Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/152

THE AMERICAN and might pass for younger than she probably was. In her whole person was something still young and still passive, still uncertain and that seemed still to expect to depend, and which yet made, in its dignity, a presence withal, and almost represented, in its serenity, an assurance. What had Tristram meant, Newman wondered, by calling her proud? She was certainly not proud, now, to him; or if she was it was of no use and lost on him: she must pile it up higher if she expected him to mind it. She was a clear, noble person—it was very easy to get on with her. And was she then subject to that application of the idea of rank which made her a kind of historical formation? Newman had known rank but in the old days of the army—where it had not always amounted to very much either; and he had never seen it attributed to women, unless perhaps to two or three rather predominant wives of generals. But the designations representing it in France struck him as ever so pretty and becoming, with a property in the bearer, this particular one, that might match them and make a sense—something fair and softly bright, that had motions of extraordinary lightness and indeed a whole new and unfamiliar play of emphasis and pressure, a new way, that is, of not insisting and not even, as one might think, wanting or knowing, yet all to the effect of attracting and pleasing. She had at last thought of something to say. "Have you many friends in Paris—so that you go out a great deal?"

He considered—about going out. "Do you mean if I go to parties—?" 122