Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/191

THE AMERICAN you think she may be by chance determined not to marry at all?"

"Oh, I quite think it! But that's not necessarily too much against you. Such a determination never yet spoiled a right opportunity."

"But suppose I don't seem a right one. I'm afraid it will be hard," Newman said with a gravity that appeared to signify at the same time a sort of lucid respect for the fact.

"I don't think it will be easy. In a general way I don't see why a widow should ever marry again. She has gained the benefits of matrimony—freedom and consideration—and she has got rid of the drawbacks. Why should she put her head back into the noose? Her usual motive is ambition—if a man can offer her a great position, make her a princess or an ambassadress."

"And—in that way—is Madame de Cintré ambitious?"

"Who knows?" her brother asked with slightly depressing detachment. "I don't pretend to say all she is or all she is n't. I think she might be touched by the prospect of becoming the wife of a great man. But in a certain way, I believe, whatever she does will be the improbable. Don't be too confident, but don't absolutely doubt. Your best chance for success will be precisely in affecting her as unusual, unexpected, original. Don't try to be any one else; be simply yourself as hard as ever you can, and harder perhaps indeed (if you understand) than you've ever been before. Something or other can't fail to come of that. I'm very curious to see what." 161