Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/333

THE AMERICAN foolish a question deserves a foolish answer. Yes—"I 'll be hanged if I ain't sure!"

Well, if Valentin was to pass for perverse it would not be, he seemed to wish to show, for nothing. "You're not afraid of anything?"

"What should I be afraid of? You can't hurt me unless you kill me by some violent means. That I should indeed regard as a tremendous sell. I want to live and I mean to live: I mean to have a good time. I can't die of sickness, because I'm naturally healthy, and the time for dying of old age won't come round yet a while. I can't lose my wife, I shall take too good care of her. I can't lose my money, or much of it—I 've fixed it so on purpose. So what have I to be afraid of?"

"You're not afraid it may be rather a mistake for such an infuriated modern to marry—well, such an old-fashioned rococo product; a daughter, as one may say, of the Crusaders, almost of the Patriarchs?"

Newman, who had been moving about as they talked, stopped before his visitor. "Does that mean you're worried for her?"

Valentin met his eyes. "I'm worried for everything."

"Ah, if that's all—!" And then: "Trust me—because I'm modern and can compare all round—to know where I stand!" With which, as from the impulse to celebrate his happy certitude by a bonfire, he turned to throw a couple of logs on the already blazing hearth. Valentin watched a few moments the quickened flame; after which, with his elbow supported on the chimney and his head on his hand, 303