Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/536

THE AMERICAN The Duchess, judging from her charge to our own friend, regarded him as a bore; but this was not apparent from the unchecked abundance of her speech. She caused it to frisk hither and yon as to some old rococo music and then pull up on a mot after the fashion in which a stage-dancer whirls, for breath and with arms arranged, into ecstatic equilibrium; she characterised with great felicity the Italian intellect and the taste of the figs at Sorrento, predicted the ultimate future of the Italian kingdom (disgust with the brutal Sardinian rule and complete reversion, throughout the peninsula, to the mild sway of the Holy Father) and, finally, took up the heart-history of their friend cette pauvre Princesse, a lady unknown to Newman, who had notoriously so much heart. This record exposed itself to a considerable control from the Prince, who was evidently not related to the heroine in question otherwise than by an intimate familiarity with her annals; and having satisfied himself that Newman was in no laughing mood, either with regard to the size of his head or the authenticity of his facts, he entered into the controversy with an animation for which the Duchess, when she set him down as a bore, could not have been prepared. The often so oddly-directed passions of their friend led Newman's companions to a discussion of the côté passionel of the Florentine nobility in general; the Duchess had lately spent several weeks in the very bosom of that body and gathered much information on the subject. This was merged, in turn, in an examination of the Italian heart per se. The Duchess, who had arrived at highly original conclusions, 506