The Golden Bowl Henry James (spicy books to read txt) đ
- Author: Henry James
Book online «The Golden Bowl Henry James (spicy books to read txt) đ». Author Henry James
He recalled even how he had been struck with her word. âââFunnyâ?â âOh, I donât mean a comic toyâ âI mean some little thing with a charm. But absolutely right, in its comparative cheapness. Thatâs what I call funny,â she had explained. âYou used,â she had also added, âto help me to get things cheap in Rome. You were splendid for beating down. I have them all still, I neednât sayâ âthe little bargains I there owed you. There are bargains in London in August.â
âAh, but I donât understand your English buying, and I confess I find it dull.â So much as that, while they turned to go up together, he had objected. âI understood my poor dear Romans.â
âIt was they who understood youâ âthat was your pull,â she had laughed. âOur amusement here is just that they donât understand us. We can make it amusing. Youâll see.â
If he had hesitated again it was because the point permitted. âThe amusement surely will be to find our present.â
âCertainlyâ âas I say.â
âWell, if they donât come downâ â?â
âThen weâll come up. Thereâs always something to be done. Besides, Prince,â she had gone on, âIâm not, if you come to that, absolutely a pauper. Iâm too poor for some things,â she had saidâ âyet, strange as she was, lightly enough; âbut Iâm not too poor for others.â And she had paused again at the top. âIâve been saving up.â
He had really challenged it. âIn America?â
âYes, even thereâ âwith my motive. And we oughtnât, you know,â she had wound up, âto leave it beyond tomorrow.â
That, definitely, with ten words more, was what had passedâ âhe feeling all the while how any sort of begging-off would only magnify it. He might get on with things as they were, but he must do anything rather than magnify. Besides which it was pitiful to make her beg of him. He was making herâ âshe had begged; and this, for a special sensibility in him, didnât at all do. That was accordingly, in fine, how they had come to where they were: he was engaged, as hard as possible, in the policy of not magnifying. He had kept this up even on her making a pointâ âand as if it were almost the whole pointâ âthat Maggie of course was not to have an idea. Half the interest of the thing at least would be that she shouldnât suspect; therefore he was completely to keep it from herâ âas Charlotte on her side wouldâ âthat they had been anywhere at all together or had so much as seen each other for five minutes alone. The absolute secrecy of their little excursion was in short of the essence; she appealed to his kindness to let her feel that he didnât betray her. There had been something, frankly, a little disconcerting in such an appeal at such an hour, on the very eve of his nuptials: it was one thing to have met the girl casually at Mrs. Assinghamâs and another to arrange with her thus for a morning practically as private as their old mornings in Rome and practically not less intimate. He had immediately told Maggie, the same evening, of the minutes that had passed between them in Cadogan Placeâ âthough not mentioning those of Mrs. Assinghamâs absence any more than he mentioned the fact of what their friend had then, with such small delay, proposed. But what had briefly checked his assent to any present, to any positive making of mysteryâ âwhat had made him, while they stood at the top of the stairs, demur just long enough for her to notice itâ âwas the sense of the resemblance of the little plan before him to occasions, of the past, from which he was quite disconnected, from which he could only desire to be. This was like beginning something over, which was the last thing he wanted. The strength, the beauty of his actual position was in its being wholly a fresh start, was that what it began would be new altogether. These items of his consciousness had clustered so quickly that by the time Charlotte read them in his face he was in presence of what they amounted to. She had challenged them as soon as read them, had met them with a âDo you want then to go and tell her?â that had somehow made them ridiculous. It had made him, promptly, fall back on minimizing itâ âthat is on minimizing âfuss.â Apparent scruples were, obviously, fuss, and he had on the spot clutched, in the light of this truth, at the happy principle that would meet every case.
This principle was simply to be, with the girl, always simpleâ âand with the very last simplicity. That would cover everything. It had covered, then and there, certainly, his immediate submission to the sight of what was clearest. This was, really, that what she asked was little compared to what she gave. What she gave touched him, as she faced him, for it was the full tune of her renouncing. She really renouncedâ ârenounced everything, and without even insisting now on what it had all been for her. Her only insistence was her insistence on the small matter of their keeping their appointment to themselves. That, in exchange for âeverything,â everything she gave up, was verily but a trifle. He let himself accordingly be guided; he so soon assented, for enlightened indulgence, to any particular turn she might wish the occasion to take, that the stamp of her preference had been well applied to it even while they were still in the Park. The application in fact presently required that they should sit down a little, really to see where they were; in
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