Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/497

THE AMERICAN moments recognised on his threshold the worthy woman with whom he had conversed to such good purpose on the starlit hill-top of Fleurières. Mrs. Bread had assumed for this visit the same dress as for her other effort, and he was struck with her fine antique appearance. His room was still lampless, and as her large grave face gazed at him through the clear dusk from under the shadow of her ample bonnet he felt the incongruity of her pretending to any servile stamp. He greeted her with high geniality, and bade her come in and sit down and make herself comfortable. There was something that might have touched the springs both of mirth and of melancholy in the spirit of formal accommodation with which she endeavoured to meet this new conception of her duty. She was not playing at being fluttered, which would have been simply ridiculous; she was doing her best to carry herself as a person so humble that, for her, even embarrassment would have been pretentious; but evidently she had never dreamed of its being in her horoscope to pay a visit at nightfall to a friendly single gentleman who lived in theatrical-looking rooms on one of the new boulevards.

"I truly hope I'm not forgetting my place, sir," she anxiously pleaded.

"Forgetting your place? Why, you're remembering it as a good woman remembers her promise. This is your place, you know. You're already in my service; your wages as housekeeper began a fortnight ago. I can tell you my house wants keeping! Why don't you take off your bonnet and stay right now?"

"Take off my bonnet?"—she gave it her gravest 467