Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/106

 shrill laugh. You're a very beau jeune homme. And how do you like my father?"

"He's a very nice old gentleman. He never laughs at my blunders."

"He's very comme il faut, dear papa," said Mademoiselle Noémie, "and as honest as the day. Oh, a probity that would take a prize! You could trust him with millions."

"Do you always mind what he says?" asked Newman.

"'Mind' it?"

"Do you do what he bids you."

The girl stopped and looked at him; she had a spot of colour in either cheek, and in her prompt French eye, too protrusive for perfect beauty, was a sharp spark of freedom. "Why do you ask me that?"

"Because I want to know."

"You think me a bad little girl?" And she gave a strange smile.

Newman looked at her a moment; he saw she was pretty, but he was not in the least dazzled. He remembered poor M. Nioche's solicitude for her innocence, and he laughed out again as his eyes met this odd quantity. Her face was a rare mixture of youth and maturity, and beneath her clear, charming forehead her searching little smile seemed to contain a world of ambiguous intentions. She was pretty enough, certainly, to make her father uneasy; but as regards her innocence Newman felt ready on the spot to affirm that she had never yet sacrificed it. She had simply never had any to lose; she had been 76