The American by Henry James

as clever as she is good. I can give my wife a good deal, so I am not afraid to ask a good deal myself. She shall have everything a woman can desire; I shall not even object to her being too good for me; she may be cleverer and wiser than I can understand, and I shall only be the better pleased. I want to possess, in a word, the best article in the market.”
    “Why didn’t you tell a fellow all this at the outset?”Tristram demanded. “I have been trying so to make you fond of
me!”
    “This is very interesting,” said Mrs. Tristram. “I like to see a man know his own mind.”
    “I have known mine for a long time,” Newman went on. “I made up my mind tolerably early in life that a beautiful wife was the thing best worth having, here below. It is the greatest victory over circumstances. When I say beautiful, I mean beautiful in mind and in manners, as well as in person. It is a thing every man has an equal right to; he may get it if he can. He doesn’t have to be born with certain faculties on purpose; 9 he needs only to be a man. Then he needs only to use his will, and such wits as he has, and to try.”
    “It strikes me that your marriage is to be rather a matter of vanity.”
    “Well, it is certain,” said Newman, “that if people notice my wife and admire her, I shall be mightily tickled.”
    “After this,” cried Mrs. Tristram, “call any man modest!”
    “But none of them will admire her so much as I.”
    “I see you have a taste for splendour.”
    Newman hesitated a little; and then: “I honestly believe I have!” he said.
    “And I suppose you have already looked about you a good deal.”
    “A good deal, according to opportunity.”
    “And you have seen nothing that satisfied you?”
    “No,” said Newman, half reluctantly, “I am bound to say in honesty that I have seen nothing that really satisfied me.”
    “You remind me of the heroes of the French romantic poets, Rolla and Fortunio 10 and all those other insatiable gentlemen for whom nothing in this world was handsome enough. But I see you are in earnest, and I should like to help you.”
    “Who the deuce is it, darling, that you are going to put upon him?” Tristram cried. “We know a good many pretty girls, thank Heaven, but magnificent women are not so common.”
    “Have you any objections to a foreigner?” his wife continued, addressing Newman, who had tilted back his chair, and, with his feet on a bar of the balcony railing and his hands in his pockets, was looking at the stars.
    “No Irish need apply,” 11 said Tristram.
    Newman meditated awhile. “As a foreigner, no,” he said at last; “I have no prejudices.”
    “My dear fellow, you have no suspicions!” cried Tristram. “You don’t know what terrible customers these foreign women are; especially the ‘magnificent’ ones. How should you like a fair Circassian, with a dagger in her belt?” 12
    Newman administered a vigorous slap to his knee. “I would marry a Japanese, if she pleased me,” he affirmed.
    “We had better confine ourselves to Europe,” said Mrs. Tristram. “The only thing is, then, that the person be in herself to your taste?”
    “She is going to offer you an unappreciated governess!” Tristram groaned.
    “Assuredly. I won’t deny that, other things being equal, I should prefer one of my own countrywomen. We should speak the same language, and that would be a comfort. But I am not afraid of a foreigner. Besides, I rather like the idea of taking in Europe, too. It enlarges the field of selection. When you choose from a greater number, you can bring your choice to a finer point.”
    “You talk like Sardanapalus!” 13 exclaimed Tristram.
    “You say all this to the right person,” said Newman’s hostess. “I happen to number among my friends the loveliest woman in the world. Neither more nor less. I don’t say a very charming person or a very estimable womanor a very great beauty; I say simply the loveliest woman in the