Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/506

THE AMERICAN for the adventure that had turned out so ill for him, she could put up with anything but his strangeness. He might be tragic if he would, or he might be terribly touching and pierce her to the heart with silent sorrow; he might be violent and summon her to say why she had ever dared to meddle with his destiny: to this she would submit—for this she would make allowances. Only, if he loved her, let him not be incoherent. That would quite break down her nerves. It was like people talking in their sleep; they always awfully frightened her. And Mrs. Tristram intimated that, taking very high ground as regards the moral obligation which events had laid upon her, she proposed not to rest quiet till she should have confronted him with the least inadequate substitute for his loss that the two hemispheres contained.

"Ah," he replied to this, "I think we're square now and we had better not open a new account! You may bury me some day, but you shall of a certainty never marry me. It's too rough, you see—it's worse than a free fight in Arkansaw. I hope, at any rate," he added, "that there's nothing incoherent in this—that I want to go next Sunday to the Carmelite chapel in the Avenue de Messine. You know one of the Catholic clergymen—an abbé, is that it?—whom I've seen here with you, I think, on some errand for his poor; that motherly old gentleman with the big waistband. Please ask him if I need a special leave to go in, and if I do, beg him to obtain it for me."

Mrs. Tristram gave expression to the liveliest joy. "I'm so glad you've asked me to do something! You 476