
 superseded time-table. It might do for the "collec 
 tion " craze but would n't do for use. 
 
 One afternoon, on his presenting himself, he was 
 requested by the servant to be so good as to wait, 
 a very few minutes, till Madame la Comtesse should 
 be at liberty. He moved about the room a little, tak- 
 ing up a book here and there as with a vibration of 
 tact in his long and strong fingers; he hovered, with 
 
 250 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a bent head, before flowers that he recognised as of 
 a "lot" he himself must have sent; he raised his 
 eyes to old framed prints and grouped miniatures 
 and disposed photographs, ten times as many of 
 which she should some day possess; and at last he 
 heard the opening of a door to which his back was 
 turned. On the threshold stood an old woman whom 
 he remembered to have met more than once in enter- 
 ing and leaving the house. She was tall and straight 
 and dressed in black, and she wore a cap which, if 
 Newman had been initiated into such mysteries, 
 would have sufficiently assured him she was not a 
 Frenchwoman; a cap of pure British composition. 
 She had a pale, decent, depressed-looking face and 
 a clear, dull English eye. She looked at Newman a 
 moment, both intently and timidly, and then she 
 dropped a short, straight English curtsey. "The 
 Countess begs you'll kindly wait, sir. She has just 
 come in; she'll soon have finished dressing." 
 
 " Oh, I '11 wait as long as she wants," said Newman. 
 " Pray tell her not to hurry." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said the woman softly, and then 
 instead of retiring with the message advanced into 
 the room. She looked about her a moment and pre- 
 sently went to a table and began to dispose again 
 several small articles. Newman was struck with the 
 high respectability of her appearance; he was afraid 
 to address her as a servant. She busied herself with 
 ordering various trifles, with patting out cushions 
 and pulling curtains straight, while our hero rather 
 attentively hovered. He perceived at last, from her 
 reflexion in the mirror as he was passing, that her 
 
 251 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 hands were idle and her eyes fixed on him. She 
 evidently wished to say something, and, now aware 
 of it, he helped her to begin. 
 
 " I guess you 're English, ain't you ? " 
 " Oh dear, yes," she answered, quickly and softly, 
 "I was born in Wiltshire, sir." 
 
 "And what do you think of Paris ?" 
 "Oh, I don't think of Paris, sir," she said in the 
 same tone. " It 's so long that I 've been here." 
 "Ah, you have been here very long?" 
 "More than forty years, sir. I came over with 
 Lady Emmeline." 
 
 "You mean with old Madame de Bellegarde ?" 
 "Yes, sir. I came with her when she married. I 
 was my lady's own woman." 
 
 "And you've been with her ever since ?" 
 "I've been in the house ever since. My lady has 
 taken a younger person. You see I 'm very old. I do 
 nothing regular now. But I keep about." 
 
 "You keep about remarkably well," said New- 
 man, observing the erectness of her figure and 
 a certain venerable pink in her cheek. " I like," he 
 genially added, "to see you about." 
 
 "Very good of you, sir. Thank God I'm not ill. 
 I hope I know my duty too well to go panting and 
 coughing over the house. But I 'm an old woman, 
 sir, and it's as an old woman that I venture to speak 
 
 to you." 
 
 "Oh, speak, if you like, as you never spoke!" said 
 Newman curiously. "You need n't be afraid of me." 
 
 "Yes, sir, I think you're kind. I've seen you 
 before." 
 
 252 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "On the stairs, you mean ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. When you've been coming to see the 
 Countess. I've taken the liberty of noticing that 
 you come often." 
 
 "Oh yes; I come very often," he laughed. "You 
 need n't have been very much emancipated to notice 
 that." 
 
 "I've noticed it with pleasure, sir," said this in- 
 teresting member of the family. And she stood look* 
 ing at him with a strange expression of face. The 
 old instinct of deference and humility was there; the 
 habit of decent self-effacement and the knowledge of 
 her appointed crbit. But there mingled with it an 
 impulse born of the occasion and of a sense, probably, 
 of this free stranger's unprecedented affability; and, 
 beyond this, a vague indifference to the old proprieties, 
 as if my lady's own woman had at last begun to re- 
 flect that, since my lady had taken another person, 
 she had a slight reversionary property in herself. 
 
 " You take a great interest in our friends ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 She looked at him as if she admired that expression 
 and had never heard anything quite like it. "A deep 
 interest, sir. Especially in the Countess." 
 
 "I'm glad of that," said Newman. And he smil- 
 ingly followed it up. "You can't take more than I 
 do!" 
 
 " So I supposed, sir. We can't help noticing these 
 things and having our ideas; can we, sir?" 
 
 "You mean as an old employee ?" 
 
 "Ah, there it is, sir. I'm afraid that when I let 
 my thoughts meddle with such matters I rather step 
 
 253 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 out of my place. But I 'm so devoted to the Countess, 
 if she were my own child I could n't love her more. 
 That's how I come to be so bold, sir." Her boldness 
 failed her a moment, but she brought it round with 
 a turn. "They say in the house, sir, that you want 
 to marry her." 
 
 Newman eyed his interlocutress, and, as if some- 
 thing had suddenly begun to depend on it, made up 
 his mind about her. Something at least passed be- 
 tween them with his exchange of distinct truths, and 
 at the end of a minute he felt almost like a lost child 
 kindly taken by the hand. He gave the hand a re- 
 sponsive grasp. He looked quite up into the deep mild 
 face. "I want to marry Madame de Cintre more 
 than I ever wanted anything in my life." 
 
 " And to take her away to America ? " 
 
 " I '11 take her wherever she wants to go." 
 
 "The further away the better, sir!" exclaimed the 
 old woman with sudden intensity. But she checked 
 herself and, taking up a paper-weight in mosaic, 
 began to polish it with her black apron. "I don't 
 mean anything about the house or the family, sir. 
 But I think a great change would do the poor Countess 
 good. There's no very grand life here." 
 
 "Oh, grand life !" he quite sarcastically sighed. 
 "But Madame de Cintre," he added, "has greaf 
 courage in her heart." 
 
 "She has everything in her heart that's good. 
 You '11 not be vexed to hear that she has been more 
 her natural self these two months past than she had 
 been for many a day before." 
 
 Newman was delighted to gather this testimony 
 254 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to the progress of his suit, but he kept his expres- 
 sion within bounds. "Had she been very long as you 
 did n't want to see her ?" 
 
 "Well, sir, she had good reason not to be gay. 
 The Count was no natural husband for a young 
 lady like that. And it is n't as if, in this house, there 
 were other great pleasures to make up, I mean, 
 for anything so sad. It's better, in my humble opin- 
 ion, that she should leave it altogether. So if you '11 
 pardon my saying such a thing, I hope very much 
 she'll see her blessed way !" 
 
 "You can't hope it as much as I do!" Newman 
 returned. 
 
 " But you must n't lose courage, sir, if she does n't 
 make up her mind at once. That's what I wanted to 
 beg of you," his friend proceeded. " Don't give it 
 up, sir. You '11 not take it ill if I say it's a great risk 
 for any lady at any time; all the more when she has 
 got rid of one bad bargain. But if she can take 
 advantage of a good, kind, respectable gentleman I 
 think she had better make up her mind. They speak 
 very well of you, sir, in the house I mean in my 
 part of it; and, if you'll allow me to say so, there's 
 everything in your appearance ! You 've a very 
 different one to the late Count; he was n't, really 
 sir, much more than five feet high. And they say 
 your fortune 's beyond everything. There 's no harm 
 in that. So I entreat you to be patient, sir, and to 
 bide your time. If I don't say it to you perhaps no 
 one will. Of course it's not for me to make any 
 promises. I can answer for nothing. But I believe in 
 your chance because I believe in your spirit I'm 
 
 255 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 nothing but a weary old woman in my quiet corner, 
 but one of us poor things here may understand 
 another, and I don't think I could ever mistake the 
 Countess. I received her in my arms when she came 
 into the world, and her first wedding-day was the 
 saddest of my life. She owes it to me to show me 
 another and a brighter. If you '11 but hold on fast, 
 sir and you look as if you would I think we 
 may see it." 
 
 Newman had listened to this slow, plain, deliberate 
 speech, the first evidently of much waiting and wish- 
 ing, with as hushed and grateful a pleasure as he 
 had ever had for some grand passage at the opera. 
 "Why, my dear madam, I just love you for your en- 
 couragement. One can't have too much, and I mean 
 to hold on fast you may bet your life on that. And 
 if Madame de Cintre does see her way you must just 
 come and live with her." 
 
 The old woman looked at him with grave lifeless 
 eyes. " It may seem a heartless thing to say, sir, when 
 one has been forty years in a house, but I promise 
 you I should like to leave this place." 
 
 "Why, it's just the time to promise," said New- 
 man with ingenuity. " After forty years one wants 
 a big change. That's what I'm going in for," he 
 smiled. 
 
 "You're very kind indeed, sir," and this faith- 
 ful servant dropped another curtsey and seemed 
 disposed to retire. She moved slowly, however, and 
 gave while she lingered a dim joyless smile. New- 
 man was disappointed, and his fingers stole so im- 
 patiently to his waistcoat-pocket that his informant 
 
 256 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 noticed the gesture. "Ah, thank God I'm not a 
 mercenary French person! If I were I would tell you 
 with a brazen simper, old as I am, that if you please, 
 monsieur, my information is worth something. Yet 
 let me tell you so after all in my own decent English 
 way. It is worth something." 
 
 "How much, please?" 
 
 "Simply this, sir: your solemn promise not to hint 
 by a single word to the Countess that I've gone so 
 far." 
 
 "Oh, I promise all right," said Newman. "AnJ 
 when I promise !" 
 
 "I do believe you keep, sir! That's all, sir. Thank 
 you, sir. Good-day, sir." And having once more 
 slid down telescope-wise into her scant petticoats, 
 his visitor departed. At the same moment Madame 
 de Cintre came in by an opposite door. She noticed 
 the movement of the other portiere and asked Newman 
 who had been entertaining him. 
 
 "The British female in her most venerable 
 form. An old lady in a black dress and a cap, who 
 bobs up and down and expresses herself ever so 
 well." 
 
 "An old lady who bobs and expresses herself? 
 Ah, you mean poor Mrs. Bread. I happen to know 
 you Ve made a conquest of her." 
 
 "Mrs. Cake, she ought to be called," Newman 
 declared. "She's very sweet. She's a delicious old 
 woman." 
 
 His friend looked at him a moment. "What can 
 she have said to you ? She 's an excellent creature, 
 but we think her rather dismal." 
 
 257 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I suppose," he presently answered, "that I like 
 her so much because she has lived near you so long. 
 Since your birth, she told me." 
 
 "Yes such an age as that makes! She's very 
 faithful," Madame de Cintre went on simply. " I can 
 absolutely trust her." 
 
 Newman, however that might be, had never made 
 a reflexion to this lady on her mother and her brother 
 Urbain he had given no hint of the impression 
 they made on him. But, as if she could perfectly 
 guess his feeling and subtly spare his nerves, she had 
 markedly avoided any occasion for making him 
 speak of them. She never alluded to her mother's 
 domestic decrees; she never quoted the opinions of 
 the Marquis. They had talked, it was true, of Valen- 
 tin, and she had made no secret of her extreme affec- 
 tion for her younger brother. Newman listened 
 sometimes with a vague, irrepressible pang; if he 
 could only have caught in his own cup a few drops of 
 that overflow! She once spoke to him with candid 
 elation of something Valentin had done which she 
 thought very much to his honour. It was a service he 
 had rendered to an old friend of the family some- 
 thing more " serious " and useful than he was usually 
 supposed capable of achieving. Newman said he 
 was glad to hear of it, and then began to talk of a 
 matter more personal to himself. His companion 
 listened, but after a while she said: "I don't like the 
 way you speak of poor Valentin." At which, rather 
 surprised, he protested he had never spoken of him 
 save in kindness. 
 
 "Well, it's just the sort of kindness," she smiled, 
 
 258 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "the kindness that costs nothing, the kindness you 
 show to a child. It's as if you rather looked down 
 on him. It's as if you did n't respect him." 
 
 "Respect him ? Why, respect's a big feeling. But 
 I guess I do." 
 
 "You guess ? If you 're not sure, it 's no respect." 
 
 "Do you respect him ?" Newman asked. "If you 
 do then I do." 
 
 "If one loves a person, that's a question one's not 
 bound to answer," said Madame de Cintre. 
 
 "You should n't have asked it of me then. I'm 
 very fond of your brother." 
 
 "He amuses you. But you would n't like to re- 
 semble him." 
 
 " I should n't like to resemble any one. It 's hard 
 enough work resembling one's self." 
 
 "What do you mean," she demanded, "by re- 
 sembling one's self?" 
 
 " Why, doing what 's expected of one. Doing one's 
 duty." 
 
 " But that 's hard or at any rate it 's urgent 
 only when one's very good." 
 
 " Well, a great many people are good enough 
 so long as they insist on being so ! " he optimistically 
 laughed. "Valentine, at all events, is good enough 
 for me." 
 
 She was silent a little, and then, with inconse- 
 quence, "Ah, I could wish him rather better!" she 
 declared. "I could wish he would do something." 
 
 Her companion considered : after which, candidly : 
 "What in the world can Valentine 'do' ?" 
 
 "Well, he's very clever." 
 259 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "But I guess it's a proof of power," Newman 
 reasoned, "to be so happy without doing anything." 
 
 "Ah, but I don't think Valentin 's really so happy. 
 He 's intelligent, generous, brave but what is there 
 to show for it ? To me there 's something sad in his 
 life, and sometimes I have a sort of foreboding about 
 him. I don't know why, but it seems to come to 
 me that he may have some great trouble perhaps 
 a really unhappy end." 
 
 "Oh, leave him to me," Newman cheerfully re- 
 turned. "I guess I can keep him all right." 
 
 One evening, however, in spite of such passages as 
 these, the conversation in Madame de Bellegarde's 
 own apartment had flagged most sensibly. The 
 Marquis walked up and down in silence, like a senti- 
 nel at the door of some menaced citadel of the pro- 
 prieties; his mother sat staring at the fire; his wife 
 worked at an enormous band of tapestry. Usually 
 there were three or four visitors, but on this occasion 
 a violent storm sufficiently accounted for the absence 
 even of the most assiduous. In the long silences the 
 howling of the wind and the beating of the rain were 
 distinctly audible. Newman sat perfectly still, watch- 
 ing the clock, determined to stay till the stroke of 
 eleven and not a moment longer. Madame de Cintre 
 had turned her back to the circle and had been stand- 
 ing for some time within the uplifted curtain of a 
 window, her forehead against the pane and her eyes 
 reaching out to the deluged darkness. Suddenly she 
 turned round to her sister-in-law. "For heaven's 
 sake," she said with peculiar eagerness, "go to the 
 piano and play something." 
 
 260 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 The young Marquise held up her tapestry and 
 pointed to a little white flower. "Don't ask me to 
 leave this. I 'm in the midst of a masterpiece. My 
 little flower's going to smell very sweet; I'm putting 
 in the smell with this gold-coloured silk. I 'm holding 
 my breath; I can't leave off. Play something your- 
 self." 
 
 " It 's absurd for me to play when you 're present/* 
 Claire returned; yet the next moment she had 
 plunged, as it were, into the source of music, had 
 begun to strike the keys with vehemence. She 
 sounded them for some time, to a great, and almost 
 startling effect; when she stopped Newman went 
 over and asked her to begin again. She shook her 
 head and, on his insisting, said: "I've not been 
 playing for you, I've been playing for myself." She 
 went back to the window again and looked out, and 
 shortly afterwards she left the room. 
 
 When he took leave Urbain de Bellegarde accom- 
 panied him, as always, just three steps down the 
 staircase. At the bottom stood a servant with his 
 overcoat. He had just put it on when he saw Madame 
 de Cintre come to him across the vestibule. "Shall 
 you be at home on Friday ?" he asked. 
 
 She looked at him a moment before answering, 
 and the servant moved away to the great house-door. 
 "You don't like my mother and my brother. Ah, but 
 not the least little bit!" 
 
 He hesitated a moment and then said ever so mildly: 
 "Well, since you mention it !" 
 
 She laid her hand on the balustrade and prepared 
 *o ascend the stairs, fixing her eyes on the first step 
 
 261 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I shall be at home on Friday," she brought out; 
 and she passed up while he watched her. But on the 
 Friday, as soon as he came in, she asked him to be so 
 good as to tell her why he had such an aversion to her 
 family. 
 
 "Such an aversion ? Did I call it that ? Don't think 
 I make too much of it. See how easily I work it." 
 
 "I wish you would tell me what you think of them," 
 she simply said. 
 
 "I don't think of any of them but you." 
 
 "That's because you dislike them too much. 
 Speak the truth; you can't offend me." 
 
 " Well, I could live at a pinch without the Marquis," 
 Newman confessed. "It comes to me now, if you 
 mention it. But what 's the use of our bringing it up ? 
 I don't think of him." 
 
 "You're too good-natured," Madame de Cintre 
 gravely said. Then, as if to avoid the appearance of 
 inviting him to speak ill of her brother, she turned 
 away, motioning him to sit down. 
 
 But he remained there before her. "What's of 
 much more importance is that they can scarcely 
 stand me." 
 
 "Scarcely," she said with the gentlest, oddest 
 distinctness. 
 
 "And don't you think they're wrong? I don't 
 strike myself as a man to hate." 
 
 " I suppose a man who may inspire strong feelings," 
 she thoughtfully opined, "must take his chance of 
 what they are. But have my brother and my mother 
 made you hate them?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't sling my passions about I 've put 
 262 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 all my capital into one good thing," he smiled. "Yet 
 I may have spent about ten cents on the luxury of 
 rage." 
 
 "You've never then let me see you doing it." 
 
 "Ah, I don't do it here," he still sturdily smiled. 
 
 She dropped her eyes, and it somehow held him a 
 minute in suspense. But " They think they 've treated 
 you rather handsomely" was, however, all she said 
 at last. 
 
 "Well, I've no doubt they could have been much 
 worse. They must have let me off pretty easily," 
 he went on; "for see how little I feel damaged. And 
 I think I show you everything. Honestly." 
 
 She faced him again, at this, as if really to take the 
 measure, more than she had done yet, of what he 
 showed her. "You're very generous. It 's a painful 
 position." 
 
 "For them, you mean. Not for me." 
 
 "For me," said Madame de Cintre. 
 
 "Not when their sins are forgiven!" Newman 
 laughed. "They don't think I'm as good as them- 
 selves. I do, you see. What should I be well, 
 even for you if I did n't ? But we shan't quarrel 
 about it." 
 
 " I can't even agree with you without saying some-' 
 thing that has a sound I dislike. The presumption, 
 if I may put it so, was against you. That you prob- 
 ably don't understand." 
 
 He sat down before her, all carefully and consider- 
 ately, as he might have placed himself at the feet of 
 a teacher. "I don't think I really understand it. But 
 when you say it I believe it." 
 
 263 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 She gave, still with her charming eyes on him, the 
 slowest, gentlest headshake. "That's a poor rea- 
 
 son." 
 
 " No, it's a very good one. I believe everything you 
 say, and I know why if you '11 let me tell you. 
 You've a high spirit, a high standard; but with you 
 it's all natural and unaffected: you don't seem to 
 have stuck your head into a vise, as if you were sitting 
 for the photograph of propriety. Yet you do also think 
 of me, I guess, as a sort of animal that has had no 
 idea in life but to make money and drive sharp bar- 
 gains. Well, that's a fair description," he pursued, 
 " but it 's not the whole. A man ought to care for 
 something else I 'm alive to that and always 
 was, even if I don't know exactly for what. I cared 
 for money-making, but I never cared so very terribly 
 for the money. There was nothing else to do, and I 
 take it you don't see me always on the loaf. I 've been 
 veiy easy to others, and I Ve tried always to know 
 where I was myself. I Ve done most of the things 
 that people have asked me I don't mean scound- 
 rels. I guess no one has suffered by me very badly. 
 As regards your mother and your brother," he added, 
 "there's only one point on which I feel that I might 
 quarrel with them. I don't ask them to sing my 
 praises to you, but I ask them to let you alone. If 
 I thought they talked against me to you at all badly" 
 and he just paused "why I'd have to come in 
 somewhere on that. 9 ' 
 
 She reassured him. "They've let me alone, as you 
 say. They have n't talked against you to me at all 
 badly." 
 
 264. 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 It gave him, and for the first time, the exquisite 
 pleasure of her apparently liking to use and adopt 
 his words. "Well then I 'm ready to declare them only 
 too good for this world!" 
 
 This brought something into her face that as 
 it seemingly was n't relief he did n't quite under- 
 stand, and she might have spoken in a sense to ex- 
 plain it if the door at the moment had not been thrown 
 open and Urbain de Bellegarde had not stepped 
 across the threshold. He appeared surprised at find- 
 ing Newman; but his surprise was but a momentary 
 shadow across the surface of an unwonted cheer. His 
 guest had never seen him so exhilarated; he pro- 
 duced the effect of an old faded portrait that had 
 suddenly undergone restoration. He held open the 
 door for some one else to enter, and was presently 
 followed by the old Marquise, supported on the arrf 
 of a gentleman whom Newman saw for the first time. 
 He was already on his feet, and Madame de Cintre 
 rose, as she always did before her mother. The Mar- 
 quis, who had greeted him almost genially, stood 
 apart and slowly rubbed his hands ; his mother came, 
 forward with her companion. She gave Newman a 
 majestic little nod and then released the other visitor, 
 that he might make his bow to her daughter. " I Ve 
 brought you an unknown relative, Lord Deepmere, 
 Lord Deepmere who's our cousin, but who has done 
 only to-day what he ought to have done long agot 
 come to make our acquaintance." 
 
 Madame de Cintre dropped her soft but steady 
 jight on this personage, who had advanced to take 
 her hand. "It's very extraordinary," he ingenuously 
 
 265 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 remarked, "but this is the first time in my life I've 
 been in Paris for more than three or four weeks." 
 
 "And how long have you been here now?" she 
 enquired with a certain detachment. 
 
 " Oh, for the last two months." The young man 
 he was still a young man showed no hesitation. 
 His artless observations might have constituted an 
 impertinence; but a glance at his face would have 
 satisfied you, as it apparently satisfied Madame de 
 Cintre, that nothing about him could well be explained 
 save in the light of his simplicity. When their group 
 was seated Newman, who was out of the conversation, 
 reflected, observing him, that unless he had the 
 benefit of that he had n't the benefit of very much. 
 His other advantages beyond his three or four 
 and thirty years were a scant stature and an odd 
 figure, a bald head, a short nose, round clear blue 
 eyes and a frank and natural smile, which made the 
 loss of a couple of front teeth by some rude misad- 
 venture constantly conspicuous. Perceptibly em- 
 barrassed, by more than one sign, he laughed as if 
 he were bold and free, catching his breath with a 
 loud startling sound. He admitted that Paris was 
 charming, but pleaded that he was a wild, bog- 
 trotting Paddy who preferred his Dublin even to his 
 London and who would never be caught where they 
 had caught him save for his taste for light music. He 
 came over for the new Offenbach things, since, though 
 they always brought them out in Dublin, it was per- 
 haps with a whiff too much of the brogue. He had 
 been nine times to hear "La Pomme de Paris." Had 
 Madame de Cintre ever been to Dublin ? They must 
 
 266 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 all come over some day and he'd show them some 
 grand old Irish sport. His younger kinswoman, 
 leaning back with her arms folded and her eyes ser 
 in a certain dimness of wonder, might have been 
 drifting away from him, conveniently and resignedly, 
 on some deep slow current. Her mother's face, on 
 the other hand, was lighted as if in honour of the 
 hour, and Newman felt himself make out in it a 
 queer prehistoric prettiness. The Marquis noted 
 that among light operas his favourite was " La Gazza 
 Ladra." The Marquise, however, began a series of 
 enquiries about the duke and the cardinal, the old 
 duchess and Lady Barbara, after listening to which 
 and to Lord Deepmere's somewhat irreverent re- 
 sponses for a quarter of an hour, our friend rose to 
 take his leave. The Marquis went with him their 
 three usual steps into the hall. 
 
 "He is a real Paddy!" and Newman nodded in 
 the direction of the visitor. 
 
 His companion took it coldly. "His mother was 
 the daughter of Lord Finucane; he has great Irish 
 estates. Lady Bridget, in the complete absence of 
 male heirs, either direct or collateral a most ex- 
 traordinary circumstance came in for no end of 
 things. Lord Deepmere takes his principal title, 
 however, from his English property, which is im- 
 mense. He's a charming young man." 
 
 Newman answered nothing, but he detained the 
 Marquis as the latter was beginning gracefully to 
 recede. "It's a good time for me to thank you for 
 sticking so punctiliously to our bargain for doing 
 so much to help me with your sister." 
 
 267 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 The Marquis stared. "Really, I've done nothing 
 that I can boast of." 
 
 "Oh, don't be modest," Newman genially urged. 
 "I can't flatter myself I'm doing so well so well, 
 that is, as I hope and pray simply by my own 
 merit. Please tell your mother too, won't you ? how 
 thoroughly I feel it." And, turning away with a 
 sense of the fair thing done now, after all, all round, 
 he left M. de Bellegarde looking after him more 
 ambiguously than he knew. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE next time Newman came to the Rue de 1'Uni- 
 versite he had the good fortune to find Madame de 
 Cintre alone. He arrived with a definite intention 
 and lost no time in applying it, for she wore even 
 to his impatience an expectant, waiting look. " I 've 
 been coming to see you for six months now and have 
 never spoken to you a second time of marriage. That 
 was what you asked me I obeyed. Could any man 
 have done better ? " 
 
 "You've acted with great delicacy," she said. 
 
 !"Well, I'm going to change now. I don't mean 
 I'm going to risk offending, but I'm going to go 
 back to where I began. I am back there. I 've been 
 all round the circle. Or rather I 've never been away 
 from there. I 've never ceased to want what I wanted 
 then. Only now I 'm more sure of it, if possible; I 'm 
 more sure of myself and more sure of you. I know 
 you better, though I don't know anything I did n't be- 
 lieve three months ago. You're everything, you're be- 
 yond everything, I can imagine or desire. You know 
 me now you must know me. I won't say you Ve seen 
 the best, but you've seen the worst. I hope you've 
 been thinking all this while. You must have seen I 
 was only waiting; you can't suppose I was changing. 
 What will you say to me now ? Say that everything 
 is clear and reasonable and that I 've been very patient 
 and considerate and deserve my reward. And then 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 give me your hand. Madame de Cintre, do that. 
 Do it." 
 
 "I knew you were only waiting," she answered, 
 "and I was sure this day would come. I've thought 
 about it a great deal. At first I was half afraid of it. 
 But I 'm not afraid of it now." She paused a moment 
 *ndthen added: "It's a relief." 
 
 She sat on a low chair and Newman on an ottoman 
 near her; he leaned a little and took her hand, which 
 for an instant she let him keep "That means that 
 I've not waited for nothing." She looked at him a 
 moment, and he saw her eyes fill with tears. "With 
 me," he went on, "you'll be as safe as safe" 
 and even in his ardour he hesitated for a comparison 
 "as safe," he said with a kind of simple solemnity, 
 "as in your father's arms." 
 
 Still she looked at him and her tears flowed; then 
 she buried her face on the cushioned arm of the sofa 
 beside her chair and broke into noiseless sobs. "I'm 
 weak I 'm weak," it made him fairly tremble to 
 hear her say. 
 
 "All the more reason. why you should give your- 
 self up to me," he pleaded. "Why are you troubled ? 
 There's nothing here that should trouble you. I 
 offer you nothing but happiness. Is that so hard to 
 believe?" 
 
 "To you everything seems so simple," she said as 
 she raised her head. "But things are not so. I like 
 you oh, I like you. I liked you six months ago, 
 and now I 'm sure of it, as you say you 're sure. But 
 it's not easy, simply for that, to decide for what you 
 ask. There are so many things to think about." 
 
 270 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "There ought to be only one thing that we love 
 each other." And as she remained silent he quickly 
 added: "Very good; if you can't accept that, don't 
 tell me." 
 
 " I should be very glad to think of nothing," she 
 returned at last; "not to think at all only to shut 
 both my eyes and give myself up. But I can't. I 'm 
 cold, I'm old, I'm a coward. I never supposed 1 
 should ever marry again," she continued, "and it 
 seems to me too strange I should ever have listened 
 to you. When I used to think, as a girl, of what I 
 should do if I were to marry freely, by my own choice, 
 I thought of a very different man from you." 
 
 "That's nothing against me," said Newman with 
 an immense smile. "Your taste was n't formed." 
 
 His smile lighted her own face. " Have you formed 
 it ?" And then she said in a different tone: "Where 
 do you wish to live ? " 
 
 "Anywhere in the wide world you like. We can 
 easily settle that." 
 
 " I don't know why I ask you," she presently went 
 on "I care so very little. I think that if I were to 
 marry you I could live almost anywhere. You've 
 some false ideas about me, you think I need a great 
 many things that I must have a brilliant worldly 
 life. I'm sure you're prepared to take a great deal 
 of trouble to give me such things. But that's very 
 arbitrary; I've done nothing to show that." She 
 paused again, looking at him, and her mingled sound 
 and silence were so sweet to him that he had no 
 more wish to hurry her than he would have had to 
 hurry the slow flushing of the east at dawn. " Your 
 
 271 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 being so different, which at first seemed a difficulty, 
 a danger, began one day to seem to me a pleasure, a 
 great pleasure. I was glad you were different. And 
 yet if I had said so no one would have understood 
 me. And I don't mean simply my family." 
 
 "They at least would have said I was a queer 
 monster, eh ? " he asked. 
 
 "They would have said I could never be happy 
 with you you were too different ; and I would have 
 said it was just because you were so different that I 
 might be happy. But they would have given better 
 reasons than I. My only reason !" And she paused 
 again. 
 
 But this time, before his golden sunrise, he felt 
 the impulse to grasp at a rosy cloud. "Your only 
 reason is that you love me!" he almost groaned for 
 deep insistence; and he laid his two hands on her 
 with a persuasion that she rose to meet. He let her 
 feel as he drew her close, bending his face to her, the 
 fullest force of his imposition; and she took it from 
 him with a silent, fragrant, flexible surrender which 
 since she seemed to keep back nothing affected him 
 as sufficiently prolonged to pledge her to everything. 
 
 He came back the next day and in the vestibule, 
 as he entered the house, encountered his friend Mrs. 
 Bread. She was wandering about in honourable idle- 
 ness and when his eyes fell upon her delivered to him 
 straight one of her Wiltshire curtsies; then turning 
 to the servant who had admitted him she said with 
 a cognate respectability to which evidently a proper 
 pronunciation of French had never had anything to 
 add : "You may retire ; I '11 have the honour of con- 
 
 272 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ducting monsieur." In spite of this clean conscious- 
 ness, however, it appeared to Newman that her 
 voice had a queer quaver, as if the tone of uncontested 
 authority were not habitual to it. The man gave her 
 an impertinent stare, but he walked slowly away, 
 and she led Newman upstairs. At half its course the 
 staircase put forth two arms with an ample rest 
 between. In a niche of this landing stood an indif- 
 ferent statue of an eighteenth-century nymph, sim- 
 pering with studied elegance. Here Mrs. Bread stopped 
 and looked with shy kindness at her companion. " I 
 know the good news, sir." 
 
 "You've a good right to be first to know it; you've 
 taken such a friendly interest." And then as she 
 turned away and began to blow the dust off the image 
 as if this might but be free pleasantry, "I suppose 
 you want to congratulate me," Newman went on, "and 
 I'm greatly obliged." To which he added: "You 
 gave me much pleasure the other day." 
 
 She turned round, apparently reassured. "You're 
 not to think I've been told anything I've only 
 guessed. But when I looked at you as you came in 
 I was sure I had guessed right." 
 
 "You're really a grand judge," said Newman. 
 "I'm sure that what you don't see isn't worth seeing." 
 
 " I 'm not a fool; sir, thank God. I 've guessed 
 something else beside," said Mrs. Bread. 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "I needn't tell you, sir; I don't think you'd 
 believe it. At any rate it would n't please you." 
 
 "Oh, tell me nothing but what will please me," 
 he laughed. "That's the way you began." 
 
 273 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Well, sir," she went on, "I suppose you won't 
 he vexed to hear that the sooner everything's over 
 the better." 
 
 "The sooner we're married, you mean? The 
 better for me, certainly." 
 
 "The better for every one." 
 
 "The better for you perhaps. You know you're 
 coming to live with us," said Newman. 
 
 "I'm extremely obliged to you, sir, but it's not 
 of my poor self I was thinking. I only wanted, if I 
 might take the liberty, to recommend you to lose no 
 
 time." 
 
 "Who are you afraid of?" 
 
 Mrs. Bread looked up the staircase and then 
 down, and then looked at the undusted nymph as 
 if she possibly had sentient ears. "I'm afraid of 
 every one." 
 
 "What an uncomfortable state of mind!" said 
 Newman. "Does * every one' wish to prevent m) 
 marriage ? " 
 
 "I'm afraid of already having said too much,'' 
 Mrs. Bread replied. "I won't take it back, but I 
 won't say any more." And she kept her course up the 
 staircase again and led him into her mistress's salon 
 
 Newman indulged in a brief and silent imprecatiop 
 when he found this lady not alone. With her sat hei 
 mother, and toward the middle of the room stood 
 young Madame de Bellegarde in bonnet and mantle. 
 The old Marquise, who leant back in her chair clasp- 
 ing the knob of each arm, looked at him hard and 
 without moving. She seemed barely conscious of his 
 greeting ; she might have had too much else to think 
 
 274 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of. Newman said to himself that her daughter had 
 been announcing their engagement and that she found 
 the morsel hard to swallow. But Madame de Cintre, 
 as she gave him her hand, gave him also a look by 
 which she appeared to mean that he should under- 
 stand something. Was it a warning or a request ? 
 Did she wish to enjoin speech or silence ? He was 
 puzzled, and young Madame de Bellegarde's pretty 
 grin gave him no information. 
 
 "I've not told my mother," said Madame de 
 Cintre abruptly and with her eyes on him. 
 
 "Told me what ?" the Marquise demanded. "You 
 tell me too little. You should tell me everything." 
 
 "That's what I do," laughed Madame Urbain with 
 all her bravery. 
 
 " Let me tell your mother," said Newman. 
 
 The old woman stared at him again and then 
 turned to her daughter. "You're going to marry 
 him ?" she brought out. 
 
 "Oui, ma mere," said Madame de Cintre. 
 
 "Your daughter has consented, to my very great 
 happiness," Newman announced. 
 
 "And when was this arrangement made?" asked 
 Madame de Bellegarde. "I seem to be picking up 
 the news by chance!" 
 
 "My suspense came to an end yesterday," said 
 Newman. 
 
 " And how long was mine to have lasted ? " the 
 Marquise further enquired of her daughter. She 
 spoke without irritation, with cold, noble displeasure. 
 
 Madame de Cintre stood silent and with her eyes 
 on the ground "It's pver at all events now." 
 
 275 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Where's my son where 's Urbain ?" asked the 
 Marquise. " Send for your brother and let him know." 
 
 Young Madame de Bellegarde laid her hand on 
 the bell-rope. " He was to make some visits with me, 
 and I was to go and knock very softly, very softlj 
 at the door of his study. But he can come to me!" 
 She pulled the bell and in a few moments Mrs. Bread 
 appeared with a face of calm enquiry. 
 
 " Send for your brother," the old lady went on to 
 Claire. 
 
 But Newman felt an irresistible impulse to speak 
 and to speak in a certain way. " Please tell the 
 Marquis we want him immediately," he said to Mrs. 
 Bread, who quietly retired. 
 
 Young Madame de Bellegarde approached her 
 sister-in-law and embraced her, and then she turned, 
 intensely smiling, to Newman. "She's as charming 
 as you like. I congratulate you." 
 
 "I do the same, Mr. Newman," said Madame de 
 Bellegarde with extreme solemnity. "My daughter's 
 an extraordinarily good woman. She may have 
 faults, but I don't know them." 
 
 " My mother does n't often make jokes," Madame 
 de Cintre observed; " but when she does they're 
 terrible." 
 
 "She's a pearl, she's adorable," the Marquise 
 Urbain resumed, looking at her sister-in-law with her 
 head on one side. "Yes, I congratulate you." 
 
 Madame de Cintre turned away and, taking up 
 a piece of tapestry, began to ply the needle. Some 
 minutes of silence elapsed, which were interrupted 
 by the arrival of M. de Bellegarde. He came in with 
 
 276 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 hat in hand and irreproachably gloved, and was 
 followed by his brother Valentin, who appeared to 
 have just entered the house. The Marquis looked 
 round the circle and administered to Newman his 
 due little measure of recognition. Valentin saluted 
 his mother and sisters and, as he shook hands with 
 his friend, appeared to put him a sharp mute question. 
 
 " Arrivez done, messieurs!" cried the young 
 Marquise. "We've great news for you." 
 
 "Speak to your brother, my daughter," said the 
 old woman to Claire. 
 
 Madame de Cintre had been looking at her tap- 
 estry, but on this she raised her eyes. " I 've accepted 
 Mr. Newman, Urbain." 
 
 "Yes, sir, your sister has nobly consented," said 
 Newman. "You see after all I knew what I was 
 about." 
 
 "I beg you to believe I'm charmed!" M. de Belle- 
 garde replied with superior benignity. 
 
 "So am I, my dear man," said Valentin to New- 
 man. "The Marquis and I are charmed. I can't 
 marry myself, but I can understand it in others when 
 the inducements to it are overwhelming. I can't stand 
 on my head, but I can applaud a clever acrobat when 
 he brings down the house. My dear sister, I bless 
 your union with this delightful gentleman." 
 
 The Marquis stood looking for a while into the 
 crown of his hat. "We've been prepared," he said 
 at last, "but it's inevitable that in the face of the 
 event we should eprouver a certain emotion." And 
 he gave the oddest smile his visitor had ever be- 
 held. 
 
 277 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I feel no emotion that I was not perfectly pre- 
 pared for," his mother, upon this, remarked. 
 
 "I can't say that for myself," said Newman, who 
 felt in his face a different light from that of the Mar- 
 quis. " I 'm distinctly happier than I expected to be. 
 [ suppose it's the sight of all yrur happiness!" 
 
 "Don't exaggerate that," said Madame de Belle- 
 garde as she got up and laid her hand on her daugh- 
 ter's arm. " You can't expect an honest old woman to 
 thank you for taking away her beautiful only daugh- 
 
 ter." 
 
 "You forget me, dear madame," the young Mar- 
 quise demurely interposed. 
 
 "Yes, she's very, very beautiful," Newman 
 agreed while he covered Claire with his bright still 
 protection. 
 
 "And when is the wedding, pray?" asked young 
 Madame de Bellegarde. "I must have a month to 
 think over the question of my falbalas." 
 
 "Ah, the time must be particularly discussed," 
 said the Marquise. 
 
 " Oh, we '11 discuss it thoroughly, and we'll promptly 
 let you know!" Newman gaily declared. 
 
 "I make very little doubt we shall agree," said 
 Urbain. 
 
 " If you don't agree with Madame de Cintre you '11 
 be very unreasonable," his visitor went on. 
 
 "Come, come, Urbain," said young Madame de 
 Bellegarde, "I must go straight to my tailor's." 
 
 The old lady had been standing with her hand on 
 her daughter's arm and her eyes on her face. Madame 
 de Cmtre had got up; she seemed inscrutably to 
 
 '278 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 wait. Her mother exhaled a long heavy breath. "No, 
 I can't say I had been sure of you. You 're a very 
 lucky gentleman," she added with a rather grand 
 turn to their guest. 
 
 "Oh, I know that!" he answered. "I feel tre- 
 mendously proud. I feel like crying it on the house- 
 tops like stopping people in the street to tell them." 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde narrowed her lips. " Pray 
 do nothing of the sort." 
 
 "Oh, the more people who know it the better," 
 Newman roundly returned. " I have n't yet an- 
 nounced it here, but I cabled it this morning to 
 America." 
 
 "'Cabled* it?" She spoke as if what indeed 
 well might be she had never heard the expression. 
 
 "To New York, to Saint Louis and to San Fran- 
 cisco; those are the principal cities you know. To- 
 morrow I shall tell my friends here." 
 
 "Have you so many?" asked Madame de Belle- 
 garde in a tone of which he perhaps but partly 
 measured the impertinence. 
 
 "Enough to bring me a great many hand-shakes 
 and congratulations. To say nothing," he added in 
 a moment, "of those I shall receive from your own 
 friends." ' 
 
 "Our own won't use the telegraph," said the 
 Marquise as she took her departure. 
 
 M. de Bellegarde, whose wife, her imagination 
 having apparently taken flight to the tailor's, was 
 fluttering her silken wings in emulation, shook hands 
 with Newman very pertinently and said with a more 
 persuasive accent than the latter had ever heard him 
 
 279 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 use: "I beg you to count on me for everything." 
 Then his wife led him away. 
 
 Valentin, on this, stood looking from his sister to 
 his friend. "I hope you've both reflected very 
 seriously." 
 
 Madame de Cintre smiled. "We've neither your 
 powers of reflexion nor your depth of seriousness, but 
 we've done our best." 
 
 " Well, I 've a great regard for each of you," the 
 young man continued. "You're charming, innocent, 
 beautiful creatures. But I'm not satisfied, on the 
 whole, that you belong to that small and superior 
 class that exquisite group composed of persons 
 who are worthy to remain unmarried. These are 
 rare souls, they're the salt of the earth. But I don't 
 mean to be invidious; the marrying people are often 
 very gentils." 
 
 " Valentin holds that women should marry and that 
 men should n't," said Madame de Cintre. "I don't 
 know how he arranges it." 
 
 "I arrange it by adoring you, my sister," he 
 ardently answered. 
 
 "You had better adore some one you can marry, 
 by my example," Newman laughed. " I '11 arrange 
 that for you some day. I foresee I 'm going to turn 
 apostle." 
 
 Valentin was on the threshold; he looked back a 
 moment with a face that had grown grave. " I adore 
 some one I cant marry!" And he dropped tht 
 portiere and departed. 
 
 "They don't really like it, you know," Newman 
 said as he stood there before his mistress. 
 
 280 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "No," she returned after a moment, "they don't 
 really like it." 
 
 " Well now, do you mind that ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes!" she said after another interval. 
 
 "But is n't that a mistake ?" 
 
 "It may be, but I can't help it. I should prefer 
 that my mother were pleased." 
 
 "Why the dickens then," he yearningly enquired, 
 " is nt she pleased ? She gave you leave to accept me." 
 
 "Very true; I don't understand it. And yet I do 
 'mind ' it, as you say. You '11 call that superstitious." 
 
 "That will depend on how much you let it worry 
 you. Then I shall call it an awful bore." 
 
 "I'll keep it to myself," said Madame de Cintre. 
 "It shall not, I promise, worry you." And they then 
 talked of their marriage-day, and she assented un- 
 reservedly to his desire to have it fixed for an early 
 date. 
 
 His messages by cable were answered promptly 
 and with interest. Having despatched in reality but 
 three of these, he received, for fruit of his investment, 
 as he called it, no less than eight electrical outpourings, 
 all concisely humorous, which he put into his pocket- 
 book and, the next time he encountered Madame de 
 Beliegarde, drew forth and displayed to her. This, 
 it must be confessed, was a slightly malicious stroke; 
 the reader will judge in what degree the offence was 
 venial. He knew she would dislike his barbaric 
 trophies, but he was himself possessed by a certain 
 hardness of triumph. Madame de Cintre, on the 
 other hand, quite artlessly, quite touchingly admired 
 them, and, most of them being of a wit quainter than 
 
 281 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 any she had ever encountered, laughed at them 
 immoderately and enquired into the character ol 
 their authors. Newman, now that his prize was 
 gained, felt a peculiar desire that his triumph should 
 be manifest. He more than suspected the Bellegardes 
 of keeping quiet about it and allowing it, in their 
 select circle, but a limited resonance; and it pleased 
 him to think that if he were to take the trouble he 
 might, as he phrased it, break all their windows. 
 No honest man ever enjoys any sign of his not being 
 acknowledged in his totality, and yet our friend, 
 with his lucid vision, was not conscious of humilia- 
 tion. He had not this good excuse for his somewhat 
 aggressive impulse to promulgate his felicity; his 
 sentiment was of another degree. He wanted for 
 once to make the heads of the house of Bellegarde 
 simply feel the weight of his hand; for when should 
 he have another chance ? He had had for the past 
 six months a sense of the old woman's and her elder 
 son's looking straight over his head, and he was now 
 resolved that they should toe a mark which he would 
 give himself the satisfaction of drawing. 
 
 "It's like seeing a bottle emptied when the wine'i 
 poured too slowly," he said to Mrs. Tristram. "They 
 make me want to joggle their elbows and force them 
 to spill their wine." 
 
 To this Mrs. Tristram answered that he had 
 better leave them alone and let them do things in 
 their own way. " You must make allowances for them 
 it 's natural enough they should hang fire a little. 
 They thought they accepted you when you made 
 your application : but they're not people of imagina- 
 
 282 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 tion, they could n't project themselves into the future, 
 and now they'll have to begin again. But they are 
 people of honour and they'll do whatever 's neces- 
 sary." 
 
 Newman spent a few moments in narrow-eyed 
 meditation. "I'm not hard on them," he presently 
 said, " and to prove it I '11 invite them all to a festival." 
 
 " A festival ?" 
 
 "You've been laughing at my great gilded rooms 
 all winter; I '11 show you they're good for something. 
 I '11 give a party. What 's the grandest thing one can 
 do here ? I '11 hire all the great singers from the opera 
 and all the first people from the Theatre Fran^ais, 
 and I '11 hold an entertainment the biggest kind 
 of show." 
 
 " And who will you invite ? " 
 
 "You two, first of all. And the old woman, damn 
 her, and her son and her son's wife. And Valentin 
 of course for the fun of him. And then every one 
 of their friends whom I have met at their house or 
 elsewhere, every one who has shown me the minimum 
 of politeness, every duke of them, such as they are, 
 every doddering old duchess, every 'great name' ir. 
 the place. And then all my friends, without excep- 
 tion Miss Kitty Upjohn, Miss Dora Finch, Gen- 
 ~ral Packard, C. P. Hatch, every pet horror even of 
 /ours. And every one shall know what it 's about 
 to celebrate my engagement to the Countess de 
 Cintre, who shall sit, through it all, on a golden chair 
 above their heads and look as beautiful and per- 
 haps, poor dear, as bored as a saint in paradise, 
 What do you think of the idea ? " 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I think it odious!" said Mrs. Tristram. And 
 then in a moment: "I think it delicious!" 
 
 The very next evening Newman repaired to 
 Madame de Bellegarde's own drawing-room, where 
 he found her surrounded by her children and invited 
 her to honour his poor dwelling by her presence on 
 a certain evening a fortnight distant. 
 
 The Marquise stared a moment. "My dear sir," 
 she cried, " what on earth do you want to do to me ? " 
 
 "To make you acquainted with a few people and 
 then to place you in a very easy chair and ask you to 
 listen to Madame Frezzolini's singing." 
 
 " You mean to give a conceit ? " 
 
 "Something of that sort." 
 
 " And to have a crowd of people ? " 
 
 "All my friends, and I hope some of yours and your 
 daughter's. I want to celebrate my engagement." 
 
 It seemed to him she had turned perceptibly pale. 
 She opened her fan, a fine old painted fan of the last 
 century, and looked at the picture, which represented 
 a fete champetre a lady singing to a guitar and a 
 group of dancers round a garlanded Hermes. "We 
 go out so little," her elder son murmured, " since my 
 poor father's death." 
 
 " But my poor father 's still alive, my tnend," said 
 his wife. "I'm only waiting for my invitation to 
 accept it;" and she glanced with amiable confidence 
 at Newman. "It will be magnificent, I'm sure of 
 that." 
 
 I am sorry to say, to the discredit of Newman's 
 gallantry, that this lady's invitation was not then and 
 there bestowed; he was giving all his attention to her 
 
 284 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 mother-in-law. Madame de Bellegarde looked up 
 at last with a prodigious extemporised grace. "I 
 can't think of letting you offer me a fete until I 've 
 offered you one. We want to present you to our 
 friends; we'll invite them all. We have it very much 
 at heart. We must do things in order. Come to me 
 about the twenty-fifth; I'll let you know the exact 
 day immediately. We shall not have any one so fine 
 as Madame Frezzolini, but we shall have some very 
 good people. After that you may talk of your own 
 party." She spoke with a certain quick eagerness, 
 smiling more agreeably as she went on. 
 
 It seemed to Newman a handsome proposal, and 
 such proposals always touched the sources of his 
 good-nature. He replied after a little discussion that 
 he would be glad to come on the twenty-fifth or any 
 other day, and that it mattered very little whether he 
 met his friends at her house or his own. We have 
 noted him for observant, yet on this occasion he failed 
 to catch a thin sharp eyebeam, as cold as a flash of 
 steel, which passed between Madame de Bellegarde 
 and the Marquis and which we may presume to 
 have been a commentary on the innocence displayed 
 in that latter clause of his speech. 
 
 Count Valentin walked away with him that even- 
 ing and, when they had left the scene of so many 
 anxieties well behind them, said reflectively: "My 
 mother 's very strong ah, but uncommonly strong." 
 Then in answer to an interrogative movement of 
 Newman's: "She was driven to the wall, but you'd 
 never have thought it. Her party on the twenty-fifth 
 was an invention of the moment. She had no idea 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 whatever of giving one, but, finding it tne only issue 
 from your proposal, she looked straight at the dose 
 pardon the expression and bolted it, as you 
 saw, without winking. She's really rather grand, 
 you know." 
 
 "Well, I wonder!" said Newman> divided, (his 
 time, rather whimsically, quite appreciatively, be- 
 tween the sense of his own force and the sense of 
 hers. " I don't care a straw for her fiddles and ices; 
 I 'm willing to take the will for the deed." 
 
 "No, no!" and Valentin showed an inconse- 
 quent touch of family pride. "The thing will be 
 done now, and I dare say it will be quite folichon!" 
 
XV 
 
 VALENTIN'S ironic forecast of the secession of Made- 
 moiselle Nioche from her father's domicile and his 
 irreverent reflexion on the attitude of this anxious 
 parent in so grave a catastrophe received a practical 
 commentary in the fact that M. Nioche was slow 
 to seek another interview with his late pupil. It had 
 cost Newman some disgust to be forced to assent to 
 his friend's expert analysis of the old man's phil- 
 osophy, and, though circumstances seemed to indi- 
 cate that he had not given himself up to a noble 
 despair, our hero thought it possible he might be 
 suffering more keenly than he allowed to become 
 flagrant. M. Nioche had been in the habit of paying 
 him a respectful little visit every two or three weeks, 
 and his absence might be a proof quite as much of 
 extreme depression as of a desire to conceal the suc- 
 cess with which he had patched up his sorrow. New- 
 man presently gathered in the bright garden of 
 Valentin's talk several of the flowers of the young 
 woman's recent history. 
 
 "I told you she was remarkable," this consistent 
 r>*asoner declared, "and it's proved by the way she 
 has managed this most important of all her steps, 
 She has had other chances, but she was resolved to 
 take none but the best. She did you the honour to 
 think for a while that you might be such a chance. 
 You were not; so she gathered up her patience and 
 
 287 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 waited a little longer. At last her occasion arrived, 
 and she made her move with her eyes open. I'm 
 very sure she had no innocence to lose, but she ha(' 
 all her respectability. Dubious little damsel as you 
 thought her she had kept a firm hold of that; nothing 
 could be proved against her, and she was determined 
 not to let her reputation go till she had got her 
 equivalent. About her equivalent she had high 
 ideas. Apparently her requirements have been met. 
 Well, they've been met in a superior form. The 
 form 's fifty years old, baldheaded and deaf, but he 's 
 very easy about money." 
 
