Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/355

THE AMERICAN by these people for himself. If he could have looked down at the scene invisibly, as from a hole in the roof, he would have enjoyed it quite as much. It would have spoken to him of his energy and prosperity and deepened that view of his effective "handling" of life to which, sooner or later, he made all experience contribute. Just now the cup seemed full.

"It's all very fine and very funny, I mean very special and quite thrilling and almost interesting," said Mrs. Tristram while they circulated. "I've seen nothing objectionable except my husband leaning against that adorably faded strawberry damask of the other room and talking to an individual whom I suppose he takes for a prince, but whom I more than suspect to be the functionary taking care of the lamps. Do you think you could separate them? Do knock over a lamp!"

I doubt whether Newman, who saw no harm in Tristram's conversing with an ingenious mechanic, would have complied with this request; but at this moment Valentin de Bellegarde drew near. Newman, some weeks previously, had presented Madame de Cintré's youngest brother to Mrs. Tristram, for whose rather shy and subtle merit the young man promptly professed an intelligent relish and to whom he had paid several visits.

"Did you ever read," she asked, "Keats's 'Belle Dame sans Merci'? You remind me of the hero of the ballad:

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