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diff --git a/old/ambas10.txt b/old/ambas10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b6760f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ambas10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18186 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Edition of The Ambassadors, by Henry James +#5 in our series by Henry James + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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DeRanek + + + +Volume I + + + +Preface + + +Nothing is more easy than to state the subject of "The Ambassadors," +which first appeared in twelve numbers of _The North American Review_ +(1903) and was published as a whole the same year. The situation +involved is gathered up betimes, that is in the second chapter of +Book Fifth, for the reader's benefit, into as few words as possible-- +planted or "sunk," stiffly and saliently, in the centre of the current, +almost perhaps to the obstruction of traffic. Never can a composition +of this sort have sprung straighter from a dropped grain of suggestion, +and never can that grain, developed, overgrown and smothered, have yet +lurked more in the mass as an independent particle. The whole case, +in fine, is in Lambert Strether's irrepressible outbreak to little Bilham +on the Sunday afternoon in Gloriani's garden, the candour with which he +yields, for his young friend's enlightenment, to the charming admonition +of that crisis. The idea of the tale resides indeed in the very fact +that an hour of such unprecedented ease should have been felt by him AS +a crisis, and he is at pains to express it for us as neatly as we could +desire. The remarks to which he thus gives utterance contain the essence of +"The Ambassadors," his fingers close, before he has done, round the +stem of the full-blown flower; which, after that fashion, he continues +officiously to present to us. "Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. +It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular so long as you +have your life. If you haven't had that what HAVE you had? I'm too +old--too old at any rate for what I see. What one loses one loses; +make no mistake about that. Still, we have the illusion of freedom; +therefore don't, like me to-day, be without the memory of that illusion. +I was either, at the right time, too stupid or too intelligent to have it, +and now I'm a case of reaction against the mistake. Do what you like +so long as you don't make it. For it WAS a mistake. Live, live!" +Such is the gist of Strether's appeal to the impressed youth, whom +he likes and whom he desires to befriend; the word "mistake" occurs +several times, it will be seen, in the course of his remarks-- +which gives the measure of the signal warning he feels attached +to his case. He has accordingly missed too much, though perhaps +after all constitutionally qualified for a better part, and he wakes up +to it in conditions that press the spring of a terrible question. +WOULD there yet perhaps be time for reparation?--reparation, that is, +for the injury done his character; for the affront, he is quite ready to +say, so stupidly put upon it and in which he has even himself had +so clumsy a hand? The answer to which is that he now at all events SEES; +so that the business of my tale and the march of my action, not to say +the precious moral of everything, is just my demonstration of this +process of vision. + +Nothing can exceed the closeness with which the whole fits again +into its germ. That had been given me bodily, as usual, by the +spoken word, for I was to take the image over exactly as I +happened to have met it. A friend had repeated to me, with great +appreciation, a thing or two said to him by a man of distinction, +much his senior, and to which a sense akin to that of Strether's +melancholy eloquence might be imputed--said as chance would have, +and so easily might, in Paris, and in a charming old garden +attached to a house of art, and on a Sunday afternoon of summer, +many persons of great interest being present. The observation +there listened to and gathered up had contained part of the "note" +that I was to recognise on the spot as to my purpose--had contained +in fact the greater part; the rest was in the place and the time +and the scene they sketched: these constituents clustered +and combined to give me further support, to give me what I may +call the note absolute. There it stands, accordingly, full in the +tideway; driven in, with hard taps, like some strong stake for the +noose of a cable, the swirl of the current roundabout it. What +amplified the hint to more than the bulk of hints in general was +the gift with it of the old Paris garden, for in that token were +sealed up values infinitely precious. There was of course the seal +to break and each item of the packet to count over and handle and +estimate; but somehow, in the light of the hint, all the elements +of a situation of the sort most to my taste were there. I could +even remember no occasion on which, so confronted, I had found it +of a livelier interest to take stock, in this fashion, of +suggested wealth. For I think, verily, that there are degrees of +merit in subjects--in spite of the fact that to treat even one of +the most ambiguous with due decency we must for the time, for the +feverish and prejudiced hour, at least figure its merit and its +dignity as POSSIBLY absolute. What it comes to, doubtless, is that +even among the supremely good--since with such alone is it one's +theory of one's honour to be concerned--there is an ideal BEAUTY +of goodness the invoked action of which is to raise the artistic +faith to its maximum. Then truly, I hold, one's theme may be said +to shine, and that of "The Ambassadors," I confess, wore this glow +for me from beginning to end. Fortunately thus I am able to +estimate this as, frankly, quite the best, "all round," of all my +productions; any failure of that justification would have made +such an extreme of complacency publicly fatuous. + +I recall then in this connexion no moment of subjective +intermittence, never one of those alarms as for a suspected hollow +beneath one's feet, a felt ingratitude in the scheme adopted, +under which confidence fails and opportunity seems but to mock. +If the motive of "The Wings of the Dove," as I have noted, was to +worry me at moments by a sealing-up of its face--though without +prejudice to its again, of a sudden, fairly grimacing with +expression--so in this other business I had absolute conviction +and constant clearness to deal with; it had been a frank +proposition, the whole bunch of data, installed on my premises +like a monotony of fine weather. (The order of composition, in +these things, I may mention, was reversed by the order of +publication; the earlier written of the two books having appeared +as the later.) Even under the weight of my hero's years I could +feel my postulate firm; even under the strain of the difference +between those of Madame de Vionnet and those of Chad Newsome, a +difference liable to be denounced as shocking, I could still feel +it serene. Nothing resisted, nothing betrayed, I seem to make out, +in this full and sound sense of the matter; it shed from any side +I could turn it to the same golden glow. I rejoiced in the promise +of a hero so mature, who would give me thereby the more to bite +into--since it's only into thickened motive and accumulated +character, I think, that the painter of life bites more than a +little. My poor friend should have accumulated character, +certainly; or rather would be quite naturally and handsomely +possessed of it, in the sense that he would have, and would always +have felt he had, imagination galore, and that this yet wouldn't +have wrecked him. It was immeasurable, the opportunity to "do" a +man of imagination, for if THERE mightn't be a chance to "bite," +where in the world might it be? This personage of course, so +enriched, wouldn't give me, for his type, imagination in +PREDOMINANCE or as his prime faculty, nor should I, in view of +other matters, have found that convenient. So particular a luxury +--some occasion, that is, for study of the high gift in SUPREME +command of a case or of a career--would still doubtless come on +the day I should be ready to pay for it; and till then might, as +from far back, remain hung up well in view and just out of reach. +The comparative case meanwhile would serve--it was only on the +minor scale that I had treated myself even to comparative cases. + +I was to hasten to add however that, happy stopgaps as the minor +scale had thus yielded, the instance in hand should enjoy the +advantage of the full range of the major; since most immediately +to the point was the question of that SUPPLEMENT of situation +logically involved in our gentleman's impulse to deliver himself +in the Paris garden on the Sunday afternoon--or if not involved by +strict logic then all ideally and enchantingly implied in it. (I +say "ideally," because I need scarce mention that for development, +for expression of its maximum, my glimmering story was, at the +earliest stage, to have nipped the thread of connexion with the +possibilities of the actual reported speaker. HE remains but the +happiest of accidents; his actualities, all too definite, +precluded any range of possibilities; it had only been his +charming office to project upon that wide field of the artist's +vision--which hangs there ever in place like the white sheet +suspended for the figures of a child's magic-lantern--a more +fantastic and more moveable shadow.) No privilege of the teller of +tales and the handler of puppets is more delightful, or has more +of the suspense and the thrill of a game of difficulty +breathlessly played, than just this business of looking for the +unseen and the occult, in a scheme half-grasped, by the light or, +so to speak, by the clinging scent, of the gage already in hand. +No dreadful old pursuit of the hidden slave with bloodhounds and +the rag of association can ever, for "excitement," I judge, have +bettered it at its best. For the dramatist always, by the very law +of his genius, believes not only in a possible right issue from +the rightly-conceived tight place; he does much more than this--he +believes, irresistibly, in the necessary, the precious "tightness" +of the place (whatever the issue) on the strength of any +respectable hint. It being thus the respectable hint that I had +with such avidity picked up, what would be the story to which it +would most inevitably form the centre? It is part of the charm +attendant on such questions that the "story," with the omens true, +as I say, puts on from this stage the authenticity of concrete +existence. It then is, essentially--it begins to be, though it may +more or less obscurely lurk, so that the point is not in the least +what to make of it, but only, very delightfully and very damnably, +where to put one's hand on it. + +In which truth resides surely much of the interest of that +admirable mixture for salutary application which we know as art. +Art deals with what we see, it must first contribute full-handed +that ingredient; it plucks its material, otherwise expressed, in +the garden of life--which material elsewhere grown is stale and +uneatable. But it has no sooner done this than it has to take +account of a PROCESS--from which only when it's the basest of the +servants of man, incurring ignominious dismissal with no +"character," does it, and whether under some muddled pretext of +morality or on any other, pusillanimously edge away. The process, +that of the expression, the literal squeezing-out, of value is +another affair--with which the happy luck of mere finding has +little to do. The joys of finding, at this stage, are pretty well +over; that quest of the subject as a whole by "matching," as the +ladies say at the shops, the big piece with the snippet, having +ended, we assume, with a capture. The subject is found, and if the +problem is then transferred to the ground of what to do with it +the field opens out for any amount of doing. This is precisely the +infusion that, as I submit, completes the strong mixture. It is on +the other hand the part of the business that can least be likened +to the chase with horn and hound. It's all a sedentary part-- +involves as much ciphering, of sorts, as would merit the highest +salary paid to a chief accountant. Not, however, that the chief +accountant hasn't HIS gleams of bliss; for the felicity, or at +least the equilibrium of the artist's state dwells less, surely, +in the further delightful complications he can smuggle in than in +those he succeeds in keeping out. He sows his seed at the risk of +too thick a crop; wherefore yet again, like the gentlemen who +audit ledgers, he must keep his head at any price. In consequence +of all which, for the interest of the matter, I might seem here to +have my choice of narrating my "hunt" for Lambert Strether, of +describing the capture of the shadow projected by my friend's +anecdote, or of reporting on the occurrences subsequent to that +triumph. But I had probably best attempt a little to glance in +each direction; since it comes to me again and again, over this +licentious record, that one's bag of adventures, conceived or +conceivable, has been only half-emptied by the mere telling of +one's story. It depends so on what one means by that equivocal +quantity. There is the story of one's hero, and then, thanks to +the intimate connexion of things, the story of one's story itself. +I blush to confess it, but if one's a dramatist one's a dramatist, +and the latter imbroglio is liable on occasion to strike me as +really the more objective of the two. + +The philosophy imputed to him in that beautiful outbreak, the hour +there, amid such happy provision, striking for him, would have +been then, on behalf of my man of imagination, to be logically +and, as the artless craft of comedy has it, "led up" to; the +probable course to such a goal, the goal of so conscious a +predicament, would have in short to be finely calculated. Where +has he come from and why has he come, what is he doing (as we +Anglo-Saxons, and we only, say, in our foredoomed clutch of exotic +aids to expression) in that galere? To answer these questions +plausibly, to answer them as under cross-examination in the +witness-box by counsel for the prosecution, in other words +satisfactorily to account for Strether and for his "peculiar +tone," was to possess myself of the entire fabric. At the same +time the clue to its whereabouts would lie in a certain principle +of probability: he wouldn't have indulged in his peculiar tone +without a reason; it would take a felt predicament or a false +position to give him so ironic an accent. One hadn't been noting +"tones" all one's life without recognising when one heard it the +voice of the false position. The dear man in the Paris garden was +then admirably and unmistakeably IN one--which was no small point +gained; what next accordingly concerned us was the determination +of THIS identity. One could only go by probabilities, but there +was the advantage that the most general of the probabilities were +virtual certainties. Possessed of our friend's nationality, to +start with, there was a general probability in his narrower +localism; which, for that matter, one had really but to keep under +the lens for an hour to see it give up its secrets. He would have +issued, our rueful worthy, from the very heart of New England--at +the heels of which matter of course a perfect train of secrets +tumbled for me into the light. They had to be sifted and sorted, +and I shall not reproduce the detail of that process; but +unmistakeably they were all there, and it was but a question, +auspiciously, of picking among them. What the "position" would +infallibly be, and why, on his hands, it had turned "false"--these +inductive steps could only be as rapid as they were distinct. I +accounted for everything--and "everything" had by this time become +the most promising quantity--by the view that he had come to Paris +in some state of mind which was literally undergoing, as a result +of new and unexpected assaults and infusions, a change almost from +hour to hour. He had come with a view that might have been figured +by a clear green liquid, say, in a neat glass phial; and the +liquid, once poured into the open cup of APPLICATION, once exposed +to the action of another air, had begun to turn from green to red, +or whatever, and might, for all he knew, be on its way to purple, +to black, to yellow. At the still wilder extremes represented +perhaps, for all he could say to the contrary, by a variability so +violent, he would at first, naturally, but have gazed in surprise +and alarm; whereby the SITUATION clearly would spring from the +play of wildness and the development of extremes. I saw in a +moment that, should this development proceed both with force and +logic, my "story" would leave nothing to be desired. There is +always, of course, for the story-teller, the irresistible +determinant and the incalculable advantage of his interest in the +story AS SUCH; it is ever, obviously, overwhelmingly, the prime +and precious thing (as other than this I have never been able to +see it); as to which what makes for it, with whatever headlong +energy, may be said to pale before the energy with which it simply +makes for itself. It rejoices, none the less, at its best, to seem +to offer itself in a light, to seem to know, and with the very +last knowledge, what it's about--liable as it yet is at moments to +be caught by us with its tongue in its cheek and absolutely no +warrant but its splendid impudence. Let us grant then that the +impudence is always there--there, so to speak, for grace and +effect and ALLURE; there, above all, because the Story is just the +spoiled child of art, and because, as we are always disappointed +when the pampered don't "play up," we like it, to that extent, to +look all its character. It probably does so, in truth, even when +we most flatter ourselves that we negotiate with it by treaty. + +All of which, again, is but to say that the STEPS, for my fable, +placed themselves with a prompt and, as it were, functional +assurance--an air quite as of readiness to have dispensed with +logic had I been in fact too stupid for my clue. Never, +positively, none the less, as the links multiplied, had I felt +less stupid than for the determination of poor Strether's errand +and for the apprehension of his issue. These things continued to +fall together, as by the neat action of their own weight and form, +even while their commentator scratched his head about them; he +easily sees now that they were always well in advance of him. As +the case completed itself he had in fact, from a good way behind, +to catch up with them, breathless and a little flurried, as he +best could. THE false position, for our belated man of the world-- +belated because he had endeavoured so long to escape being one, +and now at last had really to face his doom--the false position +for him, I say, was obviously to have presented himself at the +gate of that boundless menagerie primed with a moral scheme of the +most approved pattern which was yet framed to break down on any +approach to vivid facts; that is to any at all liberal +appreciation of them. There would have been of course the case of +the Strether prepared, wherever presenting himself, only to judge +and to feel meanly; but HE would have moved for me, I confess, +enveloped in no legend whatever. The actual man's note, from the +first of our seeing it struck, is the note of discrimination, just +as his drama is to become, under stress, the drama of +discrimination. It would have been his blest imagination, we have +seen, that had already helped him to discriminate; the element +that was for so much of the pleasure of my cutting thick, as I +have intimated, into his intellectual, into his moral substance. +Yet here it was, at the same time, just here, that a shade for a +moment fell across the scene. + +There was the dreadful little old tradition, one of the platitudes +of the human comedy, that people's moral scheme DOES break down in +Paris; that nothing is more frequently observed; that hundreds of +thousands of more or less hypocritical or more or less cynical +persons annually visit the place for the sake of the probable +catastrophe, and that I came late in the day to work myself up +about it. There was in fine the TRIVIAL association, one of the +vulgarest in the world; but which give me pause no longer, I +think, simply because its vulgarity is so advertised. The +revolution performed by Strether under the influence of the most +interesting of great cities was to have nothing to do with any +betise of the imputably "tempted" state; he was to be thrown +forward, rather, thrown quite with violence, upon his lifelong +trick of intense reflexion: which friendly test indeed was to +bring him out, through winding passages, through alternations of +darkness and light, very much IN Paris, but with the surrounding +scene itself a minor matter, a mere symbol for more things than +had been dreamt of in the philosophy of Woollett. Another +surrounding scene would have done as well for our show could it +have represented a place in which Strether's errand was likely to +lie and his crisis to await him. The LIKELY place had the great +merit of sparing me preparations; there would have been too many +involved--not at all impossibilities, only rather worrying and +delaying difficulties--in positing elsewhere Chad Newsome's +interesting relation, his so interesting complexity of relations. +Strether's appointed stage, in fine, could be but Chad's most +luckily selected one. The young man had gone in, as they say, for +circumjacent charm; and where he would have found it, by the turn +of his mind, most "authentic," was where his earnest friend's analysis +would most find HIM; as well as where, for that matter, the former's +whole analytic faculty would be led such a wonderful dance. + +"The Ambassadors" had been, all conveniently, "arranged for"; its +first appearance was from month to month, in the _North American +Review_ during 1903, and I had been open from far back to any +pleasant provocation for ingenuity that might reside in one's +actively adopting--so as to make it, in its way, a small compositional +law--recurrent breaks and resumptions. I had made up my mind here +regularly to exploit and enjoy these often rather rude jolts-- +having found, as I believed an admirable way to it; yet every question +of form and pressure, I easily remember, paled in the light of the +major propriety, recognised as soon as really weighed; that of +employing but one centre and keeping it all within my hero's compass. +The thing was to be so much this worthy's intimate adventure that +even the projection of his consciousness upon it from beginning to end +without intermission or deviation would probably still leave a part of +its value for him, and a fortiori for ourselves, unexpressed. +I might, however, express every grain of it that there would be +room for--on condition of contriving a splendid particular economy. +Other persons in no small number were to people the scene, and each +with his or her axe to grind, his or her situation to treat, his or her +coherency not to fail of, his or her relation to my leading motive, +in a word, to establish and carry on. But Strether's sense of these +things, and Strether's only, should avail me for showing them; +I should know them but through his more or less groping knowledge +of them, since his very gropings would figure among his most interesting +motions, and a full observance of the rich rigour I speak of would +give me more of the effect I should be most "after" than all other +possible observances together. It would give me a large unity, +and that in turn would crown me with the grace to which the +enlightened story-teller will at any time, for his interest, +sacrifice if need be all other graces whatever. I refer of course +to the grace of intensity, which there are ways of signally achieving +and ways of signally missing--as we see it, all round us, helplessly +and woefully missed. Not that it isn't, on the other hand, a virtue +eminently subject to appreciation--there being no strict, no absolute +measure of it; so that one may hear it acclaimed where it has quite +escaped one's perception, and see it unnoticed where one has gratefully +hailed it. After all of which I am not sure, either, that the immense +amusement of the whole cluster of difficulties so arrayed may not operate, +for the fond fabulist, when judicious not less than fond, as his best of +determinants. That charming principle is always there, at all events, +to keep interest fresh: it is a principle, we remember, essentially +ravenous, without scruple and without mercy, appeased with no cheap +nor easy nourishment. It enjoys the costly sacrifice and rejoices +thereby in the very odour of difficulty--even as ogres, with their +"Fee-faw-fum!" rejoice in the smell of the blood of Englishmen. + +Thus it was, at all events, that the ultimate, though after all so +speedy, definition of my gentleman's job--his coming out, all +solemnly appointed and deputed, to "save" Chad, and his then +finding the young man so disobligingly and, at first, so +bewilderingly not lost that a new issue altogether, in the +connexion, prodigiously faces them, which has to be dealt with in +a new light--promised as many calls on ingenuity and on the higher +branches of the compositional art as one could possibly desire. +Again and yet again, as, from book to book, I proceed with my +survey, I find no source of interest equal to this verification +after the fact, as I may call it, and the more in detail the +better, of the scheme of consistency "gone in" for. As always-- +since the charm never fails--the retracing of the process from +point to point brings back the old illusion. The old intentions +bloom again and flower--in spite of all the blossoms they were to +have dropped by the way. This is the charm, as I say, of adventure +TRANSPOSED--the thrilling ups and downs, the intricate ins and +outs of the compositional problem, made after such a fashion +admirably objective, becoming the question at issue and keeping +the author's heart in his mouth. Such an element, for instance, as +his intention that Mrs. Newsome, away off with her finger on the +pulse of Massachusetts, should yet be no less intensely than +circuitously present through the whole thing, should be no less +felt as to be reckoned with than the most direct exhibition, the +finest portrayal at first hand could make her, such a sign of +artistic good faith, I say, once it's unmistakeably there, takes +on again an actuality not too much impaired by the comparative +dimness of the particular success. Cherished intention too +inevitably acts and operates, in the book, about fifty times as +little as I had fondly dreamt it might; but that scarce spoils for +me the pleasure of recognising the fifty ways in which I had +sought to provide for it. The mere charm of seeing such an idea +constituent, in its degree; the fineness of the measures taken--a +real extension, if successful, of the very terms and possibilities +of representation and figuration--such things alone were, after +this fashion, inspiring, such things alone were a gage of the +probable success of that dissimulated calculation with which the +whole effort was to square. But oh the cares begotten, none the +less, of that same "judicious" sacrifice to a particular form of +interest! One's work should have composition, because composition +alone is positive beauty; but all the while--apart from one's +inevitable consciousness too of the dire paucity of readers ever +recognising or ever missing positive beauty--how, as to the cheap +and easy, at every turn, how, as to immediacy and facility, and +even as to the commoner vivacity, positive beauty might have to be +sweated for and paid for! Once achieved and installed it may +always be trusted to make the poor seeker feel he would have +blushed to the roots of his hair for failing of it; yet, how, as +its virtue can be essentially but the virtue of the whole, the +wayside traps set in the interest of muddlement and pleading but +the cause of the moment, of the particular bit in itself, have to +be kicked out of the path! All the sophistications in life, for +example, might have appeared to muster on behalf of the menace-- +the menace to a bright variety--involved in Strether's having all +the subjective "say," as it were, to himself. + +Had I, meanwhile, made him at once hero and historian, endowed him +with the romantic privilege of the "first person"--the darkest +abyss of romance this, inveterately, when enjoyed on the grand +scale--variety, and many other queer matters as well, might have +been smuggled in by a back door. Suffice it, to be brief, that the +first person, in the long piece, is a form foredoomed to looseness +and that looseness, never much my affair, had never been so little +so as on this particular occasion. All of which reflexions flocked +to the standard from the moment--a very early one--the question of +how to keep my form amusing while sticking so close to my central +figure and constantly taking its pattern from him had to be faced. +He arrives (arrives at Chester) as for the dreadful purpose of +giving his creator "no end" to tell about him--before which +rigorous mission the serenest of creators might well have quailed. +I was far from the serenest; I was more than agitated enough to +reflect that, grimly deprived of one alternative or one substitute +for "telling," I must address myself tooth and nail to another. I +couldn't, save by implication, make other persons tell EACH OTHER +about him--blest resource, blest necessity, of the drama, which +reaches its effects of unity, all remarkably, by paths absolutely +opposite to the paths of the novel: with other persons, save as +they were primarily HIS persons (not he primarily but one of +theirs), I had simply nothing to do. I had relations for him none +the less, by the mercy of Providence, quite as much as if my +exhibition was to be a muddle; if I could only by implication and +a show of consequence make other persons tell each other about +him, I could at least make him tell THEM whatever in the world he +must; and could so, by the same token--which was a further luxury +thrown in--see straight into the deep differences between what +that could do for me, or at all events for HIM, and the large ease +of "autobiography." It may be asked why, if one so keeps to one's +hero, one shouldn't make a single mouthful of "method," shouldn't +throw the reins on his neck and, letting them flap there as free +as in "Gil Blas" or in "David Copperfield," equip him with the +double privilege of subject and object--a course that has at +least the merit of brushing away questions at a sweep. The answer +to which is, I think, that one makes that surrender only if one is +prepared NOT to make certain precious discriminations. + +The "first person" then, so employed, is addressed by the author +directly to ourselves, his possible readers, whom he has to reckon +with, at the best, by our English tradition, so loosely and +vaguely after all, so little respectfully, on so scant a +presumption of exposure to criticism. Strether, on the other hand, +encaged and provided for as "The Ambassadors" encages and +provides, has to keep in view proprieties much stiffer and more +salutary than any our straight and credulous gape are likely to +bring home to him, has exhibitional conditions to meet, in a word, +that forbid the terrible FLUIDITY of self-revelation. I may seem +not to better the case for my discrimination if I say that, for my +first care, I had thus inevitably to set him up a confidant or +two, to wave away with energy the custom of the seated mass of +explanation after the fact, the inserted block of merely +referential narrative, which flourishes so, to the shame of the +modern impatience, on the serried page of Balzac, but which seems +simply to appal our actual, our general weaker, digestion. +"Harking back to make up" took at any rate more doing, as the +phrase is, not only than the reader of to-day demands, but than he +will tolerate at any price any call upon him either to understand +or remotely to measure; and for the beauty of the thing when done +the current editorial mind in particular appears wholly without +sense. It is not, however, primarily for either of these reasons, +whatever their weight, that Strether's friend Waymarsh is so +keenly clutched at, on the threshold of the book, or that no less +a pounce is made on Maria Gostrey--without even the pretext, +either, of HER being, in essence, Strether's friend. She is the +reader's friend much rather--in consequence of dispositions that +make him so eminently require one; and she acts in that capacity, +and REALLY in that capacity alone, with exemplary devotion from +beginning to and of the book. She is an enrolled, a direct, aid to +lucidity; she is in fine, to tear off her mask, the most +unmitigated and abandoned of ficelles. Half the dramatist's art, +as we well know--since if we don't it's not the fault of the +proofs that lie scattered about us--is in the use of ficelles; by +which I mean in a deep dissimulation of his dependence on them. +Waymarsh only to a slighter degree belongs, in the whole business, +less to my subject than to my treatment of it; the interesting +proof, in these connexions, being that one has but to take one's +subject for the stuff of drama to interweave with enthusiasm as +many Gostreys as need be. + +The material of "The Ambassadors," conforming in this respect +exactly to that of "The Wings of the Dove," published just before +it, is taken absolutely for the stuff of drama; so that, availing +myself of the opportunity given me by this edition for some +prefatory remarks on the latter work, I had mainly to make on its +behalf the point of its scenic consistency. It disguises that +virtue, in the oddest way in the world, by just LOOKING, as we +turn its pages, as little scenic as possible; but it sharply +divides itself, just as the composition before us does, into the +parts that prepare, that tend in fact to over-prepare, for scenes, +and the parts, or otherwise into the scenes, that justify and +crown the preparation. It may definitely be said, I think, that +everything in it that is not scene (not, I of course mean, +complete and functional scene, treating ALL the submitted matter, +as by logical start, logical turn, and logical finish) is +discriminated preparation, is the fusion and synthesis of picture. +These alternations propose themselves all recogniseably, I think, +from an early stage, as the very form and figure of "The +Ambassadors"; so that, to repeat, such an agent as Miss Gostrey +pre-engaged at a high salary, but waits in the draughty wing with +her shawl and her smelling-salts. Her function speaks at once for +itself, and by the time she has dined with Strether in London and +gone to a play with him her intervention as a ficelle is, I hold, +expertly justified. Thanks to it we have treated scenically, and +scenically alone, the whole lumpish question of Strether's "past," +which has seen us more happily on the way than anything else could +have done; we have strained to a high lucidity and vivacity (or at +least we hope we have) certain indispensable facts; we have seen +our two or three immediate friends all conveniently and profitably +in "action"; to say nothing of our beginning to descry others, of +a remoter intensity, getting into motion, even if a bit vaguely as +yet, for our further enrichment. Let my first point be here that +the scene in question, that in which the whole situation at +Woollett and the complex forces that have propelled my hero to +where this lively extractor of his value and distiller of his +essence awaits him, is normal and entire, is really an excellent +STANDARD scene; copious, comprehensive, and accordingly never +short, but with its office as definite as that of the hammer on +the gong of the clock, the office of expressing ALL THAT IS IN the +hour. + +The "ficelle" character of the subordinate party is as artfully +dissimulated, throughout, as may be, and to that extent that, with +the seams or joints of Maria Gostrey's ostensible connectedness +taken particular care of, duly smoothed over, that is, and +anxiously kept from showing as "pieced on;" this figure doubtless +achieves, after a fashion, something of the dignity of a prime +idea: which circumstance but shows us afresh how many quite +incalculable but none the less clear sources of enjoyment for the +infatuated artist, how many copious springs of our never-to-be-slighted +"fun" for the reader and critic susceptible of contagion, may +sound their incidental plash as soon as an artistic process begins +to enjoy free development. Exquisite--in illustration of this-- +the mere interest and amusement of such at once "creative" and +critical questions as how and where and why to make Miss Gostrey's +false connexion carry itself, under a due high polish, as a real one. +Nowhere is it more of an artful expedient for mere consistency +of form, to mention a case, than in the last "scene" of the book, +where its function is to give or to add nothing whatever, +but only to express as vividly as possible certain things quite +other than itself and that are of the already fixed and appointed +measure. Since, however, all art is EXPRESSION, and is thereby +vividness, one was to find the door open here to any amount of +delightful dissimulation. These verily are the refinements and +ecstasies of method--amid which, or certainly under the influence +of any exhilarated demonstration of which, one must keep one's head +and not lose one's way. To cultivate an adequate intelligence +for them and to make that sense operative is positively to find +a charm in any produced ambiguity of appearance that is not +by the same stroke, and all helplessly, an ambiguity of sense. +To project imaginatively, for my hero, a relation that has +nothing to do with the matter (the matter of my subject) but has +everything to do with the manner (the manner of my presentation +of the same) and yet to treat it, at close quarters and for fully +economic expression's possible sake, as if it were important and +essential--to do that sort of thing and yet muddle nothing may +easily become, as one goes, a signally attaching proposition; +even though it all remains but part and parcel, I hasten to +recognise, of the merely general and related question of expressional +curiosity and expressional decency. + +I am moved to add after so much insistence on the scenic side of +my labour that I have found the steps of re-perusal almost as much +waylaid here by quite another style of effort in the same signal +interest--or have in other words not failed to note how, even so +associated and so discriminated, the finest proprieties and charms +of the non-scenic may, under the right hand for them, still keep +their intelligibility and assert their office. Infinitely +suggestive such an observation as this last on the whole +delightful head, where representation is concerned, of possible +variety, of effective expressional change and contrast. One would +like, at such an hour as this, for critical licence, to go into +the matter of the noted inevitable deviation (from too fond an +original vision) that the exquisite treachery even of the +straightest execution may ever be trusted to inflict even on the +most mature plan--the case being that, though one's last +reconsidered production always seems to bristle with that +particular evidence, "The Ambassadors" would place a flood of such +light at my service. I must attach to my final remark here a +different import; noting in the other connexion I just glanced at +that such passages as that of my hero's first encounter with Chad +Newsome, absolute attestations of the non-scenic form though they +be, yet lay the firmest hand too--so far at least as intention +goes--on representational effect. To report at all closely and +completely of what "passes" on a given occasion is inevitably to +become more or less scenic; and yet in the instance I allude to, +WITH the conveyance, expressional curiosity and expressional +decency are sought and arrived at under quite another law. The +true inwardness of this may be at bottom but that one of the +suffered treacheries has consisted precisely, for Chad's whole +figure and presence, of a direct presentability diminished and +compromised--despoiled, that is, of its PROPORTIONAL advantage; +so that, in a word, the whole economy of his author's relation +to him has at important points to be redetermined. The book, +however, critically viewed, is touchingly full of these disguised +and repaired losses, these insidious recoveries, these intensely +redemptive consistencies. The pages in which Mamie Pocock gives +her appointed and, I can't but think, duly felt lift to the whole +action by the so inscrutably-applied side-stroke or short-cut of +our just watching and as quite at an angle of vision as yet +untried, her single hour of suspense in the hotel salon, in our +partaking of her concentrated study of the sense of matters +bearing on her own case, all the bright warm Paris afternoon, from +the balcony that overlooks the Tuileries garden--these are as +marked an example of the representational virtue that insists here +and there on being, for the charm of opposition and renewal, other +than the scenic. It wouldn't take much to make me further argue +that from an equal play of such oppositions the book gathers an +intensity that fairly adds to the dramatic--though the latter is +supposed to be the sum of all intensities; or that has at any rate +nothing to fear from juxtaposition with it. I consciously fail to +shrink in fact from that extravagance--I risk it rather, for the +sake of the moral involved; which is not that the particular +production before us exhausts the interesting questions it raises, +but that the Novel remains still, under the right persuasion, the +most independent, most elastic, most prodigious of literary forms. + + +HENRY JAMES. + + + + + +Book First + + + + +I + + +Strether's first question, when he reached the hotel, was about his +friend; yet on his learning that Waymarsh was apparently not to +arrive till evening he was not wholly disconcerted. A telegram from +him bespeaking a room "only if not noisy," reply paid, was produced +for the enquirer at the office, so that the understanding they +should meet at Chester rather than at Liverpool remained to that +extent sound. The same secret principle, however, that had prompted +Strether not absolutely to desire Waymarsh's presence at the dock, +that had led him thus to postpone for a few hours his enjoyment of +it, now operated to make him feel he could still wait without +disappointment. They would dine together at the worst, and, with +all respect to dear old Waymarsh--if not even, for that matter, to +himself--there was little fear that in the sequel they shouldn't +see enough of each other. The principle I have just mentioned as +operating had been, with the most newly disembarked of the two men, +wholly instinctive--the fruit of a sharp sense that, delightful as +it would be to find himself looking, after so much separation, into +his comrade's face, his business would be a trifle bungled should +he simply arrange for this countenance to present itself to the +nearing steamer as the first "note," of Europe. Mixed with +everything was the apprehension, already, on Strether's part, that +it would, at best, throughout, prove the note of Europe in quite a +sufficient degree. + +That note had been meanwhile--since the previous afternoon, thanks +to this happier device--such a consciousness of personal freedom as +he hadn't known for years; such a deep taste of change and of +having above all for the moment nobody and nothing to consider, as +promised already, if headlong hope were not too foolish, to colour +his adventure with cool success. There were people on the ship with +whom he had easily consorted--so far as ease could up to now be +imputed to him--and who for the most part plunged straight into the +current that set from the landing-stage to London; there were +others who had invited him to a tryst at the inn and had even +invoked his aid for a "look round" at the beauties of Liverpool; +but he had stolen away from every one alike, had kept no +appointment and renewed no acquaintance, had been indifferently +aware of the number of persons who esteemed themselves fortunate in +being, unlike himself, "met," and had even independently, +unsociably, alone, without encounter or relapse and by mere quiet +evasion, given his afternoon and evening to the immediate and the +sensible. They formed a qualified draught of Europe, an afternoon +and an evening on the banks of the Mersey, but such as it was he +took his potion at least undiluted. He winced a little, truly, at +the thought that Waymarsh might be already at Chester; he reflected +that, should he have to describe himself there as having "got in" +so early, it would be difficult to make the interval look +particularly eager; but he was like a man who, elatedly finding in +his pocket more money than usual, handles it a while and idly and +pleasantly chinks it before addressing himself to the business of +spending. That he was prepared to be vague to Waymarsh about the +hour of the ship's touching, and that he both wanted extremely to +see him and enjoyed extremely the duration of delay--these things, +it is to be conceived, were early signs in him that his relation to +his actual errand might prove none of the simplest. He was +burdened, poor Strether--it had better be confessed at the outset-- +with the oddity of a double consciousness. There was detachment in +his zeal and curiosity in his indifference. + +After the young woman in the glass cage had held up to him across +her counter the pale-pink leaflet bearing his friend's name, which +she neatly pronounced, he turned away to find himself, in the hall, +facing a lady who met his eyes as with an intention suddenly +determined, and whose features--not freshly young, not markedly +fine, but on happy terms with each other--came back to him as from +a recent vision. For a moment they stood confronted; then the +moment placed her: he had noticed her the day before, noticed her +at his previous inn, where--again in the hall--she had been briefly +engaged with some people of his own ship's company. Nothing had +actually passed between them, and he would as little have been able +to say what had been the sign of her face for him on the first +occasion as to name the ground of his present recognition. +Recognition at any rate appeared to prevail on her own side as +well--which would only have added to the mystery. All she now began +by saying to him nevertheless was that, having chanced to catch his +enquiry, she was moved to ask, by his leave, if it were possibly a +question of Mr. Waymarsh of Milrose Connecticut--Mr. Waymarsh the +American lawyer. + +"Oh yes," he replied, "my very well-known friend. He's to meet me +here, coming up from Malvern, and I supposed he'd already have +arrived. But he doesn't come till later, and I'm relieved not to +have kept him. Do you know him?" Strether wound up. + +It wasn't till after he had spoken that he became aware of how much +there had been in him of response; when the tone of her own +rejoinder, as well as the play of something more in her face-- +something more, that is, than its apparently usual restless light-- +seemed to notify him. "I've met him at Milrose--where I used +sometimes, a good while ago, to stay; I had friends there who were +friends of his, and I've been at his house. I won't answer for it +that he would know me," Strether's new acquaintance pursued; "but I +should be delighted to see him. Perhaps," she added, "I shall--for +I'm staying over." She paused while our friend took in these +things, and it was as if a good deal of talk had already passed. +They even vaguely smiled at it, and Strether presently observed +that Mr. Waymarsh would, no doubt, be easily to be seen. This, +however, appeared to affect the lady as if she might have advanced +too far. She appeared to have no reserves about anything. "Oh," she +said, "he won't care!"--and she immediately thereupon remarked that +she believed Strether knew the Munsters; the Munsters being the +people he had seen her with at Liverpool. + +But he didn't, it happened, know the Munsters well enough to give +the case much of a lift; so that they were left together as if over +the mere laid table of conversation. Her qualification of the +mentioned connexion had rather removed than placed a dish, and +there seemed nothing else to serve. Their attitude remained, none +the less, that of not forsaking the board; and the effect of this +in turn was to give them the appearance of having accepted each +other with an absence of preliminaries practically complete. They +moved along the hall together, and Strether's companion threw off +that the hotel had the advantage of a garden. He was aware by this +time of his strange inconsequence: he had shirked the intimacies of +the steamer and had muffled the shock of Waymarsh only to find +himself forsaken, in this sudden case, both of avoidance and of +caution. He passed, under this unsought protection and before he +had so much as gone up to his room, into the garden of the hotel, +and at the end of ten minutes had agreed to meet there again, as +soon as he should have made himself tidy, the dispenser of such +good assurances. He wanted to look at the town, and they would +forthwith look together. It was almost as if she had been in +possession and received him as a guest. Her acquaintance with the +place presented her in a manner as a hostess, and Strether had a +rueful glance for the lady in the glass cage. It was as if this +personage had seen herself instantly superseded. + +When in a quarter of an hour he came down, what his hostess saw, +what she might have taken in with a vision kindly adjusted, was the +lean, the slightly loose figure of a man of the middle height and +something more perhaps than the middle age--a man of five-and-fifty, +whose most immediate signs were a marked bloodless brownness of face, +a thick dark moustache, of characteristically American cut, +growing strong and falling low, a head of hair still abundant +but irregularly streaked with grey, and a nose of bold free +prominence, the even line, the high finish, as it might have been +called, of which, had a certain effect of mitigation. A perpetual +pair of glasses astride of this fine ridge, and a line, unusually +deep and drawn, the prolonged pen-stroke of time, accompanying the +curve of the moustache from nostril to chin, did something to +complete the facial furniture that an attentive observer would have +seen catalogued, on the spot, in the vision of the other party to +Strether's appointment. She waited for him in the garden, the other +party, drawing on a pair of singularly fresh soft and elastic light +gloves and presenting herself with a superficial readiness which, +as he approached her over the small smooth lawn and in the watery +English sunshine, he might, with his rougher preparation, have +marked as the model for such an occasion. She had, this lady, a +perfect plain propriety, an expensive subdued suitability, that her +companion was not free to analyse, but that struck him, so that his +consciousness of it was instantly acute, as a quality quite new to +him. Before reaching her he stopped on the grass and went through +the form of feeling for something, possibly forgotten, in the light +overcoat he carried on his arm; yet the essence of the act was no +more than the impulse to gain time. Nothing could have been odder +than Strether's sense of himself as at that moment launched in +something of which the sense would be quite disconnected from the +sense of his past and which was literally beginning there and then. +It had begun in fact already upstairs and before the dressing glass +that struck him as blocking further, so strangely, the dimness of +the window of his dull bedroom; begun with a sharper survey of the +elements of Appearance than he had for a long time been moved to +make. He had during those moments felt these elements to be not so +much to his hand as he should have liked, and then had fallen back +on the thought that they were precisely a matter as to which help +was supposed to come from what he was about to do. He was about to +go up to London, so that hat and necktie might wait. What had come +as straight to him as a ball in a well-played game--and caught +moreover not less neatly--was just the air, in the person of his +friend, of having seen and chosen, the air of achieved possession +of those vague qualities and quantities that collectively figured +to him as the advantage snatched from lucky chances. Without pomp +or circumstance, certainly, as her original address to him, equally +with his own response, had been, he would have sketched to himself +his impression of her as: "Well, she's more thoroughly civilized--!" +If "More thoroughly than WHOM?" would not have been for him a +sequel to this remark, that was just by reason of his deep +consciousness of the bearing of his comparison. + +The amusement, at all events, of a civilisation intenser was what-- +familiar compatriot as she was, with the full tone of the +compatriot and the rattling link not with mystery but only with +dear dyspeptic Waymarsh--she appeared distinctly to promise. His +pause while he felt in his overcoat was positively the pause of +confidence, and it enabled his eyes to make out as much of a case +for her, in proportion, as her own made out for himself. She +affected him as almost insolently young; but an easily carried +five-and-thirty could still do that. She was, however, like himself +marked and wan; only it naturally couldn't have been known to him +how much a spectator looking from one to the other might have +discerned that they had in common. It wouldn't for such a spectator +have been altogether insupposable that, each so finely brown and so +sharply spare, each confessing so to dents of surface and aids to +sight, to a disproportionate nose and a head delicately or grossly +grizzled, they might have been brother and sister. On this ground +indeed there would have been a residuum of difference; such a +sister having surely known in respect to such a brother the +extremity of separation, and such a brother now feeling in respect +to such a sister the extremity of surprise. Surprise, it was true, +was not on the other hand what the eyes of Strether's friend most +showed him while she gave him, stroking her gloves smoother, the +time he appreciated. They had taken hold of him straightway +measuring him up and down as if they knew how; as if he were human +material they had already in some sort handled. Their possessor was +in truth, it may be communicated, the mistress of a hundred cases +or categories, receptacles of the mind, subdivisions for +convenience, in which, from a full experience, she pigeon-holed her +fellow mortals with a hand as free as that of a compositor +scattering type. She was as equipped in this particular as Strether +was the reverse, and it made an opposition between them which he +might well have shrunk from submitting to if he had fully suspected +it. So far as he did suspect it he was on the contrary, after a +short shake of his consciousness, as pleasantly passive as might +be. He really had a sort of sense of what she knew. He had quite +the sense that she knew things he didn't, and though this was a +concession that in general he found not easy to make to women, he +made it now as good-humouredly as if it lifted a burden. His eyes +were so quiet behind his eternal nippers that they might almost +have been absent without changing his face, which took its +expression mainly, and not least its stamp of sensibility, from +other sources, surface and grain and form. He joined his guide in +an instant, and then felt she had profited still better than he by +his having been for the moments just mentioned, so at the disposal +of her intelligence. She knew even intimate things about him that +he hadn't yet told her and perhaps never would. He wasn't unaware +that he had told her rather remarkably many for the time, but these +were not the real ones. Some of the real ones, however, precisely, +were what she knew. + +They were to pass again through the hall of the inn to get into the +street, and it was here she presently checked him with a question. +"Have you looked up my name?" + +He could only stop with a laugh. "Have you looked up mine?" + +"Oh dear, yes--as soon as you left me. I went to the office and +asked. Hadn't YOU better do the same?" + +He wondered. "Find out who you are?