The Beast in the Jungle

Opening of the book

Transcribed from the 1915 Martin Secker edition by David
Price, email [email protected]
THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE
CHAPTER I
What determined the speech that startled him in the course
of their encounter scarcely matters, being probably but
some words spoken by himself quite without intention—
spoken as they lingered and slowly moved together after
their renewal of acquaintance.  He had been conveyed by
friends an hour or two before to the house at which she
was staying; the party of visitors at the other house, of
whom he was one, and thanks to whom it was his theory, as
always, that he was lost in the crowd, had been invited
over to luncheon.  There had been after luncheon much
dispersal, all in the interest of the original motive, a
view of Weatherend itself and the fine things, intrinsic
features, pictures, heirlooms, treasures of all the arts,
that made the place almost famous; and the great rooms
were so numerous that guests could wander at their will,
hang back from the principal group and in cases where they
took such matters with the last seriousness give
themselves up to mysterious appreciations and
measurements.  There were persons to be observed, singly
or in couples, bending toward objects in out-of-the-way
corners with their hands on their knees and their heads
nodding quite as with the emphasis of an excited sense of
smell.  When they were two they either mingled their
sounds of ecstasy or melted into silences of even deeper
import, so that there were aspects of the occasion that
gave it for Marcher much the air of the “look round,”
previous to a sale highly advertised, that excites or

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