 "And where in the world," asked Newman, "did 
 you pick up this valuable information ? " 
 
 " In animated conversation. Remember my frivol- 
 ous habits. Conversation and this time not crim- 
 inal ! with a young woman engaged in the humble 
 trade of glove-cleaner who keeps a small shop in 
 the Rue Saint-Roch. M. Nioche lives in the same 
 house, up six pairs of stairs, across the court in and 
 out of whose ill-swept doorway Miss Noemie has been 
 flitting for the last five years. The little glove-cleaner 
 was an old acquaintance; she used to be the friend 
 of a friend of mine the foolish friend of a foolish 
 friend who has married and given up friendship. 
 I often saw her in his society. As soon as I made 
 her out behind her clear little window-pane I recol- 
 lected her. I had on a spotlessly fresh pair of gloves, 
 but I went in and held up my hands and said to 
 her: 'Dear mademoiselle, what will you ask me 
 for cleaning these?' 'Dear Count,' she answered 
 immediately, ' I '11 clean them for you for nothing. 1 
 
 288 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 She had instantly recognised me and I had to heat 
 her history from ever so far back. But after that I 
 put her on that of her neighbours. She knows and 
 admires Noemie, and she told me what I Ve just re- 
 peated." 
 
 A month elapsed without any reappearance of 
 M. Nioche, and Newman, who every morning read, 
 for practice, about the suicides of the day in a news- 
 paper, began to suspect that, mortification proving 
 stubborn, he had sought a balm for his wounded 
 pride in the waters of the Seine. He had a note of 
 the poor gentleman's address in his pocket-book, 
 and, finding himself one day in the quartier, de- 
 termined, so far as he might, to clear up his doubts. 
 He repaired to the house in the Rue Saint-Roch which 
 bore the recorded number, and observed in a neigh- 
 bouring basement, behind a dangling row of neatly 
 inflated gloves, the unmistakeable face of Valentin's 
 informant a sallow person in a dressing-gown 
 peering into the street as if in expectation that this 
 amiable nobleman would pass again. But it was not 
 to her that Newman applied ; he simply enquired of 
 the portress if M. Nioche were at home. The portress 
 replied, as the portress invariably replies, that her 
 lodger had gone out barely three minutes before, but 
 then, through the little square hole of her lodge- 
 window, taking the measure of Newman's resources 
 and seeing them, by an unspecified process, refresh 
 the dry places of servitude to occupants of fifth floors 
 on courts, she added that M. Nioche would have 
 had just time to reach the Cafe de la Patrie, round 
 the second turning to the left, at which establishment 
 
 289 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 he regularly spent his afternoons. Newman thanked 
 her for the information, took the second turning to 
 the left and arrived at the Cafe de la Patrie. He felt 
 a momentary hesitation to go in; was it not rather 
 mean to press so hard on humiliated dignity ? There 
 passed across his vision an image of a haggard little 
 septuagenarian taking measured sips of a glass of 
 sugar and water and finding them quite impotent to 
 sweeten his desolation. But he opened the door and 
 entered, perceiving nothing at first but a dense cloud 
 of tobacco-smoke. Across this, however, in a corner, 
 he presently descried the figure of M. Nioche, stirring 
 the contents of a deep glass and with a lady seated 
 in front of him. The lady's back was presented, but 
 her companion promptly perceived and recognised 
 his visitor. Newman had gone forward, and the 
 old man rose slowly, gazing at him with a more 
 blighted expression even than usual. 
 
 "If you're drinking hot punch," Newman said, 
 "I suppose you're not dead. That's all right. You 
 need n't move to show it." 
 
 M. Nioche stood staring with a fallen jaw, not 
 risking any confidence. The lady who faced him 
 turned round in her place and glanced up with a 
 spirited toss of her head, displaying the agreeable 
 features of his daughter. She looked at Newman 
 hard, to see how he was looking at her, then I 
 don't know what she discovered she said graciously: 
 " How d' ye do, monsieur ? won't you come into our 
 little corner ? " 
 
 " Did you come did you come after me, mon- 
 sieur?" asked M. Nioche very softly. 
 
 290 
 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I went to your house to see what had become of 
 you. I thought you might be sick," monsieur said 
 mildly enough. 
 
 "It's very good of you, as always," the old man 
 returned. "No, I'm not well. Yes, I'm seek." 
 
 "Ask monsieur to sit down," said Mademoiselle 
 fticche. ''Garcon, bring a chair for monsieur." 
 
 "Will you do us the honour to seat?" M. Nioche 
 enquired timorously and with a double foreignness 
 of accent. 
 
 Newman said to himself that he had better see the 
 thing out, and he took a place at the end of the table 
 with the brilliant girl on his left and the dingy old 
 man on the other side. "You'll take something of 
 course," said Miss Noemie, who was sipping a 
 brown madere. Newman said he guessed not, and tKon 
 she turned to her parent with a smile. "What an 
 honour, eh ? he has only come for us." M. Nioche 
 drained his pungent glass at a long draught and 
 looked out from eyes more lachrymose in consequence. 
 " But you did n't come for me, eh ?" Noemie went on. 
 "You did n't expect to find me here ?" 
 
 He observed the change in her appearance and 
 that she was very elegant, really prettier than before; 
 she looked a year or two older, and "t wac noticeable 
 that, to the eye, she had only added a sharp accent 
 to her appearance of "'propriety," only taken a 
 longer step toward distinction. She was dressed in 
 quiet colours and wore her expensively unobtrusive 
 gear with a grace that might have come from years of 
 practice. Her presence of mind, her perfect equi* 
 librium, struck Newrnan as portentous, and he in- 
 
 291 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 clined to agree with Valentin that the young lady 
 was very remarkable. "No, to tell the truth, I did n't 
 come for you," he said, "and I did n't expect to find 
 you. I was told," he added in a moment, "that you 
 had left your good father." 
 
 "Quelle horreurf" she cried with the brightest of 
 all her smiles. "Does one ever leave one's good 
 father ? You've the happy proof of the contrary." 
 
 "Yes, convincing proof," said Newman with his 
 almost embarrassed eyes on M. Nioche. The old 
 man caught his glance obliquely, with his faded 
 deprecation, and then, lifting his empty glass, pre- 
 tended to drink again. 
 
 "Who told you that ?" Noemie demanded. "But 
 I know very well. It was M. de Bellegarde. Why 
 don't you say yes ? You 're not polite." 
 
 "I'm so shy and simple and stupid," Newman 
 said with a certain fond good faith. 
 
 "I set you a better example. I know M. de Belle- 
 garde told you. He knows a great deal about me 
 or he thinks he does. He has taken a great deal oi 
 trouble to find out, but half of it is n't true. In the 
 first place I h**ve n't left my father, any more than 
 he has left me. I'm much too fond of him, and 
 never so fond as now, when he has been gentil, mats 
 gentil ! Is n't it so, little father ? Have n't you been 
 genttl, mats gentil? M. de Bellegarde 's a charming 
 young man ; it's impossible to mieux causer. I know 
 a good deal about him too; you can tell him that 
 when you next see him." 
 
 "No," said Newman with a sturdy grin; "I won't 
 carry any messages from you." 
 
 292 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Just as you please," his young friend placidly 
 returned. "I don't depend on you, nor does M. de 
 Bellegarde either. He's very much interested in me, 
 he can be left to his own devices. He 's a contrast to 
 you, monsieur,'"' Noemie went on with a fine little 
 flight of dignity, 
 
 " Oh, he 's a great contrast to me, I 've no doubt," 
 said Newman. " But I don't exactly know how you 
 
 mean it." 
 
 " I mean it in this way. First of all he never offered 
 to help me to a Jot and a husband." And Mademoiselle 
 Nioche expressively paused. "I won't say that's in 
 his favour, for I do you justice. What led you, by 
 the way, to make me such a monstrous offer ? You 
 did n't care for me." 
 
 "Oh yes I did," said Newman. 
 
 "Well, how much?" 
 
 "It would have given me real pleasure to see you 
 married to a respectable young fellow." 
 
 "With six thousand francs of income!" Noemie 
 cried. "Do you call that caring for me ? I 'm afraid 
 you know little about women. You were not galant; 
 you were not what you might have been." 
 
 Newman flushed a trifle fiercely. "I say!" he 
 exclaimed, "that's rather strong. I had no idea I had 
 been so shabby." 
 
 She laughed out as she took up her mufF it was 
 almost her only hint of vulgarity. "It's something 
 at any rate to have made you angry." 
 
 Her father had leaned both his elbows on the 
 table, and his head, bent forward, was supported 
 on his hands, the thin white fingers of which were 
 
 293 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 pressed over his ears. In this position he stared 
 fixedly at the bottom of his empty glass, and New- 
 man supposed he was not hearing. Noemie buttoned 
 her furred jacket and pushed back her chair, casting 
 a glance charged with the consciousness of an ex- 
 pensive appearance first down over her flounces 
 and then up at Newman. 
 
 "You had better have remained an honest girl," 
 his obstinate sense of his old friend's painful situa- 
 tion prompted him at last to remark. 
 
 M. Nioche continued to stare at the bottom of his 
 glass, and his daughter got up, still bravely smiling, 
 "You mean that I looh so much like one? That's 
 more than most women do nowadays. Don't judge 
 me yet a while," she dded. "I mean to succeed; 
 that's what I mean to do. I leave you; I don't mean 
 to be seen in such places as this, for one thing. I 
 can't think what you want of my poor father; he's 
 very comfortable now. It is n't his fault either. 
 Au revoir, little father." And she tapped the old man 
 on the head with her mufF. Then she stopped a 
 minute, looking again at their visitor. "Tell M. de 
 Bellegarde, when he wants news of me, to come and 
 get it from me!" And she turned and departed, the 
 white-aproned waiter, with a bow, holding the door 
 wide open for her. 
 
 M. Nioche sat motionless, and Newman hardly 
 knew what to say to him. The old man looked dis- 
 mally foolish. "So you determined not to shoot her, 
 after all," Newman said presently. 
 
 M. Nioche, without moving, raised his eyes and 
 let all their confession quite dismally and abjectly 
 
 294 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 come. They did n't somehow presume to ask for 
 pity, yet they doubtless pretended even less to a 
 rugged ability to do without it. They might have 
 expressed the state of mind of an innocuous insect, 
 flat in shape, conscious of the impending pressure of 
 a boot-sole and reflecting that he was perhaps too 
 flat to be crushed. M. Nioche's gaze was a profes- 
 sion of moral flatness. "You despise me terribly," 
 he said in the weakest possible voice. 
 
 " Oh no ; it 's not your own affair. And hanged if 
 ( understand your institutions anyway!" 
 
 "I made you too many fine speeches," M. Nioche 
 added. "I meant them at the time." 
 
 " I 'm sure I 'm very glad you did n't shoot her," 
 Newman went on. "I was afraid you might have 
 shot yourself. That's why I came to look you up." 
 And he began to button his coat. 
 
 "Neither, helasl You despise me and I can't ex- 
 plain to you. I hoped I should n't see you again." 
 
 "Why, that's pretty mean," said Newman. "You 
 should n't drop your friends that way. Besides, the 
 last time you came to see me I thought you felt rather 
 fine." 
 
 "Yes, I remember" M. Nioche musingly re- 
 called it. "I must have been, I was, in a fever. I 
 did n't know what I said, what I did. I spoke, no 
 doubt, wild words." 
 
 "Ah well, you're quieter now." 
 
 M. Nioche bethought himself. "As quiet as the 
 grave," he then struck off. 
 
 " Are you very unhappy ? " Newman more in- 
 genuously asked. 
 
 295 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 M. Nioche rubbed his forehead slowly and even 
 pushed back his wig a little, looking askance at his 
 empty glass. "Yes yes. But that's an old story, 
 I 've always been unhappy. My daughter does what 
 she will with me. I take what she gives me I make 
 a face, but I take it. I 've no pluck, and when you 've 
 no pluck you must keep quiet: you can't go about 
 telling people. I shan't trouble you any more." 
 
 "Well," said Newman, rather disgusted at the 
 smooth operation of the old man's philosophy, 
 "that's as you please." 
 
 M. Nioche seemed to have been prepared to be 
 despised, but he nevertheless appealed feebly from 
 his patron's faint praise. "After all she's my daugh- 
 ter and I can still look after her. If she has her bad 
 idea, why she has it and she won't let go of it. And 
 then now," he pointed out " it 's fine talking ! But 
 there are many different paths, there are degrees. 
 I can place at her disposal the benefit, the benefit " 
 and he paused, staring vaguely at his friend, who 
 began to suspect his mind of really giving way 
 "the benefit of my experience." 
 
 "Your experience?" Newman inquired, both 
 amused and amazed. 
 
 ''My experience of business," said M. Nioche 
 gravely. 
 
 "Ah yes," Newman laughed, "that will be a great 
 advantage to her!" And then he said good-bye and 
 offered the poor foolish old man his hand. 
 
 M. Nioche took it and leaned back against the wall, 
 holding it a moment and looking up at him. " I sup- 
 pose you think my wits are going. Very likely; I'vt 
 
 296 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 always a pain in my head. That's why I can't ex- 
 plain, I can't present the case. And she's so strong, 
 she makes me walk as she will anywhere! But 
 there 's this there 's this." And he stopped, still 
 staring up at his visitor. His little white eyes ex- 
 panded and glittered for a moment like those of a cat 
 in the dark. "It's not as it seems. I haven't for- 
 given her. Oh, par exemple, no!" 
 
 "That's right, don't let up on it. If you should, 
 you don't know what she still might do!" 
 
 "It's horrible, it's terrible," said M. Nioche; "but 
 do you want to know the truth ? I hate her! I take 
 what she gives me, and I hate her more. To-day she 
 brought me three hundred francs; they're here in 
 my waistcoat-pocket. Now I hate her almost cruelly. 
 No, I have n't forgiven her." 
 
 Newman had a return of his candour. "Why then 
 did you accept the money ? " 
 
 " If I had n't I should have hated her still more. 
 That, you see, is the nature of misery. No, I have n't 
 forgiven her." 
 
 "Well, take care you don't hurt her!" Newman 
 laughed again. And with this he took his leave. As 
 he passed along the glazed side of the cafe, on reach- 
 ing the street, he saw the old man motion the waiter, 
 with a melancholy gesture, to replenish his glass. 
 
 A week after his visit to the Cafe de la Patrie he 
 called one morning on Valentin de Bellegarde and 
 by good fortune found him at home. He spoke of 
 his interview with M. Nioche and his daughter, and 
 said he was afraid Valentin had judged the old man 
 correctly. He had found the couple hobnobbing 
 
 297 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 together in amity; the old gentleman's rigour was 
 purely theoretic. Newman confessed he was dis- 
 appointed ; he should have expected to see his ven- 
 erable friend take high ground. 
 
 "High ground, my dear fellow!" Valentin re- 
 turned; "there's no high ground for him to take. 
 The only perceptible eminence in M. Nioche's hori- 
 zon is Montmartre, which is n't an edifying quarter. 
 You can't go mountaineering in a flat country." 
 
 "He remarked indeed," said Newman, "that he 
 had not forgiven her. But she '11 never find it out." 
 
 "We must do him the justice to suppose he in- 
 tensely disapproves. His gifted child," Valentin 
 added, "is like one of the great artists whose bio- 
 graphies we read, those who at the beginning of their 
 career suffered opposition in the domestic circle. 
 Their vocation was not recognised by their families, 
 but the world has done it justice. Noemie has a vo- 
 cation." 
 
 "Damn her vocation! Oh," added Newman im- 
 patiently, "you're a cold-blooded crew!" 
 
 Valentin sounded him a moment with curious 
 eyes. "You must be very fond of boiled beef and 
 cabbage to have such a suspicion of ripe peaches 
 and plums." 
 
 But Newman sturdily met his look. "I should n't 
 think I'd have to tell you what fruit I gather!" 
 
 The young man, at this, closed his eyes an instant 
 and then, with a motion of his hand, shook his head. 
 After which he gravely said: "I back you more than 
 ever!" 
 
 "Let me then," his companion returned, "do 
 208 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 what I suppose you'd call the fair thing by you. 
 Miss Noemie desired me to tell you but hanged 
 if I know what!" 
 
 "Bless your quiet imagination," said Valentin, 
 "do you suppose I've been waiting for you? I've 
 been to see her for myself no less than three times 
 these five days. She's a charming hostess; we attack 
 the noblest subjects of discussion. She 's really very 
 clever and a rare and remarkable type; not at all 
 low nor wanting to be low determined not to be. 
 She means to take very good care of herself. She 's 
 as perfect as you please, and as hard and clear-cut 
 as some little figure of a sea-nymph on an antique 
 intaglio; and I warrant she has n't a grain more 
 true sensibility than if she were scooped out of a big 
 amethyst. You can't scratch her even with a dia- 
 mond. Extremely pretty really, when you know 
 her, she's wonderfully pretty intelligent, deter- 
 mined, ambitious, unscrupulous, capable of seeing 
 a man strangled without changing colour, she 's, upon 
 my honour, remarkably agreeable." 
 
 "Well," said Newman after reflexion, "I once 
 saw .in a needle-factory a gentleman from the city, 
 who had stopped too near a machine that struck 
 him as curious, picked up as clean as if he had been 
 removed by a silver fork from a china plate, and 
 swallowed down and ground to small pieces!" 
 
 Re-entering his rooms late in the evening, three 
 days after Madame de Bellegarde had struck her 
 bargain with him, as he might feel, over the enter- 
 tainment at which she was to present him to the 
 world, he found on his table a goodly card of an- 
 
 299 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 nouncement to the effect that she would be at homf 
 on the twenty-seventh of the month and at ten o'clock 
 in the evening. He stuck it into the frame of his 
 mirror and eyed it with some complacency; it seemed 
 to him a document of importance and an emblem of 
 triumph. Stretched out in a chair he looked at it lov- 
 ingly, and while he so revelled Valentin was shown 
 into the place. The young man's glance presently 
 followed the direction of Newman's and he perceived 
 his mother's invitation. 
 
 "And what have they put into the corner? Not 
 the customary 'music,' 'dancing,' or 'tableaux 
 vivants' ? They ought at least to put 'An American 
 of Americans.' ' 
 
 "Oh, there are to be several of us," Newman said. 
 "Mrs. Tristram told me to-day she had received a 
 card and sent an acceptance." 
 
 "Ah then, with Mrs. Tristram and her husband 
 you'll have support. My mother might have put on 
 her card 'Three Americans in a Row' which you 
 can pronounce in either way you like, though I know 
 the way I should suppose most American. I dare 
 say at least you '11 not lack amusement. You '11 see 
 a great many of the best people in France I mean 
 of the long pedigrees, and the beaux noms, and the 
 great fidelities, and the rare stupidities, and the faces 
 and figures that, after all, sometimes, I suppose 
 God did make. We've already shown you speci- 
 mens in numbers you know by which end to take 
 them." 
 
 " Oh, they have n't hurt me yet," said Newman, 
 " and I guess they would, by this time, if they were 
 
 300 
 
[ THE AMERICAN 
 
 going to, I seem to want to like people, these days 
 
 seem regularly to like liking them, and almost 
 any one will do. I feel so good that if I was n't sure 
 I 'm going to be married I might think I 'm going to 
 die." 
 
 "Do you make," the young man enquired, "so 
 much of a distinction ? " But he dropped rather 
 wearily into a chair and went on before his host 
 could answer. "Happy- man, only remember that 
 there are poor devils whom the flaunted happiness 
 of others sometimes irritates." 
 
 "Do you call a person a poor devil," demanded 
 Newman, "who's as good as my brother-in-law?" 
 
 "Your brother-in-law ?" his friend a trifle musingly 
 echoed. 
 
 " Say then my brother," Newman kindly returned 
 
 " and leave the other description for yours." 
 
 It made Valentin after an instant rise to him. 
 "You're really very charming You have your own 
 way for it which must have been your way o.f 
 making love. Well," he sighed with a dimmer smile 
 than usual, "I don't wonder and I don't question! 
 Only you are, I understand " he immediately 
 took himself up "'really and truly' in love ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir!" said Newman after a pause. 
 
 "And do you hold that she is ?" 
 
 "You had better ask her," Newman answered. 
 "Not for me, but for yourself." 
 
 " I never ask anything for myself. Have n't you 
 noticed that ? Besides, she would n't tell me, and 
 it's after all none of my business." 
 
 Newman hesitated, but "She doesn't know!" h 
 "301 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the next thing brought out. "However, she will 
 know." 
 
 "Ah then, you will which I see you don't yet- 
 But what you'll know will be what you want, for 
 that 's the way things turn out for you." And Valen- 
 tin's grave fine eyes, as if under some impression 
 oddly quickened, measured him again a moment up 
 and down. "The way you cover the ground! How- 
 ever, being as you are a giant, you move naturally in 
 seven-league boots." With which again he turned 
 restlessly off. 
 
 Newman's attention, from before the fire, followed 
 him a little. "There's something the matter with 
 you to-night: you're kind of perverse you're 
 almost kind of vicious. But wait till I 'm through 
 with my business to which I wish to give just now 
 my undivided attention and then we '11 talk. By 
 which I mean I '11 fix you somehow." 
 
 "Ah, there will be plenty of me for you, such as 
 I am for you always. Only when, then," Valentin 
 asked, "is the event ?" 
 
 "About five weeks hence on a day not quite yet 
 settled." 
 
 He accepted this answer with interest, in spite of 
 which, however, "You feel very confident of the 
 future?" he next attentively demanded. 
 
 "Confident," said Newman with the large accent 
 from which semitones were more than ever absent. 
 "I knew what I wanted exactly, and now I know 
 what I've got." 
 
 "You're sure then you're going to be happy?" 
 
 "Sure ? " Newman competently weighed it, " So 
 302 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 foolish a question deserves a foolish answer. Yes 
 I'll be hanged if I ain't sure!" 
 
 Well, if Valentin was to pass for perverse it would 
 not be, he seemed to wish to show, for nothing. 
 "You're not afraid of anything?" 
 
 "What should I be afraid of? You can't hurt 
 me unless you kill me by some violent means. That 
 I should indeed regard as a tremendous sell. I want 
 to live and I mean to live: I mean to have a good 
 time. I can't die of sickness, because I 'm naturally 
 healthy, and the time for dying of old age won't 
 come round yet a while. I can't lose my wife, I shall 
 take too good care of her. I can't lose my money, 
 or much of it I 've fixed it so on purpose. So what 
 have I to be afraid of?" 
 
 "You're not afraid it may be rather a mistake 
 for such an infuriated modern to marry well, such 
 an old-fashioned rococo product; a daughter, as one 
 may say, of the Crusaders, almost of the Patriarchs ?" 
 
 Newman, who had been moving about as they 
 talked, stopped before his visitor. " Does that mean 
 you're worried for her?" 
 
 Valentin met his eyes. "I'm worried for every- 
 thing." 
 
 " Ah, if that's all !" And then: "Trust me 
 because I 'm modern and can compare all round 
 to know where I stand!" With which, as from the 
 impulse to celebrate his happy certitude by a bonfire, 
 he turned to throw a couple of logs on the already 
 blazing hearth. Valentin watched a few moments 
 the quickened flame; after which, with his elbow 
 supported on the chimney and his head on his hand, 
 
 33 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 he gave an expressive sigh. "Got a headache?" 
 Newman asked. 
 
 "Je suis triste" he answered with Gallic sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 Newman stared at the remark as if it had been 
 scrawled on a slate by a school-boy a weakling 
 whom he would n't wish, however, too harshly to 
 snub. "You've got a sentimental stomach-ache, eh ? 
 Have you caught it from the lady you told me the 
 other night you adored and could n't marry?" 
 
 "Did I really speak of her?" Valentin asked as 
 if a little struck. "I was afraid afterwards I had 
 made some low allusion for I don't as a general 
 thing (and it's a rare scruple I have!) drag in ces 
 dames before Claire. But I was feeling the bitter- 
 ness of life, as who should say, when I spoke; and 
 yes, if you want to know I've my mouth full 
 of it still. Why did you ever introduce me to that 
 girl?" 
 
 " Oh, it 's Noemie, is it ? Lord deliver us ! You 
 don't mean to say you're lovesick about her?" 
 
 "Lovesick, no; it's not a grand passion. But the 
 cold-blooded little demon sticks in my thoughts; she 
 has bitten me with those even little teeth of hers; 
 I feel as if I might turn rabid and do something 
 crazy in consequence. It's very low, it's disgustinglr 
 low. She's the most mercenary little jade in Europe. 
 Yet she really affects my peace of mind; she's al- 
 ways running in my head. It's a striking and a vile 
 contrast to your noble and virtuous attachment. It's 
 rather pitiful that it should be the best I'm able to 
 do for myself at my present respectable age. I'm 
 
 304. 
 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a nice young man, eh, en somme? You can't warrant 
 my future as you do your own." 
 
 "Drop the creature right here," said Newman; 
 " don't go near her again, and your future will be all 
 right. Come over to America and I '11 get you a place 
 in a bank." 
 
 "It's easy to say drop her" Valentin spoke 
 with a certain gravity in his lucidity. "You might as 
 well drop a pretty panther who has every one of her 
 claws in your flesh and who's in the act of biting 
 your heart out. One has to keep up the acquaintance, 
 if only to show one is n't afraid." 
 
 " You 've better things to keep up, it seems to me, 
 than such acquaintances. Remember too," Newman 
 went on, "that I did n't want to introduce you to 
 her; you insisted. I had a sort of creepy feeling about 
 it even at the time." 
 
 "Oh, I no more reproach you with misleading 
 my innocence than I reproach myself with prac- 
 tising on hers. She 's really extraordinary. The way 
 she has already spread her wings is amazing. I 
 don't know when a woman has amused me more. 
 But pardon me," he added in an instant; "she 
 does n't amuse you, at second-hand ; your interest 
 appears, to flag just where that of many men would 
 wake up. Let us talk of something else." Valentin 
 introduced another topic, but he had within five 
 minutes reverted by a bold transition to Mademoiselle 
 Nioche and was throwing off pictures of her "home" 
 and quoting specimens of her mots. These latter 
 were very droll and, for a young woman who six 
 months before had been dabbling in sacred subjects, 
 
 35 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 remarkably profane. But at last, abruptly, he stopped, 
 became thoughtful and for some time afterwards 
 said nothing When he rose to go it was evident 
 that his thoughts were still running on his rare young 
 friend. "Yes," he wound up, "she's a beautiful 
 little monster I'* 
 
XVI 
 
 THE next ten days were to be the happiest Newman 
 had ever known. He saw Madame de Cintre every 
 day, and never saw either her mother or the elder 
 of his prospective brothers-in-law. The woman of 
 his choice at last seemed to think it becoming to 
 apologise for their never being present. ;< They 're 
 much taken up," she said, "with doing the honours 
 of Paris to Lord Deepmere." Her gravity as she 
 made this declaration was almost prodigious, and it 
 even deepened as she added: "He's our seventh 
 cousin, you know, and blood's thicker than water. 
 And then he's so interesting!" And with this she 
 strangely smiled. 
 
 He met young Madame de Bellegarde two or three 
 times, always roaming about with graceful vagueness 
 and as if in search of an unattainable ideal of di- 
 version. She reminded him of some elegant painted 
 phial, cracked and fragrantly exhaling; but he felt 
 he owed indulgence to a lady who on her side owed 
 submission to Urbain de Bellegarde. He pitied that 
 nobleman's wife the more, also, that she was a silly, 
 thirstily-smiling little brunette with a suggestion of 
 the unregulated heart. The small Marquise some- 
 times looked at him with an intensity too marked 
 not to be innocent, since vicious advances, he con- 
 ceived, were usually much less direct. She apparently 
 wanted to ask him something; he wondered what 
 
 307 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 it might be. But he was shy of giving her an oppor- 
 tunity, because, if her communication bore upon the 
 aridity of her matrimonial lot, he was at a loss to see 
 how he could help her. He had a fancy, however, 
 of her coming up to him some day and saying (after 
 looking round behind her) with a little passionate 
 hiss: "I know you detest my husband; let me have 
 the pleasure of promising you that you're right. 
 Pity a poor woman who 's married to a clock-image 
 in papier-mache!" Possessing, at any rate, in de- 
 fault of a competent knowledge of the principles of 
 etiquette, a very downright sense of the "meanness" 
 of certain actions, it seemed to him to belong to his 
 proper position to keep on his guard; he was not 
 going to put it into the power of these people to say 
 he had done in their house anything not absolutely 
 straight. As it was, Madame de Bellegarde used to 
 give him news of the dress she meant to wear at his 
 wedding, and which had not yet, in her creative 
 imagination, in spite of many interviews with the 
 tailor, resolved itself into its composite totality. "I 
 told you pale blue bows on the sleeves, at the elbow," 
 she would say. "But to-day I don't see my blue 
 bows at all. I don't know what has become of them. 
 To-day I see pink a tender sort of cuisse de nymphe 
 pink. And then I pass through strange desolate 
 phases in which neither blue nor pink says anything 
 to me. And yet I must have the bows." 
 
 "Have them green or yellow," Newman some- 
 times suggested. 
 
 " Malheureux ! " the little Marquise would then 
 piercingly cry. " I hope you 're not going to pretend 
 
 308 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to dress jour wife. Claire 's an angel, yes, but her 
 bows, already, are- well, quite of another world!" 
 
 Madame de Cintre was calmly content before 
 society, but her lover had the felicity of feeling that 
 before him, when society was absent, her sense of 
 security overflowed. She said charming and tender 
 things. "I take no pleasure in you. You never give 
 me a chance to scold you, to correct you. I bargained 
 for that; I expected to enjoy it. But you won't do 
 anything wrong or queer or dreadful, and yet you 
 won't even look as if you were trying to do right. 
 You 're easier than we are, you 're easier than I am, 
 and I quite see that you've reasons, of some sort, 
 that are as good as ours. It 's dull for me therefore," 
 she smiled, "and it's rather disappointing, not to 
 have anything to show you or to tell you or to teach 
 you, anything that you don't seem already quite 
 capable of knowing and doing and feeling. What 's 
 left of all the good one was going to do you ? It 's 
 very stupid, there's no excitement for me; I might 
 as well be marrying some one well, some one not 
 impossible." 
 
 " I 'm afraid I 'm as impossible as I know how to 
 be, and that it's all the worst I can do in the time," 
 Newman would say in answer to this. " Kindly make 
 the best of any inconvenience." He assured her that 
 he would never visit on her any sense of her own 
 deficiencies; he would treat her at least as if she were 
 perfectly satisfactory. "Oh," he then broke out, "if 
 you only knew how exactly you're what I coveted! 
 I'm beginning to understand why I wanted it; the 
 having it makes all the difference that I expected. 
 
 309 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Never was a man so pleased with his good fortune. 
 You've been holding your head for a week past just 
 as I wanted my wife to hold hers. You say just 
 the things I want her to say. You walk about the 
 room just as I want her to walk. You've just 
 the taste in dress I want her to have. In short you 
 come up to the mark, and, I can tell you, my mark 
 was high." 
 
 These assurances tended to make his friend more 
 grave. At last she said: "Depend on it I don't 
 come up to the mark at all; your mark's much too 
 high. I'm not all you suppose; I'm a much smaller 
 affair. She's a magnificent person, the person you 
 imagine. Pray how did she come to such perfection ? " 
 
 "She was never anything but perfection," New- 
 man replied. 
 
 "I really believe," his companion went on, "that 
 she 's better than any fond flight of my own ambition. 
 Do you know that 's a very handsome compliment ? 
 Well, sir, I '11 make her my ambition ! " 
 
 Mrs. Tristram came to see her dear Claire after 
 Newman had announced his engagement, and she 
 observed to our hero the next day that his fortune 
 was simply absurd. "For the ridiculous part of it is 
 that you 're evidently going to be as happy as if you 
 were marrying Miss Smith or Miss Brown. I call 
 it a brilliant match for you, but you get brilliancy 
 without paying any tax on it. Those things are usually 
 a compromise, but here you've everything, and 
 nothing crowds anything else out. You'll be bril- 
 liantly happy with the rest of the brilliancy. I 
 consider really that I've done it for you, but it's 
 
 310 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 almost more than I can myself bear." Newman 
 thanked her for her pleasant encouraging way of 
 saying things; no woman could encourage or dis- 
 courage better. Tristram's way was different; he had 
 been taken by his wife to call on Madame de Cintre 
 and he gave an account of the expedition. 
 
 "You don't catch me risking a personal estimate 
 this time, I guess, do you ? I put my foot in it for you 
 once. That 's a jolly underhand thing to do, by the 
 way coming round to sound a fellow on the wo- 
 man you're going to marry. You deserve anything 
 you get. Then of course you rush and tell her, and 
 she takes care to make it pleasant for the spiteful 
 wretch the first time he calls. I'll do you the justice 
 to say, however, that you don't seem to have told 
 your present friend or if you did she let me down 
 easy. She was very nice; she was tremendously 
 polite. She and Lizzie sat on the sofa pressing each 
 other's hands and calling each other chere belle, and 
 Madame de Cintre sent me every third word a mag- 
 nificent smile, as if to give me to understand that 
 I too was a beauty and a darling. She made up for 
 past neglect, I assure you; she was very pleasant 
 and sociable. Only in an evil hour it came into her 
 head to say that she must present us to her mother 
 her mother wished to know any good friends of 
 yours. I did n't want to know her mother, and I was 
 on the point of telling Lizzie to go in alone and let 
 me wait for her outside. But Lizzie, with her usual 
 infernal ingenuity, guessed my purpose and looked 
 me into obedience. So they marched off arm-in-arm 
 and I followed as I could. We found the old lady 
 
 3" 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 in her armchair twiddling her aristocratic thumbs. 
 She eyed Lizzie hard, from head to foot; but at that 
 game Lizzie, to do her justice, was a match for her. 
 My wife told her we were great friends of Mr. New- 
 man. The Marquise stared a moment and then said : 
 * Oh, Mr. Newman ? My daughter has made up her 
 mind to marry a Mr. Newman.' Then Madame de 
 Cintre began to fondle Lizzie again and said it was 
 this dear lady who had had the idea and brought 
 them together. * Oh, it 's you I have to thank for my 
 American son-in-law ? ' Madame de Bellegarde said 
 to Mrs. Tristram. * It was a very clever thought of 
 yours. Be sure of my high appreciation/ With 
 which she began to look at me too, and presently 
 said: 'Pray, are you engaged in some species of 
 manufacture ? ' I wanted to say that I manufactured 
 broomsticks for old witches to ride on, but Lizzie 
 got in ahead of me. ' My husband, madame la Mar- 
 quise, belongs to that unfortunate class of persons who 
 have no profession and no occupation, and who 
 thereby do very little good in the world/ To get her 
 poke at the old woman she did n't care where she 
 shoved me. 'Dear me,' said the Marquise, 'we all 
 have our duties/ 'I'm sorry mine compel me to 
 take leave of you,' said Lizzie. And we bundled out 
 again. But you have a mother-in-law in all the force 
 of the time-honoured term." 
 
 "Oh," Newman made answer, "my mother-in-law 
 desires nothing better than to let me alone!" 
 
 Betimes, on the evening of the twenty-seventh, he 
 went to Madame de Bellegarde's ball. The old house 
 in the Rue de I'Umversite shone strangely in his eyes, 
 
 312 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 In the circle of light projected from the outer gate 
 ? detachment of the populace stood watching the car- 
 riages roll in; the court was illumined with flaring 
 torches and the portico draped and carpeted. When 
 Newman arrived there were but few persons present. 
 The Marquise and her two daughters were on the top 
 landing of the staircase, where the ancient marble 
 nymph peeped out from a bower of plants. Madame 
 de Bellegarde, in purple and pearls and fine laces v 
 resembled some historic figure painted by Vandyke; 
 she made her daughter, in comparative vaguenesses 
 of white, splendid and pale, seem, for his joy of 
 possession, infinitely modern and near. His hostess 
 greeted him with a fine hard urbanity and, looking 
 round, called to several of the persons standing at 
 hand. They were elderly gentlemen with faces as 
 marked and featured and filled-in, for some science 
 of social topography, as, to Newman's whimsical 
 sense, any of the little towered and battered old 
 towns, on high eminences, that his tour of several 
 countries during the previous summer had shown 
 him; they were adorned with strange insignia, cor- 
 dons and ribbons and orders, as if the old cities were 
 flying flags and streamers and hanging out shields 
 for a celebration, and they approached with meas- 
 ured alertness while the Marquise presented them 
 the good friend of the family who was to marry her 
 daughter. The good friend heard a confused enum- 
 eration of titles and names that matched, to his 
 fancy, the rest of the paraphernalia; the gentlemen 
 bowed and smiled and murmured without reserve, 
 and he indulged in a series of impartial hand-shakes, 
 
 313 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 accompanied in each case by a "Very happy to meet 
 you, sir." He looked at Madame de Cintre, but her 
 attention was absent. If his personal self-conscious- 
 ness had been of a nature to make him constantly 
 refer to her as to the critic before whom in company 
 he played his part, he might have found it a flattering 
 proof of her confidence that he never caught her eyes 
 resting on him. It is a reflexion he did n't make, but 
 we may nevertheless risk it, that in spite of this cir- 
 cumstance she probably saw every movement of his 
 little finger. The Marquise Urbain was wondrously 
 dressed in crimson crape bestrewn with huge silvei 
 moons full discs and fine crescents, half the fea- 
 tures of the firmament. 
 
 "You don't say anything about my toilette," she 
 impatiently observed to him. 
 
 "Well, I feel as if I were looking at you through 
 a telescope. You put me in mind of some lurid comet, 
 something grand and wild." 
 
 "Ah, if I'm grand and wild I match' the occasion! 
 But I'm not a heavenly body." 
 
 "I never saw the sky at midnight that particular 
 shade of crimson," Newman said. 
 
 "That's just my originality: any fool could have 
 chosen blue. My sister-in-law would have chosen a 
 lovely shade of that colour, with a dozen little delicate 
 moons. But I think crimson much more amusing. 
 And I give my idea, which is moonshine." 
 
 "Moonshine and bloodshed," said Newman. 
 
 "A murder by moonlight," the young woman 
 laughed. "What a delicious idea for a toilet! To 
 make it complete there 's a dagger of diamonds, you 
 
 3H 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 see. stuck into my hair. But here comes Lord Deep* 
 mere," she added in a moment; "I must find out 
 what he thinks of it." Lord Deepmere came up very 
 red in the face and very light, apparently, at heart; 
 at once very much amused and very little committed. 
 "My Lord Deepmere can't decide which he prefers, 
 my sister-in-law or me," Madame Urbain went on. 
 "He likes Claire because she's his cousin, and me 
 because I 'm not. But he has no right to make love 
 to Claire, whereas I 'm perfectly disponible. It 's very 
 wrong to make love to a woman who's engaged, but 
 it 's very wrong not to make love to a woman who 's 
 married." 
 
 . "Oh, it's very jolly making love to married wo- 
 men," the young man said, " because they can't ask 
 you to marry them." 
 
 " Is that what the others do the spinsters ? " 
 Newman enquired. 
 
 " Oh dear, yes in England all the girls ask a 
 fellow to marry them." 
 
 "And a fellow brutally refuses," Madame Urbain 
 commented. 
 
 "Why, really, you know, a fellow can't marry any 
 girl that asks him," said his lordship. 
 
 "Your cousin won't ask you. She's going to 
 marry Mr. Newman." 
 
 "Oh, that's a very different thing!" Lord Deep- 
 mere readily agreed. 
 
 " You 'd have accepted her, I suppose. That makes 
 me hope that, after all, you prefer me." 
 
 "Oh, when things are nice I never prefer one to 
 the other," said the young man. "I take them all." 
 
 3*5 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Ah, what a horror! I won't be taken in that way, 
 especially as a ' thing,' " cried his interlocutress. " Mr. 
 Newman 's much better; he knows how to choose. 
 Oh, he chooses as if he were threading a needle. He 
 prefers the Comtesse to any rival attraction, however 
 brilliant." 
 
 "Well, you can't help my being her cousin," said 
 Lord Deepmere to Newman with candid hilarity. 
 
 '* Oh no, I can't help that," Newman laughed back. 
 "Neither can she!" 
 
 "And you can't help my dancing with her," said 
 Lord Deepmere with sturdy simplicity. 
 
 "I could prevent that only by dancing with her 
 myself," Newman returned. "But unfortunately I 
 don't know how to dance." 
 
 "Oh, you may dance without knowing how; may 
 you not, milord?" Madame Urbain asked. But to 
 this Lord Deepmere replied that a fellow ought to 
 know how to dance if he did n't want to make an ass 
 of himself; and at this same moment the Marquis 
 joined the group, slow-stepping and with his hands 
 behind him. 
 
 "This is a very splendid entertainment," Newman 
 cheerfully observed. "The old house looks very 
 pleasant and bright." 
 
 " If you 're pleased we 're content." And the Mar- 
 quis lifted his shoulders and bent them forward. 
 
 "Oh, I suspect every one's pleased," said New- 
 man. "How can they help being pleased when the 
 first thing they see as they come in is your sister 
 standing there as beautiful as an angel of light and 
 of charity?" 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Yes, she's very beautiful," the Marquis a little 
 distantly admitted. "But that's not so great a source 
 of satisfaction to other people, naturally, as to you." 
 
 "Well, I am satisfied and suited, Marquis 
 there 's no doubt but what I am" said Newman with 
 his protracted enunciation. "And now tell me," 
 he added, taking in more of the scene, "who some 
 of these pleasant folks are." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde looked about him in silence, 
 with his head bent and his hand raised to his lower 
 lip, which he slowly rubbed. A stream of people had 
 been pouring into the salon in which Newman ctood 
 with his host, the rooms were filling up and the place, 
 all light and colour and fine resonance, looked rich 
 and congressional. It borrowed its splendour largely 
 from the shining shoulders and profuse jewels of the 
 women, and from the rest of their festal array. There 
 were uniforms, but not many, as Madame de Belle- 
 garde's door was inexorably closed against the mere 
 myrmidons of the upstart power which then flour- 
 ished on the soil of France, and the great company 
 of smiling and chattering faces was not, as to line 
 and feature, a collection of gold or silver medals. It 
 was a pity for our friend, nevertheless, that he had 
 not been a physiognomist, for these mobile masks, 
 much more a matter of wax than of bronze, were 
 the picture of a world and the vivid translation, as 
 might have seemed to him, of a text that had had 
 otherwise its obscurities. If the occasion had been 
 different they would hardly have pleased him; he 
 would have found in the women too little beauty and 
 in the men too many smirks; but he was now in a 
 
 317 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 humour to receive none but fair impressions, and it 
 sufficed him to note that every one was charged with 
 some vivacity or some solemnity and to feel that the 
 whole great sum of character and confidence was 
 part of his credit. " I '11 present you to some people," 
 said M. de Bellegarde after a while. "I'll make a 
 point of it in fact. You '11 allow me ? if I may 
 exercise my judgement." 
 
 "Oh, I'll shake hands with any one you want," 
 Newman returned. "Your mother just introduced 
 me to half a dozen old gentlemen. Take care you 
 don't pick out the same parties again." 
 
 "Who are the gentlemen to whom my mother 
 presented you ? " 
 
 "Upon my word I forget them," Newman had to 
 confess. "I'm afraid I've got them rather mixed; 
 and don't all Chinamen even great mandarins ' 
 look very much the same to Occidentals ? " 
 
 "I suspect they've not forgotten you," said the 
 Marquis; and he began to walk through the rooms. 
 Newman, to keep near him in the crowd, took his 
 arm; after which, for some time, the Marquis 
 walked straight on in silence. At last, reaching the 
 further end of the apartments, Newman found him- 
 self in the presence of a lady of monstrous pro- 
 portions seated in a very capacious armchair and 
 with several persons standing in a semicircle round 
 her. This little group had divided as the Marquis 
 came up, and he stepped forward and stood for an 
 instant silent and obsequious, his flattened hat raised 
 to his lips as Newman had seen gentlemen stand in 
 churches as soon as they entered their pews. The lady 
 
 318 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 indeed bore a very fair likeness to a revered effigy in 
 some idolatrous shrine. She was monumentally 
 stout and imperturbably serene. Her aspect was to 
 Newman almost formidable; he had a troubled 
 consciousness of a triple chin, a pair of eyes that 
 twinkled in her face like a pair of polished pin-heads 
 in a cushion, a vast expanse of uncovered bosom, a 
 nodding and twinkling tiara of plumes and gems, 
 an immense circumference of satin petticoat. With 
 her little circle of beholders this remarkable woman 
 reminded him of the Fat Lady at a fair. She fixed 
 her small unwinking gaze at the newcomers. 
 
 "Dear Duchess," said the Marquis, "let me pre- 
 sent you our good friend Mr. Newman, of whom 
 you Ve heard us speak. Wishing to make Mr. New- 
 man known to those who are dear to us, I could n't 
 possibly fail to begin with you." 
 
 "Charmed, dear friend; charmed, monsieur," 
 said the Duchess in a voice which, though small and 
 shrill, was not disagreeable, while Newman per- 
 formed with all his length his liberal obeisance. He 
 always made his bow, as he wrote his name, very 
 distinctly. "I came on purpose to see monsieur. I 
 hope he appreciates the compliment. You've only 
 to look at me to do so, sir," she continued, sweeping 
 her person with a much-encompassing glance. New- 
 man hardly knew what to say, though it seemed 
 that to a duchess who joked about her corpulence 
 one might say almost anything. On hearing she 
 had come on purpose to see this object of interest the 
 gentlemen who surrounded her turned a little and 
 looked at him with grave, with almost overdone 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 consideration. The Marquis, with supernatural 
 gravity, mentioned to him the name of each, while 
 the gentleman who bore it bowed; and these pro- 
 nouncements again affected Newman as some enum- 
 eration of the titles of books, of the performers on 
 playbills, of the items of indexes. "I wanted ex- 
 tremely to see you," the Duchess went on. "C'est 
 positif. In the first place I 'm very fond of the person 
 you're going to marry; she's the most charming 
 creature in France. Mind you treat her well or you '11 
 have news of me. But vous avez Fair bien honnete, 
 and I'm told you're very remarkable. I've heard 
 all sorts of extraordinary things about you. Foyons,, 
 are they true ? " 
 
 "I don't know what you can have heard," New- 
 man promptly pleaded. 
 
 "Oh, you've had your legende. You've had a 
 career the most chequered, the most bizarre. What's 
 that about your having founded a city some ten 
 years ago in the great West, a city which contains 
 to-day half a million of inhabitants ? Is n't it half a 
 million, messieurs? You're exclusive proprietor of 
 the wonderful place and are consequently fabu- 
 lously rich, and you'd be richer still if you didn't 
 grant lands and houses free of rent to all newcomers 
 who '11 pledge themselves never to smoke cigars. At 
 this game, in three years, we're told, you're going 
 to become President of all the Americas." 
 
 The Duchess recited this quaint fable with a 
 smooth self-possession which gave it to Newman's 
 ear the sound of an amusing passage in a play inter- 
 preted by a veteran comic actress. Before she had 
 
 320 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ceased speaking he had relieved himself, applausively, 
 by laughter as frank as clapping or stamping. "Dear 
 Duchess, dear Duchess!" the Marquis began to 
 murmur soothingly. Two or three persons came 
 to the door of the room to see who was laughing at 
 the Duchess. But the lady continued with the soft, 
 serene assurance of a person who, as a great lady, 
 was certain of being listened to, and, as a garrulous 
 woman, was independent of the pulse of her auditors. 
 "But I know you're very remarkable. You must 
 be, to have endeared yourself to our good Urbain and 
 to his admirable mother. They don't scatter their 
 approval about. They're very exacting. I myself 
 am not very sure at this hour of really enjoying their 
 esteem eh, Marquis? But your real triumph, 
 cher monsieur, is in pleasing the Comtesse; she's 
 as difficult as a princess in a fairy-tale. Your suc- 
 cess is a miracle. What 's your secret ? I don't ask 
 you to reveal it before all these gentlemen, but you 
 must come and see me some day and show me how 
 you proceed." 
 
 "The secret is with Madame de Cintre," New- 
 man found a face to answer. " You must ask her for 
 it. It consists in her having a great deal of charity." 
 
 "Very pretty!" the Duchess pronounced. "That, 
 to begin with, is a nice specimen of your system. 
 What, Marquis, are you already taking monsieur 
 away?" 
 
 "I've a duty to perform, dear friend," said Urbain, 
 pointing to the other groups. 
 
 "Ah, for you 1 know what that means! Well, 
 I 've seen monsieur ; that 's what I wanted. He can't 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 persuade me he has n't something wonder-working. 
 Au revoir, monsieur." 
 
 As Newman passed on with his host he asked who 
 the Duchess might be. " The greatest lady in France ! " 
 the Marquis hereupon reservedly replied. He then 
 presented his prospective brother-in-law to some 
 twenty other persons of both sexes, selected appar- 
 ently for some recognised value of name or fame or 
 attitude. In some cases their honours were written in 
 a good round hand on the countenance of the wearer; 
 in others Newman was thankful for such help as his 
 companion's impressively brief intimation, measured 
 as to his scant capacity, contributed to the discovery 
 of them. There were large, heavy imperturbable 
 gentlemen and small insinuating extravagant ones: 
 there were ugly ladies in yellow lace and quaint 
 jewels, and pretty ladies with reaches of white de- 
 nudation that even their wealth of precious stones 
 scarce availed to overtake. Every one gave Newman 
 extreme attention, every one lighted up for him re- 
 gardless, as he would have said, of expense, every one 
 was enchanted to make his acquaintance, every 
 one looked at him with that fraudulent intensity of 
 good society which puts out its bountiful hand but 
 keeps the ringers closed over the coin. If the Marquis 
 was going about as a bear-leader, if the fiction of 
 Beauty and the Beast was supposed to show thus its 
 companion-piece, the general impression appeared 
 that the bear was a very fair imitation of humanity. 
 Newman found his reception in the charmed circle 
 very handsome he liked, handsomely, himself, not 
 to say less than that for it. It was handsome to be 
 
 322 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 treated with so much explicit politeness; it was 
 handsome to meet civilities as pointed as witticisms, 
 and to hear them so syllabled and articulated that 
 they suggested handfuls of crisp counted notes 
 pushed over by a banker's clerk; it was handsome of 
 clever Frenchwomen they all seemed clever to 
 turn their backs to their partners for a good look 
 at the slightly gaunt outsider whom Claire de Cintre 
 was to marry, and then shine on the subject as if they 
 quite understood. At last as he turned away from 
 a battery of vivid grimaces and other amenities, 
 Newman caught the eye of the Marquis fixed on 
 him inscrutably, and thereupon, for a single instant, 
 he checked himself. "Am I behaving like a blamed 
 fool?" he wondered. "Am I stepping about like a 
 terrier on his hind legs ? " At this moment he per- 
 ceived Mrs. Tristram at the other side of the room 
 and waved his hand in farewell to M. de Bellegarde 
 in order to make his way toward her. 
 
 "Am I holding my head too high and opening 
 my mouth too wide ?" he demanded. *'Do I look as 
 if they were saying 'Catch' and I were snapping 
 down what they throw me and licking my lips ? " 
 
 " You look like all very successful men fatuous 
 without knowing it. Women triumph with more 
 tact, just as they suffer with more grace. Therefore 
 it 's the usual thing for such situations neither 
 better nor worse. I've been watching you for the 
 last ten minutes, and I've been watching M. de 
 Bellegarde. He does n't like what he has to do." 
 
 "The more credit to him for putting it through," 
 Newman returned. "But I shall be generous. I 
 
 323 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ' 
 
 shan't trouble him any more. Only I 'm very happy. 
 I can't stand still here. Please take my arm and 
 we'll go for a walk." 
 