--after the uplifted young woman +there has seen us thus scrape acquaintance!" + +She laughed on her side now at the shade of alarm in his amusement. +"Isn't it a reason the more? If what you're afraid of is the injury +for me--my being seen to walk off with a gentleman who has to ask +who I am--l assure you I don't in the least mind. Here, however," +she continued, "is my card, and as I find there's something else +again I have to say at the office, you can just study it during the +moment I leave you." + +She left him after he had taken from her the small pasteboard she +had extracted from her pocket-book, and he had extracted another +from his own, to exchange with it, before she came back. He read +thus the simple designation "Maria Gostrey," to which was attached, +in a corner of the card, with a number, the name of a street, +presumably in Paris, without other appreciable identity than its +foreignness. He put the card into his waistcoat pocket, keeping his +own meanwhile in evidence; and as he leaned against the door-post +he met with the smile of a straying thought what the expanse before +the hotel offered to his view. It was positively droll to him that +he should already have Maria Gostrey, whoever she was--of which he +hadn't really the least idea--in a place of safe keeping. He had +somehow an assurance that he should carefully preserve the little +token he had just tucked in. He gazed with unseeing lingering eyes +as he followed some of the implications of his act, asking himself +if he really felt admonished to qualify it as disloyal. It was +prompt, it was possibly even premature, and there was little doubt +of the expression of face the sight of it would have produced in a +certain person. But if it was "wrong"--why then he had better not +have come out at all. At this, poor man, had he already--and even +before meeting Waymarsh--arrived. He had believed he had a limit, +but the limit had been transcended within thirty-six hours. By how +long a space on the plane of manners or even of morals, moreover, +he felt still more sharply after Maria Gostrey had come back to him +and with a gay decisive "So now--!" led him forth into the world. +This counted, it struck him as he walked beside her with his +overcoat on an arm, his umbrella under another and his personal +pasteboard a little stiffly retained between forefinger and thumb, +this struck him as really, in comparison his introduction to +things. It hadn't been "Europe" at Liverpool no--not even in the +dreadful delightful impressive streets the night before--to the +extent his present companion made it so. She hadn't yet done that +so much as when, after their walk had lasted a few minutes and he +had had time to wonder if a couple of sidelong glances from her +meant that he had best have put on gloves she almost pulled him up +with an amused challenge. "But why--fondly as it's so easy to +imagine your clinging to it--don't you put it away? Or if it's an +inconvenience to you to carry it, one's often glad to have one's +card back. The fortune one spends in them!" + +Then he saw both that his way of marching with his own prepared +tribute had affected her as a deviation in one of those directions +he couldn't yet measure, and that she supposed this emblem to be +still the one he had received from her. He accordingly handed her +the card as if in restitution, but as soon as she had it she felt +the difference and, with her eyes on it, stopped short for apology. +"I like," she observed, "your name." + +"Oh," he answered, "you won't have heard of it!" Yet he had his +reasons for not being sure but that she perhaps might. + +Ah it was but too visible! She read it over again as one who had +never seen it. "'Mr. Lewis Lambert Strether'"--she sounded it +almost as freely as for any stranger. She repeated however that she +liked it--"particularly the Lewis Lambert. It's the name of a novel +of Balzac's." + +"Oh I know that!" said Strether. + +"But the novel's an awfully bad one." + +"I know that too," Strether smiled. To which he added with an +irrelevance that was only superficial: "I come from Woollett +Massachusetts." It made her for some reason--the irrelevance or +whatever--laugh. Balzac had described many cities, but hadn't +described Woollett Massachusetts. "You say that," she returned, +"as if you wanted one immediately to know the worst." + +"Oh I think it's a thing," he said, "that you must already have +made out. I feel it so that I certainly must look it, speak it, +and, as people say there, 'act' it. It sticks out of me, and you +knew surely for yourself as soon as you looked at me." + +"The worst, you mean?" + +"Well, the fact of where I come from. There at any rate it IS; so +that you won't be able, if anything happens, to say I've not been +straight with you." + +"I see"--and Miss Gostrey looked really interested in the point he +had made. "But what do you think of as happening?" + +Though he wasn't shy--which was rather anomalous--Strether gazed +about without meeting her eyes; a motion that was frequent with him +in talk, yet of which his words often seemed not at all the effect. +"Why that you should find me too hopeless." With which they walked +on again together while she answered, as they went, that the most +"hopeless" of her countryfolk were in general precisely those she +liked best. All sorts of other pleasant small things-small things +that were yet large for him--flowered in the air of the occasion, +but the bearing of the occasion itself on matters still remote +concerns us too closely to permit us to multiply our illustrations. +Two or three, however, in truth, we should perhaps regret to lose. +The tortuous wall--girdle, long since snapped, of the little +swollen city, half held in place by careful civic hands--wanders in +narrow file between parapets smoothed by peaceful generations, +pausing here and there for a dismantled gate or a bridged gap, with +rises and drops, steps up and steps down, queer twists, queer +contacts, peeps into homely streets and under the brows of gables, +views of cathedral tower and waterside fields, of huddled English +town and ordered English country. Too deep almost for words was the +delight of these things to Strether; yet as deeply mixed with it +were certain images of his inward picture. He had trod this walks +in the far-off time, at twenty-five; but that, instead of spoiling +it, only enriched it for present feeling and marked his renewal as +a thing substantial enough to share. It was with Waymarsh he should +have shared it. and he was now accordingly taking from him +something that was his due. He looked repeatedly at his watch, and +when he had done so for the fifth time Miss Gostrey took him up. + +"You're doing something that you think not right." + +It so touched the place that he quite changed colour and his laugh +grew almost awkward. "Am I enjoying it as much as THAT?" + +"You're not enjoying it, I think, so much as you ought." + +"I see"--he appeared thoughtfully to agree. "Great is my privilege." + +"Oh it's not your privilege! It has nothing to do with me. It has +to do with yourself. Your failure's general." + +"Ah there you are!" he laughed. "It's the failure of Woollett. +THAT'S general." + +"The failure to enjoy," Miss Gostrey explained, "is what I mean." + +"Precisely. Woollett isn't sure it ought to enjoy. If it were it +would. But it hasn't, poor thing," Strether continued, "any one to +show it how. It's not like me. I have somebody." + +They had stopped, in the afternoon sunshine--constantly pausing, in +their stroll, for the sharper sense of what they saw--and Strether +rested on one of the high sides of the old stony groove of the +little rampart. He leaned back on this support with his face to the +tower of the cathedral, now admirably commanded by their station, +the high red-brown mass, square and subordinately spired and +crocketed, retouched and restored, but charming to his long-sealed +eyes and with the first swallows of the year weaving their flight +all round it. Miss Gostrey lingered near him, full of an air, to +which she more and more justified her right, of understanding the +effect of things. She quite concurred. "You've indeed somebody." +And she added: "I wish you WOULD let me show you how!" + +"Oh I'm afraid of you!" he cheerfully pleaded. + +She kept on him a moment, through her glasses and through his own, +a certain pleasant pointedness. "Ah no, you're not! You're not in +the least, thank goodness! If you had been we shouldn't so soon +have found ourselves here together. I think," she comfortably +concluded, "you trust me." + +"I think I do!--but that's exactly what I'm afraid of. I shouldn't +mind if I didn't. It's falling thus in twenty minutes so utterly +into your hands. I dare say," Strether continued, "it's a sort of +thing you're thoroughly familiar with; but nothing more +extraordinary has ever happened to me." + +She watched him with all her kindness. "That means simply that +you've recognised me--which IS rather beautiful and rare. You see +what I am." As on this, however, he protested, with a good-humoured +headshake, a resignation of any such claim, she had a moment of +explanation. "If you'll only come on further as you HAVE come +you'll at any rate make out. My own fate has been too many for me, +and I've succumbed to it. I'm a general guide--to 'Europe,' don't +you know? I wait for people--l put them through. I pick them up-- +I set them down. I'm a sort of superior 'courier-maid.' I'm a +companion at large. I take people, as I've told you, about. I never +sought it--it has come to me. It has been my fate, and one's fate +one accepts. It's a dreadful thing to have to say, in so wicked a +world, but I verily believe that, such as you see me, there's +nothing I don't know. I know all the shops and the prices--but I +know worse things still. I bear on my back the huge load of our +national consciousness, or, in other words--for it comes to that-- +of our nation itself. Of what is our nation composed but of the men +and women individually on my shoulders? I don't do it, you know, +for any particular advantage. I don't do it, for instance--some +people do, you know--for money." + +Strether could only listen and wonder and weigh his chance. "And +yet, affected as you are then to so many of your clients, you can +scarcely be said to do it for love." He waited a moment. "How do we +reward you?" + +She had her own hesitation, but "You don't!" she finally returned, +setting him again in motion. They went on, but in a few minutes, +though while still thinking over what she had said, he once more +took out his watch; mechanically, unconsciously and as if made +nervous by the mere exhilaration of what struck him as her strange +and cynical wit. He looked at the hour without seeing it, and then, +on something again said by his companion, had another pause. +"You're really in terror of him." + +He smiled a smile that he almost felt to be sickly. "Now you can +see why I'm afraid of you." + +"Because I've such illuminations? Why they're all for your help! +It's what I told you," she added, "just now. You feel as if this +were wrong." + +He fell back once more, settling himself against the parapet as if +to hear more about it. "Then get me out!" + +Her face fairly brightened for the joy of the appeal, but, as if it +were a question of immediate action, she visibly considered. "Out +of waiting for him?--of seeing him at all?" + +"Oh no--not that," said poor Strether, looking grave. "I've got to +wait for him--and I want very much to see him. But out of the +terror. You did put your finger on it a few minutes ago. It's +general, but it avails itself of particular occasions. That's what +it's doing for me now. I'm always considering something else; +something else, I mean, than the thing of the moment. The obsession +of the other thing is the terror. I'm considering at present for +instance something else than YOU." + +She listened with charming earnestness. "Oh you oughtn't to do +that!" + +"It's what I admit. Make it then impossible." + +She continued to think. "Is it really an 'order' from you?--that I +shall take the job? WILL you give yourself up?" + +Poor Strether heaved his sigh. "If I only could! But that's the +deuce of it--that I never can. No--I can't." + +She wasn't, however, discouraged. "But you want to at least?" + +"Oh unspeakably!" + +"Ah then, if you'll try!"--and she took over the job, as she had +called it, on the spot. "Trust me!" she exclaimed, and the action +of this, as they retraced their steps, was presently to make him +pass his hand into her arm in the manner of a benign dependent +paternal old person who wishes to be "nice" to a younger one. If he +drew it out again indeed as they approached the inn this may have +been because, after more talk had passed between them, the relation +of age, or at least of experience--which, for that matter, had +already played to and fro with some freedom--affected him as +incurring a readjustment. It was at all events perhaps lucky that +they arrived in sufficiently separate fashion within range of the +hotel-door. The young lady they had left in the glass cage watched +as if she had come to await them on the threshold. At her side +stood a person equally interested, by his attitude, in their +return, and the effect of the sight of whom was instantly to +determine for Strether another of those responsive arrests that we +have had so repeatedly to note. He left it to Miss Gostrey to name, +with the fine full bravado as it almost struck him, of her +"Mr. Waymarsh!" what was to have been, what--he more than ever felt +as his short stare of suspended welcome took things in--would have +been, but for herself, his doom. It was already upon him even at +that distance--Mr. Waymarsh was for HIS part joyless. + + + +II + + +He had none the less to confess to this friend that evening that he +knew almost nothing about her, and it was a deficiency that +Waymarsh, even with his memory refreshed by contact, by her own +prompt and lucid allusions and enquiries, by their having publicly +partaken of dinner in her company, and by another stroll, to which +she was not a stranger, out into the town to look at the cathedral +by moonlight--it was a blank that the resident of Milrose, though +admitting acquaintance with the Munsters, professed himself unable +to fill. He had no recollection of Miss Gostrey, and two or three +questions that she put to him about those members of his circle +had, to Strether's observation, the same effect he himself had +already more directly felt--the effect of appearing to place all +knowledge, for the time, on this original woman's side. It +interested him indeed to mark the limits of any such relation for +her with his friend as there could possibly be a question of, and +it particularly struck him that they were to be marked altogether +in Waymarsh's quarter. This added to his own sense of having gone +far with her-gave him an early illustration of a much shorter +course. There was a certitude he immediately grasped--a conviction +that Waymarsh would quite fail, as it were, and on whatever degree +of acquaintances to profit by her. + +There had been after the first interchange among the three a talk +of some five minutes in the hall, and then the two men had +adjourned to the garden, Miss Gostrey for the time disappearing. +Strether in due course accompanied his friend to the room he had +bespoken and had, before going out, scrupulously visited; where at +the end of another half-hour he had no less discreetly left him. +On leaving him he repaired straight to his own room, but with the +prompt effect of feeling the compass of that chamber resented by +his condition. There he enjoyed at once the first consequence of +their reunion. A place was too small for him after it that had +seemed large enough before. He had awaited it with something he +would have been sorry, have been almost ashamed not to recognise as +emotion, yet with a tacit assumption at the same time that emotion +would in the event find itself relieved. The actual oddity was that +he was only more excited; and his excitement-to which indeed he +would have found it difficult instantly to give a name--brought him +once more downstairs and caused him for some minutes vaguely to +wander. He went once more to the garden; he looked into the public +room, found Miss Gostrey writing letters and backed out; he roamed, +fidgeted and wasted time; but he was to have his more intimate +session with his friend before the evening closed. + +It was late--not till Strether had spent an hour upstairs with him-- +that this subject consented to betake himself to doubtful rest. +Dinner and the subsequent stroll by moonlight--a dream, on +Strether's part, of romantic effects rather prosaically merged in a +mere missing of thicker coats--had measurably intervened, and this +midnight conference was the result of Waymarsh's having (when they +were free, as he put it, of their fashionable friend) found the +smoking-room not quite what he wanted, and yet bed what he wanted +less. His most frequent form of words was that he knew himself, and +they were applied on this occasion to his certainty of not +sleeping. He knew himself well enough to know that he should have a +night of prowling unless he should succeed, as a preliminary, in +getting prodigiously tired. If the effort directed to this end +involved till a late hour the presence of Strether--consisted, +that is, in the detention of the latter for full discourse--there +was yet an impression of minor discipline involved for our friend +in the picture Waymarsh made as he sat in trousers and shirt on the +edge of his couch. With his long legs extended and his large back +much bent, he nursed alternately, for an almost incredible time, +his elbows and his beard. He struck his visitor as extremely, as +almost wilfully uncomfortable; yet what had this been for Strether, +from that first glimpse of him disconcerted in the porch of the +hotel, but the predominant notes. The discomfort was in a manner +contagious, as well as also in a manner inconsequent and unfounded; +the visitor felt that unless he should get used to it--or unless +Waymarsh himself should--it would constitute a menace for his own +prepared, his own already confirmed, consciousness of the +agreeable. On their first going up together to the room Strether +had selected for him Waymarsh had looked it over in silence and +with a sigh that represented for his companion, if not the habit of +disapprobation, at least the despair of felicity; and this look had +recurred to Strether as the key of much he had since observed. +"Europe," he had begun to gather from these things, had up to now +rather failed of its message to him; he hadn't got into tune with +it and had at the end of three months almost renounced any such +expectation. + +He really appeared at present to insist on that by just perching +there with the gas in his eyes. This of itself somehow conveyed the +futility of single rectifications in a multiform failure. He had a +large handsome head and a large sallow seamed face--a striking +significant physiognomic total, the upper range of which, the great +political brow, the thick loose hair, the dark fuliginous eyes, +recalled even to a generation whose standard had dreadfully +deviated the impressive image, familiar by engravings and busts, of +some great national worthy of the earlier part of the mid-century. +He was of the personal type--and it was an element in the power and +promise that in their early time Strether had found in him--of the +American statesman, the statesman trained in "Congressional halls," +of an elder day. The legend had been in later years that as the +lower part of his face, which was weak, and slightly crooked, +spoiled the likeness, this was the real reason for the growth of +his beard, which might have seemed to spoil it for those not in the +secret. He shook his mane; he fixed, with his admirable eyes, his +auditor or his observer; he wore no glasses and had a way, partly +formidable, yet also partly encouraging, as from a representative +to a constituent, of looking very hard at those who approached him. +He met you as if you had knocked and he had bidden you enter. +Strether, who hadn't seen him for so long an interval, apprehended +him now with a freshness of taste, and had perhaps never done him +such ideal justice. The head was bigger, the eyes finer, than they +need have been for the career; but that only meant, after all, that +the career was itself expressive. What it expressed at midnight in +the gas-glaring bedroom at Chester was that the subject of it had, +at the end of years, barely escaped, by flight in time, a general +nervous collapse. But this very proof of the full life, as the full +life was understood at Milrose, would have made to Strether's +imagination an element in which Waymarsh could have floated easily +had he only consented to float. Alas nothing so little resembled +floating as the rigour with which, on the edge of his bed, he +hugged his posture of prolonged impermanence. It suggested to his +comrade something that always, when kept up, worried him--a person +established in a railway-coach with a forward inclination. It +represented the angle at which poor Waymarsh was to sit through the +ordeal of Europe. + +Thanks to the stress of occupation, the strain of professions, the +absorption and embarrassment of each, they had not, at home, during +years before this sudden brief and almost bewildering reign of +comparative ease, found so much as a day for a meeting; a fact that +was in some degree an explanation of the sharpness with which most +of his friend's features stood out to Strether. Those he had lost +sight of since the early time came back to him; others that it was +never possible to forget struck him now as sitting, clustered and +expectant, like a somewhat defiant family-group, on the doorstep of +their residence. The room was narrow for its length, and the +occupant of the bed thrust so far a pair of slippered feet that the +visitor had almost to step over them in his recurrent rebounds from +his chair to fidget back and forth. There were marks the friends +made on things to talk about, and on things not to, and one of the +latter in particular fell like the tap of chalk on the blackboard. +Married at thirty, Waymarsh had not lived with his wife for fifteen +years, and it came up vividly between them in the glare of the gas +that Strether wasn't to ask about her. He knew they were still +separate and that she lived at hotels, travelled in Europe, painted +her face and wrote her husband abusive letters, of not one of +which, to a certainty, that sufferer spared himself the perusal; +but he respected without difficulty the cold twilight that had +settled on this side of his companion's life. It was a province in +which mystery reigned and as to which Waymarsh had never spoken the +informing word. Strether, who wanted to do him the highest justice +wherever he COULD do it, singularly admired him for the dignity of +this reserve, and even counted it as one of the grounds--grounds +all handled and numbered--for ranking him, in the range of their +acquaintance, as a success. He WAS a success, Waymarsh, in spite of +overwork, or prostration, of sensible shrinkage, of his wife's +letters and of his not liking Europe. Strether would have reckoned +his own career less futile had he been able to put into it anything +so handsome as so much fine silence. One might one's self easily +have left Mrs. Waymarsh; and one would assuredly have paid one's +tribute to the ideal in covering with that attitude the derision of +having been left by her. Her husband had held his tongue and had +made a large income; and these were in especial the achievements as +to which Strether envied him. Our friend had had indeed on his side +too a subject for silence, which he fully appreciated; but it was a +matter of a different sort, and the figure of the income he had +arrived at had never been high enough to look any one in the face. + +"I don't know as I quite see what you require it for. You don't +appear sick to speak of." It was of Europe Waymarsh thus finally +spoke. + +"Well," said Strether, who fell as much as possible into step, "I +guess I don't FEEL sick now that I've started. But I had pretty +well run down before I did start." + +Waymarsh raised his melancholy look. "Ain't you about up to your +usual average?" + +It was not quite pointedly sceptical, but it seemed somehow a plea +for the purest veracity, and it thereby affected our friend as the +very voice of Milrose. He had long since made a mental distinction-- +though never in truth daring to betray it--between the voice of +Milrose and the voice even of Woollett. It was the former he felt, +that was most in the real tradition. There had been occasions in +his past when the sound of it had reduced him to temporary +confusion, and the present, for some reason, suddenly became such +another. It was nevertheless no light matter that the very effect +of his confusion should be to make him again prevaricate. "That +description hardly does justice to a man to whom it has done such a +lot of good to see YOU." + +Waymarsh fixed on his washing-stand the silent detached stare with +which Milrose in person, as it were, might have marked the +unexpectedness of a compliment from Woollett, and Strether for his +part, felt once more like Woollett in person. "I mean," his friend +presently continued, "that your appearance isn't as bad as I've +seen it: it compares favourably with what it was when I last +noticed it." On this appearance Waymarsh's eyes yet failed to rest; +it was almost as if they obeyed an instinct of propriety, and the +effect was still stronger when, always considering the basin and +jug, he added: "You've filled out some since then." + +"I'm afraid I have," Strether laughed: "one does fill out some with +all one takes in, and I've taken in, I dare say, more than I've +natural room for. I was dog-tired when I sailed." It had the oddest +sound of cheerfulness. + +"I was dog-tired," his companion returned, "when I arrived, and it's +this wild hunt for rest that takes all the life out of me. The fact +is, Strether--and it's a comfort to have you here at last to say it to; +though I don't know, after all, that I've really waited; I've told +it to people I've met in the cars--the fact is, such a country as this +ain't my KIND of country anyway. There ain't a country I've seen over +here that DOES seem my kind. Oh I don't say but what there are plenty +of pretty places and remarkable old things; but the trouble is that I +don't seem to feel anywhere in tune. That's one of the reasons why I +suppose I've gained so little. I haven't had the first sign of that +lift I was led to expect." With this he broke out more earnestly. +"Look here--I want to go back." + +His eyes were all attached to Strether's now, for he was one of the +men who fully face you when they talk of themselves. This enabled +his friend to look at him hard and immediately to appear to the +highest advantage in his eyes by doing so. "That's a genial thing +to say to a fellow who has come out on purpose to meet you!" + +Nothing could have been finer, on this, than Waymarsh's sombre +glow. "HAVE you come out on purpose?" + +"Well--very largely." + +"I thought from the way you wrote there was something back of it." + +Strether hesitated. "Back of my desire to be with you?" + +"Back of your prostration." + +Strether, with a smile made more dim by a certain consciousness, +shook his head. "There are all the causes of it!" + +"And no particular cause that seemed most to drive you?" + +Our friend could at last conscientiously answer. "Yes. One. There +IS a matter that has had much to do with my coming out." + +Waymarsh waited a little. "Too private to mention?" + +"No, not too private--for YOU. Only rather complicated." + +"Well," said Waymarsh, who had waited again, "I MAY lose my mind +over here, but I don't know as I've done so yet." + +"Oh you shall have the whole thing. But not tonight." + +Waymarsh seemed to sit stiffer and to hold his elbows tighter. "Why +not--if I can't sleep?" + +"Because, my dear man, I CAN!" + +"Then where's your prostration?" + +"Just in that--that I can put in eight hours." And Strether brought +it out that if Waymarsh didn't "gain" it was because he didn't go +to bed: the result of which was, in its order, that, to do the +latter justice, he permitted his friend to insist on his really +getting settled. Strether, with a kind coercive hand for it, +assisted him to this consummation, and again found his own part in +their relation auspiciously enlarged by the smaller touches of +lowering the lamp and seeing to a sufficiency of blanket. It +somehow ministered for him to indulgence to feel Waymarsh, who +looked unnaturally big and black in bed, as much tucked in as a +patient in a hospital and, with his covering up to his chin, as +much simplified by it He hovered in vague pity, to be brief, while +his companion challenged him out of the bedclothes. "Is she really +after you? Is that what's behind?" + +Strether felt an uneasiness at the direction taken by his +companion's insight, but he played a little at uncertainty. "Behind +my coming out?" + +"Behind your prostration or whatever. It's generally felt, you +know, that she follows you up pretty close." + +Strether's candour was never very far off. "Oh it has occurred to +you that I'm literally running away from Mrs. Newsome?" + +"Well, I haven't KNOWN but what you are. You're a very attractive +man, Strether. You've seen for yourself," said Waymarsh "what that +lady downstairs makes of it. Unless indeed," he rambled on with an +effect between the ironic and the anxious, "it's you who are after +HER. IS Mrs. Newsome OVER here?" He spoke as with a droll dread of +her. + +It made his friend--though rather dimly--smile. "Dear no she's +safe, thank goodness--as I think I more and more feel--at home. She +thought of coming, but she gave it up. I've come in a manner +instead of her; and come to that extent--for you're right in your +inference--on her business. So you see there IS plenty of +connexion." + +Waymarsh continued to see at least all there was. "Involving +accordingly the particular one I've referred to?" + +Strether took another turn about the room, giving a twitch to his +companion's blanket and finally gaining the door. His feeling was +that of a nurse who had earned personal rest by having made +everything straight. "Involving more things than I can think of +breaking ground on now. But don't be afraid--you shall have them +from me: you'll probably find yourself having quite as much of them +as you can do with. I shall--if we keep together--very much depend +on your impression of some of them." + +Waymarsh's acknowledgement of this tribute was characteristically +indirect. "You mean to say you don't believe we WILL keep +together?" + +"I only glance at the danger," Strether paternally said, "because +when I hear you wail to go back I seem to see you open up such +possibilities of folly." + +Waymarsh took it--silent a little--like a large snubbed child "What +are you going to do with me?" + +It was the very question Strether himself had put to Miss Gostrey, +and he wondered if he had sounded like that. But HE at least could +be more definite. "I'm going to take you right down to London." + +"Oh I've been down to London!" Waymarsh more softly moaned. "I've +no use, Strether, for anything down there." + +"Well," said Strether, good-humouredly, "I guess you've some use +for me." + +"So I've got to go?" + +"Oh you've got to go further yet." + +"Well," Waymarsh sighed, "do your damnedest! Only you WILL tell me +before you lead me on all the way--?" + +Our friend had again so lost himself, both for amusement and for +contrition, in the wonder of whether he had made, in his own +challenge that afternoon, such another figure, that he for an +instant missed the thread. "Tell you--?" + +"Why what you've got on hand." + +Strether hesitated. "Why it's such a matter as that even if I +positively wanted I shouldn't be able to keep it from you." + +Waymarsh gloomily gazed. "What does that mean then but that your +trip is just FOR her?" + +"For Mrs. Newsome? Oh it certainly is, as I say. Very much." + +"Then why do you also say it's for me?" + +Strether, in impatience, violently played with his latch. "It's +simple enough. It's for both of you." + +Waymarsh at last turned over with a groan. "Well, I won't marry +you!" + +"Neither, when it comes to that--!" But the visitor had already +laughed and escaped. + + + +III + + +He had told Miss Gostrey he should probably take, for departure +with Waymarsh, some afternoon train, and it thereupon in the +morning appeared that this lady had made her own plan for an +earlier one. She had breakfasted when Strether came into the +coffee-room; but, Waymarsh not having yet emerged, he was in time +to recall her to the terms of their understanding and to pronounce +her discretion overdone. She was surely not to break away at the +very moment she had created a want. He had met her as she rose +from her little table in a window, where, with the morning papers +beside her, she reminded him, as he let her know, of Major +Pendennis breakfasting at his club--a compliment of which she +professed a deep appreciation; and he detained her as pleadingly +as if he had already--and notably under pressure of the visions of +the night--learned to be unable to do without her. She must teach +him at all events, before she went, to order breakfast as +breakfast was ordered in Europe, and she must especially sustain +him in the problem of ordering for Waymarsh. The latter had laid +upon his friend, by desperate sounds through the door of his room, +dreadful divined responsibilities in respect to beefsteak and +oranges--responsibilities which Miss Gostrey took over with an +alertness of action that matched her quick intelligence. She had +before this weaned the expatriated from traditions compared with +which the matutinal beefsteak was but the creature of an hour, and +it was not for her, with some of her memories, to falter in the +path though she freely enough declared, on reflexion, that there +was always in such cases a choice of opposed policies. "There are +times when to give them their head, you know--!" + +They had gone to wait together in the garden for the dressing of +the meal, and Strether found her more suggestive than ever "Well, +what?" + +"Is to bring about for them such a complexity of relations-unless +indeed we call it a simplicity!--that the situation HAS to wind +itself up. They want to go back." + +"And you want them to go!" Strether gaily concluded. + +"I always want them to go, and I send them as fast as I can.' + +"Oh I know--you take them to Liverpool." + +"Any port will serve in a storm. I'm--with all my other functions-- +an agent for repatriation. I want to re-people our stricken +country. What will become of it else? I want to discourage others." + +The ordered English garden, in the freshness of the day, was +delightful to Strether, who liked the sound, under his feet, of +the tight fine gravel, packed with the chronic damp, and who had +the idlest eye for the deep smoothness of turf and the clean +curves of paths. "Other people?" + +"Other countries. Other people--yes. I want to encourage our own." + +Strether wondered. "Not to come? Why then do you 'meet' them-- +since it doesn't appear to be to stop them?" + +"Oh that they shouldn't come is as yet too much to ask. What I +attend to is that they come quickly and return still more so. I +meet them to help it to be over as soon as possible, and though I +don't stop them I've my way of putting them through. That's my +little system; and, if you want to know," said Maria Gostrey, +"it's my real secret, my innermost mission and use. I only seem, +you see, to beguile and approve; but I've thought it all out and +I'm working all the while underground. I can't perhaps quite give +you my formula, but I think that practically I succeed. I send you +back spent. So you stay back. Passed through my hands--" + +"We don't turn up again?" The further she went the further he +always saw himself able to follow. "I don't want your formula--I +feel quite enough, as I hinted yesterday, your abysses. Spent!" he +echoed. "If that's how you're arranging so subtly to send me I +thank you for the warning." + +For a minute, amid the pleasantness--poetry in tariffed items, but +all the more, for guests already convicted, a challenge to +consumption--they smiled at each other in confirmed fellowship. "Do +you call it subtly? It's a plain poor tale. Besides, you're a +special case." + +"Oh special cases--that's weak!" She was weak enough, further +still, to defer her journey and agree to accompany the gentlemen on +their own, might a separate carriage mark her independence; though +it was in spite of this to befall after luncheon that she went off +alone and that, with a tryst taken for a day of her company in +London, they lingered another night. She had, during the morning-- +spent in a way that he was to remember later on as the very climax +of his foretaste, as warm with presentiments, with what he would +have called collapses--had all sorts of things out with Strether; +and among them the fact that though there was never a moment of her +life when she wasn't "due" somewhere, there was yet scarce a +perfidy to others of which she wasn't capable for his sake. She +explained moreover that wherever she happened to be she found a +dropped thread to pick up, a ragged edge to repair, some familiar +appetite in ambush, jumping out as she approached, yet appeasable +with a temporary biscuit. It became, on her taking the risk of the +deviation imposed on him by her insidious arrangement of his +morning meal, a point of honour for her not to fail with Waymarsh +of the larger success too; and her subsequent boast to Strether was +that she had made their friend fare--and quite without his knowing +what was the matter--as Major Pendennis would have fared at the +Megatherium. She had made him breakfast like a gentleman, and it +was nothing, she forcibly asserted, to what she would yet make him +do. She made him participate in the slow reiterated ramble with +which, for Strether, the new day amply filled itself; and it was by +her art that he somehow had the air, on the ramparts and in the +Rows, of carrying a point of his own. + +The three strolled and stared and gossiped, or at least the +two did; the case really yielding for their comrade, if analysed, +but the element of stricken silence. This element indeed affected +Strether as charged with audible rumblings, but he was conscious of +the care of taking it explicitly as a sign of pleasant peace. He +wouldn't appeal too much, for that provoked stiffness; yet he +wouldn't be too freely tacit, for that suggested giving up. +Waymarsh himself adhered to an ambiguous dumbness that might have +represented either the growth of a perception or the despair of +one; and at times and in places--where the low-browed galleries +were darkest, the opposite gables queerest, the solicitations of +every kind densest--the others caught him fixing hard some object +of minor interest, fixing even at moments nothing discernible, as +if he were indulging it with a truce. When he met Strether's eye on +such occasions he looked guilty and furtive, fell the next minute +into some attitude of retractation. Our friend couldn't show him +the right things for fear of provoking some total renouncement, and +was tempted even to show him the wrong in order to make him differ +with triumph. There were moments when he himself felt shy of +professing the full sweetness of the taste of leisure, and there +were others when he found himself feeling as if his passages of +interchange with the lady at his side might fall upon the third +member of their party very much as Mr. Burchell, at Dr. Primrose's +fireside, was influenced by the high flights of the visitors from +London. The smallest things so arrested and amused him that he +repeatedly almost apologised--brought up afresh in explanation his +plea of a previous grind. He was aware at the same time that his +grind had been as nothing to Waymarsh's, and he repeatedly +confessed that, to cover his frivolity, he was doing his best for +his previous virtue. Do what he might, in any case, his previous +virtue was still there, and it seemed fairly to stare at him out of +the windows of shops that were not as the shops of Woollett, fairly +to make him want things that he shouldn't know what to do with. It +was by the oddest, the least admissible of laws demoralising him +now; and the way it boldly took was to make him want more wants. +These first walks in Europe were in fact a kind of finely lurid +intimation of what one might find at the end of that process. Had +he come back after long years, in something already so like the +evening of life, only to be exposed to it? It was at all events +over the shop-windows that he made, with Waymarsh, most free; +though it would have been easier had not the latter most sensibly +yielded to the appeal of the merely useful trades. He pierced with +his sombre detachment the plate-glass of ironmongers and saddlers, +while Strether flaunted an affinity with the dealers in stamped +letter-paper and in smart neckties. Strether was in fact +recurrently shameless in the presence of the tailors, though it was +just over the heads of the tailors that his countryman most loftily +looked. This gave Miss Gostrey a grasped opportunity to back up +Waymarsh at his expense. The weary lawyer--it was unmistakeable-- +had a conception of dress; but that, in view of some of the +features of the effect produced, was just what made the danger of +insistence on it. Strether wondered if he by this time thought Miss +Gostrey less fashionable or Lambert Strether more so; and it +appeared probable that most of the remarks exchanged between this +latter pair about passers, figures, faces, personal types, +exemplified in their degree the disposition to talk as "society" +talked. + +Was what was happening to himself then, was what already HAD +happened, really that a woman of fashion was floating him into +society and that an old friend deserted on the brink was watching +the force of the current? When the woman of fashion permitted +Strether--as she permitted him at the most--the purchase of a pair +of gloves, the terms she made about it, the prohibition of neckties +and other items till she should be able to guide him through the +Burlington Arcade, were such as to fall upon a sensitive ear as a +challenge to just imputations. Miss Gostrey was such a woman of +fashion as could make without a symptom of vulgar blinking an +appointment for the Burlington Arcade. Mere discriminations about a +pair of gloves could thus at any rate represent--always for such +sensitive ears as were in question--possibilities of something that +Strether could make a mark against only as the peril of apparent +wantonness. He had quite the consciousness of his new friend, for +their companion, that he might have had of a Jesuit in petticoats, +a representative of the recruiting interests of the Catholic +Church. The Catholic Church, for Waymarsh-that was to say the +enemy, the monster of bulging eyes and far-reaching quivering +groping tentacles--was exactly society, exactly the multiplication +of shibboleths, exactly the discrimination of types and tones, +exactly the wicked old Rows of Chester, rank with feudalism; +exactly in short Europe. + +There was light for observation, however, in an incident that +occurred just before they turned back to luncheon. Waymarsh had +been for a quarter of an hour exceptionally mute and distant, and +something, or other--Strether was never to make out exactly what-- +proved, as it were, too much for him after his comrades had stood +for three minutes taking in, while they leaned on an old balustrade +that guarded the edge of the Row, a particularly crooked and +huddled street-view. "He thinks us sophisticated, he thinks us +worldly, he thinks us wicked, he thinks us all sorts of queer +things," Strether reflected; for wondrous were the vague quantities +our friend had within a couple of short days acquired the habit of +conveniently and conclusively lumping together. There seemed +moreover a direct connexion between some such inference and a +sudden grim dash taken by Waymarsh to the opposite side. This +movement was startlingly sudden, and his companions at first +supposed him to have espied, to be pursuing, the glimpse of an +acquaintance. They next made out, however, that an open door had +instantly received him, and they then recognised him as engulfed in +the establishment of a jeweller, behind whose glittering front he +was lost to view. The fact had somehow the note of a demonstration, +and it left each of the others to show a face almost of fear. But +Miss Gostrey broke into a laugh. "What's the matter with him?" + +"Well," said Strether, "he can't stand it." + +"But can't stand what?" + +"Anything. Europe." + +"Then how will that jeweller help him?" + +Strether seemed to make it out, from their position, between the +interstices of arrayed watches, of close-hung dangling gewgaws. +"You'll see." + +"Ah that's just what--if he buys anything--I'm afraid of: that I +shall see something rather dreadful." + +Strether studied the finer appearances. "He may buy everything." + +"Then don't you think we ought to follow him?" + +"Not for worlds. Besides we can't. We're paralysed. We exchange a +long scared look, we publicly tremble. The thing is, you see, we +'realise.' He has struck for freedom." + +She wondered but she laughed. "Ah what a price to pay! And I was +preparing some for him so cheap." + +"No, no," Strether went on, frankly amused now; "don't call it +that: the kind of freedom you deal in is dear." Then as to justify +himself: "Am I not in MY way trying it? It's this." + +"Being here, you mean, with me?'' + +"Yes, and talking to you as I do. I've known you a few hours, and +I've known HIM all my life; so that if the ease I thus take with +you about him isn't magnificent"--and the thought of it held him a +moment--"why it's rather base." + +"It's magnificent!" said Miss Gostrey to make an end of it. "And +you should hear," she added, "the ease I take--and I above all +intend to take--with Mr. Waymarsh." + +Strether thought. "About ME? Ah that's no equivalent. +The equivalent would be Waymarsh's himself serving me up-- +his remorseless analysis of me. And he'll never do that"-- +he was sadly clear. "He'll never remorselessly analyse me." +He quite held her with the authority of this. "He'll never +say a word to you about me." + +She took it in; she did it justice; yet after an instant her +reason, her restless irony, disposed of it. "Of course he won't. +For what do you take people, that they're able to say words about +anything, able remorselessly to analyse? There are not many like +you and me. It will be only because he's too stupid." + +It stirred in her friend a sceptical echo which was at the same +time the protest of the faith of years. "Waymarsh stupid?" + +"Compared with you." + +Strether had still his eyes on the jeweller's front, and he waited +a moment to answer. "He's a success of a kind that I haven't +approached." + +"Do you mean he has made money?" + +"He makes it--to my belief. And I," said Strether, "though with a +back quite as bent, have never made anything. I'm a perfectly +equipped failure." + +He feared an instant she'd ask him if he meant he was poor; and he +was glad she didn't, for he really didn't know to what the truth on +this unpleasant point mightn't have prompted her. She only, +however, confirmed his assertion. "Thank goodness you're a failure-- +it's why I so distinguish you! Anything else to-day is too +hideous. Look about you--look at the successes. Would you BE one, +on your honour? Look, moreover," she continued, "at me." + +For a little accordingly their eyes met. "I see," Strether +returned. "You too are out of it." + +"The superiority you discern in me," she concurred, "announces my +futility. If you knew," she sighed, "the dreams of my youth! But +our realities are what has brought us together. We're beaten +brothers in arms." + +He smiled at her kindly enough, but he shook his head. "It doesn't +alter the fact that you're expensive. You've cost me already--!" + +But he had hung fire. "Cost you what?" + +"Well, my past--in one great lump. But no matter," he laughed: +"I'll pay with my last penny." + +Her attention had unfortunately now been engaged by their comrade's +return, for Waymarsh met their view as he came out of his shop. "I +hope he hasn't paid," she said, "with HIS last; though I'm +convinced he has been splendid, and has been so for you." + +"Ah no--not that!" + +"Then for me?" + +"Quite as little." Waymarsh was by this time near enough to show +signs his friend could read, though he seemed to look almost +carefully at nothing in particular. + +"Then for himself?" + +"For nobody. For nothing. For freedom." + +"But what has freedom to do with it?" + +Strether's answer was indirect. "To be as good as you and me. But +different." + +She had had time to take in their companion's face; and with it, as +such things were easy for her, she took in all. "Different--yes. +But better!" + +If Waymarsh was sombre he was also indeed almost sublime. He told +them nothing, left his absence unexplained, and though they were +convinced he had made some extraordinary purchase they were never +to learn its nature. He only glowered grandly at the tops of the +old gables. "It's the sacred rage," Strether had had further time +to say; and this sacred rage was to become between them, for +convenient comprehension, the description of one of his periodical +necessities. It was Strether who eventually contended that it did +make him better than they. But by that time Miss Gostrey was +convinced that she didn't want to be better than Strether. + + + + + +Book Second + + + + +I + + +Those occasions on which Strether was, in association with the +exile from Milrose, to see the sacred rage glimmer through would +doubtless have their due periodicity; but our friend had meanwhile +to find names for many other matters. On no evening of his life +perhaps, as he reflected, had he had to supply so many as on the +third of his short stay in London; an evening spent by Miss +Gostrey's side at one of the theatres, to which he had found +himself transported, without his own hand raised, on the mere +expression of a conscientious wonder. She knew her theatre, she +knew her play, as she had triumphantly known, three days running, +everything else, and the moment filled to the brim, for her +companion, that apprehension of the interesting which, whether or +no the interesting happened to filter through his guide, strained +now to its limits his brief opportunity. Waymarsh hadn't come with +them; he had seen plays enough, he signified, before Strether had +joined him--an affirmation that had its full force when his friend +ascertained by questions that he had seen two and a circus. +Questions as to what he had seen had on him indeed an effect only +less favourable than questions as to what he hadn't. He liked the +former to be discriminated; but how could it be done, Strether +asked of their constant counsellor, without discriminating the +latter? + +Miss Gostrey had dined with him at his hotel, face to face over a +small table on which the lighted candles had rose-coloured shades; +and the rose-coloured shades and the small table and the soft +fragrance of the lady--had anything to his mere sense ever been so +soft?