The Bostonians, Vol. II

Bostonians, Vol. II (of II), by
Henry James

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Title: The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II)
Author: Henry James
Release Date: November 5, 2006 [EBook #19718]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE BOSTONIANS
A NOVEL

BY HENRY JAMES
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET,
LONDON 1921
First published in 1886

BOOK SECOND (Continued)

XXIV
A little more than an hour after this he stood in the parlour of Doctor
Tarrant's suburban residence, in Monadnoc Place. He had induced a
juvenile maid-servant, by an appeal somewhat impassioned, to let the
ladies know that he was there; and she had returned, after a long
absence, to say that Miss Tarrant would come down to him in a little
while. He possessed himself, according to his wont, of the nearest book
(it lay on the table, with an old magazine and a little japanned tray
containing Tarrant's professional cards--his denomination as a
mesmeric healer), and spent ten minutes in turning it over. It was a
biography of Mrs. Ada T. P. Foat, the celebrated trance-lecturer, and
was embellished by a portrait representing the lady with a surprised
expression and innumerable ringlets. Ransom said to himself, after
reading a few pages, that much ridicule had been cast upon Southern
literature; but if that was a fair specimen of Northern!--and he threw it
back upon the table with a gesture almost as contemptuous as if he had
not known perfectly, after so long a residence in the North, that it was
not, while he wondered whether this was the sort of thing Miss Tarrant
had been brought up on. There was no other book to be seen, and he
remembered to have read the magazine; so there was finally nothing for

him, as the occupants of the house failed still to appear, but to stare
before him, into the bright, bare, common little room, which was so hot
that he wished to open a window, and of which an ugly, undraped
cross-light seemed to have taken upon itself to reveal the poverty.
Ransom, as I have mentioned, had not a high standard of comfort and
noticed little, usually, how people's houses were furnished--it was only
when they were very pretty that he observed; but what he saw while he
waited at Doctor Tarrant's made him say to himself that it was no
wonder Verena liked better to live with Olive Chancellor. He even
began to wonder whether it were for the sake of that superior softness
she had cultivated Miss Chancellor's favour, and whether Mrs. Luna
had been right about her being mercenary and insincere. So many
minutes elapsed before she appeared that he had time to remember he
really knew nothing to the contrary, as well as to consider the oddity
(so great when one did consider it) of his coming out to Cambridge to
see her, when he had only a few hours in Boston to spare, a year and a
half after she had given him her very casual invitation. She had not
refused to receive him, at any rate; she was free to, if it didn't please her.
And not only this, but she was apparently making herself fine in his
honour, inasmuch as he heard a rapid footstep move to and fro above
his head, and even, through the slightness which in Monadnoc Place
did service for an upper floor, the sound of drawers and presses opened
and closed. Some one was "flying round," as they said in Mississippi.
At last the stairs creaked under a light tread, and the next moment a
brilliant person came into the room.
His reminiscence of her had been very pretty; but now that she had
developed and matured, the little prophetess was prettier still. Her
splendid hair seemed to shine; her cheek and chin had a curve which
struck him by its fineness; her eyes and lips were full of smiles and
greetings. She had appeared to him before as a creature of brightness,
but now she lighted up the place, she irradiated, she made everything
that surrounded her of no consequence; dropping upon the shabby sofa
with an effect as charming as if she had been a nymph sinking on a
leopard-skin, and with the native sweetness of her