|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: that all he wished was to know what she preferred--he would rigidly
conform to it. He conformed to her present programme; he had ventured
to pronounce the word Siena the evening before, but he was careful
not to pronounce it again. She had her reasons for her own reserve;
he wondered what they were, and it gave him a certain pleasure to wonder.
He enjoyed the consciousness of their having a secret together, and it
became a kind of entertaining suspense to see how long she would continue
to keep it. For himself, he was in no hurry to let the daylight in;
the little incident at Siena had been, in itself, a charming affair;
but Miss Vivian's present attitude gave it a sort of mystic consecration.
He thought she carried it off very well--the theory that she had
|