--were so many touches in he scarce knew what positive high +picture. He had been to the theatre, even to the opera, in Boston, +with Mrs. Newsome, more than once acting as her only escort; but +there had been no little confronted dinner, no pink lights, no +whiff of vague sweetness, as a preliminary: one of the results of +which was that at present, mildly rueful, though with a sharpish +accent, he actually asked himself WHY there hadn't. There was much +the same difference in his impression of the noticed state of his +companion, whose dress was "cut down," as he believed the term to +be, in respect to shoulders and bosom, in a manner quite other than +Mrs. Newsome's, and who wore round her throat a broad red velvet +band with an antique jewel--he was rather complacently sure it was +antique--attached to it in front. Mrs. Newsome's dress was never in +any degree "cut down," and she never wore round her throat a broad +red velvet band: if she had, moreover, would it ever have served so +to carry on and complicate, as he now almost felt, his vision? + +It would have been absurd of him to trace into ramifications the +effect of the ribbon from which Miss Gostrey's trinket depended, +had he not for the hour, at the best, been so given over to +uncontrolled perceptions. What was it but an uncontrolled +perception that his friend's velvet band somehow added, in her +appearance, to the value of every other item--to that of her smile +and of the way she carried her head, to that of her complexion, of +her lips, her teeth, her eyes, her hair? What, certainly, had a man +conscious of a man's work in the world to do with red velvet bands? +He wouldn't for anything have so exposed himself as to tell Miss +Gostrey how much he liked hers, yet he HAD none the less not only +caught himself in the act--frivolous, no doubt, idiotic, and above +all unexpected--of liking it: he had in addition taken it as a +starting-point for fresh backward, fresh forward, fresh lateral +flights. The manner in which Mrs. Newsome's throat WAS encircled +suddenly represented for him, in an alien order, almost as many +things as the manner in which Miss Gostrey's was. Mrs. Newsome +wore, at operatic hours, a black silk dress--very handsome, he knew +it was "handsome"--and an ornament that his memory was able further +to identify as a ruche. He had his association indeed with the +ruche, but it was rather imperfectly romantic. He had once said to +the wearer--and it was as "free" a remark as he had ever made to +her--that she looked, with her ruff and other matters, like Queen +Elizabeth; and it had after this in truth been his fancy that, as a +consequence of that tenderness and an acceptance of the idea, the +form of this special tribute to the "frill" had grown slightly more +marked. The connexion, as he sat there and let his imagination +roam, was to strike him as vaguely pathetic; but there it all was, +and pathetic was doubtless in the conditions the best thing it +could possibly be. It had assuredly existed at any rate; for it +seemed now to come over him that no gentleman of his age at +Woollett could ever, to a lady of Mrs. Newsome's, which was not +much less than his, have embarked on such a simile. + +All sorts of things in fact now seemed to come over him, +comparatively few of which his chronicler can hope for space to +mention. It came over him for instance that Miss Gostrey looked +perhaps like Mary Stuart: Lambert Strether had a candour of fancy +which could rest for an instant gratified in such an antithesis. It +came over him that never before--no, literally never--had a lady +dined with him at a public place before going to the play. The +publicity of the place was just, in the matter, for Strether, the +rare strange thing; it affected him almost as the achievement of +privacy might have affected a man of a different experience. He had +married, in the far-away years, so young as to have missed the time +natural in Boston for taking girls to the Museum; and it was +absolutely true of hint that--even after the close of the period of +conscious detachment occupying the centre of his life, the grey +middle desert of the two deaths, that of his wife and that, ten +years later, of his boy--he had never taken any one anywhere. It +came over him in especial--though the monition had, as happened, +already sounded, fitfully gleamed, in other forms--that the +business he had come out on hadn't yet been so brought home to him +as by the sight of the people about him. She gave him the +impression, his friend, at first, more straight than he got it for +himself--gave it simply by saying with off-hand illumination: "Oh +yes, they're types!"--but after he had taken it he made to the full +his own use of it; both while he kept silence for the four acts and +while he talked in the intervals. It was an evening, it was a world +of types, and this was a connexion above all in which the figures +and faces in the stalls were interchangeable with those on the +stage. + +He felt as if the play itself penetrated him with the naked elbow +of his neighbour, a great stripped handsome red-haired lady who +conversed with a gentleman on her other side in stray dissyllables +which had for his ear, in the oddest way in the world, so much +sound that he wondered they hadn't more sense; and he recognised by +the same law, beyond the footlights, what he was pleased to take +for the very flush of English life. He had distracted drops in +which he couldn't have said if it were actors or auditors who were +most true, and the upshot of which, each time, was the consciousness +of new contacts. However he viewed his job it was "types" he should +have to tackle. Those before him and around him were not as the +types of Woollett, where, for that matter, it had begun to seem to +him that there must only have been the male and the female. +These made two exactly, even with the individual varieties. Here, +on the other hand, apart from the personal and the sexual range-- +which might be greater or less--a series of strong stamps had been +applied, as it were, from without; stamps that his observation +played with as, before a glass case on a table, it might have +passed from medal to medal and from copper to gold. It befell that +in the drama precisely there was a bad woman in a yellow frock who +made a pleasant weak good-looking young man in perpetual evening +dress do the most dreadful things. Strether felt himself on the +whole not afraid of the yellow frock, but he was vaguely anxious +over a certain kindness into which he found himself drifting for +its victim. He hadn't come out, he reminded himself, to be too +kind, or indeed to be kind at all, to Chadwick Newsome. Would Chad +also be in perpetual evening dress? He somehow rather hoped it--it +seemed so to add to THIS young man's general amenability; though he +wondered too if, to fight him with his own weapons, he himself (a +thought almost startling) would have likewise to be. This young man +furthermore would have been much more easy to handle--at least for +HIM--than appeared probable in respect to Chad. + +It came up for him with Miss Gostrey that there were things of +which she would really perhaps after all have heard, and she admitted +when a little pressed that she was never quite sure of what she +heard as distinguished from things such as, on occasions like +the present, she only extravagantly guessed. "I seem with this +freedom, you see, to have guessed Mr. Chad. He's a young man on +whose head high hopes are placed at Woollett; a young man a wicked +woman has got hold of and whom his family over there have sent you +out to rescue. You've accepted the mission of separating him from +the wicked woman. Are you quite sure she's very bad for him?" + +Something in his manner showed it as quite pulling him up. "Of +course we are. Wouldn't YOU be?" + +"Oh I don't know. One never does--does one?--beforehand. One can +only judge on the facts. Yours are quite new to me; I'm really not +in the least, as you see, in possession of them: so it will be +awfully interesting to have them from you. If you're satisfied, +that's all that's required. I mean if you're sure you ARE sure: +sure it won't do." + +"That he should lead such a life? Rather!" + +"Oh but I don't know, you see, about his life; you've not told me +about his life. She may be charming--his life!" + +"Charming?"--Strether stared before him. "She's base, venal-out of +the streets." + +"I see. And HE--?" + +"Chad, wretched boy?" + +"Of what type and temper is he?" she went on as Strether had +lapsed. + +"Well--the obstinate." It was as if for a moment he had been going +to say more and had then controlled himself. + +That was scarce what she wished. "Do you like him?" + +This time he was prompt. "No. How CAN I?" + +"Do you mean because of your being so saddled with him?" + +"I'm thinking of his mother," said Strether after a moment. "He has +darkened her admirable life." He spoke with austerity. "He has +worried her half to death." + +"Oh that's of course odious." She had a pause as if for renewed +emphasis of this truth, but it ended on another note. "Is her life +very admirable?" + +"Extraordinarily." + +There was so much in the tone that Miss Gostrey had to devote +another pause to the appreciation of it. "And has he only HER? I +don't mean the bad woman in Paris," she quickly added--"for I +assure you I shouldn't even at the best be disposed to allow him +more than one. But has he only his mother?" + +"He has also a sister, older than himself and married; and they're +both remarkably fine women." + +"Very handsome, you mean?" + +This promptitude--almost, as he might have thought, this +precipitation, gave him a brief drop; but he came up again. +"Mrs. Newsome, I think, is handsome, though she's not of course, +with a son of twenty-eight and a daughter of thirty, in her very +first youth. She married, however, extremely young." + +"And is wonderful," Miss Gostrey asked, "for her age?" + +Strether seemed to feel with a certain disquiet the pressure of it. +"I don't say she's wonderful. Or rather," he went on the next moment, +"I do say it. It's exactly what she IS--wonderful. But I wasn't +thinking of her appearance," he explained--"striking as that doubtless +is. I was thinking--well, of many other things." He seemed to look at +these as if to mention some of them; then took, pulling himself up, +another turn. "About Mrs. Pocock people may differ." + +"Is that the daughter's name--'Pocock'?" + +"That's the daughter's name," Strether sturdily confessed. + +"And people may differ, you mean, about HER beauty?" + +"About everything." + +"But YOU admire her?" + +He gave his friend a glance as to show how he could bear this "I'm +perhaps a little afraid of her." + +"Oh," said Miss Gostrey, "I see her from here! You may say then I +see very fast and very far, but I've already shown you I do. The +young man and the two ladies," she went on, "are at any rate all +the family?" + +"Quite all. His father has been dead ten years, and there's no +brother, nor any other sister. They'd do," said Strether, "anything +in the world for him." + +"And you'd do anything in the world for THEM?" + +He shifted again; she had made it perhaps just a shade too affirmative +for his nerves. "Oh I don't know!" + +"You'd do at any rate this, and the 'anything' they'd do is +represented by their MAKING you do it." + +"Ah they couldn't have come--either of them. They're very busy +people and Mrs. Newsome in particular has a large full life. She's +moreover highly nervous--and not at all strong." + +"You mean she's an American invalid?" + +He carefully distinguished. "There's nothing she likes less than to +be called one, but she would consent to be one of those things, I +think," he laughed, "if it were the only way to be the other." + +"Consent to be an American in order to be an invalid?" + +"No," said Strether, "the other way round. She's at any rate +delicate sensitive high-strung. She puts so much of herself into +everything--" + +Ah Maria knew these things! "That she has nothing left for anything +else? Of course she hasn't. To whom do you say it? High-strung? +Don't I spend my life, for them, jamming down the pedal? I see +moreover how it has told on you." + +Strether took this more lightly. "Oh I jam down the pedal too!" + +"Well," she lucidly returned, "we must from this moment bear on it +together with all our might." And she forged ahead. "Have they +money?" + +But it was as if, while her energetic image still held him, her +enquiry fell short. "Mrs. Newsome," he wished further to explain, +"hasn't moreover your courage on the question of contact. If she +had come it would have been to see the person herself." + +"The woman? Ah but that's courage." + +"No--it's exaltation, which is a very different thing. Courage," +he, however, accommodatingly threw out, "is what YOU have." + +She shook her head. "You say that only to patch me up--to cover the +nudity of my want of exaltation. I've neither the one nor the +other. I've mere battered indifference. I see that what you mean," +Miss Gostrey pursued, "is that if your friend HAD come she would +take great views, and the great views, to put it simply, would be +too much for her." + +Strether looked amused at her notion of the simple, but he adopted +her formula. "Everything's too much for her." + +"Ah then such a service as this of yours--" + +"Is more for her than anything else? Yes--far more. But so long as +it isn't too much for ME--!" + +"Her condition doesn't matter? Surely not; we leave her condition +out; we take it, that is, for granted. I see it, her condition, as +behind and beneath you; yet at the same time I see it as bearing +you up." + +"Oh it does bear me up!" Strether laughed. + +"Well then as yours bears ME nothing more's needed." With which she +put again her question. "Has Mrs. Newsome money?" + +This time he heeded. "Oh plenty. That's the root of the evil. +There's money, to very large amounts, in the concern. Chad has had +the free use of a great deal. But if he'll pull himself together +and come home, all the same, he'll find his account in it." + +She had listened with all her interest. "And I hope to goodness +you'll find yours!" + +"He'll take up his definite material reward," said Strether without +acknowledgement of this. "He's at the parting of the ways. He can +come into the business now--he can't come later." + +"Is there a business?" + +"Lord, yes--a big brave bouncing business. A roaring trade." + +"A great shop?" + +"Yes--a workshop; a great production, a great industry. The +concern's a manufacture--and a manufacture that, if it's only +properly looked after, may well be on the way to become a monopoly. +It's a little thing they make--make better, it appears, than other +people can, or than other people, at any rate, do. Mr. Newsome, +being a man of ideas, at least in that particular line," Strether +explained, "put them on it with great effect, and gave the place +altogether, in his time, an immense lift." + +"It's a place in itself?" + +"Well, quite a number of buildings; almost a little industrial +colony. But above all it's a thing. The article produced." + +"And what IS the article produced?" + +Strether looked about him as in slight reluctance to say; then the +curtain, which he saw about to rise, came to his aid. "I'll tell +you next time." But when the next time came he only said he'd tell +her later on--after they should have left the theatre; for she had +immediately reverted to their topic, and even for himself the +picture of the stage was now overlaid with another image. His +postponements, however, made her wonder--wonder if the article +referred to were anything bad. And she explained that she meant +improper or ridiculous or wrong. But Strether, so far as that went, +could satisfy her. "Unmentionable? Oh no, we constantly talk of it; +we are quite familiar and brazen about it. Only, as a small, +trivial, rather ridiculous object of the commonest domestic use, +it's just wanting in-what shall I say? Well, dignity, or the least +approach to distinction. Right here therefore, with everything +about us so grand--!" In short he shrank. + +"It's a false note?" + +"Sadly. It's vulgar." + +"But surely not vulgarer than this." Then on his wondering as she +herself had done: "Than everything about us." She seemed a trifle +irritated. "What do you take this for?" + +"Why for--comparatively--divine! " + +"This dreadful London theatre? It's impossible, if you really want +to know." + +"Oh then," laughed Strether, "I DON'T really want to know!" + +It made between them a pause, which she, however, still fascinated +by the mystery of the production at Woollett, presently broke. +"'Rather ridiculous'? Clothes-pins? Saleratus? Shoe-polish?" + +It brought him round. "No--you don't even 'burn.' I don't think, +you know, you'll guess it." + +"How then can I judge how vulgar it is?" + +"You'll judge when I do tell you"--and he persuaded her to +patience. But it may even now frankly be mentioned that he in the +sequel never WAS to tell her. He actually never did so, and it +moreover oddly occurred that by the law, within her, of the +incalculable, her desire for the information dropped and her +attitude to the question converted itself into a positive +cultivation of ignorance. In ignorance she could humour her fancy, +and that proved a useful freedom. She could treat the little +nameless object as indeed unnameable--she could make their +abstention enormously definite. There might indeed have been for +Strether the portent of this in what she next said. + +"Is it perhaps then because it's so bad--because your industry as +you call it, IS so vulgar--that Mr. Chad won't come back? Does he +feel the taint? Is he staying away not to be mixed up in it?" + +"Oh," Strether laughed, "it wouldn't appear--would it?--that he +feels 'taints'! He's glad enough of the money from it, and the +money's his whole basis. There's appreciation in that--I mean as to +the allowance his mother has hitherto made him. She has of course +the resource of cutting this allowance off; but even then he has +unfortunately, and on no small scale, his independent supply--money +left him by his grandfather, her own father." + +"Wouldn't the fact you mention then," Miss Gostrey asked, "make it +just more easy for him to be particular? Isn't he conceivable as +fastidious about the source--the apparent and public source--of his +income?" + +Strether was able quite good-humouredly to entertain the +proposition. "The source of his grandfather's wealth--and thereby +of his own share in it--was not particularly noble." + +"And what source was it?" + +Strether cast about. "Well--practices." + +"In business? Infamies? He was an old swindler?" + +"Oh," he said with more emphasis than spirit, "I shan't describe +HIM nor narrate his exploits." + +"Lord, what abysses! And the late Mr. Newsome then?" + +"Well, what about him?" + +"Was he like the grandfather?" + +"No--he was on the other side of the house. And he was different." + +Miss Gostrey kept it up. "Better?" + +Her friend for a moment hung fire. "No." + +Her comment on his hesitation was scarce the less marked for being +mute. "Thank you. NOW don't you see," she went on, "why the boy +doesn't come home? He's drowning his shame." + +"His shame? What shame?" + +"What shame? Comment donc? THE shame." + +"But where and when," Strether asked, "is 'THE shame'--where is any +shame--to-day? The men I speak of--they did as every one does; and +(besides being ancient history) it was all a matter of appreciation." + +She showed how she understood. "Mrs. Newsome has appreciated?" + +"Ah I can't speak for HER!" + +"In the midst of such doings--and, as I understand you, profiting +by them, she at least has remained exquisite?" + +"Oh I can't talk of her!" Strether said. + +"I thought she was just what you COULD talk of. You DON'T trust +me," Miss Gostrey after a moment declared. + +It had its effect. "Well, her money is spent, her life conceived +and carried on with a large beneficence--" + +"That's a kind of expiation of wrongs? Gracious," she added before +he could speak, "how intensely you make me see her!" + +"If you see her," Strether dropped, "it's all that's necessary." + +She really seemed to have her. "I feel that. She IS, in spite of +everything, handsome." + +This at least enlivened him. "What do you mean by everything?" + +"Well, I mean YOU." With which she had one of her swift changes of +ground. "You say the concern needs looking after; but doesn't +Mrs. Newsome look after it?" + +"So far as possible. She's wonderfully able, but it's not her +affair, and her life's a good deal overcharged. She has many, +many things." + +"And you also?" + +"Oh yes--I've many too, if you will." + +"I see. But what I mean is," Miss Gostrey amended, "do you also +look after the business?" + +"Oh no, I don't touch the business." + +"Only everything else?" + +"Well, yes--some things." + +"As for instance--?" + +Strether obligingly thought. "Well, the Review." + +"The Review?--you have a Review?" + +"Certainly. Woollett has a Review--which Mrs. Newsome, for the +most part, magnificently pays for and which I, not at all +magnificently, edit. My name's on the cover," Strether pursued, +"and I'm really rather disappointed and hurt that you seem never +to have heard of it." + +She neglected for a moment this grievance. "And what kind of a +Review is it?" + +His serenity was now completely restored. "Well, it's green." + +"Do you mean in political colour as they say here--in thought?" + +"No; I mean the cover's green--of the most lovely shade." + +"And with Mrs. Newsome's name on it too?" + +He waited a little. "Oh as for that you must judge if she peeps +out. She's behind the whole thing; but she's of a delicacy and a +discretion--!" + +Miss Gostrey took it all. "I'm sure. She WOULD be. I don't +underrate her. She must be rather a swell." + +"Oh yes, she's rather a swell!" + +"A Woollett swell--bon! I like the idea of a Woollett swell. And +you must be rather one too, to be so mixed up with her." + +"Ah no," said Strether, "that's not the way it works." + +But she had already taken him up. "The way it works--you needn't +tell me!--is of course that you efface yourself." + +"With my name on the cover?" he lucidly objected. + +"Ah but you don't put it on for yourself." + +"I beg your pardon--that's exactly what I do put it on for. It's +exactly the thing that I'm reduced to doing for myself. It seems +to rescue a little, you see, from the wreck of hopes and ambitions, +the refuse-heap of disappointments and failures, my one presentable +little scrap of an identity." + +On this she looked at him as to say many things, but what she at +last simply said was: "She likes to see it there. You're the +bigger swell of the two," she immediately continued, "because you +think you're not one. She thinks she IS one. However," Miss +Gostrey added, "she thinks you're one too. You're at all events +the biggest she can get hold of." She embroidered, she abounded. +"I don't say it to interfere between you, but on the day she gets +hold of a bigger one--!" Strether had thrown back his head as in +silent mirth over something that struck him in her audacity or +felicity, and her flight meanwhile was already higher. "Therefore +close with her--!" + +"Close with her?" he asked as she seemed to hang poised. + +"Before you lose your chance." + +Their eyes met over it. "What do you mean by closing?" + +"And what do I mean by your chance? I'll tell you when you tell me +all the things YOU don't. Is it her GREATEST fad?" she briskly +pursued. + +"The Review?" He seemed to wonder how he could best describe it. +This resulted however but in a sketch. "It's her tribute to the +ideal." + +"I see. You go in for tremendous things." + +"We go in for the unpopular side--that is so far as we dare." + +"And how far DO you dare?" + +"Well, she very far. I much less. I don't begin to have her faith. +She provides," said Strether, "three fourths of that. And she +provides, as I've confided to you, ALL the money." + +It evoked somehow a vision of gold that held for a little Miss +Gostrey's eyes, and she looked as if she heard the bright dollars +shovelled in. "I hope then you make a good thing--" + +"I NEVER made a good thing!" he at once returned. + +She just waited. "Don't you call it a good thing to be loved?" + +"Oh we're not loved. We're not even hated. We're only just sweetly +ignored." + +She had another pause. "You don't trust me!" she once more repeated. + +"Don't I when I lift the last veil?--tell you the very secret of +the prison-house?" + +Again she met his eyes, but to the result that after an instant +her own turned away with impatience. "You don't sell? Oh I'm glad +of THAT!" After which however, and before he could protest, she was +off again. "She's just a MORAL swell." + +He accepted gaily enough the definition. "Yes--I really think that +describes her." + +But it had for his friend the oddest connexion. "How does she do +her hair?" + +He laughed out. "Beautifully!" + +"Ah that doesn't tell me. However, it doesn't matter--I know. It's +tremendously neat--a real reproach; quite remarkably thick and +without, as yet, a single strand of white. There!" + +He blushed for her realism, but gaped at her truth. "You're the +very deuce." + +"What else SHOULD I be? It was as the very deuce I pounced on you. +But don't let it trouble you, for everything but the very deuce-- +at our age--is a bore and a delusion, and even he himself, after all, +but half a joy." With which, on a single sweep of her wing, she +resumed. "You assist her to expiate--which is rather hard when +you've yourself not sinned." + +"It's she who hasn't sinned," Strether replied. "I've sinned the +most." + +"Ah," Miss Gostrey cynically laughed, "what a picture of HER! +Have you robbed the widow and the orphan?" + +"I've sinned enough," said Strether. + +"Enough for whom? Enough for what?" + +"Well, to be where I am." + +"Thank you!" They were disturbed at this moment by the passage +between their knees and the back of the seats before them of a +gentleman who had been absent during a part of the performance and +who now returned for the close; but the interruption left Miss +Gostrey time, before the subsequent hush, to express as a sharp +finality her sense of the moral of all their talk. "I knew you had +something up your sleeve!" This finality, however, left them in its +turn, at the end of the play, as disposed to hang back as if they +had still much to say; so that they easily agreed to let every one +go before them--they found an interest in waiting. They made out +from the lobby that the night had turned to rain; yet Miss Gostrey +let her friend know that he wasn't to see her home. He was simply +to put her, by herself, into a four-wheeler; she liked so in +London, of wet nights after wild pleasures, thinking things over, +on the return, in lonely four-wheelers. This was her great time, +she intimated, for pulling herself together. The delays caused by +the weather, the struggle for vehicles at the door, gave them +occasion to subside on a divan at the back of the vestibule and +just beyond the reach of the fresh damp gusts from the street. Here +Strether's comrade resumed that free handling of the subject to +which his own imagination of it already owed so much. "Does your +young friend in Paris like you?" + +It had almost, after the interval, startled him. "Oh I hope not! +Why SHOULD he?" + +"Why shouldn't he?" Miss Gostrey asked. "That you're coming down on +him need have nothing to do with it." + +"You see more in it," he presently returned, "than I." + +"Of course I see you in it." + +"Well then you see more in 'me'!" + +"Than you see in yourself? Very likely. That's always one's right. +What I was thinking of," she explained, "is the possible particular +effect on him of his milieu." + +"Oh his milieu--!" Strether really felt he could imagine it better +now than three hours before. + +"Do you mean it can only have been so lowering?" + +"Why that's my very starting-point." + +"Yes, but you start so far back. What do his letters say?" + +"Nothing. He practically ignores us--or spares us. He doesn't +write." + +"I see. But there are all the same," she went on, "two quite +distinct things that--given the wonderful place he's in--may have +happened to him. One is that he may have got brutalised. The other +is that he may have got refined." + +Strether stared--this WAS a novelty. "Refined?" + +"Oh," she said quietly, "there ARE refinements." + +The way of it made him, after looking at her, break into a laugh. +"YOU have them!" + +"As one of the signs," she continued in the same tone, "they +constitute perhaps the worst." + +He thought it over and his gravity returned. "Is it a refinement +not to answer his mother's letters?" + +She appeared to have a scruple, but she brought it out. "Oh I +should say the greatest of all." + +"Well," said Strether, "I'M quite content to let it, as one of the +signs, pass for the worst that I know he believes he can do what he +likes with me." + +This appeared to strike her. "How do you know it?" + +"Oh I'm sure of it. I feel it in my bones." + +"Feel he CAN do it?" + +"Feel that he believes he can. It may come to the same thing!" +Strether laughed. + +She wouldn't, however, have this. "Nothing for you will ever come +to the same thing as anything else." And she understood what she +meant, it seemed, sufficiently to go straight on. "You say that if +he does break he'll come in for things at home?" + +"Quite positively. He'll come in for a particular chance--a chance +that any properly constituted young man would jump at. The +business has so developed that an opening scarcely apparent three +years ago, but which his father's will took account of as in +certain conditions possible and which, under that will, attaches +to Chad's availing himself of it a large contingent advantage-- +this opening, the conditions having come about, now simply awaits +him. His mother has kept it for him, holding out against strong +pressure, till the last possible moment. It requires, naturally, +as it carries with it a handsome 'part,' a large share in profits, +his being on the spot and making a big effort for a big result. +That's what I mean by his chance. If he misses it he comes in, as +you say, for nothing. And to see that he doesn't miss it is, in a +word, what I've come out for." + +She let it all sink in. "What you've come out for then is simply +to render him an immense service." + +Well, poor Strether was willing to take it so. "Ah if you like." + +"He stands, as they say, if you succeed with him, to gain--" + +"Oh a lot of advantages." Strether had them clearly at his +fingers' ends. + +"By which you mean of course a lot of money." + +"Well, not only. I'm acting with a sense for him of other things +too. Consideration and comfort and security--the general safety of +being anchored by a strong chain. He wants, as I see him, to be +protected. Protected I mean from life." + +"Ah voila!"--her thought fitted with a click. "From life. What you +REALLY want to get him home for is to marry him." + +"Well, that's about the size of it." + +"Of course," she said, "it's rudimentary. But to any one in +particular?" + +He smiled at this, looking a little more conscious. "You get +everything out." + +For a moment again their eyes met. "You put everything in!" + +He acknowledged the tribute by telling her. "To Mamie Pocock." + +She wondered; then gravely, even exquisitely, as if to make the +oddity also fit: "His own niece?" + +"Oh you must yourself find a name for the relation. His +brother-in-law's sister. Mrs. Jim's sister-in-law." + +It seemed to have on Miss Gostrey a certain hardening effect. "And +who in the world's Mrs. Jim?" + +"Chad's sister--who was Sarah Newsome. She's married--didn't I +mention it?--to Jim Pocock." + +"Ah yes," she tacitly replied; but he had mentioned things--! +Then, however, with all the sound it could have, "Who in the +world's Jim Pocock?" she asked. + +"Why Sally's husband. That's the only way we distinguish people at +Woollett," he good-humoredly explained. + +"And is it a great distinction--being Sally's husband?" + +He considered. "I think there can be scarcely a greater--unless it +may become one, in the future, to be Chad's wife." + +"Then how do they distinguish YOU?" + +"They DON'T--except, as I've told you, by the green cover." + +Once more their eyes met on it, and she held him an instant. "The +green cover won't--nor will ANY cover--avail you with ME. You're +of a depth of duplicity!" Still, she could in her own large grasp +of the real condone it. "Is Mamie a great parti?" + +"Oh the greatest we have--our prettiest brightest girl." + +Miss Gostrey seemed to fix the poor child. "I know what they CAN +be. And with money?" + +"Not perhaps with a great deal of that--but with so much of +everything else that we don't miss it. We DON'T miss money much, +you know," Strether added, "in general, in America, in pretty +girls." + +"No," she conceded; "but I know also what you do sometimes miss. +And do you," she asked, "yourself admire her?" + +It was a question, he indicated, that there might be several ways +of taking; but he decided after an instant for the humorous. +"Haven't I sufficiently showed you how I admire ANY pretty girl?'; + +Her interest in his problem was by this time such that it scarce +left her freedom, and she kept close to the facts. "I supposed +that at Woollett you wanted them--what shall I call it?-- +blameless. I mean your young men for your pretty girls." + +"So did I!" Strether confessed. "But you strike there a curious +fact--the fact that Woollett too accommodates itself to the spirit +of the age and the increasing mildness of manners. Everything +changes, and I hold that our situation precisely marks a date. We +SHOULD prefer them blameless, but we have to make the best of them +as we find them. Since the spirit of the age and the increasing +mildness send them so much more to Paris--" + +"You've to take them back as they come. When they DO come. Bon!" +Once more she embraced it all, but she had a moment of thought. +"Poor Chad!" + +"Ah," said Strether cheerfully "Mamie will save him!" + +She was looking away, still in her vision, and she spoke with +impatience and almost as if he hadn't understood her. "YOU'LL save +him. That's who'll save him." + +"Oh but with Mamie's aid. Unless indeed you mean," he added, "that +I shall effect so much more with yours!" + +It made her at last again look at him. "You'll do more--as you're +so much better--than all of us put together." + +"I think I'm only better since I've known YOU!" Strether bravely +returned. + +The depletion of the place, the shrinkage of the crowd and now +comparatively quiet withdrawal of its last elements had already +brought them nearer the door and put them in relation with a +messenger of whom he bespoke Miss Gostrey's cab. But this left +them a few minutes more, which she was clearly in no mood not to +use. "You've spoken to me of what--by your success--Mr. Chad +stands to gain. But you've not spoken to me of what you do." + +"Oh I've nothing more to gain," said Strether very simply. + +She took it as even quite too simple. "You mean you've got it all +'down'? You've been paid in advance?" + +"Ah don't talk about payment!" he groaned. + +Something in the tone of it pulled her up, but as their messenger +still delayed she had another chance and she put it in another +way. "What--by failure--do you stand to lose?" + +He still, however, wouldn't have it. "Nothing!" he exclaimed, and +on the messenger's at this instant reappearing he was able to sink +the subject in their responsive advance. When, a few steps up the +street, under a lamp, he had put her into her four-wheeler and she +had asked him if the man had called for him no second conveyance, +he replied before the door was closed. "You won't take me with +you?" + +"Not for the world." + +"Then I shall walk." + +"In the rain?" + +"I like the rain," said Strether. "Good-night!" + +She kept him a moment, while his hand was on the door, by not +answering; after which she answered by repeating her question. +"What do you stand to lose?" + +Why the question now affected him as other he couldn't have said; +he could only this time meet it otherwise. "Everything." + +"So I thought. Then you shall succeed. And to that end I'm yours--" + +"Ah, dear lady!" he kindly breathed. + +"Till death!" said Maria Gostrey. "Good-night." + + + +II + + +Strether called, his second morning in Paris, on the bankers of +the Rue Scribe to whom his letter of credit was addressed, and he +made this visit attended by Waymarsh, in whose company he had +crossed from London two days before. They had hastened to the Rue +Scribe on the morrow of their arrival, but Strether had not then +found the letters the hope of which prompted this errand. He had +had as yet none at all; hadn't expected them in London, but had +counted on several in Paris, and, disconcerted now, had presently +strolled back to the Boulevard with a sense of injury that he felt +himself taking for as good a start as any other. It would serve, +this spur to his spirit, he reflected, as, pausing at the top of +the street, he looked up and down the great foreign avenue, it +would serve to begin business with. His idea was to begin business +immediately, and it did much for him the rest of his day that the +beginning of business awaited him. He did little else till night +but ask himself what he should do if he hadn't fortunately had so +much to do; but he put himself the question in many different +situations and connexions. What carried him hither and yon was an +admirable theory that nothing he could do wouldn't be in some +manner related to what he fundamentally had on hand, or WOULD be-- +should he happen to have a scruple--wasted for it. He did happen +to have a scruple--a scruple about taking no definite step till he +should get letters; but this reasoning carried it off. A single +day to feel his feet--he had felt them as yet only at Chester and +in London--was he could consider, none too much; and having, as he +had often privately expressed it, Paris to reckon with, he threw +these hours of freshness consciously into the reckoning. They made +it continually greater, but that was what it had best be if it was +to be anything at all, and he gave himself up till far into the +evening, at the theatre and on the return, after the theatre, +along the bright congested Boulevard, to feeling it grow. Waymarsh +had accompanied him this time to the play, and the two men had +walked together, as a first stage, from the Gymnase to the Cafe +Riche, into the crowded "terrace" of which establishment--the +night, or rather the morning, for midnight had struck, being bland +and populous--they had wedged themselves for refreshment. +Waymarsh, as a result of some discussion with his friend, had made +a marked virtue of his having now let himself go; and there had +been elements of impression in their half-hour over their watered +beer-glasses that gave him his occasion for conveying that he held +this compromise with his stiffer self to have become extreme. He +conveyed it--for it was still, after all, his stiffer self who +gloomed out of the glare of the terrace--in solemn silence; and +there was indeed a great deal of critical silence, every way, +between the companions, even till they gained the Place de l'Opera, +as to the character of their nocturnal progress. + +This morning there WERE letters--letters which had reached London, +apparently all together, the day of Strether's journey, and had +taken their time to follow him; so that, after a controlled +impulse to go into them in the reception-room of the bank, which, +reminding him of the post-office at Woollett, affected him as the +abutment of some transatlantic bridge, he slipped them into the +pocket of his loose grey overcoat with a sense of the felicity of +carrying them off. Waymarsh, who had had letters yesterday, had +had them again to-day, and Waymarsh suggested in this particular +no controlled impulses. The last one he was at all events likely +to be observed to struggle with was clearly that of bringing to a +premature close any visit to the Rue Scribe. Strether had left him +there yesterday; he wanted to see the papers, and he had spent, by +what his friend could make out, a succession of hours with the +papers. He spoke of the establishment, with emphasis, as a post of +superior observation; just as he spoke generally of his actual +damnable doom as a device for hiding from him what was going on. +Europe was best described, to his mind, as an elaborate engine for +dissociating the confined American from that indispensable +knowledge, and was accordingly only rendered bearable by these +occasional stations of relief, traps for the arrest of wandering +western airs. Strether, on his side, set himself to walk again--he +had his relief in his pocket; and indeed, much as he had desired +his budget, the growth of restlessness might have been marked in +him from the moment he had assured himself of the superscription +of most of the missives it contained. This restlessness became +therefore his temporary law; he knew he should recognise as soon +as see it the best place of all for settling down with his chief +correspondent. He had for the next hour an accidental air of +looking for it in the windows of shops; he came down the Rue de la +Paix in the sun and, passing across the Tuileries and the river, +indulged more than once--as if on finding himself determined--in a +sudden pause before the book-stalls of the opposite quay. In the +garden of the Tuileries he had lingered, on two or three spots, to +look; it was as if the wonderful Paris spring had stayed him as he +roamed. The prompt Paris morning struck its cheerful notes--in a +soft breeze and a sprinkled smell, in the light flit, over the +garden-floor, of bareheaded girls with the buckled strap of oblong +boxes, in the type of ancient thrifty persons basking betimes +where terrace-walls were warm, in the blue-frocked brass-labelled +officialism of humble rakers and scrapers, in the deep references +of a straight-pacing priest or the sharp ones of a white-gaitered +red-legged soldier. He watched little brisk figures, figures whose +movement was as the tick of the great Paris clock, take their +smooth diagonal from point to point; the air had a taste as of +something mixed with art, something that presented nature as a +white-capped master-chef. The palace was gone, Strether remembered +the palace; and when he gazed into the irremediable void of its +site the historic sense in him might have been freely at play--the +play under which in Paris indeed it so often winces like a touched +nerve. He filled out spaces with dim symbols of scenes; he caught +the gleam of white statues at the base of which, with his letters +out, he could tilt back a straw-bottomed chair. But his drift was, +for reasons, to the other side, and it floated him unspent up the +Rue de Seine and as far as the Luxembourg. In the Luxembourg +Gardens he pulled up; here at last he found his nook, and here, on +a penny chair from which terraces, alleys, vistas, fountains, +little trees in green tubs, little women in white caps and shrill +little girls at play all sunnily "composed" together, he passed an +hour in which the cup of his impressions seemed truly to overflow. +But a week had elapsed since he quitted the ship, and there were +more things in his mind than so few days could account for. More +than once, during the time, he had regarded himself as admonished; +but the admonition this morning was formidably sharp. It took as +it hadn't done yet the form of a question--the question of what he +was doing with such an extraordinary sense of escape. This sense +was sharpest after he had read his letters, but that was also +precisely why the question pressed. Four of the letters were from +Mrs. Newsome and none of them short; she had lost no time, had +followed on his heels while he moved, so expressing herself that +he now could measure the probable frequency with which he should +hear. They would arrive, it would seem, her communications, at the +rate of several a week; he should be able to count, it might even +prove, on more than one by each mail. If he had begun yesterday +with a small grievance he had therefore an opportunity to begin +to-day with its opposite. He read the letters successively and +slowly, putting others back into his pocket but keeping these for +a long time afterwards gathered in his lap. He held them there, +lost in thought, as if to prolong the presence of what they gave +him; or as if at the least to assure them their part in the +constitution of some lucidity. His friend wrote admirably, and her +tone was even more in her style than in her voice--he might +almost, for the hour, have had to come this distance to get its +full carrying quality; yet the plentitude of his consciousness of +difference consorted perfectly with the deepened intensity of the +connexion. It was the difference, the difference of being just +where he was and AS he was, that formed the escape--this +difference was so much greater than he had dreamed it would be; +and what he finally sat there turning over was the strange logic +of his finding himself so free. He felt it in a manner his duty to +think out his state, to approve the process, and when he came in +fact to trace the steps and add up the items they sufficiently +accounted for the sum. He had never expected--that was the truth +of it--again to find himself young, and all the years and other +things it had taken to make him so were exactly his present +arithmetic. He had to make sure of them to put his scruple to +rest. + +It all sprang at bottom from the beauty of Mrs. Newsome's desire +that he should be worried with nothing that was not of the essence +of his task; by insisting that he should thoroughly intermit and +break she had so provided for his freedom that she would, as it +were, have only herself to thank. Strether could not at this point +indeed have completed his thought by the image of what she might +have to thank herself FOR: the image, at best, of his own +likeness-poor Lambert Strether washed up on the sunny strand by +the waves of a single day, poor Lambert Strether thankful for +breathing-time and stiffening himself while he gasped. There he +was, and with nothing in his aspect or his posture to scandalise: +it was only true that if he had seen Mrs. Newsome coming he would +instinctively have jumped up to walk away a little. He would have +come round and back to her bravely, but he would have had first to +pull himself together. She abounded in news of the situation at +home, proved to him how perfectly she was arranging for his +absence, told him who would take up this and who take up that +exactly where he had left it, gave him in fact chapter and verse +for the moral that nothing would suffer. It filled for him, this +tone of hers, all the air; yet it struck him at the same time as +the hum of vain things. This latter effect was what he tried to +justify--and with the success that, grave though the appearance, +he at last lighted on a form that was happy. He arrived at it by +the inevitable recognition of his having been a fortnight before +one of the weariest of men. If ever a man had come off tired +Lambert Strether was that man; and hadn't it been distinctly on +the ground of his fatigue that his wonderful friend at home had so +felt for him and so contrived? It seemed to him somehow at these +instants that, could he only maintain with sufficient firmness his +grasp of that truth, it might become in a manner his compass and +his helm. What he wanted most was some idea that would simplify, +and nothing would do this so much as the fact that he was done for +and finished. If it had been in such a light that he had just +detected in his cup the dregs of youth, that was a mere flaw of +the surface of his scheme. He was so distinctly fagged-out that it +must serve precisely as his convenience, and if he could but +consistently be good for little enough he might do everything he +wanted. + +Everything he wanted was comprised moreover in a single boon--the +common unattainable art of taking things as they came. He appeared +to himself to have given his best years to an active appreciation +of the way they didn't come; but perhaps--as they would seemingly +here be things quite other--this long ache might at last drop to +rest. He could easily see that from the moment he should accept +the notion of his foredoomed collapse the last thing he would lack +would be reasons and memories. Oh if he SHOULD do the sum no slate +would hold the figures! The fact that he had failed, as he +considered, in everything, in each relation and in half a dozen +trades, as he liked luxuriously to put it, might have made, might +still make, for an empty present; but it stood solidly for a +crowded past. It had not been, so much achievement missed, a light +yoke nor a short load.