The American by Henry James (free e reader txt) 📕

at Madame de Cintré, and she was settling herself in her chair and drawing in her long dress and turning her face towards him. Their eyes met; a moment afterwards she looked away and motioned to her brother to put a log on the fire. But the moment, and the glance which traversed it, had been sufficient to relieve Newman of the first and the last fit of personal embarrassment he was ever to know. He performed the movement which was so frequent with him, and which was always a sort of symbol of his taking mental possession of a scene—he extended his legs. The impression Madame de Cintré had made upon him on their first meeting came back in an instant; it had been deeper than he knew. She was pleasing, she was interesting; he had opened a book and the first lines held his attention.

She asked him several questions: how lately he had seen Mrs. Tristram, how long he had been in Paris, how long he expected to remain there, how he liked it. She spoke English without an accent, or rather with that distinctively British accent which, on his arrival in Europe, had struck Newman as an altogether foreign tongue, but which, in women, he had come to like extremely. Here and there Madame de Cintré’s utterance had a faint shade of strangeness but at the end of ten minutes Newman found himself waiting for these soft roughnesses. He enjoyed them, and he marveled to see that gross thing, error, brought down to so fine a point.

“You have a beautiful country,” said Madame de Cintré, presently.

“Oh, magnificent!” said Newman. “You ought to see it.”

“I shall never see it,” said Madame de Cintré with a smile.

“Why not?” asked Newman.

“I don’t travel; especially so far.”

“But you go away sometimes; you are not always here?”

“I go away in summer, a little way, to the country.”

Newman wanted to ask her something more, something personal, he hardly knew what. “Don’t you find it rather—rather quiet here?” he said; “so far from the street?” Rather “gloomy,” he was going to say, but he reflected that that would be impolite.

“Yes, it is very quiet,” said Madame de Cintré; “but we like that.”

“Ah, you like that,” repeated Newman, slowly.

“Besides, I have lived here all my life.”

“Lived here all your life,” said Newman, in the same way.

“I was born here, and my father was born here before me, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfathers. Were they not, Valentin?” and she appealed to her brother.

“Yes, it’s a family habit to be born here!” the young man said with a laugh, and rose and threw the remnant of his cigarette into the fire, and then remained leaning against the chimney-piece. An observer would have perceived that he wished to take a better look at Newman, whom he covertly examined, while he stood stroking his moustache.

“Your house is tremendously old, then,” said Newman.

“How old is it, brother?” asked Madame de Cintré.

The young man took the two candles from the mantel-shelf, lifted one high in each hand, and looked up toward the cornice of the room, above the chimney-piece. This latter feature of the apartment was of white marble, and in the familiar rococo style of the last century; but above it was a paneling of an earlier date, quaintly carved, painted white, and gilded here and there. The white had turned to yellow, and the gilding was tarnished. On the top, the figures ranged themselves into a sort of shield, on which an armorial device was cut. Above it, in relief, was a date—1627. “There you have it,” said the young man. “That is old or new, according to your point of view.”

“Well, over here,” said Newman, “one’s point of view gets shifted round considerably.” And he threw back his head and looked about the room. “Your house is of a very curious style of architecture,” he said.

“Are you interested in architecture?” asked the young man at the chimney-piece.

“Well, I took the trouble, this summer,” said Newman, “to examine—as well as I can calculate—some four hundred and seventy churches. Do you call that interested?”

“Perhaps you are interested in theology,” said the young man.

“Not particularly. Are you a Roman Catholic, madam?” And he turned to Madame de Cintré.

“Yes, sir,” she answered, gravely.

Newman was struck with the gravity of her tone; he threw back his head and began to look round the room again. “Had you never noticed that number up there?” he presently asked.

She hesitated a moment, and then, “In former years,” she said.

Her brother had been watching Newman’s movement. “Perhaps you would like to examine the house,” he said.

Newman slowly brought down his eyes and looked at him; he had a vague impression that the young man at the chimney-piece was inclined to irony. He was a handsome fellow, his face wore a smile, his moustaches were curled up at the ends, and there was a little dancing gleam in his eye. “Damn his French impudence!” Newman was on the point of saying to himself. “What the deuce is he grinning at?” He glanced at Madame de Cintré; she was sitting with her eyes fixed on the floor. She raised them, they met his, and she looked at her brother. Newman turned again to this young man and observed that he strikingly resembled his sister. This was in his favor, and our hero’s first impression of the Count Valentin, moreover, had been agreeable. His mistrust expired, and he said he would be very glad to see the house.

The young man gave a frank laugh, and laid his hand on one of the candlesticks. “Good, good!” he exclaimed. “Come, then.”

But Madame de Cintré rose quickly and grasped his arm, “Ah, Valentin!” she said. “What do you mean to do?”

“To show Mr. Newman the house. It will be very amusing.”

She kept her hand on his arm, and turned to Newman with a smile. “Don’t let him take you,” she said; “you will not find it amusing. It is a musty old house, like any other.”

