Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/340

THE AMERICAN Never was a man so pleased with his good fortune. You've been holding your head for a week past just as I wanted my wife to hold hers. You say just the things I want her to say. You walk about the room just as I want her to walk. You've just the taste in dress I want her to have. In short you come up to the mark, and, I can tell you, my mark was high."

These assurances tended to make his friend more grave. At last she said: "Depend on it I don't come up to the mark at all; your mark's much too high. I'm not all you suppose; I'm a much smaller affair. She's a magnificent person, the person you imagine. Pray how did she come to such perfection?"

"She was never anything but perfection," Newman replied.

"I really believe," his companion went on, "that she's better than any fond flight of my own ambition. Do you know that's a very handsome compliment? Well, sir, I'll make her my ambition!"

Mrs. Tristram came to see her dear Claire after Newman had announced his engagement, and she observed to our hero the next day that his fortune was simply absurd. "For the ridiculous part of it is that you're evidently going to be as happy as if you were marrying Miss Smith or Miss Brown. I call it a brilliant match for you, but you get brilliancy without paying any tax on it. Those things are usually a compromise, but here you 've everything, and nothing crowds anything else out. You'll be brilliantly happy—with the rest of the brilliancy. I consider really that I've done it for you, but it's 310