Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/248

THE AMERICAN She looked at him a moment in silence. "That's possible—I had undertaken more than I could carry out. I've very little courage; I'm not a heroine." She said this, he could feel, to be very true with him; and it touched him as if she had pressed into his hand, for reminder, some note she had scrawled or some ribbon or ring she had worn. Then changing her tone, "I could never have gone through the sufferings of the beautiful Florabella," she added, "not even for her prospective rewards."

Dinner was announced and he betook himself to the side of old Madame de Bellegarde. The dining-room, at the end of a cold corridor, was vast and sombre; the dinner was simple and delicately excellent. Newman wondered if the daughter of the house had had to do with ordering the repast, and, with a fine applied power of remote projection, hoped this might have been. Once seated at table, with the various members of so rigidly closed a circle round him, he asked himself the meaning of his position. Was the old lady responding to his advances? Did the fact that he was a solitary guest augment his credit or diminish it? Were they ashamed to show him to other people or did they wish to give him a sign of sudden adoption into their last reserve of favour? He was on his guard; he was watchful and conjectural, yet at the same time he was vaguely indifferent. Whether they gave him a long rope or a short he was there now, and Madame de Cintré was opposite him. She had a tall candlestick on each side of her; she would sit there for the next hour, and that was enough. The dinner was extremely solemn and measured; he 218