Also – as for the humor and tone that are a large part of this story’s appeal – do I get it right that Lockesley is a fool for loving his painting studio that faces south? That art is easy to get wrong? That one can pose as an artist and miss the mark? That James, in his ambition, is aware of the possible folly in the whole adventure?

Ambiguity, the hallmark of James, makes its play in this story as well. Who is the victim in the Lockesley-Leary battle? “Among their friends and enemies there were a hundred explanations.” In fact, whether Miss Leary took up with another gentleman of very high expectations and thus betrayed Lockesley, or whether she merely demonstrated (in some other way) what appeared to be “overwhelming proof of the most mercenary spirit” is not clear. Lockesley says that Miss Blunt is “a puzzle.” One of the pleasures in James is the puzzles he presents the reader, puzzles that become ever more intricate, psychological, and philosophical, as time goes by.

Miss Blunt claims, “It has always seemed to me that [men] are arrant cowards, — that [women] alone are brave.” She had introduced that remark with a long treatise on how women seek out the rich, but men do not, finishing up with “That is, after all, the text of my sermon.” Appropriate language, in that they have both skipped church to have this tete-a-tete. The text of James’s sermon, though, is far more ambitious – it is that through fiction he can paint the landscape of human nature – its variety, its colors, its storms, and its appeal. But James wants to leave the didactic dogma out of it – with fiction, he has the freedom to paint a picture that is primarily a question. The reader is asked, “Where’s the truth here?” Or, is there more than one truth?

One of the pleasures of this early story is seeing James tell us, at 23, what he is doing, and what he has set out to do.