Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/330

THE AMERICAN to the effect that she would be at home on the twenty-seventh of the month and at ten o'clock in the evening. He stuck it into the frame of his mirror and eyed it with some complacency; it seemed to him a document of importance and an emblem of triumph. Stretched out in a chair he looked at it lovingly, and while he so revelled Valentin was shown into the place. The young man's glance presently followed the direction of Newman's and he perceived his mother's invitation.

"And what have they put into the corner? Not the customary 'music,' 'dancing,' or 'tableaux vivants'? They ought at least to put 'An American of Americans.'"

"Oh, there are to be several of us," Newman said. "Mrs. Tristram told me to-day she had received a card and sent an acceptance."

"Ah then, with Mrs. Tristram and her husband you'll have support. My mother might have put on her card 'Three Americans in a Row'—which you can pronounce in either way you like, though I know the way I should suppose most American. I dare say at least you 'll not lack amusement. You 'll see a great many of the best people in France—I mean of the long pedigrees, and the beaux noms, and the great fidelities, and the rare stupidities, and the faces and figures that, after all, sometimes, I suppose God did make. We've already shown you specimens in numbers—you know by which end to take them."

"Oh, they haven't hurt me yet," said Newman, "and I guess they would, by this time, if they were 300