The American - Henry James (beautiful books to read .TXT) 📗

understood, in his deep and simple indignation, was that the matter was not a violent joke, and that the people before him were perfectly serious. “Do you suppose I can take this?” he asked. “Do you suppose it can matter to me what you say? Do you suppose I can seriously listen to you? You are simply crazy!”

Madame de Bellegarde gave a rap with her fan in the palm of her hand. “If you don’t take it you can leave it, sir. It matters very little what you do. My daughter has given you up.”

“She doesn’t mean it,” Newman declared after a moment.

“I think I can assure you that she does,” said the marquis.

“Poor woman, what damnable thing have you done to her?” cried Newman.

“Gently, gently!” murmured M. de Bellegarde.

“She told you,” said the old lady. “I commanded her.”

Newman shook his head, heavily. “This sort of thing can’t be, you know,” he said. “A man can’t be used in this fashion. You have got no right; you have got no power.”

“My power,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “is in my children’s obedience.”

“In their fear, your daughter said. There is something very strange in it. Why should your daughter be afraid of you?” added Newman, after looking a moment at the old lady. “There is some foul play.”

The marquise met his gaze without flinching, and as if she did not hear or heed what he said. “I did my best,” she said, quietly. “I could endure it no longer.”

“It was a bold experiment!” said the marquis.

Newman felt disposed to walk to him, clutch his neck with his fingers and press his windpipe with his thumb. “I needn’t tell you how you strike me,” he said; “of course you know that. But I should think you would be afraid of your friends—all those people you introduced me to the other night. There were some very nice people among them; you may depend upon it there were some honest men and women.”

“Our friends approve us,” said M. de Bellegarde, “there is not a family among them that would have acted otherwise. And however that may be, we take the cue from no one. The Bellegardes have been used to set the example, not to wait for it.”

“You would have waited long before anyone would have set you such an example as this,” exclaimed Newman. “Have I done anything wrong?” he demanded. “Have I given you reason to change your opinion? Have you found out anything against me? I can’t imagine.”

“Our opinion,” said Madame de Bellegarde, “is quite the same as at first—exactly. We have no ill-will towards yourself; we are very far from accusing you of misconduct. Since your relations with us began you have been, I frankly confess, less—less peculiar than I expected. It is not your disposition that we object to, it is your antecedents. We really cannot reconcile ourselves to a commercial person. We fancied in an evil hour that we could; it was a great misfortune. We determined to persevere to the end, and to give you every advantage. I was resolved that you should have no reason to accuse me of want of loyalty. We let the thing certainly go very far; we introduced you to our friends. To tell the truth, it was that, I think, that broke me down. I succumbed to the scene that took place on Thursday night in these rooms. You must excuse me if what I say is disagreeable to you, but we cannot release ourselves without an explanation.”

“There can be no better proof of our good faith,” said the marquis, “than our committing ourselves to you in the eyes of the world the other evening. We endeavored to bind ourselves—to tie our hands, as it were.”

“But it was that,” added his mother, “that opened our eyes and broke our bonds. We should have been most uncomfortable! You know,” she added in a moment, “that you were forewarned. I told you we were very proud.”

Newman took up his hat and began mechanically to smooth it; the very fierceness of his scorn kept him from speaking. “You are not proud enough,” he observed at last.

“In all this matter,” said the marquis, smiling, “I really see nothing but our humility.”

“Let us have no more discussion than is necessary,” resumed Madame de Bellegarde. “My daughter told you everything when she said she gave you up.”

“I am not satisfied about your daughter,” said Newman; “I want to know what you did to her. It is all very easy talking about authority and saying you commanded her. She didn’t accept me blindly, and she wouldn’t have given me up blindly. Not that I believe yet she has really given me up; she will talk it over with me. But you have frightened her, you have bullied her, you have hurt her. What was it you did to her?”

“I did very little!” said Madame de Bellegarde, in a tone which gave Newman a chill when he afterwards remembered it.

“Let me remind you that we offered you these explanations,” the marquis observed, “with the express understanding that you should abstain from violence of language.”

“I am not violent,” Newman answered, “it is you who are violent! But I don’t know that I have much more to say to you. What you expect of me, apparently, is to go my way, thanking you for favors received, and promising never to trouble you again.”

“We expect of you to act like a clever man,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “You have shown yourself that already, and what we have done is altogether based upon your being so. When one must submit, one must. Since my daughter absolutely withdraws, what will be the use of your making a noise?”

“It remains to be seen whether your daughter absolutely withdraws. Your daughter and I are still very good friends; nothing is changed in that. As I say, I will talk it over with her.”

“That will be of no use,” said the old lady. “I know my daughter well enough to know that words spoken as she just now spoke to you are final. Besides, she has promised me.”

