"It is very difficult," he said, seeking to diminish the tension so
often felt by a journalist, even at the moment of a highly appreciated
occasion, "to break into graceful license after so long a life of
decorum; therefore you must excuse me if my egotism doesn't run very
free or my complacency find quite the right turns."
He had received me in the offices of the corps, businesslike rooms,
modern for London, low-ceiled and sparely furnished. It was not by any
means the sort of setting in which as a reader of Henry James I had
expected to run to earth the author of "The Golden Bowl," but the place
is, nevertheless, today, in the tension of war time, one of the few
approaches to a social resort outside his Chelsea home where he can be
counted on. Even that delightful Old World retreat, Lamb House, Rye, now
claims little of his time.
The interviewer spoke of the waterside Chelsea and Mr. James's long
knowledge of it, but, sitting not overmuch at his ease and laying a
friendly hand on the shoulder of his tormentor, he spoke, instead, of
motor ambulances, making the point, in the interest of clearness, that
the American Ambulance Corps of Neuilly, though an organization with
which Richard Norton's corps is in the fullest sympathy, does not come
within the scope of his remarks.
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