 He led Mrs. Tristram from one room to another, 
 where, scattering wide glances and soft, sharp com- 
 ments, she reminded him of the pausing wayfarer 
 who studies the contents of the confectioner's win- 
 dow, with platonic discriminations, through a firm 
 plate of glass. But he made vague answers; he 
 scarcely heard her; his thoughts were elsewhere. 
 They were lost in the vastness of this attested truth 
 of his having come out where he wanted. His mo- 
 mentary consciousness of perhaps too broad a grin 
 passed away, and he felt, the next thing, almost 
 solemnly quiet. Yes, he had "got there," and now 
 it was, ail-powerfully, to stay. These prodigies of 
 gain were in a general way familiar to him, but the 
 sense of what he had " made " by an anxious opera- 
 tion had never been so deep and sweet. The lights, 
 the flowers, the music, the "associations," vague 
 and confused to him, yet hovering like some odour 
 of dried spices, something far-away and, as he had 
 hinted to the Marquis, Mongolian; the splendid 
 women, the splendid jewels, the strangeness even of 
 the universal sense of a tongue that seemed the 
 language of society as Italian was the language of 
 opera: these things were all a gage of his having 
 worked, from the old first years, under some better 
 star than he knew. Yet if he showed again and again 
 so many of his fine strong teeth, it was not tickled 
 vanity that pulled the exhibition-string: he had no 
 wish to be pointed at with the finger or to be con- 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 sidered by these people for himself. If he could have 
 looked down at the scene invisibly, as from a hole in 
 the roof, he would have enjoyed it quite as much. 
 It would have spoken to him of his energy and 
 prosperity and deepened that view of his effective 
 "handling" of life to which, sooner or later, he 
 made all experience contribute. Just now the cup 
 seemed full. 
 
 "It's all very fine and very funny, I mean very 
 special and quite thrilling and almost interesting," 
 said Mrs. Tristram while they circulated. "I've 
 seen nothing objectionable except my husband lean- 
 ing against that adorably faded strawberry damask 
 of the other room and talking to an individual whom 
 I suppose he takes for a prince, but whom I more 
 than suspect to be the functionary taking care of the 
 lamps. Do you think you could separate them ? Do 
 knock over a lamp!" 
 
 I doubt whether Newman, who saw no harm in 
 Tristram's conversing with an ingenious mechanic, 
 would have complied with this request; but at this 
 moment Valentin de Bellegarde drew near. Newman, 
 some weeks previously, had presented Madame de 
 Cintre's youngest brother to Mrs. Tristram, for 
 whose rather shy and subtle merit the young man 
 promptly professed an intelligent relish and to whom 
 he had paid several visits. 
 
 "Did you ever read," she asked, "Keats's 'Belle 
 Dame sans Merci ' ? You remind me of the hero of 
 the ballad: 
 
 " ' Oh, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 
 Alone and palely loitering ? ' " 
 
 325 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "If I'm alone it's because I've been deprived 
 of your society," Valentin returned. "Besides, it's 
 good manners for no man except Newman to look 
 happy. This is all to his address. It's not for you 
 and me to go before the curtain." 
 
 "You prophesied to me last spring," said New- 
 man to Mrs. Tristram, "that six months from that 
 time I should get into a tearing rage. It seems to me 
 the time 's up, and yet the nearest I can now come to 
 doing anything rough is to offer you a cafe glace." 
 
 "I promised you we should do things grandly," 
 Valentin observed. "I don't allude to the cafes 
 glaces. But every one's here, and my sister told me 
 just now that Urbain has been adorable." 
 
 "He's a real nice man all the way through. If 
 I don't look out," Newman went on "or if he 
 does n't I shall begin to love him as a brother. 
 That reminds me that I ought to go and say some- 
 thing enthusiastic to your mother." 
 
 "Let it be something very enthusiastic indeed," 
 said Valentin. "It may be the last time you'll feel 
 so much in the vein." 
 
 Newman walked away almost disposed to clasp 
 Madame de Bellegarde round the waist. He passed 
 through several rooms and at last found her in the 
 first saloon, seated on a sofa with her young kins- 
 man Lord Deepmere beside her. The young man 
 unmistakeably felt the strain; his hands were thrust 
 into his pockets and his eyes fixed on the toes of his 
 shoes, his feet being thrust out in front of him. His 
 hostess appeared to have been addressing him with 
 some intensity and to be now waiting for an answer 
 
 320 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to what she had said or for some other sign of the 
 effect of her words. Her hands were folded in her 
 lap and she considered his lordship's simple physi- 
 ognomy as she might have studied some brief but 
 baffling sentence in an obscure text. He looked up as 
 Newman approached, met his eyes and changed 
 colour. On which the latter said : "I'm afraid I dis- 
 turb an interesting interview." 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde rose, and, her companion 
 rising at the same time, she put her hand into his 
 arm. She answered nothing for an instant, and then 
 as he remained silent brought out with a smile: "It 
 would be amiable for Lord Deepmere to say it was 
 very interesting." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not amiable!" cried his lordship. "But 
 it was all right." 
 
 "Madame de Bellegarde was giving you some 
 good advice, eh ?" Newman asked: " preaching you, 
 with her high authority, the way you should go ? In 
 your place I'd go it then blind!" 
 
 " I was giving him some excellent advice," said the 
 Marquise, fixing her fresh cold eyes on our hero. 
 "It's for him to take it." 
 
 "Take it, sir, take it!" Newman exclaimed. "Any 
 advice she gives you to-night must be good; for to- 
 night, Marquise, you must speak from a cheerful, 
 comfortable spirit, and that makes for good ideas. 
 You see everything going on so brightly and success- 
 fully round you. Your party's magnificent; it was 
 * very happy thought. It 's a much better show than 
 flhat feeble effort of mine would have been." 
 
 " If you 're pleased I 'm satisfied," she answered 
 
 327 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 with rare accommodation. "My desire was to please 
 you." 
 
 " Do you want to please me a little more then ? " 
 Newman went on. "Just let Lord Deepmere digest 
 your wisdom and take care of himself a little; and 
 then take my arm and walk through the rooms." 
 
 "My desire was to please you," the Marquise 
 rather stiffly repeated; and as she liberated her com- 
 panion our friend wondered at her docility. "If this 
 young man is wise," she added, "he'll go and find 
 my daughter and ask her to dance." 
 
 "I've been endorsing your advice," said Newman, 
 bending over her and laughing; "I suppose there- 
 fore I must let him cut in where I can neither lead 
 nor follow." 
 
 Lord Deepmere wiped his forehead and departed, 
 and Madame de Bellegarde took Newman's arm. 
 "Yes, it has been a real friendly, hearty, jolly idea," 
 he declared as they proceeded on their circuit. " Every 
 one seems to know every one and to be glad to see 
 every one. The Marquis has made me acquainted 
 with ever so many people, and I feel quite like one of 
 the family. It's an occasion," Newman continued, 
 wanting still more to express appreciation without 
 an afterthought, "that I shall always remember, and 
 remember very pleasantly." 
 
 " I think it 's an occasion that we shall none of us 
 ever forget," said the Marquise with her pure, neat 
 enunciation. 
 
 People made way for her as she passed, others 
 turned round and looked at her, and she received a 
 great many greetings and pressings of the hand, all 
 
 328 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of which she accepted with a smooth good grace. 
 But though she smiled on every one she said nothing 
 till she reached the last of the rooms, where she 
 found her elder son. Then "This is enough, sir," 
 she observed with her dignity of distinctness, turning 
 at the same time from Newman to Urbain. He put 
 out both his hands and took both hers, drawing her 
 to a seat with an air of the tenderest veneration. It 
 appeared to attest between them the need of more 
 intimate communion, and Newman discreetly re- 
 tired. He moved through the rooms for some time 
 longer, circulating freely, overtopping most people by 
 his great height, renewing acquaintance with some 
 of the groups to which the Marquis had presented 
 him, and expending generally the surplus of his equa- 
 nimity. He continued to find it all a regular celebra- 
 tion, but even the Fourth of July of his childhood 
 used to have an end, and the revelry on this occa- 
 sion began to deepen to a close. The music was 
 sounding its last strains and people about to take 
 their leave were looking for their hostess. There 
 seemed to be some difficulty in finding her, and he 
 caught a report that she had left the ball in an access 
 of fatigue or of faintness. "She has succumbed to 
 the emotions of the evening," he heard a voluble 
 lady say. "Poor dear Marquise; I can imagine all 
 they may have been for her!" 
 
 But he learned immediately afterwards that she 
 had recovered herself and was seated in an armchair 
 near the doorway, receiving final honours from mem- 
 bers of her own sex who insisted upon her not rising. 
 He himself had set out in quest of Madame de Cintre, 
 
 329 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 whom he had seen move past him many times in the 
 rapid circles of a waltz, but with whom, also, con- 
 forming to her explicit instructions, he had exchanged 
 no word since the beginning of the evening. The 
 whole house having been thrown open the apart- 
 ments of the rez-de-chaussee were also accessible, 
 though a smaller number of persons had gathered 
 there. Newman wandered through them, observing 
 a few scattered couples to whom this comparative 
 seclusion appeared grateful, and reached a small 
 conservatory which opened into the garden. The 
 end of the conservatory was formed by a clear sheet 
 of glass, unmasked by plants and admitting the 
 winter starlight so directly that a person standing 
 there would seem to have passed into the open air. 
 Two persons stood there now, a lady and a gentle- 
 man; the lady Newman, from within the room and 
 although she had turned her back to it, immediately 
 recognised as his friend. He hesitated as to whether 
 he should advance, but as he did so she looked 
 round, feeling apparently that he was there. She 
 rested her eyes on him a moment and then turned 
 again to her companion. 
 
 " It 's almost a pity not to tell Mr. Newman," she 
 said with restraint, but in a tone Newman could 
 hear. 
 
 "Tell him if you like!" the gentleman answered 
 in the voice of Lord Deepmere. 
 
 "Oh, tell me by all means!" and our hero came 
 straight forward. 
 
 Lord Deepmere, he observed, was very red in the 
 face and had twisted his gloves into as tight a cord 
 
 33 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 as if squeezing them dry. These, presumably, were 
 tokens of violent emotion, and it struck him that the 
 traces of a corresponding agitation were visible in 
 Madame de Cintre. The two had been talking 
 with extreme animation. "What I should tell you is 
 only to milord's credit," said Madame de Cintre, 
 however, with a clear enough smile. 
 
 "It would n't please him any better for that!" cried 
 milord with his awkward laugh. 
 
 "Come; what's the mystery?" Newman dt- 
 manded. "Clear it up. I don't like what I don't 
 understand." 
 
 "We must have some things we don't like, and 
 go without some we do," said the ruddy young noble- 
 man, still almost unnaturally exhilarated. 
 
 "It's to Lord Deepmere's credit, but it's not to 
 every one's," Madame de Cintre imperfectly ex- 
 plained. " So I shall say nothing about it. You may 
 be sure," she added; and she put out her hand to the 
 Englishman, who took it with more force than grace. 
 "And now go and dance hard!" she said. 
 
 "Oh yes, I feel awfully like dancing hard! I shall 
 go and drink champagne as hard as I can!" And 
 he walked away with a gloomy guffaw. 
 
 "What has happened between you?" Newman 
 asked. 
 
 "I can't tell you now," she said. "Nothing 
 that need make you unhappy." 
 
 "Has that weak brother been trying to make love 
 to you ? " 
 
 She hesitated, then uttered a grave ''No! He's 
 a perfectly honest young man." 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "But you've been somehow upset and are still 
 worried. Something 's the matter." 
 
 "Nothing, I repeat, that need make you unhappy. 
 I've completely recovered my balance if I had 
 lost it: which I had n't! Some day I '11 tell you what 
 it was; not now. I can't now," she insisted. 
 
 "Well, I confess," Newman returned, "I don't 
 want to hear anything out of key. I 'm satisfied with 
 everything most of all with you. I 've seen all the 
 ladies and talked with a great many of them; but 
 I'm really satisfied with you." The charming 
 woman covered him for a moment with her bright 
 mildness, and then turned her eyes away into the 
 starry night. So they stood silent a moment, side by 
 side. "Say you're really satisfied with me" Newman 
 said. 
 
 He had to wait a moment for the answer; but it 
 came at last, low yet distinct. " I 'm very very happy." 
 
 It was presently followed by a few words from 
 another source which made them both turn round. 
 "I'm sadly afraid Madame la Comtesse will take 
 a chill. I've ventured to bring a shawl." Mrs. 
 Bread stood there softly solicitous, holding a white 
 drapery in her hand. 
 
 "Thank you, ma bonne" said Madame de Cintre; 
 "the sight of those cold stars gives one a sense of 
 frost. I won't take your shawl, but we'll go back 
 into the house." 
 
 She passed back and Newman followed her, Mrs. 
 Bread standing respectfully aside to make way for 
 them. Newman paused an instant before the old 
 woman and she glanced up at him with a silent 
 
 332 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 greeting. "Oh yes," he said, "you must come and 
 live with us." 
 
 "Well then, sir, if you will," she answered, "you've 
 not seen the last of me 
 
XVII 
 
 NEWMAN was fond of music, and went often to the 
 opera, where, a couple of evenings after Madame de 
 Bellegarde's ball, he sat listening to " Don Giovanni "; 
 having in honour of this work, which he had never 
 yet seen represented, come to occupy his orchestra- 
 chair before the rising of the curtain. Frequently 
 he took a large box and invited a group of his com- 
 patriots; this was a mode of recreation to which he 
 was much addicted. He liked making up parties of 
 his friends and conducting them to the theatre or 
 taking them to drive on mail-coaches and dine at res- 
 taurants renowned, by what he could a trifle artlessly 
 ascertain, for special and incomparable dishes. He 
 liked doing things that involved his paying for people; 
 the vulgar truth is he enjoyed "treating" them. This 
 was not because he was what is called purse-proud; 
 handling money in public was, on the contrary, posi- 
 tively disagreeable to him; he had a sort of personal 
 modesty about it akin to what he would have felt 
 about making a toilet before spectators. But just as 
 it was a gratification to him to be nobly dressed, just 
 so it was a private satisfaction (for he kept the full 
 flavour of it quite delicately to himself) to see people 
 occupied and amused at his pecuniary expense and 
 by his profuse interposition. To set a large body of 
 them in motion and transport them to a distance, to 
 have special conveyances, to charter railway-carriages 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 and steamboats, harmonised with his relish for bold 
 processes and made hospitality the potent thing it 
 should ideally be. A few evenings before the occa- 
 sion of which I speak he had invited several ladies 
 and gentlemen to the opera to listen to the young and 
 wondrous Adelina Patti a party which included 
 Miss Dora Finch. It befell, however, that Miss Dora 
 Finch, sitting near him in the box, discoursed bril- 
 liantly, not only during the entr'actes but during 
 many of the finest portions of the performance, so 
 that he had really come away with an irritated sense 
 that the new rare diva had a thin, shrill voice and 
 that her roulades resembled giggles. After this he 
 promised himself to go for a while to the opera alone. 
 When the curtain had fallen on the first act of 
 "Don Giovanni" he turned round in his place to 
 observe the audience. Presently, in one of the boxes, 
 he perceived Urbain de Bellegarde and his wife. 
 The little Marquise swept the house very busily with 
 a glass, and Newman, supposing she saw him, deter- 
 mined to go and bid her good-evening. M. de Belle- 
 garde leaned against a column, motionless, looking 
 straight in front of him, one hand in the breast of hi. f 
 white waistcoat and the other resting his hat on 1m 
 thigh. Newman was about to leave his place when 
 he noticed in that obscure region devoted to the small 
 boxes which in French are called, not inaptly, bath- 
 tubs, from their promoting at least immersion through 
 the action of the pores, a face which even the dim 
 light and the distance could not make wholly indis- 
 tinct. It was the face of a young and pretty woman, 
 crowned with an arrangement of pink roses and dia- 
 
 335 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 monds. This person looked round the house while 
 her fan moved with practised grace; when she low- 
 ered it Newman perceived a pair of plump white 
 shoulders and the edge of a rose-coloured dress. 
 Beside her, very close to the shoulders and talking, 
 apparently with an earnestness which it suited her 
 scantly to heed, sat a young man with a red face and 
 a very low shirt-collar. A moment's consideration 
 left Newman no doubts; the pretty young woman was 
 Noemie Nioche. He looked hard into the depths of 
 the box, thinking her father might perhaps be in 
 attendance, but from what he could see the young 
 man's eloquence had no other auditor. Newman at 
 last made his way out, and in doing so passed beneath 
 the baignoire of his former client. She saw him as 
 he approached, giving him a nod and smile which 
 seemed meant as a hint that her enviable rise in the 
 world had not made her inhuman. He passed into 
 the foyer and walked through it, but suddenly to 
 pause before a gentleman seated on one of the divans. 
 The gentleman's elbows were on his knees; he leaned 
 forward and stared at the pavement, lost apparently 
 in meditations of a gloomy cast. But in spite of his 
 bent head Newman recognised him and in a moment 
 had sat down beside him. Then the gentleman 
 looked up and displayed the expressive countenance 
 of Valentin de Bellegarde. "What in the world are 
 you thinking of so hard ?" 
 
 "A subject that requires hard thinking to do it jus- 
 tice," Valentin promptly replied. " My immeasurable 
 idiocy." 
 
 "What 's the matter now?*' 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "The matter now is that, as I 'm a madman with 
 lucid intervals, I 'm having one of them now. But 
 I carne within an ace of entertaining a sentiment !" 
 
 "For the young lady below stairs, in a baignoire, 
 in a pink dress ?" 
 
 "Did you notice what a rare kind of pink it was ?" 
 Valentin enquired by way of answer. "It makes her 
 look as white as new milk/' 
 
 Newman had a stare of some wonderment, and 
 then: "Is she what you call creme de la creme?" But 
 as Valentin's face pronounced this a witticism below 
 the Parisian standard he went on: "You 've stopped 
 then, at any rate, going to see her?" 
 
 "Oh bless you, no. Why should I stop? I've 
 changed, but she has n't," said Valentin. "The more 
 I see her the more sure I am well, that I see her 
 right. She has awfully pretty arms, and several other 
 things, but she 's not really a bit gentille. The other 
 day she had the bad taste to begin to abuse her 
 father, to his face, in my presence. I should n't have 
 expected it of her; it was a disappointment. Heigho!'' 
 
 "Why, she cares no more for her father than foi 
 her door-mat," Newman declared. "I discovered 
 that the first time I saw her." 
 
 "Oh, that 's another affair; she may think of the 
 poor old beggar what she pleases. But it was base in 
 her to call him bad names; it spoiled my reckoning 
 and quite threw me off. It was about a frilled petti- 
 coat that he was to have fetched from the washer- 
 woman's; he appeared to have forgotten the frilled 
 petticoat. She almost boxed his ears. He stood there 
 staring at her with his. little blank eyes and smooth- 
 
 337 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ing his old hat with his coat-tail. At last he turned 
 round and went out without a word. Then I told her 
 it was in very bad taste to speak so even to an 
 unnatural father. She said she should be so thankful 
 to me if I would mention it to her whenever her taste 
 was at fault; she had immense confidence in mine. 
 I told her I could n't have the inconvenience of form- 
 ing her manners; I had had an idea they were already 
 formed, after the best models. She had quite put me 
 out. But I shall get over it," said Valentin gaily. 
 
 "Oh, time 's a great consoler!" Newman answered 
 with humorous sobriety. He was silent a moment 
 and then added in another tone: "I wish you 'd think 
 of what I said to you the other day. Come over to 
 America with us and I '11 put you in the way of doing 
 some business. You 've got a very fine mind if you 'd 
 only give it a chance." 
 
 Valentin made a genial grimace. "My mind's 
 much obliged to you: you make it feel finer than 
 ever. Would the ' chance' be that place in a bank ?" 
 
 "There are several places, but I suppose you'd 
 consider the bank the most aristocratic." 
 
 Valentin burst into a laugh. "My dear fellow, at 
 night all cats are grey! When one falls from such 
 a height there are no degrees!" 
 
 Newman answered nothing for a minute. Then, 
 "I think you '11 find there are degrees in success," he 
 said with his most exemplary mild distinctness. 
 
 Valentin had leaned forward again with his elbows 
 on his knees and was scratching the pavement with 
 his stick. At last, looking up, "Do you really think 
 1 ought to do something ?" he asked. 
 
 338 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Newman laid his hand on his companion's arm 
 and eyed him a moment through measuring lids. 
 "Try it and see. I 'm not sure you 're not too bright 
 to live; but why not find out how bright a man can 
 afford to be?" 
 
 "Do you really think I can make some money? 
 Once when I was a small boy I found a silver piece 
 under a door-mat. I should like awfully to see how 
 it feels to find a gold one." 
 
 "Well, do what I tell you and you shall find salva- 
 tion," said Newman. "Think of it well." And he 
 looked at his watch and prepared to resume his way 
 to Madame de Bellegarde's box. 
 
 "Upon my honour I will think of it," Valentin 
 returned. "I '11 go and listen to Mozart another half- 
 hour I can always think better to music and 
 profoundly meditate on it." 
 
 The Marquis was with his wife when Newman 
 entered their box; he was as remotely bland as usual, 
 but the great demonstration in which he had lately 
 played his part appeared to have been a drawbridge 
 lowered and lifted again. Newman was once more 
 outside the castle and its master perched on the 
 battlements. "What do you think of the opera?" 
 our hero none the less artlessly demanded. "What 
 do you think of the cool old Don ?" 
 
 "He doesn't remain so very cool," the Marquis 
 amusedly replied. "But we all know what Mozait 
 is; our impressions don't date from this evening. 
 Mozart is youth, freshness, brilliancy, facility 
 facility perhaps a little too unbroken. But the exe- 
 cution is here and there deplorably rough." 
 
 339 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I 'm very curious to see how it ends," Newman 
 less critically continued. 
 
 "You speak as if it were a feuilleton in the 
 Figaro" observed the Marquis. "You 've surely seen 
 the opera before?" 
 
 "Never I 'm sure I should have remembered it. 
 Donna Elvira reminds me of Madame de Cintre; 
 I don't mean in her situation, but in her lovely tone." 
 
 "It 's a very nice distinction," the Marquis neatly 
 conceded. "There 's no possibility, I imagine, of my 
 sister's being forsaken." 
 
 "That's right, sir," Newman said. "But what 
 becomes of the Don?" 
 
 "The Devil comes down or comes up and 
 carries him off," Madame Urbain replied. " I suppose 
 Zerlina reminds you of me." 
 
 "I '11 go to the foyer for a few moments," said her 
 husband, "and give you a chance to say that I 'm like 
 the Commander the man of stone." With which 
 he passed out of the box. 
 
 The little Marquise stared an instant at the velvet 
 ledge of the balcony and then murmured: "Not a man 
 of stone, a man of wood!" Newman had taken her 
 husband's empty chair; she made no protest, but 
 turned suddenly and laid her closed fan on his 
 arm. "I'm very glad you came in; I want to ask 
 you a favour. I wanted to do so on Thursday, at 
 my mother-in-law's ball, but you would give me 
 no chance. You were in such very good spirits that 
 I thought you might grant my little prayer then; 
 riot that you look particularly doleful now. It 's some- 
 thing you must promise me; now 's the time to take 
 
 340 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 you; after you 're married you '11 be good for nothing, 
 Allans, promise!" 
 
 "I never sign a paper without reading it first," 
 said Newman. "Show me your document." 
 
 "No, you must sign with your eyes shut; I '11 hold 
 your hand. Foyons, before you put your head into 
 the noose you ought to be thankful for me giving 
 you a chance to do something amusing." 
 
 "If it 's so amusing," said Newman, "it will be in 
 even better season after I 'm married." 
 
 "In other words," she cried, "you '11 not do it at 
 all, for then you '11 be afraid of your wife." 
 
 "Oh, if the thing violates the moral law pardon 
 my strong language! I won't go into it. If it 
 does n't I shall be quite as ready for it after my 
 marriage." 
 
 "Oh, you people, with your moral law I wonder 
 that with such big words in your mouth you don't all 
 die of choking!" Madame Urbain declared. "You 
 talk like a treatise on logic, and English logic into 
 the bargain. Promise then after you're married," she 
 went on. "After all, I shall enjoy keeping you to it." 
 
 "Well, then after I'm married," said Newman 
 serenely. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, looking at him, and he 
 wondered what was coming. "I suppose you know 
 what my life is," she presently said. "I 've no pleas- 
 ure, I see nothing, I do nothing. I live in Paris a& 
 I might live at Poitiers. My mother-in-law calls 
 me what is the pretty word ? a gadabout; 
 accuses me of going to unheard-of places and thinks 
 it ought to be joy enough for me to sit at home and 
 
 341 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 count over my ancestors on my fingers. But why 
 should I bother about my ancestors ? I 'm sure they 
 never bothered about me. I don't propose to live 
 with a green shade over my eyes; I hold that the only 
 thing you can do with things arranged in a row before 
 you is see them. My husband, you know, has prin- 
 ciples, and the first on the list is that the Tuileries are 
 dreadfully vulgar. If the Tuileries are vulgar his 
 principles are imbecile. If I chose I might have prin- 
 ciples quite as well as he. If they grew on one's 
 family tree I should only have to give mine a shake 
 to bring down a shower of the finest. At any rate 
 I prefer clever Bonapartes to stupid Bourbons." 
 
 "Oh, I see; you want to go to court," said New- 
 man, fantastically wondering if she might n't wish 
 him to smooth her way to the imperial halls through 
 some ingenious use of the American Legation. 
 
 The Marquise gave a little sharp laugh. "You 're 
 a thousand miles away. I '11 take care of the Tuile- 
 ries myself; the day I decide to go they '11 be glad 
 enough to have me. Sooner or later I shall dance in 
 an imperial quadrille. I know what you 're going to 
 say: 'How will you dare?' But I shall dare. I 'in 
 afraid of my husband; he 's soft, smooth, irreproach- 
 able, everything you know; but I 'm afraid of him 
 horribly afraid of him. And yet I shall arrive at the 
 Tuileries. But that will not be this winter, nor 
 perhaps next, and meantime I must live. For the 
 moment I want to go somewhere else; it 's my dream. 
 I want to go to the Bal Bullier." 
 
 "To the Bal Bullier?" repeated Newman, for 
 *vhom the words at first meant nothing. 
 
 342 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "The ball in the Latin Quarter, where the students 
 dance with their mistresses. Don't tell me you 've 
 not heard of it." 
 
 "Oh yes," said Newman; "I 've heard of it; I re- 
 member now. I 've even been there. And you want 
 to go there ?" 
 
 "It 's bete, it 's low, it 's anything you please. But 
 I want to go. Some of my friends have been, and 
 they say it 's very curious. My friends go every- 
 where; it 's only I who sit moping at home." 
 
 " It seems to me you 're not at home now," said 
 Newman, " and I should n't exactly say you were 
 moping." 
 
 "I 'm bored to death. I Ve been to the opera 
 twice a week for the last eight years. Whenever I ask 
 for anything my mouth is stopped with that: Pray, 
 madame, have n't you your loge aux Italiens? Could 
 a woman of taste want more ? In the first place my 
 box was down in my contrat; they have to give it to 
 me. To-night, for instance, I should have preferred 
 a thousand times to go to the Palais Royal. But my 
 husband won't go to the Palais Royal because the 
 ladies of the court go there so much. You may 
 imagine then whether he would take me to Bullier's; 
 he says it is a mere imitation and a bad one of 
 what they do in the imperial intimite. But as I 'm 
 not yet for a little in the imperial intimite which 
 must be charming why should n't I look in where 
 you can get the nearest notion of it ? It 's my dream 
 at any rate; it 's a fixed idea. All I ask of you is to 
 give me your arm; you 're less compromising than 
 any one else. I don't know why, but you are. I can 
 
 343 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 arrange it. I shall risk something, but that 's my 
 own affair. Besides, fortune favours the bold. Don't 
 refuse me; it is my dream!" 
 
 Newman gave a loud laugh. It seemed to him 
 hardly worth while to be the wife of the Marquis de 
 Bellegarde, a daughter of the crusaders, heiress of six 
 centuries of glories and traditions, only to have 
 centred one's aspirations upon the sight of fifty 
 young ladies kicking off the hats of a hundred young 
 men. It struck him as a theme for the moralist, but 
 he had no time to moralise. The curtain rose again ; M. 
 de Bellegarde returned and he went back to his seat. 
 
 He observed that Valentin had taken his place in 
 the baignoire of Mademoiselle Nioche, behind this 
 young lady and her companion, where he was visible 
 only if one carefully looked for him. In the next act 
 Newman met him in the lobby and asked him if he 
 had reflected upon possible emigration. "If you 
 really meant to meditate," he said, "you might have 
 chosen a better place for it." 
 
 "Oh, the place wasn't bad," Valentin replied. 
 "I wasn't thinking of that girl. I listened to the 
 music and, heedless of the play and without looking 
 at the stage, turned over your handsome proposal. 
 At first it seemed quite fantastic. And then a cer- 
 tain fiddle in the orchestra I could distinguish it 
 began to say as it scraped away: 'Why not, why 
 not, why not?' And then in that rapid movement 
 all the fiddles took it up and the conductor's stick 
 seemed to beat it in the air: 'Why not, why not, why 
 not?' I'm sure I can't say! I don't see why not. 
 I don't see why I should n't do something. It appears 
 
 344 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to me a really very bright idea. This sort of thing is 
 certainly very stale. And then I should come back 
 with a trunk full of dollars. Besides, I might possibly 
 find it amusing. They call me an extravagant 
 raffine; who knows but that I might discover an 
 unsuspected charm in shopkeeping ? It would really 
 have a certain rare and romantic side; it would look 
 well in my biography. It would look as if I were 
 a strong man, an homme de premier ordre> a man who 
 dominated circumstances." 
 
 "I guess you had better not mind how it would 
 look," said Newman. "It always looks well to have 
 half a million of dollars. There 's no reason why you 
 should n't have them if you '11 mind what I tell you 
 I alone and not fool round with other parties." 
 He passed his arm into that of his friend, and the two 
 walked for some time up and down one of the less 
 frequented corridors. Newman's imagination began 
 to glow with the idea of converting this irresistible 
 idler into a first-class man of business. He felt for 
 the moment a spiritual zeal, the zeal of the propa- 
 gandist. Its ardour was in part the result of that 
 general discomfort which the sight of all uninvested 
 capital produced in him; so charming an intelligence 
 ought to be dedicated to fine uses. The finest uses 
 known to Newman's experience were transcendent 
 operations in ferocious markets. And then his zeal 
 was quickened by personal kindness; he entertained 
 a form of pity which he was well aware he never 
 could have made the Comte de Bellegarde under- 
 stand. He never lost a sense of its being pitiable that 
 so bright a figure should think it a large life to revolve 
 
 345 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 in varnished boots between the Rue d'Anjou and the 
 Rue de 1'Universite, taking the Boulevard des Italiens 
 on the way, when over there in America one's prome- 
 nade was a continent and one's boulevard stretched 
 from one world-sea to another. It mortified him 
 moreover to have to understand that Valentin wanted 
 for money; it was n't business, that was what was the 
 matter with it, he would have said; it was unprac- 
 tical, unsuitable, unsightly very much as if he 
 had n't known how to spell or to ride. There was 
 something almost ridiculously anomalous to Newman 
 in the sight of lively pretensions unaccompanied by 
 a considerable control of Western railroads; though 
 I may add that he would not have maintained that 
 such advantages were in themselves a proper ground 
 f or pretensions. "I'll put you into something," he 
 said at any rate; "I '11 see you through. I know half 
 a dozen things in which we can make a place for you. 
 You '11 find it a big rush and you '11 see some high 
 jumps; it will take you a little while to get used to 
 the scale. But you '11 work in before long and at the 
 end of six months after you 've tasted blood, after 
 you 've done a thing or two on your own account 
 you '11 have some good times. And then it will be 
 very pleasant for you having your sister over there. 
 It will be pleasant for her to have you too. Yes, 
 Valentine," he continued, pressing his comrade's arm 
 genially, "I think I see just the opening for you. 
 Keep quiet, and I'll find something nice I '11 fix 
 you all right." 
 
 Newman pursued this favouring strain over a wide 
 stretch of prospect; the two men strolled about for 
 
 346 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a quarter of an hour. Valentin listened and ques- 
 tioned, making his friend laugh at his ignorance of 
 the very alphabet of affairs, smiling himself too, half 
 ironical and half curious. And yet he was serious 
 and nearly convinced, fascinated as by the biggest, 
 plainest map of the great land of El Dorado ever 
 spread before him. It is true, withal, that if it might 
 be bold, original and even amusing to surrendei his 
 faded escutcheon to the process, the smart patent 
 transatlantic process, of heavy regilding, he did n't 
 quite relish the freedom with which it might be 
 handled, and yet suddenly felt eager to know the 
 worst that might await him. So that when the bell 
 rang to indicate the close of the entr'acte there was 
 a certain mock-heroism in his saying all gaily: "Well 
 then, put me through; locate me and fix me! I make 
 myself over to you. Dip me into the pot and turn 
 me into gold." 
 
 They had passed into the corridor which encircled 
 the row of baignoires, and Valentin stopped in front 
 of the dusky little box in which Mademoiselle 
 Nioche had bestowed herself, laying his hand on the 
 door-knob. "Oh come, are you going back there?" 
 Newman hereupon asked. 
 
 "Mon Dieu, out," said Valentin. 
 "Have n't you another place ?" 
 "Yes, I 've my usual place in the stalls." 
 "You had better go then and occupy it." 
 "I see her very well from there too," Valentin went 
 on serenely; "and to-night she 's worth seeing. But," 
 he added in a moment, "I 've a particular reason for 
 going back just now." 
 
 347 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Oh, I give you up," said Newman. "You 're 
 sank in depravity and don't know the light when 
 you see it." 
 
 "No, it 's only this. There 's a young man in the 
 box whom I shall worry by going in, and I really 
 want to worry him." 
 
 "Why, you cold-blooded calculating wretch !" New- 
 man cried. " Can't you give the poor devil a chance ?" 
 
 "No, he has trod with all his weight on my toes. 
 The box is not his; Noemie came alone and installed 
 herself. I went and spoke to her, and in a few 
 moments she asked me to go and get her fan from 
 the pocket of her cloak, which the greedy ouvreuse 
 had carried off, with her eye to a fee, instead of 
 hanging it up on a peg. In my absence a gentleman 
 came in and took the chair beside her in which I had 
 been sitting. My reappearance put him out, and he 
 had the grossness to show it. He came within an ace 
 of being impertinent. I don't know who he is 
 a big hard-breathing red-faced animal. I can't think 
 where she picks up such acquaintances. He has been 
 drinking too, but he knows what he 's about. Just 
 now, in the second act, the brute did unmistakeably 
 betray an intention. I shall put in another appear- 
 ance for ten minutes time enough to give him an 
 opportunity to commit himself if he feels inclined. 
 I really can't let him suppose he 's keeping me out of 
 the box." 
 
 " My poor dear boy," said Newman remonstrantly, 
 "why should n't he have his good time ? You 're not 
 going to pick a quarrel about such an article as that, 
 1 hope." 
 
 348 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "The nature of the article if you mean of the 
 young lady has nothing to do with it, and 1 Ve no 
 intention of picking a quarrel. I 'm not a bully nor 
 a fire-eater, I simply wish to make a point that a 
 gentleman must." 
 
 "Oh, damn your point!" Newman impatiently 
 returned. "That 's the trouble with you Frenchmen; 
 you must be always making points. Well," he added, 
 "be lively, or I shall pack you of? first to a country 
 where you '11 find half your points already made and 
 the other half quite unnoticed." 
 
 "Very good," Valentin answered, "whenever you 
 like. But if I go to America I must n't let the fellow 
 suppose it 's to run away from him." 
 
 And they separated. At the end of the act New- 
 man observed that Valentin was still in the baignoire. 
 He strolled into the corridor again, expecting to meet 
 him, and when he was within a few yards of Noemie's 
 retreat saw his friend pass out accompanied by the 
 young man who had been seated beside its more 
 interesting occupant. The two walked with some 
 quickness of step to a distant part of the lobby, where 
 Newman perceived them stop and stand talking. 
 The manner of each was quiet enough, but the 
 stranger, who was strikingly flushed, had begun to 
 w^ipe his face very emphatically with his pocket- 
 handkerchief. By this time Newman was abreast of 
 the baignoire; the door had been left ajar and he 
 could see a pink dress inside. He immediately went 
 in. Noemie turned on him a glitter of interest. 
 
 "Ah, if you Ve at last decided to come and see me 
 you but just save your politeness. You find me in 
 
 .34? 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a fine moment. Sit down." She looked, it had to DC 
 owned, exceedingly pretty and perverse and animated 
 nd elegant, and quite as if she had had some very 
 good news. 
 
 "Something has happened here!" Newman said 
 while he kept his feet. 
 
 "You find me in a very fine moment," she 
 repeated. "Two gentlemen one of them 's M. de 
 Bellegarde, the pleasure of whose acquaintance I owe 
 to you have just had words about your humble 
 servant. Very sharp words too. They can't come off 
 without its going further. A meeting and a big noise 
 
 that will give me a push!" said Noemie, clapping 
 with a soft thud her little pearl-coloured hands. 
 "C'est $a qui pose une femme!" 
 
 "You don't mean to say Bellegarde 's going to 
 fight about you!" Newman disgustedly cried. 
 
 "Nothing less !" and she looked at him with 
 a hard little smile. "No, no, you 're not galant ! And 
 if you prevent this affair I shall owe you a grudge 
 
 and pay my debt!" 
 
 Newman uttered one of the least attenuated im- 
 precations that had ever passed his lips, and then, 
 turning his back without more ceremony on the pink 
 dress, went out of the box. In the corridor he found 
 Valentin and his companion walking toward him. 
 The latter had apparently just thrust a card into his 
 waistcoat pocket. Noemie's jealous votary was an 
 immense, robust young man with a candid, excited 
 glaie, a thick nose and a thick mouth, the certainty 
 of a thick articulation ; also with a pair of very large 
 white gloves and a very massive, voluminous watch- 
 
 350 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 chain. When they reached the box Valentin, over 
 whom he towered, made with an emphasised bow 
 way for him to pass in first. Newman touched his 
 friend's arm as a sign he wished to speak with him, 
 and Valentin answered that he would be with him in 
 an instant. Valentin entered the box after the robust 
 young man, but a couple of minutes later reappeared 
 in a state of aggravated gaiety. "She's immensely 
 set up she says we '11 make her fortune. I don't 
 want to be fatuous, but I think it very possible." 
 
 "So you 're going to fight ?" Newman asked. 
 
 " My dear fellow, don't look at me as if I had told 
 you I 'm not ! It was not my own choice. The 
 thing 's perfectly settled." 
 
 "I told you so!" groaned Newman. 
 
 "I told him so," smiled Valentin. 
 
 "What the hell did he ever do to you ?" 
 
 " My good friend, it does n't matter what. It seems 
 to me you don't understand these things. He used an 
 expression I took it up." 
 
 "But I insist on knowing; I can't, as your elder 
 brother, let you give way to public tantrums !" 
 
 " I 'm, as your younger brother, very much obliged 
 to you," said Valentin. " I 've nothing to conceal, but 
 I can't go into particulars now and here." 
 
 "We'll leave this place then. You can tell me 
 outside." 
 
 "Oh no, I can't leave this place; why should I 
 hurry away ? I '11 go to my stall and sit out the 
 opera." 
 
 "You '11 not enjoy it." 
 
 Valentin looked at him a moment, coloured a little^ 
 
 35 1 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 smiled and patted his arm. "You 'd have been 
 an ornament to the Golden Age. Before an affair 
 a man 's quiet. The quietest thing I can do is to go 
 straight to my place." 
 
 "Ah," said Newman, "you want her to see you 
 there you and your quietness. Your quietness will 
 drown the orchestra. I 'm not so undeveloped. It 's 
 the damnedest foolery." 
 
 Valentin remained, and the two men, in their 
 respective places, sat out the rest of the performance, 
 which was also enjoyed by Mademoiselle Nioche and 
 her truculent admirer. At the end Newman joined 
 his friend again, and they went out into the street 
 together. The young man shook his head at the pro- 
 posal that he should get into Newman's own vehicle 
 and stopped on the edge of the pavement. " I must 
 go off alone; must look up a couple of friends who '11 
 be so good as to act for me." 
 
 "I'll be so good as to act for you," Newman 
 declared. "Put the case into my hands." 
 
 "You're very kind, but that's hardly possible. 
 In the first place you 're, as you said just now, 
 almost my brother; you 're going to marry my sister. 
 That alone disqualifies you; it casts doubts on your 
 impartiality. And if it did n't it would be enough for 
 me that you have n't, as I say, God forgive you, the 
 sentiment of certain shades. You 'd only try to pre- 
 vent a meeting." 
 
 "Of course I should," said Newman. "Whoever 
 your friends are they '11 be ruffians if they don't do 
 that." 
 
 "Unquestionably then they '11 do it. They '11 urge 
 352 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 that excuses be made, the most proper excuses. But 
 you 'd be much too coulant. You won't do." 
 
 Newman was silent a moment. He was in pre- 
 sence, it seemed to him, of a vain and grotesque 
 parade, poor, restricted, indirect as a salve to an 
 insult or a righting of a wrong, and yet pretentious 
 and pompous as an accommodation. But he saw it 
 useless to attempt interference. "When is this pre- 
 cious performance to come off?" he could only ask. 
 
 "The sooner the better. The day after to-morrow 
 I hope." 
 
 "Well," Newman went on, "I 've certainly a claim 
 to know the facts. I can't consent to shut my eyes to 
 a single one of them." 
 
 "I shall be most happy to tell you them all then. 
 They 're very simple and it will be quickly done. 
 But now everything depends on my putting my hands 
 on my friends without delay. I '11 jump into a cab; 
 you had better drive to my rooms and wait for me 
 there. I '11 turn up at the end of an hour." 
 
 Newman assented protestingly, let him go, and 
 then betook himself to the encumbered little apart- 
 ment in the Rue d'Anjou. It was more than an hour 
 before Valentin returned, but when he did so he war 
 able to announce that he had found one of his access 
 ories and that this gentleman had taken upon him- 
 self the care of securing the other. Newman h?d 
 been sitting without lights by the faded fire, on which 
 he had thrown a log; the blaze played over the rich 
 multifarious properties of the place and produced fan- 
 tastic gleams and shadows. He listened in silence to 
 Valentin's account of .what had passed between him 
 
 353 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 and the gentleman whose card he had in his pocket 
 M. Stanislas Kapp of Strasbourg after his return 
 to the society of their common hostess. This acute 
 young woman had espied an acquaintance on the 
 other side of the house and had expressed her dis- 
 pleasure at his not having the civility to come and 
 pay her a visit. "Oh, let him alone," M. Stanislas 
 Kapp had hereupon exclaimed; "there are too 
 many people in the box already!" And he had 
 fixed his eyes on his fellow-guest with the utmost 
 ferocity. Valentin had promptly retorted that if there 
 were too many people, in the box it was easy for M. 
 Kapp to diminish the number. "I shall be most 
 happy to open the door for you!" M. Kapp had 
 exclaimed: "And I shall be delighted to fling you into 
 the pit!" Valentin had as promptly retorted. "Oh 
 do make a rumpus and get into the papers!" Miss 
 Noemie had gleefully ejaculated. "M. Kapp, turn 
 him out; or, M. de Bellegarde, pitch him into the pit, 
 into the orchestra anywhere! I don't care who 
 does which, so long as you make a scene." Valentin 
 had answered that they would make no scene, but 
 that the gentleman would be so good as to step into 
 the corridor with him. In the corridor, after a brief 
 further exchange of words, there had been an ex- 
 change of cards. M. Stanislas Kapp had pressed on 
 his intention, the flat-faced imbecile, with all his 
 weight; and there were fifty tons, at the least, of that. 
 
 "Well, say there are ! If you had n't gone back 
 into the box the thing would n't have happened." 
 
 "Why, don't you see," Valentin replied, "that the 
 event proves the extreme propriety of my going back 
 
 354 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 into the box? M. Kapp wished to provoke me; he 
 was awaiting his chance. In such a case that is, 
 when he has been, so to speak, notified a man 
 must be on hand to receive the provocation. My not 
 returning would simply have been tantamount to my 
 saying to M. Stanislas Kapp: 'Oh, if you 're going to 
 be offensive !'" 
 
 'You must manage it by yourself; damned if I '11 
 help you!' That would have been a thoroughly sen- 
 sible thing to say. The only attraction for you seems 
 to have been the idea that you could help him," New- 
 man went on. "You told me you were not going 
 back for that minx herself." 
 
 "Oh, don't mention her ever, ever any more!" 
 Valentin almost plaintively sighed. "She's really 
 quite a bad bore." 
 
 " With all my heart. But if that 's the way you feel 
 about her, why could n't you let her alone ?" 
 
 Valentin shook his head with a fine smile. "I don't 
 think you quite understand, and I don't believe I can 
 make you. She understood the situation; she knew 
 what was in the air; she was watching us." 
 
 "Then you are doing it for her?" Newman railed. 
 
 " I 'm doing it for myself, and you must leave me 
 judge of what concerns my honour." 
 
 "Well, I '11 leave you judge if you '11 leave me to 
 quite impartially, kick somebody!" 
 
 " It 's vain talking," Valentin replied to this. 
 "Words have passed and the thing 's settled." 
 
 Newman turned away, taking his hat. Then paus- 
 ing as if with interest, his hand on the door: "You 're 
 going to use knives ?". 
 
 355 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "That 's for M. Stanislas Kapp, as the challenged 
 party, to decide. My own choice would be a short, 
 light sword. I handle it well. I 'm an indifferent 
 shot." 
 
 Newman had put on his hat; he pushed it back, 
 gently scratching his forehead high up. "I wish it were 
 guns," he said. "I could show you how to hold one." 
 
 Valentin gave him a hard look and then broke into 
 a laugh. "Murderer!" he cried with some intensity, 
 but agreeing to see him again on the morrow, after 
 the details of the meeting with M. Stanislas Kapp 
 should have been arranged. 
 
 In the course of the day Newman received three 
 lines from him to the effect that it had been decided 
 he should cross the frontier with his adversary, and 
 that he was accordingly to take the night express to 
 Geneva. They should have time, however, to dine 
 together. In the afternoon Newman called on 
 Madame de Cintre for the single daily hour of rein- 
 voked and reasserted confidence a solemnity but 
 the more exquisite with repetition to which she 
 had, a little strangely, given him to understand it was 
 convenient, important, in fact vital to her, that their 
 communion, for their strained interval, should be 
 restricted, even though this reduced him for so many 
 other recurrent hours, the hours of evening in par- 
 ticular, the worst of the probation, to the state of a 
 restless, prowling, time-keeping ghost, a taker of long 
 night-walks through streets that affected him at 
 moments as the alleys of a great darkened bankrupt 
 bazaar. But his visit to-day had a worry to reckon 
 with all the more that it had as well so much of 
 
 356 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 one to conceal. She shone upon him, as always, with 
 that light of her gentleness which might have been 
 figured, in the heat-thickened air, by a sultry harvest 
 moon; but she was visibly bedimmed, and she con- 
 fessed, on his charging her with her red eyes, that she 
 had been, for a vague vain reason, crying them half 
 out. Valentin had been with her a couple of hours 
 before and had somehow troubled her without in the 
 least intending it. He had laughed and gossiped, had 
 brought her no bad news, had only been, in taking 
 leave of her, rather "dearer," poor boy, than usual. 
 A certain extravagance of tenderness in him had in 
 fact touched her to positive pain, so that on his 
 departure she had burst into miserable tears. She 
 had felt as if something strange and wrong were 
 hanging about them ah, she had had that feeling 
 in other connexions too; nervous, always nervous, she 
 had tried to reason away the fear, but the effort had 
 only given her a headache. Newman was of course 
 tongue-tied on what he himself knew, and, his powei 
 of simulation and his general art of optimism break- 
 ing down on this occasion as if some long needle- 
 point had suddenly passed, to make him wince, 
 through the sole crevice of his armour, he could, to 
 his high chagrin, but cut his call short. Before he 
 retreated, however, he asked if Valentin had seen his 
 mother. 
 
 "Yes; but he did n't make her cry!" 
 
 It was in Newman's own apartments that the 
 young man dined, having sent his servant and his 
 effects to await him at the railway M. Stanislas 
 Kapp had positively declined to make excuses, and 
 
 357 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 he on his side had obviously none to offer. Valentin 
 had found out with whom he was dealing, and that 
 his adversary was the son and heir of a rich brewer 
 of Strasbourg, a youth sanguineous, brawny, bull- 
 headed, and lately much occupied in making ducks 
 and drakes of the paternal brewery. Though passing 
 in a general way for a good companion, he had 
 already been noted as apt to quarrel after dinner and 
 to be disposed then to charge with his head down. 
 "Que voulez-vous ?" said Valentin: "brought up on 
 beer how could he stand such champagne as Noemie, 
 cup-bearer to the infernal gods, had poured out for 
 him?" He had chosen the weapon known to New- 
 man as the gun. Valentin had an excellent appetite: 
 he made a point, in view of his long journey, of eating 
 more than usual: one of the points, no doubt, that his 
 friend had accused him of always needing to make. 
 He took the liberty of suggesting to the latter the 
 difference of the suspicion of a shade in the composi- 
 tion of a fish-sauce; he thought it worth hinting, with 
 precautions, to the cook. But Newman had no mind 
 for sauces; there was more in the dish itself, the mix- 
 ture now presented to him, than he could swallow; he 
 was in short "nervous" to a tune of which he felt 
 almost ashamed as he watched his inimitable friend 
 go through their superior meal without skipping a 
 step or missing a savour; the exposure, the possible 
 sacrifice, of so charming a life on the altar of a stupid 
 tradition struck him as intolerably wrong. He exag- 
 gerated the perversity of Noemie, the ferocity of 
 M. Kapp, the grimness of M. Kapp's friends, and 
 only knew that he did yearn now as a brother. 
 
 358 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "This sort of thing may be all very well," he broke 
 out at last, "but I '11 be blamed if I see it. I can*', 
 stop you perhaps, but at least I can swear at you 
 handsomely. Take me as doing so in the most awful 
 
 terms." 
 
 "My dear fellow, don't make a scene " Valentin 
 was almost sententious. " Scenes in these cases are in 
 very bad taste." 
 
 "Your duel itself is a scene," Newman said; 
 "a scene of the most flagrant description. It's 
 a wretched theatrical affair. Why don't you take 
 a band of music with you outright ? It 's G d 
 barbarous, and yet it 's G d effete." 
 
 "Oh, I can't begin at this time of day to defend the 
 theory of duelling," the young man blandly reasoned. 
 " It 's our only resource at given moments, and I hold 
 it a good thing. Quite apart from the merit of the 
 cause in which a meeting may take place, it strikes 
 a romantic note that seems to me in this age of vile 
 prose greatly to recommend it. It 's a remnant of 
 a higher-tempered time; one ought to cling to it. It 's 
 a way of more decently testifying. Testify when you 
 can!" 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by a higher-tem- 
 pered time," Newman retorted. " Because your great- 
 grandfather liked to prance, is that any reason for 
 you, who have got beyond it ? For my part I think we 
 had better let our temper take care of itself; it gen- 
 erally seems to me quite high enough; I 'm not more 
 of a fire-eater than most, but I 'm not afraid of being 
 too mild. If your great-grandfather were to make him- 
 self unpleasant to me I think I could tackle him yet." 
 
 359 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "My dear friend" Valentin was perfectly patient 
 with him "you can't invent anything that will take 
 the place of satisfaction for an insult. To demand it 
 and to give it are equally excellent arrangements.' 2 
 
 "Do you call this sort of thing satisfaction ?" New- 
 man groaned. " Does it satisfy you to put yourself at 
 ihe disposal of a bigger fool even than yourself ? I 'd 
 see him somewhere first! Does it satisfy you that he 
 should set up this ridiculous relation with you ? I 'd 
 like to see him try anything of the sort with me ! If 
 a man has a bad intention on you it 's his own affair 
 till it takes effect; but when it does, give him one in 
 the eye. If you don't know how to do that straight 
 you 're not fit to go round alone. But I 'm talking 
 of those who claim they are, and that they don't 
 require some one to take care of them." 
 