[sic] It was at present as if the backward +picture had hung there, the long crooked course, grey in the +shadow of his solitude. It had been a dreadful cheerful sociable +solitude, a solitude of life or choice, of community; but though +there had been people enough all round it there had been but three +or four persons IN it. Waymarsh was one of these, and the fact +struck him just now as marking the record. Mrs. Newsome was +another, and Miss Gostrey had of a sudden shown signs of becoming +a third. Beyond, behind them was the pale figure of his real +youth, which held against its breast the two presences paler than +itself--the young wife he had early lost and the young son he had +stupidly sacrificed. He had again and again made out for himself +that he might have kept his little boy, his little dull boy who +had died at school of rapid diphtheria, if he had not in those +years so insanely given himself to merely missing the mother. It +was the soreness of his remorse that the child had in all +likelihood not really been dull--had been dull, as he had been +banished and neglected, mainly because the father had been +unwittingly selfish. This was doubtless but the secret habit of +sorrow, which had slowly given way to time; yet there remained an +ache sharp enough to make the spirit, at the sight now and again +of some fair young man just growing up, wince with the thought of +an opportunity lost. Had ever a man, he had finally fallen into +the way of asking himself, lost so much and even done so much for +so little? There had been particular reasons why all yesterday, +beyond other days, he should have had in one ear this cold +enquiry. His name on the green cover, where he had put it for Mrs. +Newsome, expressed him doubtless just enough to make the world-- +the world as distinguished, both for more and for less, from +Woollett--ask who he was. He had incurred the ridicule of having +to have his explanation explained. He was Lambert Strether because +he was on the cover, whereas it should have been, for anything +like glory, that he was on the cover because he was Lambert +Strether. He would have done anything for Mrs. Newsome, have been +still more ridiculous--as he might, for that matter, have occasion +to be yet; which came to saying that this acceptance of fate was +all he had to show at fifty-five. + +He judged the quantity as small because it WAS small, and all the +more egregiously since it couldn't, as he saw the case, so much as +thinkably have been larger. He hadn't had the gift of making the +most of what he tried, and if he had tried and tried again--no one +but himself knew how often--it appeared to have been that he might +demonstrate what else, in default of that, COULD be made. Old +ghosts of experiments came back to him, old drudgeries and +delusions, and disgusts, old recoveries with their relapses, old +fevers with their chills, broken moments of good faith, others of +still better doubt; adventures, for the most part, of the sort +qualified as lessons. The special spring that had constantly +played for him the day before was the recognition--frequent enough +to surprise him--of the promises to himself that he had after his +other visit never kept. The reminiscence to-day most quickened for +him was that of the vow taken in the course of the pilgrimage +that, newly-married, with the War just over, and helplessly young +in spite of it, he had recklessly made with the creature who was +so much younger still. It had been a bold dash, for which they had +taken money set apart for necessities, but kept sacred at the +moment in a hundred ways, and in none more so than by this private +pledge of his own to treat the occasion as a relation formed with +the higher culture and see that, as they said at Woollett, it +should bear a good harvest. He had believed, sailing home again, +that he had gained something great, and his theory--with an +elaborate innocent plan of reading, digesting, coming back even, +every few years--had then been to preserve, cherish and extend it. +As such plans as these had come to nothing, however, in respect to +acquisitions still more precious, it was doubtless little enough +of a marvel that he should have lost account of that handful of +seed. Buried for long years in dark corners at any rate these few +germs had sprouted again under forty-eight hours of Paris. The +process of yesterday had really been the process of feeling the +general stirred life of connexions long since individually +dropped. Strether had become acquainted even on this ground with +short gusts of speculation--sudden flights of fancy in Louvre +galleries, hungry gazes through clear plates behind which +lemon-coloured volumes were as fresh as fruit on the tree. + +There were instants at which he could ask whether, since there had +been fundamentally so little question of his keeping anything, the +fate after all decreed for him hadn't been only to BE kept. Kept +for something, in that event, that he didn't pretend, didn't +possibly dare as yet to divine; something that made him hover and +wonder and laugh and sigh, made him advance and retreat, feeling +half ashamed of his impulse to plunge and more than half afraid of +his impulse to wait. He remembered for instance how he had gone +back in the sixties with lemon-coloured volumes in general on the +brain as well as with a dozen--selected for his wife too--in his +trunk; and nothing had at the moment shown more confidence than +this invocation of the finer taste. They were still somewhere at +home, the dozen--stale and soiled and never sent to the binder; +but what had become of the sharp initiation they represented? They +represented now the mere sallow paint on the door of the temple of +taste that he had dreamed of raising up--a structure he had +practically never carried further. Strether's present highest +flights were perhaps those in which this particular lapse figured +to him as a symbol, a symbol of his long grind and his want of odd +moments, his want moreover of money, of opportunity, of positive +dignity. That the memory of the vow of his youth should, in order +to throb again, have had to wait for this last, as he felt it, of +all his accidents--that was surely proof enough of how his +conscience had been encumbered. If any further proof were needed +it would have been to be found in the fact that, as he perfectly +now saw, he had ceased even to measure his meagreness, a +meagreness that sprawled, in this retrospect, vague and +comprehensive, stretching back like some unmapped Hinterland from +a rough coast-settlement. His conscience had been amusing itself +for the forty-eight hours by forbidding him the purchase of a +book; he held off from that, held off from everything; from the +moment he didn't yet call on Chad he wouldn't for the world have +taken any other step. On this evidence, however, of the way they +actually affected him he glared at the lemon-coloured covers in +confession of the subconsciousness that, all the same, in the +great desert of the years, he must have had of them. The green +covers at home comprised, by the law of their purpose, no tribute +to letters; it was of a mere rich kernel of economics, politics, +ethics that, glazed and, as Mrs. Newsome maintained rather against +HIS view, pre-eminently pleasant to touch, they formed the +specious shell. Without therefore any needed instinctive knowledge +of what was coming out, in Paris, on the bright highway, he struck +himself at present as having more than once flushed with a +suspicion: he couldn't otherwise at present be feeling so many +fears confirmed. There were "movements" he was too late for: +weren't they, with the fun of them, already spent? There were +sequences he had missed and great gaps in the procession: he might +have been watching it all recede in a golden cloud of dust. If the +playhouse wasn't closed his seat had at least fallen to somebody +else. He had had an uneasy feeling the night before that if he was +at the theatre at all--though he indeed justified the theatre, in +the specific sense, and with a grotesqueness to which his +imagination did all honour, as something he owed poor Waymarsh--he +should have been there with, and as might have been said, FOR +Chad. + +This suggested the question of whether he could properly have +taken him to such a play, and what effect--it was a point that +suddenly rose--his peculiar responsibility might be held in +general to have on his choice of entertainment. It had literally +been present to him at the Gymnase--where one was held moreover +comparatively safe--that having his young friend at his side would +have been an odd feature of the work of redemption; and this quite +in spite of the fact that the picture presented might well, +confronted with Chad's own private stage, have seemed the pattern +of propriety. He clearly hadn't come out in the name of propriety +but to visit unattended equivocal performances; yet still less had +he done so to undermine his authority by sharing them with the +graceless youth. Was he to renounce all amusement for the sweet +sake of that authority? and WOULD such renouncement give him for +Chad a moral glamour? The little problem bristled the more by +reason of poor Strether's fairly open sense of the irony of +things. Were there then sides on which his predicament threatened +to look rather droll to him? Should he have to pretend to believe-- +either to himself or the wretched boy--that there was anything +that could make the latter worse? Wasn't some such pretence on the +other hand involved in the assumption of possible processes that +would make him better? His greatest uneasiness seemed to peep at +him out of the imminent impression that almost any acceptance of +Paris might give one's authority away. It hung before him this +morning, the vast bright Babylon, like some huge iridescent +object, a jewel brilliant and hard, in which parts were not to be +discriminated nor differences comfortably marked. It twinkled and +trembled and melted together, and what seemed all surface one +moment seemed all depth the next. It was a place of which, +unmistakeably, Chad was fond; wherefore if he, Strether, should +like it too much, what on earth, with such a bond, would become of +either of them? It all depended of course--which was a gleam of +light--on how the "too much" was measured; though indeed our +friend fairly felt, while he prolonged the meditation I describe, +that for himself even already a certain measure had been reached. +It will have been sufficiently seen that he was not a man to +neglect any good chance for reflexion. Was it at all possible for +instance to like Paris enough without liking it too much? He +luckily however hadn't promised Mrs. Newsome not to like it at +all. He was ready to recognise at this stage that such an +engagement WOULD have tied his hands. The Luxembourg Gardens were +incontestably just so adorable at this hour by reason--in addition +to their intrinsic charm--of his not having taken it. The only +engagement he had taken, when he looked the thing in the face, was +to do what he reasonably could. + +It upset him a little none the less and after a while to find +himself at last remembering on what current of association he had +been floated so far. Old imaginations of the Latin Quarter had +played their part for him, and he had duly recalled its having +been with this scene of rather ominous legend that, like so many +young men in fiction as well as in fact, Chad had begun. He was +now quite out of it, with his "home," as Strether figured the +place, in the Boulevard Malesherbes; which was perhaps why, +repairing, not to fail of justice either, to the elder +neighbourhood, our friend had felt he could allow for the element +of the usual, the immemorial, without courting perturbation. He +was not at least in danger of seeing the youth and the particular +Person flaunt by together; and yet he was in the very air of +which--just to feel what the early natural note must have been--he +wished most to take counsel. It became at once vivid to him that +he had originally had, for a few days, an almost envious vision of +the boy's romantic privilege. Melancholy Murger, with Francine and +Musette and Rodolphe, at home, in the company of the tattered, +one--if he not in his single self two or three--of the unbound, +the paper-covered dozen on the shelf; and when Chad had written, +five years ago, after a sojourn then already prolonged to six +months, that he had decided to go in for economy and the real +thing, Strether's fancy had quite fondly accompanied him in this +migration, which was to convey him, as they somewhat confusedly +learned at Woollett, across the bridges and up the Montagne +Sainte-Genevieve. This was the region--Chad had been quite +distinct about it--in which the best French, and many other +things, were to be learned at least cost, and in which all sorts +of clever fellows, compatriots there for a purpose, formed an +awfully pleasant set. The clever fellows, the friendly countrymen +were mainly young painters, sculptors, architects, medical +students; but they were, Chad sagely opined, a much more +profitable lot to be with--even on the footing of not being quite +one of them--than the "terrible toughs" (Strether remembered the +edifying discrimination) of the American bars and banks +roundabout the Opera. Chad had thrown out, in the communications +following this one--for at that time he did once in a while +communicate--that several members of a band of earnest workers +under one of the great artists had taken him right in, making him +dine every night, almost for nothing, at their place, and even +pressing him not to neglect the hypothesis of there being as much +"in him" as in any of them. There had been literally a moment at +which it appeared there might be something in him; there had been +at any rate a moment at which he had written that he didn't know +but what a month or two more might see him enrolled in some +atelier. The season had been one at which Mrs. Newsome was moved +to gratitude for small mercies; it had broken on them all as a +blessing that their absentee HAD perhaps a conscience--that he was +sated in fine with idleness, was ambitious of variety. The +exhibition was doubtless as yet not brilliant, but Strether +himself, even by that time much enlisted and immersed, had +determined, on the part of the two ladies, a temperate approval +and in fact, as he now recollected, a certain austere enthusiasm. + +But the very next thing that happened had been a dark drop of the +curtain. The son and brother had not browsed long on the Montagne +Sainte-Genevieve--his effective little use of the name of which, +like his allusion to the best French, appeared to have been but +one of the notes of his rough cunning. The light refreshment of +these vain appearances had not accordingly carried any of them +very far. On the other hand it had gained Chad time; it had given +him a chance, unchecked, to strike his roots, had paved the way +for initiations more direct and more deep. It was Strether's +belief that he had been comparatively innocent before this first +migration, and even that the first effects of the migration would +not have been, without some particular bad accident, to have been +deplored. There had been three months--he had sufficiently figured +it out--in which Chad had wanted to try. He HAD tried, though not +very hard--he had had his little hour of good faith. The weakness +of this principle in him was that almost any accident attestedly +bad enough was stronger. Such had at any rate markedly been the +case for the precipitation of a special series of impressions. +They had proved, successively, these impressions--all of Musette +and Francine, but Musette and Francine vulgarised by the larger +evolution of the type--irresistibly sharp: he had "taken up," by +what was at the time to be shrinkingly gathered, as it was scantly +mentioned, with one ferociously "interested" little person after +another. Strether had read somewhere of a Latin motto, a +description of the hours, observed on a clock by a traveller in +Spain; and he had been led to apply it in thought to Chad's number +one, number two, number three. Omnes vulnerant, ultima necat--they +had all morally wounded, the last had morally killed. The last had +been longest in possession--in possession, that is, of whatever +was left of the poor boy's finer mortality. And it hadn't been +she, it had been one of her early predecessors, who had determined +the second migration, the expensive return and relapse, the +exchange again, as was fairly to be presumed, of the vaunted best +French for some special variety of the worst. + +He pulled himself then at last together for his own progress back; +not with the feeling that he had taken his walk in vain. He +prolonged it a little, in the immediate neighbourhood, after he +had quitted his chair; and the upshot of the whole morning for him +was that his campaign had begun. He had wanted to put himself in +relation, and he would be hanged if he were NOT in relation. He +was that at no moment so much as while, under the old arches of +the Odeon, he lingered before the charming open-air array of +literature classic and casual. He found the effect of tone and +tint, in the long charged tables and shelves, delicate and +appetising; the impression--substituting one kind of low-priced +consommation for another--might have been that of one of the +pleasant cafes that overlapped, under an awning, to the pavement; +but he edged along, grazing the tables, with his hands firmly +behind him. He wasn't there to dip, to consume--he was there to +reconstruct. He wasn't there for his own profit--not, that is, the +direct; he was there on some chance of feeling the brush of the +wing of the stray spirit of youth. He felt it in fact, he had it +beside him; the old arcade indeed, as his inner sense listened, +gave out the faint sound, as from far off, of the wild waving of +wings. They were folded now over the breasts of buried generations; +but a flutter or two lived again in the turned page of shock-headed +slouch-hatted loiterers whose young intensity of type, in the direction +of pale acuteness, deepened his vision, and even his appreciation, +of racial differences, and whose manipulation of the uncut volume was +too often, however, but a listening at closed doors. He reconstructed +a possible groping Chad of three or four years before, a Chad who had, +after all, simply--for that was the only way to see it--been too vulgar +for his privilege. Surely it WAS a privilege to have been young and +happy just there. Well, the best thing Strether knew of him was that +he had had such a dream. + +But his own actual business half an hour later was with a third +floor on the Boulevard Malesherbes--so much as that was definite; +and the fact of the enjoyment by the third-floor windows of a +continuous balcony, to which he was helped by this knowledge, had +perhaps something to do with his lingering for five minutes on the +opposite side of the street. There were points as to which he had +quite made up his mind, and one of these bore precisely on the +wisdom of the abruptness to which events had finally committed him, +a policy that he was pleased to find not at all shaken as he now +looked at his watch and wondered. He HAD announced himself--six +months before; had written out at least that Chad wasn't to be +surprised should he see him some day turn up. Chad had thereupon, +in a few words of rather carefully colourless answer, offered him a +general welcome; and Strether, ruefully reflecting that he might +have understood the warning as a hint to hospitality, a bid for an +invitation, had fallen back upon silence as the corrective most to +his own taste. He had asked Mrs. Newsome moreover not to announce +him again; he had so distinct an opinion on his attacking his job, +should he attack it at all, in his own way. Not the least of this +lady's high merits for him was that he could absolutely rest on her +word. She was the only woman he had known, even at Woollett, as to +whom his conviction was positive that to lie was beyond her art. +Sarah Pocock, for instance, her own daughter, though with social +ideals, as they said, in some respects different--Sarah who WAS, in +her way, aesthetic, had never refused to human commerce that +mitigation of rigour; there were occasions when he had distinctly +seen her apply it. Since, accordingly, at all events, he had had it +from Mrs. Newsome that she had, at whatever cost to her more +strenuous view, conformed, in the matter of preparing Chad, wholly +to his restrictions, he now looked up at the fine continuous +balcony with a safe sense that if the case had been bungled the +mistake was at least his property. Was there perhaps just a +suspicion of that in his present pause on the edge of the Boulevard +and well in the pleasant light? + +Many things came over him here, and one of them was that he should +doubtless presently know whether he had been shallow or sharp. +Another was that the balcony in question didn't somehow show as a +convenience easy to surrender. Poor Strether had at this very +moment to recognise the truth that wherever one paused in Paris the +imagination reacted before one could stop it. This perpetual +reaction put a price, if one would, on pauses; but it piled up +consequences till there was scarce room to pick one's steps among +them. What call had he, at such a juncture, for example, to like +Chad's very house? High broad clear--he was expert enough to make +out in a moment that it was admirably built--it fairly embarrassed +our friend by the quality that, as he would have said, it "sprang" +on him. He had struck off the fancy that it might, as a +preliminary, be of service to him to be seen, by a happy accident, +from the third-story windows, which took all the March sun, but of +what service was it to find himself making out after a moment that +the quality "sprung," the quality produced by measure and balance, +the fine relation of part to part and space to space, was probably-- +aided by the presence of ornament as positive as it was discreet, +and by the complexion of the stone, a cold fair grey, warmed and +polished a little by life--neither more nor less than a case of +distinction, such a case as he could only feel unexpectedly as a +sort of delivered challenge? Meanwhile, however, the chance he had +allowed for--the chance of being seen in time from the balcony--had +become a fact. Two or three of the windows stood open to the violet +air; and, before Strether had cut the knot by crossing, a young man +had come out and looked about him, had lighted a cigarette and +tossed the match over, and then, resting on the rail, had given +himself up to watching the life below while he smoked. His arrival +contributed, in its order, to keeping Strether in position; the +result of which in turn was that Strether soon felt himself +noticed. The young man began to look at him as in acknowledgement +of his being himself in observation. + +This was interesting so far as it went, but the interest was +affected by the young man's not being Chad. Strether wondered at +first if he were perhaps Chad altered, and then saw that this was +asking too much of alteration. The young man was light bright and +alert--with an air too pleasant to have been arrived at by +patching. Strether had conceived Chad as patched, but not beyond +recognition. He was in presence, he felt, of amendments enough as +they stood; it was a sufficient amendment that the gentleman up +there should be Chad's friend. He was young too then, the gentleman +up there--he was very young; young enough apparently to be amused +at an elderly watcher, to be curious even to see what the elderly +watcher would do on finding himself watched. There was youth in +that, there was youth in the surrender to the balcony, there was +youth for Strether at this moment in everything but his own +business; and Chad's thus pronounced association with youth had +given the next instant an extraordinary quick lift to the issue. +The balcony, the distinguished front, testified suddenly, for +Strether's fancy, to something that was up and up; they placed the +whole case materially, and as by an admirable image, on a level +that he found himself at the end of another moment rejoicing to +think he might reach. The young man looked at him still, he looked +at the young man; and the issue, by a rapid process, was that this +knowledge of a perched privacy appeared to him the last of +luxuries. To him too the perched privacy was open, and he saw it +now but in one light--that of the only domicile, the only fireside, +in the great ironic city, on which he had the shadow of a claim. +Miss Gostrey had a fireside; she had told him of it, and it was +something that doubtless awaited him; but Miss Gostrey hadn't yet +arrived--she mightn't arrive for days; and the sole attenuation of +his excluded state was his vision of the small, the admittedly +secondary hotel in the bye-street from the Rue de la Paix, in which +her solicitude for his purse had placed him, which affected him +somehow as all indoor chill, glass-roofed court and slippery +staircase, and which, by the same token, expressed the presence of +Waymarsh even at times when Waymarsh might have been certain to be +round at the bank. It came to pass before he moved that Waymarsh, +and Waymarsh alone, Waymarsh not only undiluted but positively +strengthened, struck him as the present alternative to the young +man in the balcony. When he did move it was fairly to escape that +alternative. Taking his way over the street at last and passing +through the porte-cochere of the house was like consciously leaving +Waymarsh out. However, he would tell him all about it. + + + + + +Book Third + + + + +I + + +Strether told Waymarsh all about it that very evening, on their +dining together at the hotel; which needn't have happened, he was +all the while aware, hadn't he chosen to sacrifice to this occasion +a rarer opportunity. The mention to his companion of the sacrifice +was moreover exactly what introduced his recital--or, as he would +have called it with more confidence in his interlocutor, his +confession. His confession was that he had been captured and that +one of the features of the affair had just failed to be his +engaging himself on the spot to dinner. As by such a freedom +Waymarsh would have lost him he had obeyed his scruple; and he had +likewise obeyed another scruple--which bore on the question of his +himself bringing a guest. + +Waymarsh looked gravely ardent, over the finished soup, at this +array of scruples; Strether hadn't yet got quite used to being so +unprepared for the consequences of the impression he produced. It +was comparatively easy to explain, however, that he hadn't felt +sure his guest would please. The person was a young man whose +acquaintance he had made but that afternoon in the course of rather +a hindered enquiry for another person--an enquiry his new friend +had just prevented in fact from being vain. "Oh," said Strether, +"I've all sorts of things to tell you!"--and he put it in a way +that was a virtual hint to Waymarsh to help him to enjoy the +telling. He waited for his fish, he drank of his wine, he wiped his +long moustache, he leaned back in his chair, he took in the two +English ladies who had just creaked past them and whom he would +even have articulately greeted if they hadn't rather chilled the +impulse; so that all he could do was--by way of doing something--to +say "Merci, Francois!" out quite loud when his fish was brought. +Everything was there that he wanted, everything that could make the +moment an occasion, that would do beautifully--everything but what +Waymarsh might give. The little waxed salle-a-manger was sallow and +sociable; Francois, dancing over it, all smiles, was a man and a +brother; the high-shouldered patronne, with her high-held, +much-rubbed hands, seemed always assenting exuberantly to something +unsaid; the Paris evening in short was, for Strether, in the very +taste of the soup, in the goodness, as he was innocently pleased to +think it, of the wine, in the pleasant coarse texture of the napkin +and the crunch of the thick-crusted bread. These all were things +congruous with his confession, and his confession was that he HAD-- +it would come out properly just there if Waymarsh would only take +it properly--agreed to breakfast out, at twelve literally, the next +day. He didn't quite know where; the delicacy of the case came +straight up in the remembrance of his new friend's "We'll see; I'll +take you somewhere!"--for it had required little more than that, +after all, to let him right in. He was affected after a minute, +face to face with his actual comrade, by the impulse to overcolour. +There had already been things in respect to which he knew himself +tempted by this perversity. If Waymarsh thought them bad he should +at least have his reason for his discomfort; so Strether showed +them as worse. Still, he was now, in his way, sincerely perplexed. + +Chad had been absent from the Boulevard Malesherbes--was absent +from Paris altogether; he had learned that from the concierge, but +had nevertheless gone up, and gone up--there were no two ways about +it--from an uncontrollable, a really, if one would, depraved +curiosity. The concierge had mentioned to him that a friend of the +tenant of the troisieme was for the time in possession; and this +had been Strether's pretext for a further enquiry, an experiment +carried on, under Chad's roof, without his knowledge. "I found his +friend in fact there keeping the place warm, as he called it, for +him; Chad himself being, as appears, in the south. He went a month +ago to Cannes and though his return begins to be looked for it +can't be for some days. I might, you see, perfectly have waited a +week; might have beaten a retreat as soon as I got this essential +knowledge. But I beat no retreat; I did the opposite; I stayed, I +dawdled, I trifled; above all I looked round. I saw, in fine; and-- +I don't know what to call it--I sniffed. It's a detail, but it's as +if there were something--something very good--TO sniff." + +Waymarsh's face had shown his friend an attention apparently so +remote that the latter was slightly surprised to find it at this +point abreast with him. "Do you mean a smell? What of?" + +"A charming scent. But I don't know." + +Waymarsh gave an inferential grunt. "Does he live there with a +woman?" + +"I don't know." + +Waymarsh waited an instant for more, then resumed. "Has he taken +her off with him?" + +"And will he bring her back?"--Strether fell into the enquiry. But +he wound it up as before. "I don't know." + +The way he wound it up, accompanied as this was with another drop +back, another degustation of the Leoville, another wipe of his +moustache and another good word for Francois, seemed to produce in +his companion a slight irritation. "Then what the devil DO you +know?" + +"Well," said Strether almost gaily, "I guess I don't know anything!" +His gaiety might have been a tribute to the fact that the state he +had been reduced to did for him again what had been done by his talk +of the matter with Miss Gostrey at the London theatre. It was somehow +enlarging; and the air of that amplitude was now doubtless more or +less--and all for Waymarsh to feel--in his further response. "That's +what I found out from the young man." + +"But I thought you said you found out nothing." + +"Nothing but that--that I don't know anything." + +"And what good does that do you?" + +"It's just," said Strether, "what I've come to you to help me to +discover. I mean anything about anything over here. I FELT that, up +there. It regularly rose before me in its might. The young man +moreover--Chad's friend--as good as told me so." + +"As good as told you you know nothing about anything?" Waymarsh +appeared to look at some one who might have as good as told HIM. +"How old is he?" + +"Well, I guess not thirty." + +"Yet you had to take that from him?" + +"Oh I took a good deal more--since, as I tell you, I took an +invitation to dejeuner." + +"And are you GOING to that unholy meal?" + +"If you'll come with me. He wants you too, you know. I told him +about you. He gave me his card," Strether pursued, "and his name's +rather funny. It's John Little Bilham, and he says his two surnames +are, on account of his being small, inevitably used together." + +"Well," Waymarsh asked with due detachment from these details, +"what's he doing up there?" + +"His account of himself is that he's 'only a little artist-man.' +That seemed to me perfectly to describe him. But he's yet in the +phase of study; this, you know, is the great art-school--to pass a +certain number of years in which he came over. And he's a great +friend of Chad's, and occupying Chad's rooms just now because +they're so pleasant. HE'S very pleasant and curious too," Strether +added--"though he's not from Boston." + +Waymarsh looked already rather sick of him. "Where is he from?" + +Strether thought. "I don't know that, either. But he's +'notoriously,' as he put it himself, not from Boston." + +"Well," Waymarsh moralised from dry depths, "every one can't +notoriously be from Boston. Why," he continued, "is he curious?" + +"Perhaps just for THAT--for one thing! But really," Strether added, +"for everything. When you meet him you'll see." + +"Oh I don't want to meet him," Waymarsh impatiently growled. "Why +don't he go home?" + +Strether hesitated. "Well, because he likes it over here." + +This appeared in particular more than Waymarsh could bear. "He +ought then to be ashamed of himself, and, as you admit that you +think so too, why drag him in?" + +Strether's reply again took time. "Perhaps I do think so myself-- +though I don't quite yet admit it. I'm not a bit sure--it's again +one of the things I want to find out. I liked him, and CAN you like +people--? But no matter." He pulled himself up. "There's no doubt I +want you to come down on me and squash me." + +Waymarsh helped himself to the next course, which, however proving +not the dish he had just noted as supplied to the English ladies, +had the effect of causing his imagination temporarily to wander. +But it presently broke out at a softer spot. "Have they got a +handsome place up there?" + +"Oh a charming place; full of beautiful and valuable things. I +never saw such a place"--and Strether's thought went back to it. +"For a little artist-man--!" He could in fact scarce express it. + +But his companion, who appeared now to have a view, insisted. +"Well?" + +"Well, life can hold nothing better. Besides, they're things of +which he's in charge." + +"So that he does doorkeeper for your precious pair? Can life," +Waymarsh enquired, "hold nothing better than THAT?" Then as +Strether, silent, seemed even yet to wonder, "Doesn't he know what +SHE is?" he went on. + +"I don't know. I didn't ask him. I couldn't. It was impossible. You +wouldn't either. Besides I didn't want to. No more would you." +Strether in short explained it at a stroke. "You can't make out +over here what people do know." + +"Then what did you come over for?" + +"Well, I suppose exactly to see for myself--without their aid." + +"Then what do you want mine for?" + +"Oh," Strether laughed, "you're not one of THEM! I do know what you +know." + +As, however, this last assertion caused Waymarsh again to look at +him hard--such being the latter's doubt of its implications--he +felt his justification lame. Which was still more the case when +Waymarsh presently said: "Look here, Strether. Quit this." + +Our friend smiled with a doubt of his own. "Do you mean my tone?" + +"No--damn your tone. I mean your nosing round. Quit the whole job. +Let them stew in their juice. You're being used for a thing you +ain't fit for. People don't take a fine-tooth comb to groom a +horse." + +"Am I a fine-tooth comb?" Strether laughed. "It's something I never +called myself!" + +"It's what you are, all the same. You ain't so young as you were, +but you've kept your teeth." + +He acknowledged his friend's humour. "Take care I don't get them +into YOU! You'd like them, my friends at home, Waymarsh," he +declared; "you'd really particularly like them. And I know"--it was +slightly irrelevant, but he gave it sudden and singular force--"I +know they'd like you!" + +"Oh don't work them off on ME!" Waymarsh groaned. + +Yet Strether still lingered with his hands in his pockets. "It's +really quite as indispensable as I say that Chad should be got +back." + +"Indispensable to whom? To you?" + +"Yes," Strether presently said. + +"Because if you get him you also get Mrs. Newsome?" + +Strether faced it. "Yes." + +"And if you don't get him you don't get her?" + +It might be merciless, but he continued not to flinch. "I think it +might have some effect on our personal understanding. Chad's of +real importance--or can easily become so if he will--to the +business." + +"And the business is of real importance to his mother's husband?" + +"Well, I naturally want what my future wife wants. And the thing +will be much better if we have our own man in it." + +"If you have your own man in it, in other words," Waymarsh said, +"you'll marry--you personally--more money. She's already rich, as I +understand you, but she'll be richer still if the business can be +made to boom on certain lines that you've laid down." + +"I haven't laid them down," Strether promptly returned. "Mr. Newsome +--who knew extraordinarily well what he was about--laid them down +ten years ago." + +Oh well, Waymarsh seemed to indicate with a shake of his mane, THAT +didn't matter! "You're fierce for the boom anyway." + +His friend weighed a moment in silence the justice of the charge. +"I can scarcely be called fierce, I think, when I so freely take my +chance of the possibility, the danger, of being influenced in a +sense counter to Mrs. Newsome's own feelings." + +Waymarsh gave this proposition a long hard look. "I see. You're +afraid yourself of being squared. But you're a humbug," he added, +all the same." + +"Oh!" Strether quickly protested. + +"Yes, you ask me for protection--which makes you very interesting; +and then you won't take it. You say you want to be squashed--" + +"Ah but not so easily! Don't you see," Strether demanded "where my +interest, as already shown you, lies? It lies in my not being +squared. If I'm squared where's my marriage? If I miss my errand I +miss that; and if I miss that I miss everything--I'm nowhere." + +Waymarsh--but all relentlessly--took this in. "What do I care where +you are if you're spoiled?" + +Their eyes met on it an instant. "Thank you awfully," Strether at +last said. "But don't you think HER judgement of that--?" + +"Ought to content me? No." + +It kept them again face to face, and the end of this was that +Strether again laughed. "You do her injustice. You really MUST know +her. Good-night." + +He breakfasted with Mr. Bilham on the morrow, and, as +inconsequently befell, with Waymarsh massively of the party. The +latter announced, at the eleventh hour and much to his friend's +surprise, that, damn it, he would as soon join him as do anything +else; on which they proceeded together, strolling in a state of +detachment practically luxurious for them to the Boulevard +Malesherbes, a couple engaged that day with the sharp spell of +Paris as confessedly, it might have been seen, as any couple +among the daily thousands so compromised. They walked, wandered, +wondered and, a little, lost themselves; Strether hadn't had for +years so rich a consciousness of time--a bag of gold into which +he constantly dipped for a handful. It was present to him that +when the little business with Mr. Bilham should be over he would +still have shining hours to use absolutely as he liked. There was +no great pulse of haste yet in this process of saving Chad; nor +was that effect a bit more marked as he sat, half an hour later, +with his legs under Chad's mahogany, with Mr. Bilham on one side, +with a friend of Mr. Bilham's on the other, with Waymarsh +stupendously opposite, and with the great hum of Paris coming up +in softness, vagueness-for Strether himself indeed already +positive sweetness--through the sunny windows toward which, the +day before, his curiosity had raised its wings from below. The +feeling strongest with him at that moment had borne fruit almost +faster than he could taste it, and Strether literally felt at the +present hour that there was a precipitation in his fate. He had +known nothing and nobody as he stood in the street; but hadn't +his view now taken a bound in the direction of every one and of +every thing? + +"What's he up to, what's he up to?"--something like that was at +the back of his head all the while in respect to little Bilham; +but meanwhile, till he should make out, every one and every thing +were as good as represented for him by the combination of his +host and the lady on his left. The lady on his left, the lady +thus promptly and ingeniously invited to "meet" Mr. Strether and +Mr. Waymarsh--it was the way she herself expressed her case--was +a very marked person, a person who had much to do with our +friend's asking himself if the occasion weren't in its essence +the most baited, the most gilded of traps. Baited it could +properly be called when the repast was of so wise a savour, and +gilded surrounding objects seemed inevitably to need to be when +Miss Barrace--which was the lady's name--looked at them with +convex Parisian eyes and through a glass with a remarkably long +tortoise-shell handle. Why Miss Barrace, mature meagre erect and +eminently gay, highly adorned, perfectly familiar, freely +contradictions and reminding him of some last-century portrait of +a clever head without powder--why Miss Barrace should have been +in particular the note of a "trap" Strether couldn't on the spot +have explained; he blinked in the light of a conviction that he +should know later on, and know well--as it came over him, for +that matter, with force, that he should need to. He wondered what +he was to think exactly of either of his new friends; since the +young man, Chad's intimate and deputy, had, in thus constituting +the scene, practised so much more subtly than he had been +prepared for, and since in especial Miss Barrace, surrounded +clearly by every consideration, hadn't scrupled to figure as a +familiar object. It was interesting to him to feel that he was in +the presence of new measures, other standards, a different scale +of relations, and that evidently here were a happy pair who +didn't think of things at all as he and Waymarsh thought. Nothing +was less to have been calculated in the business than that it +should now be for him as if he and Waymarsh were comparatively +quite at one. + +The latter was magnificent--this at least was an assurance +privately given him by Miss Barrace. "Oh your friend's a type, +the grand old American--what shall one call it? The Hebrew +prophet, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, who used when I was a little girl in +the Rue Montaigne to come to see my father and who was usually +the American Minister to the Tuileries or some other court. I +haven't seen one these ever so many years; the sight of it warms +my poor old chilled heart; this specimen is wonderful; in the +right quarter, you know, he'll have a succes fou." Strether +hadn't failed to ask what the right quarter might be, much as he +required his presence of mind to meet such a change in their +scheme. "Oh the artist-quarter and that kind of thing; HERE +already, for instance, as you see." He had been on the point of +echoing "'Here'?--is THIS the artist-quarter?" but she had +already disposed of the question with a wave of all her tortoise-shell +and an easy "Bring him to ME!" He knew on the spot how little he +should be able to bring him, for the very air was by this time, +to his sense, thick and hot with poor Waymarsh's judgement of it. +He was in the trap still more than his companion and, unlike +his companion, not making the best of it; which was precisely what +doubtless gave him his admirable sombre glow. Little did Miss Barrace +know that what was behind it was his grave estimate of her own laxity. +The general assumption with which our two friends had arrived had been +that of finding Mr. Bilham ready to conduct them to one or other of +those resorts of the earnest, the aesthetic fraternity which were shown +among the sights of Paris. In this character it would have justified +them in a proper insistence on discharging their score. Waymarsh's +only proviso at the last had been that nobody should pay for him; +but he found himself, as the occasion developed, paid for on a +scale as to which Strether privately made out that he already +nursed retribution. Strether was conscious across the table of +what worked in him, conscious when they passed back to the small +salon to which, the previous evening, he himself had made so rich +a reference; conscious most of all as they stepped out to the +balcony in which one would have had to be an ogre not to +recognise the perfect place for easy aftertastes. These things +were enhanced for Miss Barrace by a succession of excellent +cigarettes--acknowledged, acclaimed, as a part of the wonderful +supply left behind him by Chad--in an almost equal absorption of +which Strether found himself blindly, almost wildly pushing +forward. He might perish by the sword as well as by famine, and +he knew that his having abetted the lady by an excess that was +rare with him would count for little in the sum--as Waymarsh +might so easily add it up--of her licence. Waymarsh had smoked of +old, smoked hugely; but Waymarsh did nothing now, and that gave +him his advantage over people who took things up lightly just +when others had laid them heavily down. Strether had never +smoked, and he felt as if he flaunted at his friend that this had +been only because of a reason. The reason, it now began to appear +even to himself, was that he had never had a lady to smoke with. + +It was this lady's being there at all, however, that was the +strange free thing; perhaps, since she WAS there, her smoking was +the least of her freedoms. If Strether had been sure at each +juncture of what--with Bilham in especial--she talked about, he +might have traced others and winced at them and felt Waymarsh +wince; but he was in fact so often at sea that his sense of the +range of reference was merely general and that he on several +different occasions guessed and interpreted only to doubt. He +wondered what they meant, but there were things he scarce thought +they could be supposed to mean, and "Oh no--not THAT!" was at the +end of most of his ventures. This was the very beginning with him +of a condition as to which, later on, it will be seen, he found +cause to pull himself up; and he was to remember the moment duly +as the first step in a process. The central fact of the place was +neither more nor less, when analysed--and a pressure superficial +sufficed--than the fundamental impropriety of Chad's situation, +round about which they thus seemed cynically clustered. +Accordingly, since they took it for granted, they took for +granted all that was in connexion with it taken for granted at +Woollett--matters as to which, verily, he had been reduced with +Mrs. Newsome to the last intensity of silence. That was the +consequence of their being too bad to be talked about, and was +the accompaniment, by the same token, of a deep conception of +their badness. It befell therefore that when poor Strether put it +to himself that their badness was ultimately, or perhaps even +insolently, what such a scene as the one before him was, so to +speak, built upon, he could scarce shirk the dilemma of reading a +roundabout echo of them into almost anything that came up. This, +he was well aware, was a dreadful necessity; but such was the +stern logic, he could only gather, of a relation to the irregular +life. + +It was the way the irregular life sat upon Bilham and Miss +Barrace that was the insidious, the delicate marvel. He was eager +to concede that their relation to it was all indirect, for +anything else in him would have shown the grossness of bad +manners; but the indirectness was none the less consonant--THAT +was striking-with a grateful enjoyment of everything that was +Chad's. They spoke of him repeatedly, invoking his good name and +good nature, and the worst confusion of mind for Strether was +that all their mention of him was of a kind to do him honour. +They commended his munificence and approved his taste, and in +doing so sat down, as it seemed to Strether, in the very soil out +of which these things flowered. Our friend's final predicament +was that he himself was sitting down, for the time, WITH them, +and there was a supreme moment at which, compared with his +collapse, Waymarsh's erectness affected him as really high. One +thing was certain--he saw he must make up his mind. He must +approach Chad, must wait for him, deal with him, master him, but +he mustn't dispossess himself of the faculty of seeing things as +they were. He must bring him to HIM--not go himself, as it were, +so much of the way. He must at any rate be clearer as to what-- +should he continue to do that for convenience--he was still +condoning. It was on the detail of this quantity--and what could +the fact be but mystifying?-that Bilham and Miss Barrace threw so +little light. So there they were. + + + +II + + +When Miss Gostrey arrived, at the end of a week, she made him a +sign; he went immediately to see her, and it wasn't till then +that he could again close his grasp on the idea of a corrective. +This idea however was luckily all before him again from the +moment he crossed the threshold of the little entresol of the +Quartier Marboeuf into which she had gathered, as she said, +picking them up in a thousand flights and funny little passionate +pounces, the makings of a final nest. He recognised in an instant +that there really, there only, he should find the boon with the +vision of which he had first mounted Chad's stairs. He might have +been a little scared at the picture of how much more, in this +place, he should know himself "in" hadn't his friend been on the +spot to measure the amount to his appetite. Her compact and +crowded little chambers, almost dusky, as they at first struck +him, with accumulations, represented a supreme general adjustment +to opportunities and conditions. Wherever he looked he saw an old +ivory or an old brocade, and he scarce knew where to sit for fear +of a misappliance. The life of the occupant struck him of a +sudden as more charged with possession even than Chad's or than +Miss Barrace's; wide as his glimpse had lately become of the +empire of "things," what was before him still enlarged it; the +lust of the eyes and the pride of life had indeed thus their +temple. It was the innermost nook of the shrine--as brown as a +pirate's cave. In the brownness were glints of gold; patches of +purple were in the gloom; objects all that caught, through the +muslin, with their high rarity, the light of the low windows. +Nothing was clear about them but that they were precious, and +they brushed his ignorance with their contempt as a flower, in a +liberty taken with him, might have been whisked under his nose. +But after a full look at his hostess he knew none the less what +most concerned him. The circle in which they stood together was +warm with life, and every question between them would live there +as nowhere else. A question came up as soon as they had spoken, +for his answer, with a laugh, was quickly: "Well, they've got +hold of me!" Much of their talk on this first occasion was his +development of that truth. He was extraordinarily glad to see +her, expressing to her frankly what she most showed him, that one +might live for years without a blessing unsuspected, but that to +know it at last for no more than three days was to need it or +miss it for ever. She was the blessing that had now become his +need, and what could prove it better than that without her he had +lost himself? + +"What do you mean?" she asked with an absence of alarm that, +correcting him as if he had mistaken the "period" of one of her +pieces, gave him afresh a sense of her easy movement through the +maze he had but begun to tread. "What in the name of all the +Pococks have you managed to do?" + +"Why exactly the wrong thing. I've made a frantic friend of +little Bilham." + +"Ah that sort of thing was of the essence of your case and to +have been allowed for from the first." And it was only after this +that, quite as a minor matter, she asked who in the world little +Bilham might be. When she learned that he was a friend of Chad's +and living for the time in Chad's rooms in Chad's absence, quite +as if acting in Chad's spirit and serving Chad's cause, she +showed, however, more interest. "Should you mind my seeing him? +Only once, you know," she added. + +"Oh the oftener the better: he's amusing--he's original." + +"He doesn't shock you?" Miss Gostrey threw out. + +"Never in the world! We escape that with a perfection--! I feel +it to be largely, no doubt, because I don't half-understand him; +but our modus vivendi isn't spoiled even by that. You must dine +with me to meet him," Strether went on. "Then you'll see.' + +"Are you giving dinners?" + +"Yes--there I am. That's what I mean." + +All her kindness wondered. "That you're spending too much money?" + +"Dear no--they seem to cost so little. But that I do it to THEM. +I ought to hold off." + +She thought again--she laughed. "The money you must be spending +to think it cheap! But I must be out of it--to the naked eye." + +He looked for a moment as if she were really failing him. "Then +you won't meet them?" It was almost as if she had developed an +unexpected personal prudence. + +She hesitated. "Who are they--first?" + +"Why little Bilham to begin with." He kept back for the moment +Miss Barrace. "And Chad--when he comes--you must absolutely see." + +"When then does he come?" + +"When Bilham has had time to write him, and hear from him about +me. Bilham, however," he pursued, "will report favourably-- +favourably for Chad. That will make him not afraid to come. I +want you the more therefore, you see, for my bluff." + +"Oh you'll do yourself for your bluff." She was perfectly easy. +"At the rate you've gone I'm quiet." + +"Ah but I haven't," said Strether, "made one protest." + +She turned it over. "Haven't you been seeing what there's to +protest about?" + +He let her, with this, however ruefully, have the whole truth. "I +haven't yet found a single thing." + +"Isn't there any one WITH him then?" + +"Of the sort I came out about?" Strether took a moment. "How do I +know? And what do I care?" + +"Oh oh!"--and her laughter spread. He was struck in fact by the +effect on her of his joke. He saw now how he meant it as a joke. +SHE saw, however, still other things, though in an instant she +had hidden them. "You've got at no facts at all?" + +He tried to muster them. "Well, he has a lovely home." + +"Ah that, in Paris," she quickly returned, "proves nothing. That +is rather it DISproves nothing. They may very well, you see, the +people your mission is concerned with, have done it FOR him." + +"Exactly. And it was on the scene of their doings then that +Waymarsh and I sat guzzling." + +"Oh if you forbore to guzzle here on scenes of doings," she +replied, "you might easily die of starvation." With which she +smiled at him. "You've worse before you." + +"Ah I've EVERYTHING before me. But on our hypothesis, you know, +they must be wonderful." + +"They ARE!" said Miss Gostrey. "You're not therefore, you see," +she added, "wholly without facts. They've BEEN, in effect, +wonderful." + +To have got at something comparatively definite appeared at last a +little to help--a wave by which moreover, the next moment, +recollection was washed. "My young man does admit furthermore that +they're our friend's great interest." + +"Is that the expression he uses?" + +Strether more exactly recalled. "No--not quite." + +"Something more vivid? Less?" + +He had bent, with neared glasses, over a group of articles on a +small stand; and at this he came up. "It was a mere allusion, but, +on the lookout as I was, it struck me. 'Awful, you know, as Chad +is'--those were Bilham's words." + +"'Awful, you know'--? Oh!"