Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/156

 VII

evening very late, about five days after this episode, Newman's servant brought him a card which proved to be that of young M. de Bellegarde. When a few moments later he went to receive his visitor he found him standing in the middle of the greatest of his gilded saloons and eyeing it from cornice to carpet. Count Valentin's face, it seemed to him, expressed not less than usual a sense of the inherent comedy of things. "What the devil is he laughing at now?" our hero asked himself; but he put the question without acrimony, for he felt in Madame de Cintré's brother a free and adventurous nature, and he had a presentiment that on this basis of the natural and the bold they were destined to understand each other. Only if there was food for mirth he wished to have a glimpse of it too.

"To begin with," said the young man as he extended his hand, "have I come too late?"

"Too late for what?"

"To smoke a cigar with you."

"You would have to come early to do that," Newman said. "I don't know how to smoke."

"Ah, you're a strong man!"

"But I keep cigars," he added. "Sit down."

His visitor looked about. "Surely I may n't smoke here."

"What's the matter? Is the room too small?" 126