Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/254

THE AMERICAN said with a certain dryness which Valentin told him afterwards had a very grand air: "I'm much obliged to you."

"I take note of the promise," said Valentin; "I register the vow."

M. de Bellegarde began to gaze at the cornice again; he apparently had more to say. "I must do my mother the justice, I must do myself the justice, to make the point that our decision was not easy. Such an arrangement was not what we had expected. The idea that my sister should marry a gentleman so intimately involved in—a—business, was something of a novelty."

"So I told you, you know!" Valentin recalled to Newman with a fine admonitory finger.

"The incongruity has not quite worn off, I confess," the Marquis went on; "perhaps it never will entirely. But possibly that's not altogether to be regretted"; and he went through that odd dim form of a smile that affected his guest as the scraping of a match that does n't light. "It may be that the time has come when we should make some concession to the spirit of the day. There had been no such positive sacrifice in our house for a great many years. I made the remark to my mother, and she did me the honour to admit that it was worthy of attention."

"My dear brother," interrupted Valentin, "is not your memory just here leading you the least bit astray? Our mother is, I may say, distinguished by her small respect for abstract reasoning. Are you very sure she replied to your striking proposition in the gracious manner you describe? You know how, 224