XXIII

Newman returned to Paris the second day after his interview with Mrs Bread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again the signed warrant he had lodged in his pocket-book, persuading himself more and more that it had, as he...

IV

Early one morning, before he was dressed, a little old man was ushered into his apartment, followed by a youth in a blouse who carried a picture in a shining frame. Newman, among the distractions of Paris, had forgotten M. Nioche and his accomplished...

I

This personage wandered back to the divan and seated himself, on the other side, in view of the great canvas on which Paul Veronese has spread, to swarm and glow there for ever, the marriage-feast of Cana of Galilee.* Weary as he...

I

On a brilliant day in May, of the year 1868,* a gentleman was reclining at his ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied the centre of the Salon Carré,* in the Museum of the Louvre. This...

Preface

‘The American’, which I had begun in Paris early in the winter of 1875–76, made its first appearance in ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ in June of the latter year and continued there, from month to month, till May of the next. It started on...

VIII

‘LOOK here—I want to know about your sister,’ the elder abruptly began. His visitor arched fine eyebrows. ‘Now that I think of it you’ve never yet made her the subject of a question.’ ‘Well, I guess I know why.’ ‘If it’s because you don’t trust...

V

When he had told Mrs Tristram the story of his fruitless visit to Madame de Cintré she urged him not to be discouraged, but to carry out his plan of ‘seeing Europe’ during the summer—after which he might return to Paris for the autumn...

XXVI

In that uninitiated observation of the great spectacle of English life on which I have touched, it might be supposed that he passed a great many dull days. But the dulness was as grateful as a warm, fragrant bath, and his melancholy, which was...

XXIV

Sunday was as yet two days off; but meanwhile, to beguile his impatience, Newman took his way to the Avenue de Messine and got what comfort he could in staring at the blank outer wall of Madame de Cintré’s present abode. The street in...

XXII

‘I’M very much obliged to you for coming,’ he began with observing. ‘I hope it won’t get you into trouble.’ ‘I don’t think I shall be missed. My lady, in these days, is not fond of having me about her.’ This was said with a...