Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/499

THE AMERICAN to get respectable. Honest folks like you and me can live our time out—and live it together. Come! did you bring your baggage?"

"My two boxes are locked and corded; but I have n't yet spoken to my lady."

"Speak to her then and have done with it. I should like to have your chance!" cried Newman.

"I would gladly give it you, sir. I've passed some weary hours in my lady's dressing-room; but this will be one of the longest. She'll tax me with base ingratitude."

"Well," said Newman, "so long as you can tax her with murder—!"

"Oh sir, I can't; not I!" she pleaded.

"You don't mean to say anything about it? So much the better. Leave it all to me."

"If she calls me a thankless old woman," Mrs. Bread went on, "I shall have nothing to say. But it's better so," she added with supreme mildness. "She shall be my lady to the last. That will be more respectable."

"And then you'll come to me and I shall be your gentleman," said Newman. "That will be more respectable still!"

She rose with lowered eyes and stood a moment; then, looking up, she rested her gaze upon Newman's face. The disordered proprieties were somehow settling to rest. She looked at her friend so long and so fixedly, with such a dull intense devotedness, that he himself might have had a pretext for embarrassment. At last she said gently: "You 've not your natural appearance, sir." 469