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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: time, embroidered his life, which he suffered to cover him with its
mantle. At the end of six weeks he felt he had learnt St. George's
lesson by heart, had tested and proved its doctrine. Nevertheless
he did a very inconsistent thing: before crossing the Alps he
wrote to Marian Fancourt. He was aware of the perversity of this
act, and it was only as a luxury, an amusement, the reward of a
strenuous autumn, that he justified it. She had asked of him no
such favour when, shortly before he left London, three days after
their dinner in Ennismore Gardens, he went to take leave of her.
It was true she had had no ground - he hadn't named his intention
of absence. He had kept his counsel for want of due assurance: it
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