Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/75

 Besides, there are several drawbacks. I don't come up to my own standard of culture."

"One doesn't expect it of you," Mrs. Tristram answered. Then in a moment: "Besides, you do come up. You are up!"

"Well, I mean to have a good time, wherever I am," said Newman. "I find I take notice as I go, and I guess I shan't have missed much by the time I've done. I feel something under my ribs here," he added in a moment, "that I can't explain—a sort of strong yearning, a desire to stretch out and haul in."

"Bravo!" Mrs. Tristram cried; "that's what I want to hear you say. You're the great Western Barbarian, stepping forth in his innocence and might, gazing a while at this poor corrupt old world and then swooping down on it."

"Oh come," Newman protested; "I'm not an honest barbarian either, by a good deal. I'm a great fall-off from him. I've seen honest barbarians, I know what they are."

I don't mean you're a Comanche chief or that you wear a blanket and feathers. There are different shades."

"I have the instincts—have them deeply—if I have n't the forms of a high old civilisation," Newman went on. "I stick to that. If you don't believe it I should like to prove it to you."

Mrs. Tristram was silent a while. "I should like to make you prove it," she said at last. "I should like to put you in a difficult place."

"Well, put me!" said Newman. 45