 "The Portrait of a Lady" may be an experiment to see what happens when an idealistic young woman suddenly becomes very rich.In many of his tales, characters seem to exemplify alternative futures and possibilities, as most markedly in "The Jolly Corner", in which the protagonist and a ghost-doppelganger live alternative American and European lives; and in others, like "The Ambassadors," an older James seems fondly to regard his own younger self facing a crucial moment.The first period of James's fiction, usually considered to have culminated in "The Portrait of a Lady", concentrated on the contrast between Europe and America.