--and Miss Gostrey turned them over. She +seemed, however, satisfied. "Well, what more do you want?" + +He glanced once more at a bibelot or two, and everything sent him +back. "But it is all the same as if they wished to let me have it +between the eyes." + +She wondered. "Quoi donc?" + +"Why what I speak of. The amenity. They can stun you with that as +well as with anything else." + +"Oh," she answered, "you'll come round! I must see them each," she +went on, "for myself. I mean Mr. Bilham and Mr. Newsome--Mr. +Bilham naturally first. Once only--once for each; that will do. +But face to face--for half an hour. What's Mr. Chad," she +immediately pursued, "doing at Cannes? Decent men don't go to +Cannes with the--well, with the kind of ladies you mean." + +"Don't they?" Strether asked with an interest in decent men that +amused her. + +"No, elsewhere, but not to Cannes. Cannes is different. Cannes is +better. Cannes is best. I mean it's all people you know--when you +do know them. And if HE does, why that's different too. He must +have gone alone. She can't be with him." + +"I haven't," Strether confessed in his weakness, "the least +idea." There seemed much in what she said, but he was able after a +little to help her to a nearer impression. The meeting with little +Bilham took place, by easy arrangement, in the great gallery of +the Louvre; and when, standing with his fellow visitor before one +of the splendid Titians--the overwhelming portrait of the young +man with the strangely-shaped glove and the blue-grey eyes--he +turned to see the third member of their party advance from the end +of the waxed and gilded vista, he had a sense of having at last +taken hold. He had agreed with Miss Gostrey--it dated even from +Chester--for a morning at the Louvre, and he had embraced +independently the same idea as thrown out by little Bilham, whom +he had already accompanied to the museum of the Luxembourg. The +fusion of these schemes presented no difficulty, and it was to +strike him again that in little Bilham's company contrarieties in +general dropped. + +"Oh he's all right--he's one of US!" Miss Gostrey, after the first +exchange, soon found a chance to murmur to her companion; and +Strether, as they proceeded and paused and while a quick unanimity +between the two appeared to have phrased itself in half a dozen +remarks--Strether knew that he knew almost immediately what she +meant, and took it as still another sign that he had got his job +in hand. This was the more grateful to him that he could think of +the intelligence now serving him as an acquisition positively new. +He wouldn't have known even the day before what she meant--that +is if she meant, what he assumed, that they were intense Americans +together. He had just worked round--and with a sharper turn of the +screw than any yet--to the conception of an American intense as +little Bilham was intense. The young man was his first specimen; +the specimen had profoundly perplexed him; at present however +there was light. It was by little Bilham's amazing serenity that +he had at first been affected, but he had inevitably, in his +circumspection, felt it as the trail of the serpent, the +corruption, as he might conveniently have said, of Europe; whereas +the promptness with which it came up for Miss Gostrey but as a +special little form of the oldest thing they knew justified it at +once to his own vision as well. He wanted to be able to like his +specimen with a clear good conscience, and this fully permitted +it. What had muddled him was precisely the small artist-man's way +--it was so complete--of being more American than anybody. But it +now for the time put Strether vastly at his ease to have this view +of a new way. + +The amiable youth then looked out, as it had first struck +Strether, at a world in respect to which he hadn't a prejudice. +The one our friend most instantly missed was the usual one in +favour of an occupation accepted. Little Bilham had an occupation, +but it was only an occupation declined; and it was by his general +exemption from alarm, anxiety or remorse on this score that the +impression of his serenity was made. He had come out to Paris to +paint--to fathom, that is, at large, that mystery; but study had +been fatal to him so far as anything COULD be fatal, and his +productive power faltered in proportion as his knowledge grew. +Strether had gathered from him that at the moment of his finding +him in Chad's rooms he hadn't saved from his shipwreck a scrap of +anything but his beautiful intelligence and his confirmed habit of +Paris. He referred to these things with an equal fond familiarity, +and it was sufficiently clear that, as an outfit, they still +served him. They were charming to Strether through the hour spent +at the Louvre, where indeed they figured for him as an unseparated +part of the charged iridescent air, the glamour of the name, the +splendour of the space, the colour of the masters. Yet they were +present too wherever the young man led, and the day after the +visit to the Louvre they hung, in a different walk, about the +steps of our party. He had invited his companions to cross the +river with him, offering to show them his own poor place; and his +own poor place, which was very poor, gave to his idiosyncrasies, +for Strether--the small sublime indifference and independences +that had struck the latter as fresh--an odd and engaging dignity. +He lived at the end of an alley that went out of an old short +cobbled street, a street that went in turn out of a new long +smooth avenue--street and avenue and alley having, however, in +common a sort of social shabbiness; and he introduced them to the +rather cold and blank little studio which he had lent to a comrade +for the term of his elegant absence. The comrade was another +ingenuous compatriot, to whom he had wired that tea was to await +them "regardless," and this reckless repast, and the second +ingenuous compatriot, and the faraway makeshift life, with its +jokes and its gaps, its delicate daubs and its three or four +chairs, its overflow of taste and conviction and its lack of +nearly all else--these things wove round the occasion a spell to +which our hero unreservedly surrendered. + +He liked the ingenuous compatriots--for two or three others soon +gathered; he liked the delicate daubs and the free +discriminations--involving references indeed, involving +enthusiasms and execrations that made him, as they said, sit up; +he liked above all the legend of good-humoured poverty, of mutual +accommodation fairly raised to the romantic, that he soon read +into the scene. The ingenuous compatriots showed a candour, he +thought, surpassing even the candour of Woollett; they were +red-haired and long-legged, they were quaint and queer and dear +and droll; they made the place resound with the vernacular, which +he had never known so marked as when figuring for the chosen +language, he must suppose, of contemporary art. They twanged with +a vengeance the aesthetic lyre--they drew from it wonderful airs. +This aspect of their life had an admirable innocence; and he +looked on occasion at Maria Gostrey to see to what extent that +element reached her. She gave him however for the hour, as she had +given him the previous day, no further sign than to show how she +dealt with boys; meeting them with the air of old Parisian +practice that she had for every one, for everything, in turn. +Wonderful about the delicate daubs, masterful about the way to +make tea, trustful about the legs of chairs and familiarly +reminiscent of those, in the other time, the named, the numbered +or the caricatured, who had flourished or failed, disappeared or +arrived, she had accepted with the best grace her second course of +little Bilham, and had said to Strether, the previous afternoon on +his leaving them, that, since her impression was to be renewed, +she would reserve judgement till after the new evidence. + +The new evidence was to come, as it proved, in a day or two. He +soon had from Maria a message to the effect that an excellent box at +the Francais had been lent her for the following night; it seeming +on such occasions not the least of her merits that she was subject +to such approaches. The sense of how she was always paying for +something in advance was equalled on Strether's part only by the +sense of how she was always being paid; all of which made for his +consciousness, in the larger air, of a lively bustling traffic, +the exchange of such values as were not for him to handle. She +hated, he knew, at the French play, anything but a box--just as +she hated at the English anything but a stall; and a box was what +he was already in this phase girding himself to press upon her. +But she had for that matter her community with little Bilham: she +too always, on the great issues, showed as having known in time. +It made her constantly beforehand with him and gave him mainly the +chance to ask himself how on the day of their settlement their +account would stand. He endeavoured even now to keep it a little +straight by arranging that if he accepted her invitation she +should dine with him first; but the upshot of this scruple was +that at eight o'clock on the morrow he awaited her with Waymarsh +under the pillared portico. She hadn't dined with him, and it was +characteristic of their relation that she had made him embrace her +refusal without in the least understanding it. She ever caused her +rearrangements to affect him as her tenderest touches. It was on +that principle for instance that, giving him the opportunity to be +amiable again to little Bilham, she had suggested his offering the +young man a seat in their box. Strether had dispatched for this +purpose a small blue missive to the Boulevard Malesherbes, but up +to the moment of their passing into the theatre he had received no +response to his message. He held, however, even after they had +been for some time conveniently seated, that their friend, who +knew his way about, would come in at his own right moment. His +temporary absence moreover seemed, as never yet, to make the right +moment for Miss Gostrey. Strether had been waiting till tonight to +get back from her in some mirrored form her impressions and +conclusions. She had elected, as they said, to see little Bilham +once; but now she had seen him twice and had nevertheless not said +more than a word. + +Waymarsh meanwhile sat opposite him with their hostess between; +and Miss Gostrey spoke of herself as an instructor of youth +introducing her little charges to a work that was one of the +glories of literature. The glory was happily unobjectionable, and +the little charges were candid; for herself she had travelled that +road and she merely waited on their innocence. But she referred in +due time to their absent friend, whom it was clear they should +have to give up. "He either won't have got your note," she said, +"or you won't have got his: he has had some kind of hindrance, +and, of course, for that matter, you know, a man never writes +about coming to a box." She spoke as if, with her look, it might +have been Waymarsh who had written to the youth, and the latter's +face showed a mixture of austerity and anguish. She went on +however as if to meet this. "He's far and away, you know, the best +of them." + +"The best of whom, ma'am?" + +"Why of all the long procession--the boys, the girls, or the old +men and old women as they sometimes really are; the hope, as one +may say, of our country. They've all passed, year after year; but +there has been no one in particular I've ever wanted to stop. I +feel--don't YOU?--that I want to stop little Bilham; he's so +exactly right as he is." She continued to talk to Waymarsh. "He's +too delightful. If he'll only not spoil it! But they always WILL; +they always do; they always have." + +"I don't think Waymarsh knows," Strether said after a moment, +"quite what it's open to Bilham to spoil." + +"It can't be a good American," Waymarsh lucidly enough replied; +"for it didn't strike me the young man had developed much in THAT +shape." + +"Ah," Miss Gostrey sighed, "the name of the good American is as +easily given as taken away! What IS it, to begin with, to BE one, +and what's the extraordinary hurry? Surely nothing that's so +pressing was ever so little defined. It's such an order, really, +that before we cook you the dish we must at least have your +receipt. Besides the poor chicks have time! What I've seen so +often spoiled," she pursued, "is the happy attitude itself, the +state of faith and--what shall I call it?--the sense of beauty. +You're right about him"--she now took in Strether; "little Bilham +has them to a charm, we must keep little Bilham along." Then she +was all again for Waymarsh. "The others have all wanted so +dreadfully to do something, and they've gone and done it in too +many cases indeed. It leaves them never the same afterwards; the +charm's always somehow broken. Now HE, I think, you know, really +won't. He won't do the least dreadful little thing. We shall +continue to enjoy him just as he is. No--he's quite beautiful. He +sees everything. He isn't a bit ashamed. He has every scrap of +the courage of it that one could ask. Only think what he MIGHT do. +One wants really--for fear of some accident--to keep him in view. +At this very moment perhaps what mayn't he be up to? I've had my +disappointments--the poor things are never really safe; or only at +least when you have them under your eye. One can never completely +trust them. One's uneasy, and I think that's why I most miss him +now." + +She had wound up with a laugh of enjoyment over her embroidery of +her idea--an enjoyment that her face communicated to Strether, who +almost wished none the less at this moment that she would let poor +Waymarsh alone. HE knew more or less what she meant; but the fact +wasn't a reason for her not pretending to Waymarsh that he +didn't. It was craven of him perhaps, but he would, for the high +amenity of the occasion, have liked Waymarsh not to be so sure of +his wit. Her recognition of it gave him away and, before she had +done with him or with that article, would give him worse. What was +he, all the same, to do? He looked across the box at his friend; +their eyes met; something queer and stiff, something that bore on +the situation but that it was better not to touch, passed in +silence between them. Well, the effect of it for Strether was an +abrupt reaction, a final impatience of his own tendency to +temporise. Where was that taking him anyway? It was one of the +quiet instants that sometimes settle more matters than the +outbreaks dear to the historic muse. The only qualification of the +quietness was the synthetic "Oh hang it!" into which Strether's +share of the silence soundlessly flowered. It represented, this +mute ejaculation, a final impulse to burn his ships. These ships, +to the historic muse, may seem of course mere cockles, but when he +presently spoke to Miss Gostrey it was with the sense at least of +applying the torch. "Is it then a conspiracy?" + +"Between the two young men? Well, I don't pretend to be a seer or +a prophetess," she presently replied; "but if I'm simply a woman +of sense he's working for you to-night. I don't quite know how-- +but it's in my bones." And she looked at him at last as if, little +material as she yet gave him, he'd really understand. "For an +opinion THAT'S my opinion. He makes you out too well not to." + +"Not to work for me to-night?" Strether wondered. "Then I hope he +isn't doing anything very bad." + +"They've got you," she portentously answered. + +"Do you mean he IS--?" + +"They've got you," she merely repeated. Though she disclaimed the +prophetic vision she was at this instant the nearest approach he +had ever met to the priestess of the oracle. The light was in her +eyes. "You must face it now." + +He faced it on the spot. "They HAD arranged--?" + +"Every move in the game. And they've been arranging ever since. He +has had every day his little telegram from Cannes." + +It made Strether open his eyes. "Do you KNOW that?" + +"I do better. I see it. This was, before I met him, what I +wondered whether I WAS to see. But as soon as I met him I ceased +to wonder, and our second meeting made me sure. I took him all in. +He was acting--he is still--on his daily instructions." + +"So that Chad has done the whole thing?" + +"Oh no--not the whole. WE'VE done some of it. You and I and +'Europe.'" + +"Europe--yes," Strether mused. + +"Dear old Paris," she seemed to explain. But there was more, and, +with one of her turns, she risked it. "And dear old Waymarsh. +You," she declared, "have been a good bit of it." + +He sat massive. "A good bit of what, ma'am?" + +"Why of the wonderful consciousness of our friend here. You've +helped too in your way to float him to where he is." + +"And where the devil IS he?" + +She passed it on with a laugh. "Where the devil, Strether, are +you?" + +He spoke as if he had just been thinking it out. "Well, quite +already in Chad's hands, it would seem." And he had had with this +another thought. "Will that be--just all through Bilham--the way +he's going to work it? It would be, for him, you know, an idea. +And Chad with an idea--!" + +"Well?" she asked while the image held him. + +"Well, is Chad--what shall I say?--monstrous?" + +"Oh as much as you like! But the idea you speak of," she said, +"won't have been his best. He'll have a better. It won't be all +through little Bilham that he'll work it." + +This already sounded almost like a hope destroyed. "Through whom +else then?" + +"That's what we shall see!" But quite as she spoke she turned, and +Strether turned; for the door of the box had opened, with the +click of the ouvreuse, from the lobby, and a gentleman, a stranger +to them, had come in with a quick step. The door closed behind +him, and, though their faces showed him his mistake, his air, +which was striking, was all good confidence. The curtain had just +again arisen, and, in the hush of the general attention, +Strether's challenge was tacit, as was also the greeting, with a +quickly deprecating hand and smile, of the unannounced visitor. He +discreetly signed that he would wait, would stand, and these +things and his face, one look from which she had caught, had +suddenly worked for Miss Gostrey. She fitted to them all an answer +for Strether's last question. The solid stranger was simply the +answer--as she now, turning to her friend, indicated. She brought +it straight out for him--it presented the intruder. "Why, through +this gentleman!" The gentleman indeed, at the same time, though +sounding for Strether a very short name, did practically as much +to explain. Strether gasped the name back--then only had he seen +Miss Gostrey had said more than she knew. They were in presence of +Chad himself. + +Our friend was to go over it afterwards again and again--he was +going over it much of the time that they were together, and they +were together constantly for three or four days: the note had been +so strongly struck during that first half-hour that everything +happening since was comparatively a minor development. The fact +was that his perception of the young man's identity--so absolutely +checked for a minute--had been quite one of the sensations that +count in life; he certainly had never known one that had acted, as +he might have said, with more of a crowded rush. And the rush +though both vague and multitudinous, had lasted a long time, +protected, as it were, yet at the same time aggravated, by the +circumstance of its coinciding with a stretch of decorous silence. +They couldn't talk without disturbing the spectators in the part +of the balcony just below them; and it, for that matter, came to +Strether--being a thing of the sort that did come to him--that +these were the accidents of a high civilisation; the imposed +tribute to propriety, the frequent exposure to conditions, usually +brilliant, in which relief has to await its time. Relief was never +quite near at hand for kings, queens, comedians and other such +people, and though you might be yourself not exactly one of those, +you could yet, in leading the life of high pressure, guess a +little how they sometimes felt. It was truly the life of high +pressure that Strether had seemed to feel himself lead while he +sat there, close to Chad, during the long tension of the act. He +was in presence of a fact that occupied his whole mind, that +occupied for the half-hour his senses themselves all together; but +he couldn't without inconvenience show anything--which moreover +might count really as luck. What he might have shown, had he shown +at all, was exactly the kind of emotion--the emotion of +bewilderment--that he had proposed to himself from the first, +whatever should occur, to show least. The phenomenon that had +suddenly sat down there with him was a phenomenon of change so +complete that his imagination, which had worked so beforehand, +felt itself, in the connexion, without margin or allowance. It had +faced every contingency but that Chad should not BE Chad, and this +was what it now had to face with a mere strained smile and an +uncomfortable flush. + +He asked himself if, by any chance, before he should have in some +way to commit himself, he might feel his mind settled to the new +vision, might habituate it, so to speak, to the remarkable truth. +But oh it was too remarkable, the truth; for what could be more +remarkable than this sharp rupture of an identity? You could deal +with a man as himself--you couldn't deal with him as somebody +else. It was a small source of peace moreover to be reduced to +wondering how little he might know in such an event what a sum he +was setting you. He couldn't absolutely not know, for you couldn't +absolutely not let him. It was a CASE then simply, a strong +case, as people nowadays called such things,' a case of +transformation unsurpassed, and the hope was but in the general +law that strong cases were liable to control from without. Perhaps +he, Strether himself, was the only person after all aware of it. +Even Miss Gostrey, with all her science, wouldn't be, would she? +--and he had never seen any one less aware of anything than +Waymarsh as he glowered at Chad. The social sightlessness of his +old friend's survey marked for him afresh, and almost in an +humiliating way, the inevitable limits of direct aid from this +source. He was not certain, however, of not drawing a shade of +compensation from the privilege, as yet untasted, of knowing more +about something in particular than Miss Gostrey did. His situation +too was a case, for that matter, and he was now so interested, +quite so privately agog, about it, that he had already an eye to +the fun it would be to open up to her afterwards. He derived +during his half-hour no assistance from her, and just this fact of +her not meeting his eyes played a little, it must be confessed, +into his predicament. + +He had introduced Chad, in the first minutes, under his breath, +and there was never the primness in her of the person +unacquainted; but she had none the less betrayed at first no +vision but of the stage, where she occasionally found a pretext +for an appreciative moment that she invited Waymarsh to share. The +latter's faculty of participation had never had, all round, such +an assault to meet; the pressure on him being the sharper for this +chosen attitude in her, as Strether judged it, of isolating, for +their natural intercourse, Chad and himself. This intercourse was +meanwhile restricted to a frank friendly look from the young man, +something markedly like a smile, but falling far short of a grin, +and to the vivacity of Strether's private speculation as to +whether HE carried himself like a fool. He didn't quite see how +he could so feel as one without somehow showing as one. The worst +of that question moreover was that he knew it as a symptom the +sense of which annoyed him. "If I'm going to be odiously conscious +of how I may strike the fellow," he reflected, "it was so little +what I came out for that I may as well stop before I begin." This +sage consideration too, distinctly, seemed to leave untouched the +fact that he WAS going to be conscious. He was conscious of +everything but of what would have served him. + +He was to know afterwards, in the watches of the night, that +nothing would have been more open to him than after a minute or +two to propose to Chad to seek with him the refuge of the lobby. +He hadn't only not proposed it, but had lacked even the presence +of mind to see it as possible. He had stuck there like a schoolboy +wishing not to miss a minute of the show; though for that portion +of the show then presented he hadn't had an instant's real +attention. He couldn't when the curtain fell have given the +slightest account of what had happened. He had therefore, further, +not at that moment acknowledged the amenity added by this +acceptance of his awkwardness to Chad's general patience. Hadn't +he none the less known at the very time--known it stupidly and +without reaction--that the boy was accepting something? He was +modestly benevolent, the boy--that was at least what he had been +capable of the superiority of making out his chance to be; and one +had one's self literally not had the gumption to get in ahead of +him. If we should go into all that occupied our friend in the +watches of the night we should have to mend our pen; but an +instance or two may mark for us the vividness with which he could +remember. He remembered the two absurdities that, if his presence +of mind HAD failed, were the things that had had most to do with +it. He had never in his life seen a young man come into a box at +ten o'clock at night, and would, if challenged on the question in +advance, have scarce been ready to pronounce as to different ways +of doing so. But it was in spite of this definite to him that Chad +had had a way that was wonderful: a fact carrying with it an +implication that, as one might imagine it, he knew, he had +learned, how. + +Here already then were abounding results; he had on the spot and +without the least trouble of intention taught Strether that even +in so small a thing as that there were different ways. He had +done in the same line still more than this; had by a mere shake or +two of the head made his old friend observe that the change in him +was perhaps more than anything else, for the eye, a matter of the +marked streaks of grey, extraordinary at his age, in his thick +black hair; as well as that this new feature was curiously +becoming to him, did something for him, as characterisation, also +even--of all things in the world--as refinement, that had been a +good deal wanted. Strether felt, however, he would have had to +confess, that it wouldn't have been easy just now, on this and +other counts, in the presence of what had been supplied, to be +quite clear as to what had been missed. A reflexion a candid +critic might have made of old, for instance, was that it would +have been happier for the son to look more like the mother; but +this was a reflexion that at present would never occur. The ground +had quite fallen away from it, yet no resemblance whatever to the +mother had supervened. It would have been hard for a young man's +face and air to disconnect themselves more completely than Chad's +at this juncture from any discerned, from any imaginable aspect of +a New England female parent. That of course was no more than had +been on the cards; but it produced in Strether none the less one +of those frequent phenomena of mental reference with which all +judgement in him was actually beset. + +Again and again as the days passed he had had a sense of the +pertinence of communicating quickly with Woollett--communicating +with a quickness with which telegraphy alone would rhyme; the +fruit really of a fine fancy in him for keeping things straight, +for the happy forestalment of error. No one could explain better +when needful, nor put more conscience into an account or a report; +which burden of conscience is perhaps exactly the reason why his +heart always sank when the clouds of explanation gathered. His +highest ingenuity was in keeping the sky of life clear of them. +Whether or no he had a grand idea of the lucid, he held that nothing +ever was in fact--for any one else--explained. One went through +the vain motions, but it was mostly a waste of life. A personal +relation was a relation only so long as people either perfectly +understood or, better still, didn't care if they didn't. From +the moment they cared if they didn't it was living by the sweat +of one's brow; and the sweat of one's brow was just what one +might buy one's self off from by keeping the ground free of the +wild weed of delusion. It easily grew too fast, and the Atlantic +cable now alone could race with it. That agency would each day +have testified for him to something that was not what Woollett had +argued. He was not at this moment absolutely sure that the effect +of the morrow's--or rather of the night's--appreciation of the +crisis wouldn't be to determine some brief missive. "Have at last +seen him, but oh dear!"--some temporary relief of that sort seemed +to hover before him. It hovered somehow as preparing them all--yet +preparing them for what? If he might do so more luminously and +cheaply he would tick out in four words: "Awfully old--grey hair." +To this particular item in Chad's appearance he constantly, during +their mute half-hour, reverted; as if so very much more than he +could have said had been involved in it. The most he could have +said would have been: "If he's going to make me feel young--!" +which indeed, however, carried with it quite enough. If Strether +was to feel young, that is, it would be because Chad was to feel +old; and an aged and hoary sinner had been no part of the scheme. + +The question of Chadwick's true time of life was, doubtless, what +came up quickest after the adjournment of the two, when the play +was over, to a cafe in the Avenue de l'Opera. Miss Gostrey had in +due course been perfect for such a step; she had known exactly +what they wanted--to go straight somewhere and talk; and Strether +had even felt she had known what he wished to say and that he was +arranging immediately to begin. She hadn't pretended this, as she +HAD pretended on the other hand, to have divined Waymarsh's wish +to extend to her an independent protection homeward; but Strether +nevertheless found how, after he had Chad opposite to him at a +small table in the brilliant halls that his companion straightway +selected, sharply and easily discriminated from others, it was +quite, to his mind, as if she heard him speak; as if, sitting up, +a mile away, in the little apartment he knew, she would listen +hard enough to catch. He found too that he liked that idea, and he +wished that, by the same token, Mrs. Newsome might have caught as +well. For what had above all been determined in him as a necessity +of the first order was not to lose another hour, nor a fraction of +one; was to advance, to overwhelm, with a rush. This was how he +would anticipate--by a night-attack, as might be--any forced +maturity that a crammed consciousness of Paris was likely to take +upon itself to assert on behalf of the boy. He knew to the full, +on what he had just extracted from Miss Gostrey, Chad's marks of +alertness; but they were a reason the more for not dawdling. If he +was himself moreover to be treated as young he wouldn't at all +events be so treated before he should have struck out at least +once. His arms might be pinioned afterwards, but it would have +been left on record that he was fifty. The importance of this he +had indeed begun to feel before they left the theatre; it had +become a wild unrest, urging him to seize his chance. He could +scarcely wait for it as they went; he was on the verge of the +indecency of bringing up the question in the street; he fairly +caught himself going on--so he afterwards invidiously named it--as +if there would be for him no second chance should the present be +lost. Not till, on the purple divan before the perfunctory bock, +he had brought out the words themselves, was he sure, for that +matter, that the present would be saved. + + + + + +Book Fourth + + + + +I + + +"I've come, you know, to make you break with everything, neither +more nor less, and take you straight home; so you'll be so good as +immediately and favourably to consider it!"--Strether, face to +face with Chad after the play, had sounded these words almost +breathlessly, and with an effect at first positively disconcerting +to himself alone. For Chad's receptive attitude was that of a +person who had been gracefully quiet while the messenger at last +reaching him has run a mile through the dust. During some seconds +after he had spoken Strether felt as if HE had made some such +exertion; he was not even certain that the perspiration wasn't on +his brow. It was the kind of consciousness for which he had to +thank the look that, while the strain lasted, the young man's eyes +gave him. They reflected--and the deuce of the thing was that they +reflected really with a sort of shyness of kindness--his +momentarily disordered state; which fact brought on in its turn +for our friend the dawn of a fear that Chad might simply "take it +out"--take everything out--in being sorry for him. Such a fear, +any fear, was unpleasant. But everything was unpleasant; it was +odd how everything had suddenly turned so. This however was no +reason for letting the least thing go. Strether had the next +minute proceeded as roundly as if with an advantage to follow up. +"Of course I'm a busybody, if you want to fight the case to the +death; but after all mainly in the sense of having known you and +having given you such attention as you kindly permitted when you +were in jackets and knickerbockers. Yes--it was knickerbockers, +I'm busybody enough to remember that; and that you had, for your +age--I speak of the first far-away time--tremendously stout legs. +Well, we want you to break. Your mother's heart's passionately set +upon it, but she has above and beyond that excellent arguments and +reasons. I've not put them into her head--I needn't remind you how +little she's a person who needs that. But they exist--you must +take it from me as a friend both of hers and yours--for myself as +well. I didn't invent them, I didn't originally work them out; but +I understand them, I think I can explain them--by which I mean +make you actively do them justice; and that's why you see me here. +You had better know the worst at once. It's a question of an +immediate rupture and an immediate return. I've been conceited +enough to dream I can sugar that pill. I take at any rate the +greatest interest in the question. I took it already before I left +home, and I don't mind telling you that, altered as you are, I +take it still more now that I've seen you. You're older and--I +don't know what to call it!--more of a handful; but you're by so +much the more, I seem to make out, to our purpose." + +"Do I strike you as improved?" Strether was to recall that Chad +had at this point enquired. + +He was likewise to recall--and it had to count for some time as +his greatest comfort--that it had been "given" him, as they said +at Woollett, to reply with some presence of mind: "I haven't the +least idea." He was really for a while to like thinking he had +been positively hard. On the point of conceding that Chad had +improved in appearance, but that to the question of appearance the +remark must be confined, he checked even that compromise and left +his reservation bare. Not only his moral, but also, as it were, +his aesthetic sense had a little to pay for this, Chad being +unmistakeably--and wasn't it a matter of the confounded grey hair +again?--handsomer than he had ever promised. That however fell in +perfectly with what Strether had said. They had no desire to keep +down his proper expansion, and he wouldn't be less to their +purpose for not looking, as he had too often done of old, only +bold and wild. There was indeed a signal particular in which he +would distinctly be more so. Strether didn't, as he talked, +absolutely follow himself; he only knew he was clutching his +thread and that he held it from moment to moment a little tighter; +his mere uninterruptedness during the few minutes helped him to do +that. He had frequently for a month, turned over what he should +say on this very occasion, and he seemed at last to have said +nothing he had thought of--everything was so totally different. + +But in spite of all he had put the flag at the window. This was +what he had done, and there was a minute during which he affected +himself as having shaken it hard, flapped it with a mighty +flutter, straight in front of his companion's nose. It gave him +really almost the sense of having already acted his part. The +momentary relief--as if from the knowledge that nothing of THAT +at least could be undone--sprang from a particular cause, the +cause that had flashed into operation, in Miss Gostrey's box, with +direct apprehension, with amazed recognition, and that had been +concerned since then in every throb of his consciousness. What it +came to was that with an absolutely new quantity to deal with one +simply couldn't know. The new quantity was represented by the fact +that Chad had been made over. That was all; whatever it was it was +everything. Strether had never seen the thing so done before--it +was perhaps a speciality of Paris. If one had been present at the +process one might little by little have mastered the result; but +he was face to face, as matters stood, with the finished business. +It had freely been noted for him that he might be received as a +dog among skittles, but that was on the basis of the old quantity. +He had originally thought of lines and tones as things to be +taken, but these possibilities had now quite melted away. There +was no computing at all what the young man before him would think +or feel or say on any subject whatever. This intelligence Strether +had afterwards, to account for his nervousness, reconstituted as +he might, just as he had also reconstituted the promptness with +which Chad had corrected his uncertainty. An extraordinarily short +time had been required for the correction, and there had ceased to +be anything negative in his companion's face and air as soon as it +was made. "Your engagement to my mother has become then what they +call here a fait accompli?"--it had consisted, the determinant +touch, in nothing more than that. + +Well, that was enough, Strether had felt while his answer hung +fire. He had felt at the same time, however, that nothing could +less become him than that it should hang fire too long. "Yes," he +said brightly, "it was on the happy settlement of the question +that I started. You see therefore to what tune I'm in your family. +Moreover," he added, "I've been supposing you'd suppose it." + +"Oh I've been supposing it for a long time, and what you tell me +helps me to understand that you should want to do something. To do +something, I mean," said Chad, "to commemorate an event so--what +do they call it?--so auspicious. I see you make out, and not +unnaturally," he continued, "that bringing me home in triumph as a +sort of wedding-present to Mother would commemorate it better than +anything else. You want to make a bonfire in fact," he laughed, +"and you pitch me on. Thank you, thank you!" he laughed again. + +He was altogether easy about it, and this made Strether now see +how at bottom, and in spite of the shade of shyness that really +cost him nothing, he had from the first moment been easy about +everything. The shade of shyness was mere good taste. People with +manners formed could apparently have, as one of their best cards, +the shade of shyness too. He had leaned a little forward to speak; +his elbows were on the table; and the inscrutable new face that he +had got somewhere and somehow was brought by the movement nearer +to his critics There was a fascination for that critic in its not +being, this ripe physiognomy, the face that, under observation at +least, he had originally carried away from Woollett. Strether +found a certain freedom on his own side in defining it as that of +a man of the world--a formula that indeed seemed to come now in +some degree to his relief; that of a man to whom things had +happened and were variously known. In gleams, in glances, the past +did perhaps peep out of it; but such lights were faint and +instantly merged. Chad was brown and thick and strong, and of old +Chad had been rough. Was all the difference therefore that he was +actually smooth? Possibly; for that he WAS smooth was as marked as +in the taste of a sauce or in the rub of a hand. The effect of it +was general--it had retouched his features, drawn them with a +cleaner line. It had cleared his eyes and settled his colour and +polished his fine square teeth--the main ornament of his face; and +at the same time that it had given him a form and a surface, +almost a design, it had toned his voice, established his accent, +encouraged his smile to more play and his other motions to less. +He had formerly, with a great deal of action, expressed very +little; and he now expressed whatever was necessary with almost +none at all. It was as if in short he had really, copious perhaps +but shapeless, been put into a firm mould and turned successfully +out. The phenomenon--Strether kept eyeing it as a phenomenon, an +eminent case--was marked enough to be touched by the finger. He +finally put his hand across the table and laid it on Chad's arm. +"If you'll promise me--here on the spot and giving me your word of +honour--to break straight off, you'll make the future the real +right thing for all of us alike. You'll ease off the strain of +this decent but none the less acute suspense in which I've for so +many days been waiting for you, and let me turn in to rest. I +shall leave you with my blessing and go to bed in peace." + +Chad again fell back at this and, his hands pocketed, settled +himself a little; in which posture he looked, though he rather +anxiously smiled, only the more earnest. Then Strether seemed to +see that he was really nervous, and he took that as what he would +have called a wholesome sign. The only mark of it hitherto had +been his more than once taking off and putting on his wide-brimmed +crush hat. He had at this moment made the motion again to remove +it, then had only pushed it back, so that it hung informally on +his strong young grizzled crop. It was a touch that gave the note +of the familiar--the intimate and the belated--to their quiet +colloquy; and it was indeed by some such trivial aid that Strether +became aware at the same moment of something else. The observation +was at any rate determined in him by some light too fine to +distinguish from so many others, but it was none the less sharply +determined. Chad looked unmistakeably during these instants-- +well, as Strether put it to himself, all he was worth. Our friend +had a sudden apprehension of what that would on certain sides be. +He saw him in a flash as the young man marked out by women; and +for a concentrated minute the dignity, the comparative austerity, +as he funnily fancied it, of this character affected him almost +with awe. There was an experience on his interlocutor's part that +looked out at him from under the displaced hat, and that looked +out moreover by a force of its own, the deep fact of its quantity +and quality, and not through Chad's intending bravado or swagger. +That was then the way men marked out by women WERE--and also the +men by whom the women were doubtless in turn sufficiently +distinguished. It affected Strether for thirty seconds as a +relevant truth, a truth which, however, the next minute, had +fallen into its relation. "Can't you imagine there being some +questions," Chad asked, "that a fellow--however much impressed by +your charming way of stating things--would like to put to you +first?" + +"Oh yes--easily. I'm here to answer everything. I think I can even +tell you things, of the greatest interest to you, that you won't +know enough to ask me. We'll take as many days to it as you like. +But I want," Strether wound up, "to go to bed now." + +"Really?" + +Chad had spoken in such surprise that he was amused. "Can't you +believe it?--with what you put me through?" + +The young man seemed to consider. "Oh I haven't put you through +much--yet." + +"Do you mean there's so much more to come?" Strether laughed. "All +the more reason then that I should gird myself." And as if to mark +what he felt he could by this time count on he was already on his +feet. + +Chad, still seated, stayed him, with a hand against him, as he +passed between their table and the next. "Oh we shall get on!" + +The tone was, as who should say, everything Strether could have +desired; and quite as good the expression of face with which the +speaker had looked up at him and kindly held him. All these things +lacked was their not showing quite so much as the fruit of +experience. Yes, experience was what Chad did play on him, if he +didn't play any grossness of defiance. Of course experience was in +a manner defiance; but it wasn't, at any rate--rather indeed quite +the contrary!--grossness; which was so much gained. He fairly grew +older, Strether thought, while he himself so reasoned. Then with +his mature pat of his visitor's arm he also got up; and there had +been enough of it all by this time to make the visitor feel that +something WAS settled. Wasn't it settled that he had at least the +testimony of Chad's own belief in a settlement? Strether found +himself treating Chad's profession that they would get on as a +sufficient basis for going to bed. He hadn't nevertheless after +this gone to bed directly; for when they had again passed out +together into the mild bright night a check had virtually sprung +from nothing more than a small circumstance which might have acted +only as confirming quiescence. There were people, expressive +sound, projected light, still abroad, and after they had taken in +for a moment, through everything, the great clear architectural +street, they turned off in tacit union to the quarter of +Strether's hotel. "Of course," Chad here abruptly began, "of +course Mother's making things out with you about me has been +natural--and of course also you've had a good deal to go upon. +Still, you must have filled out." + +He had stopped, leaving his friend to wonder a little what point +he wished to make; and this it was that enabled Strether meanwhile +to make one. "Oh we've never pretended to go into detail. We +weren't in the least bound to THAT. It was 'filling out' enough to +miss you as we did." + +But Chad rather oddly insisted, though under the high lamp at +their corner, where they paused, he had at first looked as if +touched by Strether's allusion to the long sense, at home, of his +absence. "What I mean is you must have imagined." + +"Imagined what?" + +"Well--horrors." + +It affected Strether: horrors were so little--superficially at +least--in this robust and reasoning image. But he was none the +less there to be veracious. "Yes, I dare say we HAVE imagined +horrors. But where's the harm if we haven't been wrong?" + +Chad raised his face to the lamp, and it was one of the moments at +which he had, in his extraordinary way, most his air of designedly +showing himself. It was as if at these instants he just presented +himself, his identity so rounded off, his palpable presence and +his massive young manhood, as such a link in the chain as might +practically amount to a kind of demonstration. It was as if--and +how but anomalously?--he couldn't after all help thinking +sufficiently well of these things to let them go for what they +were worth. What could there be in this for Strether but the hint +of some self-respect, some sense of power, oddly perverted; +something latent and beyond access, ominous and perhaps enviable? +The intimation had the next thing, in a flash, taken on a name--a +name on which our friend seized as he asked himself if he weren't +perhaps really dealing with an irreducible young Pagan. This +description--he quite jumped at it--had a sound that gratified his +mental ear, so that of a sudden he had already adopted it. Pagan-- +yes, that was, wasn't it? what Chad WOULD logically be. It was +what he must be. It was what he was. The idea was a clue and, +instead of darkening the prospect, projected a certain clearness. +Strether made out in this quick ray that a Pagan was perhaps, at +the pass they had come to, the thing most wanted at Woollett. +They'd be able to do with one--a good one; he'd find an opening-- +yes; and Strether's imagination even now prefigured and +accompanied the first appearance there of the rousing personage. +He had only the slight discomfort of feeling, as the young man +turned away from the lamp, that his thought had in the momentary +silence possibly been guessed. "Well, I've no doubt," said Chad, +"you've come near enough. The details, as you say, don't matter. +It HAS been generally the case that I've let myself go. But I'm +coming round--I'm not so bad now." With which they walked on again +to Strether's hotel. + +"Do you mean," the latter asked as they approached the door, "that +there isn't any woman with you now?" + +"But pray what has that to do with it?" + +"Why it's the whole question." + +"Of my going home?" Chad was clearly surprised. "Oh not much! Do +you think that when I want to go any one will have any power--" + +"To keep you"--Strether took him straight up--"from carrying out +your wish? Well, our idea has been that somebody has hitherto--or +a good many persons perhaps--kept you pretty well from 'wanting.' +That's what--if you're in anybody's hands--may again happen. You +don't answer my question"--he kept it up; "but if you aren't in +anybody's hands so much the better. There's nothing then but what +makes for your going." + +Chad turned this over. "I don't answer your question?" He spoke +quite without resenting it. "Well, such questions have always a +rather exaggerated side. One doesn't know quite what you mean by +being in women's 'hands.' It's all so vague. One is when one +isn't. One isn't when one is. And then one can't quite give people +away." He seemed kindly to explain. "I've NEVER got stuck--so +very hard; and, as against anything at any time really better, I +don't think I've ever been afraid." There was something in it that +held Strether to wonder, and this gave him time to go on. He broke +out as with a more helpful thought. "Don't you know how I like +Paris itself?" + +The upshot was indeed to make our friend marvel. "Oh if THAT'S all +that's the matter with you--!" It was HE who almost showed +resentment. + +Chad's smile of a truth more than met it. "But isn't that enough?" + +Strether hesitated, but it came out. "Not enough for your mother!" +Spoken, however, it sounded a trifle odd--the effect of which was +that Chad broke into a laugh. Strether, at this, succumbed as +well, though with extreme brevity. "Permit us to have still our +theory. But if you ARE so free and so strong you're inexcusable. +I'll write in the morning," he added with decision. "I'll say I've +got you." + +This appeared to open for Chad a new interest. "How often do you +write?" + +"Oh perpetually." + +"And at great length?" + +Strether had become a little impatient. "I hope it's not found too +great." + +"Oh I'm sure not. And you hear as often?" + +Again Strether paused. "As often as I deserve." + +"Mother writes," said Chad, "a lovely letter." + +Strether, before the closed porte-cochere, fixed him a moment. +"It's more, my boy, than YOU do! But our suppositions don't +matter," he added, "if you're actually not entangled." + +Chad's pride seemed none the less a little touched. "I never WAS +that--let me insist. I always had my own way." With which he +pursued: "And I have it at present." + +"Then what are you here for? What has kept you," Strether asked, +"if you HAVE been able to leave?" + +It made Chad, after a stare, throw himself back. "Do you think +one's kept only by women?" His surprise and his verbal emphasis +rang out so clear in the still street that Strether winced till he +remembered the safety of their English speech. "Is that," the +young man demanded, "what they think at Woollett?" At the good +faith in the question Strether had changed colour, feeling that, +as he would have said, he had put his foot in it. He had appeared +stupidly to misrepresent what they thought at Woollett; but before +he had time to rectify Chad again was upon him. "I must say then +you show a low mind!" + +It so fell in, unhappily for Strether, with that reflexion of his +own prompted in him by the pleasant air of the Boulevard +Malesherbes, that its disconcerting force was rather unfairly +great. It was a dig that, administered by himself--and +administered even to poor Mrs. Newsome--was no more than salutary; +but administered by Chad--and quite logically--it came nearer +drawing blood. They HADn't a low mind--nor any approach to one; +yet incontestably they had worked, and with a certain smugness, on +a basis that might be turned against them. Chad had at any rate +pulled his visitor up; he had even pulled up his admirable mother; +he had absolutely, by a turn of the wrist and a jerk of the far-flung +noose, pulled up, in a bunch, Woollett browsing in its pride. There +was no doubt Woollett HAD insisted on his coarseness; and what +he at present stood there for in the sleeping street was, by his +manner of striking the other note, to make of such insistence a +preoccupation compromising to the insisters. It was exactly as +if they had imputed to him a vulgarity that he had by a mere +gesture caused to fall from him. The devil of the case was that +Strether felt it, by the same stroke, as falling straight upon +himself. He had been wondering a minute ago if the boy weren't a +Pagan, and he found himself wondering now if he weren't by chance +a gentleman. It didn't in the least, on the spot, spring up +helpfully for him that a person couldn't at the same time be both. +There was nothing at this moment in the air to challenge the +combination; there was everything to give it on the contrary +something of a flourish. It struck Strether into the bargain as +doing something to meet the most difficult of the questions; +though perhaps indeed only by substituting another. Wouldn't it be +precisely by having learned to be a gentleman that he had mastered +the consequent trick of looking so well that one could scarce +speak to him straight? But what in the world was the clue to such +a prime producing cause? There were too many clues then that +Strether still lacked, and these clues to clues were among them. +What it accordingly amounted to for him was that he had to take +full in the face a fresh attribution of ignorance. He had grown +used by this time to reminders, especially from his own lips, of +what he didn't know; but he had borne them because in the first +place they were private and because in the second they practically +conveyed a tribute. He didn't know what was bad, and--as others +didn't know how little he knew it--he could put up with his state. +But if he didn't know, in so important a particular, what was +good, Chad at least was now aware he didn't; and that, for some +reason, affected our friend as curiously public. It was in fact an +exposed condition that the young man left him in long enough for +him to feel its chill--till he saw fit, in a word, generously +again to cover him. This last was in truth what Chad quite +gracefully did. But he did it as with a simple thought that met +the whole of the case. "Oh I'm all right!" It was what Strether +had rather bewilderedly to go to bed on. + + + +II + + +It really looked true moreover from the way Chad was to behave +after this. He was full of attentions to his mother's ambassador; +in spite of which, all the while, the latter's other relations +rather remarkably contrived to assert themselves. Strether's +sittings pen in hand with Mrs. Newsome up in his own room were +broken, yet they were richer; and they were more than ever +interspersed with the hours in which he reported himself, in a +different fashion, but with scarce less earnestness and fulness, +to Maria Gostrey. Now that, as he would have expressed it, he had +really something to talk about he found himself, in respect to any +oddity that might reside for him in the double connexion, at once +more aware and more indifferent. He had been fine to Mrs. Newsome +about his useful friend, but it had begun to haunt his imagination +that Chad, taking up again for her benefit a pen too long disused, +might possibly be finer. It wouldn't at all do, he saw, that +anything should come up for him at Chad's hand but what +specifically was to have come; the greatest divergence from which +would be precisely the element of any lubrication of their +intercourse by levity It was accordingly to forestall such an +accident that he frankly put before the young man the several +facts, just as they had occurred, of his funny alliance. He spoke +of these facts, pleasantly and obligingly, as "the whole story," +and felt that he might qualify the alliance as funny if he +remained sufficiently grave about it. He flattered himself that he +even exaggerated the wild freedom of his original encounter with +the wonderful lady; he was scrupulously definite about the absurd +conditions in which they had made acquaintance--their having +picked each other up almost in the street; and he had (finest +inspiration of all!) a conception of carrying the war into the +enemy's country by showing surprise at the enemy's ignorance. + +He had always had a notion that this last was the grand style of +fighting; the greater therefore the reason for it, as he couldn't +remember that he had ever before fought in the grand style. Every +one, according to this, knew Miss Gostrey: how came it Chad didn't +know her? The difficulty, the impossibility, was really to escape +it; Strether put on him, by what he took for granted, the burden +of proof of the contrary. This tone was so far successful as that +Chad quite appeared to recognise her as a person whose fame had +reached him, but against his acquaintance with whom much mischance +had worked. He made the point at the same time that his social +relations, such as they could be called, were perhaps not to the +extent Strether supposed with the rising flood of their +compatriots. He hinted at his having more and more given way to a +different principle of selection; the moral of which seemed to be +that he went about little in the "colony." For the moment +certainly he had quite another interest. It was deep, what he +understood, and Strether, for himself, could only so observe it. +He couldn't see as yet how deep. Might he not all too soon! For +there was really too much of their question that Chad had already +committed himself to liking. He liked, to begin with, his +prospective stepfather; which was distinctly what had not been on +the cards. His hating him was the untowardness for which Strether +had been best prepared; he hadn't expected the boy's actual form +to give him more to do than his imputed. It gave him more through +suggesting that he must somehow make up to himself for not being +sure he was sufficiently disagreeable. That had really been +present to him as his only way to be sure he was sufficiently +thorough. The point was that if Chad's tolerance of his +thoroughness were insincere, were but the best of devices for +gaining time, it none the less did treat everything as tacitly +concluded. + +That seemed at the end of ten days the upshot of the abundant, the +recurrent talk through which Strether poured into him all it +concerned him to know, put him in full possession of facts and +figures. Never cutting these colloquies short by a minute, Chad +behaved, looked and spoke as if he were rather heavily, perhaps +even a trifle gloomily, but none the less fundamentally and +comfortably free. He made no crude profession of eagerness to +yield, but he asked the most intelligent questions, probed, at +moments, abruptly, even deeper than his friend's layer of +information, justified by these touches the native estimate of his +latent stuff, and had in every way the air of trying to live, +reflectively, into the square bright picture. He walked up and +down in front of this production, sociably took Strether's arm at +the points at which he stopped, surveyed it repeatedly from the +right and from the left, inclined a critical head to either +quarter, and, while he puffed a still more critical cigarette, +animadverted to his companion on this passage and that. Strether +sought relief--there were hours when he required it--in repeating +himself; it was in truth not to be blinked that Chad had a way. +The main question as yet was of what it was a way TO. It made +vulgar questions no more easy; but that was unimportant when all +questions save those of his own asking had dropped. That he was +free was answer enough, and it wasn't quite ridiculous that this +freedom should end by presenting itself as what was difficult to +move. His changed state, his lovely home, his beautiful things, +his easy talk, his very appetite for Strether, insatiable and, +when all was said, flattering--what were such marked matters all +but the notes of his freedom? He had the effect of making a +sacrifice of it just in these handsome forms to his visitor; which +was mainly the reason the visitor was privately, for the time, a +little out of countenance. Strether was at this period again and +again thrown back on a felt need to remodel somehow his plan. He +fairly caught himself shooting rueful glances, shy looks of +pursuit, toward the embodied influence, the definite adversary, who +had by a stroke of her own failed him and on a fond theory of +whose palpable presence he had, under Mrs. Newsome's inspiration, +altogether proceeded. He had once or twice, in secret, literally +expressed the irritated wish that SHE would come out and find her. + +He couldn't quite yet force it upon Woollett that such a career, +such a perverted young life, showed after all a certain plausible +side, DID in the case before them flaunt something like an +impunity for the social man; but he could at least treat himself +to the statement that would prepare him for the sharpest echo. +This echo--as distinct over there in the dry thin air as some +shrill "heading" above a column of print--seemed to reach him even +as he wrote. "He says there's no woman," he could hear Mrs. +Newsome report, in capitals almost of newspaper size, to Mrs. +Pocock; and he could focus in Mrs. Pocock the response of the +reader of the journal. He could see in the younger lady's face the +earnestness of her attention and catch the full scepticism of her +but slightly delayed "What is there then?" Just so he could again +as little miss the mother's clear decision: "There's plenty of +disposition, no doubt, to pretend there isn't." Strether had, +after posting his letter, the whole scene out; and it was a scene +during which, coming and going, as befell, he kept his eye not +least upon the daughter. He had his fine sense of the conviction +Mrs. Pocock would take occasion to reaffirm--a conviction bearing, +as he had from the first deeply divined it to bear, on Mr. +Strether's essential inaptitude. She had looked him in his +conscious eyes even before he sailed, and that she didn't believe +HE would find the woman had been written in her book. [sic] +Hadn't she at the best but a scant faith in his ability to find women? +It wasn't even as if he had found her mother--so much more, to her +discrimination, had her mother performed the finding. Her mother +had, in a case her private judgement of which remained educative +of Mrs. Pocock's critical sense, found the man. The man owed his +unchallenged state, in general, to the fact that Mrs. Newsome's +discoveries were accepted at Woollett; but he knew in his bones, +our friend did, how almost irresistibly Mrs. Pocock would now be +moved to show what she thought of his own. Give HER a free hand, +would be the moral, and the woman would soon be found. + +His impression of Miss Gostrey after her introduction to Chad was +meanwhile an impression of a person almost unnaturally on her +guard. He struck himself as at first unable to extract from her +what he wished; though indeed OF what he wished at this special +juncture he would doubtless have contrived to make but a crude +statement. It sifted and settled nothing to put to her, tout +betement, as she often said, "Do you like him, eh?"