Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/284

THE AMERICAN out of my place. But I'm so devoted to the Countess; if she were my own child I could n't love her more. That's how I come to be so bold, sir." Her boldness failed her a moment, but she brought it round with a turn." They say in the house, sir, that you want to marry her."

Newman eyed his interlocutress, and, as if something had suddenly begun to depend on it, made up his mind about her. Something at least passed between them with his exchange of distinct truths, and at the end of a minute he felt almost like a lost child kindly taken by the hand. He gave the hand a responsive grasp. He looked quite up into the deep mild face. "I want to marry Madame de Cintré more than I ever wanted anything in my life."

"And to take her away to America?"

"I'll take her wherever she wants to go."

"The further away the better, sir!" exclaimed the old woman with sudden intensity. But she checked herself and, taking up a paper-weight in mosaic, began to polish it with her black apron. "I don't mean anything about the house or the family, sir. But I think a great change would do the poor Countess good. There's no very grand life here."

"Oh, grand life—!" he quite sarcastically sighed. "But Madame de Cintré," he added, "has great courage in her heart."

"She has everything in her heart that's good. You 'll not be vexed to hear that she has been more her natural self these two months past than she had been for many a day before."

Newman was delighted to gather this testimony 254