Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/55

 Tristram considered him again, allowing a finer curiosity to measure his generous longitude and retrace the blurred lines of his resting face. "What have you been in?"

"Oh, in more things than I care to remember."

"I suppose you're a real live man, hey?"

Newman continued to look at the nurses and babies; they imparted to the scene a kind of primordial, pastoral simplicity. "Yes," he said at last, "I guess I am." And then in answer to his companion's enquiries he briefly exposed his record since their last meeting. It was, with intensity, a tale of the Western world, and it showed, in that bright alien air, very much as fine dessicated, articulated "specimens," bleached, monstrous, probably unique, show in the high light of museums of natural history. It dealt with elements, incidents, enterprises, which it will be needless to introduce to the reader in detail; the deeps and the shallows, the ebb and the flow, of great financial tides. Newman had come out of the war with a brevet of brigadier-general, an honour which in this case—without invidious comparisons—had lighted upon shoulders amply competent to carry it. But though he had proved he could handle his men, and still more the enemy's, with effect, when need was, he heartily disliked the business; his four years in the army had left him with a bitter sense of the waste of precious things—life and time and money and ingenuity and opportunity; and he had addressed himself to the pursuits of peace with passionate zest and energy. His "interests," already mature, had meanwhile, however, waited for him, so that the capital at 25