Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/172

THE AMERICAN was glad, for his own sake, that he had fine feelings; but he mentally repudiated the idea of a Frenchman's having discovered any merit in the amiable sex he himself did n't suspect. Count Valentin, however, was not merely anecdotic and indiscreet; he welcomed every light on our hero's own life, and so far as his revelations might startle and waylay Newman could cap them as from the long habit of capping. He narrated his career, in fact, from the beginning, through all its variations, and whenever his companion's credulity or his standards appeared to protest it amused him to heighten the colour of the episode. He had sat with Western humourists in circles round cast-iron stoves and seen "tall" stories grow taller without toppling over, and his imagination had learnt the trick of building straight and high. The Count's regular attitude became at last that of lively self-defence; to mark the difference of his type from that of the occasionally witless he cultivated the wit of never being caught swallowing. The result of this was that Newman found it impossible to convince him of certain time-honoured verities.

"But the details don't matter," Valentin said, "since you've evidently had some such surprising adventures. You've seen some strange sides of life, you've revolved to and fro over a continent as I walk up and down the Boulevard. You're a man of the world to a livelier tune than ours. You've spent some awful, some deadly days, and you've done some extremely disagreeable things: you've shovelled sand, as a boy, for supper, and you've eaten 142