Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/212

THE AMERICAN a customer in a shop, to see what she would offer. He received a rapid impression of a white, delicate, aged face, with a high forehead, a small mouth and a pair of cold blue eyes which had kept much of the clearness of youth. Madame de Bellegarde looked hard at him and refused what she did refuse with a sort of British positiveness which reminded him that she was the daughter of the Earl of Saint Dunstans. Her daughter-in-law stopped playing and gave him an agreeable smile. He sat down and looked about him while Valentin went and kissed the hand of the young Marquise.

"I ought to have seen you before," said Madame de Bellegarde. "You've paid several visits to my daughter."

"Oh yes," Newman liberally smiled; "Madame de Cintré and I are old friends by this time."

"You've gone very fast," she went on.

"Not so fast as I should like."

"Ah, you're very ambitious," the old woman returned.

"Well, if I don't know what I want by this time I suppose I never shall."

Madame de Bellegarde looked at him with her cold fine eyes, and he returned her gaze, reflecting that she was a possible adversary and trying to take her measure. Their eyes remained for some moments engaged; then she looked away and, without smiling, "I'm very ambitious too," she said.

Newman felt that taking her measure was not easy; she was a formidable, inscrutable little woman. She resembled her daughter as an insect might 182