 "Well," Valentin smiled, "it would be interesting 
 truly to go round with you. But to get the full good 
 of that, alas, I should have begun earlier!" 
 
 Newman could scarcely bear even the possible per- 
 tinence of his " alas." " See here," he said at the last: 
 "if any one ever hurts you again !" 
 
 "Well, mon bon?" and Valentin, with his eyes 
 on his friend's, might now have been much moved. 
 
 " Come straight to me about it. 7 '// go for him." 
 
 " M atamore I" the young man laughed as they 
 parted* 
 
XVIII 
 
 IT was the next morning that, by exception, Newmap 
 went to see Madame de Cintre, timing his visit so aj 
 to arrive after the noonday breakfast. In the court 
 of the hotel, before the portico, stood Madame de 
 Bellegarde's old square heavy carriage. The servant 
 who opened the door answered his enquiry with a 
 slightly embarrassed and hesitating murmur, and at 
 the same moment Mrs. Bread appeared in the back- 
 ground, dim-visaged as usual and wearing a large 
 black bonnet and shawl. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he asked. "Is Madame 
 la Comtesse at home or not ?" 
 
 Mrs. Bread advanced, fixing her eyes on him; he 
 observed that she held a sealed letter, very delicately, 
 in her ringers. "The Countess has left a message for 
 you, sir; she has left this." And the good woman 
 held out the missive, which he took. 
 
 "Left it? Is she out? Is she gone away?" 
 
 "She 's going away, sir; she 's leaving town," said 
 Mrs. Bread. 
 
 "Leaving town!" he exclaimed. "What in the 
 world has happened ?" 
 
 "It is not for me to say, sir." And Mrs. Bread 
 cast her eyes to the ground. " But I thought it would 
 
 come." 
 
 "What would come, pray?" Newman demanded. 
 He had broken the seal of the letter, but he 
 
 361 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 still questioned. "She's in the house? She's vis- 
 ible?" 
 
 "I don't think she expected you this morning," 
 his venerable friend replied. "She was to leave im 
 mediately." 
 
 "Where is she going?" 
 
 "To Fleurieres." 
 
 "Away off there? But surely I can see her?" 
 
 Mrs. Bread hesitated, but then, clasping together 
 her black-gloved hands, "I'll take you!" she rather 
 desperately said. And she led the way upstairs. At 
 the top of the staircase, however, she paused and 
 fixed her dry sad eyes on him. " Be very easy with 
 her. Nobody else is." Then she went on to Madame 
 de Cintre's apartment. Newman, perplexed and 
 alarmed, followed her fast. She threw open the door 
 and he pushed back the curtain at the further side 
 of its deep embrasure. In the middle of the room 
 stood Madame de Cintre; her face was flushed and 
 marked and she was dressed for travelling. Behind 
 her, before the fireplace, stood Urbain de Bellegarde 
 and looked at his finger-nails; near the Marquis sat 
 his mother, buried in an armchair and with her eyes 
 immediately fixing themselves on the invader, as he 
 felt them pronounce him. He knew himself, as he 
 entered, in the presence of something evil; he was 
 as startled and pained as he would have been by 
 a threatening cry in the stillness of the night. He 
 walked straight to Madame de Cintre and seized her 
 by the hand. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he asked commandingly; 
 "what 's happening ?" 
 
 362 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Urbam de Bellegarde stared s then left his place 
 and came and leaned on the back of his mother's 
 chair. Newman's sudden irruption had evidently 
 discomposed them both. Madame de Cintre stood 
 silent and with her eyes resting on her friend's. 
 She had often looked ai: him with all her soul, as it 
 seemed to him; but in this present gaze there was 
 a bottomless depth. She was in distress, and mon- 
 strously was somehow to her own sense helpless. 
 It would have been the most touching thing he had 
 ever seen if it had n't been the most absurd. His 
 heart rose into his throat and he was on the point of 
 turning to her companions with an angry challenge; 
 but she checked him, pressing the hand of which she 
 had possessed herself. 
 
 " Something very grave has happened," she brought 
 out. "I can't marry you." 
 
 Newman dropped her hand as if, suddenly and 
 unnaturally acting with the others, she had planted 
 a knife in his side: he stood staring, first at her and 
 then at them. "Why not ?" he asked as quietly as his 
 quick gasp permitted. 
 
 Madame de Cintre almost smiled, but the attempt 
 was strange. "You must ask my mother. You must 
 ask my ,brother." 
 
 "Why can't she marry me ?" and he looked all 
 at them. 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde never moved in her seat, 
 but her consciousness had paled her face. The Mar- 
 quis hovered protectingly. She said nothing for some 
 moments, but she kept her keen clear eyes on 
 their visitor. The Marquis drew himself up and eon- 
 
 33 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 jidered the ceiling. "It's impossible!" he finely 
 articulated. 
 
 "It's improper," said Madame de Bellegarde. 
 
 Newman began to laugh. "Oh, you 're fooling!" 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 "My sister, you've no time; you're losing your 
 train," the Marquis went on. 
 
 "Come, is he mad?" Newman asked. 
 
 "No; don't think that," said Madame de Cintre. 
 "But I'm going away." 
 
 "Where are you going ?" 
 
 "To the country; to Fleurieres; to be alone." 
 
 "To leave me alone ?" Newman put it. 
 
 "I can't see you now," she simply answered. 
 
 "'Now' why not?" 
 
 "I 'm ashamed," she still more simply confessed. 
 
 Newman turned to the Marquis. "What have you 
 done to her what does it mean?" he asked with 
 the same effort at calmness, the fruit of his constant 
 practice in taking things easily. He was excited, but 
 excitement with him was only an intenser deliberate- 
 ness; it was the plunger stripped. 
 
 " It means that I 've given you up," said Madame 
 de Cintre. "It means that." 
 
 Her appearance was too charged with tragic ex 
 pression not fully to confirm her words. Newman 
 was profoundly shocked, but he felt as yet no re- 
 sentment against her. He was amazed, bewildered, 
 and the presence of the Marquise and her son 
 seemed to smite his eyes like the glare of a watch- 
 man's lantern. "Can't I see you alone?" he 
 asked. 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "If would be only more painful. I hoped I 
 should n't see you that I should escape. I wrote 
 to you, but only three words. Good-bye." And she 
 put out her hand again. 
 
 Newman put both his own into his pockets. "I '11 
 simply go with you." 
 
 She laid her two hands on his arm. "Will you 
 grant me a last request?" and as she looked at 
 him, urging this, her eyes filled with tears. "Let me 
 go alone let me go in peace. Peace I say though 
 it 's really death. But let me bury myself. So 
 good-bye." 
 
 Newman passed his hand into his hair and stood 
 slowly rubbing his head and looking through his 
 keenly-narrowed eyes from one to the other of the 
 three persons before him. His lips were compressed, 
 and the two strong lines formed beside his mouth 
 and riding hard, as it were, his restive moustache, 
 might have at first suggested a wide grimace. I have 
 said that his excitement was an intenser deliberate- 
 ness, and now his deliberation was grim. "It seems 
 very much as if you had interfered, Marquis," he 
 said slowly. " I thought you said you would n't inter- 
 fere. I know you did n't like me; but that does n't 
 make any difference. I thought you promised me yor 
 would n't interfere. I thought you swore on you* 
 honour that you would n't interfere. Don't you re- 
 member, Marquis ?" 
 
 The Marquis lifted his eyebrows, but he was 
 apparently determined to be even more urbane than 
 usual. He rested his two hands upon the back of his 
 mother's chair and bent forward as if he were lean- 
 
 365 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ing over the edge of a pulpit or a lecture-desk. He 
 didn't smile, but he looked softly grave. "Pardon 
 me, sir what I assured you was that I would n't 
 influence my sister's decision. I adhered to the letter 
 to my engagement. Did I not, my sister ?" 
 
 "Don't appeal, my son," said the Marquise. 
 "Your word 's all sufficient." 
 
 "Yes she accepted me," said Newman. 
 "That 's very true; I can't deny that. At least," he 
 added in a different tone while he turned to Madame 
 de Cintre, "you did accept me ?" The effect of deep 
 irony in it even if there had been nothing else 
 appeared to move her strongly, and she turned away, 
 burying her face in her hands. " But you J ve inter- 
 fered now, have n't you ?" he went on to the Mar- 
 quis. 
 
 "Neither then nor now have I attempted to influ- 
 ence my sister. I used no persuasion then I 've 
 used no persuasion to-day." 
 
 "And what have you used ?" 
 
 "We 've used authority," said Madame de Belle- 
 garde in a rich, bell-like voice. 
 
 "Ah, you've used authority!" Newman won- 
 derfully echoed. 'They've used authority " He 
 turned to Madame de Cintre. "What in the world is 
 their authority and how do they apply it ?" 
 
 "My mother addressed me her command," Ma- 
 dame de Cintre said with a sound that was the 
 strangest yet. 
 
 "Her command that you should give me up 
 I see. And you obey I see. But why do you 
 obey?" Newman pursued. 
 
 366 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Madame de Cintre looked across at the old Mar- 
 quise, measuring her from head to foot. Then she 
 spoke again with simplicity. "I 'm afraid of my 
 mother." 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde rose with a certain quick- 
 ness. "This is a most indecent scene!" 
 
 "I 've no wish to prolong it," said Madame de 
 Cintre; and, turning to the door, she put out her 
 hand again. " If you can pity me a little, let me go 
 alone." 
 
 Newman held her quietly and firmly. "I '11 come 
 right down there." The portiere dropped behind 
 her, and he sank with a long breath into the nearest 
 chair. He leaned back in it, resting his hands on the 
 knobs of the arms and looking at Madame de Belle- 
 garde and Urbain. There was a long silence. They 
 stood side by side, their heads high and their hand- 
 some eyebrows arched. "So you make a distinc- 
 tion ?" he went on at last. "You make a distinction 
 between persuading and commanding ? It 's very 
 neat. But the distinction 's in favour of command- 
 ing. That rather spoils it." 
 
 "We 've not the least objection to defining our 
 position," said M. de Bellegarde. "We quite under- 
 stand that it should n't at first appear to you alto- 
 gether clear. We rather expect indeed that you '11 
 not do us justice." 
 
 "Oh, I '11 do you justice," said Newman. "Don't 
 be afraid. Only give me a chance!" 
 
 The Marquise laid her hand on her son's arm as if 
 to deprecate the attempt to marshal reasons or to 
 meet their friend again, on any ground, too irui- 
 
 367 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 mately. "It's quite useless," she opined, "to try 
 and arrange this matter so as to make it agreeable 
 to you. It 's a disappointment, and disappointments 
 are I grant it sometimes odious things. I 
 thought our necessity over that of letting you know 
 that we don't after all see our way! I considered 
 carefully and tried to arrange it better; but I only 
 gave myself bad headaches and lost my sleep. Say 
 what we will you '11 think yourself ill-treated and will 
 publish your wrong among your friends. But we 're 
 not afraid of that. Besides, your friends are not our 
 friends, and it will matter by so much the less. Think 
 of us as you like you don't really know us. I only 
 beg you not to be violent. I 've never in my life been 
 present at any sort of roughness, and I think my age 
 should now protect me." 
 
 "Is that all you have to say?" asked Newman, 
 slowly rising from his chair. "That's a poor show 
 for a clever lady like you, Marquise. Come, try 
 again." 
 
 "My mother goes to the point with her usual 
 honesty and intrepidity," said the Marquis, toying 
 with his watchguard. " But it 's perhaps right 
 I should add another word. We of course quite re- 
 pudiate the charge of having broken faith with you. 
 We left you entirely at liberty to make yourself agree- 
 able to my sister. We left her quite at liberty to 
 entertain your proposal. When she accepted you we 
 said nothing. We therefore wholly observed our 
 promise. It was only at a later stage of the affair, 
 and on quite a different basis, as it were, that we 
 determined to speak. It would have been better per- 
 
 368 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 haps if we had spoken before. But really, you see. 
 nothing has yet been done." 
 
 "Nothing has yet been done?" Newman re- 
 peated the words as if unconscious of their comical 
 effect. He had lost the sense of what the Marquis 
 was saying; M. de Bellegarde's superior style was 
 a mere humming in his ears. All he understood, in 
 his deep and simple wrath, was that the matter was 
 not a violent joke and that the people before him 
 were perfectly serious. " Do you suppose I can take 
 this from you?" he wonderingly asked. "Do you 
 suppose it can matter to me what you say ? Do 
 you suppose I 'm an idiot that you can so put 
 off?" 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde gave a rattle of her fan in 
 the hollow of her hand. " If you don't take it you can 
 leave it, sir. It matters very little what you do. The 
 simple fact is that my daughter has given you up." 
 
 " She does n't mean it," Newman declared after 
 a moment. 
 
 "I think I can assure you that she does," the Mar- 
 quis fluted. 
 
 " Poor stricken woman, poor bleeding heart, what 
 damnable thing have you done to her?" Newman 
 demanded. 
 
 "Gently, gently!" murmured M. de Bellegarde as 
 he rocked on his neat foundations. 
 
 " She told you," his mother said. " I expressed my 
 final wish." 
 
 Newman shook his head heavily. "This sort of 
 thing can't be, you know. A man can't be used in 
 this fashion. You not^only have nc right that is n't 
 
 3 6 9 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a preposterous pretence, but you have n't a penny- 
 worth of power." 
 
 "My power," Madame de Bellegarde observed, 
 "is in my children's obedience." 
 
 " In their fear, your daughter said. There 's some- 
 thing very strange in it. Why should any one be 
 afraid of you ?" added Newman after looking at her 
 a moment. "There has been something at play I don't 
 know and can't guess." 
 
 She met his gaze without flinching and as if neither 
 hearing nor heeding. "I did my best," she said qui- 
 etly. "I could bear it no longer." 
 
 " It was a bold experiment ! " the Marquis pursued. 
 
 Newman felt disposed to walk to him and clutch 
 his neck with irresistible firm fingers and a prolonga- 
 tion of thumb-pressure on the windpipe. "I need n't 
 tell you how you strike me," he said, however, instead 
 of this; "of course you know that. But I should 
 think you 'd be afraid of your friends all those 
 people you introduced me to the other night. There 
 were some decent people apparently among them; 
 you may depend upon it there were some good, 
 honest men and women." 
 
 "Our friends approve us," said M. de Bellegarde; 
 "there's not a responsible chef de jamille among 
 them who wduld have acted otherwise. And however 
 that may be we take the cue from no one. We 've 
 been much more used since one really has to tell 
 you to setting the example than to waiting for it." 
 
 "You'd have waited long before any one would 
 have set you such an example as this, I guess!" 
 Newman cried. "Have I done anything wrong 01 
 
 370 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 mean or base ?" he rang out. "Have I given you any 
 reason to change your opinion ? Have you found out 
 anything against me? Hanged if I can imagine!" 
 
 "Our opinion," said Madame de Bellegarde, "is 
 quite the same as at first exactly. We S e no ill- 
 will towards yourself; we 're very far from accusing 
 you of misconduct. Since your relations with us 
 began you 've been, I frankly confess, less eccentric 
 than I expected. It 's not your personal character 
 that we object to, it 's your professional it 's your 
 antecedents. We really can't reconcile ourselves to 
 a commercial person. We tried to believe in an evil 
 hour it was possible, and that effort was our great 
 misfortune. We determined to persevere to the end 
 and to give you every advantage. I was resolved you 
 should have no reason to accuse me of a want of 
 loyalty. We let the thing certainly go very far 
 we introduced you to our friends. To tell the truth 
 it was that, I think, that broke me down. I suc- 
 cumbed to the scene that took place the other night 
 in these rooms. You must pardon me if what I say 
 is disagreeable to you, but you Ve insisted, with 
 violence, on an explanation." 
 
 "There's no better proof of our good faith," the 
 Marquis superadded, "than our committing our- 
 selves to you in the eyes of the world three evenings 
 since. We endeavoured to bind ourselves to tie 
 our hands and cut off our retreat. Could we have 
 done more ? " 
 
 "But it was that," his mother subjoined, "that 
 opened our eyes and broke our bonds. We should 
 have been deeply uncomfortable with any such coi> 
 
 371 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 tinuance. You know/' she wound up in a moment, 
 "that you were forewarned as to our high, stiff way 
 of carrying ourselves. Oh, I grant you that we 're 
 as proud and odious as you please! But we didn't 
 seek your acquaintance. You sought ours." 
 
 Newman took up his hat and began mechanically 
 to smooth it; the very fierceness of his scorn kept 
 him from speaking. "You 're certainly odious 
 enough," he cried at last, "but it strikes me your 
 pride falls short altogether." 
 
 "In the whole matter," said the Marquis, still as 
 with a fine note of cool reason, " I really see nothing 
 but our humility." 
 
 "Let us have no more painful discussion than is 
 necessary," his mother resumed. " My daughter told 
 you everything when she said she gives you up." 
 
 "I 'm not in the least satisfied about your daugh- 
 ter," Newman insisted: "I want to know what you did 
 to her. It 's all very easy talking about authority and 
 saying she likes your orders. She did n't accept me 
 blindly and she would n't give me up blindly. Not 
 that I believe yet she has really done it after what 
 has passed between us; she'll talk it over with me. 
 But you 've frightened her, you 've bullied her, 
 you *ve hurt her. What was it you did to her ?" 
 
 "I had very little to do," said Madame de Belle- 
 garde in a tone which gave him a chill when he after- 
 wards remembered it. 
 
 "Let me remind you that we offered you this 
 amount of consideration," the Marquis observed, 
 "with the express understanding that you should 
 abstain from intemperance." 
 
 372 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I 'm not intemperate," Newman answered; "it 's 
 you who are intemperate. You stab me in the back 
 and I turn on you; is it / who am offensive? But 
 I don't know that I Ve much more to say to you. 
 What you expect of me, apparently, is to go on my 
 way in the manner most convenient to you 
 thanking you for favours received and promising 
 never to trouble you again." 
 
 "We expect of you to act like an homme d j esprit" 
 said Madame de Bellegarde. "You Ve shown your- 
 self remarkably that, already, and what we 've done 
 is altogether based upon your being so. When one 
 must recognise a situation well, one must. That 's 
 all that we Ve done. Since my daughter absolutely 
 withdraws, what do you gain by making a noise 
 under our windows ? You proclaim, at the best, your 
 discomfiture." 
 
 " It remains to be seen if your daughter absolutely 
 withdraws. Your daughter and I are still very good 
 friends; nothing 's changed in that. As I say, there 
 has been that between us that must make her re- 
 cognise at least my claim to some light of mercy from 
 her." 
 
 "I recommend you in your own interest not to 
 expect more than you '11 get," the Marquis returned 
 with firmness. "I know her well enough to know 
 that a meaning signified as she just now signified 
 hers to you is final. Besides, she has given me her 
 word." 
 
 "I've no doubt her word's worth a great deal 
 more than your own," said Newman. "Nevertheless 
 I don't give her up.". 
 
 373 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "There *s nothing of course to prevent your saying 
 so! But if she won't even see you and she won't 
 your constancy must remain very much on your 
 hands." 
 
 Newman feigned in truth a greater confidence than 
 he felt. Madame de Cintre's strange intensity had 
 really struck a chill to his heart; her face, still im- 
 pressed on his vision, had been a terrible image of 
 deep renunciation. He felt sick and suddenly help- 
 less. He turned away and stood a moment with his 
 hand on the door; then he faced about and, after the 
 briefest hesitation, broke out with another accent. 
 " Come, think of what this must be to me, and leave 
 her to herself and to the man whom, before God 
 I believe, she loves ! Why should you object to me 
 what's the matter with me? I can't hurt you, 
 I would n't if I could. I 'm the most unobjectionable 
 man in the world. What if I am a commercial person ? 
 What under the sun do you mean ? A commercial 
 person ? I '11 be any sort of person you want. I never 
 talked to you about business where on earth does 
 it come in ? Let her go and I '11 ask no questions. 
 I '11 take her away and you shall never see me or 
 hear of me again. I '11 stay in America if you like. 
 I '11 sign a paper promising never to come back to 
 Europe. All I want is not to lose her!" 
 
 His companions exchanged a glance of mutual 
 re-enforcement, and Urbain said: "My dear sir, what 
 you propose is hardly an improvement. We 've not 
 the slightest objection to seeing you, as an amiable 
 foreigner, and we 've every reason for not wishing to 
 be eternally separated from my sister. We object 
 
 374 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to her marriage; and in that way" M. de Belle- 
 garde gave a small, thin laugh "she'd be more 
 married than ever." 
 
 "Well then," Newman presently broke out again, 
 "where's this interesting place of yours Fleurieres ? 
 I know it 's near some old city on a hill." 
 
 "Precisely. Poitiers is on a hill," the Marquise 
 admitted. "I don't know exactly how old it is. 
 We 're not afraid to tell you." 
 
 " It 's Poitiers, is it ? Very good," said Newman. 
 "I shall immediately follow Madame de Cintre." 
 
 "The trains after this hour won't serve you," 
 Urbain appeared to judge it his duty to mention. 
 
 "I shall then hire a special train." 
 
 "That will be a very foolish waste of money," 
 said Madame de Bellegarde. 
 
 "It will be time enough to talk about waste three 
 days hence," Newman answered; with which, clap- 
 ping his hat on his head, he departed. 
 
 He didn't immediately start for Fleurieres; he 
 was too stunned and wounded for consecutive action. 
 He simply walked; he walked straight before him. 
 following the river till he got out of the stony circle 
 of Paris. He had a burning, tingling sense of personal 
 outrage. He had never in his life received so absolute 
 a check; he had never been pulled up, or, as he 
 would have said, "let down," so short, and he found 
 the sensation intolerable as he strode along tapping 
 the trees and lamp-posts fiercely with his stick and 
 inwardly raging. To lose such a woman after taking 
 such jubilant and triumphant possession of her was 
 as great an affront to his pride as it was an injury 
 
 375 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to his happiness. And to lose her by the interference 
 and the dictation of others, by an impudent old hag's 
 and a pretentious coxcomb's stepping in with their 
 "authority"! It was too preposterous, it was too 
 pitiful. Upon what he deemed the unblushing 
 treachery of the Bellegardes he wasted little thought; 
 he consigned it once for all to eternal perdition. But 
 the treachery of Madame de Cintre herself amazed 
 and confounded him; there was a key to the mystery, 
 of course, but he groped for it in vain. Only three 
 days had elapsed since she stood beside him in the 
 starlight, beautiful and tranquil as the trust with 
 which he had inspired her, and told him she was 
 happy in the prospect of their marriage. What was 
 the meaning of the change ? of what infernal potion 
 had she tasted ? He had, however, a terrible appre- 
 hension that she had really changed. His very admi- 
 ration for her attached the idea of force and weight 
 to her rupture. But he did n't rail at her as false, for 
 he was sure she was unhappy. In his walk he had 
 crossed one of the bridges of the Seine, and he still 
 followed unheedingly the long and unbroken quay. 
 He had left Paris behind and was almost in the 
 country; he was in the pleasant suburb of Auteuil. 
 He stopped at last, looked about at it without seeing 
 or caring for its pleasantness, and then slowly turned 
 round and at a slower pace retraced his steps. When 
 he came abreast of the fantastic embankment known 
 as the Trocadero he reflected, through his throbbing 
 pain, that he was near Mrs. Tristram's dwelling and 
 that Mrs. Tristram, on particular occasions, had 
 much of a woman's kindness in her chords. He felt 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 he needed to pour out his ire, and he took the road 
 to her house. She was at home and alone, and as 
 soon as she had looked at him, on his entering the 
 room, she told him she knew what he had come for. 
 He sat down heavily, in silence, with his eyes on her. 
 
 "They 've backed out!" she said without his even 
 needing to tell her. "Well, you may think it strange, 
 but I felt something the other night in the air." 
 Presently he gave her his account; she listened while 
 her whole face took it in. When he had finished she 
 said quietly: "They want her to marry Lord Deep- 
 mere." Newman stared he did n't know she knew 
 anything about Lord Deepmere. " But I don't think 
 she will," Mrs. Tristram added. 
 
 "She marry that poor little cub!" cried Newman. 
 "Oh Lord save us! And yet why else can she have 
 so horribly treated me?" 
 
 " But that is n't the only thing," said Mrs. Tris- 
 tram. "They really could n't live with you any longer. 
 They had overrated their courage. I must say, to 
 give the devil his due, that there 's something rather 
 fine in that. It was your commercial quality in the 
 abstract, and the mere historic facts of your wash- 
 tubs and other lucrative wares, that they could n't 
 swallow. That 's really consistent the inconsist- 
 ency had been the other way. They wanted your 
 money, but they Ve given you up for an idea/' 
 
 Newman frowned most ruefully and took up his 
 hat again. "I thought you'd encourage me!" he 
 brought out with almost juvenile sadness. 
 
 " Pardon my trying to understand of course it 
 doesn't concern you to understand," she answered 
 
 377 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 very gently. "I feel none the less sorry for you, 
 especially as I 'm at the bottom of your troubles. 
 I 've not forgotten that I suggested the marriage to 
 you. I don't believe Claire has any intention of con- 
 senting to marry Lord Deepmere. It 's true he 's not 
 younger than she, as he might pass for being. He 's 
 thirty-three years old; I looked in the Peerage 
 But no I can't believe her so hideously, cruelly 
 false."' 
 
 "Please say nothing against her!" Newman 
 strangely cried. 
 
 "Poor woman," she none the less continued, "she 
 is cruel. But of course you '11 go after her and you '11 
 plead powerfully. Do you know that as you are now," 
 Mrs. Tristram added with characteristic audacity of 
 comment, "you 're extremely eloquent, even without 
 speaking ? To resist you a woman must have a very 
 fixed idea or a very bad conscience. I wish I had done 
 you a wrong that you might come to me and make 
 me so feel it; and feel you, dear man, just you." 
 She looked at him an instant, then had one of her 
 odd little outbreaks. "You 're lamentable you 're 
 splendid! Go to Madame de Cintre, at any rate, and 
 tell her that she's a puzzle even to one of the intelli- 
 gent, like me, who so greatly admires her. I 'm very 
 curious to see how far family discipline in a fine case 
 like this does go." 
 
 Newman sat a while longer, leaning his elbows on 
 his knees and his head in his hands, and Mrs. Tris- 
 tram continued to temper charity with reason and 
 compassion with criticism. At last she inquired: 
 "And what does Count Valentin say to it?" New- 
 
 378 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 man started; he had not thought of Valentin and his 
 errand on the Swiss frontier since the morning. 
 The reflexion made him restless again, and he broke 
 away on a promise that his hostess should have with- 
 out delay his next news. He went straight to his 
 apartment, where, on the table in the vestibule, he 
 found a waiting telegram. "I 'm seriously ill and 
 should be glad to see you as soon as possible. VAL- 
 ENTIN." He had a savage groan for this miserable 
 news and for the interruption of his journey to Fleur- 
 ieres. But he addressed to Madame de Cintre a 
 brief, the briefest, statement of these things; it formed 
 a response as well to the ten words of the note that 
 had come to him by Mrs. Bread, and was now all 
 the time allowed him. 
 
 " I don't give you up and don't really believe you 
 speak your own intention. I don't understand it, but 
 am sure we shall clear it up together. I can't follow 
 you to-day, as I'm called to see a friend at a distance 
 who 's very ill, perhaps dying. Why should n't I tell 
 you he 's your brother ? C. N." 
 
XIX 
 
 HE had a rare gift for sitting still when nothing else 
 would serve, and rare was his opportunity to use it 
 on his journey to Switzerland. The successive hours 
 of the night brought him no sleep; but he kept motion- 
 less in his corner of the railway-carriage, his eyes 
 closed, and the most observant of his fellow-travellers 
 might have envied him his apparent rest. Toward 
 morning rest really came, as an effect of mental 
 rather than of physical fatigue. He slept for a couple 
 of hours, and at last, waking, found his eyes attach 
 themselves to one of the snow-powdered peaks of the 
 Jura, behind which the sky was just reddening with 
 the dawn. But he took in neither the cold mountain 
 nor the warm light: his consciousness began to 
 throb again, on the very instant, with a sense of his 
 wrong. He got out of the train half an hour before 
 it reached Geneva alighted in the pale early glow 
 and at the station indicated in Valentin's telegram 
 A drowsy station-master was on the platform with 
 a lantern and the hood of his overcoat over his 
 head, and near him stood a gentleman who advanced 
 to meet Newman. This personage, a man of about 
 forty, showed a tall lean figure, a long brown face, 
 marked eyebrows, high moustaches and fresh light 
 gloves. He took off his hat, looking very grave, and 
 articulated, "Monsieur!" To which our hero replied: 
 11 You've been acting, in this tragedy, for the Count ?" 
 
 380 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I unite with you in having been chosen for that 
 sad honour," said the gentleman. "I had placed 
 myself at M. de Bellegarde's service in this melan- 
 choly affair, together with M. de Grosjoyaux, who 
 is now at his bedside. M. de Grosjoyaux, I believe, 
 has had the honour of meeting you in Paris, but as 
 he is a better nurse than I, he remained with our 
 poor friend. Bellegarde has been eagerly expecting 
 you." 
 
 "And how is the rascal?" said Newman. "He 
 was badly hit ?" 
 
 "The doctor has condemned him; we brought a 
 surgeon with us. But he will die in the best senti- 
 ments. I sent last evening for the cure of the nearest 
 French village, who spent an hour with him. The 
 cure was quite satisfied." 
 
 "Heaven forgive us!" groaned Newman. "I 'd 
 rather the surgeon were so! And can he see me 
 shall he know me ?" 
 
 "When I left him, half an hour ago, he had fallen 
 asleep after a feverish, wakeful night. But we 
 shall see." And this companion proceeded to lead 
 the way out of the station to the village, explaining 
 as he went that the little party was lodged in the 
 humblest of Swiss inns, where, however, they ha<* 
 succeeded in making M. de Bellegarde much more 
 comfortable than could at first have been expected. 
 "We're old companions-in-arms," the personage 
 said; "it 's not the first time one of us has helped the 
 other to lie easy. It's a very nasty wound, and the 
 nastiest thing about it is that Valentin's adversary 
 was no shot. He put his beastly bullet where he 
 
 381 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 could. It entered, accursedly, our poor friend's left 
 side, just below the heart." 
 
 As they picked their way, in the grey, deceptive 
 dawn, between the manure-heaps of the village street, 
 Newman's new acquaintance narrated the particu- 
 lars of the meeting. The conditions had been that 
 if the first exchange of shots should fail to satisfy one 
 of the parties a second should take place. Valentin's 
 first bullet had done exactly what Newman's com- 
 panion was convinced he had intended it to do; it 
 had grazed the arm of M. Stanislas Kapp, just 
 scratching the flesh. M. Kapp's own projectile, 
 meanwhile, had passed at ten good inches from the 
 person of Valentin. The representatives of M. 
 Stanislas had demanded another shot, which was 
 then, on Valentin's absolute insistence, granted. 
 But Valentin had fired into space, and the young 
 Alsatian had done effective execution. "I saw, when 
 we met him on the ground," said Newman's inform- 
 ant, "that he was not going to be commode. A mix- 
 ture of the donkey and the buffalo with no sense 
 whatever of proportion." Valentin had immediately 
 been installed at the inn, while M. Stanislas and his 
 friends had withdrawn to regions unknown. The 
 police authorities of the canton had waited upon the 
 others, had placed them under technical arrest and 
 had drawn up a long proces-verbal; but as the wine 
 had been drawn alas! the powers would have 
 to drink it. Newman asked if a message had not 
 been sent to the family, and learned that up to a late 
 hour of the previous night Valentin had opposed it- 
 He had refused to believe his wound dangerous. 
 
 382 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 After his interview with the cure, however, he had 
 consented, and a telegram had been despatched to 
 his mother. "But the Marquise will scarcely have 
 time !" So judged Newman's conductor. 
 
 "Well, it's a wicked, wanton, infernal affair!" 
 So judged Newman himself. 
 
 "Ah, you don't approve?" his friend gravely 
 questioned, while he himself remained passionately 
 careless of the involved reflexion on this gentleman's 
 control of the encounter. 
 
 "Approve?" cried Newman. "I wish that when 
 I had him there night before last I had locked him 
 up in my cabinet de toilette I " 
 
 Valentin's supporter opened his eyes and shook 
 his head up and down two or three times, porten- 
 tously, with a little flute-like whistle. But he had 
 evidently been prepared, in respect to this outer bar- 
 barian, for some oddity of emotion and expression. 
 They had in any case reached the inn, where a stout 
 maid-servant in a nightcap was on the threshold, 
 with a lantern, to take the traveller's bag from the 
 porter who trudged behind him. Valentin was lodged 
 on the ground floor at the back of the house, and 
 Newman's companion went along a stone-faced pass- 
 age and softly opened a door. Then he beckoned to 
 the visitor, who advanced and looked into the room, 
 lighted by a single shaded candle. Beside the fire 
 sat M. de Grosjoyaux asleep in his dressing-gown 
 a short stout fair man, with an air of gay surprise, 
 whom Newman had seen several times in Valentin's 
 company. On the bed lay Valentin, pale and still, 
 his eyes closed a figure very shocking to Newman, 
 
 383 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 who had known it hitherto awake to its finger-tips. 
 M. de Grosjoyaux's colleague pointed to an open 
 door beyond and whispered that the doctor was within, 
 where he kept guard. So long as Valentin slept, 01 
 seemed to sleep, of course he was not to be 
 approached; so our hero withdrew for the present, 
 committing himself to the care of the half-waked 
 bonne. She took him to a room above-stairs and in- 
 troduced him to a bed on which a magnified bolster, 
 in yellow calico, figured as a counterpane. He lay 
 down and, in spite of his counterpane and most other 
 things, slept for three or four hours. When he awoke 
 the morning was advanced and the sun filling his 
 window, outside of which he heard the clucking of 
 hens. 
 
 While he was dressing there came to his door 
 a message from M. de Grosjoyaux and his com- 
 panion, who amiably proposed he should breakfast 
 with them. Presently he went downstairs to the little 
 stone-paved dining-room, where the maid-servant, 
 who had taken off her nightcap, was serving the 
 repast. M. de Grosjoyaux was there, surprisingly 
 fresh for a gentleman who had been playing sick- 
 nurse half the night; he now rubbed his hands very 
 constantly and very hard and watched the breakfast- 
 table attentively. Newman renewed acquaintance 
 with him and learned that Valentin was still in a doze; 
 the doctor, who had had a fairly tranquil night, was 
 at present sitting with him. Before M. de Grosjoy- 
 aux's associate reappeared Newman learned that 
 his name was M. Ledoux and that Bellegarde's 
 acquaintance with him dated from the days when 
 
 384 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 they served together in the Pontifical Zouaves. M, 
 Ledoux was the nephew of a distinguished Ultra- 
 montane bishop. At last he came in with an effect 
 of dress in which an ingenious attempt at adjustment 
 at once to a confirmed style and to the peculiar situ- 
 ation was visible, and with a gravity tempered by 
 a decent deference to the best breakfast the Croix 
 Helvetique had ever set forth. Valentin's servant, 
 who was allowed but with restrictions the honour of 
 attending his master, had been lending a light Pa- 
 risian hand in the kitchen. The two Frenchmen did 
 their best to prove that if circumstances might over- 
 shadow they could n't really obscure the national 
 gift for good talk, and M. Ledoux delivered a neat 
 little eulogy on poor Bellegarde, whom he pro- 
 nounced the most charming Englishman he had ever 
 known. 
 
 "Do you call him an Englishman?" Newman 
 asked. 
 
 M. Ledoux smiled a moment and then just fell 
 short of an epigram: "C'est plus quun Anglais, h 
 cher homme c est un Anglomane /" Newman re- 
 turned, sturdily and handsomely, that any country 
 might have been proud to claim him, and M. de 
 Grosjoyaux remarked that it was really too soon to 
 deliver a funeral oration on poor Bellegarde. "Evi- 
 dently," said M. Ledoux. "But I couldn't help 
 observing this morning to Mr. Newman that when 
 a man has taken such excellent measures for his sal- 
 vation as our dear friend did last evening, it seems 
 almost a pity he should put it in peril again by corr> 
 ing back to the world." M. Ledoux was a great 
 
 385 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Catholic, and Newman thought him a queer mixture. 
 His countenance, by daylight, had an amiably satur- 
 nine cast; he had a large lean nose and looked like an 
 old Spanish picture. He appeared to think the use of 
 pistols at thirty paces a very perfect arrangement, pro- 
 vided, should one get hit, one might promptly see the 
 priest. He took, clearly, a great satisfaction in Valen- 
 tin's interview with that functionary, and yet his gen- 
 eral tone was far from indicating a sanctimonious 
 habit of mind. M. Ledoux had evidently a high 
 sense of propriety and was furnished, in respect to 
 everything, with an explanation and a grave grin that 
 combined together to push his moustache up under 
 his nose. Savoir-vivre knowing how to live was 
 his strong point, in which he included knowing how 
 to die; but, as Newman reflected with a good deal of 
 dumb irritation, he seemed disposed to delegate to 
 others the application of his mastery of this latter 
 resource. M. de Grosjoyaux was quite of another 
 complexion and could but have regarded his friend's 
 theological unction as the sign of an inaccessibly 
 superior spirit. His surprise was so bright that it 
 made him look amused; as if, under the impression 
 of M. Kapp's mere mass, he could n't recover from 
 the oddity of these hazards, that of the translation of 
 so much large looseness into a thing so fine as a 
 direction even, as it were, a dreadfully wrong one. 
 He could have understood the coup if it had been his 
 own indeed, and he kept looking through the window, 
 over the shoulder of M. Ledoux, at a slender tree by 
 the end of a lane opposite the inn, as if measuring its 
 distance from his extended arm and secretly wishing 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 that, since the association of ideas was so close, he 
 might indulge in a little speculative practice. 
 
 Newman found his company depressing, almost 
 irritating. He himself could neither eat nor talk; his 
 soul was sore with grief and anger and the weight of 
 his double sorrow intolerable. He sat with his eyes 
 on his plate, counting the minutes, wishing at one- 
 moment that Valentin would see him and leave him 
 free to go in quest of Madame de Cintre and his lost 
 happiness, and mentally calling himself a vile brute 
 the next, for the egotism of his impatience. He at 
 least was poor enough company, and even his acute 
 preoccupation and his general lack of the habit, de- 
 termined by all his need, of pondering the impression 
 he produced, did n't prevent his guessing the others 
 to be puzzled at poor Bellegarde's taking such a fancy 
 to a dull barbarian as to desire him at his deathbed. 
 After breakfast he strolled forth alone into the village 
 and looked at the fountain, the geese, the open barn- 
 doors, the brown, bent old women who showed their 
 hugely-darned stocking-heels at the end of their 
 slowly-clicking sabots, as well as at the beautiful view 
 of snowy Alp and purple Jura hanging across either 
 end of the rude street. The day was brilliant; early 
 spring was in the air and the sunshine, and the 
 winter's damp trickled out of the cottage eaves. It 
 was birth and brightness for all nature, even for 
 chirping chickens and other feathered waddling par- 
 ticles, and it was to be death and burial for poor fool- 
 ish, generous, precious Valentin. Newman walked as 
 far as the village church and went into the small 
 graveyard beside it, where he sat down and looked at 
 
 387 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the awkward tablets planted about. They were all 
 sordid and hideous, and he could feel only the hard- 
 ness and coldness of death. He got up and came 
 back to the inn, where he found M. Ledoux having 
 coffee and a cigarette at a little green table which he 
 had caused to be carried into the small garden. 
 Newman, learning that the doctor was still sitting 
 with Valentin, asked if he might n't be allowed to 
 relieve him; he had a great desire to be useful to their 
 patient. This was, through M. Ledoux, easily ar- 
 ranged; the doctor was very glad to go to bed. He 
 was a youthful and rather jaunty practitioner, but he 
 had a clever face and the ribbon of the Legion of 
 Honour in his buttonhole; Newman listened atten- 
 tively to his instructions and took mechanically from 
 his hand an old book that had lain on the window- 
 seat of the inn, recommended by him as a help to 
 wakefulness and which proved an odd volume of 
 "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." 
 
 Valentin still lay with his eyes closed and without 
 visible change of condition. Newman sat down near 
 him and for a long time narrowly watched him. Then 
 he let his vision stray with his consciousness of his 
 own situation range away and rest on the chain of 
 the Alps disclosed by the drawing of the scant white 
 cotton curtain of the window, through which the sun- 
 shine passed and lay in squares on the red-tiled floor. 
 He tried to interweave his gloom with strains of hope, 
 but only half succeeded. What had happened to him 
 was violent and insolent, like all great strokes of evil, 
 unnatural and monstrous, it showed the hard hand 
 of the Fate that rejoices in the groans and the blood 
 
 388 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of men, in the tears and the terrors of women, and 
 he had no arms against it. At last a sound struck on 
 the stillness and he heard Valentin's voice. 
 
 "It can't be about me you're pulling that long 
 face!" He found when he turned that his patient lay 
 in the same position, but with eyes now open and 
 showing the glimmer of a smile. It was with a very 
 slender strength that he felt the pressure of his hand 
 answered. "I 've been watching you for a quarter of 
 ?n hour," Valentin went on; "you've been looking 
 as if you too had had to swallow some vile drug. 
 You 're greatly disgusted with me, I see. Well, of 
 course! So am l!" 
 
 'Oh, I shan't abuse you," said Newman. "I feel 
 too badly. And how are you getting on ?" 
 
 "Oh, I 'm getting off ! They 've quite settled that. 
 Are n't you here to see me off?" 
 
 "That 's for you to settle; you can get well if you 
 try," Newman declared with a queer strained quaver. 
 
 " My dear fellow, how can I try ? Trying 's violent 
 exercise, and that sort of thing is n't in order for 
 a man with a hole in his side as big as your hat, 
 which begins to bleed if he moves a hair's breadth. 
 I knew you 'd come," he continued; "I knew I should 
 wake up and find you here; so I 'm not surprised^ 
 But last night I Was very impatient. I did n't see 
 how I could keep still without you. It was a matter 
 of keeping still, just like this; as still as a mummy 
 in his case. You talk about trying; I tried that! Well, 
 here I am yet these twenty hours. It 's more like 
 twenty days." Valentin's speech was slowly taken, 
 with strange precautions and punctuations, but it 
 
 389 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 had, however faint, the flicker of his gaiety, and 
 he seemed almost to say what he wanted. It was 
 visible, however, that he was in extreme pain, and 
 at last he again closed his eyes. Newman begged 
 him to make no effort just, as he called it, to take 
 his ease; the doctor had left urgent orders against 
 worry. "Oh," returned Valentin, "let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow to-morrow !" And he 
 paused again. "No, not to-morrow, perhaps, but 
 to-day. I can't eat and drink, but I can talk. What 's 
 to be gained, at this pass, by renun renunciation ? 
 I must n't use such big words. I was always a chat- 
 terer; Lord, how I 've bavarde in my day!" 
 
 "That's a reason for keeping quiet now," said 
 Newman. "We know how beautifully you talk it's 
 all right about that." 
 
 But Valentin, without heeding him, went on with 
 the same effect of trouble and of pluck. "I wanted 
 to see you because you 've seen my sister. Does she 
 know will she come?" 
 
 Newman felt himself the poorest of deceivers. 
 "Yes, by this time she must know." 
 
 "Did n't you tell her ?" Valentin asked. And then, 
 in a moment: "Didn't you bring me any message 
 from her?" His eyes now covered his friend like 
 lifted lamps. 
 
 " I did n't see her after I got your telegram. I wrote 
 to her." 
 
 "And she sent you no answer ?" 
 
 Newman managed to reply that Madame de Cintre 
 had left Paris. "She went yesterday to Fleurieres." 
 
 "Yesterday to Fleurieres? Why did she go to 
 
 39 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Fleurieres ? What day is this ? What day was yester- 
 day ? Ah then, I shan't see her," Valentin moaned. 
 "Fleurieres is too far!" And he became dark and 
 dumb again, only breathing a little harder. Newman 
 sat silent, invoking duplicity, but was relieved at 
 being able soon to believe him really too weak to be 
 curious. He did, however, at last break out again. 
 "And my mother and my brother will they 
 come ? Are they at Fleurieres ?" 
 
 "They were in Paris, but I did n't see them either," 
 Newman answered. "If they received your telegram 
 in time they '11 have started this morning. Otherwise 
 they '11 be obliged to wait for the night express and 
 change, and will arrive at the same hour I did." 
 
 "They won't thank me they won't thank me," 
 Valentin murmured. "They '11 pass an atrocious 
 night, and Urbain does n't like the early morning air. 
 I don't remember ever in my life to have seen him 
 before noon before breakfast. No one ever saw 
 him. We don't know how he is then. Perhaps he 's 
 different. Who knows ? Posterity perhaps will know. 
 That 's the time he works in his cabinet, at the history 
 of the Princesses. But I had to send for them 
 had n't I ? And then I want to see my mother sit 
 there where you sit and say good-bye to her hear 
 her above all say hers to me. Perhaps, after all, 
 I don't know i.er she may have some surprise for 
 me. Don't think you know her yet, yourself; perhaps 
 she may surprise you. But if I can't see Claire I don't 
 care what do you call it ? a red cent. Have you 
 then green sous or blue ones or any other colour > 
 Ah vous, mon cher, vous en avez, vous, dt toutes Us 
 
 391 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 couleurs ! But what's the matter while I've been 
 dreaming of her ? Why did she go to Fleurieres 
 to-day ? She never told me. What has happened ? 
 Ah, she ought to have guessed I 'm here in this 
 bad way. It 's the first time in her life she ever dis- 
 appointed me. Poor, poor Claire!" 
 
 "You know we 're not man and wife quite yet 
 your sister and I," said Newman. "She does n't yet 
 account to me for all her actions." He tried to throw 
 off this statement with grace, but felt how little the 
 muscles of his face served him. 
 
 Valentin looked at him harder. "Have you two 
 unimaginably quarrelled ?" 
 
 "Never, never, never!" Newman exclaimed. 
 
 "How happily you say that!" said Valentin. 
 "You 're going to be happy la-la!" In answer to 
 this stroke of irony, none the less powerful for being 
 so unconscious, all poor Newman could do was to 
 give a helpless and ridiculous grin, for the conscious 
 failure of which he then more ridiculously blushed. 
 Valentin, still playing over him the fitful light of 
 fever, presently said : " But something is the matter 
 with you. I watched you just now; you have n't a 
 bridegroom's face." 
 
 "My dear fellow," Newman desperately pleaded, 
 "how can I show you a bridegroom's face? If you 
 think I enjoy seeing you lie here and not being able 
 to help you !" 
 
 "Why, you 're just the man to be jolly and what 
 do you call it ? to crow; don't forfeit your right to 
 it! I 'm a proof of your wisdom. When was a man 
 ever down when he could say 'I told you so!' You 
 
 392 ' 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 told me so, you know. You did what you could about 
 it. You said some very good things; I 've thought 
 them carefully over. But, my dear friend, I was 
 light, all the same. This is the regular way." 
 
 "I didn't do what I ought," said Newman. "I 
 ought to have done something better " 
 
 "For instance ?" 
 
 "Oh, something or other. I ought to have treated 
 you as a vicious small boy and have locked you up." 
 
 "Well, I 'm a very small boy now," Valentin softly 
 sighed, "and God knows I Ve been vicious enough! 
 I 'm even rather less than an infant. An infant 's 
 helpless, but it 's generally voted promising. I 'm not 
 promising, eh ? Society can't lose a less valuable 
 member." Newman was strongly moved. He got up 
 and turned his back on his friend and walked away to 
 the window, where he stood looking out but only 
 vaguely seeing. "No, I don't like the look of your 
 back," Valentin continued. "I 've always been an 
 observer of backs; yours is quite out of sorts." 
 
 Newman returned to his bedside and begged him 
 to be quiet. "Only rest and get well, give yourself 
 the very best chance. That 's what you want and 
 what you must do. Get well and help me." 
 
 "I told you you were in trouble! But how can 
 I 'help' you?" Valentin wailed. 
 
 "I '11 let you know when you 're better. You were 
 always awfully enquiring; there 's something to get 
 well /or/" Newman answered with resolute anima- 
 tion. 
 
 Valentin relapsed once more and lay a long time 
 without speaking. He seemed even to have fallen 
 
 393 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 asleep. But at the end of half an hour he was again 
 conversing. " I 'm rather sorry about that place in 
 the bank. Who knows but I might have become 
 another Rothschild ? But I was n't meant for a 
 banker; bankers are not so easy to kill. Don't you 
 think I 've been very easy to kill ? It 's not like 
 a serious man. It 's really very mortifying. It 's like 
 telling your hostess you must go, when you count 
 upon her begging you to stay, and then finding she 
 does no such thing. ' Really so soon ? You 've 
 only just come!' This beastly underbred life of ours 
 does n't make me any such polite little speech." 
 
 Newman for some time said nothing, but at last he 
 broke out. "It's a bad case it's a bad case 
 it 's the worst case I ever met. I don't want to say 
 anything unpleasant, but I can't help it. I 've seen 
 men dying before and I 've seen men shot. I Ve 
 seen men in the worst kind of holes worse even 
 than yours. But it always seemed more natural; they 
 were of no account compared to you and at any 
 rate 7 did n't care. But now damnation, damna- 
 tion! You might have done something more to the 
 purpose. It 's about the meanest wind-up of a man's 
 legitimate business I can imagine!" 
 
 Valentin feebly waved his hand to and fro. " Don't 
 insist don't insist! It 's taking a mean advantage. 
 For you see at the bottom down at the bottom 
 in a little place as small as the end of a wine-funnel 
 I agree with you ! " A few moments after this the 
 doctor put his head through the half-opened door 
 and, perceiving his charge was awake, came in to 
 tee! his pulse. He shook his head and declared he 
 
 394 * 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 had talked too much ten times too much. "Noi> 
 sense!" his patient protested; "a man sentenced to 
 death is allowed to get in first all he can. He can't 
 talk after, and if he was ever a talker ! Have you 
 never read an account of an execution in a news- 
 paper?" he went on. "Don't they always set a lot 
 of people at the prisoner lawyers, reporters, priests 
 to make him talk ? But it J s not Newman's fault; 
 he sits there as mum as a death's-head." 
 
 The doctor observed that it was time the wound 
 should be dressed again; MM. de Grosjoyaux and 
 Ledoux, who had already witnessed this delicate 
 operation, taking Newman's place as assistants. 
 Newman withdrew, learning from his fellow-watchers 
 in the other room that they had received a telegram 
 from the Marquis to the effect that their message had 
 been delivered in the Rue de 1'Universite too late to 
 allow him to take the morning train, but that he 
 would start with his mother in the evening. Our 
 friend wandered away into the village again and 
 walked about restlessly for two or three hours. The 
 day had, in its regulated gloom, the length of some 
 Interminable classic tragedy. At dusk he came Lack 
 and dined with the doctor and M. Ledoux. The 
 dressing of Valentin's wound had been a very critical 
 business; the question was definitely whether he 
 could bear a repetition of it. He then declared that 
 he must beg of Mr. Newman to deny himself for the 
 present the satisfaction of sitting with M. de Belle- 
 garde; more than any one else, apparently, he had the 
 flattering but fatal gift of interesting him more than 
 he could bear. M. Ledoux, at this, swallowed a glass of 
 
 395 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 wine in silence; he must have been wondering what the 
 deuce Bellegarde found so exciting in the American. 
 
 Newman, after dinner, went up to his room, where, 
 flinging himself too on his bed at his grim length, he 
 lay staring, for blank weariness, at the lighted candle 
 and thinking that Valentin was dying downstairs. 
 Late, when the candle had burnt low, came a soft tap 
 at his door. The doctor stood there with another 
 light and a motion of despair. 
 
