Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/350

THE AMERICAN consideration. The Marquis, with supernatural gravity, mentioned to him the name of each, while the gentleman who bore it bowed; and these pronouncements again affected Newman as some enumeration of the titles of books, of the performers on playbills, of the items of indexes. "I wanted extremely to see you," the Duchess went on. "C'est positif. In the first place I'm very fond of the person you're going to marry; she's the most charming creature in France. Mind you treat her well or you 'll have news of me. But vous avez l'air bien honnête, and I'm told you're very remarkable. I've heard all sorts of extraordinary things about you. Voyons, are they true?"

"I don't know what you can have heard," Newman promptly pleaded.

"Oh, you've had your légende. You've had a career the most chequered, the most bizarre. What's that about your having founded a city some ten years ago in the great West, a city which contains to-day half a million of inhabitants? Is n't it half a million, messieurs? You're exclusive proprietor of the wonderful place and are consequently fabulously rich, and you 'd be richer still if you didn't grant lands and houses free of rent to all newcomers who'll pledge themselves never to smoke cigars. At this game, in three years, we're told, you're going to become President of all the Americas."

The Duchess recited this quaint fable with a smooth self-possession which gave it to Newman's ear the sound of an amusing passage in a play interpreted by a veteran comic actress. Before she had 320