Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/111

 and stood before him with her arms expressively folded. "Ah ça, I don't understand you," she bravely broke out. "I don't understand how a man can be so ignorant."

"Oh, I'm ignorant certainly." And he put his hands in his pockets.

"It's too ridiculous! I don't know how to paint pour deux sous."

"You don't know how?"

"I paint like a cat; I can't draw a straight line. I never sold a picture until you bought that thing the other day." And as she offered this surprising information she continued to smile.

Newman met it with a grimace of his own. "Why do you make that statement?"

"Because it irritates me to see a clever man so bête. My copies are grotesque."

"And the one I possess—?"

"That one's the flower of the dreadful family."

"Well," said Newman, "I never outgrew a mistake but in my own time and in my own way."

She looked at him askance. "Your patience is very gentille; it's my duty to warn you before you go further. This commande of yours is impossible, you know. What do you take me for? It's work for ten strong men. You pick out the six most difficult pictures in the place, and you expect me to go to work as if I were sitting down to hem a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs. I wanted to see how far you'd go."

Newman considered her in some perplexity. In spite of the blunder of which he stood convicted he was very far from being a simpleton, and he had a 81