“I have no doubt her promise is worth a great deal more than your own,” said Newman; “nevertheless I don’t give her up.”

“Just as you please! But if she won’t even see you,—and she won’t,—your constancy must remain purely Platonic.”

Poor Newman was feigning a greater confidence than he felt. Madame de Cintré’s strange intensity had in fact struck a chill to his heart; her face, still impressed upon his vision, had been a terribly vivid image of renunciation. He felt sick, and suddenly helpless. He turned away and stood for a moment with his hand on the door; then he faced about and after the briefest hesitation broke out with a different accent. “Come, think of what this must be to me, and let her alone! Why should you object to me so—what’s the matter with me? I can’t hurt you. I wouldn’t if I could. I’m the most unobjectionable fellow in the world. What if I am a commercial person? What under the sun do you mean? A commercial person? I will be any sort of a person you want. I never talked to you about business. Let her go, and I will ask no questions. I will take her away, and you shall never see me or hear of me again. I will stay in America if you like. I’ll sign a paper promising never to come back to Europe! All I want is not to lose her!”

Madame de Bellegarde and her son exchanged a glance of lucid irony, and Urbain said, “My dear sir, what you propose is hardly an improvement. We have not the slightest objection to seeing you, as an amiable foreigner, and we have every reason for not wishing to be eternally separated from my sister. We object to the marriage; and in that way,” and M. de Bellegarde gave a small, thin laugh, “she would be more married than ever.”

“Well, then,” said Newman, “where is this place of yours—Fleurières? I know it is near some old city on a hill.”

“Precisely. Poitiers is on a hill,” said Madame de Bellegarde. “I don’t know how old it is. We are not afraid to tell you.”

“It is Poitiers, is it? Very good,” said Newman. “I shall immediately follow Madame de Cintré.”

“The trains after this hour won’t serve you,” said Urbain.

“I shall hire a special train!”

“That will be a very silly waste of money,” said Madame de Bellegarde.

“It will be time enough to talk about waste three days hence,” Newman answered; and clapping his hat on his head, he departed.

He did not immediately start for Fleurières; he was too stunned and wounded for consecutive action. He simply walked; he walked straight before him, following the river, till he got out of the enceinte of Paris. He had a burning, tingling sense of personal outrage. He had never in his life received so absolute a check; he had never been pulled up, or, as he would have said, “let down,” so short; and he found the sensation intolerable; he strode along, tapping the trees and lamp-posts fiercely with his stick and inwardly raging. To lose Madame de Cintré after he had taken such jubilant and triumphant possession of her was as great an affront to his pride as it was an injury to his happiness. And to lose her by the interference and the dictation of others, by an impudent old woman and a pretentious fop stepping in with their “authority”! It was too preposterous, it was too pitiful. Upon what he deemed the unblushing treachery of the Bellegardes Newman wasted little thought; he consigned it, once for all, to eternal perdition. But the treachery of Madame de Cintré herself amazed and confounded him; there was a key to the mystery, of course, but he groped for it in vain. Only three days had elapsed since she stood beside him in the starlight, beautiful and tranquil as the trust with which he had inspired her, and told him that she was happy in the prospect of their marriage. What was the meaning of the change? of what infernal potion had she tasted? Poor Newman had a terrible apprehension that she had really changed. His very admiration for her attached the idea of force and weight to her rupture. But he did not rail at her as false, for he was sure she was unhappy. In his walk he had crossed one of the bridges of the Seine, and he still followed, unheedingly, the long, unbroken quay. He had left Paris behind him, and he was almost in the country; he was in the pleasant suburb of Auteuil. He stopped at last, looked around him without seeing or caring for its pleasantness, and then slowly turned and at a slower pace retraced his steps. When he came abreast of the fantastic embankment known as the Trocadero, he reflected, through his throbbing pain, that he was near Mrs. Tristram’s dwelling, and that Mrs. Tristram, on particular occasions, had much of a woman’s kindness in her utterance. He felt that he needed to pour out his ire and he took the road to her house. Mrs. Tristram was at home and alone, and as soon as she had looked at him, on his entering the room, she told him that she knew what he had come for. Newman sat down heavily, in silence, looking at her.

“They have backed out!” she said. “Well, you may think it strange, but I felt something the other night in the air.” Presently he told her his story; she listened, with her eyes fixed on him. When he had finished she said quietly, “They want her to marry Lord Deepmere.” Newman stared. He did not know that she knew anything about Lord Deepmere. “But I don’t think she will,” Mrs. Tristram added.

“She marry that poor little cub!” cried Newman. “Oh, Lord! And yet, why did she refuse