Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/407

Rh not to talk about anything tiresome? He had never in his life so sacrificed an armful of high interests as in that remark; he had never so prepared the way for the comparatively frivolous as in addressing it to Mme. de Vionnet's intelligence. It had not been till later that he quite recalled how in conjuring away everything but the pleasant he had conjured away almost all they had hitherto talked about; it was not till later, even, that he remembered how, with their new tone, they had not so much as mentioned the name of Chad himself. One of the things that most lingered with him on his hillside was this delightful facility, with such a woman, of arriving at a new tone. He thought, as he lay on his back, of all the tones she might make possible if one were to try her, and at any rate of the probability that one could trust her to fit them to occasions. He had wanted her to feel that as he was disinterested now, so she herself should be, and she had showed she felt it, and he had showed he was grateful, and it had been, for all the world, as if he were calling for the first time. They had had other, but irrelevant, meetings; it was quite as if, had they sooner known how much they really had in common, there were quantities of comparatively dull matters they might have skipped. Well, they were skipping them now, even to graceful gratitude, even to handsome "Don't mention it!"—and it was amazing what could still come up without reference to what had been going on between them. It might have been, on analysis, nothing more than such questions as the difference between Victor Hugo and the English poets; Victor Hugo, for whom one could have but a plural comparison, and the English poets, whom his friend quite surprisingly, rather quaintly and archaically, knew. Yet it had served all the purpose of his appearing to have said to her: "Don't like me, if it's a question of liking me, for anything obvious and clumsy that I've, as they call it, 'done' for you; like me—well, like me, hang it, for anything else you choose. So, by the same propriety, don't be for me simply the person I've come to know through my awkward connection with Chad—was ever anything, by the way, more awkward? Be for me, please, with all your admirable tact and trust, just whatever I may show you it's a present