 " He must faire la fete tou jours! He insists on see- 
 ing you, and I 'm afraid you must come. I think that 
 at this rate he '11 hardly outlast the night." 
 
 Newman went back to Valentin's room, which he 
 found lighted by a taper on the hearth, but with its 
 occupant begging for something brighter. " I want to 
 see your face. They say you work me up," he went 
 on as Newman complied with this request, "and 
 I confess I Ve felt worked up; but it is n't you it 's 
 my own great intelligence, that sacred spark, of which 
 you Ve such an opinion. Sit down there and let me 
 look at you again." Newman seated himself, folded 
 his arms and bent a heavy gaze on his friend. He 
 felt as if he were now playing a part, mechanically, 
 in the most lugubrious of comedies. Valentin faced 
 him thus for some time. "Yes, this morning I was 
 right; you Ve something on your mind heavier than 
 ever I Ve had. Come, I 'm a dying man, and it 's 
 indecent to deceive me. Something happened after 
 I left Paris. It was n't for nothing that my sister 
 started off at this season of the year for Fleurieres. 
 Why was it ? It sticks in my crop. I Ve been think- 
 ing it over, and if you don't tell me I shall guess." 
 
 396 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I had better not tell you," Newman mildly rea- 
 soned. "It won't do you any good." 
 
 " If you think it will do me any good not to tell me 
 you 're very much mistaken. There 's trouble about 
 your marriage." 
 
 "Yes. There 's trouble about my marriage." 
 
 "Good!" With which Valentin again waited a little. 
 "They've stopped it off." 
 
 "They've stopped it off," Newman admitted. 
 Now that he had spoken out he found in it a relief 
 that deepened as he went on. "Your mother and 
 brother have broken faith. They Ve decided that it 
 can't take place. They Ve decided I 'm not good 
 enough when they come to think of it. They Ve 
 taken back their word. Since you want to know, 
 there it is!" Valentin uttered a strange sound, thrice 
 lifting his hands and letting them drop. "I'm sorry 
 not to have anything better to tell you of them," New- 
 man pursued. " But it 's not my fault. I was indeed 
 bewildered enough when your telegram reached me; 
 I was quite upside down. You may imagine whether 
 I feel any better now." 
 
 Valentin gasped and moaned as if his wound were 
 throbbing. "Broken faith, broken faith! And my 
 sister my sister ? " 
 
 "Your sister's very unhappy; she has consented 
 to give me up. I don't know why I don't know 
 what they Ve done to her; it must be something 
 pretty bad. In justice to her you ought to know. 
 They Ve made her suffer what it is they must have 
 put her through ! I have n't seen her alone, but only 
 before them. We had an interview yesterday morn- 
 
 397 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ing. They let me have it full in the face. They told 
 me to go about my business. It seems to me a very 
 bad case. I'm sorry to have such a report to make of 
 them. I'm angry, I'm sore, I'm sick." 
 
 Valentin lay there staring, his eyes more brilliantly 
 lighted, his lips soundlessly parted, a flush of colour 
 in his pale face. Newman had never before uttered 
 so many words in the plaintive key, but now, in 
 speaking to his friend in that friend's extremity, he 
 had a sense of making his lament somewhere within 
 the presence of the power that men pray to in trouble; 
 he felt his outgush of resentment as a spiritual act, 
 an appeal to higher protection. "And Claire," the 
 young man breathed; "Claire? She has given you 
 up?" 
 
 "I don't really believe it." 
 
 "No, don't believe it, don't believe it. She's 
 gaining time. Believe that." 
 
 "I immensely pity her!" said Newman. 
 
 "Poor, poor Claire!" Valentin sighed. "But they 
 but they ?" And he paused again. "You saw 
 them; they dismissed you, face to face?" 
 
 "Face to face rather!" 
 
 "What did they say?" 
 
 "They said they could n't stand a commercial 
 person." 
 
 Valentin put out his hand and laid it on New- 
 man's arm. "And about their promise their en- 
 gagement with you?" 
 
 "They made a distinction. They said it was to 
 hold good only until Madame de Cintre accepted 
 
 me." 
 
 398 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "But since she did!" 
 
 "Well, since she did after she did they found,, 
 as I understand, that they could n't." 
 
 Valentin lay staring his flush died away. " Don't 
 tell me any more. I'm ashamed." 
 
 "You? You're the soul of honour," said New- 
 man very simply. 
 
 Valentin groaned and averted his head. For some 
 time nothing more was said. Then he turned back 
 again and found a certain force to press Newman's 
 arm. "It's very bad very bad. When my people 
 when my 'race' come to that, it is time for me 
 to pass away. I believe in my sister; she '11 explain. 
 Pardon her, allow for her, be patient with her; wait 
 for that. If she can't if she can't make her con- 
 duct clear: well, forgive her somehow; at any rate 
 don't curse her. She'll pay she has paid; with 
 her one chance of happiness. But for the others it's 
 very bad very bad. You take it very hard ? No, 
 it's a shame to make you say so." He closed his eyes 
 and again there was a silence. Newman felt almost 
 awed; he had stirred his companion to depths down 
 into which he now shrank from looking. Presently 
 Valentin fixed him again, releasing his arm. "I 
 apologise. Do you understand ? Here on my death- 
 bed. I apologise for my family. For my mother. 
 For my brother. For the name I was proud of. 
 Voila!" he added softly. 
 
 Newman for all answer took his hand and kept 
 it in his own. He remained quiet, and at the end of 
 half an hour the doctor noiselessly returned. Behind 
 him, through the half-open door, Nrwman saw the 
 
 399 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 cwo questioning faces of MM. de Grosjoyaux and 
 Ledoux. The doctor laid a hand on the patient's 
 wrist and sat looking at him. He gave no sign, and 
 the two gentlemen came in, M. Ledoux having first 
 beckoned to some one outside. This was M. le cure> 
 who carried in his hand an object unknown to New- 
 man and covered with a white napkin. M. le cure 
 was short, round and red: he advanced, pulling off 
 his little black cap to Newman, and deposited his 
 burden on the table; and then he sat down in the 
 best armchair, folding his hands across his person. 
 The other gentlemen had exchanged glances which 
 expressed unanimity as to the timeliness of their 
 presence. But for a long time Valentin neither spoke 
 nor moved. It was Newman's belief afterwards 
 that M. le cure had gone to sleep. At last, abruptly, 
 their friend pronounced Newman's name. This 
 visitor went to him and he said in French: "You 're 
 not alone. I want to speak to you alone." Newman 
 looked at the doctor and the doctor looked at the 
 cure, who looked back at him; and then the 
 doctor and the cure together gave a shrug. "Alone 
 for five minutes," Valentin repeated. "Please 
 leave us." The cure took up his burden again 
 and led the way out, followed by his companions. 
 Newman closed the door behind them and came 
 back to Valentin, who had watched all this in- 
 tently. 
 
 "It's very bad, it's very bad," he said after New- 
 man had seated himself close. "The more I think 
 of it the worse it is." 
 
 "Oh, don't think of it!" Newman groaned. 
 4.00 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 But his friend went on without heeding him. 
 " Even if they should come round again the shame 
 the baseness is there." 
 
 "Oh, they won't come round!" said Newman 
 
 "Well, you can make them." 
 
 "Make them?" 
 
 "I can tell you something a great secret an 
 immense secret. You can use it against them 
 frighten them, coerce them." 
 
 "A secret!" Newman repeated. The idea of let- 
 ting Valentin, on his deathbed, confide to him any 
 matter sacredly intimate, shocked him, for the mo- 
 ment, and made him draw back. It seemed an 
 illicit way of arriving at information and even had 
 a vague analogy with listening at a keyhole. Then 
 suddenly the thought of reducing Madame de Belle- 
 garde and her son to the forms of submission became 
 attractive, and, as to lose in any case no last breath 
 of the spirit for which he had felt such a kindness, 
 he brought his head nearer. For some time, however, 
 nothing more came. Valentin but covered him with 
 kindled, expanded, troubled eyes, and he began to 
 believe he had spoken in delirium. But at last he 
 spoke again. 
 
 "There was something done something done 
 at Fleurieres. It was some wrong, some violence, 
 I believe some cruelty. It may have been God 
 forgive me now some crime. My father some- 
 thing happened to him: I don't know what; I 've 
 been ashamed, afraid, to know. But a bad business 
 a worse even than yours there was that. My 
 mother knows Urbain knows." 
 
 401 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Something happened to your father?" Newman 
 permitted himself to ask. 
 
 Valentin looked at him still more wide-eyed. "He 
 did n't get well. They did n't let him/' 
 
 " ' Let ' him ? " Newman stared back. " Get well 
 of what?" 
 
 But the immense effort he had made, first to 
 decide to utter these words and then to bring them 
 out, appeared to have taken his last strength. He 
 lapsed again into silence and Newman sat watching 
 him. "Do you understand?" he began again pre- 
 sently. "At Fleurieres. You can find out. Mrs. 
 Bread knows. Tell her I made this point at this 
 hour of your asking her. She '11 give you the 
 truth itself and then you '11 show them you know 
 it. It may do something for you. It may make the 
 difference. If it does n't, tell every one. It will it 
 will" here Valentin's voice sank to the feeblest 
 murmur "it will pay them." 
 
 "Pay them ?" Newman wondered. 
 
 "What you owe them!" 
 
 The words died away in a long vague wail. New- 
 man stood up, deeply impressed, not knowing what 
 to say; his heart was beating as never. "Thank you," 
 he said at last. "I'm much obliged." But Valentin 
 seemed not to hear him; he remained silent and his 
 silence continued. At last Newman went and opened 
 the door. M. le cure re-entered, bearing his sacred 
 vessel and followed by a young ministrant at his altai 
 in a white stole, by the three gentlemen and by Val- 
 entin's servant. It was quite processional. 
 
XX 
 
 VALENTIN DE BELLEGARDE died tranquilly, just as 
 the cold faint March dawn began to clear the grave 
 faces of the little knot of friends gathered about his 
 bedside. An hour later Newman left the inn and 
 drove to Geneva; he was naturally unwilling to be 
 present at the arrival of Madame de Bellegarde and 
 her first-born. At Geneva, for the moment, he re- 
 mained. He was like a man who has had a fall and 
 wants to sit still and count his bruises. He instantly 
 wrote to Madame de Cintre, detailing to her the 
 circumstances of her brother's death with certain 
 exceptions and asking her what was the earliest 
 moment at which he might hope she would consent 
 to see him. M. Ledoux had told him he had reason 
 to know that Valentin's will he had had a great 
 deal of light but pleasant personal property to dis- 
 pose of contained a request that he should be 
 buried near his father in the churchyard of Fleur- 
 ieres, and Newman intended that the state of his 
 own relations with the family should not deprive him 
 of the satisfaction of helping to pay the last earthly 
 honours to the best fellow in the world. He reflected 
 that Valentin's friendship was older than Urbain's 
 enmity, and that at a funeral it was easy to escape 
 notice. Madame de Cintre's answer to his letter 
 enabled him to time his arrival at Fleurieres. This 
 answer was very brief; it ran as follows' 
 
 403 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I thank you for your letter and for /our being 
 with Valentin. It is the most inexpressible sorrow to 
 me that I was not. To see you will be only anguish; 
 there's no need therefore to wait for what you call 
 brighter days. It is all one now, and I shall have 
 no brighter days. Come when you please; only notify 
 me first. My brother is to be buried here on Friday, 
 and my family is to remain. C. DE C." 
 
 On receipt of this Newman had gone straight to 
 Paris and to Poitiers. The journey had taken him far 
 southward, through green Touraine and across the 
 far-shining Loire, into a country where the early 
 spring deepened divinely about him, but he had 
 never made one during which he had heeded less the 
 lay of the land. He alighted at an hotel in respect to 
 which he scarce knew whether the wealth of its pro- 
 vincial note more graced or compromised it, and the 
 next morning drove in a couple of hours to the village 
 of Fleurieres. But here, for all his melancholy, he 
 could n't resist the intensity of an impression. The 
 petit bourg lay at the base of a huge mound, on the 
 summit of which stood the crumbling ruins of a feudal 
 castle, much of whose sturdy material, as well as that 
 of the wall that dropped along the hill to enclose the 
 clustered houses defensively, had been absorbed into 
 the very substance of the village. The church war 
 simply the former chapel of the castle, fronting upoft 
 its grass-grown court, which, however, was of gener- 
 ous enough width to have given up its quaintest 
 corner to a small place of interment. Here the very 
 headstones themselves seemed to sleep as they slanted 
 into the grass; the patient elbow of the rampart held 
 
 404 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 them together on one side, and in front, far beneath 
 their mossy lids, the green plains and blue distances 
 stretched away. The approach to the church, up the 
 hill, defied all wheels. It was lined with peasants two 
 or three rows deep, who stood watching old Madame 
 de Bellegarde slowly ascend on the arm of her elder 
 son and behind the pall-bearers of the other. New- 
 man chose to lurk among the common mourners who 
 murmured "Madame la Comtesse" as a particular 
 tall slimness almost bowed beneath its ensigns of woe 
 passed before them. He stood in the dusky little 
 church while the service was going forward, but at 
 the dismal tombside he turned away and walked 
 down the hill. He went back to Poitiers and spent 
 two days in which patience and revolt were con- 
 founded in a single ache. On the third day he sent 
 Madame de Cintre a note to the effect that he would 
 call on her in the afternoon, and in accordance with 
 this he again took his way to Fleurieres. He left his 
 vehicle at the tavern in the village street and obeyed 
 the simple instructions given him for finding the 
 chateau. 
 
 "It's just beyond there," said the landlord, and 
 pointed to the tree-tops of the pare above the oppo- 
 site houses. Newman followed the first cross-road to 
 the right it was bordered with mouldy cottages 
 and in a few moments saw before him the peaked 
 ro^fs of the towers. Advancing further he found him- 
 self before a vast iron gate, rusty and closed; here he 
 paused a moment, looking through the bars. The 
 residence was near the road, as if the very highway 
 belonged to it; this gave it a fine old masterly air 
 
 405 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Newman learned afterwards, from a guide-book of 
 the province, that it dated from the reign of Henry 
 til. It presented to the wide-paved area which pre- 
 ceded it, and which was edged with shabby farm- 
 buildings, an immense facade of dark time-stained 
 brick, flanked by two low wings, each of which ter- 
 minated in a little Dutch-looking pavilion capped 
 with a fantastic roof. Two towers rose behind, and 
 behind the towers was a grand group of elms and 
 beeches, now just faintly green. The great feature, 
 however, was a wide green river, which washed the 
 foundations of the pile. The whole mass rose from 
 an island in the circling stream, so that this formed 
 a perfect moat, spanned by a two-arched bridge with- 
 out a parapet. The dull brick walls, which here and 
 there made a grand straight sweep, the ugly little 
 cupolas of the wings, the deep-set windows, the long 
 steep pinnacles of mossy slate, all mirrored them- 
 selves in the quiet water. 
 
 Newman rang at the gate, and was almost fright- 
 ened at the tone with which a big rusty bell above his 
 head replied to him. An old woman came out from 
 the gatehouse and opened the creaking portal just 
 wide enough for him to pass, on which he went in and 
 across the dry bare court and the little cracked white 
 siabs of the causeway on the moat. At the door of the 
 house he waited for some moments, and this gave him 
 a chance to observe that Fleurieres was not "kept 
 up" and to reflect that it was a melancholy place 
 of residence. "It looks," he said to himself and 
 1 give the comparison for what it is worth "like 
 a Chinese penitentiary." At last the door was opened 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 by a servant whom he remembered to have seen in 
 the Rue de 1'Universite. The man's dull face bright- 
 ened as he perceived our hero, the case always being 
 that Newman, for indefinable reasons, enjoyed the 
 confidence of the livened gentry. The footman led 
 the way across a great main vestibule, with a pyramid 
 of plants at its centre and glass doors all around, to 
 what appeared to be the principal saloon. The 
 visitor crossed the threshold of a room of superb 
 proportions, which made him feel at first like a tour- 
 ist with a guide-book and a cicerone awaiting a fee. 
 But when his guide had left him alone after observ- 
 ing that he would call Madame la Comtesse, he saw 
 the place contained little that was remarkable beyond 
 a dusky ceiling with curiously carved beams, a set of 
 curtains of elaborate antiquated tapestry and a dark 
 oaken floor polished like a mirror. He waited some 
 minutes, walking up and down; then at last, as he 
 turned at the end of the room, saw Madame de 
 Cintre had come in by a distant door. She wore 
 a black dress she stood looking at him. As the 
 length of the immense room lay between them he had 
 time to take her well in before they met in the middle 
 of it. 
 
 He was dismayed at the change in her appearance. 
 Pale, heavy-browed, almost haggard, with a monastic 
 rigidity in her dress, she had little but her pure fea- 
 tures in common with the woman whose radiant good 
 grace he had hitherto admired. She let her eyes rest 
 on his own and surrendered to him her hand; but 
 the eyes were like two rainy autumn moons and the 
 touch portentously lifeless. "I was at your brother's 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 funeral," he said. "Then I waited three days. But 
 I could wait no longer." 
 
 "Nothing can be lost or gained by waiting," she 
 answered. "But it was very considerate of you to 
 wait, horribly wronged as you've been." 
 
 " I 'm glad you think I 've been horribly wronged," 
 said Newman with that vague effect of whimsicality 
 with which he often uttered words of the gravest 
 meaning. 
 
 "Do I need to say so ?" she asked. "I don't think 
 I've wronged, seriously, many persons; certainly not 
 consciously. To you, to whom I have done this hard 
 and cruel thing, the only reparation I can make is to 
 say that I know it, that I feel it. But such words are 
 pitifully poor." 
 
 "Oh, they're a great step forward!" said Newman 
 with a fixed and ah as he even himself felt 
 such an anxious smile of encouragement. He pushed 
 a chair toward her and held it, looking at her urgently. 
 She sat down mechanically and he seated himself 
 near her; but in a moment he got up and stood rest- 
 lessly before her. She remained there like a troubled 
 creature who had passed through the stage of rest- 
 lessness. 
 
 "I say nothing's to be gained by my seeing you," 
 she went on, " and yet I'm very glad you came. Now 
 I can tell you what I feel. It's a selfish pleasure, but 
 it's one of the last I shall have." And she paused 
 with her great misty eyes on him. "I know how I've 
 deceived and injured you; I know how cruel and 
 cowardly I 've been. I see it as vividly as you do 
 I feel it to the ends of my fingers." And she un- 
 
 408 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 clasped her hands, which were locked together in her 
 lap, lifted them and dropped them at her side. "Any- 
 thing that you may have said of me in your angriest 
 passion is nothing to what I have said to myself." 
 
 "In my angriest passion," said Newman, "I Ve 
 said nothing hard of you. The very worst thing I Ve 
 said of you yet is that you 're the most perfect of 
 women." And he seated himself before her again 
 abruptly. 
 
 She flushed a little, but even her flush was dim. 
 "That 's because you think I '11 come back. But 
 I shall not come back. It 's in that hope you have 
 come here, I know; I 'm very sorry for you. I 'd do 
 almost anything for you. To say that, after what 
 I have done, seems simply impudent; but what can 
 I say that will not seem impudent ? To wrong you 
 and apologise that 's easy enough. I should not, 
 heaven forgive me, have wronged you." She stopped 
 a moment, always with her tragic eyes on him, but 
 motioned him to let her talk. "I ought never to have 
 listened to you at first; that was the wrong. No good 
 could come of it. I felt it, and yet I listened; that was 
 your fault. I liked you too much; I believed in you." 
 
 "And don't you believe in me now ?" 
 
 " More than ever. But now it does n't matter. 
 I Ve given you up." 
 
 Newman gave a great thump with his clenched fist 
 upon his knee. "Why, why, why ?" he cried. "Give 
 me a reason a decent reason. You 're not a child 
 you 're not a minor nor an idiot. You 're not 
 obliged to drop me because your mother told you to. 
 Such a reason is n't worthy of you." 
 
 409 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I know that; it 's not worthy of me. But it 's the 
 only one I have to give. After all," said Madame de 
 Cintre, throwing out vain hands, "think me an idiot 
 and forget me! That will be the simplest way." 
 
 He got up and walked away with a crushing sense 
 that his cause was lost and yet with an equal inability 
 to give up fighting. He went to one of the great win- 
 dows and looked out at the stiffly-embanked river and 
 the formal gardens beyond it. When he turned round 
 she had risen; she stood there silent and passive, 
 so passive that it told terribly of her detachment. 
 "You 're not frank," he began again; "you 're not 
 really honest any more than you 're merciful. In- 
 stead of saying you 're imbecile you should say that 
 other people are wicked. Your mother and your 
 brother have been false and cruel; they have been so 
 to me, and I 'm sure they have been so to you. Why 
 do you try to shield them ? Why do you sacrifice me 
 to them ? I 'm not false; I 'm not cruel. You don't 
 know what you give up; I can tell you that you 
 dont. They bully you and plot about you; and I 
 I " And he paused, lifting the strong arms to 
 which she would n't come. She but turned away and 
 began to leave him. "You told me the other day that 
 you were afraid of your mother," he followed her to 
 say. "It must have meant something. What there- 
 fore did it mean ?" 
 
 She shook her head. "I remember. I was sorry 
 afterwards." 
 
 "You were sorry when she came down on you and 
 used some atrocious advantage. In God's name, what 
 is it she does to you ?" 
 
 410 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Nothing. Nothing that you can understand 
 And now that I 've given you up I must n't complain 
 of her to you." 
 
 "That's no reasoning!" cried Newman. "Com 
 plain of her, on the contrary, for all you 're worth 
 To whom on God's earth but to me ? Tell me all 
 about it, frankly and trustfully, as you ought, and 
 we '11 talk it over so satisfactorily that you '11 keep 
 your plighted faith." 
 
 Madame de Cintre looked down some moments 
 fixedly; at last she raised her eyes. "One good at 
 least has come of this: I 've made you judge me more 
 fairly. You thought of me in a way that did me great 
 honour; I don't know why you had taken it into 
 your head. But it left me no loophole for escape 
 no chance to be the common weak creature I am. It 
 was not my fault; I warned you from the first. But 
 I ought to have warned you more. I ought to have 
 convinced you that I was doomed to disappoint you. 
 But I was, in a way, too proud. You see what my 
 superiority amounts to, I hope!" she went on, rais- 
 ing her voice with a tremor that even then and there 
 he found all so inconsequently sweet. "I 'm too 
 proud to be honest, I 'm not too proud to be faithless. 
 I'm timid and cold and selfish. I'm afraid of being 
 uncomfortable." 
 
 "And you call marrying me uncomfortable?" he 
 stared. 
 
 She flushed as with the sense of being only shut up 
 in her pain, and seemed to say that if begging his 
 pardon in words had that effect of an easy condition 
 for her she might at least thus mutely express her per- 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 feet comprehension of his finding her conduct odious. 
 "It 's not marrying you; it 's doing all that would go 
 with it. It 's the rupture, the defiance, the insisting 
 upon being happy in my own way. What right have 
 I to be happy when when ?" Again she broke 
 down. 
 
 'When what ?" he pressed. 
 
 "When others have so suffered." 
 
 "What others?" he demanded. "What have you 
 to do with any others but me ? Besides, you said just 
 now that you wanted happiness and that you should 
 find it by obeying your mother. You strangely con- 
 tradict yourself." 
 
 "Yes, I strangely contradict myself; that shows 
 you strangely enough too that I 'm not even 
 intelligent." 
 
 "You're laughing at me!" he cried. "It's as if 
 you were horribly mocking!" 
 
 She looked at him intently, and an observer might 
 have believed her to be asking herself if she should n't 
 most quickly end their common pain by confessing to 
 some such monstrosity. Yet "No; I 'm not," was 
 what she presently said. 
 
 " Granting that you 're not intelligent/' he went 
 on, "that you're weak, that you're common, that 
 you 're nothing I 've believed you to be what I ask 
 of you is not an heroic effort, it 's a very easy and 
 possible effort. There 's a great deal on my side to 
 make it so. The simple truth is that you don't care 
 enough for me to make it,' 
 
 "I'm cold," said Madame de Cintre. "I'm as cold 
 as that flowing river." 
 
 4-12 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Newman gave a great rap on the floor with his 
 stick and a long grirn laugh. "Ah, not you! You go 
 altogether too far you overshoot the mark. There 
 is n't a woman in the world as bad as you would make 
 yourself out. I see your game; it 's what I said. 
 You 're blackening yourself to whiten others. You 
 don't want to give me up at all; you like me you 
 like me, God help you! I know you do; you've 
 shown it, and I 've felt it arid adored you for it! 
 After that you may be as cold as you please ! They Ve 
 bullied you, I say; they 've tortured you. It's an out- 
 rage, and I insist on saving you from the extrava- 
 gance of your generosity. Would you chop off your 
 hand if your mother required it?" 
 
 She gave at this the long sigh of a creature too hard 
 pressed. " I spoke of my mother too blindly the other 
 day. I'm my own mistress, by law and by her 
 approval. She can do nothing to me; she has done 
 nothing. She has never alluded to those hard words 
 I used about her." 
 
 "She has made you feel them, I'll promise you!" 
 said Newman. 
 
 "It's my conscience that makes me feel them." 
 
 "Your conscience then seems to me rather extra- 
 ordinarily mixed!" he passionately returned. 
 
 "It has been in great trouble, but now it's very 
 clear. I don't give you up for any worldly advantage 
 or for any worldly happiness." 
 
 "Oh, you don't give me up for Lord Deepmere, 
 I know," he agreed. "I won't pretend, even to pro- 
 voke you, that I think that. But that's what youi 
 mother and your brother wanted, and yonr mother 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 at that villainous ball of hers I liked it at the time, 
 but the very thought of it now is a bath of fire! 
 tried to push him on to make up to you." 
 
 44 Who told you this ?" she asked with her strange, 
 stricken mildness. 
 
 "Not Valentin. I observed it. I guessed it. I 
 did n't know at the time that I was observing it, but 
 it stuck in my memory. And afterwards, you recol- 
 lect, I saw Lord Deepmere with you in the conserva- 
 tory. You said then that you would tell me at 
 another time what he had said to you." 
 
 "That was before before this," she immediately 
 pleaded. 
 
 "It does n't matter," said Newman; "and, besides, 
 I think I know. He's an honest little Englishman. 
 He came and told you what your mother was up 
 to that she wanted him to supplant me; not being 
 a commercial person. If he would make you an 
 offer she would undertake to bring you over and give 
 me the slip getting rid of me easily, or at least 
 decently, somehow. Lord Deepmere is n't remark- 
 ably bright, so she had to spell it out to him. He 
 said he admired you 'no end/ and that he wanted 
 you to know it; but he did n't like being mixed up 
 with that sort of treachery, and he came to you 
 and told tales. That was about the size of it, 
 was n't it ? And then you said you were perfectly 
 happy." 
 
 "I don't see why we should talk of Lord Deep- 
 mere," she returned. "It was n't for that you came 
 here; and about my mother it does n't matter what 
 you suspect and what you know. When once mv 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 mind has been made up, as it is now, I should n't 
 discuss these things. Discussing anything now is very 
 vain and only a fresh torment. We must try and live 
 each as we can. I believe you'll be happy again; 
 even, sometimes, when you think of me. When you 
 do so, think this that it was not easy and thct 
 I did the best I could. I've things to reckon with 
 that you don't know. I mean I've feelings. I must 
 do as they force me I must, I must. They'd haunt 
 me otherwise," she cried, with vehemence; "they'd 
 give me no rest and would kill me!" 
 
 "I know what your feelings are: they're pervers- 
 ities and superstitions! They're the feeling that after 
 all, though I am a good fellow, I've been in business; 
 the feeling that your mother's looks are law and your 
 brother's words are gospel; that you all hang together 
 and that it's a part of the everlasting great order, 
 your order, that they should have a hand in every- 
 thing you do. It makes my blood boil. That is cold; 
 you're right. And what I feel here," and Newman 
 struck his heart and became more eloquent than he 
 knew, "is a glowing fire!" 
 
 A spectator less preoccupied than Madame de 
 Cintre's distracted wooer would have felt sure from 
 the first that her appealing calm of manner was the 
 result of violent effort, in spite of which the tide of 
 agitation was rapidly rising. On these last words of 
 Newman's it overflowed, though at first she spoke 
 low. for fear her voice might betray her. "No, I was 
 not right I 'm not cold ! I believe that if I 'm doing 
 what seems so bad it's not mere weakness and falsity. 
 My dear friend, my best of friends, it's like a religion. 
 
 415 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 I can't tell you I can't! It's cruel of you to insist. 
 I don't see why I should n't ask you to believe me 
 and pity me. It's like a religion. There's a curse 
 upon the house; I don't know what I don't know 
 why don't ask me. We must all bear it. I 've been 
 too selfish; I wanted to escape from it. You offered 
 me a great chance besides my liking you. I liked 
 you more than I ever liked any one," she insisted to 
 him with a beauty and purity of clearness, and yet 
 with the sad fallacy of thinking, apparently, that she 
 made the case less tragic for him by making it more 
 tragic for herself. "It seemed good to change com- 
 pletely, to break, to go away. And then I admired 
 you, I admired you," she so nobly and decently re- 
 peated. "But I can't it has overtaken and come 
 back to me." Her self-control had now completely 
 abandoned her, and her words were broken with long 
 sobs. "Why do such dreadful things happen to us 
 why is my brother Valentin killed, like a beast, in the 
 beauty of his youth and his gaiety and his brightness 
 and all that we loved him for ? Why are there things 
 I can't ask about that I'm afraid, for my life, to 
 know ? Why are there places I can't look at, sounds 
 I can't hear ? Why is it given to me to choose, to 
 decide, in a case so hard and so terrible as this ? I 'm 
 not meant for that I'm not made for boldness and 
 defiance. I was made to be happy in a quiet natural 
 way." At this Newman gave a most expressive groan, 
 but she quavered heartbreakingly on: " I was made to 
 do gladly and gratefully what's expected of me. My 
 mother has always been very good to me; that's all 
 I can say. I must n't judge her; I must n't criticise 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 her. If I did it would come dreadfully back to me. 
 I can't change!" 
 
 "No," said Newman bitterly; "/ must change 
 if I break in two in the effort!" 
 
 "You're different. You're a man; you'll get over 
 it. You'll live, you'll do things, you can't not do 
 good, therefore you can't not be happy: you'll find all 
 kinds of consolation. You were born you were 
 trained to changes. Besides, besides, I shall al- 
 ways think of you." 
 
 "I don't care for that!" he almost shouted. 
 "You're cruel you're terribly cruel, God forgive 
 you! You may have the best reasons and the finest 
 feelings in the world; that makes no difference. 
 You're a mystery to me; I don't see how such hard- 
 ness can go with anything so divine!" 
 
 Madame de Cintre fixed him a moment with her 
 swimming eyes. "You believe I'm hard then?" 
 
 He glared as if at her drowning beyond help; then 
 he broke out: "You're a perfect, faultless, priceless 
 creature! For God's sake, stay by me!" 
 
 "Of course I'm hard in effect," she pitifully rea- 
 soned; "though if ever a creature was innocent, in 
 intention ! Whenever we give pain we're hard. 
 And we must give pain; that's the world the hate- 
 ful miserable world! Ah!" and she gave a sigh as 
 sharp as the shudder of an ague, "I can't even say 
 I'm glad to have known you though I am. That 
 too is to wrong you. I can say nothing that's not 
 cruel. Therefore let us part without more of this. 
 Good-bye!" And she put out her hand. 
 
 Newman stood and looked at it without taking it, 
 417 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 and then raised his eyes to her face. He felt in them 
 the rising tears of rage. "What do you mean to do ? 
 Where are you going?" 
 
 "Where I shall give no more pain and suspect no 
 more evil. I 'm going out of the world." 
 
 "Out of the world?" 
 
 "I'm going into a convent." 
 
 " Into a convent ! " He repeated the words with the 
 deepest dismay; it was as if she had said she was go- 
 ing into an hospital for incurables. "Into a convent 
 you!" 
 
 " I told you that it was not for my worldly ad- 
 vantage or pleasure I was leaving you." 
 
 But still he hardly understood. "You're going to 
 be a nun," he went on; "in a cell for life with 
 a gown and a black veil ?" 
 
 "A nun a blest Carmelite nun," said Madame 
 de Cintre. "For life, with God's leave and mercy." 
 
 The image rose there, at her words, too dark and 
 horrible for belief, and affected him as if she had told 
 him she was going to mutilate her beautiful face or 
 drink some potion that would make her mad. He 
 clasped his hands and began to tremble visibly. 
 "Madame de Cintre, don't, don't, I beseech you! 
 On my knees, if you like, I'll beseech you." 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm with a tender, pity- 
 ing, almost reassuring gesture. "You don't under- 
 stand, you've wrong ideas. It's nothing horrible. 
 It's only peace and safety. It's to be out of the 
 world, where such troubles as this come to the inno- 
 cent, to the best. And for life that's the blessing 
 of it! They can't begin again." 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 He dropped into a chair and sat looking at her with 
 a long inarticulate wail. That this superb woman, in 
 whom he had seen all human grace, the rarest per- 
 sonal resource, should turn from him and all the 
 brightness he offered her him and his future and 
 his fortune and his fidelity to muffle herself in 
 ascetic rags and entomb herself in a cell, was a con- 
 founding combination of the merciless and the impos- 
 sible. As the vision spread before him the impossi- 
 bility turned to the monstrous; it was a reduction to 
 the absurd of the trial to which he was subjected. 
 "You you a nun; you with your beauty defaced 
 and your nature wasted you behind locks and 
 bars! Never, never, if I can prevent it!" And he 
 sprang to his feet in loud derision. 
 
 "You can't prevent it," she returned, "and it ought 
 a little to satisfy you. Do you suppose I'll go 
 on living in the world, still beside you, and yet not 
 with you ? It's all arranged. Good-bye, good-bye." 
 
 This time he took her hand, took it in both his 
 own. " For ever ? " he said. Her lips made an inaud- 
 ible movement and his own sounded a deep impreca- 
 tion. She closed her eyes as if with the pain of hearing 
 it; then he drew her toward him and clasped her 
 to his breast. He kissed her white face again and 
 again, as to leave less of it for his loss; for an instant 
 she resisted and for a minute she submitted; then, 
 with a force that threw him back panting, she dis- 
 engaged herself and hurried away over the long shin- 
 ing floor. The next moment the door closed behind 
 her, and after another he had made his way out as he 
 could. * ^ ! 
 
XXI 
 
 THERE is a pretty public walk at Poitiers, taid out 
 upon the crest of the high hill around which the little 
 city clusters, planted with thick trees and looking 
 down on the fertile fields in which the old English 
 princes fought for their right and held it. Newman 
 paced up and down this retreat for the greater part of 
 the next day, letting his eyes wander over the historic 
 prospect; but he would have been sadly at a loss to 
 tell you afterwards if the latter was made up of coal- 
 fields or of vineyards. He was wholly possessed by 
 his pang, of which reflection by no means diminished 
 the ache. He feared the creature he had thus learned 
 to adore was irretrievably lost; and yet in what case 
 of straight violation of his right of property had he 
 ever merely sat down and groaned ? In what case 
 had he not made some attempt at recovery ? Wholly 
 unused to giving up in difficulties, he found it im- 
 possible to turn his back upon Fleurieres and its 
 inhabitants; it seemed to him some germ of hope or 
 reparation must lurk there somewhere if he could only 
 stretch his arm out far enough to pluck it. It was as 
 if he had his hand on a door-knob and were closing his 
 clenched fist on it: he had thumped, he had called, he 
 had pressed the door with his powerful knee and 
 shaken it with all his strength, and dead, damning 
 silence had answered him. And yet something held 
 him fhere something hardened the grasp of his 
 
 4.20 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 fingers. His satisfaction had been too intense, his 
 whole plan too deliberate and mature, his prospect of 
 happiness too rich and comprehensive, for this fine 
 moral fabric to crumble at a stroke. The very 
 foundation seemed fatally injured and yet he felt 
 ?. stubborn desire still to try to save the edifice. He 
 was filled with a sorer sense of wrong than he had 
 ever known, or than he had supposed it possible he 
 should know. To accept his injury and walk away 
 without looking behind him was a stretch of accom- 
 modation of which he found himself incapable. He 
 looked behind him intently and continually, and what 
 he saw there did n't assuage his resentment. He saw 
 himself trustful, generous, liberal, patient, easy, pock- 
 eting frequent irritation and furnishing unlimited 
 modesty. To have eaten humble pie, to have been 
 snubbed and patronised and satirised, and have 
 consented to take it as one of the conditions of the 
 bargain to have done this, and done it all for 
 nothing, surely gave one a right to protest. 
 
 And to be turned off because one was a commercial 
 person! As if he had ever talked or dreamt of the 
 commercial since his connexion with the Bellegardes 
 began as if he had made the least circumstance of 
 the commercial as if he would n't have consented 
 to confound the commercial fifty times a day if it 
 might have increased by a hair's breadth the chance 
 of his not suffering this so much more than commer- 
 cial treachery! Granted one's being commercial was 
 fair ground for one's being cleverly "sold," how little 
 they knew about the class so designated and its enter- 
 prising way of not standing on trifles! It was in the 
 
 421 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 light of his injury that the weight of his past endur- 
 ance seemed so heavy; his current irritation had not 
 been so great, merged as it was in his vision of the 
 cloudless blue that overarched his more intimate rela- 
 tion. But now his sense of outrage was deep, rancor- 
 ous and ever-present; he felt himself as swindled as 
 he had been confiding. As for his friend's spiritual 
 position, it moved him but to dismal mystification; it 
 struck him with a kind of awe, and the fact that he 
 was powerless to understand it or feel the reality of its 
 motives only made it a deadlier oppression. He had 
 never let the fact of her religious faith trouble him; 
 Catholicism was only a name to him, and to express 
 a mistrust of her forms of worship would have implied 
 that he had other and finer ones to offer: which was 
 as. little possible as might be. If such flawless white 
 flowers as that could bloom in Catholic soil they but 
 attested its richness. But it was one thing to be 
 a Catholic and another to turn nun on your hands! 
 There was something lugubriously comical in the way 
 Newman's thoroughly contemporaneous optimism 
 was confronted with this dusky old-world expedient. 
 To see a woman made for him and for motherhood to 
 his children juggled away in this tragic travesty it 
 was a thing to rub one's eyes over, a nightmare, an 
 extravagance, a hoax. But the hours passed without 
 disproving anything, passed leaving him only the 
 aftertaste of the vehemence with which he had held 
 her to his heart. He remembered her words and her 
 looks he lived through again the sense of her short 
 submission; he turned them over and tried to make 
 them square with the saving of something from nil 
 
 422 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 wreck. How had she meant that the force driving 
 her was, as a thing apart from the conventual ques 
 tion, a "religion" ? It was the religion simply of the 
 family laws, the religion of which her implacable 
 mother was priestess. Twist the thing about as her 
 generosity would, the one certain fact was that they 
 had been able to determine her act. Her generosity 
 had tried to screen them, but Newman's heart rose 
 into his throat at the thought that they should go 
 scot-free. 
 
 The twenty-four hours spent themselves, and the 
 next morning he sprang to his feet with the resolution 
 to return to Fleurieres and demand another interview 
 with Madame de Bellegarde and her son. He lost no 
 time in putting it into practice. As he rolled swiftly 
 over the excellent road in the little caleche furnished 
 him at the inn at Poitiers, he drew forth, as it were, 
 from the very safe place in his mind to which he had 
 consigned it, the last information given him by poor 
 Valentin. Valentin had told him he could do some- 
 thing with it, and Newman thought it would be well 
 to have it at hand. This was of course not the first 
 time, lately, that he had given it his attention. It was 
 information in the rough it was formless and ob- 
 scure; but he was neither helpless nor afraid. Valen- 
 tin had clearly meant to put him in possession of 
 a weapon he could use, though he could n't be said 
 to have placed the handle very securely in his grasp. 
 But if he had told him nothing definite he had at 
 least given him a clue a clue of which the de- 
 cidedly remarkable Mrs. Bread held the other end. 
 Mrs. Bread had always looked to Newman as if she 
 
 423 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 held clues; and as he apparently enjoyed her esteem 
 he suspected she might be induced to share with him 
 her knowledge. So long as there was only Mrs. 
 Bread to deal with he felt easy. As to what there was 
 to find out, he had only one fear that it might not 
 be bad enough. Then, when the image of the Mar- 
 quise and her son rose before him again, standing 
 side by side, the old woman's hand in Urbain's arm 
 and the same cold guarded glare in the eyes of each, 
 he cried out to himself that the fear was groundless. 
 There was crime in the air at the very least! He 
 arrived at Fleurieres almost in a state of elation; he 
 had satisfied himself, logically, that in the presence 
 of his threat of penetration they would, as he men- 
 tally phrased it, rattle down like loosened buckets. 
 He remembered indeed that he must first catch his 
 hare first ascertain what there was to penetrate; 
 but after that why should n't his happiness be as 
 good as new ? Mother and son, dropping in terror 
 the tender victim they had mauled, would take to 
 hiding, and Madame de Cintre, left to herself, would 
 surely come back to him. Give her a chance and she 
 would rise to the surface and return to the light. 
 How could she fail to perceive that his house would 
 have all the security of a convent and none of the 
 dampness ? 
 
 Newman, as he had done before, left his convey- 
 ance at the inn and walked the short remaining dis- 
 tance to the chateau. When he reached the gate, 
 however, a singular feeling took possession of him 
 a feeling which, strange as it may seem, had its 
 source in his unfathomable good-nature. He stood 
 
 424 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 there a while, looking through the bars at the large 
 time-stained face beyond and wondering to what 
 special misdeed it was that the dark old dwelling 
 with the flowery name had given convenient occa- 
 sion. It had given occasion, first and last, to tyran- 
 nies and Bufferings enough, Newman said to himself; 
 it was an evil-looking place to live in. Then sud- 
 denly came the reflexion: what a horrible rubbish- 
 heap of iniquity to fumble through! The attitude of 
 inquisitor turned its ignoble face, and with the 
 same movement he declared that the Bellegardts 
 should have another chance. He would appeal once 
 more directly to their sense of fairness and not 
 to their fear; and if they should be accessible 
 to reason he need know nothing worse about 
 them than what he already knew. That was bad 
 enough. 
 
 The gate-keeper let him in through the same 
 "mean" crevice of aperture for so he qualified it 
 as before, and he passed through the court and 
 over the rustic bridge of the moat. The door was 
 opened before he had reached it, and, as if to put his 
 clemency to rout with the suggestion of a richer 
 opportunity, Mrs. Bread stood there awaiting him. 
 Her face, as usual, looked hopelessly blank, like the 
 tide-smoothed sea-sand, and her black garments hung 
 as heavy as if soaked in salt tears. Newman had 
 already learned how interesting she could make the 
 expression of nothing at all, and he scarce knew 
 whether she now struck him as almost dumb or as 
 almost effusive. "I thought you would try again, 
 sir. I w*s looking out for you." 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I'm glad to see you," he answered; "I think 
 you're my friend." 
 
 Mrs. Bread looked at him opaquely. "I wish you 
 well, sir; but it's vain wishing now." 
 
 "You know then how they've treated me ?" 
 
 "Oh, sir," she dryly returned, "I know every- 
 thing." 
 
 He frankly enough wondered. "Everything ?" 
 
 Her eyes just visibly lighted. "I know at least too 
 much." 
 
 "One can never know too much. I congratulate 
 you on every scrap of it. I 've come to see Madame 
 de Bellegarde and her son," Newman added. "Are 
 they at home ? If they're not I'll wait." 
 
 "My lady's always at home," Mrs. Bread replied, 
 "and the Marquis is mostly with her." 
 
 " Please then tell them one or the other, or 
 both that I 'm here and that I should like to see 
 them." 
 
 Mrs. Bread hesitated. "May I take a great liberty, 
 sir?" 
 
 "You've never taken a liberty but you've justified 
 it," said Newman with diplomatic urbanity. 
 
 She dropped her wrinkled eyelids as if she were 
 curtseying; but the curtsey stopped there: the occa- 
 sion was too grave. "You've come to plead with 
 them again, sir ? Perhaps you don't know this 
 that the poor Countess returned this morning to 
 Paris." 
 
 "Ah, she's gone!" And Newman, groaning, smote 
 the pavement with his stick 
 
 " She 's gone straight to the convent the Carmel- 
 
 426 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ites, you know, is the miserable name. I see you do 
 know, sir. My lady and the Marquis take it very ill. 
 It was only last night she told them." 
 
 "Ah, she had kept it back then ?" he cried. "Well, 
 that's all right. And they're highly worked up ?" 
 
 "They're certainly not pleased. But they may well 
 dislike it. They tell me it's most dreadful, sir; of all 
 the nuns in Christendom the Carmelites are the worst. 
 They're so unnatural that you may say they're really 
 not human; they make you give up everything in 
 the world you have for ever and for ever. And to 
 think of her in that destitution! If I was one who sat 
 down and cried, sir, I could give way at this moment." 
 
 Newman looked at her an instant. "We must n't 
 cry, Mrs. Bread, and still less must we sit down. 
 We must stand right up and act. Please let them 
 know/' And he took a forward step. 
 
 But she gently checked him. "May I take another 
 liberty? I'm told you were with poor Count Valen- 
 tin, heaven forgive him, in his last hours, and I should 
 biess you, sir, if you could tell me a word about him. 
 He was my own dear boy, sir; for the first year of his 
 life he was hardly out of my arms; I taught him the 
 first words he spoke and he spoke so beautifully, 
 did n't lie, sir r He always spoke well to his poor old 
 Bread. When he grew up and took his pleasure he 
 always had a kind word for me. And to die in that 
 wild wrong way! They've a story that he fought with 
 a wine-merchant. I can't believe that of him, sir! 
 And was he in great pain?" 
 
 "You're a wise, kind old woman, Mrs. Bread," 
 said Newman. "I hoped I might see you with my 
 
 427 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 own children in your arms. Perhaps I shall yet" 
 And he put out his hand. She looked for a moment 
 at his open palm, and then, as if fascinated by the 
 novelty of the gesture, extended her own ladylike 
 member. Newman held it firmly and deliberately, 
 fixing his eyes on her. " You want to know all about 
 the Count?" 
 
 "It would be a terrible pleasure, sir." 
 
 "I can tell you everything. Can you sometimes 
 leave this place ?" 
 
 "The chateau, sir? I really don't know. I've 
 never tried." 
 
 "Try then; try hard. Try this evening at dusk. 
 Come to me in the old ruin there on the hill, in the 
 court before the church. I'll wait for you on that 
 spot; I've something very important to tell you. 
 A grand old woman like you can do as she pleases." 
 
 She wondered with parted lips. "Is it from the 
 dear Count, sir ?" 
 
 " From the dear Count from his damnable 
 deathbed." 
 
 "I'll come, then. I'll be bold, for once, for 
 him." 
 
 She led Newman into the great drawing-room with 
 which he had already made acquaintance, and retired 
 to carry his message. He waited a long time; at last 
 he was on the point of ringing and repeating his re- 
 quest. He was looking round him for a bell when the 
 Marquis came in with his mother on his arm. It will 
 be seen he had a logical mind when I say that he 
 declared to himself, in perfect good faith, as a result 
 of Valentin's supreme communication, that his ad- 
 
 428 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 versaries looked grossly wicked and capable of the 
 blackest evi!. "There's no mistake about it now," 
 he reflected as they advanced. "They're a bad, bad 
 lot; they've pulled off the varnished mask." Madame 
 de Bellegarde and her son certainly bore in their faces 
 the signs of extreme perturbation; they were plainly 
 people who had passed a sleepless night. Confronted, 
 moreover, with an annoyance which they hoped they 
 had disposed of, it was not natural they should meet 
 their visitor with conciliatory looks. He stood before 
 them, and of the coldest glare they could command 
 he had the full benefit. He felt as if the door of 
 a sepulchre had suddenly been opened and the damp 
 darkness were exhaled. 
 
 "You see I've come back," he said, however, with 
 a tentative freshness. "I've come to try again." 
 
 "It would be ridiculous," the Marquis returned, 
 "to pretend that we're glad to see you or that we 
 don't question the taste of your visit." :. . v 
 
 "Oh, don't talk about taste!" and Newman per- 
 mitted himself perhaps the harshest laugh into which 
 he had ever broken; "that would bring us round to 
 yours i If I consulted my taste I certainly would n't 
 come to see you. Besides, I'll make as short work 
 as you please. Give me a guarantee that you '11 raise 
 the blockade that you'll set Madame de Cintre at 
 liberty and I '11 retire on the spot." 
 
 "We hesitated as to whether we would see you," 
 said Madame de Bellegarde; "and we were on the 
 point of declining the honour. But it seemed to me 
 we should act with civility, as we've always done, 
 and I wished to have the satisfaction of informing you 
 
 429 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 that there are certain weaknesses people of oui way of 
 feeling can be guilty of but once." 
 
 "You may be weak but once, but you'll be auda- 
 cious many times, madam," Newman rang out. "1 
 did n't come, however, for conversational purposes. 
 I came to say this simply: that if you'll write imme- 
 diately to your daughter that you withdraw your 
 opposition to our marriage I'll take care of the rest. 
 You don't want to make of her a cloistered nun 
 you know more about the horrors of it than I do. 
 Marrying a commercial person is better than being 
 buried alive. Give me a letter to her, signed and 
 sealed, saying you give way and that she may take 
 me with your blessing, and I'll take it to her at her 
 place of retreat and bring that retreat to an instant 
 end. There's your chance and I call them easy 
 
 terms." 
 
 "We look at the matter otherwise, you know. We 
 call any terms that you can propose impossible," 
 Urbain declared. They had all remained standing 
 stiffly in the middle of the room. " I think my mother 
 will tell you that she'd rather her daughter should 
 become Soeur Catherine than Mrs. Christopher New- 
 
 man." 
 
 But the old lady, with the serenity of supreme 
 power, let her son make her epigrams for her. She 
 only smiled, almost sweetly, shaking her head and 
 repeating: "But once, Mr. Newman; but once!" 
 
 Nothing he had ever seen or heard gave him such 
 a sense of polished marble hardness as this move- 
 ment and the tone that accompanied it. "Is there 
 anything that would weigh with you?" he asked, 
 
 43 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Is there anything that would, as we say, squeeze 
 you ?" he continued. 
 
 "This language, sir," said the Marquis, "ad- 
 dressed to people in bereavement and grief, is beyond 
 all qualification." 
 
 "In most cases," Newman answered, "your objec- 
 tion would have some force, even admitting that 
 Madame de Cintre's present intentions make time 
 precious. But I've thought of what you speak of, 
 and I've come here to-day without superfluous 
 scruples simply because I regard your brother and 
 you as very different parties. I see no connexion 
 between you. Your brother was mortally ashamed 
 of you both. Lying there wounded and dying, lying 
 there confounded and disgusted, he formally apolo- 
 gised to me for your conduct. He apologised to me 
 for that of his mother." 
 
 For a moment the effect of these words was as if 
 he had struck a physical blow. A quick flush leaped 
 into the charged faces before him it was like a jolt 
 of full glasses, making them spill their wine. Urbain 
 uttered two words which Newman but half heard, 
 but of which the aftersense came to him in the rever- 
 beration of the sound. " Le miserable!" 
 
 "You ^how little respect for the afflicted living," 
 said Madame de Bellegarde, " but you might at least 
 respect the helpless dead. Don't profane don't 
 touch with your unholy hands the memory of my 
 
 innocent son." 
 
 "I speak the simple sacred truth," Newman now 
 imperturbably proceeded, "and, speaking it for a 
 purpose, I desire you shall have no genuine doubt of 
 
 431 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 it. You made Valentin's last hour an hour of anguish, 
 and my friend's generous spirit repudiates your 
 abominable act." 
 
