[Some Short Stories by Henry James]@TWC D-Link book
Some Short Stories

CHAPTER I
2/11

In this way their embarrassment served their cause.

I had seen people painfully reluctant to mention that they desired anything so gross as to be represented on canvas; but the scruples of my new friends appeared almost insurmountable.

Yet the gentleman might have said "I should like a portrait of my wife," and the lady might have said "I should like a portrait of my husband." Perhaps they weren't husband and wife--this naturally would make the matter more delicate.

Perhaps they wished to be done together--in which case they ought to have brought a third person to break the news.
"We come from Mr.Rivet," the lady finally said with a dim smile that had the effect of a moist sponge passed over a "sunk" piece of painting, as well as of a vague allusion to vanished beauty.

She was as tall and straight, in her degree, as her companion, and with ten years less to carry.


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