The Golden Bowl - Henry James (top fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗

obedience to which propriety they had some ten minutes, of a quality quite distinct, in a couple of penny-chairs under one of the larger trees. They had taken, for their walk, to the cropped, rain-freshened grass, after finding it already dry; and the chairs, turned away from the broad alley, the main drive and the aspect of Park Lane, looked across the wide reaches of green which seemed in a manner to refine upon their freedom. They helped Charlotte thus to make her position⁠—her temporary position⁠—still more clear, and it was for this purpose, obviously, that, abruptly, on seeing her opportunity, she sat down. He stood for a little before her, as if to mark the importance of not wasting time, the importance she herself had previously insisted on; but after she had said a few words it was impossible for him not to resort again to good-nature. He marked as he could, by this concession, that if he had finally met her first proposal for what would be “amusing” in it, so any idea she might have would contribute to that effect. He had consequently⁠—in all consistency⁠—to treat it as amusing that she reaffirmed, and reaffirmed again, the truth that was her truth.

“I don’t care what you make of it, and I don’t ask anything whatever of you⁠—anything but this. I want to have said it⁠—that’s all; I want not to have failed to say it. To see you once and be with you, to be as we are now and as we used to be, for one small hour⁠—or say for two⁠—that’s what I have had for weeks in my head. I mean, of course, to get it before⁠—before what you’re going to do. So, all the while, you see,” she went on with her eyes on him, “it was a question for me if I should be able to manage it in time. If I couldn’t have come now I probably shouldn’t have come at all⁠—perhaps even ever. Now that I’m here I shall stay, but there were moments, over there, when I despaired. It wasn’t easy⁠—there were reasons; but it was either this or nothing. So I didn’t struggle, you see, in vain. After⁠—oh, I didn’t want that! I don’t mean,” she smiled, “that it wouldn’t have been delightful to see you even then⁠—to see you at any time; but I would never have come for it. This is different. This is what I wanted. This is what I’ve got. This is what I shall always have. This is what I should have missed, of course,” she pursued, “if you had chosen to make me miss it. If you had thought me horrid, had refused to come, I should, naturally, have been immensely ‘sold.’ I had to take the risk. Well, you’re all I could have hoped. That’s what I was to have said. I didn’t want simply to get my time with you, but I wanted you to know. I wanted you”⁠—she kept it up, slowly, softly, with a small tremor of voice, but without the least failure of sense or sequence⁠—“I wanted you to understand. I wanted you, that is, to hear. I don’t care, I think, whether you understand or not. If I ask nothing of you I don’t⁠—I mayn’t⁠—ask even so much as that. What you may think of me⁠—that doesn’t in the least matter. What I want is that it shall always be with you⁠—so that you’ll never be able quite to get rid of it⁠—that I did. I won’t say that you did⁠—you may make as little of that as you like. But that I was here with you where we are and as we are⁠—I just saying this. Giving myself, in other words, away⁠—and perfectly willing to do it for nothing. That’s all.”

She paused as if her demonstration was complete⁠—yet, for the moment, without moving; as if in fact to give it a few minutes to sink in; into the listening air, into the watching space, into the conscious hospitality of nature, so far as nature was, all Londonised, all vulgarised, with them there; or even, for that matter, into her own open ears, rather than into the attention of her passive and prudent friend. His attention had done all that attention could do; his handsome, slightly anxious, yet still more definitely “amused” face sufficiently played its part. He clutched, however, at what he could best clutch at⁠—the fact that she let him off, definitely let him off. She let him off, it seemed, even from so much as answering; so that while he smiled back at her in return for her information he felt his lips remain closed to the successive vaguenesses of rejoinder, of objection, that rose for him from within. Charlotte herself spoke again at last⁠—“You may want to know what I get by it. But that’s my own affair.” He really didn’t want to know even this⁠—or continued, for the safest plan, quite to behave as if he didn’t; which prolonged the mere dumbness of diversion in which he had taken refuge. He was glad when, finally⁠—the point she had wished to make seeming established to her satisfaction⁠—they brought to what might pass for a close the moment of his life at which he had had least to say. Movement and progress, after this, with more impersonal talk, were naturally a relief; so that he was not again, during their excursion, at a loss for the right word. The air had been, as it were, cleared; they had their errand itself to discuss, and the opportunities of London, the sense of the wonderful place, the pleasures of prowling there, the question of shops, of possibilities, of particular objects, noticed by each in previous prowls. Each professed surprise at the extent of the other’s knowledge; the Prince in especial wondered at his friend’s possession of her London. He had rather prized his own possession, the guidance he could really often give a cabman; it was a