Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/552

THE AMERICAN "Do you mean me? I've never been better, thank you," Miss Noémie declared. "But with milord," and she gave a shining shot at her late companion, "how can one help being well?" She seated herself in the chair from which her father had risen and began to arrange the little dog's rosette.

Lord Deepmere carried off such embarrassment as might be incidental to this unexpected encounter with the inferior grace of a male and a Briton. He blushed a good deal and greeted his fellow-candidate in that recent remarkable competition by which each had so signally failed to profit with an awkward nod and a rapid ejaculation—an ejaculation to which Newman, who often found it hard to understand the speech of English people, was able to attach no meaning. Then he stood there with his hand on his hip and with a conscious grin, staring askance at the mistress of the invalid pug. Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him and he caught at the light. "Oh, you know her?"

"Yes," said Newman, "I know her. I don't believe you do."

"Oh dear, yes, I do!"—Lord Deepmere was sure of that. "I knew her in Paris—by my late cousin Bellegarde, you know. He knew her, poor fellow, did n't he? It was she, you know, who was at the bottom of his affair. Awfully sad, wasn't it?" the young man continued, talking off his embarrassment as his simple nature permitted. "They got up some story of its being for the Pope; of the other fellow having said something against the Pope's morals. They always do that, you know. They put it on the 522