The Lesson of the Master by Henry James
page 11 of 88 (12%)
page 11 of 88 (12%)
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general diffusion of the air of the gentleman--the gentleman committed to
no particular set of ideas. More than once, on returning to his own country, he had said to himself about people met in society: "One sees them in this place and that, and one even talks with them; but to find out what they _do_ one would really have to be a detective." In respect to several individuals whose work he was the opposite of "drawn to"--perhaps he was wrong--he found himself adding "No wonder they conceal it--when it's so bad!" He noted that oftener than in France and in Germany his artist looked like a gentleman--that is like an English one--while, certainly outside a few exceptions, his gentlemen didn't look like an artist. St. George was not one of the exceptions; that circumstance he definitely apprehended before the great man had turned his back to walk off with Miss Fancourt. He certainly looked better behind than any foreign man of letters--showed for beautifully correct in his tall black hat and his superior frock coat. Somehow, all the same, these very garments--he wouldn't have minded them so much on a weekday--were disconcerting to Paul Overt, who forgot for the moment that the head of the profession was not a bit better dressed than himself. He had caught a glimpse of a regular face, a fresh colour, a brown moustache and a pair of eyes surely never visited by a fine frenzy, and he promised himself to study these denotements on the first occasion. His superficial sense was that their owner might have passed for a lucky stockbroker--a gentleman driving eastward every morning from a sanitary suburb in a smart dog-cart. That carried out the impression already derived from his wife. Paul's glance, after a moment, travelled back to this lady, and he saw how her own had followed her husband as he moved off with Miss Fancourt. Overt permitted himself to wonder a little if she were jealous when another woman took him away. Then he made out that Mrs. St. George wasn't glaring at the indifferent maiden. Her eyes rested but on her husband, and with unmistakeable serenity. That was the |
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