had what is called the grand air, and her air from this time forth was
grander than ever. As she trailed about in her sable furbelows, tossing
back her well-dressed head and holding up her vigilant long-handled
eyeglass, she seemed to be sweeping the whole field of society and
asking herself where she should pluck her revenge. Suddenly she espied
it, ready made to her hand, in poor Longmore's wealth and amiability.
American dollars and American complaisance had made her brother's
fortune; why shouldn't they make hers? She overestimated the wealth and
misinterpreted the amiability; for she was sure a man could neither be
so contented without being rich nor so "backward" without being weak.
Longmore met her advances with a formal politeness that covered a good
deal of unflattering discomposure. She made him feel deeply
uncomfortable; and though he was at a loss to conceive how he could be
an object of interest to a sharp Parisienne he had an indefinable sense
of being enclosed in a magnetic circle, of having become the victim of
an incantation. If Madame Clairin could have fathomed his Puritanic soul
she would have laid by her wand and her book and dismissed him for an
impossible subject. She gave him a moral chill, and he never named her
to himself save as that dreadful woman--that awful woman. He did justice
to her grand air, but for his pleasure he preferred the small air of
Madame de Mauves; and he never made her his bow, after standing frigidly
passive for five minutes to one of her gracious overtures to intimacy,
without feeling a peculiar desire to ramble away into the forest, fling
himself down on the warm grass and, staring up at the blue sky, forget
that there were any women in nature who didn't please like the swaying
tree-tops. One day, on his arrival at the house, she met him in the
court with the news that her sister-in-law was shut up with a headache
and that his visit must be for HER. He followed her into the drawing-
room with the best grace at his command, and sat twirling his hat for
half an hour. Suddenly he understood her; her caressing cadences were so