Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/54

 manner. I offered him a chair and asked him if he 'd sit down. Was that bad style?"

"I'll tell my wife!" Tristram simply answered.

"Tell the police if you like! He bolted right away, at any rate. The place quite fascinates me. Hang your 'superior' if it bores me. I sat in the court of the Grand Hotel last night until two o'clock in the morning, watching the coming and going and the people knocking about."

"You're easily pleased. But you can do as you choose—a man in your shoes. You've made a pile of money, hey?"

"I've made about enough."

"Happy the man who can say that! But enough for what?"

"Enough to let up a while, to forget the whole question, to look about me, to see the world, to have a good time, to improve my mind and, if my hour strikes, to marry a wife." Newman spoke slowly, with a quaint effect of dry detachment and with frequent pauses. This was his habitual mode of utterance, but it was especially marked in the words just recorded.

"Jupiter, there's an order!" cried Mr. Tristram. "Certainly all that takes money, especially the wife; unless indeed she gives it, as mine did. And what's the story? How have you done it?"

Newman had pushed his hat back from his forehead, folded his arms and stretched his legs. He listened to the music, he looked about him at the bustling crowd, at the plashing fountains, at the nurses and the babies. Well, I haven't done it by sitting round this way." 24