 Urbain de Bellegarde had, from whatever emotion, 
 turned so pale that it might have been at the evoked 
 spectre of his brother; but not for an appreciable 
 instant did his mother lower her crest. "You have 
 beau jetty as we say, before the silence of the grave, 
 for every calumny and every insult. But I don't 
 know," she admirably wound up, "that it in the least 
 
 matters." 
 
 "Ah, I don't know that poor Valentin's apology 
 particularly does either," Newman reflectively con- 
 ceded. "I pitied him certainly more for having to 
 utter it than I felicitate myself even now for your 
 having to hear it." 
 
 The Marquise wrapt herself for a minute in a high 
 aloofness so entire, so of her whole being, as he could 
 feel, that she fairly appeared rather to contract than 
 to expand with the intensity and dignity of it; and out 
 of the heart of this withdrawn extravagance her final 
 estimate of their case sounded clear. "To have 
 broken with you, sir, almost consoles me; and you 
 can judge how much that says! Urbain, open the 
 door." She turned away with an imperious motion 
 to her son and passed rapidly down the length of the 
 room. The Marquis went with her and held the 
 door open. Newman was left standing. 
 
 He lifted a finger as a sign to M. de Bellegarde, who 
 closed the door behind his mother and stood waiting. 
 Newman slowly advanced, more silent, for the mo- 
 ment, than life. The two men stood face to face. 
 
 432 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Then our friend had a singular sensation; he felt 
 his sense of wrong almost brim over into gaiety. 
 "Come," he said, "you don't treat me well. At least 
 admit that." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde looked at him from head to foot 
 and then spoke in the most delicate, best-bred voice. 
 "I execrate you personally." 
 
 "That's the way I feel to you, but for politeness' 
 s^ke I don't say it. It's singular I should want so 
 much to be your brother-in-law, but I can't give it 
 up. Let me try once more." And Newman paused 
 a moment. "You've something on your mind and 
 on your conscience, your mother and you some- 
 thing in your life that you've kept as much as pos- 
 sible in the dark because it would n't look well in 
 the light of day. You've a skeleton, as they say, in 
 your closet." M. de Bellegarde continued to look at 
 him hard, but it was a question if his eyes betrayed 
 anything; the expression of his eyes was always so 
 strange. Newman paused again and then went on. 
 "You've done, between you, somehow and at some 
 time, something still more base wonderful as that 
 may seem than what you've done to me." At this 
 M. de Bellegarde's eyes certainly did change; they 
 flickered like blown candles. Newman could feel 
 him turn cold; but his form was still quite perfect. 
 
 "Continue," he encouragingly said. 
 
 Newman lifted a finger and made it waver a little 
 in the air. "Need I continue? You know what 
 I mean." 
 
 "Pray, where did you obtain this interesting in- 
 formation?" M. de Bellegarde inordinately fluted. 
 
 433 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "I shall be strictly accurate/' said Newman. "I 
 won't pretend to know more than I do. At present 
 that's all I know. You've done something regularly 
 nefarious, something that would ruin you if it were 
 known, something that would disgrace the name 
 you're so proud of. I don't know what it is, but I've 
 reason to believe I can find out though of course 
 I had much rather not. Persist in your present 
 course, however, and I will find out. Depart from 
 that course, let your sister go in peace, and then 
 fancy how I'll leave you alone. It's a bargain ?" 
 
 Urbain's face looked to him now like a mirror, 
 very smooth fine glass, breathed upon and blurred; 
 but what he would have liked still better to see was 
 a spreading, disfiguring crack. There was something 
 of that, to be sure, in the grimace with which the 
 Marquis brought out: "My brother regaled you with 
 this infamy?" 
 
 Newman scantly hesitated. "Yes it was a treat!" 
 
 The grimace, if anything, deepened. "He raved 
 at the last then so horribly ?" 
 
 "He raved if I find nothing out. If I find what 
 you know I may find he was beautifully inspired." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde's shoulders declined even a shrug. 
 "Eh, sir, find what you 'damn please'!" 
 
 "What I say has no weight with you ?" Newman 
 was thus reduced to asking. 
 
 "That's for you to judge." 
 
 "No, it's for you to judge at your leisure. 
 Think it over; feel yourself all round; I'll give you 
 jtn hour or two. I can't give you more, for how do 
 we know how tight they may n't be locking youi 
 
 434 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 sister up? Talk it o\ei with your mother; let hei 
 judge what weight she attaches. She's constitution- 
 ally less accessible to pressure than you, I think; but 
 en-fin^ as you say, you'll see. I'll go and wait in the 
 village, at the inn, where I beg you to let me know 
 as soon as possible. Say by three o'clock. A simple 
 Yes or No on paper will do. That will refer to your 
 attaching or not attaching what we call weight; or 
 better still, to your consenting or refusing to take 
 your hands off Madame de Cintre. Only you under- 
 stand that if you do engage again I shall expect you 
 this time to stick to your bargain." And with this 
 Newman opened the door to let himself out. The 
 Marquis made no motion, and his guest paused but 
 for a last emphasis. "I can give you, let me add, no 
 more than the time." Then Newman turned away 
 altogether and passed out of the house. 
 
 He felt greatly uplifted by what he had been 
 doing, as it was inevitable some emotion should pro- 
 ceed for him from the evocation of the spectre 
 of dishonour for a family a thousand years old. 
 But he went back to the inn and contrived to wait 
 there, deliberately, for the next two hours. He 
 thought it more than probable Urbain would give 
 no sign; since an answer to his challenge, in either 
 case, would be a recognition of his reference. What 
 he most expected was silence in other words defi- 
 ance. He prayed, however, that, as he imaged it, 
 his shot might bring them down. It did bring, by 
 three o'clock, a note, delivered by a footman; a note 
 addressed in Urbain's handsome English hand. 
 
 "I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of letting 
 435 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 you know that I return to Paris to-morrow, with my 
 mother, in order that we may see my sister and con- 
 firm her in the resolution which is the most effectual 
 reply to a delirium extravagant even as a result of 
 your injury. HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE." 
 
 Newman put the letter into his pocket and con- 
 tinued his walk up and down the inn parlour. He 
 had spent most of his time, for the past week, in 
 walking up and down. He continued to measure the 
 length of the little salle of the Armes de France until 
 the day began to wane, when he went forth to keep 
 his rendezvous with Mrs. Bread. The path leading 
 up the hill to the ruin was easy to find, and he in 
 a short time had followed it to the top. He passed 
 beneath the rugged arch of the castle wall and looked 
 about him in the early dusk for an old woman in 
 black. The castle yard was empty, but the door of 
 the church was open. He went into the little nave 
 and of course found a deeper dusk than without. 
 A couple of tapers, however, twinkled on the altar 
 and just helped him to distinguish a figure seated by 
 one of the pillars. Closer inspection led him to re- 
 cognise Mrs. Bread, in spite of the fact that she was 
 dressed with unwonted splendour. She wore a large 
 black silk bonnet with imposing bows of crape, while 
 an old black satin gown disposed itself in vaguely lus- 
 trous folds about her person. She had invoked for 
 the occasion the highest dignity of dress. She had 
 been sitting with her eyes fixed upon the ground, but 
 when he passed before her she looked up at him and 
 then rose. 
 
 "Are you of this awful faith, Mrs. Bread ?" 
 
 +36 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "No, indeed, sir; I'm a good Church of England 
 woman very Low. But I thought I should be safer 
 in here than outside. I was never out in the even- 
 ing before, sir," she added. 
 
 "We shall be safer," he returned, "where no one 
 can hear us." And he led the way back into the 
 castle court and then followed a path beside the 
 church, which he was sure must lead into another 
 part of the ruin. He was not deceived. It wandered 
 along the crest of the hill and terminated before 
 a fragment of wall pierced by a rough aperture which 
 had once been a door. Through this aperture New- 
 man passed, to find himself in a nook peculiarly 
 favourable to quiet conversation, as probably many 
 an earnest couple, otherwise assorted than our friends, 
 had assured themselves. The hill sloped abruptly 
 away, and on the remnant of its crest were scattered 
 ' two or three fragments of stone. Beneath, over the 
 plain, lay the gathered twilight, through which, in 
 the near distance, gleamed two or three lights from 
 the Fleurieres. Mrs. Bread rustled slowly after her 
 guide, and Newman, satisfying himself that one of 
 the fallen stones was steady, proposed to her to sit 
 on it. She cautiously complied, and he placed him- 
 self neat her on another. 
 
XXII 
 
 "I'M very much obliged to you for coming," he 
 began with observing. "I hope it won't get you into 
 trouble." 
 
 "I don't think I shall be missed. My lady, in 
 these days, is not fond of having me about her." 
 This was said with a dry lucidity which added to 
 his sense of having inspired his friend with con- 
 fidence. 
 
 " From the first, you know," he rejoined, "you took 
 an interest in my prospects. You were on my side. 
 That gratified me, I assure you. And now that you 
 know what they've done to me I'm sure you are with 
 me all the more." 
 
 "They've not done well I must say it. But you 
 must n't blame the poor Countess; they pressed her 
 cruelly hard." 
 
 "I'd give a million of dollars," he remarked, 
 "to know the secret of such successful pressure as 
 that." 
 
 Mrs. Bread sat with a dull, oblique gaze fixed on 
 the Fleurieres lights. "They worked on her senti- 
 ments, as they call 'em here; they knew that was the 
 way. She's a delicate creature. They made her feel 
 wicked. She's only too good." 
 
 "Ah, they made her feel wicked," said Newman, 
 slowly; and then he repeated it. "They made her 
 feel wicked they made her feel wicked." The 
 
 438 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 words represented to him for the moment, and quite 
 as to the point of high interest, a wondrous triumph 
 of infernal art. 
 
 "It was because she was so good that she gave up 
 poor sweet lady!" added Mrs. Bread. 
 
 " But she was better to them than to me." 
 
 " She was afraid/' said Mrs. Bread very confidently; 
 "she has always been afraid, or at least for a long 
 time. Her fear was there it was always like a pit 
 that yawned for her. That was the real trouble, sir. 
 She was just a fair peach, I may say, with but one 
 little speck. She had one little sad spot. You pushed 
 her into the sunshine, sir, and it almost disappeared. 
 Then they pulled her back into the shade, and in a 
 moment it began to spread. Before we knew it she 
 was gone. She was a delicate creature." 
 
 This singular attestation of Madame de Cintre's 
 delicacy, for all its singularity, set Newman's wound 
 aching afresh. "I see. She knew something bad 
 about her mother." 
 
 "No, sir, she knew nothing." And Mrs. Bread 
 held her head very stiff and kept her watch on the 
 glimmering windows of the residence. 
 
 "She guessed something then, or suspected it." 
 
 "She was afraid to know," said Mrs. Bread. 
 
 " But you know, at any rate." 
 
 She slowly turned her vague eyes on him, squeez- 
 ing her hands together in her lap. "You're not quite 
 faithful, sir. I thought it was to tell me about the 
 Count you asked me to come." 
 
 " Oh, the more we talk of the Count the better," 
 he declared. "That's exactly what I want. I was 
 
 439 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 with him, as I told you, in his last hour. He was in 
 a great deal of pain, but he was quite himself. You 
 know what that means; he was bright and charming 
 and clever." 
 
 "Oh, he'd always be clever, sir," said Mrs. Bread. 
 "And did he know of your trouble ?" 
 
 "Yes, he guessed it of himself." 
 
 "And what did he say to it ?" 
 
 "He said it was a disgrace to his name but it 
 was not the first." 
 
 "Lord, Lord!" she murmured. 
 
 "He said his mother and his brother had once put 
 their heads together to some still more odious effect/ 
 
 "You should n't have listened to that, sir." 
 
 " Perhaps not. But I did listen, and I don't forget 
 it. Now I want to know what it is they did." 
 
 Mrs. Bread gave a soft moan. "And you Ve enticed 
 me up into this strange place to tell you ?" 
 
 "Don't be alarmed," said Newman. "I won't say 
 a word that shall be disagreeable to you. Tell me as 
 it suits you and tell me when it suits you. Only 
 remember that it was the Count's dying wish that 
 you should." 
 
 "Did he say that?" 
 
 "He said it with his last breath: 'Tell Mrs. Bread 
 I told you to ask her." 
 
 "Why did n't he tell you himself?" 
 
 "It was too long a story for a dying man; he was 
 incapable of the effort and the pain. He could only 
 say that he wanted me to know that, wronged as 
 I was, it was my right to know." 
 
 "But how will it help you, sir ?" she asked. 
 440 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "That's for me to decide. The Count believed it 
 would, and that's why he told me. Your name was 
 almost the last word he spoke." 
 
 This statement produced in her a sharp checked 
 convulsion; she shook her clasped hands slowly up 
 and down. "Pardon me if I take a great liberty. 
 Is it the solemn truth you're speaking? I must ask 
 you that; don't you see that I must, sir?" 
 
 "There's no offence. It is the solemn truth; I sol- 
 emnly swear it. The Count himself would certainly 
 have told me more if he had been able." 
 
 "Oh, sir, if he had known more!" 
 
 "Don't you suppose he did know?" 
 
 "There's no saying what he knew about any- 
 thing," she almost wailingly conceded. "He was 
 clever to that grand extent. He could make you 
 believe he knew things he did n't, and that he did n't 
 know others he had better not have known." 
 
 "I suspect he knew something about his brother 
 that made the Marquis mind his eye!" Newman pro- 
 pounded. "He made the Marquis feel him pretty 
 badly. What he wanted now was to put me in his 
 place; he wanted to give me a chance to make the 
 Marquis feel me." 
 
 "Mercy on us," cried the old waiting-woman, 
 "how malicious we all are, to be sure!" 
 
 "I don't know," said Newman; "some of us are 
 malicious, certainly. I'm very angry, I'm very sore, 
 and I'm very bitter, but I don't know that I'm mali- 
 cious. I've been cruelly injured. They've hurt me 
 and I want to hurt them. I don't deny that; on the 
 contrary, I tell you plainly that that's the use I want 
 
 441 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to make of any information you're so good as to 
 give me." 
 
 Mrs. Bread seemed to hold her breath. "You want 
 to publish them you want to shame them ?" 
 
 " I want to bring them down down, down, 
 down! I want to turn the tables on them I want 
 to mortify them as they mortified me. They took me 
 up into a high place and made me stand there for all 
 the world to see me, and then they stole behind me 
 and pushed me into this bottomless pit where I lie 
 howling and gnashing my teeth! I made a fool of 
 myself before all their friends; but I shall make some- 
 thing worse of them." 
 
 This passionate profession, which Newman uttered 
 with the greater zeal that it was the first time he had 
 felt the relief words at once as hard and as careful as 
 hammer-taps could give his spirit, kindled two small 
 sparks in Mrs. Bread's fixed eyes. "I suppose you've 
 a right to your anger, sir; but think of the dishonour 
 you'll draw down on the Countess." 
 
 " If the Countess is to be buried alive," he cried, 
 "what's honour or dishonour to her ever again? 
 The door of the living tomb is at this moment closing 
 behind her." 
 
 "Yes, it's most awful," Mrs. Bread moaned. 
 
 " She has moved off, like her brother Valentin, to 
 give me room to work. It's as if it were all done on 
 purpose." 
 
 "Surely," said Mrs. Bread, who seemed impressed 
 by the ingenuity of this reflection. She was silent 
 some moments; then she added: "And would you 
 bring my lady before the courts ?" 
 
 442 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "The courts care nothing for my lady/' Newman 
 replied. "If she has committed a crime she'll be 
 nothing for the courts but a wicked old woman." 
 
 "And will they hang her, sir ?" 
 
 "That depends upon what she has done." And 
 Newman eyed his friend intently. 
 
 "It would break up the family most terribly, sir!" 
 
 "It's high time such a family should be broken 
 up!" he outrageously declared. 
 
 "And me at my age out of place, sir!" sighed Mrs. 
 Bread. 
 
 "Oh, I'll take care of you! You shall come and 
 live with me. You shall be my housekeeper or any- 
 thing you like. You shall sit and be waited on and 
 twiddle your thumbs. I'll pension you for life." 
 
 "Dear, dear, sir, you think of everything." And 
 she seemed to fall a-brooding. 
 
 He watched her a while; then he said suddenly: 
 "Ah, Mrs. Bread, you're too foolishly fond of mj 
 lady!" 
 
 She looked at him as quickly. "I would n't have 
 you say that, sir. I don't think it any part of my 
 duty to be fond of my lady. I've served her faith- 
 fully this many a year; but if she were to die to- 
 morrow I believe before heaven I should n't shed 
 a tear for her." Then after a pause, "I've no such 
 great reason to love her!" Mrs. Bread added. "The 
 most she has done for me has been not to turn me 
 out of the house." Newman felt that decidedly his 
 companion was more and more confidential that, 
 if luxury is corrupting, Mrs. Bread's conservative 
 habits were already relaxed by the spiritual comfoft 
 
 443 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 of this preconcerted interview, in an extraordinary 
 place, with a free-spoken millionaire All his native 
 shrewdness admonished him that his part was simply 
 to let her take her time let the charm of the occa- 
 sion work. So he said nothing; he only bent on her 
 his large benevolence while she nursed her lean 
 elbows. "My lady once did me a great wrong," she 
 went on at last. "She has a terrible tongue when 
 she's put out. It was many a year ago, but I've 
 never forgotten it. I've never mentioned it to a 
 human creature; I've kept my grudge to myself. 
 I dare say I've been wicked, but my grudge has 
 grown old with me. It has grown good for nothing 
 too, I dare say; but it has lived and lived, as I myself 
 have lived. It will die when I die not before!" 
 
 "And what is your grudge, Mrs. Bread?" New- 
 man blandly enquired. 
 
 Mrs. Bread dropped her eyes and hesitated. "If 
 I were a foreigner, sir, I should make less of telling 
 you; it comes harder to a decent Englishwoman. 
 But I sometimes think I've picked up too many 
 foreign ways. What I was telling you belongs to 
 a time when I was much younger and of a quite 
 different appearance altogether to what I am now. 
 I had a very high colour, sir, if you can believe it; 
 indeed I was a very smart lass. My lady was younger 
 too, and the late Marquis was youngest of all I 
 mean in the way he went on, sir; he had a very high, 
 bold spirit; he was a very grand gentleman. He was 
 fond of his pleasure, like most foreigners, and it must 
 be owned he sometimes went rather below him to 
 take it. My lady was often jealous, and if you'll 
 
 444 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 believe it, sir, she did me the honour to have an eye 
 on me. One day I had a red ribbon in my cap, and 
 she flew out at me and ordered me to take it off. 
 She accused me of putting it on to make the Marquis 
 look at me look in the way he should n't. I don't 
 know that I was impertinent, but I spoke up like an 
 honest girl and did n't count my words. A red ribbon 
 indeed! As if it was my ribbons the Marquis looked 
 at! My lady knew afterwards that I was perfectly 
 respectable, yet she never said a word to show she 
 believed it. But the Marquis did he knew the 
 rights of me," Mrs. Bread presently added; "and 
 I took off my red ribbon and put it away in a drawer, 
 where I have kept it to this day. It's faded now, it's 
 a very pale pink; but there it lies. My grudge has 
 faded too; the red has all gone out of it; but it lies 
 hers yet." And Mrs. Bread touched with old testify- 
 : ng knuckles her black satin bodice. 
 
 Newman listened with interest to this decent yet 
 vivid narrative, which seemed to have opened up the 
 deeps of memory to his companion. Then as she 
 remained silent and seemed rather to lose herself in 
 retrospective meditation en her perfect respectabil- 
 ity, he ventured on a short cut to his goal. "So 
 Madame de Bellegarde was jealous; I see. And the 
 Marquis admired pretty women without distinction 
 of class. I suppose one must n't be hard on him, for 
 they probably did n't all behave so discreetly as you. 
 But years afterwards it could hardly have been jeal- 
 ousy that turned his wife into a criminal." 
 
 Mrs. Bread gave a weary sigh. "We're using 
 dreadful words, sir, but I don't care now. I see 
 
 145 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 you've your idea, and I've no will of my own. My 
 will was the will of my children, as I called them; but 
 I've lost my children now. They're dead and gone 
 I may say it of both of them; and what should 
 I care for the living? What's any one in the house 
 to me now what am I to them ? My lady objects to 
 me has objected to me these thirty years. I should 
 have been glad to be something to young Madame 
 Urbain, though I never was nurse to the present Mar- 
 quis. When he was a baby I was too young; they 
 wouldn't trust me with him. But his wife told her 
 own maid, Mamselle Clarisse, the opinion she had 
 of me. Perhaps you'd like to hear it, sir." 
 
 "Oh, would n't I ?" Newman almost panted. 
 
 "She said that if I'd sit in her children's school- 
 room I should do very well for a penwiper! When 
 things have come to that I don't think I need stand 
 on ceremony." 
 
 " I never heard of anything so vicious ! " Newman 
 rejoicingly declared. "Go on, Mrs. Bread." 
 
 Mrs. Bread, however, relapsed again into troubled 
 reserve, and all he could do was to fold his arms and 
 wait. But at last she appeared to have set her memo- 
 ries in order. "It was when the late Marquis was an 
 old man and his eldest son had been two years mar- 
 ried. It was when the time came on for marrying 
 Mademoiselle Claire; that's the way they talk of it 
 here, you know, sir as you might talk of sending 
 a heifer to market. The Marquis's health was bad; 
 he was sadly broken down. My lady had picked out 
 M. de Cintre, for no good reason that I could see. 
 But there are reasons, I very well know, that are 
 
 44.6 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 beyond me, and you must be high in the world to 
 catch all that's under and behind. Old M. de 
 Cintre was very high, and my lady thought him 
 almost as good as herself; that's saying as much as 
 you please. Mr. Urbain took sides with his mother, 
 as he always did. The trouble, I believe, was that 
 my lady would give very little money to go with 
 the young lady; and all the other gentlemen wanted 
 a bigger settlement. It was only M. de Cintre who 
 was content. The Lord willed it he should have that 
 one soft spot; it was the only one he had. He may 
 have had very grand connexions, and he certainly 
 made grand bows and speeches and flourishes; but 
 that, I think, was all the measure of his honour. 
 I think he was like what I 've heard of comedians; 
 not that I've ever seen one. But I know he painted 
 his strange face. He might paint it all he would, he 
 could never make me like it! The Marquis could n't 
 abide him, and declared that sooner than take such 
 a husband as that, his daughter, whom he was so 
 fond of, should stop as she was. He and my lady had 
 a great scene; it came even to our ears in the servants' 
 hall. It was not their first quarrel, if the truth must 
 be told. They were not a loving couplt, but they 
 did n't often come to words, because after a while 
 neither had them to waste; they had too much use 
 for them elsewhere and otherwise. My lady had long 
 ago got over 'minding' minding, I mean, the worst; 
 for she had had plenty of assistance for throwing 
 things off. In this, I must say, they were very well 
 matched. The Marquis was one who would but too 
 easily go as you please he had the temper of the 
 
 447 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 perfect gentleman. He got angry once a year he 
 kept to that; but then it was very bad. He always 
 took to bed directly afterwards. This time I speak 
 of he took to bed as usual ; but he never got up again. 
 I'm afraid he was paying for the free life he had led; 
 is n't it true they mostly do, sir, when they get old 
 and sad ? My lady and Mr. Urbain kept quiet, but 
 I know my lady wrote letters to M. de Cintre. The 
 Marquis got worse and the doctors gave him up. 
 My lady gave him up too, and if the truth must be 
 told, she gave him up as I've seen her clap together 
 with a sound to make you jump the covers of 
 a book she has read enough of. When once he was 
 out of the way she could do what she wished with her 
 daughter, and it was all arranged that my poor child 
 and treasure should be handed over to M. de Cintre. 
 You don't know what Mademoiselle was in those 
 days, sir; she was the sweetest, gentlest, fairest! 
 and guessed as little of what was going on around her 
 as the lamb can guess the butcher. I used to nurse 
 my unhappy master and was always in his room. It 
 was here at Fleurieres, in the autumn. We had a 
 doctor from Paris, who came and stayed two or three 
 weeks in the house. Then there came two others, 
 and there was a consultation, and these two others, 
 as I said, declared the Marquis could n't come round. 
 After this they went off, pocketing their fees, but the 
 other one stopped over and did what he could. M. de 
 Bellegarde himself kept crying out that he refused to 
 be given up, that he insisted on getting better, that he 
 would live and look after his daughter. Mademoiselle 
 Claire and the Vicomte that was Mr. Valentin, you 
 
 448 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 know were both in the house. The doctor was a 
 clever man that I could see myself and I think 
 he believed the Marquis might recover with just the 
 right things carefully done. We took good care of 
 him, he and I, between us, and one day, when my 
 lady had almost ordered her mourning, my patient 
 suddenly began to mend. He took a better turn and 
 came up so wonderfully that the doctor said he was 
 out of danger. What was killing him was the dread- 
 ful fits of pain in his stomach. But little by little they 
 stopped, and before I knew it he had begun again to 
 have his joke at me. The doctor found something 
 that gave him great comfort some grand light- 
 coloured mixture, a wonderful drug (I'm sure I for- 
 get the name) that we kept in a great bottle on the 
 chimney-piece. I used to give it to him through a 
 glass tube; it always made him easier. Presently the 
 doctor went away, after telling me to keep on with 
 the medicine whenever he was bad. After that there 
 was a different sort of person from Poitiers he came 
 every day. So we were alone in the house my lady 
 and her poor husband and their three children. 
 Madame Urbain had gone away, with her first small 
 child, but a baby then, to her mother's. You know 
 she 's ver} lively, and her maid told me she did n't 
 like to be where people were dying." Mrs. Bread 
 had again a drop, but she went on soon and with the 
 same quiet consistency: "I think you've guessed, sir, 
 that when the Marquis began to give hopes again my 
 lady was disappointed." And once more she paused, 
 bending on Newman a face that seemed to growwhiter 
 as the darkness settled down on them. 
 
 449 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 He had listened eagerly with an eagerness preatef 
 even than that with which he had bent his ear t3 
 poor Valentin's weak lips. Every now and then, as 
 his companion looked up at him, she reminded him 
 of some old black cat, mild and sleek, protracting the 
 enjoyment of a dish of rich milk. Even her triumph 
 was measured and decorous; even her justice forbore 
 to ratth the scales. "Late one night," she soon con- 
 tinued, "I was sitting by the Marquis in his room, 
 the great red room in the west tower. He had been 
 complaining a little and I had given him a spoonful 
 of the remedy that so seldom failed to ease him. My 
 lady had been there in the early part of the evening; 
 she sat for more than an hour by his bed. Then she 
 went away and left me alone. After midnight she 
 came back and Mr. Urbain was with her. They went 
 to the bed and looked at the Marquis, and my lady 
 took hold of his hand. Then she turned to me and 
 said he was not so well; I remember how the Marquis, 
 without a word, lay staring at her. I can see his white 
 face at this moment in the great black square between 
 the bed-curtains. I said I did n't think he was very 
 bad, and she told me to go to bed she would sit 
 a while with him. When he saw me going he gave 
 a sound like a scared child and called out to me not 
 to leave him; but Mr. Urbain opened the door for 
 me and pointed the way out. The present Marquis 
 perhaps you Ve noticed, sir has a very high way 
 of giving orders, and I was there to take orders. 
 I went to my room, but I was n't easy; I could n't 
 tell you why. I did n't undress; I sat there waiting 
 and listening. For what would you have said, sir ? 
 
 450 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 I could n't have told you, since surely a poor gentle- 
 man, however helpless, might be in safety at such 
 a crisis with his wife and his son. It was as if I ex- 
 pected to hear his voice moan after me again. I lis- 
 tened, but I heard nothing. It was a very still night; 
 I never knew a night so still. At last the very still- 
 ness itself seemed to frighten me, and I came out of 
 my room and went very softly downstairs. In the 
 anteroom, outside of where his father was, I found 
 the Count, as he then was, walking up and down. 
 He asked me what I wanted, and I said I had re- 
 turned to relieve my lady. He said he would relieve 
 my lady and ordered me back to bed; but as I stood 
 there, unwilling to turn away, the door of the room 
 opened and my lady herself came out. I noticed she 
 was very pale; she was altogether extraordinary. She 
 looked a moment at the Count and at me, and then 
 held out her arms to the Count. He went to her and 
 she fell upon him and hid her face. I brushed quickly 
 past her into the room and came to the Marquis's bed. 
 He was lying there very white and with his eyes shut; 
 you could have taken him for a corpse. I took hold of 
 his hand and spoke to him, but it was as if I had been 
 dealing with the dead. Then I turned round; my lady 
 and Mr. Urbain were there. 'My poor Bread/ said 
 my lady, *M. le Marquis is gone/ Mr. Urbain knelt 
 down by the bed and said softly 'Mon pere,mon pere.' 
 I thought it most prodigious, and asked my lady 
 what in the world had happened and why she had n't 
 called me. She said nothing had happened; that she 
 had only been sitting there with him in perfect still- 
 ness, She had closed her eyes, thinking she mighl 
 
 451 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 sleep, and she had slept she did n't know how Icng. 
 When she woke up all was over. 'It's surely death, 
 my son, it's unmistakeably death,' she said to the 
 Count. Mr. Urbain said they must have the doctor 
 immediately from Poitiers, and that he would ride off 
 and fetch him. He kissed his father's face oh ! 
 and then he kissed his mother and went away. My 
 lady and I stood there at the bedside. As I looked at 
 my poor master it came to me ever so sharply that he 
 was n't dead, that he was only in a stupor of weak- 
 ness. And then my lady repeated 'My poor Bread, 
 it's death, it's just death'; and I said 'Yes, my lady, 
 it's certainly death.' I said just the opposite to what 
 I believed; it was my particular notion. Then my 
 lady said we must wait for the doctor, and we sat 
 there and waited. It was a long time; the poor Mar- 
 quis neither stirred nor changed. 'I've seen death 
 before,' said my lady, 'and it's terribly like this/ 
 'Yes, please, my lady,' said I; and I thought things 
 I did n't say. The night wore away without the 
 Count's coming back, and the Marquise began to be 
 frightened. She was afraid he had had an accident 
 in the dark or met with some prowling people. Ar 
 last she got so restless that she went below to watch 
 in the court for his return. I sat there alone and the 
 Marquis never stirred." 
 
 Here Mrs. Bread paused again, and, for her lis- 
 tener, the most expert story-teller could n't have been 
 more thrilling. Newman made almost the motion of 
 turning the page of a "detective story." "So he was 
 dead!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Three days later he was in his grave," said Mrs. 
 452 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Bread sententiously. "In a little while I went away 
 to the front of the house and looked out into the court, 
 and there, before long, I saw Mr. Urbain ride in alone. 
 I waited a bit to hear him come upstairs with his 
 mother, but they stopped below and I returned to the 
 other room. I went to the bed and held up the light 
 to him, but I don't know why I did n't let the candle- 
 stick fall. The Marquis's eyes were open open 
 wide! they were staring at me. I knelt down beside 
 him and took his hands and begged him to tell me, in 
 the holy name of wonder, if he was truly alive or what 
 or where he was. Still he looked at me a long time, 
 and then made me a sign to put my ear close to him. 
 'I'm dead, my dear,' he said, 'I'm dreadfully dead. 
 The Marquise has killed me. Yes.' I was all in a 
 tremble. I did n't understand him. I did n't know 
 what had become of him: it was so as if the dead had 
 been speaking. 'But you'll get well now, sir,' I said. 
 And then he whimpered again, ever so weak: 'I 
 would n't get well for a kingdom. I would n't be that 
 woman's husband again/ And then he said more; 
 he said she had murdered him. I asked him what she 
 had done to him and I remember his very words: 
 'She has cruelly taken my life, as true as I lie here 
 finished. And she'll do the same to my daughter,' 
 he said; 'my poor unhappy child.' And he begged 
 me to prevent that, and then he said he was dying, 
 he was 'knowingly' dead. I was afraid to move or to 
 leave him; I was almost as dead as himself. All of 
 a sudden he asked me to get a pencil and write for 
 him; and then I had to tell him I could n't manage 
 that sort of thing. He asked me to hold him up in 
 
 453 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 bed while he wrote himself, and I said he could never, 
 never trace a line. But he seemed to have a kind of 
 terror that gave him strength. I found a pencil in the 
 room and a piece of paper and a book, and I put the 
 paper on the book and the pencil into his hand, and 
 I moved the candle near him. You'll think all this 
 monstrous strange, sir and I shall understand if 
 you scarce believe me. But I must tell things as they 
 happened to me the rest is with Them that know 
 all! Strangest of all was it, no doubt, that I believed 
 it had somehow been done to him as he said and that 
 I was eager to help him to write. I sat on the bed 
 and put my arm round him and held him up. I felt 
 very strong when it came to that; I believe I could 
 have lifted him and carried him. It was a wonder 
 how he wrote, but he did write, in a big scratching 
 hand; he almost covered one side of the paper. It 
 seemed a long time; I suppose it was three or four 
 minutes. He was groaning terribly all the while, but 
 at last he said it was ended, and I let him down upon 
 his pillows, and he gave me the paper and told me to 
 fold it and hide it, and to give it to those who'd act 
 on it according to right. 'Who do you mean ?' I said. 
 'Who are those who'll act on it ?' But he made some 
 sound for all answer; he could n't speak he was 
 spent. In a few minutes he told me to go and look at 
 the bottle on the chimney-piece. I knew the bottle 
 he meant, the remedy we were never without and that 
 we felt to be regularly precious. I went and looked at 
 it, but it was empty of every drop, as if it had been 
 turned upside down. When I came back his eyes 
 were open oh so pitifully! and he was staring at 
 
 454 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 me; but soon he closed them and he said no wrre. 
 I hid the paper in my dress; I did n't look at whar * . s 
 written on it, though I can read very well, sir, if I 
 have n't a hand for the pen. I sat down near the bed, 
 but it was nearly half an hour before my lady and the 
 Count came in. The Marquis looked as lost as when 
 they had left him, and I never said a word of his 
 having revived. Mr. Urbain said the doctor had been 
 called to a person in childbirth, but had promised to 
 set out for Fleurieres immediately. In another half- 
 hour he arrived, and as soon as he had examined 
 his patient he said we had had a false alarm. The 
 poor gentleman was very low, but was still living. 
 I watched my lady and her son, on that, to see if they 
 looked at each other, and I'm obliged to admit they 
 Jid n't. The doctor said there was no reason he 
 should die; he had been going on so well. And then 
 he wanted to know how he had suddenly taken such 
 a turn; he had left him so quiet and natural. My 
 lady told her little story again what she had told 
 Mr. Urbain and me and the doctor looked at her 
 and said nothing. He stayed all the next day at the 
 chateau, and hardly left the Marquis. I was always 
 there, and I think I may assure you at least that I lost 
 nothing. Mademoiselle and the Vicomte came and 
 looked at their father, but he never stirred. It was 
 a strange deathly stupor. My lady was always 
 about; her face was as white as her husband's, and 
 she looked very proud and hard, as I had seen her 
 look when her orders or her wishes had been dis- 
 obeyed. It was as if the poor Marquis had gone 
 against her intention; and the way she took it from 
 
 455 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 him made me afraid of her. The local apothecary 
 kept him along through the day, and we waited for 
 the gentleman from Paris, who, as I tell you, had 
 already stayed here. They had telegraphed for him 
 early in the morning, and in the evening he arrived. 
 He talked a bit outside with the other one, and then 
 they came in to see their malade together. I was with 
 him, and so was Mr. Urbain. My lady had been to 
 receive the great man, and she did n't come back 
 with him into the room. He sat down by the Mar- 
 quis I can see him there now with his hand on the 
 Marquis's wrist and Mr. Urbain watching them with 
 a little looking-glass in his hand. 'I'm sure he's 
 better,' said our country doctor; 'I'm sure he'll come 
 back.' A few moments after he had spoken the Mar- 
 quis opened his eyes, as if he were waking up, and 
 looked from one of us to the other, I saw him look at 
 me from very, very far off, and yet very hard indeed, 
 as you might say. At the same moment my lady came 
 in on tiptoe; she came up to the bed and put in her 
 head between me and the Count. The Marquis saw 
 her and gave a sound like the wail of a lost soul. He 
 said something we could n't understand and then 
 a convulsion seemed to take him. He shook all over 
 and closed his eyes, and the doctor jumped up and 
 took hold of my lady. He held her for a moment 
 harder than I 've ever seen a gentleman hold a lady. 
 The Marquis was stone dead the sight of her had 
 done for him. This time there were those there who 
 knew." 
 
 Newman felt as if he had been reading by starlight 
 the report of highly important evidence in a great 
 
 456 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 murder case. "And the paper the paper!" he said 
 from a dry throat. "What was written on it ?" 
 
 "I can't tell you, sir," Mrs. Bread replied. "I 
 could n't read it. It was French." 
 
 " But could no one else read it ?" 
 
 "I never asked a human creature." 
 
 "No one has ever seen it ?" 
 
 "If you do you '11 be the first." 
 
 Newman seized his companion's hand in both his 
 own and pressed it almost with passion. "I thank 
 you as I've never thanked any one for anything. I 
 want to be the first; I want it to be mine as this 
 closed fist is mine. You're the wisest old woman in 
 Europe. And what did you do with the blest thing ?" 
 Her information had made him feel extraordinarily 
 strong. "For God's sake, let me have it!" 
 
 Mrs. Bread got up with a certain majesty. "It's 
 not so easy as that, sir. When you want great things 
 you must wait for great things." 
 
 "But waiting's horrible, you know," he candidly 
 smiled. 
 
 "I'm sure I've waited; I've waited these many 
 years," she quavered. 
 
 "That's very true. You have waited for me. I 
 won't forget it. And yet how comes it you did n't do 
 as M. de Bellegarde said show the right people 
 what you had got?" 
 
 "To whom should I show it and who were the 
 right people?" she asked with high lucidity. "It 
 was n't easy to know, and many's the night I have 
 lain awake thinking of it. Six months afterwards, 
 when they married Mademoiselle to the last person 
 
 457 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 they ought to, I was very near bringing it out. I 
 thought it my duty to do something with such a proof 
 of what had happened, and yet I was terribly afraid. 
 I did n't know what the Marquis had put there, nor 
 how bad it might be, and there was no one I could 
 trust enough to ask. And it seemed to me a cruel 
 kindness to the person in the world I cared most for, 
 letting her know her father had written her mother 
 down so shamefully; for that's what he did, I sup- 
 pose. I thought she would rather suffer from her 
 husband than suffer from them. It was for her and 
 for my dear Mr. Valentin I kept quiet. Quiet I call 
 it, yet it was a queer enough quietness. It worried me 
 and changed me altogether. But for others I held 
 my tongue, and no one, to this hour, knows what had 
 passed there between my poor prostrate master and 
 his wife." 
 
 "But evidently there were suspicions," Newman 
 urged. "Where did Count Valentin get his ideas ?" 
 
 " From our little local man who has yet never 
 been in the house, as you may imagine, since. He 
 was very ill-satisfied and he did n't care who knew 
 it. He had a very good opinion of his own sharpness, 
 as Frenchmen mostly have, and coming to the house, 
 as he did, day after day, he had more ideas as 
 a consequence than he had had, before, any call 
 to put about. And indeed the way the poor Mar- 
 quis went off as soon as his eyes fell on my lady was 
 a most shocking sight for any kind person. The great 
 nran from Paris may have known, after he had taken 
 tl ings in, what to think, but he also knew what not 
 t< say, and he hushed it up. But for all he could do 
 
 458 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ihe Vicomte and Mademoiselle heard something; 
 they knew their father's death was somehow against 
 nature. Of course they could n't accuse their mother, 
 and, as I tell you, I was as dumb as that stone. Mr. 
 Valentin used to. look at me sometimes, and his eyes 
 seemed to shine as if he were thinking of some ques- 
 tion he could ask me. I was dreadfully afraid he 
 would speak, and always looked away and went about 
 my business. If I were to tell him I was sure he 
 would hate me afterwards, which was what I could 
 never have borne. Once I went up to him and took 
 a great liberty; I kissed him as I had kissed him 
 when he was a child. 'You ought n't to look so sad, 
 sir,' I said; * believe your poor decent old Bread. 
 Such a gallant, handsome young man can have 
 nothing to be sad about.' And I think he under- 
 stood me; he understood I \vac begging off and he 
 made up his mind in his own way. He went about 
 with his unasked question in his mind, as I did with 
 my untold tale; we were both afraid of bringing dis- 
 grace on a great house. And it was the same with my 
 dear young lady. She did n't know what had hap- 
 pened; she would n't hear of knowing. The Mai* 
 quise and Mr. Urbain asked me no questions, because 
 they had no reason. I was as still as a stopped clock. 
 When I was younger her ladyship thought me false, 
 and now she thought me bete, as they say. How 
 should I have any ideas ?" 
 
 Newman turned it all gravely over. " But you say 
 that doctor made a talk. Did no one take it up ?" 
 
 " I don't know how far they went. They're always 
 talking scandal in these foreign countries you may 
 
 459 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 have noticed and they must have had their stories 
 about my lady. But after all what could they say ? 
 The Marquis had been ill and the Marquis had died; 
 he had as good a right to die as any one. The doctor 
 could n't say he had n't come honestly by what he 
 suffered. The next year he left the place and bought 
 a practice at Bordeaux, and if there had been ugly 
 tales the worst of them were among ugly people. 
 There could n't have been any very bad ones that 
 those who were respectable believed. My lady her- 
 self is so very respectable." 
 
 Newman, at this last affirmation, broke into a re- 
 sounding laugh. Mrs. Bread had begun to move 
 away from the spot where they were sitting, and he 
 helped her through the aperture in the wall and along 
 the homeward path. "Yes, my lady's respectabil- 
 ity's a treasure; I shall have a great deal of use for 
 my lady's respectability." They reached the empty 
 space in front of the church, where they stopped 
 a moment, looking at each other with something of 
 closer fellowship, like a pair of sociable conspirators. 
 "But what was it," Newman insisted, "what was it 
 she did to the miserable man ? She did n't stab him 
 or throttle him or poison him." 
 
 "I don't know, sir. No one saw it." 
 
 "Unless it was Mr. Urbain," he thoughtfully 
 suggested. "You say he was walking up and down 
 outside the room. Perhaps he looked through the 
 keyhole. But no; I think that with his mother he'd 
 take it on trust." 
 
 "You may be sure I've often thought of it," Mrs. 
 Bread almost cheerfully returned. "I'm sure she 
 
 460 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 did n't touch him with her hands. I saw nothing on 
 him anywhere. I believe it was in this way. He had 
 a fit of his great pain, and he asked her for his medi- 
 cine. Instead of giving it to him she went and poured 
 it away, before his eyes, not speaking, only looking at 
 him, so that he might have the scare and the shock 
 and the horror of it. Then he saw what she meant 
 and, weak and helpless, took fright, was terrified. 
 'You want to kill me/ he must have said do you 
 see? 'Yes, M. le Marquis, I want to kill you/ says 
 my lady, and sits down and keeps her dreadful eyes 
 on him. You know my lady's eyes, I think, sir; it 
 was with that look of hers she killed him; it was with 
 the terrible strong will and all the cruelty she put into 
 it. It was as if she had pushed him out of her boat, 
 frvered and sick, into the cold sea, and remained 
 there to push him again should he try to scram- 
 ble back; making him feel he was lost, by her 
 intention, and watching him awfully sink and 
 drown. It was enough indeed to take the heart 
 out of him, and that, in his state, was enough for 
 a death-stroke." 
 
 Newman rendered this vivid image, which in truth 
 did great honour to the old woman's haunted sensi- 
 bility, the tribute of a comprehensive gasp. "Well, 
 you 've got right hold of it you make me see it and 
 hate it and want to go for it. But I've got to keep 
 tight hold of you too, you know." 
 
 They had begun to descend the hill, and she said 
 nothing till they reached the foot. He moved beside 
 her as on air, his hands in his pockets, his head 
 thrown back while he gazed at the stars: he seemed 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to himself to be riding his vengeance along the Milky 
 Way. "So you're serious about that?" she sighed. 
 
 " About your living with me ? Why, you don't 
 suppose I've turned you inside out this way not to 
 want to get you into shape again. You're in no kind 
 of shape for these people now even if they were in 
 any for you; after your seeing what they've done to 
 me and to her. You just give me the thing I'm 
 after and then you move out." 
 
 " I never thought I should have lived to take a new 
 place unless," Mrs. Bread made moan, "I should 
 have gone some day to Mr. Valentin or, in her own 
 establishment, to my young lady." 
 
 "Come to me and you'll come to her establishment 
 yet, I guess you'll come at least to where both those 
 names will be cherished and sacred." 
 
 She considered a little and then replied: "Oh, I 
 shall like to pronounce them to you, sir! And if 
 you're going to pull the house down," she added, 
 "I had surely better be clear of it." 
 
 "Ah," said Newman almost with the gaiety of 
 a dazzle of alternatives, "it won't be quite my idea 
 to appeal if that's what you mean to the police. 
 The meanest and the damnedest things are always 
 beyond their ken and out of their hands. Which has 
 the merit in this case, however, that it leaves the 
 whole story in mine. And to mine," he declared, 
 "you've given power!" 
 
 "Ah, you're bolder than I ever was!" she re- 
 signedly sighed; and he felt himself now, to what- 
 ever end, possessed of her. He walked back with her 
 lo the chateau; the curfew it could n't have been 
 
 462 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 anything but the curfew, he was sure had tolled 
 for the weary serfs and villains (as he could also quite 
 have believed) and the small street of Fleurieres was 
 unlighted and empty. She promised he should have 
 what he was after, as he had called it, in half an 
 hour. Mrs. Bread choosing not to go in by the greal 
 gate, they passed round by a winding lane to a door 
 in the wall of the park, of which she had the key and 
 which would enable her to re-enter the house from 
 behind. Newman arranged with her that he should 
 await outside the wall her return with his prize. 
 
 She went in, and his half-hour in the dusky lane 
 seemed very long. But he had plenty to think about. 
 At last the door in the wall opened and Mrs. Bread 
 stood there with one hand on the latch and the other 
 holding out a scrap of white paper folded small and 
 dearer to his sight than any love-token ever brought 
 of old by bribed duenna to lurking cavalier. In a 
 moment he was master of it and it had passed into 
 his waistcoat pocket. "Come and see me in Paris," 
 he said; "we're to settle your future, you know; and 
 I'll translate poor M. de Bellegarde's French to you." 
 Never had he felt so grateful as at this moment for 
 M. Nioche's instructions. 
 
 Mrs. Bread's eyes had followed the disappearance 
 of her treasure, and she gave a heavy sigh. "Well, 
 you've done what you would with me, sir, and I sup- 
 pose you'll do it again. You must take care of me 
 now. You're a terribly positive gentleman." 
 
 " Just now," said Newman, "I'm a terribly impa- 
 tient one!" And he bade her good-night and walked 
 rapidly back to the inn. , He ordered his vehicle to be 
 
 463 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 prepared for the return to Poitiers, and then he shut 
 the door of the common salle and strode toward the 
 solitary lamp on the chimney-piece. He pulled out 
 the paper and quickly unfolded it. It was covered 
 with pencil-marks, which at first, in the feeble light, 
 seemed indistinct. But his fierce curiosity forced 
 a meaning from the tremulous signs, the free English 
 of which might have been, without the hopelessly 
 obscure date: 
 
 "My wife has tried to kill me and has done it; I'm 
 horribly, helplessly dying. It's in order to marry my 
 beloved daughter to M. de Cintre and then go on 
 herself all the same. With all my soul I protest 
 I forbid it. I 'm not insane ask the doctors, ask 
 Mrs. B. It was alone with me here to-night; she 
 attacked me and put me to death. It's murder if 
 murder ever was. Ask the doctors, tell every one, 
 show every one this. 
 
 DE BELLEGARDE/' 
 
XXIII 
 
 NEWMAN returned to Paris the second day after his 
 interview with Mrs. Bread. The morrow he had 
 spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again the 
 signed warrant he had lodged in his pocket-book, 
 persuading himself more and more that it had, as he 
 put it to himself, a social value, and thinking what he 
 would now do and how he would do it. He would not 
 have said that Poitiers had much to hold him, yet the 
 day seemed very short. Domiciled once more in the 
 Boulevard Haussmann he walked over to the Rue de 
 I'Universite and enquired of Madame de Bellegarde's 
 portress whether the Marquise had come back. The 
 portress answered th?.t she had arrived with M. le 
 Marquis on the preceding day, and further informed 
 him that should he wish to see them they were both 
 at home. As she said these words the little white- 
 faced old woman who peered out of the dusky gate- 
 house of the Hotel de Bellegarde gave a small wicked 
 smile a smile that seemed to Newman to mean 
 "Go in if you dare!" She was evidently versed in 
 the current domestic history; she was placed where 
 she could feel the pulse of the house. He stood a 
 moment twisting his moustache and looking at her; 
 then he abruptly turned away. But this was not 
 because he was afraid to go in though he doubted 
 whether, for all his courage, he should be able to 
 make his way unchallenged into the presence of his 
 
 4 6 S 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 adversaries. Confidence, excessive confidence per- 
 haps, quite as much as timidity, prompted his retreat. 
 Fie was nursing his thunderbolt; he loved it; he was 
 unwilling to part with it. He felt himself hold it aloft 
 in the rumbling, vaguely-flashing air, directly over 
 the heads of his victims, and he fancied he could see 
 their pale upturned faces. Few specimens of the 
 human countenance had ever given him such pleas- 
 ure as these, lighted in the lurid fashion I have hinted 
 at, and he took his ease while he harboured the vin- 
 dictive vision. It must be added too that he was at 
 a loss to see exactly how he could arrange to witness 
 the operation of his thunder. To send in his card to 
 Madame de Bellegarde would be a waste of cere- 
 mony; she would certainly decline to receive him. 
 On the other hand he could n't force his way into her 
 presence. He hated to see himself reduced to the 
 blind satisfaction of writing her a letter; but he con- 
 soled himself in a measure with the thought that 
 a letter might lead to an interview. He went home 
 and, feeling rather :ired nursing a vengeance was, 
 he had to confess, a fatiguing process; it took a good 
 deal out of one flung himself into one of his bro- 
 caded fauteuils, stretched his legs, thrust his hands 
 into his pockets and, while he watched the reflected 
 sunset fading from the ornate house-tops on the 
 opposite side of the boulevard, began mentally to 
 frame, as work for his pen, a few effective remarks 
 While he was so occupied his servant threw open 
 the door and announced ceremoniously "Madame 
 Brett!" 
 
 He roused himself expectantly and in a few 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 moments recognised on his threshold the worthy 
 woman with whom he had conversed to such good 
 purpose on the starlit hill-top of Fleurieres. Mrs. 
 Bread had assumed for this visit the same dress as 
 for her other effort, and he was struck with her fine 
 antique appearance. His room was still lampless, 
 and as her large grave face gazed at him through the 
 clear dusk from under the shadow of her ample 
 bonnet he felt the incongruity of her pretending to 
 any servile stamp. He greeted her with high genial- 
 ity, and bade her come in and sit down and make her- 
 self comfortable. There was something that might 
 have touched the springs both of mirth and of melan- 
 choly in the spirit of formal accommodation with 
 which she endeavoured to meet this new conception 
 of her duty. She was not playing at being fluttered, 
 which would have been simply ridiculous; she was 
 doing her best to carry herself as a person so humble 
 that, for her, even embarrassment would have been 
 pretentious; but evidently she had never dreamed of 
 its being in her horoscope to pay a visit at nightfall 
 to a friendly single gentleman who lived in theatrical- 
 looking rooms on one of the new boulevards. 
 
 "I truly hope I'm not forgetting my place, sir," she 
 anxiously pleaded. 
 
 "Forgetting your place? Why, you're remember- 
 ing it as a good woman remembers her promise. 
 This is your place, you know. You 're already in my 
 service; your wages as housekeeper began a fortnight 
 ago. I can tell you my house wants keeping! Why 
 don't you take off your bonnet and stay right now ?" 
 
