That's exactly, you know, what Miss Croy has been saying to me.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.social
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialThat's exactly, you know, what Miss Croy has been saying to me.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.social"You're all looking after my manners.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialHe at any rate could but try.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialAffected, surprised by the coincidence of her appeal with Kate's, he asked himself quickly if it mightn't help him with her.
@derekgneal.bsky.social"That is the great thing," Isabel reflected; "that is the supreme good fortune: to be in a better position for appreciating people than they are for appreciating you."
—Henry James, 'The Portrait of a Lady' (1881)
#HenryJames
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialDon't, I only mean, in the press of other things, too much neglect her."
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.social"Well, one seemed rather to gather that you hadn't taken out the patent.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialBut you must remember that, so far as her 'interest' is concerned, I myself discovered, I—as was said at dinner—invented her."
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.social"If you mean Miss Theale," he said, "I shall certainly not forget her.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialYou'll find her really interesting."
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.social"Return to our little friend.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialIt was an imperative "Wait a minute," by which she both detained and dismissed him; she was particular about her minute, but he hadn't yet given her, as happened, a sign of withdrawal.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialWhat further occurred was that Aunt Maud, having released her, immediately had a word for himself.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialThis personage had forestalled him in opening the door for her and was evidently—with a view, Densher might have judged, to ulterior designs on Milly—proposing to attend her to her carriage.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.sociala matter as to which there was now nothing more to be done, thanks to the alertness of the young man he by this time had appraised as even more harmless than himself.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialIt gathered perhaps a slightly sharper shade from the mild formality of her "Good-night, sir!" as she passed him;
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialThis impression was naturally light, but it just left him with the sense of something by his own act overlooked, unappreciated.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialsomething into which he afterwards read the meaning that if he had happened to desire a few words with her after dinner he would have found her ready.
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.socialStill another was that Mrs. Stringham, in the random intensity of her farewells, affected him as looking at him with a small grave intimation,
@thatiliazdguy.bsky.social—a challenge resulting after a minute for Densher in a consciousness of their installation together in an out-of-the-way corner, though not the same he himself had just occupied with her.