I have John Peters's Speaking into the Air to thank for getting interested in the 19th c American pragmatist camp, so maybe it was inevitable that I'd think the first Henry James I've read was about communication. But I also do think that's the main thing going on in this story. Communication is variously too hard to do, too hard to prevent others from doing, an easy out to be avoided, and/or a mortal danger. Crucially (and again I don't think this is just because I've been writing about the under-coverage of class in Peters's media theory) it's always communication across class difference that causes real terror.

The prose style is, sometimes annoyingly but also compellingly, marked by long strings of short parenthetical phrases; it's often tough to parse, and it aids the impression that the narrator sees words/ideas as chess pieces that all have to be moved in just the right order. I'm curious to read more James and see if that style is particular to this story.