--thanks to his +feeling it actually the least of his needs to heap up the evidence +in the young man's favour. He repeatedly knocked at her door to +let her have it afresh that Chad's case--whatever else of minor +interest it might yield--was first and foremost a miracle almost +monstrous. It was the alteration of the entire man, and was so +signal an instance that nothing else, for the intelligent +observer, could--COULD it?--signify. "It's a plot," he declared-- +"there's more in it than meets the eye." He gave the rein to his +fancy. "It's a plant!" + +His fancy seemed to please her. "Whose then?" + +"Well, the party responsible is, I suppose, the fate that waits +for one, the dark doom that rides. What I mean is that with such +elements one can't count. I've but my poor individual, my modest +human means. It isn't playing the game to turn on the uncanny. All +one's energy goes to facing it, to tracking it. One wants, confound +it, don't you see?" he confessed with a queer face--"one wants to +enjoy anything so rare. Call it then life"--he puzzled it out-- +"call it poor dear old life simply that springs the surprise. +Nothing alters the fact that the surprise is paralysing, or at any +rate engrossing--all, practically, hang it, that one sees, that +one CAN see." + +Her silences were never barren, nor even dull. "Is that what +you've written home?" + +He tossed it off. "Oh dear, yes!" + +She had another pause while, across her carpets, he had another +walk. "If you don't look out you'll have them straight over." + +"Oh but I've said he'll go back." + +"And WILL he?" Miss Gostrey asked. + +The special tone of it made him, pulling up, look at her long. +"What's that but just the question I've spent treasures of +patience and ingenuity in giving you, by the sight of him--after +everything had led up--every facility to answer? What is it but +just the thing I came here to-day to get out of you? Will he?" + +"No--he won't," she said at last. "He's not free." + +The air of it held him. "Then you've all the while known--?" + +"I've known nothing but what I've seen; and I wonder," she +declared with some impatience, that you didn't see as much. It was +enough to be with him there--" + +"In the box? Yes," he rather blankly urged. + +"Well--to feel sure." + +"Sure of what?" + +She got up from her chair, at this, with a nearer approach than +she had ever yet shown to dismay at his dimness. She even, fairly +pausing for it, spoke with a shade of pity. "Guess!" + +It was a shade, fairly, that brought a flush into his face; so +that for a moment, as they waited together, their difference was +between them. "You mean that just your hour with him told you so +much of his story? Very good; I'm not such a fool, on my side, as +that I don't understand you, or as that I didn't in some degree +understand HIM. That he has done what he liked most isn't, among +any of us, a matter the least in dispute. There's equally little +question at this time of day of what it is he does like most. But +I'm not talking," he reasonably explained, "of any mere wretch he +may still pick up. I'm talking of some person who in his present +situation may have held her own, may really have counted." + +"That's exactly what I am!" said Miss Gostrey. But she as quickly +made her point. "I thought you thought--or that they think at +Woollett--that that's what mere wretches necessarily do. Mere +wretches necessarily DON'T!" she declared with spirit. "There +must, behind every appearance to the contrary, still be somebody-- +somebody who's not a mere wretch, since we accept the miracle. +What else but such a somebody can such a miracle be?" + +He took it in. "Because the fact itself IS the woman?" + +"A woman. Some woman or other. It's one of the things that HAVE to +be." + +"But you mean then at least a good one." + +"A good woman?" She threw up her arms with a laugh. "I should call +her excellent!" + +"Then why does he deny her?" + +Miss Gostrey thought a moment. "Because she's too good to admit! +Don't you see," she went on, "how she accounts for him?" + +Strether clearly, more and more, did see; yet it made him also see +other things. "But isn't what we want that he shall account for +HER?" + +"Well, he does. What you have before you is his way. You must +forgive him if it isn't quite outspoken. In Paris such debts are +tacit." + +Strether could imagine; but still--! "Even when the woman's good?" + +Again she laughed out. "Yes, and even when the man is! There's +always a caution in such cases," she more seriously explained-- +"for what it may seem to show. There's nothing that's taken as +showing so much here as sudden unnatural goodness." + +"Ah then you're speaking now," Strether said, "of people who are +NOT nice." + +"I delight," she replied, "in your classifications. But do you +want me," she asked, "to give you in the matter, on this ground, +the wisest advice I'm capable of? Don't consider her, don't judge +her at all in herself. Consider her and judge her only in Chad." + +He had the courage at least of his companion's logic. "Because +then I shall like her?" He almost looked, with his quick imagination +as if he already did, though seeing at once also the full extent +of how little it would suit his book. "But is that what I came +out for?" + +She had to confess indeed that it wasn't. But there was something +else. "Don't make up your mind. There are all sorts of things. You +haven't seen him all." + +This on his side Strether recognised; but his acuteness none the +less showed him the danger. "Yes, but if the more I see the better +he seems?" + +Well, she found something. "That may be--but his disavowal of her +isn't, all the same, pure consideration. There's a hitch." She +made it out. "It's the effort to sink her." + +Strether winced at the image. "To 'sink'--?" + +"Well, I mean there's a struggle, and a part of it is just what he +hides. Take time--that's the only way not to make some mistake +that you'll regret. Then you'll see. He does really want to shake +her off." + +Our friend had by this time so got into the vision that he almost +gasped. "After all she has done for him?" + +Miss Gostrey gave him a look which broke the next moment into a +wonderful smile. "He's not so good as you think!" + +They remained with him, these words, promising him, in their +character of warning, considerable help; but the support he tried +to draw from them found itself on each renewal of contact with +Chad defeated by something else. What could it be, this +disconcerting force, he asked himself, but the sense, constantly +renewed, that Chad WAS--quite in fact insisted on being--as good +as he thought? It seemed somehow as if he couldn't BUT be as good +from the moment he wasn't as bad. There was a succession of days +at all events when contact with him--and in its immediate effect, +as if it could produce no other--elbowed out of Strether's +consciousness everything but itself. Little Bilham once more +pervaded the scene, but little Bilham became even in a higher +degree than he had originally been one of the numerous forms of +the inclusive relation; a consequence promoted, to our friend's +sense, by two or three incidents with which we have yet to make +acquaintance. Waymarsh himself, for the occasion, was drawn into +the eddy; it absolutely, though but temporarily, swallowed him +down, and there were days when Strether seemed to bump against him +as a sinking swimmer might brush a submarine object. The +fathomless medium held them--Chad's manner was the fathomless +medium; and our friend felt as if they passed each other, in their +deep immersion, with the round impersonal eye of silent fish. It +was practically produced between them that Waymarsh was giving him +then his chance; and the shade of discomfort that Strether drew +from the allowance resembled not a little the embarrassment he had +known at school, as a boy, when members of his family had been +present at exhibitions. He could perform before strangers, but +relatives were fatal, and it was now as if, comparatively, +Waymarsh were a relative. He seemed to hear him say "Strike up +then!" and to enjoy a foretaste of conscientious domestic +criticism. He HAD struck up, so far as he actually could; Chad +knew by this time in profusion what he wanted; and what vulgar +violence did his fellow pilgrim expect of him when he had really +emptied his mind? It went somehow to and fro that what poor +Waymarsh meant was "I told you so--that you'd lose your immortal +soul!" but it was also fairly explicit that Strether had his own +challenge and that, since they must go to the bottom of things, he +wasted no more virtue in watching Chad than Chad wasted in +watching him. His dip for duty's sake--where was it worse than +Waymarsh's own? For HE needn't have stopped resisting and +refusing, needn't have parleyed, at that rate, with the foe. + +The strolls over Paris to see something or call somewhere were +accordingly inevitable and natural, and the late sessions in the +wondrous troisieme, the lovely home, when men dropped in and the +picture composed more suggestively through the haze of tobacco, of +music more or less good and of talk more or less polyglot, were on +a principle not to be distinguished from that of the mornings and +the afternoons. Nothing, Strether had to recognise as he leaned +back and smoked, could well less resemble a scene of violence than +even the liveliest of these occasions. They were occasions of +discussion, none the less, and Strether had never in his life +heard so many opinions on so many subjects. There were opinions at +Woollett, but only on three or four. The differences were there to +match; if they were doubtless deep, though few, they were quiet-- +they were, as might be said, almost as shy as if people had been +ashamed of them. People showed little diffidence about such +things, on the other hand, in the Boulevard Malesherbes, and were +so far from being ashamed of them--or indeed of anything else-- +that they often seemed to have invented them to avert those +agreements that destroy the taste of talk. No one had ever done that +at Woollett, though Strether could remember times when he himself had +been tempted to it without quite knowing why. He saw why at present +--he had but wanted to promote intercourse. + +These, however, were but parenthetic memories, and the turn taken +by his affair on the whole was positively that if his nerves were +on the stretch it was because he missed violence. When he asked +himself if none would then, in connexion with it, ever come at +all, he might almost have passed as wondering how to provoke it. +It would be too absurd if such a vision as THAT should have to be +invoked for relief; it was already marked enough as absurd that he +should actually have begun with flutters and dignities on the +score of a single accepted meal. What sort of a brute had he +expected Chad to be, anyway?--Strether had occasion to make the +enquiry but was careful to make it in private. He could himself, +comparatively recent as it was--it was truly but the fact of a few +days since--focus his primal crudity; but he would on the +approach of an observer, as if handling an illicit possession, +have slipped the reminiscence out of sight. There were echoes of +it still in Mrs. Newsome's letters, and there were moments when +these echoes made him exclaim on her want of tact. He blushed of +course, at once, still more for the explanation than for the +ground of it: it came to him in time to save his manners that she +couldn't at the best become tactful as quickly as he. Her tact had +to reckon with the Atlantic Ocean, the General Post-Office and the +extravagant curve of the globe. Chad had one day offered tea at +the Boulevard Malesherbes to a chosen few, a group again including +the unobscured Miss Barrace; and Strether had on coming out walked +away with the acquaintance whom in his letters to Mrs. Newsome he +always spoke of as the little artist-man. He had had full occasion +to mention him as the other party, so oddly, to the only close +personal alliance observation had as yet detected in Chad's +existence. Little Bilham's way this afternoon was not Strether's, +but he had none the less kindly come with him, and it was somehow +a part of his kindness that as it had sadly begun to rain they +suddenly found themselves seated for conversation at a cafe in +which they had taken refuge. He had passed no more crowded hour in +Chad's society than the one just ended; he had talked with Miss +Barrace, who had reproached him with not having come to see her, +and he had above all hit on a happy thought for causing Waymarsh's +tension to relax. Something might possibly be extracted for the +latter from the idea of his success with that lady, whose quick +apprehension of what might amuse her had given Strether a free +hand. What had she meant if not to ask whether she couldn't help +him with his splendid encumbrance, and mightn't the sacred rage at +any rate be kept a little in abeyance by thus creating for his +comrade's mind even in a world of irrelevance the possibility of a +relation? What was it but a relation to be regarded as so +decorative and, in especial, on the strength of it, to be whirled +away, amid flounces and feathers, in a coupe lined, by what +Strether could make out, with dark blue brocade? He himself had +never been whirled away--never at least in a coupe and behind a +footman; he had driven with Miss Gostrey in cabs, with Mrs. +Pocock, a few times, in an open buggy, with Mrs. Newsome in a +four-seated cart and, occasionally up at the mountains, on a +buckboard; but his friend's actual adventure transcended his +personal experience. He now showed his companion soon enough +indeed how inadequate, as a general monitor, this last queer +quantity could once more feel itself. + +"What game under the sun is he playing?" He signified the next +moment that his allusion was not to the fat gentleman immersed in +dominoes on whom his eyes had begun by resting, but to their host +of the previous hour, as to whom, there on the velvet bench, with +a final collapse of all consistency, he treated himself to the +comfort of indiscretion. "Where do you see him come out?" + +Little Bilham, in meditation, looked at him with a kindness almost +paternal. "Don't you like it over here?" + +Strether laughed out--for the tone was indeed droll; he let +himself go. "What has that to do with it? The only thing I've any +business to like is to feel that I'm moving him. That's why I ask +you whether you believe I AM? Is the creature"--and he did his +best to show that he simply wished to ascertain--"honest?" + +His companion looked responsible, but looked it through a small +dim smile. "What creature do you mean?" + +It was on this that they did have for a little a mute interchange. +"Is it untrue that he's free? How then," Strether asked wondering +"does he arrange his life?" + +"Is the creature you mean Chad himself?" little Bilham said. + +Strether here, with a rising hope, just thought, "We must take one +of them at a time." But his coherence lapsed. "IS there some +woman? Of whom he's really afraid of course I mean--or who does +with him what she likes." + +"It's awfully charming of you," Bilham presently remarked, "not to +have asked me that before." + +"Oh I'm not fit for my job!" + +The exclamation had escaped our friend, but it made little Bilham +more deliberate. "Chad's a rare case!" he luminously observed. +"He's awfully changed," he added. + +"Then you see it too?" + +"The way he has improved? Oh yes--I think every one must see it. +But I'm not sure," said little Bilham, "that I didn't like him +about as well in his other state." + +"Then this IS really a new state altogether?" + +"Well," the young man after a moment returned, "I'm not sure he +was really meant by nature to be quite so good. It's like the new +edition of an old book that one has been fond of--revised and +amended, brought up to date, but not quite the thing one knew and +loved. However that may be at all events," he pursued, "I don't +think, you know, that he's really playing, as you call it, any +game. I believe he really wants to go back and take up a career. +He's capable of one, you know, that will improve and enlarge him +still more. He won't then," little Bilham continued to remark, "be +my pleasant well-rubbed old-fashioned volume at all. But of course +I'm beastly immoral. I'm afraid it would be a funny world +altogether--a world with things the way I like them. I ought, I +dare say, to go home and go into business myself. Only I'd simply +rather die--simply. And I've not the least difficulty in making +up my mind not to, and in knowing exactly why, and in defending my +ground against all comers. All the same," he wound up, "I assure +you I don't say a word against it--for himself, I mean--to Chad. I +seem to see it as much the best thing for him. You see he's not +happy." + +"DO I?"--Strether stared. "I've been supposing I see just the +opposite--an extraordinary case of the equilibrium arrived at and +assured." + +"Oh there's a lot behind it." + +"Ah there you are!" Strether exclaimed. "That's just what I want +to get at. You speak of your familiar volume altered out of +recognition. Well, who's the editor?" + +Little Bilham looked before him a minute in silence. "He ought to +get married. THAT would do it. And he wants to." + +"Wants to marry her?" + +Again little Bilham waited, and, with a sense that he had +information, Strether scarce knew what was coming. "He wants to be +free. He isn't used, you see," the young man explained in his +lucid way, "to being so good." + +Strether hesitated. "Then I may take it from you that he IS good?" + +His companion matched his pause, but making it up with a quiet +fulness. "DO take it from me." + +"Well then why isn't he free? He swears to me he is, but meanwhile +does nothing--except of course that he's so kind to me--to prove +it; and couldn't really act much otherwise if he weren't. My +question to you just now was exactly on this queer impression of +his diplomacy: as if instead of really giving ground his line were +to keep me on here and set me a bad example." + +As the half-hour meanwhile had ebbed Strether paid his score, and +the waiter was presently in the act of counting out change. Our +friend pushed back to him a fraction of it, with which, after an +emphatic recognition, the personage in question retreated. "You +give too much," little Bilham permitted himself benevolently to +observe. + +"Oh I always give too much!" Strether helplessly sighed. "But you +don't," he went on as if to get quickly away from the contemplation +of that doom, "answer my question. Why isn't he free?" + +Little Bilham had got up as if the transaction with the waiter had +been a signal, and had already edged out between the table and the +divan. The effect of this was that a minute later they had quitted +the place, the gratified waiter alert again at the open door. +Strether had found himself deferring to his companion's abruptness +as to a hint that he should be answered as soon as they were more +isolated. This happened when after a few steps in the outer air +they had turned the next comer. There our friend had kept it up. +"Why isn't he free if he's good?" + +Little Bilham looked him full in the face. "Because it's a +virtuous attachment." + +This had settled the question so effectually for the time--that is +for the next few days--that it had given Strether almost a new +lease of life. It must be added however that, thanks to his +constant habit of shaking the bottle in which life handed him the +wine of experience, he presently found the taste of the lees +rising as usual into his draught. His imagination had in other +words already dealt with his young friend's assertion; of which it +had made something that sufficiently came out on the very next +occasion of his seeing Maria Gostrey. This occasion moreover had +been determined promptly by a new circumstance--a circumstance he +was the last man to leave her for a day in ignorance of. "When I +said to him last night," he immediately began, "that without some +definite word from him now that will enable me to speak to them +over there of our sailing--or at least of mine, giving them some +sort of date--my responsibility becomes uncomfortable and my +situation awkward; when I said that to him what do you think was +his reply?" And then as she this time gave it up: "Why that he has +two particular friends, two ladies, mother and daughter, about to +arrive in Paris--coming back from an absence; and that he wants +me so furiously to meet them, know them and like them, that I +shall oblige him by kindly not bringing our business to a crisis +till he has had a chance to see them again himself. Is that," +Strether enquired, "the way he's going to try to get off? These +are the people," he explained, "that he must have gone down to see +before I arrived. They're the best friends he has in the world, +and they take more interest than any one else in what concerns +him. As I'm his next best he sees a thousand reasons why we should +comfortably meet. He hasn't broached the question sooner because +their return was uncertain--seemed in fact for the present +impossible. But he more than intimates that--if you can believe +it--their desire to make my acquaintance has had to do with their +surmounting difficulties." + +"They're dying to see you?" Miss Gostrey asked. + +"Dying. Of course," said Strether, "they're the virtuous attachment." +He had already told her about that--had seen her the day after +his talk with little Bilham; and they had then threshed out +together the bearing of the revelation. She had helped him to put +into it the logic in which little Bilham had left it slightly +deficient Strether hadn't pressed him as to the object of the +preference so unexpectedly described; feeling in the presence of +it, with one of his irrepressible scruples, a delicacy from which +he had in the quest of the quite other article worked himself +sufficiently free. He had held off, as on a small principle of +pride, from permitting his young friend to mention a name; wishing +to make with this the great point that Chad's virtuous attachments +were none of his business. He had wanted from the first not to +think too much of his dignity, but that was no reason for not +allowing it any little benefit that might turn up. He had often +enough wondered to what degree his interference might pass for +interested; so that there was no want of luxury in letting it be +seen whenever he could that he didn't interfere. That had of +course at the same time not deprived him of the further luxury of +much private astonishment; which however he had reduced to some +order before communicating his knowledge. When he had done this at +last it was with the remark that, surprised as Miss Gostrey might, +like himself, at first be, she would probably agree with him on +reflexion that such an account of the matter did after all fit the +confirmed appearances. Nothing certainly, on all the indications, +could have been a greater change for him than a virtuous +attachment, and since they had been in search of the "word" as the +French called it, of that change, little Bilham's announcement-- +though so long and so oddly delayed--would serve as well as +another. She had assured Strether in fact after a pause that the +more she thought of it the more it did serve; and yet her +assurance hadn't so weighed with him as that before they parted he +hadn't ventured to challenge her sincerity. Didn't she believe the +attachment was virtuous?--he had made sure of her again with the +aid of that question. The tidings he brought her on this second +occasion were moreover such as would help him to make surer still. + +She showed at first none the less as only amused. "You say there +are two? An attachment to them both then would, I suppose, almost +necessarily be innocent." + +Our friend took the point, but he had his clue. "Mayn't he be +still in the stage of not quite knowing which of them, mother or +daughter, he likes best?" + +She gave it more thought. "Oh it must be the daughter--at his +age." + +"Possibly. Yet what do we know," Strether asked, "about hers? She +may be old enough." + +"Old enough for what?" + +"Why to marry Chad. That may be, you know, what they want. And if +Chad wants it too, and little Bilham wants it, and even we, at a +pinch, could do with it--that is if she doesn't prevent repatriation +--why it may be plain sailing yet." + +It was always the case for him in these counsels that each of his +remarks, as it came, seemed to drop into a deeper well. He had at +all events to wait a moment to hear the slight splash of this one. +"I don't see why if Mr. Newsome wants to marry the young lady he +hasn't already done it or hasn't been prepared with some statement +to you about it. And if he both wants to marry her and is on good +terms with them why isn't he 'free'?" + +Strether, responsively, wondered indeed. "Perhaps the girl herself +doesn't like him." + +"Then why does he speak of them to you as he does?" + +Strether's mind echoed the question, but also again met it. "Perhaps +it's with the mother he's on good terms." + +"As against the daughter?" + +"Well, if she's trying to persuade the daughter to consent to him, +what could make him like the mother more? Only," Strether threw +out, "why shouldn't the daughter consent to him?" + +"Oh," said Miss Gostrey, "mayn't it be that every one else isn't +quite so struck with him as you?" + +"Doesn't regard him you mean as such an 'eligible' young man? Is +that what I've come to?" he audibly and rather gravely sought to +know. "However," he went on, "his marriage is what his mother most +desires--that is if it will help. And oughtn't ANY marriage to +help? They must want him"--he had already worked it out--"to be +better off. Almost any girl he may marry will have a direct +interest in his taking up his chances. It won't suit HER at least +that he shall miss them." + +Miss Gostrey cast about. "No--you reason well! But of course on +the other hand there's always dear old Woollett itself." + +"Oh yes," he mused--"there's always dear old Woollett itself." + +She waited a moment. "The young lady mayn't find herself able to +swallow THAT quantity. She may think it's paying too much; she may +weigh one thing against another." + +Strether, ever restless in such debates, took a vague turn "It +will all depend on who she is. That of course--the proved ability +to deal with dear old Woollett, since I'm sure she does deal with +it--is what makes so strongly for Mamie." + +"Mamie?" + +He stopped short, at her tone, before her; then, though seeing +that it represented not vagueness, but a momentary embarrassed +fulness, let his exclamation come. "You surely haven't forgotten +about Mamie!" + +"No, I haven't forgotten about Mamie," she smiled. "There's no +doubt whatever that there's ever so much to be said for her. +Mamie's MY girl!" she roundly declared. + +Strether resumed for a minute his walk. "She's really perfectly +lovely, you know. Far prettier than any girl I've seen over here +yet." + +"That's precisely on what I perhaps most build." And she mused a +moment in her friend's way. "I should positively like to take her +in hand!" + +He humoured the fancy, though indeed finally to deprecate it. "Oh +but don't, in your zeal, go over to her! I need you most and +can't, you know, be left." + +But she kept it up. "I wish they'd send her out to me!" + +"If they knew you," he returned, "they would " + +"Ah but don't they?--after all that, as I've understood you you've +told them about me?" + +He had paused before her again, but he continued his course "They +WILL--before, as you say, I've done." Then he came out with the +point he had wished after all most to make. "It seems to give away +now his game. This is what he has been doing--keeping me along +for. He has been waiting for them." + +Miss Gostrey drew in her lips. "You see a good deal in it!" + +"I doubt if I see as much as you. Do you pretend," he went on, +"that you don't see--?" + +"Well, what?"--she pressed him as he paused. + +"Why that there must be a lot between them--and that it has been +going on from the first; even from before I came." + +She took a minute to answer. "Who are they then--if it's so +grave?" + +"It mayn't be grave--it may be gay. But at any rate it's marked. +Only I don't know," Strether had to confess, "anything about them. +Their name for instance was a thing that, after little Bilham's +information, I found it a kind of refreshment not to feel obliged +to follow up." + +"Oh," she returned, "if you think you've got off--!" + +Her laugh produced in him a momentary gloom. "I don't think I've +got off. I only think I'm breathing for about five minutes. I dare +say I SHALL have, at the best, still to get on." A look, over it +all, passed between them, and the next minute he had come back to +good humour. "I don't meanwhile take the smallest interest in +their name." + +"Nor in their nationality?--American, French, English, Polish?" + +"I don't care the least little 'hang,'" he smiled, "for their +nationality. It would be nice if they're Polish!" he almost +immediately added. + +"Very nice indeed." The transition kept up her spirits. "So you +see you do care." + +He did this contention a modified justice. "I think I should if +they WERE Polish. Yes," he thought--"there might be joy in THAT." + +"Let us then hope for it." But she came after this nearer to the +question. "If the girl's of the right age of course the mother +can't be. I mean for the virtuous attachment. If the girl's +twenty--and she can't be less--the mother must be at least forty. +So it puts the mother out. SHE'S too old for him." + +Strether, arrested again, considered and demurred. "Do you think +so? Do you think any one would be too old for him? I'M eighty, and +I'm too young. But perhaps the girl," he continued, "ISn't twenty. +Perhaps she's only ten--but such a little dear that Chad finds +himself counting her in as an attraction of the acquaintance. +Perhaps she's only five. Perhaps the mother's but five-and-twenty +--a charming young widow." + +Miss Gostrey entertained the suggestion. "She IS a widow then?" + +"I haven't the least idea!" They once more, in spite of this +vagueness, exchanged a look--a look that was perhaps the longest +yet. It seemed in fact, the next thing, to require to explain +itself; which it did as it could. "I only feel what I've told you +--that he has some reason." + +Miss Gostrey's imagination had taken its own flight. "Perhaps +she's NOT a widow." + +Strether seemed to accept the possibility with reserve. Still he +accepted it. "Then that's why the attachment--if it's to her--is +virtuous." + +But she looked as if she scarce followed. "Why is it virtuous if-- +since she's free--there's nothing to impose on it any condition?" + +He laughed at her question. "Oh I perhaps don't mean as virtuous +as THAT! Your idea is that it can be virtuous--in any sense worthy +of the name--only if she's NOT free? But what does it become +then," he asked, "for HER?" + +"Ah that's another matter." He said nothing for a moment, and she +soon went on. "I dare say you're right, at any rate, about +Mr. Newsome's little plan. He HAS been trying you--has been +reporting on you to these friends." + +Strether meanwhile had had time to think more. "Then where's his +straightness?" + +"Well, as we say, it's struggling up, breaking out, asserting itself +as it can. We can be on the side, you see, of his straightness. +We can help him. But he has made out," said Miss Gostrey, "that +you'll do." + +"Do for what?" + +"Why, for THEM--for ces dames. He has watched you, studied you, +liked you--and recognised that THEY must. It's a great compliment +to you, my dear man; for I'm sure they're particular. You came out +for a success. Well," she gaily declared, "you're having it!" + +He took it from her with momentary patience and then turned +abruptly away. It was always convenient to him that there were so +many fine things in her room to look at. But the examination of +two or three of them appeared soon to have determined a speech +that had little to do with them. "You don't believe in it!" + +"In what?" + +"In the character of the attachment. In its innocence." + +But she defended herself. "I don't pretend to know anything about +it. Everything's possible. We must see." + +"See?" he echoed with a groan. "Haven't we seen enough?" + +"I haven't," she smiled. + +"But do you suppose then little Bilham has lied?" + +"You must find out." + +It made him almost turn pale. "Find out any MORE?" + +He had dropped on a sofa for dismay; but she seemed, as she stood +over him, to have the last word. "Wasn't what you came out for to +find out ALL?" + + + + + +Book Fifth + + + + +I + + +The Sunday of the next week was a wonderful day, and Chad Newsome +had let his friend know in advance that he had provided for it. +There had already been a question of his taking him to see the +great Gloriani, who was at home on Sunday afternoons and at whose +house, for the most part, fewer bores were to be met than +elsewhere; but the project, through some accident, had not had +instant effect, and now revived in happier conditions. Chad had +made the point that the celebrated sculptor had a queer old +garden, for which the weather--spring at last frank and fair--was +propitious; and two or three of his other allusions had confirmed +for Strether the expectation of something special. He had by this +time, for all introductions and adventures, let himself recklessly +go, cherishing the sense that whatever the young man showed him he +was showing at least himself. He could have wished indeed, so far +as this went, that Chad were less of a mere cicerone; for he was +not without the impression--now that the vision of his game, his +plan, his deep diplomacy, did recurrently assert itself--of his +taking refuge from the realities of their intercourse in profusely +dispensing, as our friend mentally phrased et panem et circenses. +Our friend continued to feel rather smothered in flowers, though +he made in his other moments the almost angry inference that this +was only because of his odious ascetic suspicion of any form of +beauty. He periodically assured himself--for his reactions were +sharp--that he shouldn't reach the truth of anything till he had +at least got rid of that. + +He had known beforehand that Madame de Vionnet and her daughter +would probably be on view, an intimation to that effect having +constituted the only reference again made by Chad to his good +friends from the south. The effect of Strether's talk about them +with Miss Gostrey had been quite to consecrate his reluctance to +pry; something in the very air of Chad's silence--judged in the +light of that talk--offered it to him as a reserve he could +markedly match. It shrouded them about with he scarce knew what, a +consideration, a distinction; he was in presence at any rate--so +far as it placed him there--of ladies; and the one thing that was +definite for him was that they themselves should be, to the extent +of his responsibility, in presence of a gentleman. Was it because +they were very beautiful, very clever, or even very good--was it +for one of these reasons that Chad was, so to speak, nursing his +effect? Did he wish to spring them, in the Woollett phrase, with a +fuller force--to confound his critic, slight though as yet the +criticism, with some form of merit exquisitely incalculable? The +most the critic had at all events asked was whether the persons in +question were French; and that enquiry had been but a proper +comment on the sound of their name. "Yes. That is no!" had been +Chad's reply; but he had immediately added that their English was +the most charming in the world, so that if Strether were wanting +an excuse for not getting on with them he wouldn't in the least +find one. Never in fact had Strether--in the mood into which the +place had quickly launched him--felt, for himself, less the need +of an excuse. Those he might have found would have been, at the +worst, all for the others, the people before him, in whose liberty +to be as they were he was aware that he positively rejoiced. His +fellow guests were multiplying, and these things, their liberty, +their intensity, their variety, their conditions at large, were in +fusion in the admirable medium of the scene. + +The place itself was a great impression--a small pavilion, clear-faced +and sequestered, an effect of polished parquet, of fine white panel +and spare sallow gilt, of decoration delicate and rare, in the heart +of the Faubourg Saint-Germain and on the edge of a cluster of gardens +attached to old noble houses. Far back from streets and unsuspected +by crowds, reached by a long passage and a quiet court, +it was as striking to the unprepared mind, he immediately saw, +as a treasure dug up; giving him too, more than anything yet, +the note of the range of the immeasurable town and sweeping away, +as by a last brave brush, his usual landmarks and terms. +It was in the garden, a spacious cherished remnant, out of +which a dozen persons had already passed, that Chad's host +presently met them while the tall bird-haunted trees, all of a twitter +with the spring and the weather, and the high party-walls, +on the other side of which grave hotels stood off for privacy, +spoke of survival, transmission, association, a strong indifferent +persistent order. The day was so soft that the little party had +practically adjourned to the open air but the open air was in such +conditions all a chamber of state. Strether had presently the +sense of a great convent, a convent of missions, famous for he +scarce knew what, a nursery of young priests, of scattered shade, +of straight alleys and chapel-bells, that spread its mass in one +quarter; he had the sense of names in the air, of ghosts at the +windows, of signs and tokens, a whole range of expression, all +about him, too thick for prompt discrimination. + +This assault of images became for a moment, in the address of the +distinguished sculptor, almost formidable: Gloriani showed him, +in such perfect confidence, on Chad's introduction of him, a fine +worn handsome face, a face that was like an open letter in a +foreign tongue. With his genius in his eyes, his manners on his +lips, his long career behind him and his honours and rewards all +round, the great artist, in the course of a single sustained look +and a few words of delight at receiving him, affected our friend +as a dazzling prodigy of type. Strether had seen in museums--in +the Luxembourg as well as, more reverently, later on, in the New +York of the billionaires--the work of his hand; knowing too that +after an earlier time in his native Rome he had migrated, in +mid-career, to Paris, where, with a personal lustre almost violent, +he shone in a constellation: all of which was more than enough +to crown him, for his guest, with the light, with the romance, +of glory. Strether, in contact with that element as he had never +yet so intimately been, had the consciousness of opening to it, +for the happy instant, all the windows of his mind, of letting this +rather grey interior drink in for once the sun of a clime not +marked in his old geography. He was to remember again repeatedly +the medal-like Italian face, in which every line was an artist's +own, in which time told only as tone and consecration; and he was +to recall in especial, as the penetrating radiance, as the +communication of the illustrious spirit itself, the manner in +which, while they stood briefly, in welcome and response, face to +face, he was held by the sculptor's eyes. He wasn't soon to forget +them, was to think of them, all unconscious, unintending, +preoccupied though they were, as the source of the deepest +intellectual sounding to which he had ever been exposed. He was in +fact quite to cherish his vision of it, to play with it in idle +hours; only speaking of it to no one and quite aware he couldn't +have spoken without appearing to talk nonsense. Was what it had +told him or what it had asked him the greater of the mysteries? +Was it the most special flare, unequalled, supreme, of the +aesthetic torch, lighting that wondrous world for ever, or was it +above all the long straight shaft sunk by a personal acuteness +that life had seasoned to steel? Nothing on earth could have been +stranger and no one doubtless more surprised than the artist +himself, but it was for all the world to Strether just then as if +in the matter of his accepted duty he had positively been on trial. +The deep human expertness in Gloriani's charming smile--oh the +terrible life behind it!--was flashed upon him as a test of his stuff. + +Chad meanwhile, after having easily named his companion, had still +more easily turned away and was already greeting other persons present. +He was as easy, clever Chad, with the great artist as with his obscure +compatriot, and as easy with every one else as with either: +this fell into its place for Strether and made almost a new light, +giving him, as a concatenation, something more he could enjoy. +He liked Gloriani, but should never see him again; of that he was +sufficiently sure. Chad accordingly, who was wonderful with both +of them, was a kind of link for hopeless fancy, an implication of +possibilities--oh if everything had been different! Strether noted +at all events that he was thus on terms with illustrious spirits, +and also that--yes, distinctly--he hadn't in the least swaggered +about it. Our friend hadn't come there only for this figure of Abel +Newsome's son, but that presence threatened to affect the observant +mind as positively central. Gloriani indeed, remembering something +and excusing himself, pursued Chad to speak to him, and Strether was +left musing on many things. One of them was the question of whether, +since he had been tested, he had passed. Did the artist drop him +from having made out that he wouldn't do? He really felt just to-day +that he might do better than usual. Hadn't he done well enough, +so far as that went, in being exactly so dazzled? and in not having +too, as he almost believed, wholly hidden from his host that he felt +the latter's plummet? Suddenly, across the garden, he saw little +Bilham approach, and it was a part of the fit that was on him that +as their eyes met he guessed also HIS knowledge. If he had said to +him on the instant what was uppermost he would have said: "HAVE I +passed?--for of course I know one has to pass here." Little Bilham +would have reassured him, have told him that he exaggerated, and +have adduced happily enough the argument of little Bilham's own +very presence; which, in truth, he could see, was as easy a one as +Gloriani's own or as Chad's. He himself would perhaps then after a +while cease to be frightened, would get the point of view for some +of the faces--types tremendously alien, alien to Woollett--that he +had already begun to take in. Who were they all, the dispersed +groups and couples, the ladies even more unlike those of Woollett +than the gentlemen?--this was the enquiry that, when his young +friend had greeted him, he did find himself making. + +"Oh they're every one--all sorts and sizes; of course I mean +within limits, though limits down perhaps rather more than limits +up. There are always artists--he's beautiful and inimitable to the +cher confrere; and then gros bonnets of many kinds--ambassadors, +cabinet ministers, bankers, generals, what do I know? even Jews. +Above all always some awfully nice women--and not too many; +sometimes an actress, an artist, a great performer--but only when +they're not monsters; and in particular the right femmes du monde. +You can fancy his history on that side--I believe it's fabulous: +they NEVER give him up. Yet he keeps them down: no one knows how +he manages; it's too beautiful and bland. Never too many--and a +mighty good thing too; just a perfect choice. But there are not in +any way many bores; it has always been so; he has some secret. +It's extraordinary. And you don't find it out. He's the same to +every one. He doesn't ask questions.' + +"Ah doesn't he?" Strether laughed. + +Bilham met it with all his candour. "How then should I be here? + +"Oh for what you tell me. You're part of the perfect choice." + +Well, the young man took in the scene. "It seems rather good to-day." + +Strether followed the direction of his eyes. "Are they all, this +time, femmes du monde?" + +Little Bilham showed his competence. "Pretty well." + +This was a category our friend had a feeling for; a light, +romantic and mysterious, on the feminine element, in which he +enjoyed for a little watching it. "Are there any Poles?" + +His companion considered. "I think I make out a 'Portuguee.' But +I've seen Turks." + +Strether wondered, desiring justice. "They seem--all the women-- +very harmonious." + +"Oh in closer quarters they come out!" And then, while Strether +was aware of fearing closer quarters, though giving himself again +to the harmonies, "Well," little Bilham went on, "it IS at the +worst rather good, you know. If you like it, you feel it, this +way, that shows you're not in the least out But you always know +things," he handsomely added, "immediately." + +Strether liked it and felt it only too much; so "I say, don't lay +traps for me!" he rather helplessly murmured. + +"Well," his companion returned, "he's wonderfully kind to us." + +"To us Americans you mean?" + +"Oh no--he doesn't know anything about THAT. That's half the +battle here--that you can never hear politics. We don't talk them. +I mean to poor young wretches of all sorts. And yet it's always as +charming as this; it's as if, by something in the air, our squalor +didn't show. It puts us all back--into the last century." + +"I'm afraid," Strether said, amused, "that it puts me rather +forward: oh ever so far!" + +"Into the next? But isn't that only," little Bilham asked, +"because you're really of the century before?" + +"The century before the last? Thank you!" Strether laughed. "If I +ask you about some of the ladies it can't be then that I may hope, +as such a specimen of the rococo, to please them." + +"On the contrary they adore--we all adore here--the rococo, and +where is there a better setting for it than the whole thing, the +pavilion and the garden, together? There are lots of people with +collections," little Bilham smiled as he glanced round. "You'll be +secured!" + +It made Strether for a moment give himself again to contemplation. +There were faces he scarce knew what to make of. Were they +charming or were they only strange? He mightn't talk politics, yet +he suspected a Pole or two. The upshot was the question at the +back of his head from the moment his friend had joined him. "Have +Madame de Vionnet and her daughter arrived?" + +"I haven't seen them yet, but Miss Gostrey has come. She's in the +pavilion looking at objects. One can see SHE'S a collector," +little Bilham added without offence. + +"Oh yes, she's a collector, and I knew she was to come. Is Madame +de Vionnet a collector?" Strether went on. + +"Rather, I believe; almost celebrated." The young man met, on it, +a little, his friend's eyes. "I happen to know--from Chad, whom I +saw last night--that they've come back; but only yesterday. +He wasn't sure--up to the last. This, accordingly," little Bilham +went on, "will be--if they ARE here--their first appearance after +their return." + +Strether, very quickly, turned these things over. "Chad told you +last night? To me, on our way here, he said nothing about it." + +"But did you ask him?" + +Strether did him the justice. "I dare say not." + +"Well," said little Bilham, "you're not a person to whom it's easy +to tell things you don't want to know. Though it is easy, I admit-- +it's quite beautiful," he benevolently added, "when you do want to." + +Strether looked at him with an indulgence that matched his +intelligence. "Is that the deep reasoning on which--about these +ladies--you've been yourself so silent?" + +Little Bilham considered the depth of his reasoning. "I haven't +been silent. I spoke of them to you the other day, the day we sat +together after Chad's tea-party." + +Strether came round to it. "They then are the virtuous attachment?" + +"I can only tell you that it's what they pass for. But isn't that +enough? What more than a vain appearance does the wisest of us +know? I commend you," the young man declared with a pleasant +emphasis, "the vain appearance." + +Strether looked more widely round, and what he saw, from face to face, +deepened the effect of his young friend's words. "Is it so good?" + +"Magnificent." + +Strether had a pause. "The husband's dead?" + +"Dear no. Alive." + +"Oh!" said Strether. After which, as his companion laughed: +"How then can it be so good?" + +"You'll see for yourself. One does see." + +"Chad's in love with the daughter?" + +"That's what I mean." + +Strether wondered. "Then where's the difficulty?" + +"Why, aren't you and I--with our grander bolder ideas?" + +"Oh mine--!" Strether said rather strangely. But then as if to +attenuate: "You mean they won't hear of Woollett?" + +Little Bilham smiled. "Isn't that just what you must see about?" + +It had brought them, as she caught the last words, into relation +with Miss Barrace, whom Strether had already observed--as he had +never before seen a lady at a party--moving about alone. Coming +within sound of them she had already spoken, and she took again, +through her long-handled glass, all her amused and amusing +possession. "How much, poor Mr. Strether, you seem to have to see +about! But you can't say," she gaily declared, "that I don't do +what I can to help you. Mr. Waymarsh is placed. I've left him in +the house with Miss Gostrey." + +"The way," little Bilham exclaimed, "Mr. Strether gets the ladies +to work for him! He's just preparing to draw in another; to +pounce--don't you see him?