The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: been mortal, to what had been precious, in his friend. The
concourse at her grave was not numerous, but he saw himself treated
as scarce more nearly concerned with it than if there had been a
thousand others. He was in short from this moment face to face
with the fact that he was to profit extraordinarily little by the
interest May Bartram had taken in him. He couldn't quite have said
what he expected, but he hadn't surely expected this approach to a
double privation. Not only had her interest failed him, but he
seemed to feel himself unattended--and for a reason he couldn't
seize--by the distinction, the dignity, the propriety, if nothing
else, of the man markedly bereaved. It was as if, in the view of
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