Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/287

 romps and kissing-games with people who now stand on the steps of thrones. I 've gone so far as to think at times that those childish kisses were a sign—a symbol—a pledge. You may laugh at me if you like, but have n't such things happened again and again without half so good a cause, and does n't history notoriously repeat itself? There was a little Spanish girl at a second-rate English boarding-school thirty years ago! . . . The Empress, certainly, was a pretty woman; but what 's my Christina, pray? I 've dreamt of it sometimes every night for a month. I won't tell you I 've been to consult those old women who advertise in the newspapers; you 'll call me an old portière. Portière as much as you please, when I certainly would scrub floors for her! I 've refused magnificent offers because I believed that somehow or other—if wars and revolutions were needed to bring it about—we should have nothing less than that. There might be another coup d'etat somewhere, and another brilliant young sovereign looking out for a wife! At last, however," Mrs. Light proceeded with incomparable gravity, "since the overturning of the poor king of Naples and that charming queen, and the expulsion of all those dear little old-fashioned Italian grand-dukes, and the dreadful radical talk that 's going on all over the world, it has come to seem to me that with Christina in such a position I should be really very nervous. Even in such a position she would hold her head very high, and if anything should happen to her she would make no concessions to the popular fury. The best thing, if one would be prudent, seems to be a nobleman of the highest possible rank 253