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IX

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2021

Jean Chothia
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

LORD THEIGN, when he had gone, revolved—it might have been nervously— about the place a little, but soon broke ground. “He’ll have told you, I understand, that I’ve promised to speak to you for him. But I understand also that he has found something to say for himself.”

“Yes, we talked—a while since,” the girl said. “At least he did.”

“Then if you listened I hope you listened with a good grace.”

“Oh, he speaks very well—and I’ve never disliked him.”

It pulled her father up. “Is that all—when I think so much of him?”

She seemed to say that she had, to her own mind, been liberal and gone far; but she waited a little. “Do you think very, very much?”

“Surely I’ve made my good opinion clear to you!”

Again she had a pause. “Oh yes, I’ve seen you like him and believe in him—and I’ve found him pleasant and clever.”

“He has never had,” Lord Theign more or less ingeniously explained, “what I call a real show.” But the character under discussion could after all be summed up without searching analysis. “I consider nevertheless that there's plenty in him.”

It was a moderate claim, to which Lady Grace might assent. “He strikes me as naturally quick and—well, nice. But I agree with you that he hasn't had a chance.”

“Then if you can see your way by sympathy and confidence to help him to one I dare say you’ll find your reward.”

For a third time she considered, as if a certain curtness in her companion's manner rather hindered, in such a question, than helped. Didn't he simplify too much, you would have felt her ask, and wasn't his visible wish for brevity of debate a sign of his uncomfortable and indeed rather irritated sense of his not making a figure in it? “Do you desire it very particularly?” was, however, all she at last brought out.

“I should like it exceedingly—if you act from conviction. Then of course only; but of one thing I’m myself convinced—of what he thinks of yourself and feels for you.”

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The Outcry , pp. 61 - 72
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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  • IX
  • Henry James
  • Edited by Jean Chothia, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Outcry
  • Online publication: 11 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511756580.016
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  • IX
  • Henry James
  • Edited by Jean Chothia, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Outcry
  • Online publication: 11 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511756580.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • IX
  • Henry James
  • Edited by Jean Chothia, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Outcry
  • Online publication: 11 April 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511756580.016
Available formats
×