Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 2 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/81

 "And you've seen nothing that has tempted you?"

"No," said Newman half reluctantly, "I'm bound to say in honesty that I've seen nothing that has come up to my idea."

"You remind me of the heroes of the French romantic poets, Rolla and Fortunio and all those other insatiable gentlemen for whom nothing in this world was handsome enough. But I see you're in earnest, and I should like to help you," Mrs. Tristram wound up.

"Who the deuce is it, darling, that you're going to palm off upon him?" her husband asked. "We know a good many pretty girls, thank goodness, but nobody to be mentioned in that blazing light."

"Have you any objections to a foreigner?" Mrs. Tristram continued, addressing their friend, who had tilted back his chair and, with his feet on a bar of the balcony railing and his hands in his pockets, sat looking at the stars.

"No Irish need apply," said Tristram.

Newman remained pensive. "Just as a foreigner, no. I've no prejudices."

"My dear fellow, you've no suspicions!" Tristram cried. "You don't know what terrible customers these foreign women are; especially those grown, as you call it, for the use of millionaires. How should you like an expensive Circassian with a dagger in her baggy trousers?"

Newman administered a vigorous slap to his knee. "I 'd marry a Patagonian if she pleased me."

"We had better confine ourselves to Europe," said Mrs. Tristram. "The only thing is then that the 51