--on Madame de Vionnet." + +"Madame de Vionnet? Oh, oh, oh!" Miss Barrace cried in a wonderful +crescendo. There was more in it, our friend made out, than met the +ear. Was it after all a joke that he should be serious about +anything? He envied Miss Barrace at any rate her power of not +being. She seemed, with little cries and protests and quick +recognitions, movements like the darts of some fine high-feathered +free-pecking bird, to stand before life as before some full +shop-window. You could fairly hear, as she selected and pointed, +the tap of her tortoise-shell against the glass. "It's certain that +we do need seeing about; only I'm glad it's not I who have to do it. +One does, no doubt, begin that way; then suddenly one finds that +one has given it up. It's too much, it's too difficult. You're +wonderful, you people," she continued to Strether, "for not feeling +those things--by which I mean impossibilities. You never feel them. +You face them with a fortitude that makes it a lesson to watch you." + +"Ah but"--little Bilham put it with discouragement--"what do we +achieve after all? We see about you and report--when we even go so +far as reporting. But nothing's done." + +"Oh you, Mr. Bilham," she replied as with an impatient rap on the +glass, "you're not worth sixpence! You come over to convert the +savages--for I know you verily did, I remember you--and the +savages simply convert YOU." + +"Not even!" the young man woefully confessed: "they haven't gone +through that form. They've simply--the cannibals!--eaten me; +converted me if you like, but converted me into food. I'm but the +bleached bones of a Christian." + +"Well then there we are! Only"--and Miss Barrace appealed again to +Strether--"don't let it discourage you. You'll break down soon +enough, but you'll meanwhile have had your moments. Il faut en +avoir. I always like to see you while you last. And I'll tell you +who WILL last." + +"Waymarsh?"--he had already taken her up. + +She laughed out as at the alarm of it. "He'll resist even Miss +Gostrey: so grand is it not to understand. He's wonderful." + +"He is indeed," Strether conceded. "He wouldn't tell me of this +affair--only said he had an engagement; but with such a gloom, you +must let me insist, as if it had been an engagement to be hanged. +Then silently and secretly he turns up here with you. Do you call +THAT 'lasting'?" + +"Oh I hope it's lasting!" Miss Barrace said. "But he only, at the +best, bears with me. He doesn't understand--not one little scrap. +He's delightful. He's wonderful," she repeated. + +"Michelangelesque!"--little Bilham completed her meaning. "He IS +a success. Moses, on the ceiling, brought down to the floor; +overwhelming, colossal, but somehow portable." + +"Certainly, if you mean by portable," she returned, "looking so +well in one's carriage. He's too funny beside me in his comer; he +looks like somebody, somebody foreign and famous, en exil; so that +people wonder--it's very amusing--whom I'm taking about. I show +him Paris, show him everything, and he never turns a hair. He's +like the Indian chief one reads about, who, when he comes up to +Washington to see the Great Father, stands wrapt in his blanket +and gives no sign. I might be the Great Father--from the way he +takes everything." She was delighted at this hit of her identity +with that personage--it fitted so her character; she declared it +was the title she meant henceforth to adopt. "And the way he sits, +too, in the corner of my room, only looking at my visitors very +hard and as if he wanted to start something! They wonder what he +does want to start. But he's wonderful," Miss Barrace once more +insisted. "He has never started anything yet." + +It presented him none the less, in truth, to her actual friends, +who looked at each other in intelligence, with frank amusement on +Bilham's part and a shade of sadness on Strether's. Strether's +sadness sprang--for the image had its grandeur--from his thinking +how little he himself was wrapt in his blanket, how little, in +marble halls, all too oblivious of the Great Father, he resembled +a really majestic aboriginal. But he had also another reflexion. +"You've all of you here so much visual sense that you've somehow +all 'run' to it. There are moments when it strikes one that you +haven't any other." + +"Any moral," little Bilham explained, watching serenely, across +the garden, the several femmes du monde. "But Miss Barrace has a +moral distinction," he kindly continued; speaking as if for Strether's +benefit not less than for her own. + +"HAVE you?" Strether, scarce knowing what he was about, asked of +her almost eagerly. + +"Oh not a distinction"--she was mightily amused at his tone--"Mr. Bilham's +too good. But I think I may say a sufficiency. Yes, a sufficiency. +Have you supposed strange things of me?"--and she fixed him again, +through all her tortoise-shell, with the droll interest of it. +"You ARE all indeed wonderful. I should awfully disappoint you. +I do take my stand on my sufficiency. But I know, I confess," +she went on, "strange people. I don't know how it happens; +I don't do it on purpose; it seems to be my doom--as if I were +always one of their habits: it's wonderful! I dare say moreover," +she pursued with an interested gravity, "that I do, that we all +do here, run too much to mere eye. But how can it be helped? +We're all looking at each other--and in the light of Paris one +sees what things resemble. That's what the light of Paris seems +always to show. It's the fault of the light of Paris--dear old light!" + +"Dear old Paris!" little Bilham echoed. + +"Everything, every one shows," Miss Barrace went on. + +"But for what they really are?" Strether asked. + +"Oh I like your Boston 'reallys'! But sometimes--yes." + +"Dear old Paris then!" Strether resignedly sighed while for a +moment they looked at each other. Then he broke out: "Does +Madame de Vionnet do that? I mean really show for what she is?" + +Her answer was prompt. "She's charming. She's perfect." + +"Then why did you a minute ago say 'Oh, oh, oh!' at her name?" + +She easily remembered. "Why just because--! She's wonderful." + +"Ah she too?"--Strether had almost a groan. + +But Miss Barrace had meanwhile perceived relief. "Why not put your +question straight to the person who can answer it best?" + +"No," said little Bilham; "don't put any question; wait, rather-- +it will be much more fun--to judge for yourself. He has come to +take you to her." + + + +II + + +On which Strether saw that Chad was again at hand, and he +afterwards scarce knew, absurd as it may seem, what had then +quickly occurred. The moment concerned him, he felt, more deeply +than he could have explained, and he had a subsequent passage of +speculation as to whether, on walking off with Chad, he hadn't +looked either pale or red. The only thing he was clear about was +that, luckily, nothing indiscreet had in fact been said and that +Chad himself was more than ever, in Miss Barrace's great sense, +wonderful. It was one of the connexions--though really why it +should be, after all, was none so apparent--in which the whole +change in him came out as most striking. Strether recalled as they +approached the house that he had impressed him that first night as +knowing how to enter a box. Well, he impressed him scarce less now +as knowing how to make a presentation. It did something for +Strether's own quality--marked it as estimated; so that our poor +friend, conscious and passive, really seemed to feel himself quite +handed over and delivered; absolutely, as he would have said, made +a present of, given away. As they reached the house a young woman, +about to come forth, appeared, unaccompanied, on the steps; at the +exchange with whom of a word on Chad's part Strether immediately +perceived that, obligingly, kindly, she was there to meet them. +Chad had left her in the house, but she had afterwards come +halfway and then the next moment had joined them in the garden. +Her air of youth, for Strether, was at first almost disconcerting, +while his second impression was, not less sharply, a degree of +relief at there not having just been, with the others, any freedom +used about her. It was upon him at a touch that she was no subject +for that, and meanwhile, on Chad's introducing him, she had spoken +to him, very simply and gently, in an English clearly of the +easiest to her, yet unlike any other he had ever heard. It wasn't +as if she tried; nothing, he could see after they had been a few +minutes together, was as if she tried; but her speech, charming +correct and odd, was like a precaution against her passing for a +Pole. There were precautions, he seemed indeed to see, only when +there were really dangers. + +Later on he was to feel many more of them, but by that time he was +to feel other things besides. She was dressed in black, but in +black that struck him as light and transparent; she was +exceedingly fair, and, though she was as markedly slim, her face +had a roundness, with eyes far apart and a little strange. +Her smile was natural and dim; her hat not extravagant; he had only +perhaps a sense of the clink, beneath her fine black sleeves, of +more gold bracelets and bangles than he had ever seen a lady wear. +Chad was excellently free and light about their encounter; it was +one of the occasions on which Strether most wished he himself +might have arrived at such ease and such humour: "Here you are +then, face to face at last; you're made for each other--vous allez +voir; and I bless your union." It was indeed, after he had gone +off, as if he had been partly serious too. This latter motion had +been determined by an enquiry from him about "Jeanne"; to which +her mother had replied that she was probably still in the house +with Miss Gostrey, to whom she had lately committed her. "Ah but +you know," the young man had rejoined, "he must see her"; with +which, while Strether pricked up his ears, he had started as if to +bring her, leaving the other objects of his interest together. +Strether wondered to find Miss Gostrey already involved, feeling +that he missed a link; but feeling also, with small delay, how +much he should like to talk with her of Madame de Vionnet on this +basis of evidence. + +The evidence as yet in truth was meagre; which, for that matter, +was perhaps a little why his expectation had had a drop. There was +somehow not quite a wealth in her; and a wealth was all that, in +his simplicity, he had definitely prefigured. Still, it was too +much to be sure already that there was but a poverty. They moved +away from the house, and, with eyes on a bench at some distance, +he proposed that they should sit down. "I've heard a great deal +about you," she said as they went; but he had an answer to it that +made her stop short. "Well, about YOU, Madame de Vionnet, I've +heard, I'm bound to say, almost nothing"--those struck him as the +only words he himself could utter with any lucidity; conscious as +he was, and as with more reason, of the determination to be in +respect to the rest of his business perfectly plain and go +perfectly straight. It hadn't at any rate been in the least his +idea to spy on Chad's proper freedom. It was possibly, however, at +this very instant and under the impression of Madame de Vionnet's +pause, that going straight began to announce itself as a matter +for care. She had only after all to smile at him ever so gently in +order to make him ask himself if he weren't already going crooked. +It might be going crooked to find it of a sudden just only clear +that she intended very definitely to be what he would have called +nice to him. This was what passed between them while, for another +instant, they stood still; he couldn't at least remember +afterwards what else it might have been. The thing indeed really +unmistakeable was its rolling over him as a wave that he had been, +in conditions incalculable and unimaginable, a subject of +discussion. He had been, on some ground that concerned her, +answered for; which gave her an advantage he should never be able +to match. + +"Hasn't Miss Gostrey," she asked, "said a good word for me?" + +What had struck him first was the way he was bracketed with that +lady; and he wondered what account Chad would have given of their +acquaintance. Something not as yet traceable, at all events. had +obviously happened. "I didn't even know of her knowing you." + +"Well, now she'll tell you all. I'm so glad you're in relation +with her." + +This was one of the things--the "all" Miss Gostrey would now tell +him--that, with every deference to present preoccupation, was +uppermost for Strether after they had taken their seat. One of the +others was, at the end of five minutes, that she--oh incontestably, +yes--DIFFERED less; differed, that is, scarcely at all--well, +superficially speaking, from Mrs. Newsome or even from Mrs. Pocock. +She was ever so much younger than the one and not so young as the other; +but what WAS there in her, if anything, that would have made it +impossible he should meet her at Woollett? And wherein was her talk +during their moments on the bench together not the same as would have been +found adequate for a Woollett garden-party?--unless perhaps truly in +not being quite so bright. She observed to him that Mr. Newsome had, to +her knowledge, taken extraordinary pleasure in his visit; but there was +no good lady at Woollett who wouldn't have been at least up to that. +Was there in Chad, by chance, after all, deep down, a principle of +aboriginal loyalty that had made him, for sentimental ends, attach +himself to elements, happily encountered, that would remind him most +of the old air and the old soil? Why accordingly be in a flutter-- +Strether could even put it that way--about this unfamiliar +phenomenon of the femme du monde? On these terms Mrs. Newsome +herself was as much of one. Little Bilham verily had testified +that they came out, the ladies of the type, in close quarters; but +it was just in these quarters--now comparatively close--that he +felt Madame de Vionnet's common humanity. She did come out, and +certainly to his relief, but she came out as the usual thing. +There might be motives behind, but so could there often be even at +Woollett. The only thing was that if she showed him she wished to +like him--as the motives behind might conceivably prompt--it +would possibly have been more thrilling for him that she should +have shown as more vividly alien. Ah she was neither Turk nor +Pole!--which would be indeed flat once more for Mrs. Newsome and +Mrs. Pocock. A lady and two gentlemen had meanwhile, however, +approached their bench, and this accident stayed for the time +further developments. + +They presently addressed his companion, the brilliant strangers; +she rose to speak to them, and Strether noted how the escorted +lady, though mature and by no means beautiful, had more of the +bold high look, the range of expensive reference, that he had, as +might have been said, made his plans for. Madame de Vionnet +greeted her as "Duchesse" and was greeted in turn, while talk +started in French, as "Ma toute-belle"; little facts that had +their due, their vivid interest for Strether. Madame de Vionnet +didn't, none the less, introduce him--a note he was conscious of +as false to the Woollett scale and the Woollett humanity; though +it didn't prevent the Duchess, who struck him as confident and +free, very much what he had obscurely supposed duchesses, from +looking at him as straight and as hard--for it WAS hard--as if she +would have liked, all the same, to know him. "Oh yes, my dear, +it's all right, it's ME; and who are YOU, with your interesting +wrinkles and your most effective (is it the handsomest, is it the +ugliest?) of noses?"--some such loose handful of bright flowers +she seemed, fragrantly enough, to fling at him. Strether almost +wondered--at such a pace was he going--if some divination of the +influence of either party were what determined Madame de Vionnet's +abstention. One of the gentlemen, in any case, succeeded in +placing himself in close relation with our friend's companion; a +gentleman rather stout and importantly short, in a hat with a +wonderful wide curl to its brim and a frock coat buttoned with an +effect of superlative decision. His French had quickly turned to +equal English, and it occurred to Strether that he might well be +one of the ambassadors. His design was evidently to assert a claim +to Madame de Vionnet's undivided countenance, and he made it good +in the course of a minute--led her away with a trick of three +words; a trick played with a social art of which Strether, looking +after them as the four, whose backs were now all turned, moved +off, felt himself no master. + +He sank again upon his bench and, while his eyes followed the +party, reflected, as he had done before, on Chad's strange +communities. He sat there alone for five minutes, with plenty to +think of; above all with his sense of having suddenly been dropped +by a charming woman overlaid now by other impressions and in fact +quite cleared and indifferent. He hadn't yet had so quiet a +surrender; he didn't in the least care if nobody spoke to him +more. He might have been, by his attitude, in for something of a +march so broad that the want of ceremony with which he had just +been used could fall into its place as but a minor incident of the +procession. Besides, there would be incidents enough, as he felt +when this term of contemplation was closed by the reappearance of +little Bilham, who stood before him a moment with a suggestive +"Well?" in which he saw himself reflected as disorganised, as +possibly floored. He replied with a "Well!" intended to show that +he wasn't floored in the least. No indeed; he gave it out, as the +young man sat down beside him, that if, at the worst, he had been +overturned at all, he had been overturned into the upper air, the +sublimer element with which he had an affinity and in which he +might be trusted a while to float. It wasn't a descent to earth to +say after an instant and in sustained response to the reference: +"You're quite sure her husband's living?" + +"Oh dear, yes." + +"Ah then--!" + +"Ah then what?" + +Strether had after all to think. "Well, I'm sorry for them." But +it didn't for the moment matter more than that. He assured his +young friend he was quite content. They wouldn't stir; were all +right as they were. He didn't want to be introduced; had been +introduced already about as far as he could go. He had seen +moreover an immensity; liked Gloriani, who, as Miss Barrace kept +saying, was wonderful; had made out, he was sure, the half-dozen +other 'men who were distinguished, the artists, the critics and oh +the great dramatist--HIM it was easy to spot; but wanted--no, +thanks, really--to talk with none of them; having nothing at all +to say and finding it would do beautifully as it was; do +beautifully because what it was--well, was just simply too late. +And when after this little Bilham, submissive and responsive, but +with an eye to the consolation nearest, easily threw off some +"Better late than never!" all he got in return for it was a sharp +"Better early than late!" This note indeed the next thing +overflowed for Strether into a quiet stream of demonstration that +as soon as he had let himself go he felt as the real relief. It +had consciously gathered to a head, but the reservoir had filled +sooner than he knew, and his companion's touch was to make the +waters spread. There were some things that had to come in time if +they were to come at all. If they didn't come in time they were +lost for ever. It was the general sense of them that had +overwhelmed him with its long slow rush. + +"It's not too late for YOU, on any side, and you don't strike me +as in danger of missing the train; besides which people can be in +general pretty well trusted, of course--with the clock of their +freedom ticking as loud as it seems to do here--to keep an eye on +the fleeting hour. All the same don't forget that you're young-- +blessedly young; be glad of it on the contrary and live up to it. +Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter +what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you +haven't had that what HAVE you had? This place and these +impressions--mild as you may find them to wind a man up so; all my +impressions of Chad and of people I've seen at HIS place--well, +have had their abundant message for me, have just dropped THAT +into my mind. I see it now. I haven't done so enough before-- +and now I'm old; too old at any rate for what I see. Oh I DO see, +at least; and more than you'd believe or I can express. It's too late. +And it's as if the train had fairly waited at the station for me +without my having had the gumption to know it was there. +Now I hear its faint receding whistle miles and miles down the line. +What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that. The affair-- +I mean the affair of life--couldn't, no doubt, have been different +for me; for it's at the best a tin mould, either fluted and embossed, +with ornamental excrescences, or else smooth and dreadfully plain, +into which, a helpless jelly, one's consciousness is poured-- +so that one 'takes' the form as the great cook says, and is more +or less compactly held by it: one lives in fine as one can. +Still, one has the illusion of freedom; therefore don't be, like me, +without the memory of that illusion. I was either, at the right time, +too stupid or too intelligent to have it; I don't quite know which. +Of course at present I'm a case of reaction against the mistake; +and the voice of reaction should, no doubt, always be taken with +an allowance. But that doesn't affect the point that the right time +is now yours. The right time is ANY time that one is still so lucky +as to have. You've plenty; that's the great thing; you're, as I say, +damn you, so happily and hatefully young. Don't at any rate miss things +out of stupidity. Of course I don't take you for a fool, or I +shouldn't be addressing you thus awfully. Do what you like so long +as you don't make MY mistake. For it was a mistake. Live!" . . . +Slowly and sociably, with full pauses and straight dashes, +Strether had so delivered himself; holding little Bilham +from step to step deeply and gravely attentive. The end of all was +that the young man had turned quite solemn, and that this was a +contradiction of the innocent gaiety the speaker had wished to +promote. He watched for a moment the consequence of his words, +and then, laying a hand on his listener's knee and as if to end +with the proper joke: "And now for the eye I shall keep on you!" + +"Oh but I don't know that I want to be, at your age, too different +from you!" + +"Ah prepare while you're about it," said Strether, "to be more +amusing." + +Little Bilham continued to think, but at last had a smile. "Well, +you ARE amusing--to ME." + +"Impayable, as you say, no doubt. But what am I to myself?" +Strether had risen with this, giving his attention now to an +encounter that, in the middle of the garden, was in the act of +taking place between their host and the lady at whose side Madame +de Vionnet had quitted him. This lady, who appeared within a few +minutes to have left her friends, awaited Gloriani's eager +approach with words on her lips that Strether couldn't catch, but +of which her interesting witty face seemed to give him the echo. +He was sure she was prompt and fine, but also that she had met her +match, and he liked--in the light of what he was quite sure was +the Duchess's latent insolence--the good humour with which the +great artist asserted equal resources. Were they, this pair, of +the "great world"?--and was he himself, for the moment and thus +related to them by his observation, IN it? Then there was +something in the great world covertly tigerish, which came to him +across the lawn and in the charming air as a waft from the jungle. +Yet it made him admire most of the two, made him envy, the glossy +male tiger, magnificently marked. These absurdities of the stirred +sense, fruits of suggestion ripening on the instant, were all +reflected in his next words to little Bilham. "I know--if we talk +of that--whom I should enjoy being like!" + +Little Bilham followed his eyes; but then as with a shade of knowing +surprise: "Gloriani?" + +Our friend had in fact already hesitated, though not on the hint +of his companion's doubt, in which there were depths of critical +reserve. He had just made out, in the now full picture, something +and somebody else; another impression had been superimposed. A +young girl in a white dress and a softly plumed white hat had +suddenly come into view, and what was presently clear was that her +course was toward them. What was clearer still was that the +handsome young man at her side was Chad Newsome, and what was +clearest of all was that she was therefore Mademoiselle de Vionnet, +that she was unmistakeably pretty--bright gentle shy happy +wonderful--and that Chad now, with a consummate calculation +of effect, was about to present her to his old friend's vision. +What was clearest of all indeed was something much more than this, +something at the single stroke of which--and wasn't it simply +juxtaposition?--all vagueness vanished. It was the click of a +spring--he saw the truth. He had by this time also met Chad's +look; there was more of it in that; and the truth, accordingly, so +far as Bilham's enquiry was concerned, had thrust in the answer. +"Oh Chad!"--it was that rare youth he should have enjoyed being +"like." The virtuous attachment would be all there before him; the +virtuous attachment would be in the very act of appeal for his blessing; +Jeanne de Vionnet, this charming creature, would be exquisitely, +intensely now--the object of it. Chad brought her straight up to him, +and Chad was, oh yes, at this moment--for the glory of Woollett or +whatever--better still even than Gloriani. He had plucked this +blossom; he had kept it over-night in water; and at last as he held +it up to wonder he did enjoy his effect. That was why Strether had +felt at first the breath of calculation--and why moreover, as he +now knew, his look at the girl would be, for the young man, a sign +of the latter's success. What young man had ever paraded about that +way, without a reason, a maiden in her flower? And there was +nothing in his reason at present obscure. Her type sufficiently +told of it--they wouldn't, they couldn't, want her to go to +Woollett. Poor Woollett, and what it might miss!--though brave Chad +indeed too, and what it might gain! Brave Chad however had just +excellently spoken. "This is a good little friend of mine who knows +all about you and has moreover a message for you. And this, my +dear"--he had turned to the child herself--"is the best man in the +world, who has it in his power to do a great deal for us and whom I +want you to like and revere as nearly as possible as much as I do." + +She stood there quite pink, a little frightened, prettier and +prettier and not a bit like her mother. There was in this last +particular no resemblance but that of youth to youth; and here was +in fact suddenly Strether's sharpest impression. It went wondering, +dazed, embarrassed, back to the woman he had just been talking +with; it was a revelation in the light of which he already saw she +would become more interesting. So slim and fresh and fair, she had +yet put forth this perfection; so that for really believing it of +her, for seeing her to any such developed degree as a mother, +comparison would be urgent. Well, what was it now but fairly thrust +upon him? "Mamma wishes me to tell you before we go," the girl +said, "that she hopes very much you'll come to see us very soon. +She has something important to say to you." + +"She quite reproaches herself," Chad helpfully explained: "you were +interesting her so much when she accidentally suffered you to be +interrupted." + +"Ah don't mention it!" Strether murmured, looking kindly from one +to the other and wondering at many things. + +"And I'm to ask you for myself," Jeanne continued with her hands +clasped together as if in some small learnt prayer--"I'm to ask you +for myself if you won't positively come." + +"Leave it to me, dear--I'll take care of it!" Chad genially +declared in answer to this, while Strether himself almost held his +breath. What was in the girl was indeed too soft, too unknown for +direct dealing; so that one could only gaze at it as at a picture, +quite staying one's own hand. But with Chad he was now on ground-- +Chad he could meet; so pleasant a confidence in that and in +everything did the young man freely exhale. There was the whole of +a story in his tone to his companion, and he spoke indeed as if +already of the family. It made Strether guess the more quickly what +it might be about which Madame de Vionnet was so urgent. Having +seen him then she had found him easy; she wished to have it out +with him that some way for the young people must be discovered, +some way that would not impose as a condition the transplantation +of her daughter. He already saw himself discussing with this lady +the attractions of Woollett as a residence for Chad's companion. +Was that youth going now to trust her with the affair--so that it +would be after all with one of his "lady-friends" that his mother's +missionary should be condemned to deal? It was quite as if for an +instant the two men looked at each other on this question. But +there was no mistaking at last Chad's pride in the display of such +a connexion. This was what had made him so carry himself while, +three minutes before, he was bringing it into view; what had caused +his friend, first catching sight of him, to be so struck with his +air. It was, in a word, just when he thus finally felt Chad putting +things straight off on him that he envied him, as he had mentioned +to little Bilham, most. The whole exhibition however was but a +matter of three or four minutes, and the author of it had soon +explained that, as Madame de Vionnet was immediately going "on," +this could be for Jeanne but a snatch. They would all meet again +soon, and Strether was meanwhile to stay and amuse himself--"I'll +pick you up again in plenty of time." He took the girl off as he +had brought her, and Strether, with the faint sweet foreignness of +her "Au revoir, monsieur!" in his ears as a note almost +unprecedented, watched them recede side by side and felt how, once +more, her companion's relation to her got an accent from it. They +disappeared among the others and apparently into the house; +whereupon our friend turned round to give out to little Bilham the +conviction of which he was full. But there was no little Bilham any +more; little Bilham had within the few moments, for reasons of his +own, proceeded further: a circumstance by which, in its order, +Strether was also sensibly affected. + + + +III + + +Chad was not in fact on this occasion to keep his promise of coming +back; but Miss Gostrey had soon presented herself with an +explanation of his failure. There had been reasons at the last for +his going off with ces dames; and he had asked her with much +instance to come out and take charge of their friend. She did so, +Strether felt as she took her place beside him, in a manner that +left nothing to desire. He had dropped back on his bench, alone +again for a time, and the more conscious for little Bilham's +defection of his unexpressed thought; in respect to which however +this next converser was a still more capacious vessel. "It's the +child!" he had exclaimed to her almost as soon as she appeared; and +though her direct response was for some time delayed he could feel +in her meanwhile the working of this truth. It might have been +simply, as she waited, that they were now in presence altogether of +truth spreading like a flood and not for the moment to be offered +her in the mere cupful; inasmuch as who should ces dames prove to +be but persons about whom--once thus face to face with them--she +found she might from the first have told him almost everything? +This would have freely come had he taken the simple precaution of +giving her their name. There could be no better example--and she +appeared to note it with high amusement--than the way, making +things out already so much for himself, he was at last throwing +precautions to the winds. They were neither more nor less, she and +the child's mother, than old school-friends--friends who had +scarcely met for years but whom this unlooked-for chance had +brought together with a rush. It was a relief, Miss Gostrey hinted, +to feel herself no longer groping; she was unaccustomed to grope +and as a general thing, he might well have seen, made straight +enough for her clue. With the one she had now picked up in her +hands there need be at least no waste of wonder. "She's coming to +see me--that's for YOU," Strether's counsellor continued; "but I +don't require it to know where I am." + +The waste of wonder might be proscribed; but Strether, +characteristically, was even by this time in the immensity of +space. "By which you mean that you know where SHE is?" + +She just hesitated. "I mean that if she comes to see me I shall-- +now that I've pulled myself round a bit after the shock--not be at +home." + +Strether hung poised. "You call it--your recognition--a shock?" + +She gave one of her rare flickers of impatience. "It was a +surprise, an emotion. Don't be so literal. I wash my hands of her." + +Poor Strether's face lengthened. "She's impossible--?" + +"She's even more charming than I remembered her." + +"Then what's the matter?" + +She had to think how to put it. "Well, I'M impossible. It's +impossible. Everything's impossible." + +He looked at her an instant. "I see where you're coming out. +Everything's possible." Their eyes had on it in fact an exchange of +some duration; after which he pursued: "Isn't it that beautiful +child?" Then as she still said nothing: "Why don't you mean to +receive her?" + +Her answer in an instant rang clear. "Because I wish to keep out of +the business." + +It provoked in him a weak wail. "You're going to abandon me NOW?" + +"No, I'm only going to abandon HER. She'll want me to help her with +you. And I won't." + +"You'll only help me with her? Well then--!" Most of the persons +previously gathered had, in the interest of tea, passed into the +house, and they had the gardens mainly to themselves. The shadows +were long, the last call of the birds, who had made a home of their +own in the noble interspaced quarter, sounded from the high trees +in the other gardens as well, those of the old convent and of the +old hotels; it was as if our friends had waited for the full charm +to come out. Strether's impressions were still present; it was as +if something had happened that "nailed" them, made them more +intense; but he was to ask himself soon afterwards, that evening, +what really HAD happened--conscious as he could after all remain +that for a gentleman taken, and taken the first time, into the +"great world," the world of ambassadors and duchesses, the items +made a meagre total. It was nothing new to him, however, as we +know, that a man might have--at all events such a man as he--an +amount of experience out of any proportion to his adventures; so +that, though it was doubtless no great adventure to sit on there +with Miss Gostrey and hear about Madame de Vionnet, the hour, the +picture, the immediate, the recent, the possible--as well as the +communication itself, not a note of which failed to reverberate-- +only gave the moments more of the taste of history. + +It was history, to begin with, that Jeanne's mother had been +three-and-twenty years before, at Geneva, schoolmate and good +girlfriend to Maria Gostrey, who had moreover enjoyed since then, +though interruptedly and above all with a long recent drop, +other glimpses of her. Twenty-three years put them both on, +no doubt; and Madame de Vionnet--though she had married straight +after school--couldn't be today an hour less than thirty-eight. +This made her ten years older than Chad--though ten years, also, if +Strether liked, older than she looked; the least, at any rate, that +a prospective mother-in-law could be expected to do with. She would +be of all mothers-in-law the most charming; unless indeed, through +some perversity as yet insupposeable, she should utterly belie herself +in that relation. There was none surely in which, as Maria remembered +her, she mustn't be charming; and this frankly in spite of the stigma +of failure in the tie where failure always most showed. It was no test +there--when indeed WAS it a test there?--for Monsieur de Vionnet +had been a brute. She had lived for years apart from him--which was +of course always a horrid position; but Miss Gostrey's impression +of the matter had been that she could scarce have made a better +thing of it had she done it on purpose to show she was amiable. She +was so amiable that nobody had had a word to say; which was luckily +not the case for her husband. He was so impossible that she had the +advantage of all her merits. + +It was still history for Strether that the Comte de Vionnet--it +being also history that the lady in question was a Countess--should +now, under Miss Gostrey's sharp touch, rise before him as a high +distinguished polished impertinent reprobate, the product of a +mysterious order; it was history, further, that the charming girl +so freely sketched by his companion should have been married out of +hand by a mother, another figure of striking outline, full of dark +personal motive; it was perhaps history most of all that this +company was, as a matter of course, governed by such considerations +as put divorce out of the question. "Ces gens-la don't divorce, you +know, any more than they emigrate or abjure--they think it impious +and vulgar"; a fact in the light of which they seemed but the more +richly special. It was all special; it was all, for Strether's +imagination, more or less rich. The girl at the Genevese school, an +isolated interesting attaching creature, then both sensitive and +violent, audacious but always forgiven, was the daughter of a +French father and an English mother who, early left a widow, had +married again--tried afresh with a foreigner; in her career with +whom she had apparently given her child no example of comfort. All +these people--the people of the English mother's side--had been of +condition more or less eminent; yet with oddities and disparities +that had often since made Maria, thinking them over, wonder what +they really quite rhymed to. It was in any case her belief that the +mother, interested and prone to adventure, had been without +conscience, had only thought of ridding herself most quickly of a +possible, an actual encumbrance. The father, by her impression, a +Frenchman with a name one knew, had been a different matter, +leaving his child, she clearly recalled, a memory all fondness, as +well as an assured little fortune which was unluckily to make her +more or less of a prey later on. She had been in particular, at +school, dazzlingly, though quite booklessly, clever; as polyglot +as a little Jewess (which she wasn't, oh no!) and chattering French, +English, German, Italian, anything one would, in a way that made a +clean sweep, if not of prizes and parchments, at least of every +"part," whether memorised or improvised, in the curtained costumed +school repertory, and in especial of all mysteries of race and +vagueness of reference, all swagger about "home," among their +variegated mates. + +It would doubtless be difficult to-day, as between French and +English, to name her and place her; she would certainly show, on +knowledge, Miss Gostrey felt, as one of those convenient types who +don't keep you explaining--minds with doors as numerous as the +many-tongued cluster of confessionals at Saint Peter's. You might +confess to her with confidence in Roumelian, and even Roumelian +sins. Therefore--! But Strether's narrator covered her implication +with a laugh; a laugh by which his betrayal of a sense of the lurid +in the picture was also perhaps sufficiently protected. He had a +moment of wondering, while his friend went on, what sins might be +especially Roumelian. She went on at all events to the mention of +her having met the young thing--again by some Swiss lake--in her +first married state, which had appeared for the few intermediate +years not at least violently disturbed. She had been lovely at that +moment, delightful to HER, full of responsive emotion, of amused +recognitions and amusing reminders, and then once more, much later, +after a long interval, equally but differently charming--touching +and rather mystifying for the five minutes of an encounter at a +railway-station en province, during which it had come out that her +life was all changed. Miss Gostrey had understood enough to see, +essentially, what had happened, and yet had beautifully dreamed +that she was herself faultless. There were doubtless depths in her, +but she was all right; Strether would see if she wasn't. She was +another person however--that had been promptly marked--from the +small child of nature at the Geneva school, a little person quite +made over (as foreign women WERE, compared with American) by +marriage. Her situation too had evidently cleared itself up; there +would have been--all that was possible--a judicial separation. She +had settled in Paris, brought up her daughter, steered her boat. It +was no very pleasant boat--especially there--to be in; but Marie de +Vionnet would have headed straight. She would have friends, +certainly--and very good ones. There she was at all events--and it +was very interesting. Her knowing Mr. Chad didn't in the least +prove she hadn't friends; what it proved was what good ones HE had. +"I saw that," said Miss Gostrey, "that night at the Francais; it +came out for me in three minutes. I saw HER--or somebody like her. +And so," she immediately added, "did you." + +"Oh no--not anybody like her!" Strether laughed. "But you mean," he +as promptly went on, "that she has had such an influence on him?" + +Miss Gostrey was on her feet; it was time for them to go. "She has +brought him up for her daughter." + +Their eyes, as so often, in candid conference, through their +settled glasses, met over it long; after which Strether's again +took in the whole place. They were quite alone there now. "Mustn't +she rather--in the time then--have rushed it?" + +"Ah she won't of course have lost an hour. But that's just the good +mother--the good French one. You must remember that of her--that as +a mother she's French, and that for them there's a special +providence. It precisely however--that she mayn't have been able to +begin as far back as she'd have liked--makes her grateful for aid." + +Strether took this in as they slowly moved to the house on their +way out. "She counts on me then to put the thing through?" + +"Yes--she counts on you. Oh and first of all of course," Miss +Gostrey added, "on her--well, convincing you." + +"Ah," her friend returned, "she caught Chad young!" + +"Yes, but there are women who are for all your 'times of life.' +They're the most wonderful sort." + +She had laughed the words out, but they brought her companion, the +next thing, to a stand. "Is what you mean that she'll try to make a +fool of me?" + +"Well, I'm wondering what she WILL--with an opportunity--make." + +"What do you call," Strether asked, "an opportunity? My going to +see her?" + +"Ah you must go to see her"--Miss Gostrey was a trifle evasive. +"You can't not do that. You'd have gone to see the other woman. I +mean if there had been one--a different sort. It's what you came +out for." + +It might be; but Strether distinguished. "I didn't come out to see +THIS sort." + +She had a wonderful look at him now. "Are you disappointed she +isn't worse?" + +He for a moment entertained the question, then found for it the +frankest of answers. "Yes. If she were worse she'd be better for +our purpose. It would be simpler." + +"Perhaps," she admitted. "But won't this be pleasanter?" + +"Ah you know," he promptly replied, "I didn't come out--wasn't that +just what you originally reproached me with?--for the pleasant." + +"Precisely. Therefore I say again what I said at first. You must +take things as they come. Besides," Miss Gostrey added, "I'm not +afraid for myself." + +"For yourself--?" + +"Of your seeing her. I trust her. There's nothing she'll say about +me. In fact there's nothing she CAN." + +Strether wondered--little as he had thought of this. Then he broke +out. "Oh you women!" + +There was something in it at which she flushed. "Yes--there we are. +We're abysses." At last she smiled. "But I risk her!" + +He gave himself a shake. "Well then so do I!" But he added as they +passed into the house that he would see Chad the first thing in the +morning. + +This was the next day the more easily effected that the young man, +as it happened, even before he was down, turned up at his hotel. +Strether took his coffee, by habit, in the public room; but on his +descending for this purpose Chad instantly proposed an adjournment +to what he called greater privacy. He had himself as yet had +nothing--they would sit down somewhere together; and when after a +few steps and a turn into the Boulevard they had, for their greater +privacy, sat down among twenty others, our friend saw in his +companion's move a fear of the advent of Waymarsh. It was the first +time Chad had to that extent given this personage "away"; and +Strether found himself wondering of what it was symptomatic. He +made out in a moment that the youth was in earnest as he hadn't yet +seen him; which in its turn threw a ray perhaps a trifle startling +on what they had each up to that time been treating as earnestness. +It was sufficiently flattering however that the real thing--if +this WAS at last the real thing--should have been determined, as +appeared, precisely by an accretion of Strether's importance. For +this was what it quickly enough came to--that Chad, rising with the +lark, had rushed down to let him know while his morning +consciousness was yet young that he had literally made the +afternoon before a tremendous impression. Madame de Vionnet +wouldn't, couldn't rest till she should have some assurance from +him that he WOULD consent again to see her. The announcement was +made, across their marble-topped table, while the foam of the hot +milk was in their cups and its plash still in the air, with the +smile of Chad's easiest urbanity; and this expression of his face +caused our friend's doubts to gather on the spot into a challenge +of the lips. "See here"--that was all; he only for the moment said +again "See here." Chad met it with all his air of straight +intelligence, while Strether remembered again that fancy of the +first impression of him, the happy young Pagan, handsome and hard +but oddly indulgent, whose mysterious measure he had under the +street-lamp tried mentally to take. The young Pagan, while a long +look passed between them, sufficiently understood. Strether scarce +needed at last to say the rest--"I want to know where I am." But he +said it, adding before any answer something more. "Are you engaged +to be married--is that your secret?--to the young lady?" + +Chad shook his head with the slow amenity that was one of his ways +of conveying that there was time for everything. "I have no secret-- +though I may have secrets! I haven't at any rate that one. We're +not engaged. No." + +"Then where's the hitch?" + +"Do you mean why I haven't already started with you?" Chad, +beginning his coffee and buttering his roll, was quite ready to +explain. "Nothing would have induced me--nothing will still induce +me--not to try to keep you here as long as you can be made to stay. +It's too visibly good for you." Strether had himself plenty to say +about this, but it was amusing also to measure the march of Chad's +tone. He had never been more a man of the world, and it was always +in his company present to our friend that one was seeing how in +successive connexions a man of the world acquitted himself. Chad +kept it up beautifully. "My idea--voyons!--is simply that you +should let Madame de Vionnet know you, simply that you should +consent to know HER. I don't in the least mind telling you that, +clever and charming as she is, she's ever so much in my confidence. +All I ask of you is to let her talk to you. You've asked me about +what you call my hitch, and so far as it goes she'll explain it to +you. She's herself my hitch, hang it--if you must really have it +all out. But in a sense," he hastened in the most wonderful manner +to add, "that you'll quite make out for yourself. She's too good a +friend, confound her. Too good, I mean, for me to leave without-- +without--" It was his first hesitation. + +"Without what?" + +"Well, without my arranging somehow or other the damnable terms of +my sacrifice." + +"It WILL be a sacrifice then?" + +"It will be the greatest loss I ever suffered. I owe her so much." + +It was beautiful, the way Chad said these things, and his plea was +now confessedly--oh quite flagrantly and publicly--interesting. The +moment really took on for Strether an intensity. Chad owed Madame +de Vionnet so much? What DID that do then but clear up the whole +mystery? He was indebted for alterations, and she was thereby in a +position to have sent in her bill for expenses incurred in +reconstruction. What was this at bottom but what had been to be +arrived at? Strether sat there arriving at it while he munched +toast and stirred his second cup. To do this with the aid of Chad's +pleasant earnest face was also to do more besides. No, never before +had he been so ready to take him as he was. What was it that had +suddenly so cleared up? It was just everybody's character; that is +everybody's but--in a measure--his own. Strether felt HIS character +receive for the instant a smutch from all the wrong things he had +suspected or believed. The person to whom Chad owed it that he +could positively turn out such a comfort to other persons--such a +person was sufficiently raised above any "breath" by the nature of +her work and the young man's steady light. All of which was vivid +enough to come and go quickly; though indeed in the midst of it +Strether could utter a question. "Have I your word of honour that +if I surrender myself to Madame de Vionnet you'll surrender +yourself to me?" + +Chad laid his hand firmly on his friend's. "My dear man, you have +it." + +There was finally something in his felicity almost embarrassing and +oppressive--Strether had begun to fidget under it for the open air +and the erect posture. He had signed to the waiter that he wished +to pay, and this transaction took some moments, during which he +thoroughly felt, while he put down money and pretended--it was +quite hollow--to estimate change, that Chad's higher spirit, his +youth, his practice, his paganism, his felicity, his assurance, his +impudence, whatever it might be, had consciously scored a success. +Well, that was all right so far as it went; his sense of the thing +in question covered our friend for a minute like a veil through +which--as if he had been muffled--he heard his interlocutor ask him +if he mightn't take him over about five. "Over" was over the river, +and over the river was where Madame de Vionnet lived, and five was +that very afternoon. They got at last out of the place--got out +before he answered. He lighted, in the street, a cigarette, which +again gave him more time. But it was already sharp for him that +there was no use in time. "What does she propose to do to me?" he +had presently demanded. + +Chad had no delays. "Are you afraid of her?" + +"Oh immensely. Don't you see it?" + +"Well," said Chad, "she won't do anything worse to you than make +you like her." + +"It's just of that I'm afraid." + +"Then it's not fair to me." + +Strether cast about. "It's fair to your mother." + +"Oh," said Chad, "are you afraid of HER?" + +"Scarcely less. Or perhaps even more. But is this lady against your +interests at home?" Strether went on. + +"Not directly, no doubt; but she's greatly in favour of them here." + +"And what--'here'--does she consider them to be?" + +"Well, good relations!" + +"With herself?" + +"With herself." + +"And what is it that makes them so good?" + +"What? Well, that's exactly what you'll make out if you'll only go, +as I'm supplicating you, to see her." + +Strether stared at him with a little of the wanness, no doubt, that +the vision of more to "make out" could scarce help producing. "I +mean HOW good are they?" + +"Oh awfully good." + +Again Strether had faltered, but it was brief. It was all very +well, but there was nothing now he wouldn't risk. "Excuse me, but I +must really--as I began by telling you--know where I am. Is she +bad?" + +"'Bad'?"