Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/444

 under sharp coercion. She might, to his fancy, at that moment, have had this furbished weapon concealed in the folds of her not particularly fresh wrapper. Christina, meanwhile, had really for the time been soaring aloft, to his vision, and though in such flights of her moral nature—the energy of which now affected him as real—there was a certain painful effort and tension of wing, it was none the less piteous to imagine her being rudely jerked down to the base earth. She would need all her magnanimity for her own contest, and there was grossness in his making other demands upon it.

He took up his hat. "You asked a while ago if I had come to help you. If I knew how I might help you I should be particularly glad."

She stood a moment thinking. Then at last looking up: "You remember your promising six months ago to tell me what you should finally think of me? I should like you to tell me now."

Ah, this pressed the spring, and his inward irony, for himself, gave a hum! Madame Grandoni had insisted on the fact that she was an actress, and this little speech seemed a glimpse of the cothurnus. She had played her great scene, she had made her point, and now she had her eye at the hole in the curtain and she was watching the house. But she blushed as she guessed his fine comment, and her blush, which was beautiful, carried off her betrayal. He turned his back. There was a great chain of rooms in Mrs. Light's apartment, the pride and joy of the hostess on festal evenings, through which the departing visitor passed before reaching the door, and in one of the first of 410