Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/70

 immense, surprising spectacle, but it neither inflamed his imagination nor irritated his curiosity. He kept his hands in his pockets, looked on good-humouredly, desired to miss nothing important, observed a great many things in detail, and never reverted to himself. Mrs. Tristram's "advice" was a part of the show and a more entertaining element of her free criticism than any other. He enjoyed her talking about him—it seemed a part of her beautiful culture; but he never made an application of anything she said or remembered it when he was away from her. For herself, she appropriated him: he was the most interesting thing she had had to think about for many a month. She wished to do something with him—she hardly knew what. There was so much of him; he was so rich and robust, so easy, friendly, well-disposed, that he kept her imagination constantly on the alert. For the present the only thing she could do was to like him. She told him he was beyond everything a child of nature, but she repeated it so often that it could have been but a term of endearment. She led him about with her, introduced him to fifty people, took extreme satisfaction in her conquest. Newman accepted every proposal, shook hands universally and promiscuously, and seemed equally unversed in trepidation and in "cheek." Tom Tristram complained of his wife's rapacity, declaring he could never have a clear five minutes with his friend. If he had known how things were going to turn out he never would have brought him to the Avenue d'Iéna.

The two men had formerly not been intimate, but 40