Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/301

THE AMERICAN "There ought to be only one thing—that we love each other." And as she remained silent he quickly added: "Very good; if you can't accept that, don't tell me."

"I should be very glad to think of nothing," she returned at last; "not to think at all—only to shut both my eyes and give myself up. But I can't. I'm cold, I'm old, I'm a coward. I never supposed I should ever marry again," she continued, and it seems to me too strange I should ever have listened to you. When I used to think, as a girl, of what I should do if I were to marry freely, by my own choice, I thought of a very different man from you."

"That's nothing against me," said Newman with an immense smile. "Your taste was n't formed."

His smile lighted her own face. "Have you formed it?" And then she said in a different tone: "Where do you wish to live?"

"Anywhere in the wide world you like. We can easily settle that."

"I don't know why I ask you," she presently went on—"I care so very little. I think that if I were to marry you I could live almost anywhere. You've some false ideas about me, you think I need a great many things—that I must have a brilliant worldly life. I'm sure you're prepared to take a great deal of trouble to give me such things. But that's very arbitrary; I've done nothing to show that." She paused again, looking at him, and her mingled sound and silence were so sweet to him that he had no more wish to hurry her than he would have had to hurry the slow flushing of the east at dawn. "Your 271