Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/526

 "We go to Italy—we go to Naples." She rose and stood silent some minutes, looking down the valley. The figure of Prince Casamassima appeared in the distance, balancing his white umbrella. As her eyes took it in Rowland could feel he saw something deeper in the strange expression that had lurked in her face while he talked to her. Was it pure imagination, or did they grow harder with this view, and was the bitterness so suggested the outward mark of her sacrificed ideal? When she presently afterwards turned them on himself they showed to Rowland as almost tragic. There was a new dread in his sympathy; he wished to give her a proof of friendship, and yet it seemed to him that she had now fixed her face in a direction where friendship was powerless to interpose. She half read his feelings apparently, and she had a beautiful sad smile. "I hope we may never meet again!" she said. And as Rowland appeared to protest: "You 've seen me at my best. I wish to tell you solemnly, I was sincere. I know the whole look of it 's against me," she went on quickly. "There 's a great deal I can't tell you. Perhaps you 've guessed it; I care very little. You know at any rate I did my best. It wouldn't serve; I was beaten and broken; they were stronger than I. Now it 's another affair!"

"It seems to me you 've a large opportunity for happiness yet," he vaguely remarked, seeming foolish even to himself.

"Happiness? I mean to cultivate delight; I mean to go in for passing my time. You remember I told you that I was in part the world's and the devil's. 492