Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/393

THE AMERICAN Urbain de Bellegarde stared, then left his place and came and leaned on the back of his mother's chair. Newman's sudden irruption had evidently discomposed them both. Madame de Cintré stood silent and with her eyes resting on her friend's. She had often looked at him with all her soul, as it seemed to him; but in this present gaze there was a bottomless depth. She was in distress, and—monstrously—was somehow to her own sense helpless. It would have been the most touching thing he had ever seen if it had n't been the most absurd. His heart rose into his throat and he was on the point of turning to her companions with an angry challenge; but she checked him, pressing the hand of which she had possessed herself.

"Something very grave has happened," she brought out. "I can't marry you."

Newman dropped her hand—as if, suddenly and unnaturally acting with the others, she had planted a knife in his side: he stood staring, first at her and then at them. "Why not?" he asked as quietly as his quick gasp permitted.

Madame de Cintré almost smiled, but the attempt was strange. "You must ask my mother. You must ask my brother."

"Why can't she marry me?"—and he looked all at them.

Madame de Bellegarde never moved in her seat, but her consciousness had paled her face. The Marquis hovered protectingly. She said nothing for some moments, but she kept her keen clear eyes on their visitor. The Marquis drew himself up and 363