Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/439

THE AMERICAN her hands, which were locked together in her lap, lifted them and dropped them at her side. "Anything that you may have said of me in your angriest passion is nothing to what I have said to myself."

"In my angriest passion," said Newman, "I've said nothing hard of you. The very worst thing I've said of you yet is that you're the most perfect of women." And he seated himself before her again abruptly.

She flushed a little, but even her flush was dim. "That's because you think I 'll come back. But I shall not come back. It's in that hope you have come here, I know; I'm very sorry for you. I 'd do almost anything for you. To say that, after what I have done, seems simply impudent; but what can I say that will not seem impudent? To wrong you and apologise—that's easy enough. I should not, heaven forgive me, have wronged you." She stopped a moment, always with her tragic eyes on him, but motioned him to let her talk. "I ought never to have listened to you at first; that was the wrong. No good could come of it. I felt it, and yet I listened; that was your fault. I liked you too much; I believed in you."

"And don't you believe in me now?"

"More than ever. But now it does n't matter. I've given you up."

Newman gave a great thump with his clenched fist upon his knee. "Why, why, why?" he cried. "Give me a reason—a decent reason. You're not a child—you're not a minor nor an idiot. You're not obliged to drop me because your mother told you to. Such a reason is n't worthy of you." 409