Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/398

THE AMERICAN. "It's quite useless," she opined, "to try and arrange this matter so as to make it agreeable to you. It's a disappointment, and disappointments are—I grant it—sometimes odious things. I thought our necessity over—that of letting you know that we don't after all see our way! I considered carefully and tried to arrange it better; but I only gave myself bad headaches and lost my sleep. Say what we will you 'll think yourself ill-treated and will publish your wrong among your friends. But we're not afraid of that. Besides, your friends are not our friends, and it will matter by so much the less. Think of us as you like—you don't really know us. I only beg you not to be violent. I've never in my life been present at any sort of roughness, and I think my age should now protect me."

"Is that all you have to say?" asked Newman, slowly rising from his chair. "That's a poor show for a clever lady like you, Marquise. Come, try again."

"My mother goes to the point with her usual honesty and intrepidity," said the Marquis, toying with his watchguard. "But it's perhaps right I should add another word. We of course quite repudiate the charge of having broken faith with you. We left you entirely at liberty to make yourself agreeable to my sister. We left her quite at liberty to entertain your proposal. When she accepted you we said nothing. We therefore wholly observed our promise. It was only at a later stage of the affair, and on quite a different basis, as it were, that we determined to speak. It would have been better 368