Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/282

 theories and views and inspirations, each of which is the best in the world until another is better. She 's perfectly sure about each, but they are fortunately so many that she can't be sure of any one very long. They may last all together, none the less, long enough to dish the Prince's patience, and if that were to happen I don't know what I should do. I should be the most miserable of women. It would be too cruel, after all I have suffered to make her what she is, to see the labour of years blighted by mere wicked perversity. For I can assure you, sir," Mrs. Light declared, "that if my daughter is the gifted creature you see, I deserve some of the credit of the creation."

Rowland promptly remarked that this was obvious, for he saw that the poor woman's irritated nerves required the comfort of some accepted overflow and he assumed designedly the attitude of a person impressed by her sacrifices. She told him then the story of her efforts, her hopes, her dreams, her presentiments, her disappointments, in this exalted cause of Christina's capture of a prize—such a prize as would really be the crown of such a fabric of visions. It was a wonderful rigmarole of strange confidences, and while it went on the Prince continued to pass to and fro, stiffly and solemnly, like a pendulum marking the time allowed for the young lady to come to her senses. Mrs. Light evidently at an early period had gathered her maternal and social appetites together into a sacred parcel, to which she said her prayers and burnt incense—which she treated generally as a sort of fetish. These things had been her religion; she had none other, and she performed her devotions 248