Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/372

THE AMERICAN count over my ancestors on my fingers. But why should I bother about my ancestors? I'm sure they never bothered about me. I don't propose to live with a green shade over my eyes; I hold that the only thing you can do with things arranged in a row before you is see them. My husband, you know, has principles, and the first on the list is that the Tuileries are dreadfully vulgar. If the Tuileries are vulgar his principles are imbecile. If I chose I might have principles quite as well as he. If they grew on one's family tree I should only have to give mine a shake to bring down a shower of the finest. At any rate I prefer clever Bonapartes to stupid Bourbons."

"Oh, I see; you want to go to court," said Newman, fantastically wondering if she might n't wish him to smooth her way to the imperial halls through some ingenious use of the American Legation.

The Marquise gave a little sharp laugh. "You're a thousand miles away. I 'll take care of the Tuileries myself; the day I decide to go they 'll be glad enough to have me. Sooner or later I shall dance in an imperial quadrille. I know what you're going to say: 'How will you dare?' But I shall dare. I'm afraid of my husband; he's soft, smooth, irreproachable, everything you know; but I'm afraid of him—horribly afraid of him. And yet I shall arrive at the Tuileries. But that will not be this winter, nor perhaps next, and meantime I must live. For the moment I want to go somewhere else; it's my dream. I want to go to the Bal Bullier."

"To the Bal Bullier?" repeated Newman, for whom the words at first meant nothing. 342