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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: dare say it was as much for news of Vereker as for news of Miss
Erme's ailing parent. The hours spent there by Corvick were
present to my fancy as those of a chessplayer bent with a silent
scowl, all the lamplit winter, over his board and his moves. As my
imagination filled it out the picture held me fast. On the other
side of the table was a ghostlier form, the faint figure of an
antagonist good-humouredly but a little wearily secure - an
antagonist who leaned back in his chair with his hands in his
pockets and a smile on his fine clear face. Close to Corvick,
behind him, was a girl who had begun to strike me as pale and
wasted and even, on more familiar view, as rather handsome, and who
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