Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/144

THE AMERICAN ." The gentleman struck Newman as taking him, with great good-nature, for a friend already made, and our hero then perceived him to be the young man he had met in the court of the hotel on his former visit, the one who had appeared of an easy commerce. "Mrs. Tristram has often mentioned you to us." It had an effect of prodigious benignity as Madame de Cintré resumed her former place.

Newman, noticing in especial her "us," began, after he had seated himself, to consider what in truth might be his errand. He had an unusual, unexpected sense of having wandered into a strange corner of the world. He was not given, as a general thing, to borrowing trouble or to suspecting danger, and he had had no social tremors on this particular occasion. He was not without presence of mind, though he had no formed habit of prompt chatter. But his exercised acuteness sometimes precluded detachment; with every disposition to take things simply he could n't but feel that some of them were less simple than others. He felt as one feels in missing a step, in an ascent, where one has expected to find it. This strange pretty woman seated at fireside talk with her brother in the grey depths of her inhospitable-looking house—what had he to say to her? She seemed enveloped in triple defences of privacy; by what encouragement had he presumed on his having effected a breach? It was for a moment as if he had plunged into some medium as deep as the ocean and must exert himself to keep from sinking. Meanwhile he was looking at Madame la Comtesse and she was settling herself in her chair 114