Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/243

 help it either. I can only apologise for the nonsense that I know to be such, and that I talk—oh, for more reasons than I can tell you! I wonder whether, if I were to try you, you 'd understand me."

"I 'm afraid I should never understand," said Rowland, as if for her edification, "why a person on a good—or call it perhaps a bad—occasion can willingly talk nonsense."

"That proves how little you know about women. But I like your hearty directness. When I told you the other day, with my usual rudeness to every one, that you bored me so, I had an idea you were more formal—how do you say it?—more guindé. I 'm very capricious. To-night I like you better."

"Oh, I 'm not at all guindé," said Rowland gravely.

"I beg your pardon then for thinking so. Now I 've an idea that you'd make a faithful friend; an intimate friend—a friend to whom one could tell everything. For such a friend what would n't I give, don't you see?"

Rowland looked at her in stirred, yet in quite self-possessed, speculation. Was this a sincere yearning or only an equivocal purpose? Her beautiful eyes looked divinely candid; but then, if candour was beautiful, beauty, and such beauty, somehow carried questions so far! "I hesitate to recommend myself out and out for the office," he said, "but I believe that if you were to depend upon me for anything that a friend may do I should not be found wanting."

"Very good. One of the first things one asks of a friend is to judge one not by isolated acts, but by one's 209