 "Take off my bonnet ?" she gave it her gravest 
 467 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 consideration. "Oh sir, 1 have n't my cap. And with 
 your leave, sir, I could n't keep house in my best 
 gown." 
 
 "Never mind your best gown," said Newman 
 cheerfully. "You shall have a better gown than 
 that." 
 
 She stared solemnly and then stretched her hands 
 over her lustreless satin skirt as if the perilous side of 
 her situation might be flushing into view. "Oh sir, 
 I'm fond of my own clothes." 
 
 "I hope you've left those wicked people, at any 
 rate," Newman went on. 
 
 "Well, sir, here I am! That's all I can tell you. 
 Here I sit, poor Catherine Bread. It's a strange 
 place for me to be. I don't know myself; I never 
 supposed I was so bold. But indeed, sir, I've gone 
 as far as my own strength will bear me." 
 
 "Oh, come, Mrs. Bread!" he returned almost 
 caressingly; "don't make yourself uncomfortable. 
 Why, you're going to have now the time of your life.'' 
 
 She began to speak again with a trembling voice 
 " I think it would be more respectable if I could if 
 I could !" But she quavered to a pause. 
 
 "If you could give up this sort of thing altogether t" 
 said Newman kindly, trying to anticipate her mean- 
 ing, which he supposed might be a wish to retire from 
 service. 
 
 "If I could give up everything, sir! All I should ask 
 is a decent Protestant burial." 
 
 "Burial!" he cried with a burst of laughter. 
 "Why, to bury you now would be a sad piece of ex- 
 travagance. It's only rascals who have to be buried 
 
 468 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to get respectable. Honest folks like you and me can 
 live our time out and live it together. Come! did 
 you bring your baggage ?" 
 
 "My two boxes are locked and corded; but I 
 have n't yet spoken to my lady." 
 
 " Speak to her then and have done with it. I should 
 like to have your chancel" cried Newman. 
 
 "I would gladly give it you, sir. I've passed some 
 weary hours in my lady's dressing-room; but this 
 will be one of the longest. She'll tax me with base 
 ingratitude." 
 
 "Well," said Newman, "so long as you can tax her 
 with murder !" 
 
 "Oh sir, I can't; not II" she pleaded. 
 
 "You don't mean to say anything about it? So 
 much the better. Leave it all to me." 
 
 "If she calls me a thankless old woman," Mrs. 
 Bread went on, "I shall have nothing to say. But 
 it's better so," she added with supreme mildness. 
 " She shall be my lady to the last. That will be more 
 respectable." 
 
 "And then you'll come to me and I shall be your 
 gentleman," said Newman. "That will be more re- 
 spectable still!" 
 
 She rose with lowered eyes and stood a moment; 
 then, looking up, she rested her gaze upon New- 
 man's face. The disordered proprieties were some- 
 how settling to rest. She looked at her friend so long 
 and so fixedly, with such a dull intense devoted ness, 
 that he himself might have had a pretext for embar- 
 rassment. At last she said gently: "You've not yom 
 natural appearance, sir." 
 
 469 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "Why, Mrs. Bread," he answered, "I've not my 
 natural balance. If you mean I don't look sunny 
 I guess I look as I feel. To be very indifferent and 
 very fierce, very dull and very violent, very sick and 
 very fine, all at once well, it rather mixes one up." 
 
 Mrs. Bread gave r noiseless sigh. "I can tell you 
 something that will make you feel queerer still, if you 
 want to feel all one way. About the poor Countess." 
 
 "What can you tell me ?" Newman quickly asked. 
 "Not that you've seen her ?" 
 
 She shook her head. "No indeed, sir, nor ever 
 shall. That's the dead weight of it. Nor my lady. 
 Nor M. de Bellegarde." 
 
 "You mean she's kept so close ?" 
 
 "The closest they keep any." 
 
 These words for an instant seemed to check the 
 beating of his heart. Leaning back in his chair he 
 felt sick. "They've tried to see her and she would n't 
 she couldn't?" 
 
 "She refused for ever! I had it from my lady's 
 own maid," said Mrs. Bread, "who had it from my 
 lady. To speak of it to such a person my lady must 
 have felt the shock. The Countess declines to receive 
 them now, and now's her only chance. A short while 
 hence she'll have no choice." 
 
 "You mean the other women the mothers, the 
 daughters, the sisters; what is it they call them ? 
 won't let her?" 
 
 "It's what they call the rule of the house or 
 I believe of the order. There's no rule so strict as 
 that of the Carmelites. The bad women in the re- 
 formatories are fine ladies to them. They wear old 
 
 470 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 brown cloaks so the femme de chambre told me 
 that you would n't use for a horse-blanket. And the 
 poor Countess was so fond of soft-feeling dresses; she 
 would never have anything stiff! They sleep on the 
 ground/' Mrs. Bread went on; "they're no better, 
 no better" and she hesitated for a comparison 
 "they're no better than tinkers' wives. They give up 
 everything, down to the very name their poor old 
 nurses called them by. They give up father and 
 mother, brother and sister to say nothing of othei 
 persons," Mrs. Bread delicately added. "They wear 
 a shroud under their brown cloaks and a rope round 
 their waists, and they get up on winter nights and 
 go off into cold places to pray to the Virgin Mary. 
 I hope it does her at least good!" 
 
 Newman's visitor, dwelling on these terrible facts, 
 sat dry-eyed and pale, her hands convulsive but con- 
 fined to her satin lap. He gave a melancholy groan 
 and fell forward, burying his face and his pain. There 
 was a long silence, broken only by the ticking of the 
 great gilded clock on the chimney-piece. "Where is 
 the accursed place where is the convent ?" he asked 
 at last, looking up. 
 
 "There are two houses," said Mrs. Bread. "I 
 found out; I thought you'd like to know though 
 it's cold comfort, I think. One's in the Avenue de 
 Messine; they've learned the Countess is there. The 
 other's in the Rue d'Enfer. That's a terrible name; 
 I suppose you know what it means." 
 
 He got up and walked away to the end of his long 
 room. When he came back Mrs. Bread had risen 
 and stood by the fire, with folded hands. "Tell me 
 
 471 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 this. Can I get near her even if I don't see hei ? 
 Can I look through a grating, or some such thing, at 
 the place where she is ?" 
 
 It is said that all women love a lover, and Mrs. 
 Bread's sense of the pre-established harmony which 
 kept servants in their "place," even as planets in their 
 orbits (not that she had ever consciously likened her- 
 self to a planet), barely availed to temper the mater- 
 nal melancholy with which she leaned her head on 
 one side and gazed at her new employer. She prob- 
 ably felt for the moment as if, forty years before, she 
 had held him also in her arms. "That would n't help 
 you, sir. It would only make her seem further away." 
 
 "I want to go there, at all events," he returned. 
 "The Avenue de Messine, you say? And what is it 
 they call themselves ?" 
 
 "Carmelites whatever it means!" said Mrs. 
 Bread. 
 
 "I shall remember that." 
 
 She hesitated a moment and then: "It's my duty 
 to tell you this that the convent has a chapel and 
 that respectable persons are admitted on Sunday to 
 the mass. You don't see the poor creatures in their 
 prison or their tomb, but I 'm told you can heai them 
 sing. It's a wonder they have any heart for singing! 
 Some Sunday I shall make bold to go. It seems to me 
 I should know her voice in fifty." 
 
 Newman thanked her, while he held her hand, with 
 a stare through which he, for a good reason, failed to 
 see her. " If any one can get in I will." A moment 
 later she proposed deferentially to retire, but he 
 checked her, pressing on her grasp a lighted candle. 
 
 472 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "There are half a dozen rooms there I don't use;" 
 and he pointed through an open door. "Go and look 
 at them and take your choice. You can live in the 
 one you like best." From this bewildering privilege 
 she at first recoiled; but finally, yielding to her friend's 
 almost fraternal pat of reassurance, she wandered off 
 into the dusk with her tremulous taper. She remained 
 absent a quarter of an hour, duiing which Newman 
 paced up and down, stopped occasionally to look out 
 of the window at the lights on the boulevard, and then 
 resumed his walk. Mrs. Bread's interest in her oppor- 
 tunity apparently deepened as she proceeded; but at 
 last she reappeared and deposited her candlestick on 
 the chimney-piece. 
 
 "Well, have you picked one out ?" 
 
 "A room, sir ? They're all too fine for a dingy old 
 body like me. There is n't one that has n't a bit of 
 gilding." 
 
 "It's only some shocking sham, Mrs. Bread," he 
 answered. "If you stay there a while it will all peel 
 off of itself." And he gave a dismal smile. 
 
 "Oh sir, there are things enough peeling off 
 already!" she said with a responsible head-shake. 
 "Since I was there I thought I'd look about me. 
 I don't believe you know, sir. The corners are most 
 dreadful. You do want a housekeeper, that you do; 
 you want a tidy Englishwoman that is n't above 
 taking hold of a broom." 
 
 Newman assured her that he suspected, if he had 
 not measured, his domestic abuses, and that to reform 
 them was a mission worthy of her powers. She held 
 ier candlestick aloft again and looked round the 
 
 473 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 salon with compassionate glances; then she intimated 
 that she accepted the mission and that its sacred 
 character would sustain her in her rupture with her 
 old dread mistress. On this she curtsied herself away. 
 She came back the next day with her worldly goods, 
 and her friend, going into his drawing-room, found 
 her on her aged knees before a divan, sewing up a 
 piece of detached fringe. He questioned her as to her 
 leave-taking with her late mistress, and she said it 
 had proved easier than she feared. "I was perfectly 
 civil, sir, but the Lord helped me to remember that 
 a good woman has no call to tremble before a bad 
 
 one." 
 
 " You must have been too lovely," Newman frankly 
 observed. ** But does she know you've come to me ?" 
 
 "She asked me where I was going, and 1 men- 
 tioned your name/' Mrs. Bread returned. 
 
 "What did she say to that?" 
 
 "She looked at me very hard, she turned very red. 
 Then she bade me leave her. I was all ready to go, 
 and I had got the coachman, who's an Englishman, 
 thank goodness, to bring down my poor boxes and 
 to fetch me a cab. But when I went down myself to 
 those terrible great gates I found them closed. My 
 lady had sent orders to the porter not to let me pass, 
 and by the same orders the porter's wife, a dreadful 
 sly old body, had gone out in a cab to fetch home 
 M. de Bellegarde from his club." 
 
 Newman's face lighted almost with the candour of 
 childhood. "She is scared! she is scared!" 
 
 "I was frightened too, sir," said Mrs. Bread, "but 
 i thank the powers I felt my temper rise. I took it 
 
 474 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 very high with the porter, and asked him by what 
 right he used violence to an honourable Anglaise who 
 had lived in the house for thirty years before he was 
 heard of. Oh sir, I was very grand I brought 
 the man down. He drew his bolts and let me out, 
 and I promised the cabman something handsome if 
 he would drive fast. But he was terribly slow; it 
 seemed as if we should never reach your blest door. 
 I'm all of a tremble still; it took me five minutes, just 
 now, to thread my needle." 
 
 Newman told her, in munificent mirth, that if she 
 :hose she might have a little maid on purpose to 
 thread her needles; and he went away nursing this 
 sketch of the scene in the Rue de I'Universite and 
 rejoicing in the belief that he had produced there 
 what he might call the impression of his life. 
 
 He had not shown Mrs. Tristram the document he 
 carried in his pocket-book, but since his return to 
 Paris he had seen her several times, and she had not 
 disguised from him that he struck her as in a strange 
 way an even stranger way than his sad situation 
 made natural. Had his disappointment gone to his 
 head ? He looked like a man who was spoiling tor 
 some sickness, yet she had never seen him more rest- 
 less and active. Some days he would hang his head 
 and fold his brow and set his teeth, appear to wish to 
 give out that he should never smile again; on others 
 he would indulge in laughter that was almost rude 
 and make jokes that were bad even for him. If he 
 was trying to carry of}' his humiliation he went at such 
 times really too far. She begged him of all things not 
 to be '" strange." Feeling in a measure answerable 
 
 475 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 for the adventure that had turned out so ill for him, 
 she could put up with anything but his strangeness. 
 He might be tragic if he would, or he might be ter- 
 ribly touching and pierce her to the heart with silent 
 sorrow; he might be violent and summon her to say 
 why she had ever dared to meddle with his destiny: 
 to this she would submit for this she would make 
 allowances. Only, if he loved her, let him not be 
 incoherent. That would quite break down her nerves. 
 It was like people talking in their sleep; they always 
 awfully frightened her. And Mrs. Tristram inti- 
 mated that, taking very high ground as regards the 
 moral obligation which events had laid upon her, she 
 proposed not to rest quiet till she should have con- 
 fronted him with the least inadequate substitute for 
 his loss that the two hemispheres contained. 
 
 "Ah," he replied to this, "I think we're square 
 now and we had better not open a new account! You 
 may bury me some day, but you shall of a certainty 
 never marry me. It's too rough, you see it's 
 worse than a free fight in Arkansaw. I hope, at any 
 rate," he added, "that there's nothing incoherent in 
 this that I want to go next Sunday to the Carmelite 
 chapel in the Avenue de Messine. You know one of 
 the Catholic clergymen an abbe, is that it ? 
 whom I've seen here with you, I think, on some 
 errand for his poor; that motherly old gentleman with 
 the big waistband. Please ask him if I need a special 
 leave to go in, and if 1 do, beg him to obtain it tor 
 
 me." 
 
 Mrs. Tristram gave expression to the liveliest joy. 
 I'm so glad you've asked me to do something! You 
 
 476 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 shall get into the chapel if the abbe is disfrocked for 
 his share in it." 
 
 And two days afterwards she told him it was all 
 arranged; the abbe was enchanted to serve him, 
 and if he would present himself civilly at the con- 
 vent gate there would be no obstacle. 
 
XXIV 
 
 SUNDAY was as yet two days off; but meanwhile to 
 beguile his impatience, Newman took his way to the 
 Avenue de Messine and got what comfort he could 
 in staring at the blank outer wall of Madame de 
 Cintre's present abode. The street in question, as 
 some travellers will remember, adjoins the Pare Mon- 
 ceau, which is one of the finest quarters of recon- 
 structed Paris. It has an air of modern opulence 
 and convenience that sounds a false note for any 
 temple of sacrifice, and the impression made on his 
 gloomily-irritated gaze by the fresh-looking, window- 
 less expanse behind which the woman he loved was 
 perhaps even then pledging herself to pass the rest of 
 her days was less exasperating than he had feared. 
 The place suggested a convent with the modern im- 
 provements an asylum in which privacy, though 
 unbroken, might be not quite identical with privation, 
 and meditation, though monotonous, might be suffi- 
 ciently placid. And yet he knew the case was other; 
 only at present it was not a reality to him. It was too 
 strange and too mocking to be real; it was like a page 
 torn out of some superannuated unreadable book, 
 with no context in his own experience. 
 
 On Sunday morning, at the hour Mrs. Tristram 
 had indicated, he rang at the gate in the blank wall. 
 It instantly opened and admitted him into a clean, 
 cold-looking court, beyond which a dull, plain edifice 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 met his view in the manner of some blank stiff party 
 to a formal introduction. A robust, lay sister with 
 a cheerful complexion emerged from a porter's lodge 
 and, on his stating his errand, pointed to the open 
 door of the chapel, an edifice which occupied the 
 right side of the court and was preceded by a high 
 3ight of steps. Newman ascended the steps and 
 immediately entered the open door. Service had not 
 yet begun; the interior was dimly lighted and it was 
 some moments before he could distinguish features 
 Then he saw the scene divided by a large close iron 
 screen into two unequal parts. The altar was on the 
 hither side of the screen, and between it and the 
 entrance were disposed several benches and chairs. 
 Three or four of these were occupied by vague, 
 motionless figures figures he presently perceived to 
 be women deeply absorbed in their devotion. The 
 place seemed to Newman very cold; the smell of the 
 incense itself was cold. Mixed with this impression 
 was a twinkle of tapers and here and there a glow of 
 coloured glass. He seated himself; the praying 
 women kept still, kept their backs turned. He saw 
 they were visitors like himself, and he would have 
 liked to see their faces; for he believed that they were 
 the mourning mothers and sisters of other women 
 who had had the same pitiless courage as the person in 
 whom he was interested. But they were better off 
 than he, for they at least shared the faith to which 
 the others had sacrificed themselves. Three or four 
 persons came in, two of them gentlemen important 
 and mature. Every one was very quiet, with a per- 
 verse effect of studied submission. He fastened his 
 
 479 
 
THE AMERICA^ 
 
 eyes on the screen behind the altar. That was the 
 convent, the real convent, the place where she was. 
 But he could see nothing; no light came through the 
 crevices. He got up and approached the partition 
 very gently, trying to look through. Behind it was 
 darkness, with no sign even of despair. He went 
 back to his place, and after that a priest and two 
 altar-boys came in and began to say mass. 
 
 Newman watched their genuflexions and gyrations 
 with a grim, still enmity; they seemed prompters and 
 abettors of the wrong he had suffered; they were 
 mouthing and droning out their triumph. The 
 priest's long, dismal intonings acted upon his nerves 
 and deepened his wrath; there was something defiant 
 in his unintelligible drawl as if it had been meant 
 for his very own swindled self. Suddenly there arose 
 from the depths of the chapel, from behind the inex- 
 orable grating, a sound that drew his attention from 
 the altar the sound of a strange, lugubrious chant 
 uttered by women's voices. It began softly, but it 
 presently grew louder, and as it increased it became 
 more of a wail and a dirge. It was the chant of the 
 Carmelite nuns, their only human utterance. It was 
 their dirge over their buried affections and over the 
 vanity of earthly desires. At first he was bewildered 
 almost stunned, by the monstrous manifestation, 
 then, as he comprehended its meaning, he listened 
 intently and his heart began to throb. He listened for 
 Madame de Cintre's voice, and in the very heart of 
 the tuneless harmony he imagined he made it out. 
 We are obliged to believe that he was wrong, since 
 she had obviously not yet had time to become a mem- 
 
 4.80 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 her of the invisible sisterhood; the chant, at any rate, 
 kept on, mechanical and monotonous, with dismal 
 repetitions and despairing cadences. It was hideous, 
 it was horrible; as it continued he felt he needed all 
 his self-control. He was growing more agitated, the 
 tears were hot in his eyes. At last, as in its full force 
 the thought came over him that this confused, imper- 
 sonal wail was all that he or the world she had de- 
 serted were ever again to hear of the breath of those 
 lips of which his own held still the pressure, he knew 
 he could bear it no longer. He rose abruptly and 
 made his way out. On the threshold he paused, lis- 
 tened again to the dreary strain, and then hastily 
 descended into the court. As he did so he saw that 
 the good sister with the high-coloured cheeks and the 
 fan-like frill to her head-dress, who had admitted 
 him, was in conference at the gate with two persons 
 who had just come in. A second glance showed him 
 that these visitors were Madame de Bellegarde and 
 her son, and that they were about to avail themselves 
 of that method of approach to their lost victim which 
 he had found but a mockery of consolation. As he 
 crossed the court the Marquis recognised him; he 
 was on the way to the steps and was supporting his 
 mother. From Madame de Bellegarde he also re- 
 ceived a look, and it resembled that of Urbain. Both 
 faces expressed a less guarded perturbation, something 
 more akin to immediate dismay, than Newman had 
 yet seen in them. Evidently he was disconcerting, 
 and neither mother nor son had quite due presence 
 of mind. Newman hurried past them, guided only 
 by the desire to get out of the convent walls and into 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the street. The gate opened itself at his approach; he 
 strode over the threshold and it closed behind him. 
 A carriage which appeared to have been standing 
 there was just turning away from the pavement. He 
 looked at it for a moment blankly; then he became 
 conscious, through the dusky mist that swam before 
 his eyes, that a lady seated in it was bowing to him. 
 The vehicle had got into motion before he recognised 
 her; it was an ancient landau with one half the cover 
 lowered. The lady's bow was very expressive and 
 accompanied with a smile; a little girl was seated 
 beside her. He raised his hat, and then the lady bade 
 the coachman stop. 
 
 The carriage drew up again and she sat there and 
 beckoned to Newman beckoned with the demon- 
 strative grace of the Marquise Urbain. Newman 
 hesitated a moment before he obeyed her summons; 
 during this moment he had time to curse his stupid- 
 ity for letting the others escape him. He had been 
 wondering how he could get at them; fool that he 
 was for not stopping them then and there! What 
 better place than beneath the very prison walls to 
 which they had consigned the promise of his joy ? 
 He had been too bewildered publicly to fall on them, 
 but now he felt ready to await them at the gate. 
 Madame Urbain, with a certain attractive petulance, 
 made a more emphatic sign, and this time he went 
 over to the carriage. She leaned out and gave him 
 her hand, looking at him kindly and smiling. "Ah, 
 monsieur, you don't include me in your wrath ? I had 
 nothing to do with it." 
 
 "Oh, I don't suppose you could have prevented 
 
 482 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 it!" he answered in a tone which was not that of 
 studied gallantry. 
 
 "What you say is too true for me to resent the 
 small account it makes of my influence. I forgive 
 you, at any rate, because you look as if you had seen 
 a ghost." 
 
 "I have seen a ghost," Newman darkly returned. 
 
 "I'm glad then I did n't go in with my belle-mere 
 and my husband. You must have seen them, eh ? 
 Was the meeting affectionate ? Did you hear the 
 chanting? They say it's like the lamentations of the 
 damned. I would n't go in: one's certain to hear 
 that soon enough. Poor Claire in a white shroud 
 and a big brown cloak! That's the full dress of the 
 Carmelites, you know. Well, she was always fond of 
 long, loose things. But I must n't speak of her to 
 you; I must only say I'm very sorry for you, that if 
 I could have helped you I would, and that I think 
 every one has behaved infernally. I was afraid of it, 
 you know; I felt it in the air for a fortnight before 
 it came. When I saw you, at my mother-in-law's 
 ball, take it all in such good faith I felt as if you were 
 dancing on your grave. But what could I do ? I wish 
 you all the good I can think of. You'll say that is n't 
 much! Yes; they've been abominable; I'm not a bit 
 afraid to say it; I assure you every one thinks so. 
 We're not all like that. I'm sorry I'm not going to 
 see you again; you know I think you very good com- 
 pany. I 'd prove it by asking you to get into the car- 
 riage and drive with me for the quarter of an hour 
 that I shall wait for my mother-in-law. Only if we 
 were seen considering what has passed, and every 
 
 483 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 one knows you've been joue it might be thought 
 I was going a little too far, even for me. But I shall 
 see you sometimes somewhere, eh? You know" 
 this was said in English "we've a plan for a little 
 
 amusement." 
 
 Newman stood there with his hand on the carriage 
 door, listening to this consolatory murmur with an un- 
 \ighted eye. He hardly knew what Madame Urbain 
 was saying; he was only conscious she was chatter- 
 ing ineffectively. But suddenly it occurred to him 
 that, with her pretty professions, there was a way of 
 making her effective; she might help him to get at the 
 old woman and the Marquis. "They're coming back 
 soon your companions ? You 're hanging about for 
 them?" 
 
 "They'll hear the office out; there's nothing to keep 
 them longer. Claire has refused to see them." 
 
 "I want to speak to them," Newman said; "and 
 you can help me, you can do me a favour. Delay 
 your return for five minutes and give me a chance a* 
 them. I'll wait for them here." 
 
 The young woman clasped her hands in sharp 
 deprecation. " My poor friend, what do you want to 
 do to them ? To beg them to come back to you ? It 
 will be wasted words. They'll never come back!" 
 
 "I want to speak to them all the same. Pray do 
 what I ask you. Stay away and leave them to me for 
 five minutes. You need n't be afraid; I shall not be 
 violent; I'm very quiet." 
 
 "Yes, you look very quiet! If they had le cceur 
 tendre you'd move them. But don't count on them 
 you've had enough of that. However, 111 do 
 
 484 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 better for you than what you propose. The under- 
 standing is not that I shall come back for them. I 'm 
 going into the Pare Monceau to give my little girl 
 a walk, and my mother-in-law, who comes so rarely 
 into this quarter, is to profit by the same opportunity 
 to take the air. We're to wait for her in the park, 
 where my husband is to join us with her. Follow me 
 now; just within the gates I shall get out of my car- 
 riage. Sit down on a chair in some quiet corner and 
 I'll bring them near you. There's devotion for you! 
 Le reste vous r e garde " 
 
 This proposal Newman eagerly caught at; it 
 revived his drooping spirit and he reflected that 
 Madame Urbain was not quite the featherhead she 
 seemed. He promised immediately to overtake her, 
 and the carriage drove away. 
 
 The Pare Monceau is a very pretty piece of land- 
 scape-gardening, but Newman, passing into it, had 
 little care for its elegant vegetation, which was full of 
 the freshness of spring. He found the young Mar- 
 quise promptly, seated in one of the quiet corners of 
 which she had spoken, while before her in the alley 
 her little girl, attended by the footman and the lap- 
 dog, walked up and down as if to take a lesson in 
 deportment. Newman seated himself by his friend, 
 who began to chatter afresh, apparently with the 
 design of convincing him that if he would only see 
 it poor dear Claire did n't belong to the most 
 pleasing type of woman. She was too long, too lean, 
 too flat, too stiff, too cold; her mouth was too wide 
 and her nose too narrow. She had n't such a thing 
 as a dimple, or even as a pretty curve or call it 
 
 485 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 really an obtuse angle anywhere. And then she 
 was eccentric, eccentric in cold blood; she was a furi- 
 ous Anglaise after all. Newman was very impatient; 
 he was counting the minutes until his victims should 
 reappear. He sat silent, leaning upon his cane, look- 
 ing absently and insensibly at Madame Urbain. At 
 last she said she would walk toward the gate of the 
 park and meet her companions; but before she went 
 she dropped her eyes and, after playing a moment 
 with the lace of her sleeve, looked up again at her 
 visitor. 
 
 "Do you remember the promise you made me 
 three weeks ago?" And then as Newman, vainly 
 consulting his memory, was obliged to confess that 
 this vow had escaped it, she mentioned that he had 
 made her at the time a very queer answer an 
 answer at which, viewing it in the light of the sequel, 
 she had fair ground for taking offence. "You piu- 
 mised to take me to Bullier's after your marriage. 
 After your marriage you made a great point of 
 that. Three days after that your marriage was 
 broken off. Do you know, when I heard the news, 
 the first thing I said to myself? 'Ah, par exemple, 
 now he won't go with me to Bullier's!' And I really 
 began to wonder if you had n't been expecting the 
 rupture." 
 
 " Oh, my dear lady ! " he merely murmured, 
 while he looked down the path to see if the others 
 were n't coming. 
 
 "I shall be good-natured," said his friend. "One 
 must n't ask too much of a gentleman who's in love 
 with a cloistered nun. Besides, I can't go to Bui- 
 
 486 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 lier's while we're in mourning. But I have n't given 
 it up for that. The partie is arranged; I have my 
 cavalier Lord Deepmere, if you please! He has 
 gone back to his dear Dublin; but a few months 
 hence I'm to name any evening, and he'll come over 
 from Ireland on purpose. That's what I call really 
 deling for a woman." 
 
 Shortly after this Madame Urbain walked away 
 with her little girl. Newman sat in his place; the 
 time seemed terribly long. He felt how fiercely his 
 quarter of an hour in the chapel had raked over the 
 glowing coals of his resentment. His accessory kept 
 him waiting, but she proved as good as her word. 
 Finally she reappeared at the end of the path with 
 her little girl and her footman; beside her slowly 
 walked her husband with his mother on his arm. 
 They were a long time advancing, during which New- 
 man sat unmoved. Aching as he fairly did now with 
 his passion the passion of his wrath at the impu- 
 dence, on the part of such a pair, of an objection to 
 him in the name of clean hands it. was extremely 
 characteristic of him that he was able to moderate 
 his expression of it very much as he would have 
 turned down a flaring gas-jet. His native shrewd- 
 ness, coolness, clearness, his lifelong submission to 
 the sense that words were acts and acts were steps 
 in life, and that in this matter of taking steps curvet- 
 ing and prancing were exclusively reserved for quad- 
 rupeds and foreigners all this admonished him 
 that rightful wrath had no connexion with being 
 a fool and indulging in spectacular violence. So as 
 he rose, when the elder lady and her son were close 
 
 487 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to him, he only felt very tall and unencumbered and 
 alert. He had been sitting beside some shrubbery in 
 such a way as not to be noticeable at a distance; but 
 the Marquis, at hand, had quickly enough perceived 
 him. The couple were then for holding their course; 
 at sight of which Newman stepped so straight in 
 front of them that they were obliged to pause. He 
 lifted his hat slightly and looked at them hard; they 
 were pale with amazement and disgust. 
 
 "Pardon my stopping you," he dryly said; "but 
 I must profit by the occasion. I 've ten words to say 
 to you. Will you listen to them ?" 
 
 The Marquis blinked, then turned to his mother. 
 "Can Mr. Newman possibly have anything to say 
 that is worth our listening to ?" 
 
 "I assure you I've something," Newman went on; 
 "besides, it's my duty to say it. It concerns you ever 
 so closely." 
 
 "Your duty? ' said the Marquise, her small fine 
 mouth contracting in its odd way as for a whistle. 
 "That's your affair, not ours." 
 
 Madame Urbain meanwhile had seized her little 
 girl by the hand, with a gesture of surprise and 
 impatience which struck Newman, intent as he 
 was on his own words, with its plausible ex- 
 travagance. "If Mr. Newman's going to make a 
 scene in public," she exclaimed, "I shall take my 
 poor child out of the melee. She's too young to 
 see such naughtiness!" and she instantly resumed 
 her walk. 
 
 "You had much better listen to me," he persisted 
 with his difficult ease. "Whether you do or not youi 
 
 488 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 gain will be small; but at least perhaps you'll be pre- 
 pared." 
 
 "If you mean prepared for your preposterous 
 threats," the Marquis replied, "there's nothing 
 grotesque from you, certainly, for which we're not 
 prepared, and of the idea of which you don't per- 
 fectly know what we think." 
 
 "You think a great deal more than you yet admit. 
 A moment," Newman added in reply to a sharp 
 exclamation from Madame de Bellegarde. "I don't 
 at all forget that we're in a public place, and you see 
 I'm very quiet. I'm not going to tell your secret to 
 the passers-by; I shall keep it, to begin with, for cer- 
 tain picked listeners. Any one who observes us will 
 think we're having a friendly chat and that I'm com- 
 plimenting you, madam, on your venerable virtues." 
 
 The Marquis gave a hiss that fairly evoked for our 
 friend some vision of a hunched back, an erect tail 
 and a pair of shining evil eyes. " I demand of you to 
 step out of our path!" 
 
 Newman instantly complied and his interlocutors 
 proceeded. But he was still beside them and was still 
 distinct. "Half an hour hence Madame de Belle- 
 garde will regret that she did n't learn exactly w bat 
 I mean." 
 
 The Marquise had taken a few steps, but at these 
 words she pulled up again, as if not to have the 
 appearance of not facing even monstrous possibil- 
 ities as monstrous, that is, as a monster of rude- 
 ness might make them. "You're like a pedlar with 
 something trumpery to sell," she said; and she accom- 
 panied it with a strange, small, cold laugh a de- 
 
 489 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 monstration so inconsequent that it meant nothing, 
 Newman quickly felt, if it did n't mean a " lovely" 
 nervousness. 
 
 "Oh no, not to sell; I give it to you for nothing." 
 And he had never in his life, no matter under what 
 occasion for it, spoken so completely and so grate- 
 fully to the point as now. "You cruelly killed your 
 helpless husband, you know; and I'm in possession 
 of all the facts. That is you did your best, first, and 
 failed; and then succeeded by which I mean fin- 
 ished him at a stroke and almost without trying." 
 
 The Marquise closed her eyes and gave a small 
 dry cough which, as a piece of dissimulation and of 
 self-possession, seemed to her adversary consummate. 
 
 "Dear mother," said Urbain as if she had been 
 moved to hilarity, "does this stuff amuse you so 
 much ?" 
 
 "The rest is more amusing," Newman went on. 
 " You had better not lose it." 
 
 The eyes she fixed on him might well have been, 
 he recognised, those with which, according to Mrs. 
 Bread, she had done her husband to death; and they 
 had somehow no connexion with the stifled shrillness 
 of her spoken retort. "Amusing? Have I killed some 
 one else?" 
 
 "I don't count your daughter," said Newman, 
 "though of course I might. Your husband knew 
 what you were doing. I've a proof of it the existence 
 of which you've never suspected." And he turned to 
 the Marquis, whose face was beyond any he had ever 
 seen discomposed, decomposed what did they call 
 it ? "A paper written by the hand, and signed with 
 
 49 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the name of Henri-Urbain de Bellegarde. Written 
 and dated after you, madam, had left him for dead, 
 and while you, sir, had gone not very fast for 
 the doctor." 
 
 The Marquis turned to his mother; she moved 
 a little at random, averting herself and looking 
 vaguely round her. But her answer to his appeal 
 fell, after an instant, rather short. " I must sit down," 
 she simply said, and went back to the bench on which 
 Newman had been posted. 
 
 "Couldn't you have spoken to me alone?" her 
 companion then asked, all remarkably, of their pur- 
 suer, who wondered if it meant that there was sud- 
 denly, quite amazingly, a basis for discussion. 
 
 "Well, yes, if I could have been sure of speaking 
 to your mother alone too," Newman answered. 
 "But I've had to take you as I could get you, don't 
 you see ?" 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde, in a manner very eloquent 
 of what he would have called her "grit," her steel- 
 cold pluck and her instinctive appeal to her own 
 personal resources, seated herself on the bench with 
 her head erect and her hands folded in her lap. The 
 expression of her face was such that he fancied her at 
 first inconceivably smiling, but on his drawing nearer 
 felt this display to be strange and convulsive. He 
 saw, however, equally, that she was resisting her agi- 
 tation with all the rigour of her inflexible will, and 
 there was nothing like either fear or submission in the 
 fine front she presented. She had been upset, but 
 she could intensely think. He felt the pang of a con- 
 viction that she would get the better of him still, and 
 
 491 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 he would n't have been himself if he could wholly fail 
 to be touched by the sight of a woman (criminal or 
 other) in so tight a place. She gave a glance at her 
 son which seemed tantamount to an injunction to be 
 silent and leave her to her own devices. He stood 
 beside her with his hands behind him, quite making 
 up in attitude, as our observer noted, for what he 
 failed of in utterance. It was to remain really a 
 burden on Newman's mind to the end, this irritat- 
 ing, this perplexing illustration he afforded of the 
 positive virtue and the incalculable force, even in the 
 unholy, of attitude "as such." "What paper is this 
 you speak of?" the Marquise asked as if confessing 
 to an interest in any possible contribution to the 
 family archives. 
 
 " Exactly what I Ve told you. A paper written by 
 your husband after you had left him that evening, 
 for dead written during the couple of hours before 
 you returned. You see he had the time; you 
 should n't have stayed away so long. It declares in 
 the most convincing way his wife's murderous in- 
 
 tent." 
 
 " I should like to see it," she observed as with the 
 most natural concern for a manifesto so compro- 
 mising to the already in his day, alas, so painfully 
 compromised author of it. 
 
 "I thought you might," said Newman, "and I've 
 taken a copy." He drew from his waistcoat pocket 
 a small folded sheet. 
 
 "Give it to my son," she returned with decision; 
 on which Newman handed it to the Marquis while 
 she simply added "Look at the thing." M. de Belle* 
 
 492 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 garde's eyes had a pale irrepressible eagerness; he 
 took the paper in his light-gloved fingers and opened 
 it. There was a silence during which he took it in. 
 He had more than time to read it, but still he said 
 nothing; he stood looking at it hard. "Where's the 
 original ?" his mother meantime asked in a voice of 
 the most disinterested curiosity. 
 
 " In a very safe place. Of course I can't show you 
 that" Newman went on "a treasure the value 
 of which makes it sacred to me. You might want 
 to grab it," he added with conscious quaintness, 
 "and I've too much other use for it. But this 
 is a very correct copy except of course the hand- 
 writing: I'll get it properly certified for you if you 
 wish. That ought to suit you its being properly 
 certified." 
 
 The Marquis at last raised a countenance deeply 
 and undisguisedly flushed. "It will require," he 
 nevertheless lightly remarked, "a vast deal of certi- 
 fication!" 
 
 "Well," Newman returned, "we can always fall 
 back on the original." 
 
 "I'm speaking," said the Marquis, "of the orig- 
 inal." 
 
 "Ah, that, I think, will speak for itself. Still, w< 
 can easily get as many persons as possible as 
 many of those who knew the writer's hand to 
 speak for it. Think of the number it will interest 
 if I begin, myself, say, with the Duchess, that 
 amiable, very stout lady whose name I forget, but 
 who was pleasant to me at your party. She asked 
 me to come to see her, and I 've been thinking that in 
 
 493 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 that case I should n't have much to say to her But 
 such a matter as this gives me plenty!" 
 
 "You had better, at this rate, keep what you have 
 there, my son," the old woman quavered with a 
 strained irony. 
 
 "By all means," Newman said "keep it and 
 show it to your mother when you get home." 
 
 "And after enlisting the Duchess?" asked the 
 Marquis, who folded the paper and put it away. 
 
 "Well, there are all the other people you had the 
 cruelty to introduce me to in a character of which 
 you were capable, at the next turn, of rudely divest- 
 ing me. Many of them immediately afterwards left 
 cards on me, so that I have their names correctly and 
 shall know how to find them." 
 
 For a moment, on this, neither of Newman's 
 friends spoke; the Marquise sat looking down very 
 hard, while her son's blanched pupils were fixed on 
 her face. "Is that all you have to say ?" she finally 
 asked. 
 
 "No, I want to say a few words more. I want to 
 say that I hope you quite understand what I 'm abuit. 
 This is my vindication, you know, of my claim that 
 I've been cruelly wronged. You've treated me be- 
 fore the world, convened for the expiess purpose, as 
 if I were not good enough for you. I mean to show 
 the world that, however bad I may be, you're not 
 quite the people to say it." 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde was silent again, and then, 
 with a return of her power to face him, she dealt with 
 his point. Her coolness continued to affect him as 
 consummate; he wondered of what alarms, what 
 
 494 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 effronteries, what suspicions and what precautions 
 she had not had, from far back, to make her life. 
 " I need n't ask you who has been your accomplice 
 in this clumsy fraud. Catherine Bread told me you 
 had purchased her services." 
 
 "Don't accuse Mrs. Bread of venality," Newman 
 returned. "She has kept your secret all these years. 
 She has given you a long respite. It was beneath her 
 eyes your husband wrote that paper; he put it into 
 her hands with a solemn injunction that she was to 
 make it public. You've had the benefit of her merci- 
 ful delay." 
 
 The Marquise appeared for an instant to hesitate, 
 and then, "My husband, for years, did what he 
 most remarkably! liked with her," she declared 
 dryly enough. "She was perhaps the meanest of his 
 many mistresses." This was the only concession to 
 self-defence that she condescended to make. 
 
 "I very much doubt that," said Newman. "I be- 
 lieve in her decency." 
 
 Madame de Bellegarde got up from her bench. 
 " It was n't to your beliefs however interesting in 
 themselves I undertook to listen; so that, if you've 
 nothing left but them to tell me, this charming inter- 
 view may terminate." And turning to the Marquis 
 she took his arm again. "My son," she then oddly 
 resumed, "say something!" 
 
 He looked down at her, passing his hand over his 
 forehead to the positive displacement of his hat; with 
 which, tenderly, caressingly, "What shall I say?" he 
 too uncertainly enquired. 
 
 "There's only one thing to say that it was really 
 
 495 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 not worth while, on such a showing, to have pulled 
 us up in the street like a pair of pickpockets." 
 
 But the Marquis thought he could surpass this. 
 "Your paper's of course the crudest of forgeries," he 
 said to Newman. 
 
 Newman shook his head all amusedly. "M. de 
 Bellegarde, your mother does better. She has done 
 better all along, from the first of my knowing you. 
 You're a mighty plucky woman, madam," he con- 
 tinued. "It's a great pity you've made me your 
 enemy. I should have been one of vour greatest 
 admirers." 
 
 " Mon pauvre ami" she proceeded to her son, and 
 as if she had not heard these words, "you must take 
 me immediately to my carriage." 
 
 Newman stepped back and let them leave him; he 
 watched them a moment and saw Madame Urbain, 
 with her little girl, wander out of a by-path to meet 
 them. The Marquise stooped and kissed her grand- 
 child. "Damn it, she is plucky!" he sighed; and he 
 walked home with a sense of having been almost 
 worsted. She was so quite heroically impenetrable. 
 But on reflexion he decided that what he had wit- 
 nessed was no real sense of security, still less a real 
 innocence. It was only a very superior style of brazen 
 assurance, of what M. Nioche called V usage du monde 
 and Mrs. Tristram called the grand manner. "Wait 
 till she has seen how he puts it!" he said to himself; 
 and he concluded that he should hear from her soon. 
 
 He heard sooner than he expected. The next 
 morning, before midday, when he was about to give 
 orders for his breakfast to be served, M. de Belie- 
 
 496 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 garde's card was brought him. "She has seen how 
 he puts it and she has passed a bad night/' he 
 promptly inferred. He instantly admitted his visitor, 
 who came in with the air of the ambassador of a great 
 power meeting the delegate of a barbarous tribe 
 whom an absurd accident had enabled for the mo- 
 ment to be abominably annoying. The ambassador, 
 at any rate, had also passed a bad night, and his 
 faultlessly careful array only threw into relief the sick 
 rancour of his eyes and those mottled spots on his fine 
 skin that resembled, to his host's imagination, the 
 hard finger-prints of fear. He stood there a moment, 
 breathing quickly and painfully and shaking his fore- 
 finger curtly as Newman pointed to a chair. 
 
 "What I've come to say is soon said and can only 
 be said without ceremony." 
 
 "I'm good for as much or for as little as you 
 desire." 
 
 The Marquis looked round the room and then: 
 "On what terms will you part with what you call 
 your original ?" 
 
 "Ah, on none!" And while, with his head on one 
 side and his hands behind him, he sounded his 
 visitor's depth of detestation, Newman added: "Cer- 
 tainly that's not worth sitting down about." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde went on, however, as without 
 having heard him. " My mother and I, last evening, 
 talked over your story. You'll be surprised to learn 
 that we think your little document is a" and he 
 held back his word a moment "characteristic." 
 
 Newman laughed out as it came. " Of your mother 
 and you, you mean ?" 
 
 497 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 *'Of my deplorable father. 
 
 "You forget that with you I'm used to surprises!" 
 Newman gaily pursued. 
 
 "The very scantest consideration we owe his 
 memory," the Marquis continued, "makes us desire 
 he should n't be held up to the world as the author 
 of an elaborately malignant attack on the reputation 
 of a wife whose only fault was that she had been 
 submissive to repeated outrage." 
 
 "Oh, I see! It's for your father's sake!" And 
 Newman laughed the laugh in which he indulged 
 when he was, if not most amused, at any rate most 
 pleased an intimate noiseless laugh with closed 
 lips. 
 
 But M. de Bellegarde's gravity held good. "There 
 are a few of his particular friends for whom the 
 knowledge of so unfortunate an inspiration would be 
 a real grief. Even say we firmly established by med- 
 ical evidence the presumption of a mind disordered 
 by fever, il en resterait quelque chose. At the best it 
 would look ill in him. Very ill!" 
 
 "Don't try medical evidence," said Newman. 
 " Don't touch the doctors and they won't touch you. 
 I don't mind your knowing that I've not written to 
 either of the gentlemen present at the event." 
 
 He flattered himself he saw signs in his visitor's 
 discoloured mask that this information was extremely 
 pertinent. The Marquis remained, however, irreduc- 
 ibly argumentative. " For instance Madame d'Outre- 
 ville, of whom you spoke yesterday. I can imagine 
 nothing that would shock her more." 
 
 "Oh, I'm quite prepared to shock Madame d'Ou- 
 
 49 8 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 treville. That's just what's the matter with me, 
 I regularly want to shock people." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde examined for a moment the fine 
 white stitching on one of his black gloves. Then 
 without looking up, "We don't offer you money," he 
 said. "That we suppose to be useless." 
 
 Newman, turning away, took a few turns about the 
 room and then came back. "What do you offer me ? 
 By what I can make out the generosity is all to be on 
 my side." 
 
 The Marquis dropped his arms at his flanks and 
 held his head a little higher. "What we offer you is 
 a chance a chance a gentleman should appreciate. 
 A chance to abstain from inflicting a terrible blot 
 upon the memory of a man who certainly had his 
 faults, but who, personally, had done you no wrong." 
 
 "There are two things to say to that," Newman 
 returned. "The first is, as regards appreciating your 
 'chance,' that you don't consider me a gentleman. 
 That's your great point, you know. It's a poor rule 
 that won't work both ways. The second is that 
 V 7 ell, in a word, you're talking sad nonsense." 
 
 In the midst of his bitterness he had kept well 
 before his eyes, as I have noted, a certain ideal of 
 saying nothing rude, and he felt a -quick scruple for 
 the too easy impatience of these words. But the Mar- 
 quis took them more quietly than might have been 
 expected. Sublime ambassador that he was, he con- 
 tinued the policy of ignoring what was disagreeable 
 in his adversary's replies. He gazed at the gilded 
 arabesques on the opposite wall and then trans- 
 ferred his glance to his host as if he too had been 
 
 499 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a large grotesque in a vulgar system of chamber- 
 decoration. "I suppose you know that, as regards 
 yourself, a course so confessedly vindictive vindic- 
 tive in respect to your discomfiture won't do at all." 
 
 "How do you mean it won't do ?" 
 
 "Why, of course you utterly damn yourself. But 
 I suppose that's in your programme. You propose 
 to throw at us this horrible ordure that you've raked 
 together, and you believe, you hope, that some of it 
 may stick. We know naturally it can't," explained 
 the Marquis in a tone of conscious lucidity; " but you 
 take the chance and are willing at any rate to show 
 that you yourself have dirty hands." 
 
 "That's a good comparison; at least half of it is," 
 said Newman. "I take the chance of something 
 cticking. But as regards my hands, they're clean. 
 I 've taken the awful thing up with my finger-tips." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde looked a moment into his hat. 
 "All our friends are quite with us. They would have 
 done exactly as we've done." 
 
 "I shall believe that when I hear them say it. 
 Meanwhile I shall think better of human nature." 
 
 The Marquis looked into his hat again. "My poor 
 perverse sister was extremely fond of her father. If 
 she knew of the .existence of the few base words 
 at once mad and base of which you propose to 
 make this scandalous use, she would require of you, 
 proudly, for his sake, to give them up to her, and she 
 would destroy them on the spot." 
 
 "Very possibly," Newman rejoined. "But it's ex- 
 actly what shewon'tknow. I was in that hideous place 
 yesterday, and I know what she's doing. Lord of 
 
 500 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 mercy! You can guess whether it made me feel for- 
 giving!" 
 
 M. de Bellegarde appeared to have nothing more 
 to suggest; but he continued to stand there, rigid and 
 elegant, as a man who had believed his mere per- 
 sonal presence would have had an argumentative 
 value. Newman watched him and, without yielding 
 an inch on the main issue, felt an incongruously good- 
 natured impulse to help him to retreat in good order. 
 "Your idea, you see though ingenious in its way 
 does n't work. You offer too little." 
 
 " Propose something yourself," the Marquis at last 
 brought out. 
 
 "Give me back Madame de Cintre relieved of the 
 blight and free of the poison that are all of your 
 producing." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde threw up his head and his flush 
 darkly spread. "Never!" 
 
 "You can't!" 
 
 "We would n't if we could! In the sentiment 
 which led us to deprecate her marriage to you nothing 
 is changed." 
 
 1 'Deprecate' is lovely!" cried Newman. "It was 
 hardly worth while to come here only to tell me that 
 you're not ashamed of yourselves. I should have come 
 to think of you perhaps as in your guilt-burdened 
 hearts almost pitifully miserable." 
 
 The Marquis slowly walked toward the door, and 
 Newman, following, opened it for him. " Your hawk- 
 ing that tatter about will be, on your part, the vulgar- 
 est proceeding conceivable, and, as having admitted 
 you to our intimite, we shall proportionately wince 
 
 501 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 for it. That we quite feel. But it won't otherwise 
 incommode us." 
 
 "Well," said Newman after reflexion, "I don't 
 know that I want to do anything worse than make 
 you regret your connexion with me. Only don't be 
 sure you know yet," he added, "how very much you 
 may regret it." 
 
 M. de Bellegarde stood a moment looking on the 
 ground, as if ransacking his brain to see what else he 
 could do to save his father's reputation. Then, with 
 a small cold sigh, he seemed to signify that he regret- 
 fully surrendered the late Marquis to the penalty of 
 his turpitude. He gave a scant shrug, took his neat 
 umbrella from the servant in the vestibule and, with 
 his gentlemanly walk, passed out. Newman stood 
 listening till he heard the door close; then for some 
 minutes he moved to and fro with his hands in his 
 pockets and a sound like the low hum of a jig pro- 
 ceeding from the back of his mouth. 
 
XXV 
 
 HE called on the immense, the comical Duchess and 
 found her at home. An old gentleman with a high 
 nose and a gold-headed cane was just taking leave; 
 he made Newman a protracted obeisance as he re- 
 tired, and our hero supposed him one of the high 
 personages with whom he had shaken hands at 
 Madame de Bellegarde's party. The Duchess, in her 
 armchair, from which she did n't move, with a great 
 flower-pot on one side of her, a pile of pink-covered 
 novels on the other and a large piece of tapestry 
 depending from her lap, presented an expansive and 
 imposing front; but her aspect was in the highest 
 degree gracious and there was nothing in her manner 
 to check the effusion of his confidence. She talked to 
 him of flowers and books, getting launched with mar- 
 vellous promptitude; about the theatres, about the 
 peculiar institutions of his native country, about the 
 humidity of Paris, about the pretty complexions of 
 the American ladies, about his impressions of France 
 and his opinion of its female inhabitants. All this 
 had a large free flow on the part of the Duchess, who, 
 like many of her countrywomen, was a person of an 
 affirmative rather than an interrogative cast, who 
 uttered "good things" and put them herself into 
 circulation, and who was apt to offer you a present 
 of a convenient little opinion neatly enveloped in the 
 gilt paper of a happy Gallicism. Newman had come 
 
 503 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to her with a grievance, but he fuund himself in an 
 atmosphere in which apparently no cognisance was 
 taken of such matters; an atmosphere into which the 
 chill of discomfort had never penetrated and which 
 seemed exclusively made up of mild, sweet, stale in- 
 tellectual perfumes. The feeling with which he had 
 watched Madame d'Outreville at the treacherous 
 festival of the Bellegardes came back to him; she 
 struck him as a wonderful old lady in some particu- 
 larly "high" comedy, thoroughly well up in her part. 
 He noticed before long that she asked him no ques- 
 tion about their common friends; she made no allu- 
 sion to the circumstances under which he had been 
 presented to her. She neither feigned ignorance of 
 a change in these circumstances nor pretended to 
 condole with him upon it; but she smiled and dis- 
 coursed and compared the tender-tinted wools of her 
 tapestry as if the Bellegardes and their wickedness 
 were not of this world. "She's fighting shy!" he 
 said to himself; and, having drawn the inference, was 
 curious to see, further, how, if this were a policy, she 
 would carry it off. She did so in a masterly manner. 
 There was not a gleam of disguised consciousness in 
 the small, clear, demonstrative eyes which constituted 
 her nearest claim to personal loveliness; there was not 
 a symptom of apprehension he would trench on any 
 ground she proposed to avoid. "Upon my word, she 
 does it very well," he tacitly commented. "They all 
 hold together bravely, and, whether any one else can 
 trust them or not, they can certainly trust each other." 
 He fell at this juncture to admiring the Duchess foi 
 her fine manners. He felt, most accurately, that she 
 
 504 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 was not a grain less urbane than she would have been 
 if his marriage were still in prospect; but he was 
 aware also that she led him on no single inch further. 
 He had come, so reasoned this eminent lady 
 heaven knew why he had come after what had hap- 
 pened; and for the half-hour therefore she would be. 
 charmante. But she would never see him again. 
 Finding no ready-made opportunity to tell his story, 
 he pondered these things more dispassionately than 
 might have been expected; he stretched his legs as 
 usual and even chuckled a little quite appreciatively 
 and noiselessly. And then as his hostess went on 
 relating a mot with which her mother had, in extreme 
 youth, snubbed the great Napoleon, it occurred to 
 him that her evasion of a chapter of French history 
 more interesting to himself might possibly be the 
 result of an extreme consideration for his feelings. 
 Perhaps it was delicacy rather than diplomacy. He 
 was on the point of saying something himself, to 
 make the chance he had determined to give her still 
 better, when the servant announced another visitor. 
 The Duchess on hearing the name it was that of 
 an Italian prince gave a little imperceptible pout 
 and said to him rapidly: "I beg you to remain; I de- 
 sire this visit to be short/' He wondered, at this, if 
 they might n't then after all get round to the Belle- 
 gardes. 
 
