Henry James

The Beast in the Jungle Henry James

What determined the speech that startled him in the course of their encounter scarcelymatters, being probably but some words spoken by himself quite without intention-spoken as they lingered and slowly moved together after their renewal of acquaintance. Hehad been conveyed by friends an hour or two before to the house at which she was staying;the party of visitors at the other house, of whom he was one, and thanks to whom it was histheory, as always, that he was lost in the crowd, had been invited over to luncheon. Therehad been after luncheon much dispersal, all in the interest of the original motive, a view ofWeatherend itself and the fine things, intrinsic features, pictures, heirlooms, treasures of allthe arts, that made the place almost famous; and the great rooms were so numerous thatguests could wander at their will, hang back from the principal group and in cases wherethey took such matters with the last seriousness give themselves up to mysteriousappreciations and measurements. There were persons to be observed, singly or in couples, bending toward objects in out-of-the-way corners with their hands on their knees and theirheads nodding quite as with the emphasis of an excited sense of smell. When they weretwo they either mingled their sounds of ecstasy or melted into silences of even deeperimport, so that there were aspects of the occasion that gave it for Marcher much the air ofthe "look round," previous to a sale highly advertised, that excites or quenches, as may be, the dream of acquisition. The dream of acquisition at Weatherend would have had to bewild indeed, and John Marcher found himself, among such suggestions, disconcerted almostequally by the presence of those who knew too much and by that of those who knewnothing. The great rooms caused so much poetry and history to press upon him that heneeded some straying apart to feel in a proper relation with them, though this impulse wasnot, as happened, like the gloating of some of his companions, to be compared to themovements of a dog sniffing a cupboard. It had an issue promptly enough in a directionthat was not to have been calculate