The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: the elements of a hard sum had been given him and the others were
wanting: he couldn't do his sum till he had got all his figures.
He dressed and drove quickly, so that by half-past eleven he was at
Manchester Square. There were a good many carriages at the door -
a party was going on; a circumstance which at the last gave him a
slight relief, for now he would rather see her in a crowd. People
passed him on the staircase; they were going away, going "on" with
the hunted herdlike movement of London society at night. But
sundry groups remained in the drawing-room, and it was some
minutes, as she didn't hear him announced, before he discovered and
spoke to her. In this short interval he had seen St. George
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