[Some Short Stories by Henry James]@TWC D-Link bookSome Short Stories CHAPTER III 5/11
The tones of her voice rose and fell, her facial convulsions, whether tending--one could scarce make out--to expression or REpression, succeeded each other by a law of their own; she was embarrassed at nothing and at everything, frightened at everything and at nothing, and she approached objects, subjects, the simplest questions and answers and the whole material of intercourse, either with the indirectness of terror or with the violence of despair.
These things, none the less, her refinements of oddity and intensities of custom, her betrayal at once of conventions and simplicities, of ease and of agony, her roundabout retarded suggestions and perceptions, still permitted her to strike her guest as irresistibly charming.
He didn't know what to call it; she was a fruit of time.
She had a queer distinction.
She had been expensively produced and there would be a good deal more of her to come. The result of the whole quality of her welcome, at any rate, was that the first evening, in his room, before going to bed, he relieved his mind in a letter to Addie, which, if space allowed us to embody it in our text, would usefully perform the office of a "plate." It would enable us to present ourselves as profusely illustrated.
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