Henry James - Henry James - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 10)

“Oh, for the last two months,” said Lord Deepmere.

These two remarks might have constituted an impertinence; but a glance at Lord Deepmere’s face would have satisfied you, as it apparently satisfied Madame de Cintre, that they constituted only a naivete. When his companions were seated, Newman, who was out of the conversation, occupied himself with observing the newcomer. Observation, however, as regards Lord Deepmere’s person; had no great range. He was a small, meagre man, of some three and thirty years of age, with a bald head, a short nose and no front teeth in the upper jaw; he had round, candid blue eyes, and several pimples on his chin. He was evidently very shy, and he laughed a great deal, catching his breath with an odd, startling sound, as the most convenient imitation of repose. His physiognomy denoted great simplicity, a certain amount of brutality, and probable failure in the past to profit by rare educational advantages. He remarked that Paris was awfully jolly, but that for real, thorough-paced entertainment it was nothing to Dublin. He even preferred Dublin to London. Had Madame de Cintre ever been to Dublin? They must all come over there some day, and he would show them some Irish sport. He always went to Ireland for the fishing, and he came to Paris for the new Offenbach things. They always brought them out in Dublin, but he couldn’t wait. He had been nine times to hear La Pomme de Paris. Madame de Cintre, leaning back, with her arms folded, looked at Lord Deepmere with a more visibly puzzled face than she usually showed to society. Madame de Bellegarde, on the other hand, wore a fixed smile. The marquis said that among light operas his favorite was the Gazza Ladra. The marquise then began a series of inquiries about the duke and the cardinal, the old countess and Lady Barbara, after listening to which, and to Lord Deepmere’s somewhat irreverent responses, for a quarter of an hour, Newman rose to take his leave. The marquis went with him three steps into the hall.

“Is he Irish?” asked Newman, nodding in the direction of the visitor.

“His mother was the daughter of Lord Finucane,” said the marquis; “he has great Irish estates. Lady Bridget, in the complete absence of male heirs, either direct or collateral — a most extraordinary circumstance — came in for everything. But Lord Deepmere’s title is English and his English property is immense. He is a charming young man.”

Newman answered nothing, but he detained the marquis as the latter was beginning gracefully to recede. “It is a good time for me to thank you,” he said, “for sticking so punctiliously to our bargain, for doing so much to help me on with your sister.”

The marquis stared. “Really, I have done nothing that I can boast of,” he said.

“Oh don’t be modest,” Newman answered, laughing. “I can’t flatter myself that I am doing so well simply by my own merit. And thank your mother for me, too!” And he turned away, leaving M. de Bellegarde looking after him.

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The next time Newman came to the Rue de l’Universite he had the good fortune to find Madame de Cintre alone. He had come with a definite intention, and he lost no time in executing it. She wore, moreover, a look which he eagerly interpreted as expectancy.

“I have been coming to see you for six months, now,” he said, “and I have never spoken to you a second time of marriage. That was what you asked me; I obeyed. Could any man have done better?”

“You have acted with great delicacy,” said Madame de Cintre.

“Well, I’m going to change, now,” said Newman. “I don’t mean that I am going to be indelicate; but I’m going to go back to where I began. I AM back there. I have been all round the circle. Or rather, I have never been away from here. I have never ceased to want what I wanted then. Only now I am more sure of it, if possible; I am more sure of myself, and more sure of you. I know you better, though I don’t know anything I didn’t believe three months ago. You are everything — you are beyond everything — I can imagine or desire. You know me now; you MUST know me. I won’t say that you have seen the best — but you have seen the worst. I hope you have been thinking all this while. You must have seen that I was only waiting; you can’t suppose that I was changing. What will you say to me, now? Say that everything is clear and reasonable, and that I have been very patient and considerate, and deserve my reward. And then give me your hand. Madame de Cintre do that. Do it.”

“I knew you were only waiting,” she said; “and I was very sure this day would come. I have thought about it a great deal. At first I was half afraid of it. But I am not afraid of it now.” She paused a moment, and then she added, “It’s a relief.”

She was sitting on a low chair, and Newman was on an ottoman, near her. He leaned a little and took her hand, which for an instant she let him keep. “That means that I have not waited for nothing,” he said. She looked at him for a moment, and he saw her eyes fill with tears. “With me,” he went on, “you will be as safe — as safe”— and even in his ardor he hesitated a moment for a comparison —“as safe,” he said, with a kind of simple solemnity, “as in your father’s arms.”

Still she looked at him and her tears increased. Then, abruptly, she buried her face on the cushioned arm of the sofa beside her chair, and broke into noiseless sobs. “I am weak — I am weak,” he heard her say.

“All the more reason why you should give yourself up to me,” he answered. “Why are you troubled? There is nothing but happiness. Is that so hard to believe?”

“To you everything seems so simple,” she said, raising her head. “But things are not so. I like you extremely. I liked you six months ago, and now I am sure of it, as you say you are sure. But it is not easy, simply for that, to decide to marry you. There are a great many things to think about.”

“There ought to be only one thing to think about — that we love each other,” said Newman. And as she remained silent he quickly added, “Very good, if you can’t accept that, don’t tell me so.”

“I should be very glad to think of nothing,” she said at last; “not to think at all; only to shut both my eyes and give myself up. But I can’t. I’m cold, I’m old, I’m a coward; I never supposed I should marry again, and it seems to me very strange l should ever have listened to you. When I used to think, as a girl, of what I should do if I were to marry freely, by my own choice, I thought of a very different man from you.”

“That’s nothing against me,” said Newman with an immense smile; “your taste was not formed.”

His smile made Madame de Cintre smile. “Have you formed it?” she asked. And then she said, in a different tone, “Where do you wish to live?”

“Anywhere in the wide world you like. We can easily settle that.”

“I don’t know why I ask you,” she presently continued. “I care very little. I think if I were to marry you I could live almost anywhere. You have some false ideas about me; you think that I need a great many things — that I must have a brilliant, worldly life. I am sure you are prepared to take a great deal of trouble to give me such things. But that is very arbitrary; I have done nothing to prove that.” She paused again, looking at him, and her mingled sound and silence were so sweet to him that he had no wish to hurry her, any more than he would have had a wish to hurry a golden sunrise. “Your being so different, which at first seemed a difficulty, a trouble, began one day to seem to me a pleasure, a great pleasure. I was glad you were different. And yet if I had said so, no one would have understood me; I don’t mean simply to my family.”