Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/335

THE AMERICAN a nice young man, eh, en somme? You can't warrant my future as you do your own."

"Drop the creature right here," said Newman; "don't go near her again, and your future will be all right. Come over to America and I 'll get you a place in a bank."

"It's easy to say drop her"—Valentin spoke with a certain gravity in his lucidity. "You might as well drop a pretty panther who has every one of her claws in your flesh and who's in the act of biting your heart out. One has to keep up the acquaintance, if only to show one is n't afraid."

"You 've better things to keep up, it seems to me, than such acquaintances. Remember too," Newman went on, "that I did n't want to introduce you to her; you insisted. I had a sort of creepy feeling about it even at the time."

"Oh, I no more reproach you with misleading my innocence than I reproach myself with practising on hers. She's really extraordinary. The way she has already spread her wings is amazing. I don't know when a woman has amused me more. But pardon me," he added in an instant; "she does n't amuse you, at second-hand; your interest appears to flag just where that of many men would wake up. Let us talk of something else." Valentin introduced another topic, but he had within five minutes reverted by a bold transition to Mademoiselle Nioche and was throwing off pictures of her "home" and quoting specimens of her mots. These latter were very droll and, for a young woman who six months before had been dabbling in sacred subjects, 305