Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/295

THE AMERICAN It gave him, and for the first time, the exquisite pleasure of her apparently liking to use and adopt his words. "Well then I'm ready to declare them only too good for this world!"

This brought something into her face that—as it seemingly was n't relief—he did n't quite understand, and she might have spoken in a sense to explain it if the door at the moment had not been thrown open and Urbain de Bellegarde had not stepped across the threshold. He appeared surprised at finding Newman; but his surprise was but a momentary shadow across the surface of an unwonted cheer. His guest had never seen him so exhilarated; he produced the effect of an old faded portrait that had suddenly undergone restoration. He held open the door for some one else to enter, and was presently followed by the old Marquise, supported on the arm of a gentleman whom Newman saw for the first time. He was already on his feet, and Madame de Cintré rose, as she always did before her mother. The Marquis, who had greeted him almost genially, stood apart and slowly rubbed his hands; his mother came forward with her companion. She gave Newman a majestic little nod and then released the other visitor, that he might make his bow to her daughter. "I've brought you an unknown relative, Lord Deepmere, Lord Deepmere who's our cousin, but who has done only to-day what he ought to have done long ago, come to make our acquaintance."

Madame de Cintré dropped her soft but steady light on this personage, who had advanced to take her hand. "It's very extraordinary," he ingenuously 265