“It is full of curious things,” said the count, resisting. “Besides, I want to do it; it is a rare chance.”

“You are very wicked, brother,” Madame de Cintré answered.

“Nothing venture, nothing have!” cried the young man. “Will you come?”

Madame de Cintré stepped toward Newman, gently clasping her hands and smiling softly. “Would you not prefer my society, here, by my fire, to stumbling about dark passages after my brother?”

“A hundred times!” said Newman. “We will see the house some other day.”

The young man put down his candlestick with mock solemnity, and, shaking his head, “Ah, you have defeated a great scheme, sir!” he said.

“A scheme? I don’t understand,” said Newman.

“You would have played your part in it all the better. Perhaps some day I shall have a chance to explain it.”

“Be quiet, and ring for the tea,” said Madame de Cintré.

The young man obeyed, and presently a servant brought in the tea, placed the tray on a small table, and departed. Madame de Cintré, from her place, busied herself with making it. She had but just begun when the door was thrown open and a lady rushed in, making a loud rustling sound. She stared at Newman, gave a little nod and a “Monsieur!” and then quickly approached Madame de Cintré and presented her forehead to be kissed. Madame de Cintré saluted her, and continued to make tea. The new-comer was young and pretty, it seemed to Newman; she wore her bonnet and cloak, and a train of royal proportions. She began to talk rapidly in French. “Oh, give me some tea, my beautiful one, for the love of God! I’m exhausted, mangled, massacred.” Newman found himself quite unable to follow her; she spoke much less distinctly than M. Nioche.

“That is my sister-in-law,” said the Count Valentin, leaning towards him.

“She is very pretty,” said Newman.

“Exquisite,” answered the young man, and this time, again, Newman suspected him of irony.

His sister-in-law came round to the other side of the fire with her cup of tea in her hand, holding it out at arm’s-length, so that she might not spill it on her dress, and uttering little cries of alarm. She placed the cup on the mantel-shelf and begun to unpin her veil and pull off her gloves, looking meanwhile at Newman.

“Is there anything I can do for you, my dear lady?” the Count Valentin asked, in a sort of mock-caressing tone.

“Present monsieur,” said his sister-in-law.

The young man answered, “Mr. Newman!”

“I can’t courtesy to you, monsieur, or I shall spill my tea,” said the lady. “So Claire receives strangers, like that?” she added, in a low voice, in French, to her brother-in-law.

“Apparently!” he answered with a smile. Newman stood a moment, and then he approached Madame de Cintré. She looked up at him as if she were thinking of something to say. But she seemed to think of nothing; so she simply smiled. He sat down near her and she handed him a cup of tea. For a few moments they talked about that, and meanwhile he looked at her. He remembered what Mrs. Tristram had told him of her “perfection” and of her having, in combination, all the brilliant things that he dreamed of finding. This made him observe her not only without mistrust, but without uneasy conjectures; the presumption, from the first moment he looked at her, had been in her favor. And yet, if she was beautiful, it was not a dazzling beauty. She was tall and moulded in long lines; she had thick fair hair, a wide forehead, and features with a sort of harmonious irregularity. Her clear gray eyes were strikingly expressive; they were both gentle and intelligent, and Newman liked them immensely; but they had not those depths of splendor—those many-colored rays—which illumine the brows of famous beauties. Madame de Cintré was rather thin, and she looked younger than probably she was. In her whole person there was something both youthful and subdued, slender and yet ample, tranquil yet shy; a mixture of immaturity and repose, of innocence and dignity. What had Tristram meant, Newman wondered, by calling her proud? She was certainly not proud now, to him; or if she was, it was of no use, it was lost upon him; she must pile it up higher if she expected him to mind it. She was a beautiful woman, and it was very easy to get on with her. Was she a countess, a marquise, a kind of historical formation? Newman, who had rarely heard these words used, had never been at pains to attach any particular image to them; but they occurred to him now and seemed charged with a sort of melodious meaning. They signified something fair and softly bright, that had easy motions and spoke very agreeably.

“Have you many friends in Paris; do you go out?” asked Madame de Cintré, who had at last thought of something to say.

“Do you mean do I dance, and all that?”

“Do you go dans le monde , as we say?”

“I have seen a good many people. Mrs. Tristram has taken me about. I do whatever she tells me.”

“By yourself, you are not fond of amusements?”

“Oh yes, of some sorts. I am not fond of dancing, and that sort of thing; I am too old and sober. But I want to be amused; I came to Europe for that.”

“But you can be amused in America, too.”

“I couldn’t; I was always at work. But after all, that was my amusement.”

At this moment Madame de Bellegarde came back for another cup of tea, accompanied by the Count Valentin. Madame de Cintré, when she had served her, began to talk again with Newman, and recalling what he had last said, “In your own country you were very much occupied?” she asked.

“I was in business. I have been in business since I was fifteen years old.”

“And what was your business?” asked Madame de Bellegarde, who was decidedly not so pretty as Madame de Cintré.

“I have been in everything,” said