Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/136

 VI

gave up Bagdad and Bokhara and, returning to Paris before the autumn was over, established himself in rooms selected by Tom Tristram in accordance with the latter's estimate of his "social standing." When Newman learned that this occult attribute was to be taken into account he professed himself utterly incompetent and begged Tristram to relieve him of the care of it. "I did n't know I 'stood,' socially, at all—I thought I only sat round informally, rather sprawling than anything else. Is n't a social standing to know some two or three thousand people and invite them to dinner? I know you and your wife and little old Mr. Nioche, who gave me French lessons last spring. Can I invite you to dinner to meet each other? If I can you must come to-morrow."

"That's not very grateful to me," said Mrs. Tristram, "who introduced you last year to every creature of my acquaintance."

"So you did; I had quite forgotten. But I thought you wanted me to forget," said Newman in that tone of surpassing candour which frequently marked his utterance and which an observer would not have known whether to pronounce a whimsical affectation of ignorance or a modest aspiration to knowledge. "You told me you yourself disliked them all."

"Ah, the way you remember what I say is at least 106