 The Prince was a short stout man, with a head 
 disproportionately large. He had a dusky complexion 
 and bushy eyebrows, beneath which glowed a fixed 
 and somewhat defiant stare; he seemed to be chal- 
 you to hint that he might be hydrocephalic. 
 
 55 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 The Duchess, judging from her charge to our own 
 friend, regarded him as a bore; but this was not 
 apparent from the unchecked abundance of her 
 speech. She caused it to frisk hither and yon as to 
 some old rococo music and then pull up on a mot 
 after the fashion in which a stage-dancer whirls, for 
 breath and with arms arranged, into ecstatic equi- 
 librium; she characterised with great felicity the 
 Italian intellect and the taste of the figs at Sorrento, 
 predicted the ultimate future of the Italian kingdom 
 (disgust with the brutal Sardinian rule and complete 
 reversion, throughout the peninsula, to the mild sway 
 of the Holy Father) and, finally, took up the heart- 
 history of their friend cette paume Prtncesse, a lady 
 unknown to Newman, who had notoriously so much 
 heart. This record exposed itself to a considerable 
 control from the Prince, who was evidently not re- 
 lated to the heroine in question otherwise than by 
 an intimate familiarity with her annals; and having 
 satisfied himself that Newman was in no laughing 
 mood, either with regard to the size of his head or the 
 authenticity of his facts, he entered into the contro- 
 versy with an animation for which the Duchess, when 
 she set him down as a bore, could not have been pre- 
 pared. The often so oddly-directed passions of their 
 friend led Newman's companions to a discussion of 
 the cote passionel of the Florentine nobility in general; 
 the Duchess had lately spent several weeks in the very 
 bosom of that body and gathered much information 
 on the subject. This was merged, in turn, in an ex- 
 amination of the Italian heart per se. The Duchess, 
 who had arrived at highly original conclusions, 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 thought it the least susceptible organ of its kind tha? 
 she had ever encountered, related examples of its 
 Machiavellian power to calculate its perils and pro- 
 fits, and at last declared that for her the race were 
 half arithmetic and half ice. The Prince became 
 flame and rhetoric to refute her, and his visit really 
 proved charming. 
 
 Newman was naturally out of the fray; he sat with 
 his head a little on one side, watching the interlocu- 
 tors. The Duchess, as she talked, frequently looked 
 at him with a smile, as if to intimate, in the charming 
 manner of her nation, that it lay only with him to say 
 something very much to the point. ,But he said 
 nothing at all, and at last his thoughts began to 
 wander. A singular feeling came over him a sud- 
 den sense of the folly of his errand. What under the 
 sun had he after all to say to the Duchess ? Wheiein 
 would it profit him to denounce the Bellegardes to 
 her for traitors and the Marquise into the bargain 
 for a murderess ? He seemed morally to have turned 
 a high somersault and to find things looking differently 
 in consequence. He felt, as by the effect of some 
 colder current of the air, his will stiffen in another 
 direction and the mantle of his reserve draw closer. 
 What in the world had he been thinking of when 
 he fancied Madame d'Outreville could help him and 
 that it would conduce to his comfort to make her 
 ^hink ill of the Bellegardes ? What did her opinion 
 of the Bellegardes matter to him ? It was only a shade 
 more important than the opinion the Bellegardes 
 entertained of herself. The Duchess help him, that 
 cold, stout, soft, artificial woman help him r she 
 
 .507 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 who in the last twenty minutes had built up between 
 them a wall of polite conversation in which she evi- 
 dently flattered herself he would never find a gate ? 
 Had it come to this that he was asking favours of 
 false gods and appealing for sympathy where he had 
 no sympathy to give ? He rested his arms on his 
 knees and sat for some minutes staring into his hat. 
 As he did so his ears tingled was he to have brayed 
 like that animal whose ears are longest ? Whether or 
 no the Duchess would hear his story he would n't tell 
 it. Was he to sit there another half-hour for the sake 
 of exposing the Bellegardes ? The Bellegardes be 
 deeply damned! He got up abruptly and advanced 
 to shake hands with his hostess. 
 
 "You can't stay longer ?" she graciously asked. 
 
 "If you'll pardon me, no." 
 
 She hesitated, and then, "1 had an idea you had 
 something particular to say to me," she returned. 
 
 Newman met her eyes; he felt a little dizzy; for the 
 moment he was conscious of the high or at least 
 the higher air in which he performed gymnastic 
 revolutions. The little Italian prince came to his help. 
 "Ah, madame, who has not that ?" he richly sighed. 
 
 " Don't teach Mr. Newman to say jadaises" said 
 the Duchess. "It's his merit that he does n't know 
 how." 
 
 "Yes, I don't know how to say fadaises," Newman 
 admitted, "and 1 don't want to say anything un- 
 pleasant." 
 
 "I'm sure you're very considerate," Madame 
 d'Outreville smiled; and she gave him a little nod for 
 all good-bye, with which he took his departure. 
 
 <;o8 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Once in the street he stood for some time on the 
 pavement, wondering if after all he had not been most 
 an ass not to offer to the great lady's inhalation his 
 nosegay of strange flowers. And then he decided, he 
 quite had the sense of discovering, that he should 
 simply hate to talk of the Bellegardes with any one. 
 The thing he most wanted to do, it suddenly ap- 
 peared, was to banish them from his mind and never 
 think of them again. Indecision had, however, not 
 hitherto been one of his weaknesses, and in this case 
 it was not of long duration. For three days he applied 
 all his thought to not thinking thinking, that is, 
 of the Marquise and her son. He dined with Mrs. 
 Tristram and, on her mentioning their name, re- 
 quested her almost austerely to desist. This gave 
 Tom Tristram a much-coveted opportunity tc offer 
 condolences. 
 
 He leaned forward, laying his hand on Newman's 
 arm, compressing his lips and shaking his head. 
 "The fact is, my dear fellow, you see you ought never 
 to have gone into it. It was not your doing, I know 
 it was all my wife. If you want to come down on 
 her I'll stand off: I give you leave to hit her as hard 
 as you like. You know she has never had a flick of 
 the whip from me in her life, and I do think she wants 
 to be a bit touched up. Why did n't you listen to me? 
 You know I did n't believe in the thing. I thought it 
 at the best a high jump in which you might bruise 
 a shin. I don't profess to have been a tremendous 
 homme a femmes, as they say here, but I've instincts 
 about the sex that, hang it, I've honestly come by. 
 I've never mistrusted a woman in my life that she 
 
 59 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 has not turned out badly. I was not at all deceived 
 in Lizzie for instance; I always had my doubts about 
 her. Whatever you may think of my present situa- 
 tion I must at least admit that I got into it with my 
 eyes open. Now suppose you had got into something 
 like this box with your grand cold Countess. You 
 may depend upon it she'd have turned out a stiff one. 
 And upon my word I don't see where you could have 
 found your comfort. Not from the Marquis, my dear 
 Newman; he was n't a man you could go and talk 
 things over with in an easy and natural way. Did he 
 ever seem to want to have you on the premises ? Did 
 he ever try to see you alone ? Did he ever ask you to 
 come and smoke a cigar with him of an evening or 
 step in, when you had been calling on the ladies, and 
 take something ? I don't think you'd have got much 
 out of him. And as for that daughter of a hundred 
 earls his mother, she struck one as an uncommonly 
 strong dose. They have a great expression here, you 
 know; they call any damned thing ' sympathetic' 
 that is when it is n't it ought to be. Now Madame de 
 Bellegarde's about as sympathetic as that mustard- 
 pot. They're a d d stony-faced, cold-blooded lot 
 anyway; I felt it awfully at that ball of theirs. I felt 
 as if I were walking up and down the Armoury in the 
 Tower of London every one cased in ancestral 
 steel, every one perched up in a panoply. My dear 
 boy, don't think me a vulgar brute for hinting it, 
 but, you may depend upon it, all they wanted was 
 your money. I know something about that; I can 
 tell when people want one's money. Why they 
 stopped wanting yours I don't know; I suppose be- 
 
 510 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 cause they could get some one else's without working 
 so hard for it. It is n't worth finding out. It may be 
 it was not with your Countess, Lizzie's and yours, 
 that the idea of chucking you originated; very likely 
 the old woman put her up to it. I suspect she and 
 her mother are really as thick as thieves, eh ? You're 
 well out of it, at any rate, old man; make up your 
 mind to that. If I express myself strongly it's all 
 because I love you so much; and from that point of 
 view I may say I should as soon have thought of mak- 
 ing up to that piece of pale peculiarity as I should 
 have thought of wooing the Obelisk in the Place de 
 la Concorde." 
 
 Newman sat gazing at Tristram during this 
 harangue with a lack-lustre eye; never yet had he 
 seemed to himself to have outgrown so completely 
 the phase of equal comradeship with Tom Tristram. 
 Mrs. Tristram's glance at her husband had more of 
 a spark; she turned to Newman with a slightly lurid 
 smile. "You must at least do justice," she said, "to 
 the felicity with which he repairs the indiscretions of 
 a too zealous wife." 
 
 But even without the lash of his friend's loud 
 tongue Newman would have waked again into his 
 bitterest consciousness. He could keep it at bay only 
 when he could cease to miss what he had lost, and 
 each day, for the present, but added a ton of weight 
 to that quantity. In vain Mrs. Tristram begged him 
 to se faire, as she put it, tine raison; she assured him 
 the sight of his countenance made her wretched. 
 
 "How can I help it ?" he demanded with a tremb- 
 ling voice " how can I help it when the sight of 
 
 5" 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 everything makes me so ? I feel exactly like a stunned 
 widower and a widower who has not even the con- 
 solation of going to stand beside the grave of his wife, 
 one who has not the right to wear so much mourning 
 as a weed on his hat. I feel," he added in a moment, 
 "as if my wife had been murdered and her assassins 
 were still at large." 
 
 Mrs. Tristram made no immediate rejoinder, but 
 at last she said with a smile which, in so far as it was 
 a forced one, was less successfully simulated than such 
 smiles, on her lips, usually were: "Are you very sure 
 that you'd have been happy ?" 
 
 He stared, then shook his head. "That's weak; 
 that won't do." 
 
 "Well," she persisted as with an idea, "I don't 
 believe it would have really done." 
 
 He gave a sound of irritation. "Say then it would 
 have damnably failed. Failure for failure I should 
 have preferred that one to this." 
 
 She took it in her musing way. "I should have 
 been curious to see; it would have been very strange." 
 
 "Was it from curiosity that you urged me to put 
 myself forward ?" 
 
 "A little," she still more boldly answered. New- 
 man gave her the one angry look he had been des- 
 tined ever to give her, turned away and took up his 
 hat. She watched him a moment and then said: 
 "That sounds very cruel, but it's less so than it 
 sounds. Curiosity has a share in almost everything 
 I do. I wanted very much to see, first, if such a union 
 could actually come through; second, what would 
 happen to it afterwards." 
 
 512 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " So you had n't faith," he said resentfully. 
 
 "Yes, I had faith faith that it would take place, 
 and that you'd be happy. Otherwise I should have 
 been, among my speculations, a very heartless crea- 
 ture. But," she continued, laying her hand on his 
 arm and hazarding a grave smile, "it was the highest 
 flight ever taken by a tolerably rich imagination!" 
 
 Shortly after this she recommended him to leave 
 Paris and travel for three months. Change of scene 
 would do him good and he would forget his misfor- 
 tune sooner in absence from the objects that had 
 witnessed it. "I really feel," he concurred, "as if to 
 leave you, at least, would do me good and cost me 
 very little effort. You're growing cynical; you shock 
 me and pain me." 
 
 "Very well," she said, good-naturedly or cynically, 
 as may appear most credible. "I shall certainly see 
 you again." 
 
 He was ready enough to get quite away; the bril- 
 liant streets he had walked through in his happier 
 hours and which then seemed to wear a higher 
 brilliancy in honour of his happiness, were now in the 
 secret of his defeat and looked down on it in shining 
 mockery. He would go somewhere, he cared little 
 where; and he made his preparations. Then one 
 morning at haphazard he drove to the train that 
 would transport him to Calais and deposit him there 
 for despatch to the shores of Britain. As he rolled 
 along he asked himself what had become of his re- 
 venge, and he was able to think of it as provisionally 
 pigeonholed in a very safe place. It would keep till 
 called for. 
 
 5*3 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 He arrived in London in the midst of what is called 
 "the season," and it seemed to him at first that he 
 might here put himself in the way of being diverted 
 from his heavy-heartedness. He knew no one in all 
 England, but the spectacle of the vaster and duskier 
 Babylon roused him somewhat from his apathy. 
 Anything that was enormous usually found favour 
 with him, and the multitudinous English energies 
 and industries stirred in his spirit a dull vivacity of 
 contemplation. It is on record that the weather, at 
 that moment, was of the finest insular quality; 
 he took long walks and explored London in every 
 direction; he sat by the hour in Kensington Gardens 
 and beside the adjoining Drive, watching the people 
 and the horses and the carnages; the rosy English 
 beauties, the wonderful English dandies and the 
 splendid flunkies. He went to the opera and found 
 it better than in Paris; he went to the theatre and 
 found a surprising charm in listening to dialogue the 
 finest points of which came within the range of his 
 comprehension. He made several excursions into the 
 country, recommended by the waiter at his hotel, 
 with whom, on this and similar points, he had estab- 
 lished confidential relations. He watched the deer in 
 Windsor Forest and admired the Thames from Rich- 
 mond Hill; he ate whitebait and brown bread-and- 
 butter at Greenwich; he strolled in the grassy shadow 
 of the cathedral of Canterbury. He also visited the 
 Tower of London and Madame Tussaud's exhibi- 
 tion. One day he thought he would go to Sheffield, 
 and then, thinking again, gave it up. Why the devil 
 ihould he go to Sheffield ? He had a feeling that the 
 
 514 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 link which bound him to a possible interest in the 
 manufacture of cutlery was broken. He had no desire 
 for an "inside view" of any successful enterprise 
 whatever, and he would n't have given the smallest 
 sum for the privilege of talking over the details of the 
 most splendid business with the most original of 
 managers. 
 
 One afternoon he had walked into the Park and 
 was slowly threading his way through the human 
 maze which fringes the Drive. This stream was no 
 less dense, and Newman, as usual, marvelled at the 
 strange dowdy figures he saw taking the air in some 
 of the most shining conveyances. They reminded 
 him of what he had read of Eastern and Southern 
 countiies, in which grotesque idols and fetiches were 
 sometimes drawn out of their temples and carried 
 abroad in golden chariots to be seen of the people. 
 He noted a great many pretty cheeks beneath high- 
 plumed hats as he squeezed his way through serried 
 waves of crumpled muslin; and, sitting on little chairs 
 at the base of the dull, massive English trees, he 
 observed a number of quiet-eyed maidens who seemed 
 only to remind him afresh that the magic of beauty 
 had gone out of the world with the woman wrenched 
 from him: to say nothing of other damsels whose eyes 
 were not quiet and who struck him still moie as a 
 satire on possible consolation. He had been walking 
 for some time when, directly in front of him, borne 
 toward him by the summer breeze, he heard a few 
 words uttered in the bright Parisian idiom his ears 
 had begun to forget. The voice in which the words 
 were spoken was a peculiar recall, and as he bent his 
 
 515 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 eyes it lent an identity to the commonplace elegance 
 of the back view of a young lady walking in the same 
 direction as himself. Mademoiselle Nioche, seeking 
 her fortune, had apparently thought she might find 
 it faster in London, and another glance led him to 
 wonder if she might now have lighted on it. A geritle- 
 .3nan strolled beside her, lending an attentive ear to 
 )ier conversation and too beguiled to open his lips. 
 Newman caught no sound of him, but had the im- 
 pression of English shoulders, an English "fit," an 
 English silence. Mademoiselle Nioche was attracting 
 attention: the ladies who passed her turned round as 
 with a sense of the Parisian finish. A great cataract 
 of flounces rolled down from the young lady's waist 
 to Newman's feet; he had to step aside to avoid 
 treading on them. He stepped aside indeed with a 
 decision of movement that the occasion scarcely 
 demanded; for even this imperfect glimpse of Miss 
 Noemie had sharpened again his constant soreness. 
 She seemed an odious blot on the face of nature; he 
 wanted to put her out of his sight. He thought of 
 Valentin de Bellegarde still green in the earth of his 
 burial, his young life giving way to this flourishing 
 impudence. The fragrance of the girl's bravery quite 
 sickened him; he turned his head and tried to keep 
 his distance; but the pressure of the crowd held him 
 near her a minute longer, so that he heard what she 
 was saying. 
 
 "Ah, I'm sure he'll miss me," she murmured. "It 
 was very cruel of me to leave him; I'm afraid you'll 
 think I 've very little heart. He might perfectly have 
 remained with us. I don't think he's very well." 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 she added; "it seemed to me to-day he was rather 
 
 down." 
 
 Newman wondered whom she was talking about, 
 but just then an opening among his neighbours 
 enabled him to turn away, and he said to himself that 
 she was probably paying a tribute to British propri- 
 ety and feigning a tender solicitude about her parent. 
 Was that miserable old man still treading the path of 
 vice in her train ? Was he still giving her the benefit 
 of his experience of affairs, and had he crossed the 
 sea to serve as her interpreter ? Newman walked 
 some distance further and then began to retrace his 
 steps, taking care not to accompany again those of 
 Mademoiselle Nioche. At last he looked for a chair 
 under the trees, but he had some difficulty in finding 
 an empty one. He was about to give up the search 
 when he saw a gentleman rise from the seat he had 
 been occupying, leaving our friend to take it without 
 looking at his neighbours. Newman sat there for 
 some time without heeding them; his attention was 
 lost in the rage of his renewed vision of the little 
 fatal fact of Noemie. But at the end of a quarter of 
 an hour, dropping his eyes, he perceived a small pug- 
 dog squatted on the path near his feet a diminu- 
 tive but very perfect specimen of its interesting 
 species. The pug was sniffing at the fashionable 
 world, as it passed him, with his little black muzzle, 
 and was kept from extending his investigation by 
 a large blue ribbon attached to his collar with an 
 enormous rosette and held in the hand of a person 
 seated next Newman. To this person our hero trans- 
 ferred his attention, and immediately found himself 
 
 517 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 the object of all that of his neighbour, who was star- 
 ing up at him from a pair of little fixed white eyes. 
 These eyes he instantly recognised; he had been sit- 
 ting for the last quarter of an hour beside M. Nioche. 
 He had vaguely felt himself in range of some feeble 
 fire. M. Nioche continued to stare; he appeared 
 afraid to move even to the extent of saving by flight 
 what might have been left of his honour. 
 
 "Good Lord!" said Newman; "are you here too ?" 
 And he looked at his neighbour's helplessness more 
 grimly than he knew. M. Nioche had a new hat and 
 a pair of kid gloves; his clothes too seemed to belong 
 to an eld less hoary than of yore. Over his arm was 
 suspended a lady's mantilla a light and brilliant 
 tissue, fringed with white lace which had appar- 
 ently been committed to his keeping; and the little 
 dog's blue ribbon was wound tightly round his hand. 
 There was no hint of recognition in his face nor of 
 anything save a feeble fascinated dread. Newman 
 looked at the pug and the lace mantilla and then met 
 the old man's eyes again. "You know me, I see," he 
 pursued. "You might have spoken to me before." 
 M. Nioche still said nothing, but it seemed to his ex- 
 patron that his eyes began faintly to water. " I did n't 
 expect," the latter went on, "to meet you so far from 
 - from the Cafe de la Patrie." He remained silent, 
 but decidedly Newman had touched the source of 
 tears. His neighbour sat staring and he added: 
 "What's the matter, M. Nioche? You used to talk, 
 talk very what did you call it ? very gentiment. 
 Don't you remember you even gave lessons in con- 
 versation?" 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 At this M. Nioche decided to change his attitude. 
 He stooped and picked up the pug, lifted it to his 
 face and wiped his eyes on its little soft back. "I'm 
 afraid to speak to you," he presently said, looking 
 over the puppy's shoulder. "I hoped you would n't 
 notice me. I should have moved away, but I was 
 afraid that if I moved it would strike you. So I sat 
 very still." 
 
 "I suspect you've a bad conscience, sir," Newman 
 pronounced. 
 
 The old man put down the little dog and held it 
 carefully in his lap. Then he shook his head, his 
 eyes still watering and pleading. "No, Mr. Newman, 
 I 've a good conscience," he weakly wailed. 
 
 "Then why should you want to slink away from 
 me?" 
 
 " Because because you don't understand my 
 position." 
 
 "Oh, I think you once explained it to me," said 
 Newman. "But it seems improved." 
 
 "Improved!" his companion quavered. "Do you 
 call this improvement?" And he ruefully embraced 
 the treasures in his arms. 
 
 "Why. you're on your travels," Newman rejoined. 
 " A visit to London in the Season is certainly a sign 
 of prosperity." 
 
 M. Nioche, in answer to this superior dig, lifted 
 the puppy up to his face again, peering at his critic 
 from his small blank eye-holes. There was something 
 inane in the movement, and Newman hardly knew if 
 he were taking refuge in an affected failure of reason 
 or whether he had in fact paid for his base accommo- 
 
 519 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 datum by the loss of his wits. In the latter case, just 
 now, he felt little more tenderly to the foolish old man 
 than in the former. Responsible or not, he was 
 equally an accomplice of his pestilent daughter. 
 Newman was going to leave him abruptly when his 
 face gave out a peculiar convulsion. "Are you going 
 away?" he appealed. 
 
 "Do you want me to stay ?" 
 
 " I should have left you from consideration. But 
 my dignity suffers at your leaving me that way." 
 
 "Have you anything particular to say to me ?" 
 
 M. Nioche looked round to see no one was listen- 
 ing, and then returned with mild portentousness : "Je 
 ne lui ai pas trouve d'excuses." 
 
 Newman gave a short laugh, but the old man 
 seemed for the moment not to heed; he was gazing 
 away, absently, at some metaphysical image of his 
 implacability. " It does n't much matter whether you 
 have or not," said Newman. "There are other people 
 who never will, I assure you." 
 
 "What has she done?" M. Nioche vaguely en- 
 quired, turning round again. "I don't know what 
 she does, you know." 
 
 "She has done a devilish mischief; it does n't 
 matter what. She's a public nuisance; she ought to 
 be stopped." 
 
 M. Nioche stealthily put out his hand and laid it 
 on Newman's arm. "Stopped, yes," he concurred. 
 "That's it. Stopped short. She's running away 
 she must be stopped." Then he paused and again 
 looked round him. "I mean to stop her," he went 
 on. " I 'm only waiting for my chance." 
 
 520 
 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 "1 see," Newman dryly enough laughed. "She's 
 running away and you're running after her. You've 
 run a long distance." 
 
 But M. Nioche had a competent upward nod, 
 "Oh, I know what to do!" 
 
 He had hardly spoken when the crowd in front of 
 them separated as if by the impulse to make way for 
 an important personage. Presently, through the open- 
 ing, advanced Mademoiselle Nioche, attended by 
 the gentleman Newman had lately observed. His 
 face being now presented to our hero, the latter re- 
 cognised the irregular features and the hardly more 
 composed expression of Lord Deepmere. Noemie, on 
 finding herself suddenly confronted with Newman, 
 who, like M. Nioche, had risen from his seat, faltered 
 for a barely perceptible instant. She gave him a little 
 nod, as if she had seen him yesterday, and then, with- 
 out agitation, "Tiens, how we keep meeting!" she 
 sweetly shrilled. She looked consummately pretty 
 and the front of her dress was a wonderful work 
 of art. She went up to her father, stretching out 
 her hands for the little dog, which he submissively 
 placed in them, and she began to kiss it and mur- 
 mur over it: "To think of leaving him all alone, mon 
 bichon what a horrid false friend he must believe 
 me! He has been very unwell," she added, turning 
 and affecting to explain to Newman, a spark of infer- 
 nal impudence, fine as a needle-point, lighted in each 
 charming eye. "I don't think the English climate 
 does for him." 
 
 " It seems to do wonderfully well for his mistress," 
 Newman said. 
 
 521 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 " Do you mean me ? I 've never been better, thank 
 you," Miss Noemie declared. "But with milord," 
 and she gave a shining shot at her late companion, 
 "how can one help being well ?" She seated herself 
 in the chair from which her father had risen and 
 began to arrange the little dog's rosette. 
 
 Lord Deepmere carried off such embarrassment as 
 might be incidental to this unexpected encounter with 
 the inferior grace of a male and a Briton. He blushed 
 a good deal and greeted his fellow-candidate in that 
 recent remarkable competition by which each had so 
 signally failed to profit with an awkward nod and 
 a rapid ejaculation an ejaculation to which New- 
 man, who often found it hard to understand the 
 speech of English people, was able to attach no mean- 
 ing. Then he stood there with his hand on his hip 
 and with a conscious grin, staring askance at the mis- 
 tress of the invalid pug. Suddenly an idea seemed to 
 strike him and he caught at the light. "Oh, you 
 know her?" 
 
 "Yes," said Newman, "I know her. I don't be- 
 lieve you do." 
 
 "Oh dear, yes, I do!" Lord Deepmere was sure 
 of that. " I knew her in Paris by my late cousin 
 Bellegarde, you know. He knew her, poor fellow, 
 did n't he ? It was she, you know, who was at the 
 bottom of his affair. Awfully sad, wasn't it?" the 
 young man continued, talking off his embarrassment 
 as his simple nature permitted. "They got up some 
 story of its being for the Pope; of the other fellow 
 having said something against the Pope's morals. 
 They always do that, you know. They put it on the 
 
 522 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Pope because Bellegarde was once in the Zouaves. 
 But it was about her morals she was the Pope!" 
 his lordship pursued, directing an eye illumined by 
 this pleasantry toward Mademoiselle Nioche, who, 
 bending gracefully over her lap-dog, was apparently 
 absorbed in conversation with it. "I dare say you 
 think it rather odd that I should a keep up the 
 acquaintance," he resumed; "but she could n't help 
 it, you know, and Bellegarde was only my twentieth 
 cousin. I dare say you think it rather cheeky my 
 showing with her in this place; but you see she is n't 
 known yet and she's so remarkably, thoroughly 
 nice !" With which his attesting glance returned 
 to the young lady. 
 
 Newman turned away; he was having too much of 
 her niceness. M. Nioche had stepped aside on his 
 daughter's approach, and he stood there, within 
 a very small compass, looking down hard at the 
 ground. It had decidedly never yet, as between him 
 and his late protector, been so apposite to place on 
 record that, for his vindication, he was only waiting 
 to strike. As Newman turned off he felt himself held, 
 and, seeing the old man, who had drawn so near, 
 had something particular to say, bent his head an 
 instant: 
 
 "You'll see it some day dans les feuilles." 
 Our hero broke away, for impatience of the whole 
 connexion, and to this day, though the newspapers 
 form his principal reading, his eyes have not been 
 arrested by any paragraph forming a sequel to this 
 announcement. 
 
XXVI 
 
 IN that uninitiated observation of the great spectacle 
 of English life on which I have touched, it might be 
 supposed that he passed a great many dull days. 
 But the dulness was as grateful as a warm, fra- 
 grant bath, and his melancholy, which was settling to 
 a secondary stage, like a healing wound, had in it a 
 certain acrid, palatable sweetness. He had the com- 
 pany of his thoughts and for the present wanted none 
 other. He had no desire to make acquaintances and 
 left untouched a couple of notes of introduction sent 
 him by Tom Tristram. He mused a great deal on 
 Madame de Cintre sometimes with a dull despair 
 that might have seemed a near neighbour to detach- 
 ment. He lived over again the happiest hours he had 
 known that silver chain of numbered days in 
 which his afternoon visits, strained so sensibly to the 
 ideal end, had come to figure for him a flight of firm 
 marble steps where the ascent from one to the other 
 was a momentous and distinct occasion, giving a 
 nearer view of the chamber of confidence at the top. 
 a white tower that flushed more and more as with a 
 light of dawn. He had yet held in his cheated arms, 
 he felt, the full experience, and when he closed them 
 together round the void that was all they now pos- 
 sessed, he might have been some solitary spare ath- 
 lete practising restlessly in the corridor of the circus. 
 He came back to reality indeed, after such reveries, 
 
 524 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 with a shock somewhat muffled; he had begun to 
 know the need of accepting the absolute. At other 
 times, however, the truth was again an infamy and 
 the actual a lie, and he could only pace and rage 
 and remember till he was weary. Passion, in him, by 
 habit, nevertheless, burned clear rather than thick, 
 and in the clearness he saw things, even things not 
 gross and close having never the excuse that any- 
 thing could make him blind. Without quite knowing 
 it at first, he began to read a moral into his strange 
 adventure. He asked himself in his quieter hours 
 whether he perhaps had been more commercial than 
 was decent. We know that it was in reaction against 
 questions of the cruder avidity that he had come out 
 to pick up for a while an intellectual, or otherwise 
 a critical, living in Europe; it may therefore be under- 
 stood that he was able to conceive of a votary of the 
 mere greasy market smelling too strong for true good 
 company. He was willing to grant in a given case 
 that unpleasant effect, but he could n't bring it home 
 to himself that he had reeked. He believed there had 
 been as few reflexions of his smugness caught during 
 all those weeks in the high polish of surrounding 
 surfaces as there were monuments of his meanness 
 scattered about the world. No one had ever unpro- 
 vokedly suffered by him ah, provokedly was an- 
 other matter: he liked to remember that, and to 
 repeat it, and to defy himself to bring up a case. 
 
 If moreover there was any reason in the nature of 
 things why his connexion with business should have 
 cast a shadow on a connexion even a connexion 
 broken with a woman justly proud, he was willing 
 
 525 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 to sponge it out of his life for ever. The thing seemed 
 a possibility; he could n't feel it doubtless as keenly 
 as some people, and it scarce struck him as worth 
 while to flap his wings very hard to rise to the idea; 
 but he could feel it enough to make any sacrifice that 
 still remained to be made. As to what such sacrifice 
 was now to be made to, here he stopped short before 
 a blank wall over which there sometimes played 
 strange shadows and confused signs. Was it a think- 
 able plan,that of carrying out his life as he would have 
 directed had Madame de Cintre been left to him ? 
 that of making it a religion to do nothing she would 
 have disliked ? In this certainly was no sacrifice; but 
 there was a pale, oblique ray of inspiration. It would be 
 lonely entertainment a good deal like a man's talk- 
 ing to himself in the mirror for want of better com- 
 pany. Yet the idea yielded him several half-hours' 
 dumb exaltation as he sat, his hands in his pockets and 
 his legs outstretched, over the relics of an expensively 
 bad dinner, in the undying English twilight. If, 
 however, his financial imagination was dead he felt 
 no contempt for the surviving actualities begotten 
 by it. He was glad he had been prosperous and had 
 been a great operator rather than a small; he was 
 extremely glad he was rich. He felt no impulse to 
 sell all he had and give to the poor, or to retire into 
 meditative economy and asceticism. He was glad he 
 was rich and tolerably young; if it was possible to 
 have inhaled too fondly the reek of the market, it 
 was yet a gain still to have time for experiments in 
 other air. Come then, what air should it now be ? 
 Ah, again and again, he could taste but one sweet- 
 
 526 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 ness; that came back to him and back; and as this 
 happened, with a force which seemed physically to 
 express itself in a sudden upward choking, he would 
 lean forward, when the waiter had left the room, and, 
 resting his arms on the table, bury his troubled face. 
 He remained in England till midsummer and spent 
 a month in the country, wandering among cathedrals, 
 hanging about castles and ruins. Several times, tak- 
 ing a walk from his inn across sweet field-paths and 
 through ample parks, he stopped by a well-worn stile, 
 looked across through the early evening at a grey 
 church tower, with its dusky nimbus of thick-circling 
 rooks, and remembered that such things might 
 have been part of the intimacy of his honeymoon. 
 He had never been so much alone nor indulged so 
 little in chance talk. The period of recreation ap- 
 pointed by Mrs. Tristram had at last expired and he 
 asked himself what he should next do. She had 
 written to propose he should join her in the Pyre- 
 nees, but he was not in the humour to return to 
 France. The simplest thing was to repair to Liver- 
 pool and embark on the first American steamer. He 
 proceeded accordingly to that seaport and secured 
 his berth; and the night before sailing he sat in his 
 room at the hotel and stared down vacantly arid 
 wearily at an open portmanteau. A number of papers 
 lay upon it, which he had been meaning to look over; 
 some of them might conveniently be destroyed. But 
 he at last shuffled them roughly together and pushed 
 them into a corner of the bag; they were business 
 papers and he was in no humour for sorting them. 
 Then he drew forth his pocket-book and took out 
 
 527 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 a leaf of smaller size than those he had dismissed. 
 He did n't unfold it; he simply sat looking at the back 
 of it. If he had momentarily entertained the idea of 
 destroying it this possibility at least quickly dropped. 
 What the thing suggested was the feeling that lay in 
 his innermost heart and that no reviving cheerfulness 
 could long quench the feeling that, after all and 
 above all, he was a good fellow wronged. With it 
 came a hope, as intense as a pang, that the Belle- 
 gardes were enjoying their suspense as to what he 
 would do yet. The more it was prolonged the more 
 they would enjoy it. He had hung fire once, yes; 
 perhaps in his present queer state of mind he might 
 hang fire again. But he restored the safe scrap to his 
 pocket-book very tenderly and felt better for thinking 
 of the suspense of the Bellegardes. He felt better 
 every time he thought of it while he sailed the summer 
 seas. He landed in New York and journeyed across 
 the continent to San Francisco, and nothing he ob- 
 served by the way contributed to mitigate his sense 
 of being a good fellow wronged. 
 
 He saw a great many other good fellows his old 
 friends but he told none of them of the trick that 
 had been played him. He said simply that the lady 
 he was to have married had changed her mind, and 
 when asked if he had changed his own inscrutably 
 answered, "Suppose we change the subject." He told 
 his friends he had brought home no "new ideas" 
 from Europe, and his conduct probably struck them 
 as an eloquent proof of failing invention. He took no 
 interest in discussing business and showed no desire 
 to go into anything whatever. He asked half a dozen 
 
 528 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 questions which, like those of an eminent physician 
 enquiring for particular symptoms, proved he was 
 master of his subject; but he made no comments and 
 gave no directions. He not only puzzled all the promi- 
 nent men, but was himself surprised at the extent of 
 his indifference. As it seemed only to increase he made 
 an effort to combat it; he tried to take hold and to 
 recover, as they said, his spring. But the ground was 
 inelastic and the issues dead; do what he would he 
 somehow could n't believe in them. Sometimes he 
 began to fear there was something the matter with 
 him, that he had suffered, unwitting, some small 
 horrid cerebral lesion or nervous accident, and that 
 the end of his strong activities had come. This idea 
 for a while hung about him and haunted him. A 
 hopeless, helpless loafer, useful to no one and detest- 
 able to himself this was what the treachery of the 
 Bellegardes had made of him. In his anxious idle- 
 ness he came back from San Francisco to New York, 
 where he sat for three days in the lobby of his hotel 
 and looked out through a huge wall of plate glass at 
 the unceasing stream of pretty girls who wore their 
 clothes as with the American accent and undulated 
 past with little parcels nursed against their neat 
 figures. At the end of three days he returned to San 
 Francisco and, having arrived there, wished he had 
 stayed away. He had nothing to do, his occupation 
 had gone, had simply strayed and lost itself in the 
 great desert of life. He had nothing to do here y he 
 sometimes said to himself; but there was something 
 beyond the ocean he was still to do; something he 
 had left undone experimentally and speculativeiy, to 
 
 529 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 see if it could content itself to remain undone. Well, 
 clearly, it could n't content itself; it kept pulling at 
 his heartstrings and thumping at his reason; it mur- 
 mured in his ears and hovered perpetually before 
 his eyes. It interposed between all new resolutions 
 and their fulfilment; it was a stubborn ghost dumbly 
 entreating to be laid. On the doing of that all other 
 doing depended. 
 
 One day toward the end of the winter, after a<long 
 interval, he received a letter from Mrs. Tristram, who 
 appeared to have been moved by a charitable desire 
 to amuse and distract her correspondent. She gave 
 him much Paris gossip, talked of General Packard 
 and Miss Kitty Upjohn, enumerated the new plays 
 at the theatres and enclosed a note from her hus- 
 band, who had gone down to spend a month at 
 Nice. Then came her signature and after this her 
 postscript. The latter consisted of these few lines: 
 "I heard three days since from my friend the 
 Abbe Aubert that Claire de Cintre last week re- 
 ceived the veil at the Carmelites. It was on her 
 twenty-ninth birthday, and she took the name of 
 her patroness, Saint Veronica. Sceur Veronique has 
 a lifetime before her!" 
 
 This letter reached him in the morning; in the 
 evening he started for Paris. His wound began to 
 ache with its first fierceness, and during his long bleak 
 journey he had no company but the thought of the 
 new Sister's "lifetime" every one's sister but his! 
 1 passed within walls on whose outer side only he 
 might stand. Well, for that station he would live, if 
 it was to be spoken of as life; he would fix himself in 
 
 53 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 Paris; he would wring a hard happiness from the 
 knowledge that if she was not there at least the stony 
 sepulchre that held her was. He descended, unan- 
 nounced, on Mrs. Bread, whom he found keeping 
 lonely watch in his great empty saloons on the Boule- 
 vard Haussmann. They were as neat as a Dutch 
 village; Mrs. Bread's only occupation had been re- 
 moving individual dust-particles. She made no com- 
 plaint, however, of her solitude, for in her philosophy 
 a servant was but a machine constructed for the bene- 
 fit of some supreme patentee, and it would be as fan- 
 tastic for a housekeeper to comment on a gentleman's 
 absences as for a clock to remark on not being wound 
 up. No particular clock, Mrs. Bread supposed, kept 
 all the time, and no particular servant could enjoy all 
 the sunshine diffused by the career of a universal 
 master. She ventured nevertheless to express a 
 modest hope that Newman meant to remain a while 
 in Paris. He laid his hand on hers and shook it 
 gently. "I mean to remain for ever." 
 
 He went after this to see Mrs. Tristram, to whom 
 he had telegraphed and who expected him. She 
 looked at him a moment and shook her head. "This 
 won't do," she said; "you've come back too soon." 
 He sat down and asked about her husband and her 
 children, enquired even for news of Miss Dora Finch. 
 In the midst of this, "Do you know where she is 3 " 
 he abruptly demanded. 
 
 Mrs. Tristram hesitated; of course he couldn't 
 mean Miss Dora Finch. Then she answered pro- 
 perly: "She has gone to the other house in the Rue 
 <J'Enfer." But after he had gloomed a little longer 
 
 531 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 she went on: "You're not so good a man as I thought. 
 You're more you're more " 
 
 "More what?" 
 
 "More unreconciled." 
 
 "Good God!" he cried; "do you expect me to for* 
 give?" 
 
 "No, not that. I've not forgiven, so of course you 
 can't. But you might magnificently forget. You've 
 a worse temper about it than I should have expected. 
 You look wicked you look dangerous." 
 
 "I may be dangerous," he said; "but I'm not 
 wicked. No, I'm not wicked." And he got up to go. 
 She asked him to come back to dinner, but he an- 
 swered that he could n't face a convivial occasion, 
 even as a solitary guest. Later in the evening, if he 
 should be able, he would look in. 
 
 He walked away through the city, beside the Seine 
 and over it, and took the direction of the Rue d'Enfer. 
 The day had the softness of early spring, but the 
 weather was grey and humid. He found himself in 
 a part of Paris that he little knew a region of con- 
 vents and prisons, of streets bordered by long dead 
 walls and traversed by few frequenters. At the inter- 
 section of two of these streets stood the house of the 
 Carmelites a dull, plain edifice with a blank, high- 
 shouldered defence all round. From without he could 
 see its upper windows, its steep roof and its chimneys. 
 But these things revealed no symptoms of human life; 
 the place looked dumb, deaf, inanimate. The pale, 
 dead, discoloured wall stretched beneath it far down 
 the empty side-street a vista without a human 
 figure. He stood there a long time; there were no 
 
 532 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 passers; he was free to gaze his fill. This seemed the 
 goal of his journey; it was all he had come for. It was 
 a strange satisfaction too, and yet it was a satisfac- 
 tion; the barren stillness of the place represented 
 somehow his own release from ineffectual desire. It 
 told him the woman within was lost beyond recall, 
 and that the days and years of the future would pile 
 themselves above her like the huge immoveable slab 
 of a tomb. These days and years, on this spot, 
 would always be just so grey and silent. Suddenly 
 from the thought of their seeing him stand there again 
 the charm utterly departed. He would never stand 
 there again; it was a sacrifice as sterile as her own. 
 He turned away with a heavy heart, yet more dis- 
 burdened than he had come. 
 
 Everything was over and he too at last could rest. 
 He walked back through narrow, winding streets to 
 the edge of the Seine and there he saw, close above 
 him, high and mild and grey, the twin towers of 
 Notre Dame. He crossed one of the bridges and 
 paused in the voided space that makes the great 
 front clear; then he went in beneath the grossly- 
 imaged portals. He wandered some distance up the 
 nave and sat down in the splendid dimness. He sat 
 a long time; he heard far-away bells chiming off into 
 space, at long intervals, the big bronze syllables of 
 the Word. He was very tired, but such a place was 
 a kingdom of rest. He said no prayers; he had no 
 prayers to say He had nothing to be thankful for 
 and he had nothing to ask; nothing to ask because 
 now he must take care of himself. But a great church 
 offers a very various hospitality, and he kept his 
 
 533 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 place because while he was there he was out of the 
 world. The most unpleasant thing that had ever 
 happened to him had reached its formal conclusion; 
 he had learnt his lesson not indeed that he the 
 least understood it and could put away the book. 
 He leaned his head for a long time on the chair in 
 front of him; when he took it up he felt he was him- 
 self again. Somewhere in his soul a tight constric- 
 tion had loosened. He thought of the Bellegardes; 
 he had almost forgotten them. He remembered 
 them as people he had meant to do something to. 
 He gave a groan as he remembered what he had 
 meant to do; he was annoyed, and yet partly incred- 
 ulous, at his having meant to do it: the bottom sud- 
 denly had fallen out of his revenge. Whether it was 
 Christian charity or mere human weakness of will 
 what it was, in the background of his spirit I don't 
 nretend to say; but Newman's last thought was that 
 of course he would let the Bellegardes go. If he had 
 spoken it aloud he would have said he did n't want 
 to hurt them. He was ashamed of having wanted to 
 hurt them. He quite failed, of a sudden, to recognise 
 the fact of his having cultivated any such link with 
 them. It was a link for themselves perhaps, their 
 having so hurt him; but that side of it was now not 
 his affair. At last he got up and came out of the 
 darkening church; not with the elastic step of a man 
 who has won a victory or taken a resolve rather to 
 the quiet measure of a discreet escape, of a retreat 
 with appearances preserved. 
 
 Going home, he said to Mrs. Bread that he must 
 trouble her to put back his things into the port- 
 
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THE AMERICAN 
 
 manteau she had unpacked the evening before. It 
 was therefore as if she had looked at him on this, 
 through bedimmed eyes, with the consciousness of 
 a value, so far as she could see, quite extravagantly 
 wasted. "Dear me, sir, I thought you said you were 
 going to stay for ever." 
 
 "Well, I guess I omitted a word. I meant I'm 
 going to stay away for ever," he was obliged a little 
 awkwardly to explain. And since his departure from 
 Paris on the following day he has certainly not re- 
 turned. The gilded apartments I have so often 
 spoken of stand ready to receive him, but they serve 
 only as a spacious setting for Mrs. Bread's solitary 
 straightness, which wanders eternally from room to 
 room, adjusting the tassels of the curtains, and keeps 
 its wages, which are regularly brought in by a 
 banker's clerk, in a great pink Sevres vase on the 
 drawing-room mantel-shelf. 
 
 Late in the evening Newman went to Mrs. Tris* 
 tram's and found the more jovial member of the pair 
 by the domestic fireside. "I'm glad to see you back 
 in Paris," this gentleman declared, " for, you know, 
 it's really the only place for a white man to live." 
 Mr. Tristram made his friend welcome according to 
 his own rosy light, and repaired in five minutes, with 
 a free tongue, the too visible and too innocent de- 
 ficiencies in Newman's acquaintance with current 
 history. Then, having caused him to gape with 
 strange information all as to what had been going 
 on in "noire monde a nous, you know" Tristram 
 got up to go and renew his budget at the club. 
 
 To this Newman replied that Mrs. Tristram was 
 
 535 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 fits club and that he had never wanted a better: a 
 statement he felt the truth of when he was presently 
 alone with her and even or perhaps all the more 
 when she asked him what he had done on leaving 
 her in the afternoon. "Well," he then replied, "I 
 worked it off." 
 
 "Worked off the afternoon ?" 
 
 " Yes, and a lot of other troublesome stuff." 
 
 "You struck me," she confessed, "as a man filled 
 with some rather uncanny idea. I wondered if I were 
 right to leave you so the prey of it, and whether I 
 ought n't to have had you followed and watched." 
 
 This appeared to strike him with surprise. " Surely 
 I did n't look as if I wanted to take life." 
 
 " I might have feared, if I had let myself go a little, 
 that you were thinking of taking your own." 
 
 He breathed a long sigh of such apparent indiffer- 
 ence to his own as would have ruled that out. 
 "Well," he none the less after a moment went on, 
 "I have got rid of about nine tenths of something 
 that had become the biggest part of me. But I did 
 that only by walking over to the Rue d'Enfer." 
 
 "You've been then," she stared, "at the Carmel- 
 ites ?" And as he only met her eyes: "Trying to 
 scale the wall ?" 
 
 " Well, I thought of that I measured the wall. 
 I looked at it a long time. But it's too high it'f 
 beyond me." 
 
 "That's right," she said. "Give it up." 
 
 "I have given it up. But on the spot there I took 
 it all in." 
 
 She rested now her kindest eyes on him. "On the 
 
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THE AMERICAN 
 
 spot then you did n't happen to meet M. de Belle- 
 garde also taking it all in? I'm told his sister's 
 course does n't suit him the least little bit." 
 
 Newman had a moment's gravity of silence. "No, 
 luckily I did n't meet either of them. In that case 
 1 might have fired." 
 
 "Ah, it is n't that they've not been keeping quiet," 
 she said; "I mean in the country, at what's the 
 name of the place ? Fleurieres. They returned 
 there at the time you left Paris, and have been spend- 
 ing the year far from human eye. The little Marquise 
 must enjoy it; I expect to hear she has eloped with her 
 daughter's music-master!" 
 
 Newman had gazed at the light wood-fire, and he 
 listened to this with an apparent admission of its 
 relevance; but he spoke in another sense. "I mean 
 never to mention the name of those people again and 
 I don't want to hear anything more about them." 
 Then he took out his pocket-book and drew forth 
 a scrap of paper. He looked at it an instant, after 
 "vhich he got up and stood by the fire. "I'm going 
 to burn them up. I'm glad to have you as a witness. 
 There they go!" And he tossed the paper into the 
 flame. 
 
 Mrs. Tristram sat with her embroidery-needle sus- 
 pended. "What in the world is that ?" 
 
 Leaning against the chimney-piece he seemed to 
 grasp its ledge with force and to draw his breath 
 a while in pain. But presently he said: "I can tell 
 you now. It was a proof of a great infamy on the part 
 of the Bellegardes something that would damn 
 them if ever knowti." 
 
 537 
 
THE AMERICAN 
 
 She dropped her work with a reproachful moan. 
 "Ah, why did n't you show it to me ?" 
 
 " I thought of showing it to you - 1 thought of 
 showing it to every one. I thought of paying my debt 
 to them that way. So I told them, and I guess I made 
 them squirm. If they've been lying low it's because 
 they have n't known what may happen. But, as I say, 
 I've given up my idea." 
 
 Mrs. Tristram began to take slow stitches again. 
 "Wholly renounced it?" 
 
 "Wholly renounced it." 
 
 "But your 'proof,'" she went on after a moment, 
 "what was it a proof o/?" 
 
 "Oh, of an abomination not otherwise known." 
 
 "An abomination ?" 
 
 "An abomination." 
 
 She hesitated but briefly. "Something too bad to 
 tell me?" 
 
 He considered. "Yes, not good enough now." 
 
 "Well," she said, "I'm sorry to have lost it. Your 
 document," she smiled, "did n't look like much, but 
 I should have liked immensely to see it. They've 
 wronged me too, you know, as your sponsor and 
 guarantee, and it would have served my revenge as 
 well! How did you come," she then asked, "into 
 possession of your knowledge ?" 
 
 "It's a long story. But honestly at any rate." 
 
 "And they knew you were master of it ?" 
 
 "Oh, but rather!" 
 
 "Dear me, how interesting!" cried Mrs. Tristram. 
 "And you humbled them at your feet ?" 
 
 Newman was silent a little. "No, not at all. They 
 
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THE AMERICAN 
 
 pretended not to care not to be afraid. But I know 
 rhey did care they were afraid." 
 
 "Are you very sure ?" 
 
 He looked at her hard. "Why, they fairly turned 
 blue." 
 
 She resumed her slow stitches. "They defied you, 
 eh ?" 
 
 "They took the only tone they could. But I did n't 
 think they took it very well." 
 
 " You tried by the threat of exposure to make them 
 xome round ?" Mrs. Tristram pursued. 
 
 " Yes, but they would n't. I gave them their choice, 
 and they chose to take their chance of bluffing off the 
 charge and convicting me of fraud, that is of having 
 procured and paid for a forgery. Forgery was of 
 course their easy word but words did n't, and 
 don't, matter. They're as sick as a pair of poisoned 
 cats and I don't want any more 'revenge." 1 
 
 "It's most provoking," she returned, "to hear you 
 talk of the 'charge' when the charge is burned up. 
 Is it quite consumed ?" she asked, glancing at the 
 fire. He assured her there was nothing left of it, and 
 at this, dropping her embroidery, she got up and 
 came near him. "I need n't tell you at this hour how 
 I've felt for you. But I like you as you are," she 
 said. 
 
 "As lam ?" 
 
 "As you are." She stood before him and put out 
 her hand as for his own, which he a little blankly let 
 her take. "Just exactly as you are," she repeated. 
 With which, bending her head, she raised his hand 
 and very tenderly and beautifully kissed it. Then, 
 
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 "Ah, poor Claire!" she sighed as she went back to 
 her place. It drew from him, while his flushed face 
 followed her, a strange inarticulate sound, and this 
 made her but say again: "Yes, a thousand tines 
 poor, poor Claire!" 
 
 THE BWD