Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/123

 but not unfriendly justice to the girl. The next day his companion asked him if he were certain he had used exactly the right word to characterise the young architect's mistress. Newman wondered and seemed amused. "There are a great many words to express that idea," he said; "you can take your choice!"

"Oh, I mean," said Babcock, "was she possibly not to be considered in a different light? Don't you think she really had believed in his higher nature?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," Newman replied. "Very likely she had; I've no doubt she judged it by her own." He was willing to meet his friend on any view of her.

"I didn't mean that either," said Babcock; "I'm not sure that she has a higher nature. I'm not sure—not very sure—every one has. I was only afraid I might have seemed yesterday not to remember—not to consider. Well, I think I 'll write to Percival about it."

And he had written to Percival (who had answered him in a manner that was indubitably cynical) and had reflected that Newman ought n't to be encouraged, after all, to read a cheap idealism into flagrant cases of immorality. The levity and brevity of his comrade's judgements very often shocked and depressed him. He had a way of damning people without further appeal, or else of appearing almost in sympathy with their sinister side, which seemed unworthy of a man whose conscience could still pretend to a squirm. And yet poor Babcock yearned toward him and remembered that even if, decidedly, his sensibility 93