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Show He asked no questions at that interview about my speed on a typewriter or a?out anythmg else. . The friend to whom he had applied for an amanuensrs had told him that I was sufficiently the right young woman for his purpose and he relied on her word. He had, at the best, little hope of any young woman beyond docility. We sat in armchairs on either side of a fireless grate while we observed each other. I suppose he found me harmless and I know that I found him overwhelming. He was much more massive than I had expected, much broader and stouter and stronger. I remembered that someone had told me he used to be taken for a sea-captain when he wore a beard, but it was clear that now, with the beard shaved away, he would hardly have passed for, say, an admiral, in spite of the keen grey eyes set in a face burned to a colourable sea-faring brown by the Italian sun. No successful naval officer could have afForded to keep that sensitive mobile mouth. After the interview I wondered what kind of impression one might have gained from a chance encounter in some such observation cell as a railway carriage. Would it have been possible to fit him confidently into any single category? He had reacted with so much success against both the American accent and the English manner that he seemed only doubtfully Anglo-Saxon. He nright perhaps have been some species of disguised cardinal, or even a Roman noblem;;n amusing himself fly playing the part of a Sussex squire. The observer could at least have guessed that any part he chose to assume would be finely conceived and generously played, for his features were all cast in the classical mould of greatness. He might very well have been a merciful Cesar or a benevolent Napoleon, and a painter who worked at his portrait a year or two later was excusably reminded of so many illustrious makers of history that he declared it to be a hard task to isolate the individual character of the model. 4 If the interview was overwhelming, it had none of the usual awkwardness of such curious conversations. I1nstead of critical angles and disconcerting silences, there were only benign curves and ample reassurance,;. There was encouraging gaiety in an expanse of bright check waistcoat. He invited me to ask any questions I liked, but I had none to ask. I wanted nothing but to be allowed to go to Rye and work his type·Nriter. .Ee was prepared, however, with his statements and, once I was seated opposite to him, the strong, slow stream of his deliberate speech played. over me with-ou t ceasing. H e had it on his mind to tell me the conditions of life nnd labour at Rye, and he unburdened himself fully, with numberless amplifications and qualifi cations but without any real break. It would be a dull business, he warned me, and I should probably find Rye a dull place. He told me of rooms in Mermaid Street, "very simple, rustic and antique-but that is the case for everything near my house, and this particular little old house is very near mine, and I know the good woman for kind and worthy and a convenient cook and in short-." It was settled at once that I should take the rooms, that I should begin my duties in October. II Since winter was approaching, Henry James had begun to use a panelled, green-painted room on the upper floor of Lamb House for his work. It was known simply as the green room. It had many advantages as a winter workmom, for it was small enough to he easily warmed and a wicc so~th window caught all the morning sunshine. The window overhung the smooth, green lawn, shaded in summer by a mulberry tree, surrounded by roses and enclosed behirid a tall, brick wall. 5 |