Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/519

THE AMERICAN gain will be small; but at least perhaps you'll be prepared."

"If you mean prepared for your preposterous threats," the Marquis replied, "there's nothing grotesque from you, certainly, for which we're not prepared, and of the idea of which you don't perfectly know what we think."

"You think a great deal more than you yet admit. A moment," Newman added in reply to a sharp exclamation from Madame de Bellegarde. "I don't at all forget that we're in a public place, and you see I'm very quiet. I'm not going to tell your secret to the passers-by; I shall keep it, to begin with, for certain picked listeners. Any one who observes us will think we're having a friendly chat and that I'm complimenting you, madam, on your venerable virtues."

The Marquis gave a hiss that fairly evoked for our friend some vision of a hunched back, an erect tail and a pair of shining evil eyes. "I demand of you to step out of our path!"

Newman instantly complied and his interlocutors proceeded. But he was still beside them and was still distinct. "Half an hour hence Madame de Bellegarde will regret that she did n't learn exactly what I mean."

The Marquise had taken a few steps, but at these words she pulled up again, as if not to have the appearance of not facing even monstrous possibilities—as monstrous, that is, as a monster of rudeness might make them. "You're like a pedlar with something trumpery to sell," she said; and she accompanied it with a strange, small, cold laugh—a 489