Lady Barbarina / The Siege of London, An International Episode and Other Tales by Henry James

Author:Henry James [James, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

III

He sat there a good while: there was a great deal of talk; it was all pitched in a key of expression and emphasis rather new to him. Every one present, the cool maidens not least, personally addressed him, and seemed to make a particular point of doing so by the friendly repetition of his name. Three or four other persons came in, and there was a shifting of seats, a changing of places; the gentlemen took, individually, an interest in the visitors, putting somehow more imagination and more “high comedy” into this effort than the latter had ever seen displayed save in a play or a story. These well-wishers feared the two Britons mightn’t be comfortable at their hotel—it being, as one of them said, “not so private as those dear little English inns of yours.” This last gentleman added that as yet perhaps, alas, privacy wasn’t quite so easily obtained in America as might be desired; still, he continued, you could generally get it by paying for it; in fact you could get everything in America nowadays by paying for it. The life was really growing more private; it was growing greatly to resemble European—which wasn’t to be wondered at when two-thirds of the people leading it were so awfully much at home in Europe. Europe, in the course of this conversation, was indeed, as Lord Lambeth afterwards remarked to his compatriot, rather bewilderingly rubbed into them: did they pretend to be European, and when had they ever been entered under that head? Everything at Newport, at all events, was described to them as thoroughly private; they would probably find themselves, when all was said, a good deal struck with that. It was also represented to the strangers that it mattered very little whether their hotel was agreeable, as every one would want them to “visit round,” as somebody called it: they would stay with other people and in any case would be constantly at Mrs. Westgate’s. They would find that charming; it was the pleasantest house in Newport. It was only a pity Mr. Westgate was never there—he being a tremendously fine man, one of the finest they had. He worked like a horse and left his wife to play the social part. Well, she played it all right, if that was all he wanted. He liked her to enjoy herself, and she did know how. She was highly cultivated and a splendid converser—the sort of converser people would come miles to hear. But some preferred her sister, who was in a different style altogether. Some even thought her prettier, but decidedly Miss Alden wasn’t so smart. She was more in the Boston style—the quiet Boston; she had lived a great deal there and was very highly educated. Boston girls, it was intimated, were more on the English model.

Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to test the truth of this last proposition; for, the company rising in compliance with a suggestion from their hostess that they should

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.