To cover the gambling debts of his daughter Kitty Imber, the widowed Lord Theign is planning to sell his beautiful painting Duchess of Waterbridge by Sir Joshua Reynolds to American billionaire Breckenridge Bender.

His friend Lady Sandgate also donates her family's Sir Thomas Lawrence painting to the Gallery, which unites her and Theign.

Although James did not like his adopted country selling out its art treasures to foreign bidders, he was well aware that Britain's hands were far from clean in this regard.

Critics have generally regarded The Outcry as a pleasant trifle turned out in James' declining years.

James confessed in a letter to Edith Wharton that such a light, half-length novel was the most he could manage in his late sixties.