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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: fine old sideboard that occupied, as a "fixture," the deep recess
in the dining-room. Just now he laughed at his companions -
quickly however changing the subject; for the reason that, in the
first place, his laugh struck him even at that moment as starting
the odd echo, the conscious human resonance (he scarce knew how to
qualify it) that sounds made while he was there alone sent back to
his ear or his fancy; and that, in the second, he imagined Alice
Staverton for the instant on the point of asking him, with a
divination, if he ever so prowled. There were divinations he was
unprepared for, and he had at all events averted enquiry by the
time Mrs. Muldoon had left them, passing on to other parts.
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