Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/503

THE AMERICAN "There are half a dozen rooms there I don't use;" and he pointed through an open door. "Go and look at them and take your choice. You can live in the one you like best." From this bewildering privilege she at first recoiled; but finally, yielding to her friend's almost fraternal pat of reassurance, she wandered off into the dusk with her tremulous taper. She remained absent a quarter of an hour, during which Newman paced up and down, stopped occasionally to look out of the window at the lights on the boulevard, and then resumed his walk. Mrs. Bread's interest in her opportunity apparently deepened as she proceeded; but at last she reappeared and deposited her candlestick on the chimney-piece.

"Well, have you picked one out?"

"A room, sir? They're all too fine for a dingy old body like me. There is n't one that has n't a bit of gilding."

"It's only some shocking sham, Mrs. Bread," he answered. "If you stay there a while it will all peel off of itself." And he gave a dismal smile.

"Oh sir, there are things enough peeling off already!" she said with a responsible head-shake. "Since I was there I thought I 'd look about me. I don't believe you know, sir. The corners are most dreadful. You do want a housekeeper, that you do; you want a tidy Englishwoman that is n't above taking hold of a broom."

Newman assured her that he suspected, if he had not measured, his domestic abuses, and that to reform them was a mission worthy of her powers. She held her candlestick aloft again and looked round the 473