Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/293

THE AMERICAN all my capital into one good thing," he smiled. "Yet I may have spent about ten cents on the luxury of rage."

"You've never then let me see you doing it."

"Ah, I don't do it here," he still sturdily smiled.

She dropped her eyes, and it somehow held him a minute in suspense. But "They think they 've treated you rather handsomely" was, however, all she said at last.

"Well, I 've no doubt they could have been much worse. They must have let me off pretty easily," he went on; "for see how little I feel damaged. And I think I show you everything. Honestly."

She faced him again, at this, as if really to take the measure, more than she had done yet, of what he showed her. "You're very generous. It's a painful position."

"For them, you mean. Not for me."

"For me," said Madame de Cintré.

"Not when their sins are forgiven!" Newman laughed. "They don't think I'm as good as themselves. I do, you see. What should I be—well, even for you—if I did n't? But we shan't quarrel about it."

"I can't even agree with you without saying something that has a sound I dislike. The presumption, if I may put it so, was against you. That you probably don't understand."

He sat down before her, all carefully and considerately, as he might have placed himself at the feet of a teacher. "I don't think I really understand it. But when you say it I believe it." 263