Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/405

THE AMERICAN to her marriage; and in that way"—M. de Bellegarde gave a small, thin laugh—she 'd be more married than ever."

"Well then," Newman presently broke out again, "where's this interesting place of yours—Fleurières? I know it's near some old city on a hill."

"Precisely. Poitiers is on a hill," the Marquise admitted. "I don't know exactly how old it is. We're not afraid to tell you."

"It's Poitiers, is it? Very good," said Newman. "I shall immediately follow Madame de Cintré."

"The trains after this hour won't serve you," Urbain appeared to judge it his duty to mention.

"I shall then hire a special train."

"That will be a very foolish waste of money," said Madame de Bellegarde.

"It will be time enough to talk about waste three days hence," Newman answered; with which, clapping his hat on his head, he departed.

He didn't immediately start for Fleurières; he was too stunned and wounded for consecutive action. He simply walked; he walked straight before him, following the river till he got out of the stony circle of Paris. He had a burning, tingling sense of personal outrage. He had never in his life received so absolute a check; he had never been pulled up, or, as he would have said, "let down," so short, and he found the sensation intolerable as he strode along tapping the trees and lamp-posts fiercely with his stick and inwardly raging. To lose such a woman after taking such jubilant and triumphant possession of her was as great an affront to his pride as it was an injury 375