Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/261

THE AMERICAN the last century, and she has always, in consequence, wanted greatly to see one of your people. But she has never succeeded till to-night. You're the first—to her knowledge that she has ever looked at."

Madame de la Rochefidèle had an aged cadaverous face, with a falling of the lower jaw which prevented her bringing her lips together and reduced her conversation to a series of impressive but inarticulate gutturals. She raised an antique eye-glass, elaborately mounted in chased silver, and looked at Newman from head to foot. Then she said something to which he listened deferentially but which conveyed to him no idea whatever.

"Madame de la Rochefidèle says she's convinced she must have seen Americans without knowing it," Madame de Cintré explained. Newman thought it probable she had seen a great many things without knowing it; and the old lady, again addressing herself to utterance, declared—as interpreted by Madame de Cintré—that she wished she had known it.

At this moment the old gentleman who had been talking to their hostess drew near, leading that lady on his arm. His wife pointed out Newman to him, apparently explaining his remarkable origin. M. de la Rochefidèle, whose old age was as rosy and round and polished as an imitation apple, spoke very neatly and cheerily; almost as prettily, Newman thought, as M. Nioche, and much more hopefully. When he had been enlightened he turned to Newman with an inimitable elderly grace. "Monsieur is by no means the first American I have seen. Almost the first 231