Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/250

THE AMERICAN accepted—if it was acceptance that was thus conveyed to him. There was no judging from her face, which expressed simply the desire to show kindness in a manner requiring as little explicit recognition as possible. Young Madame de Bellegarde had always the same manner; preoccupied, distracted, listening to everything and hearing nothing, looking at her dress, her rings, her finger-nails and seeming ineffably bored, she yet defied you to pronounce on her ideal of social diversion. Newman was enlightened on this point later. Even Valentin failed quite to seem master of his wits; his vivacity was fitful and forced, but his friend felt his firm eyes shine through the lapses of the talk very much as to the effect of one's being pinched by him very hard in the dark. Newman himself, for the first time in his life, was not himself; he measured his motions and counted his words; he had the sense of sitting in a boat that required inordinate trimming and that a wrong movement might cause to overturn.

After dinner M. de Bellegarde proposed the smoking-room and led the way to a small and somewhat musty apartment, the walls of which were ornamented with old hangings of stamped leather and trophies of rusty arms. Newman refused a cigar, but established himself on one of the divans while the Marquis puffed his own weed before the fireplace and Valentin sat looking through the light fumes of a cigarette from one to the other. "I can't keep quiet any longer," this member of the family broke out at last. "I must tell you the news and congratulate you. My brother seems unable to come to the point; he 220