The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James

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Title: Georgina's Reasons

Author: Henry James

Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21771]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGINA'S REASONS ***

Produced by David Widger

GEORGINA'S REASONS

By Henry James

1885

PART I.

I.

She was certainly a singular girl, and if he felt at the end that he
did n't know her nor understand her, it is not surprising that he should
have felt it at the beginning. But he felt at the beginning what he
did not feel at the end, that her singularity took the form of a charm
which--once circumstances had made them so intimate--it was impossible
to resist or conjure away. He had a strange impression (it amounted
at times to a positive distress, and shot through the sense of
pleasure--morally speaking--with the acuteness of a sudden twinge of
neuralgia) that it would be better for each of them that they should
break off short and never see each other again. In later years he called
this feeling a foreboding, and remembered two or three occasions when he
had been on the point of expressing it to Georgina. Of course, in fact,
he never expressed it; there were plenty of good reasons for that. Happy
love is not disposed to assume disagreeable duties, and Raymond Benyon's
love was happy, in spite of grave presentiments, in spite of the
singularity of his mistress and the insufferable rudeness of her
parents. She was a tall, fair girl, with a beautiful cold eye and a
smile of which the perfect sweetness, proceeding from the lips, was full
of compensation; she had auburn hair of a hue that could be qualified as
nothing less than gorgeous, and she seemed to move through life with a
stately grace, as she would have walked through an old-fashioned minuet.
Gentlemen connected with the navy have the advantage of seeing many
types of women; they are able to compare the ladies of New York with
those of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with those of the Cape of Good
Hope. Eaymond Benyon had had these advantages, and being very fond
of women he had learnt his lesson; he was in a position to ap