The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Outcry, by Henry James

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Title: The Outcry

Author: Henry James

Release Date: June 29, 2007 [EBook #21969]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTCRY ***

Produced by David Widger

THE OUTCRY

By Henry James

1911

BOOK FIRST

I

"NO, my lord," Banks had replied, "no stranger has yet arrived. But
I'll see if any one has come in--or who has." As he spoke, however, he
observed Lady Sandgate's approach to the hall by the entrance giving
upon the great terrace, and addressed her on her passing the threshold.
"Lord John, my lady." With which, his duty majestically performed, he
retired to the quarter--that of the main access to the spacious centre
of the house--from which he had ushered the visitor.

This personage, facing Lady Sandgate as she paused there a moment framed
by the large doorway to the outer expanses, the small pinkish paper of
a folded telegram in her hand, had partly before him, as an immediate
effect, the high wide interior, still breathing the quiet air and the
fair pannelled security of the couple of hushed and stored centuries, in
which certain of the reputed treasures of Dedborough Place beautifully
disposed themselves; and then, through ample apertures and beyond
the stately stone outworks of the great seated and supported
house--uplifting terrace, balanced, balustraded steps and containing
basins where splash and spray were at rest--all the rich composed
extension of garden and lawn and park. An ancient, an assured elegance
seemed to reign; pictures and preserved "pieces," cabinets and
tapestries, spoke, each for itself, of fine selection and high
distinction; while the originals of the old portraits, in more or less
deserved salience, hung over the happy scene as the sworn members of a
great guild might have sat, on the beautiful April day, at one of their
annual feasts.

Such was the setting confirmed by generous time, but the handsome woman
of considerably more than forty whose entrance had all but coincided
with that of Lord John either belonged, for the eye, to no such
complacent company or enjoyed a relation to