Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/443

THE AMERICAN Newman gave a great rap on the floor with his stick and a long grim laugh. "Ah, not you! You go altogether too far—you overshoot the mark. There is n't a woman in the world as bad as you would make yourself out. I see your game; it's what I said. You're blackening yourself to whiten others. You don't want to give me up at all; you like me—you like me, God help you! I know you do; you've shown it, and I've felt it and adored you for it! After that you may be as cold as you please! They've bullied you, I say; they've tortured you. It's an outrage, and I insist on saving you from the extravagance of your generosity. Would you chop off your hand if your mother required it?"

She gave at this the long sigh of a creature too hard pressed. "I spoke of my mother too blindly the other day. I'm my own mistress, by law and by her approval. She can do nothing to me; she has done nothing. She has never alluded to those hard words I used about her."

"She has made you feel them, I'll promise you! said Newman.

"It's my conscience that makes me feel them."

"Your conscience then seems to me rather extraordinarily mixed!" he passionately returned.

"It has been in great trouble, but now it's very clear. I don't give you up for any worldly advantage or for any worldly happiness."

"Oh, you don't give me up for Lord Deepmere, I know," he agreed. "I won't pretend, even to provoke you, that I think that. But that's what your mother and your brother wanted, and your mother, 413