The American by Henry James Page A

world.”
    “The deuce!” cried Tristram, “you have kept very quiet about her. Were you afraid of me?”
    “You have seen her,” said his wife, “but you have no perception of such merit as Claire’s.”
    “Ah, her name is Claire? I give it up.”
    “Does your friend wish to marry?” asked Newman.
    “Not in the least. It is for you to make her change her mind. It will not be easy; she has had one husband, and he gave her a low opinion of the species.”
    “Oh, she is a widow, then?” said Newman.
    “Are you already afraid? She was married at eighteen, by her parents, in the French fashion, to a disagreeable old man. But he had the good taste to die a couple of years afterward, and she is now twenty-five.”
    “So she is French?”
    “French by her father, English by her mother. She is really more English than French, and she speaks English as well as you or I—or rather much better. She belongs to the very top of the basket, as they say here. Her family, on each side, is of fabulous antiquity; her mother is the daughter of an English Catholic earl. Her father is dead, and since her widowhood she has lived with her mother and a married brother. There is another brother, younger, who I believe is wild. They have an old hotel in the Rue de l’Université, 14 but their fortune is small, and they make a common household, for economy’s sake. When I was a girl I was put into a convent here for my education, while my father made the tour of Europe. It was a silly thing to do with me, but it had the advantage that it made me acquainted with Claire de Bellegarde. She was younger than I, but we became fast friends. I took a tremendous fancy to her, and she returned my passion as far as she could. They kept such a tight rein on her that she could do very little, and when I left the convent she had to give me up. I wasnot of her
monde
; 15 I am not now, either, but we sometimes meet. They are terrible people—her
monde
; all mounted upon stilts a mile high, and with pedigrees long in proportion. It is the skim of the milk of the old
noblesse.
16 Do you know what a Legitimist is, or an Ultramontane? 17 Go into Madame de Cintré’s drawing-room some afternoon, at five o’clock, and you will see the best-preserved specimens. I say go, but no one is admitted who can’t show his fifty quarterings.” 18
    “And this is the lady you propose to me to marry?” asked Newman. “A lady I can’t even approach?”
    “But you said just now that you recognised no obstacles.”
    Newman looked at Mrs. Tristram a while, stroking his moustache. “Is she a beauty?” he demanded.
    “No.”
    “Oh, then it’s no use—–”
    “She is not a beauty, but she is beautiful, two very different things. A beauty has no faults in her face; the face of a beautiful woman may have faults that only deepen its charm.”
    “I remember Madame de Cintré, now,” said Tristram. “She is as plain as a pikestaff. A man wouldn’t look at her twice.”
    “In saying that
he
would not look at her twice, my husband sufficiently describes her,” Mrs. Tristram rejoined.
    “Is she good; is she clever?” Newman asked.
    “She is perfect! I won’t say more than that. When you are praising a person to another who is to know her, it is bad policy to go into details. I won’t exaggerate. I simply recommend her. Among all women I have known she stands alone; she is of a different clay.”
    “I should like to see her,” said Newman, simply.
    “I will try to manage it. The only way will be to invite her to dinner. I have never invited her before, and I don’t know that she will come. Her old feudal countessof a mother rules the family with an iron hand, and allows her to have no friends but of her own choosing, and to visit only in a certain sacred circle. But I can at least ask her.”
    At this moment Mrs. Tristram was interrupted; a servant stepped out upon the balcony and announced that there were visitors in the drawing-room. When Newman’s