Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/495

 XXIII

returned to Paris the second day after his interview with Mrs. Bread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again the signed warrant he had lodged in his pocket-book, persuading himself more and more that it had, as he put it to himself, a social value, and thinking what he would now do and how he would do it. He would not have said that Poitiers had much to hold him, yet the day seemed very short. Domiciled once more in the Boulevard Haussmann he walked over to the Rue de l'Université and enquired of Madame de Bellegarde's portress whether the Marquise had come back. The portress answered that she had arrived with M. le Marquis on the preceding day, and further informed him that should he wish to see them they were both at home. As she said these words the little white-faced old woman who peered out of the dusky gate house of the Hôtel de Bellegarde gave a small wicked smile—a smile that seemed to Newman to mean "Go in if you dare!" She was evidently versed in the current domestic history; she was placed where she could feel the pulse of the house. He stood a moment twisting his moustache and looking at her; then he abruptly turned away. But this was not because he was afraid to go in—though he doubted whether, for all his courage, he should be able to make his way unchallenged into the presence of his 465