Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/321

THE AMERICAN "I went to your house to see what had become of you. I thought you might be sick," monsieur said mildly enough.

"It's very good of you, as always," the old man returned. "No, I'm not well. Yes, I'm seek."

"Ask monsieur to sit down," said Mademoiselle Nioche. "Garçon, bring a chair for monsieur."

"Will you do us the honour to seat?" M. Nioche enquired timorously and with a double foreignness of accent.

Newman said to himself that he had better see the thing out, and he took a place at the end of the table with the brilliant girl on his left and the dingy old man on the other side. "You 'll take something of course," said Miss Noémie, who was sipping a brown madère. Newman said he guessed not, and then she turned to her parent with a smile. "What an honour, eh?—he has only come for us." M. Nioche drained his pungent glass at a long draught and looked out from eyes more lachrymose in consequence. "But you did n't come for me, eh?" Noémie went on. "You did n't expect to find me here?"

He observed the change in her appearance and that she was very elegant, really prettier than before; she looked a year or two older, and it was noticeable that, to the eye, she had only added a sharp accent to her appearance of "propriety," only taken a longer step toward distinction. She was dressed in quiet colours and wore her expensively unobtrusive gear with a grace that might have come from years of practice. Her presence of mind, her perfect equilibrium, struck Newman as portentous, and he 291