The Golden Bowl Henry James (spicy books to read txt) đ
- Author: Henry James
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His eyes, in any case, now saw Mrs. Rance approach with an instant failure to attach to the fact any grossness of avidity of Mrs. Ranceâs ownâ âor at least to descry any triumphant use even for the luridest impression of her intensity. What was virtually supreme would be her vision of his having attempted, by his desertion of the library, to mislead herâ âwhich in point of fact barely escaped being what he had designed. It was not easy for him, in spite of accumulations fondly and funnily regarded as of systematic practice, not now to be ashamed; the one thing comparatively easy would be to gloss over his course. The billiard-room was not, at the particular crisis, either a natural or a graceful place for the nominally main occupant of so large a house to retire toâ âand this without prejudice, either, to the fact that his visitor wouldnât, as he apprehended, explicitly make him a scene. Should she frankly denounce him for a sneak he would simply go to pieces; but he was, after an instant, not afraid of that. Wouldnât she rather, as emphasising their communion, accept and in a manner exploit the anomaly, treat it perhaps as romantic or possibly even as comic?â âshow at least that they neednât mind even though the vast table, draped in brown holland, thrust itself between them as an expanse of desert sand. She couldnât cross the desert, but she could, and did, beautifully get round it; so that for him to convert it into an obstacle he would have had to cause himself, as in some childish game or unbecoming romp, to be pursued, to be genially hunted. This last was a turn he was well aware the occasion should on no account take; and there loomed before himâ âfor the mere momentâ âthe prospect of her fairly proposing that they should knock about the balls. That danger certainly, it struck him, he should manage in some way to deal with. Why too, for that matter, had he need of defences, material or other?â âhow was it a question of dangers really to be called such? The deep danger, the only one that made him, as an idea, positively turn cold, would have been the possibility of her seeking him in marriage, of her bringing up between them that terrible issue. Here, fortunately, she was powerless, it being apparently so provable against her that she had a husband in undiminished existence.
She had him, it was true, only in America, only in Texas, in Nebraska, in Arizona or somewhereâ âsomewhere that, at old Fawns House, in the county of Kent, scarcely counted as a definite place at all; it showed somehow, from afar, as so lost, so indistinct and illusory, in the great alkali desert of cheap Divorce. She had him even in bondage, poor man, had him in contempt, had him in remembrance so imperfect as barely to assert itself, but she had him, none the less, in existence unimpeached: the Miss Lutches had seen him in the fleshâ âas they had appeared eager to mention; though when they were separately questioned their descriptions failed to tally. He would be at the worst, should it come to the worst, Mrs. Ranceâs difficulty, and he served therefore quite enough as the stout bulwark of anyone else. This was in truth logic without a flaw, yet it gave Mr. Verver less comfort than it ought. He feared not only dangerâ âhe feared the idea of danger, or in other words feared, hauntedly, himself. It was above all as a symbol that Mrs. Rance actually rose before himâ âa symbol of the supreme effort that he should have sooner or later, as he felt, to make. This effort would be to say Noâ âhe lived in terror of having to. He should be proposed to at a given momentâ âit was only a question of timeâ âand then he should have to do a thing that would be extremely disagreeable. He almost wished, on occasion, that he wasnât so sure he would do it. He knew himself, however, well enough not to doubt: he knew coldly, quite bleakly, where he would, at the crisis, draw the line. It was Maggieâs marriage and Maggieâs finer happinessâ âhappy as he had supposed her beforeâ âthat had made the difference; he hadnât in the other time, it now seemed to him, had to think of such things. They hadnât come up for
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