--Chad echoed it, but without a shock. "Is that what's +implied--?" + +"When relations are good?" Strether felt a little silly, and was +even conscious of a foolish laugh, at having it imposed on him to +have appeared to speak so. What indeed was he talking about? His +stare had relaxed; he looked now all round him. But something in +him brought him back, though he still didn't know quite how to turn +it. The two or three ways he thought of, and one of them in +particular, were, even with scruples dismissed, too ugly. He none +the less at last found something. "Is her life without reproach?" + +It struck him, directly he had found it, as pompous and priggish; +so much so that he was thankful to Chad for taking it only in the +right spirit. The young man spoke so immensely to the point that +the effect was practically of positive blandness. "Absolutely +without reproach. A beautiful life. Allez donc voir!" + +These last words were, in the liberality of their confidence, so +imperative that Strether went through no form of assent; but before +they separated it had been confirmed that he should be picked up at +a quarter to five. + + + + + +Book Sixth + + + + +I + + +It was quite by half-past five--after the two men had been together +in Madame de Vionnet's drawing-room not more than a dozen minutes-- +that Chad, with a look at his watch and then another at their +hostess, said genially, gaily: "I've an engagement, and I know you +won't complain if I leave him with you. He'll interest you +immensely; and as for her," he declared to Strether, "I assure you, +if you're at all nervous, she's perfectly safe." + +He had left them to be embarrassed or not by this guarantee, as +they could best manage, and embarrassment was a thing that Strether +wasn't at first sure Madame de Vionnet escaped. He escaped it +himself, to his surprise; but he had grown used by this time to +thinking of himself as brazen. She occupied, his hostess, in the +Rue de Bellechasse, the first floor of an old house to which our +visitors had had access from an old clean court. The court was +large and open, full of revelations, for our friend, of the habit +of privacy, the peace of intervals, the dignity of distances and +approaches; the house, to his restless sense, was in the high +homely style of an elder day, and the ancient Paris that he was +always looking for--sometimes intensely felt, sometimes more +acutely missed--was in the immemorial polish of the wide waxed +staircase and in the fine boiseries, the medallions, mouldings, +mirrors, great clear spaces, of the greyish-white salon into which +he had been shown. He seemed at the very outset to see her in the +midst of possessions not vulgarly numerous, but hereditary +cherished charming. While his eyes turned after a little from those +of his hostess and Chad freely talked--not in the least about HIM, +but about other people, people he didn't know, and quite as if he +did know them--he found himself making out, as a background of the +occupant, some glory, some prosperity of the First Empire, some +Napoleonic glamour, some dim lustre of the great legend; elements +clinging still to all the consular chairs and mythological brasses +and sphinxes' heads and faded surfaces of satin striped with +alternate silk. + +The place itself went further back--that he guessed, and how old +Paris continued in a manner to echo there; but the post-revolutionary +period, the world he vaguely thought of as the world of Chateaubriand, +of Madame de Stael, even of the young Lamartine, had left its stamp of +harps and urns and torches, a stamp impressed on sundry small objects, +ornaments and relics. He had never before, to his knowledge, had +present to him relics, of any special dignity, of a private order-- +little old miniatures, medallions, pictures, books; books in leather +bindings, pinkish and greenish, with gilt garlands on the back, ranged, +together with other promiscuous properties, under the glass of +brass-mounted cabinets. His attention took them all tenderly into account. +They were among the matters that marked Madame de Vionnet's +apartment as something quite different from Miss Gostrey's little museum +of bargains and from Chad's lovely home; he recognised it as founded +much more on old accumulations that had possibly from time to time +shrunken than on any contemporary method of acquisition or form of +curiosity. Chad and Miss Gostrey had rummaged and purchased and picked +up and exchanged, sifting, selecting, comparing; whereas the mistress of +the scene before him, beautifully passive under the spell of +transmission--transmission from her father's line, he quite made up +his mind--had only received, accepted and been quiet. When she +hadn't been quiet she had been moved at the most to some occult +charity for some fallen fortune. There had been objects she or her +predecessors might even conceivably have parted with under need, +but Strether couldn't suspect them of having sold old pieces to get +"better" ones. They would have felt no difference as to better or +worse. He could but imagine their having felt--perhaps in +emigration, in proscription, for his sketch was slight and +confused--the pressure of want or the obligation of sacrifice. + +The pressure of want--whatever might be the case with the other +force--was, however, presumably not active now, for the tokens of a +chastened ease still abounded after all, many marks of a taste +whose discriminations might perhaps have been called eccentric. He +guessed at intense little preferences and sharp little exclusions, +a deep suspicion of the vulgar and a personal view of the right. +The general result of this was something for which he had no name +on the spot quite ready, but something he would have come nearest +to naming in speaking of it as the air of supreme respectability, +the consciousness, small, still, reserved, but none the less +distinct and diffused, of private honour. The air of supreme +respectability--that was a strange blank wall for his adventure to +have brought him to break his nose against. It had in fact, as he +was now aware, filled all the approaches, hovered in the court as +he passed, hung on the staircase as he mounted, sounded in the +grave rumble of the old bell, as little electric as possible, of +which Chad, at the door, had pulled the ancient but neatly-kept +tassel; it formed in short the clearest medium of its particular +kind that he had ever breathed. He would have answered for it at +the end of a quarter of an hour that some of the glass cases +contained swords and epaulettes of ancient colonels and generals; +medals and orders once pinned over hearts that had long since +ceased to beat; snuff-boxes bestowed on ministers and envoys; +copies of works presented, with inscriptions, by authors now +classic. At bottom of it all for him was the sense of her rare +unlikeness to the women he had known. This sense had grown, since +the day before, the more he recalled her, and had been above all +singularly fed by his talk with Chad in the morning. Everything in +fine made her immeasurably new, and nothing so new as the old house +and the old objects. There were books, two or three, on a small +table near his chair, but they hadn't the lemon-coloured covers +with which his eye had begun to dally from the hour of his arrival +and to the opportunity of a further acquaintance with which he had +for a fortnight now altogether succumbed. On another table, across +the room, he made out the great _Revue_; but even that familiar face, +conspicuous in Mrs. Newsome's parlours, scarce counted here as a +modern note. He was sure on the spot--and he afterwards knew he was +right--that this was a touch of Chad's own hand. What would Mrs. +Newsome say to the circumstance that Chad's interested "influence" +kept her paper-knife in the _Revue_? The interested influence at any +rate had, as we say, gone straight to the point--had in fact soon +left it quite behind. + +She was seated, near the fire, on a small stuffed and fringed chair +one of the few modern articles in the room, and she leaned back in +it with her hands clasped in her lap and no movement, in all her +person, but the fine prompt play of her deep young face. The fire, +under the low white marble, undraped and academic, had burnt down +to the silver ashes of light wood, one of the windows, at a +distance, stood open to the mildness and stillness, out of which, +in the short pauses, came the faint sound, pleasant and homely, +almost rustic, of a plash and a clatter of sabots from some +coach-house on the other side of the court. Madame de Vionnet, +while Strether sat there, wasn't to shift her posture by an inch. +"I don't think you seriously believe in what you're doing," she +said; "but all the same, you know, I'm going to treat you quite as +if I did." + +"By which you mean," Strether directly replied, "quite as if you +didn't! I assure you it won't make the least difference with me how +you treat me." + +"Well," she said, taking that menace bravely and +philosophically enough, "the only thing that really matters is that +you shall get on with me." + +"Ah but I don't!" he immediately returned. + +It gave her another pause; which, however, she happily enough shook +off. "Will you consent to go on with me a little--provisionally-- +as if you did?" + +Then it was that he saw how she had decidedly come all the way; and +there accompanied it an extraordinary sense of her raising from +somewhere below him her beautiful suppliant eyes. He might have +been perched at his door-step or at his window and she standing in +the road. For a moment he let her stand and couldn't moreover have +spoken. It had been sad, of a sudden, with a sadness that was like +a cold breath in his face. "What can I do," he finally asked, "but +listen to you as I promised Chadwick?" + +"Ah but what I'm asking you," she quickly said, "isn't what Mr. +Newsome had in mind." She spoke at present, he saw, as if to take +courageously ALL her risk. "This is my own idea and a different +thing." + +It gave poor Strether in truth--uneasy as it made him too-- +something of the thrill of a bold perception justified. "Well," he +answered kindly enough, "I was sure a moment since that some idea +of your own had come to you." + +She seemed still to look up at him, but now more serenely. "I made +out you were sure--and that helped it to come. So you see," she +continued, "we do get on." + +"Oh but it appears to me I don't at all meet your request. How can +I when I don't understand it?" + +"It isn't at all necessary you should understand; it will do quite +well enough if you simply remember it. Only feel I trust you--and +for nothing so tremendous after all. Just," she said with a +wonderful smile, "for common civility." + +Strether had a long pause while they sat again face to face, as +they had sat, scarce less conscious, before the poor lady had +crossed the stream. She was the poor lady for Strether now because +clearly she had some trouble, and her appeal to him could only mean +that her trouble was deep. He couldn't help it; it wasn't his +fault; he had done nothing; but by a turn of the hand she had +somehow made their encounter a relation. And the relation profited +by a mass of things that were not strictly in it or of it; by the +very air in which they sat, by the high cold delicate room, by the +world outside and the little plash in the court, by the First +Empire and the relics in the stiff cabinets, by matters as far off +as those and by others as near as the unbroken clasp of her hands +in her lap and the look her expression had of being most natural +when her eyes were most fixed. "You count upon me of course for +something really much greater than it sounds." + +"Oh it sounds great enough too!" she laughed at this. + +He found himself in time on the point of telling her that she was, +as Miss Barrace called it, wonderful; but, catching himself up, he +said something else instead. "What was it Chad's idea then that you +should say to me?" + +"Ah his idea was simply what a man's idea always is--to put every +effort off on the woman." + +"The 'woman'--?" Strether slowly echoed. + +"The woman he likes--and just in proportion as he likes her. In +proportion too--for shifting the trouble--as she likes HIM." + +Strether followed it; then with an abruptness of his own: +"How much do you like Chad?" + +"Just as much as THAT--to take all, with you, on myself." But she +got at once again away from this. "I've been trembling as if we +were to stand or fall by what you may think of me; and I'm even +now," she went on wonderfully, "drawing a long breath--and, yes, +truly taking a great courage--from the hope that I don't in fact +strike you as impossible." + +"That's at all events, clearly," he observed after an instant, "the +way I don't strike YOU." + +"Well," she so far assented, "as you haven't yet said you WON'T +have the little patience with me I ask for--" + +"You draw splendid conclusions? Perfectly. But I don't understand +them," Strether pursued. "You seem to me to ask for much more than +you need. What, at the worst for you, what at the best for myself, +can I after all do? I can use no pressure that I haven't used. You +come really late with your request. I've already done all that for +myself the case admits of. I've said my say, and here I am." + +"Yes, here you are, fortunately!" Madame de Vionnet laughed. "Mrs. +Newsome," she added in another tone, "didn't think you can do so +little." + +He had an hesitation, but he brought the words out. "Well, she +thinks so now." + +"Do you mean by that--?" But she also hung fire. + +"Do I mean what?" + +She still rather faltered. "Pardon me if I touch on it, but if I'm +saying extraordinary things, why, perhaps, mayn't I? Besides, +doesn't it properly concern us to know?" + +"To know what?" he insisted as after thus beating about the bush +she had again dropped. + +She made the effort. "Has she given you up?" + +He was amazed afterwards to think how simply and quietly he had met +it. "Not yet." It was almost as if he were a trifle disappointed-- +had expected still more of her freedom. But he went straight on. +"Is that what Chad has told you will happen to me?" + +She was evidently charmed with the way he took it. "If you mean if +we've talked of it--most certainly. And the question's not what has +had least to do with my wishing to see you." + +"To judge if I'm the sort of man a woman CAN--?" + +"Precisely," she exclaimed--"you wonderful gentleman! I do judge--I +HAVE judged. A woman can't. You're safe--with every right to be. +You'd be much happier if you'd only believe it." + +Strether was silent a little; then he found himself speaking with a +cynicism of confidence of which even at the moment the sources were +strange to him. "I try to believe it. But it's a marvel," he +exclaimed, "how YOU already get at it!" + +Oh she was able to say. "Remember how much I was on the way to it +through Mr. Newsome--before I saw you. He thinks everything of your +strength." + +"Well, I can bear almost anything!" our friend briskly interrupted. +Deep and beautiful on this her smile came back, and with the effect +of making him hear what he had said just as she had heard it. He +easily enough felt that it gave him away, but what in truth had +everything done but that? It had been all very well to think at +moments that he was holding her nose down and that he had coerced +her: what had he by this time done but let her practically see that +he accepted their relation? What was their relation moreover-- +though light and brief enough in form as yet--but whatever she +might choose to make it? Nothing could prevent her--certainly he +couldn't--from making it pleasant. At the back of his head, behind +everything, was the sense that she was--there, before him, close to +him, in vivid imperative form--one of the rare women he had so +often heard of, read of, thought of, but never met, whose very +presence, look, voice, the mere contemporaneous FACT of whom, from +the moment it was at all presented, made a relation of mere +recognition. That was not the kind of woman he had ever found Mrs. +Newsome, a contemporaneous fact who had been distinctly slow to +establish herself; and at present, confronted with Madame de +Vionnet, he felt the simplicity of his original impression of Miss +Gostrey. She certainly had been a fact of rapid growth; but the +world was wide, each day was more and more a new lesson. There were +at any rate even among the stranger ones relations and relations. +"Of course I suit Chad's grand way," he quickly added. "He hasn't +had much difficulty in working me in." + +She seemed to deny a little, on the young man's behalf, by the rise +of her eyebrows, an intention of any process at all inconsiderate. +"You must know how grieved he'd be if you were to lose anything. He +believes you can keep his mother patient." + +Strether wondered with his eyes on her. "I see. THAT'S then what +you really want of me. And how am I to do it? Perhaps you'll tell +me that." + +"Simply tell her the truth." + +"And what do you call the truth?" + +"Well, any truth--about us all--that you see yourself. I leave it +to you." + +"Thank you very much. I like," Strether laughed with a slight +harshness, "the way you leave things!" + +But she insisted kindly, gently, as if it wasn't so bad. "Be +perfectly honest. Tell her all." + +"All?" he oddly echoed. + +"Tell her the simple truth," Madame de Vionnet again pleaded. + +"But what is the simple truth? The simple truth is exactly what I'm +trying to discover." + +She looked about a while, but presently she came back to him. "Tell +her, fully and clearly, about US." + +Strether meanwhile had been staring. "You and your daughter?" + +"Yes--little Jeanne and me. Tell her," she just slightly quavered, +"you like us." + +"And what good will that do me? Or rather"--he caught himself up-- +"what good will it do YOU?" + +She looked graver. "None, you believe, really?" + +Strether debated. "She didn't send me out to 'like' you." + +"Oh," she charmingly contended, "she sent you out to face the +facts." + +He admitted after an instant that there was something in that. "But +how can I face them till I know what they are? Do you want him," he +then braced himself to ask, "to marry your daughter?" + +She gave a headshake as noble as it was prompt. "No--not that." + +"And he really doesn't want to himself?" + +She repeated the movement, but now with a strange light in her +face. "He likes her too much." + +Strether wondered. "To be willing to consider, you mean, the +question of taking her to America?" + +"To be willing to do anything with her but be immensely kind and +nice--really tender of her. We watch over her, and you must help +us. You must see her again." + +Strether felt awkward. "Ah with pleasure--she's so remarkably +attractive." + +The mother's eagerness with which Madame de Vionnet jumped at this +was to come back to him later as beautiful in its grace. "The dear +thing DID please you?" Then as he met it with the largest "Oh!" of +enthusiasm: "She's perfect. She's my joy." + +"Well, I'm sure that--if one were near her and saw more of her-- +she'd be mine." + +"Then," said Madame de Vionnet, "tell Mrs. Newsome that!" + +He wondered the more. "What good will that do you?" As she appeared +unable at once to say, however, he brought out something else. "Is +your daughter in love with our friend?" + +"Ah," she rather startlingly answered, "I wish you'd find out!" + +He showed his surprise. "I? A stranger?" + +"Oh you won't be a stranger--presently. You shall see her quite, I +assure you, as if you weren't." + +It remained for him none the less an extraordinary notion. "It +seems to me surely that if her mother can't--" + +"Ah little girls and their mothers to-day!" she rather inconsequently +broke in. But she checked herself with something she seemed to give +out as after all more to the point. "Tell her I've been good for +him. Don't you think I have?" + +It had its effect on him--more than at the moment he quite measured. +Yet he was consciously enough touched. "Oh if it's all you--!" + +"Well, it may not be 'all,'" she interrupted, "but it's to a great +extent. Really and truly," she added in a tone that was to take its +place with him among things remembered. + +"Then it's very wonderful." He smiled at her from a face that he +felt as strained, and her own face for a moment kept him so. At +last she also got up. "Well, don't you think that for that--" + +"I ought to save you?" So it was that the way to meet her--and the +way, as well, in a manner, to get off--came over him. He heard +himself use the exorbitant word, the very sound of which helped to +determine his flight. "I'll save you if I can." + + + +II + + +In Chad's lovely home, however, one evening ten days later, he felt +himself present at the collapse of the question of Jeanne de Vionnet's +shy secret. He had been dining there in the company of that young +lady and her mother, as well as of other persons, and he had gone +into the petit salon, at Chad's request, on purpose to talk with her. +The young man had put this to him as a favour--"I should like so +awfully to know what you think of her. It will really be a chance +for you," he had said, "to see the jeune fille--I mean the type--as she +actually is, and I don't think that, as an observer of manners, +it's a thing you ought to miss. It will be an impression that-- +whatever else you take--you can carry home with you, where you'll +find again so much to compare it with." + +Strether knew well enough with what Chad wished him to compare it, +and though he entirely assented he hadn't yet somehow been so +deeply reminded that he was being, as he constantly though mutely +expressed it, used. He was as far as ever from making out exactly +to what end; but he was none the less constantly accompanied by a +sense of the service he rendered. He conceived only that this +service was highly agreeable to those who profited by it; and he +was indeed still waiting for the moment at which he should catch it +in the act of proving disagreeable, proving in some degree +intolerable, to himself. He failed quite to see how his situation +could clear up at all logically except by some turn of events that +would give him the pretext of disgust. He was building from day to +day on the possibility of disgust, but each day brought forth +meanwhile a new and more engaging bend of the road. That +possibility was now ever so much further from sight than on the eve +of his arrival, and he perfectly felt that, should it come at all, +it would have to be at best inconsequent and violent. He struck +himself as a little nearer to it only when he asked himself what +service, in such a life of utility, he was after all rendering +Mrs. Newsome. When he wished to help himself to believe that he was +still all right he reflected--and in fact with wonder--on the +unimpaired frequency of their correspondence; in relation to which +what was after all more natural than that it should become more +frequent just in proportion as their problem became more complicated? + +Certain it is at any rate that he now often brought himself balm by +the question, with the rich consciousness of yesterday's letter, +"Well, what can I do more than that--what can I do more than tell +her everything?" To persuade himself that he did tell her, had told +her, everything, he used to try to think of particular things he +hadn't told her. When at rare moments and in the watches of the +night he pounced on one it generally showed itself to be--to a +deeper scrutiny--not quite truly of the essence. When anything new +struck him as coming up, or anything already noted as reappearing, +he always immediately wrote, as if for fear that if he didn't he +would miss something; and also that he might be able to say to +himself from time to time "She knows it NOW--even while I worry." +It was a great comfort to him in general not to have left past +things to be dragged to light and explained; not to have to produce +at so late a stage anything not produced, or anything even veiled +and attenuated, at the moment. She knew it now: that was what he +said to himself to-night in relation to the fresh fact of Chad's +acquaintance with the two ladies--not to speak of the fresher one +of his own. Mrs. Newsome knew in other words that very night at +Woollett that he himself knew Madame de Vionnet and that he had +conscientiously been to see her; also that he had found her +remarkably attractive and that there would probably be a good deal +more to tell. But she further knew, or would know very soon, that, +again conscientiously, he hadn't repeated his visit; and that when +Chad had asked him on the Countess's behalf--Strether made her out +vividly, with a thought at the back of his head, a Countess--if he +wouldn't name a day for dining with her, he had replied lucidly: +"Thank you very much--impossible." He had begged the young man +would present his excuses and had trusted him to understand that it +couldn't really strike one as quite the straight thing. He hadn't +reported to Mrs. Newsome that he had promised to "save" Madame de +Vionnet; but, so far as he was concerned with that reminiscence, he +hadn't at any rate promised to haunt her house. What Chad had +understood could only, in truth, be inferred from Chad's behaviour, +which had been in this connexion as easy as in every other. He was +easy, always, when he understood; he was easier still, if possible, +when he didn't; he had replied that he would make it all right; and +he had proceeded to do this by substituting the present occasion-- +as he was ready to substitute others--for any, for every occasion +as to which his old friend should have a funny scruple. + +"Oh but I'm not a little foreign girl; I'm just as English as I can be," +Jeanne de Vionnet had said to him as soon as, in the petit salon, +he sank, shyly enough on his own side, into the place near her +vacated by Madame Gloriani at his approach. Madame Gloriani, +who was in black velvet, with white lace and powdered hair, and +whose somewhat massive majesty melted, at any contact, into the +graciousness of some incomprehensible tongue, moved away to make +room for the vague gentleman, after benevolent greetings to him +which embodied, as he believed, in baffling accents, some +recognition of his face from a couple of Sundays before. Then he +had remarked--making the most of the advantage of his years--that +it frightened him quite enough to find himself dedicated to the +entertainment of a little foreign girl. There were girls he wasn't +afraid of--he was quite bold with little Americans. Thus it was +that she had defended herself to the end--"Oh but I'm almost +American too. That's what mamma has wanted me to be--I mean LIKE +that; for she has wanted me to have lots of freedom. She has known +such good results from it." + +She was fairly beautiful to him--a faint pastel in an oval frame: +he thought of her already as of some lurking image in a long +gallery, the portrait of a small old-time princess of whom nothing +was known but that she had died young. Little Jeanne wasn't, +doubtless, to die young, but one couldn't, all the same, bear on +her lightly enough. It was bearing hard, it was bearing as HE, in +any case, wouldn't bear, to concern himself, in relation to her, +with the question of a young man. Odious really the question of a +young man; one didn't treat such a person as a maid-servant +suspected of a "follower." And then young men, young men--well, the +thing was their business simply, or was at all events hers. She was +fluttered, fairly fevered--to the point of a little glitter that +came and went in her eyes and a pair of pink spots that stayed in +her cheeks--with the great adventure of dining out and with the +greater one still, possibly, of finding a gentleman whom she must +think of as very, very old, a gentleman with eye-glasses, wrinkles, +a long grizzled moustache. She spoke the prettiest English, our +friend thought, that he had ever heard spoken, just as he had +believed her a few minutes before to be speaking the prettiest +French. He wondered almost wistfully if such a sweep of the lyre +didn't react on the spirit itself; and his fancy had in fact, +before he knew it, begun so to stray and embroider that he finally +found himself, absent and extravagant, sitting with the child in a +friendly silence. Only by this time he felt her flutter to have +fortunately dropped and that she was more at her ease. She trusted +him, liked him, and it was to come back to him afterwards that she +had told him things. She had dipped into the waiting medium at last +and found neither surge nor chill--nothing but the small splash she +could herself make in the pleasant warmth, nothing but the safety +of dipping and dipping again. At the end of the ten minutes he was +to spend with her his impression--with all it had thrown off and +all it had taken in--was complete. She had been free, as she knew +freedom, partly to show him that, unlike other little persons she +knew, she had imbibed that ideal. She was delightfully quaint about +herself, but the vision of what she had imbibed was what most held +him. It really consisted, he was soon enough to feel, in just one +great little matter, the fact that, whatever her nature, she was +thoroughly--he had to cast about for the word, but it came--bred. +He couldn't of course on so short an acquaintance speak for her +nature, but the idea of breeding was what she had meanwhile dropped +into his mind. He had never yet known it so sharply presented. Her +mother gave it, no doubt; but her mother, to make that less sensible, +gave so much else besides, and on neither of the two previous occasions, +extraordinary woman, Strether felt, anything like what she was giving +tonight. Little Jeanne was a case, an exquisite case of education; +whereas the Countess, whom it so amused him to think of by that +denomination, was a case, also exquisite, of--well, he didn't know what. + +"He has wonderful taste, notre jeune homme": this was what Gloriani +said to him on turning away from the inspection of a small picture +suspended near the door of the room. The high celebrity in question +had just come in, apparently in search of Mademoiselle de Vionnet, +but while Strether had got up from beside her their fellow guest, +with his eye sharply caught, had paused for a long look. The thing +was a landscape, of no size, but of the French school, as our +friend was glad to feel he knew, and also of a quality--which he +liked to think he should also have guessed; its frame was large out +of proportion to the canvas, and he had never seen a person look at +anything, he thought, just as Gloriani, with his nose very near and +quick movements of the head from side to side and bottom to top, +examined this feature of Chad's collection. The artist used that +word the next moment smiling courteously, wiping his nippers and +looking round him further--paying the place in short by the very +manner of his presence and by something Strether fancied he could +make out in this particular glance, such a tribute as, to the +latter's sense, settled many things once for all. Strether was +conscious at this instant, for that matter, as he hadn't yet been, +of how, round about him, quite without him, they WERE consistently +settled. Gloriani's smile, deeply Italian, he considered, and +finely inscrutable, had had for him, during dinner, at which they +were not neighbours, an indefinite greeting; but the quality in it +was gone that had appeared on the other occasion to turn him inside +out; it was as if even the momentary link supplied by the doubt +between them had snapped. He was conscious now of the final +reality, which was that there wasn't so much a doubt as a +difference altogether; all the more that over the difference the +famous sculptor seemed to signal almost condolingly, yet oh how +vacantly! as across some great flat sheet of water. He threw out +the bridge of a charming hollow civility on which Strether wouldn't +have trusted his own full weight a moment. That idea, even though +but transient and perhaps belated, had performed the office of +putting Strether more at his ease, and the blurred picture had +already dropped--dropped with the sound of something else said and +with his becoming aware, by another quick turn, that Gloriani was +now on the sofa talking with Jeanne, while he himself had in his +ears again the familiar friendliness and the elusive meaning of the +"Oh, oh, oh!" that had made him, a fortnight before, challenge Miss +Barrace in vain. She had always the air, this picturesque and +original lady, who struck him, so oddly, as both antique and +modern--she had always the air of taking up some joke that one had +already had out with her. The point itself, no doubt, was what was +antique, and the use she made of it what was modern. He felt just +now that her good-natured irony did bear on something, and it +troubled him a little that she wouldn't be more explicit only +assuring him, with the pleasure of observation so visible in her, +that she wouldn't tell him more for the world. He could take refuge +but in asking her what she had done with Waymarsh, though it must +be added that he felt himself a little on the way to a clue after +she had answered that this personage was, in the other room, +engaged in conversation with Madame de Vionnet. He stared a moment +at the image of such a conjunction; then, for Miss Barrace's +benefit, he wondered. "Is she too then under the charm--?" + +"No, not a bit"--Miss Barrace was prompt. "She makes nothing of him. +She's bored. She won't help you with him." + +"Oh," Strether laughed, "she can't do everything. + +"Of course not--wonderful as she is. Besides, he makes nothing of +HER. She won't take him from me--though she wouldn't, no doubt, +having other affairs in hand, even if she could. I've never," said +Miss Barrace, "seen her fail with any one before. And to-night, +when she's so magnificent, it would seem to her strange--if she +minded. So at any rate I have him all. Je suis tranquille!'' + +Strether understood, so far as that went; but he was feeling for +his clue. "She strikes you to-night as particularly magnificent?" + +"Surely. Almost as I've never seen her. Doesn't she you? +Why it's FOR you." + +He persisted in his candour. "'For' me--?" + +"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Miss Barrace, who persisted in the opposite of +that quality. + +"Well," he acutely admitted, "she IS different. She's gay. " + +"She's gay!" Miss Barrace laughed. "And she has beautiful +shoulders--though there's nothing different in that." + +"No," said Strether, "one was sure of her shoulders. +It isn't her shoulders." + +His companion, with renewed mirth and the finest sense, between +the puffs of her cigarette, of the drollery of things, appeared to +find their conversation highly delightful. "Yes, it isn't +her shoulders ." + +"What then is it?" Strether earnestly enquired. + +"Why, it's SHE--simply. It's her mood. It's her charm." + +"Of course it's her charm, but we're speaking of the difference." +"Well," Miss Barrace explained, "she's just brilliant, as we used +to say. That's all. She's various. She's fifty women." + +"Ah but only one"--Strether kept it clear--"at a time." + +"Perhaps. But in fifty times--!" + +"Oh we shan't come to that," our friend declared; and the next +moment he had moved in another direction. "Will you answer me a +plain question? Will she ever divorce?" + +Miss Barrace looked at him through all her tortoise-shell. "Why +should she?" + +It wasn't what he had asked for, he signified; but he met it well +enough. "To marry Chad." + +"Why should she marry Chad?" + +"Because I'm convinced she's very fond of him. She has done wonders +for him." + +"Well then, how could she do more? Marrying a man, or woman +either," Miss Barrace sagely went on, "is never the wonder for any +Jack and Jill can bring THAT off. The wonder is their doing such +things without marrying." + +Strether considered a moment this proposition. "You mean it's so +beautiful for our friends simply to go on so?" + +But whatever he said made her laugh. "Beautiful." + +He nevertheless insisted. "And THAT because it's disinterested?" + +She was now, however, suddenly tired of the question. "Yes then-- +call it that. Besides, she'll never divorce. Don't, moreover," she +added, "believe everything you hear about her husband." + +He's not then," Strether asked, "a wretch?" + +"Oh yes. But charming." + +"Do you know him?" + +"I've met him. He's bien aimable." + +"To every one but his wife?" + +"Oh for all I know, to her too--to any, to every woman. I hope you +at any rate," she pursued with a quick change, "appreciate the care +I take of Mr. Waymarsh." + +"Oh immensely." But Strether was not yet in line. "At all events," +he roundly brought out, "the attachment's an innocent one." + +"Mine and his? Ah," she laughed, "don't rob it of ALL interest!" + +"I mean our friend's here--to the lady we've been speaking of." +That was what he had settled to as an indirect but none the less +closely involved consequence of his impression of Jeanne. That was +where he meant to stay. "It's innocent," he repeated--"I see the +whole thing." + +Mystified by his abrupt declaration, she had glanced over at +Gloriani as at the unnamed subject of his allusion, but the next +moment she had understood; though indeed not before Strether had +noticed her momentary mistake and wondered what might possibly be +behind that too. He already knew that the sculptor admired Madame +de Vionnet; but did this admiration also represent an attachment of +which the innocence was discussable? He was moving verily in a +strange air and on ground not of the firmest. He looked hard for an +instant at Miss Barrace, but she had already gone on. "All right +with Mr. Newsome? Why of course she is!"--and she got gaily back +to the question of her own good friend. "I dare say you're +surprised that I'm not worn out with all I see--it being so much!-- +of Sitting Bull. But I'm not, you know--I don't mind him; I bear +up, and we get on beautifully. I'm very strange; I'm like that; and +often I can't explain. There are people who are supposed +interesting or remarkable or whatever, and who bore me to death; +and then there are others as to whom nobody can understand what +anybody sees in them--in whom I see no end of things." Then after +she had smoked a moment, "He's touching, you know," she said. + +"'Know'?" Strether echoed--"don't I, indeed? We must move you +almost to tears." + +"Oh but I don't mean YOU!" she laughed. + +"You ought to then, for the worst sign of all--as I must have it +for you--is that you can't help me. That's when a woman pities." + +"Ah but I do help you!" she cheerfully insisted. + +Again he looked at her hard, and then after a pause: "No you +don't!" + +Her tortoise-shell, on its long chain, rattled down. "I help you +with Sitting Bull. That's a good deal." + +"Oh that, yes." But Strether hesitated. "Do you mean he talks of +me?" + +"So that I have to defend you? No, never.' + +"I see," Strether mused. "It's too deep." + +"That's his only fault," she returned--"that everything, with him, +is too deep. He has depths of silence--which he breaks only at the +longest intervals by a remark. And when the remark comes it's +always something he has seen or felt for himself--never a bit banal +THAT would be what one might have feared and what would kill me But +never." She smoked again as she thus, with amused complacency, +appreciated her acquisition. "And never about you. We keep clear of +you. We're wonderful. But I'll tell you what he does do," she +continued: "he tries to make me presents." + +"Presents?" poor Strether echoed, conscious with a pang that HE +hadn't yet tried that in any quarter. + +"Why you see," she explained, "he's as fine as ever in the +victoria; so that when I leave him, as I often do almost for hours +--he likes it so--at the doors of shops, the sight of him there +helps me, when I come out, to know my carriage away off in the +rank. But sometimes, for a change, he goes with me into the shops, +and then I've all I can do to prevent his buying me things." + +"He wants to 'treat' you?" Strether almost gasped at all he himself +hadn't thought of. He had a sense of admiration. "Oh he's much more +in the real tradition than I. Yes," he mused, "it's the sacred rage." + +"The sacred rage, exactly!"--and Miss Barrace, who hadn't before +heard this term applied, recognised its bearing with a clap of her +gemmed hands. "Now I do know why he's not banal. But I do prevent +him all the same--and if you saw what he sometimes selects--from +buying. I save him hundreds and hundreds. I only take flowers." + +"Flowers?" Strether echoed again with a rueful reflexion. How many +nosegays had her present converser sent? + +"Innocent flowers," she pursued, "as much as he likes. And he sends +me splendours; he knows all the best places--he has found them for +himself; he's wonderful." + +"He hasn't told them to me," her friend smiled, "he has a life of +his own." But Strether had swung back to the consciousness that for +himself after all it never would have done. Waymarsh hadn't Mrs. +Waymarsh in the least to consider, whereas Lambert Strether had +constantly, in the inmost honour of his thoughts, to consider Mrs. +Newsome. He liked moreover to feel how much his friend was in the +real tradition. Yet he had his conclusion. "WHAT a rage it is!" +He had worked it out. "It's an opposition." + +She followed, but at a distance. "That's what I feel. Yet to what?" + +"Well, he thinks, you know, that I'VE a life of my own. And I haven't!" + +"You haven't?" She showed doubt, and her laugh confirmed it. +"Oh, oh, oh!" + +"No--not for myself. I seem to have a life only for other people." + +"Ah for them and WITH them! Just now for instance with--" + +"Well, with whom?" he asked before she had had time to say. + +His tone had the effect of making her hesitate and even, as he +guessed, speak with a difference. "Say with Miss Gostrey. What do +you do for HER?" It really made him wonder. "Nothing at all!" + + + +III + + +Madame de Vionnet, having meanwhile come in, was at present +close to them, and Miss Barrace hereupon, instead of risking a +rejoinder, became again with a look that measured her from top to +toe all mere long-handled appreciative tortoise-shell. She had +struck our friend, from the first of her appearing, as dressed for +a great occasion, and she met still more than on either of the +others the conception reawakened in him at their garden-party, the +idea of the femme du monde in her habit as she lived. Her bare +shoulders and arms were white and beautiful; the materials of her +dress, a mixture, as he supposed, of silk and crape, were of a +silvery grey so artfully composed as to give an impression of warm +splendour; and round her neck she wore a collar of large old +emeralds, the green note of which was more dimly repeated, at other +points of her apparel, in embroidery, in enamel, in satin, in +substances and textures vaguely rich. Her head, extremely fair and +exquisitely festal, was like a happy fancy, a notion of the +antique, on an old precious medal, some silver coin of the +Renaissance; while her slim lightness and brightness, her gaiety, +her expression, her decision, contributed to an effect that might +have been felt by a poet as half mythological and half conventional. +He could have compared her to a goddess still partly engaged +in a morning cloud, or to a sea-nymph waist-high in the summer surge. +Above all she suggested to him the reflexion that the femme du monde-- +in these finest developments of the type--was, like Cleopatra +in the play, indeed various and multifold. She had aspects, characters, +days, nights--or had them at least, showed them by a mysterious law +of her own, when in addition to everything she happened also to be +a woman of genius. She was an obscure person, a muffled person one day, +and a showy person, an uncovered person the next. He thought of +Madame de Vionnet to-night as showy and uncovered, though he felt +the formula rough, because, thanks to one of the short-cuts of genius +she had taken all his categories by surprise. Twice during dinner +he had met Chad's eyes in a longish look; but these communications +had in truth only stirred up again old ambiguities--so little was it +clear from them whether they were an appeal or an admonition. +"You see how I'm fixed," was what they appeared to convey; yet how +he was fixed was exactly what Strether didn't see. However, perhaps +he should see now. + +"Are you capable of the very great kindness of going to relieve +Newsome, for a few minutes, of the rather crushing responsibility +of Madame Gloriani, while I say a word, if he'll allow me, to +Mr. Strether, of whom I've a question to ask? Our host ought to talk +a bit to those other ladies, and I'll come back in a minute to your +rescue." She made this proposal to Miss Barrace as if her +consciousness of a special duty had just flickered-up, but that +lady's recognition of Strether's little start at it--as at a +betrayal on the speaker's part of a domesticated state--was as mute +as his own comment; and after an instant, when their fellow guest +had good-naturedly left them, he had been given something else to +think of. "Why has Maria so suddenly gone? Do you know?" That was +the question Madame de Vionnet had brought with her. + +"I'm afraid I've no reason to give you but the simple reason I've +had from her in a note--the sudden obligation to join in the south +a sick friend who has got worse." + +"Ah then she has been writing you?" + +"Not since she went--I had only a brief explanatory word before she +started. I went to see her," Strether explained--"it was the day +after I called on you--but she was already on her way, and her +concierge told me that in case of my coming I was to be informed +she had written to me. I found her note when I got home." + +Madame de Vionnet listened with interest and with her eyes on +Strether's face; then her delicately decorated head had a small +melancholy motion. "She didn't write to ME. I went to see her," she +added, "almost immediately after I had seen you, and as I assured +her I would do when I met her at Gloriani's. She hadn't then told +me she was to be absent, and I felt at her door as if I understood. +She's absent--with all respect to her sick friend, though I know +indeed she has plenty--so that I may not see her. She doesn't want +to meet me again. Well," she continued with a beautiful conscious +mildness, "I liked and admired her beyond every one in the old +time, and she knew it--perhaps that's precisely what has made her go-- +and I dare say I haven't lost her for ever." Strether still said +nothing; he had a horror, as he now thought of himself, of being +in question between women--was in fact already quite enough on his +way to that, and there was moreover, as it came to him, perceptibly, +something behind these allusions and professions that, should he +take it in, would square but ill with his present resolve to simplify. +It was as if, for him, all the same, her softness and sadness +were sincere. He felt that not less when she soon went on: +"I'm extremely glad of her happiness." But it also left him mute-- +sharp and fine though the imputation it conveyed. What it conveyed +was that HE was Maria Gostrey's happiness, and for the least little +instant he had the impulse to challenge the thought. He could have +done so however only by saying "What then do you suppose to be +between us?" and he was wonderfully glad a moment later not to have +spoken. He would rather seem stupid any day than fatuous, and he +drew back as well, with a smothered inward shudder, from the +consideration of what women--of highly-developed type in particular-- +might think of each other. Whatever he had come out for he hadn't +come to go into that; so that he absolutely took up nothing his +interlocutress had now let drop. Yet, though he had kept away from her +for days, had laid wholly on herself the burden of their meeting again, +she hadn't a gleam of irritation to show him. "Well, about Jeanne now?" +she smiled--it had the gaiety with which she had originally come in. +He felt it on the instant to represent her motive and real errand. +But he had been schooling her of a truth to say much in proportion to +his little. "Do you make out that she has a sentiment? I mean for +Mr. Newsome." + +Almost resentful, Strether could at last be prompt. "How can I make +out such things?" + +She remained perfectly good-natured. "Ah but they're beautiful +little things, and you make out--don't pretend--everything in the +world. Haven't you," she asked, "been talking with her?" + +"Yes, but not about Chad. At least not much." + +"Oh you don't require 'much'!" she reassuringly declared. But she +immediately changed her ground. "I hope you remember your promise +of the other day." + +"To 'save' you, as you called it?" + +"I call it so still. You WILL?" she insisted. "You haven't repented?" + +He wondered. "No--but I've been thinking what I meant." + +She kept it up. "And not, a little, what I did?" + +"No--that's not necessary. It will be enough if I know what I +meant myself." + +"And don't you know," she asked, "by this time?" + +Again he had a pause. "I think you ought to leave it to me. +But how long," he added, "do you give me?" + +"It seems to me much more a question of how long you give ME. +Doesn't our friend here himself, at any rate," she went on, +"perpetually make me present to you?" + +"Not," Strether replied, "by ever speaking of you to me." + +"He never does that?" + +"Never." + +She considered, and, if the fact was disconcerting to her, +effectually concealed it. The next minute indeed she had recovered. +"No, he wouldn't. But do you NEED that?" + +Her emphasis was wonderful, and though his eyes had been wandering +he looked at her longer now. "I see what you mean." + +"Of course you see what I mean." + +Her triumph was gentle, and she really had tones to make justice +weep. "I've before me what he owes you." + +"Admit then that that's something," she said, yet still with the +same discretion in her pride. + +He took in this note but went straight on. "You've made of him what +I see, but what I don't see is how in the world you've done it." + +"Ah that's another question!" she smiled. "The point is of what use +is your declining to know me when to know Mr. Newsome--as you do me +the honour to find him--IS just to know me." + +"I see," he mused, still with his eyes on her. "I shouldn't have +met you to-night." + +She raised and dropped her linked hands. "It doesn't matter. If I +trust you why can't you a little trust me too? And why can't you +also," she asked in another tone, "trust yourself?" But she gave +him no time to reply. "Oh I shall be so easy for you! And I'm glad +at any rate you've seen my child." + +"I'm glad too," he said; "but she does you no good." + +"No good?"--Madame de Vionnet had a clear stare. "Why she's an +angel of light." + +"That's precisely the reason. Leave her alone. Don't try to find +out. I mean," he explained, "about what you spoke to me of-- +the way she feels." + +His companion wondered. "Because one really won't?" + +"Well, because I ask you, as a favour to myself, not to. She's the +most charming creature I've ever seen. Therefore don't touch her. +Don't know--don't want to know. And moreover--yes--you won't." + +It was an appeal, of a sudden, and she took it in. "As a favour to you?" + +"Well--since you ask me." + +"Anything, everything you ask," she smiled. "I shan't know then--never. +Thank you," she added with peculiar gentleness as she turned away. + +The sound of it lingered with him, making him fairly feel as if he +had been tripped up and had a fall. In the very act of arranging +with her for his independence he had, under pressure from a +particular perception, inconsistently, quite stupidly, committed +himself, and, with her subtlety sensitive on the spot to an +advantage, she had driven in by a single word a little golden nail, +the sharp intention of which he signally felt. He hadn't detached, +he had more closely connected himself, and his eyes, as he +considered with some intensity this circumstance, met another pair +which had just come within their range and which struck him as +reflecting his sense of what he had done. He recognised them at the +same moment as those of little Bilham, who had apparently drawn +near on purpose to speak to him, and little Bilham wasn't, in the +conditions, the person to whom his heart would be most closed. +They were seated together a minute later at the angle of the room +obliquely opposite the corner in which Gloriani was still engaged +with Jeanne de Vionnet, to whom at first and in silence their +attention had been benevolently given. "I can't see for my life," +Strether had then observed, "how a young fellow of any spirit--such +a one as you for instance--can be admitted to the sight of that +young lady without being hard hit. Why don't you go in, little +Bilham?" He remembered the tone into which he had been betrayed on +the garden-bench at the sculptor's reception, and this might make +up for that by being much more the right sort of thing to say to a +young man worthy of any advice at all. "There WOULD be some +reason." + +"Some reason for what?" + +"Why for hanging on here." + +"To offer my hand and fortune to Mademoiselle de Vionnet?" + +"Well," Strether asked, "to what lovelier apparition COULD you +offer them? She's the sweetest little thing I've ever seen." + +"She's certainly immense. I mean she's the real thing. I believe +the pale pink petals are folded up there for some wondrous +efflorescence in time; to open, that is, to some great golden sun. +I'M unfortunately but a small farthing candle. What chance in such +a field for a poor little painter-man?" + +"Oh you're good enough," Strether threw out. + +"Certainly I'm good enough. We're good enough, I consider, nous +autres, for anything. But she's TOO good. There's the difference. +They wouldn't look at me." + +Strether, lounging on his divan and still charmed by the young +girl, whose eyes had consciously strayed to him, he fancied, with a +vague smile--Strether, enjoying the whole occasion as with dormant +pulses at last awake and in spite of new material thrust upon him, +thought over his companion's words. "Whom do you mean by 'they'? +She and her mother?" + +"She and her mother. And she has a father too, who, whatever else +he may be, certainly can't be indifferent to the possibilities she +represents. Besides, there's Chad." + +Strether was silent a little. "Ah but he doesn't care for her--not, +I mean, it appears, after all, in the sense I'm speaking of. He's +NOT in love with her." + +"No--but he's her best friend; after her mother. He's very fond +of her. He has his ideas about what can be done for her." + +"Well, it's very strange!" Strether presently remarked with a +sighing sense of fulness. + +"Very strange indeed. That's just the beauty of it. Isn't it very +much the kind of beauty you had in mind," little Bilham went on, +"when you were so wonderful and so inspiring to me the other day? +Didn't you adjure me, in accents I shall never forget, to see, +while I've a chance, everything I can?--and REALLY to see, for it +must have been that only you meant. Well, you did me no end of +good, and I'm doing my best. I DO make it out a situation." + +"So do I!" Strether went on after a moment. But he had the next minute +an inconsequent question. "How comes Chad so mixed up, anyway?" + +"Ah, ah, ah!"--and little Bilham fell back on his cushions. + +It reminded our friend of Miss Barrace, and he felt again the brush +of his sense of moving in a maze of mystic closed allusions. Yet he +kept hold of his thread. "Of course I understand really; only the +general transformation makes me occasionally gasp. Chad with such a +voice in the settlement of the future of a little countess--no," +he declared, "it takes more time! You say moreover," he resumed, "that +we're inevitably, people like you and me, out of the running. The +curious fact remains that Chad himself isn't. The situation doesn't +make for it, but in a different one he could have her if he would." + +"Yes, but that's only because he's rich and because there's a +possibility of his being richer. They won't think of anything but a +great name or a great fortune." + +"Well," said Strether, "he'll have no great fortune on THESE lines. +He must stir his stumps." + +"Is that," little Bilham enquired, "what you were saying to +Madame de Vionnet?" + +"No--I don't say much to her. Of course, however," Strether +continued, "he can make sacrifices if he likes." + +Little Bilham had a pause. "Oh he's not keen for sacrifices; or +thinks, that is, possibly, that he has made enough." + +"Well, it IS virtuous," his companion observed with some decision. + +"That's exactly," the young man dropped after a moment, "what I mean." + +It kept Strether himself silent a little. "I've made it out for +myself," he then went on; "I've really, within the last half-hour, +got hold of it. I understand it in short at last; which at first-- +when you originally spoke to me--I didn't. Nor when Chad originally +spoke to me either." + +"Oh," said little Bilham, "I don't think that at that time you +believed me." + +"Yes--I did; and I believed Chad too. It would have been odious and +unmannerly--as well as quite perverse--if I hadn't. What interest +have you in deceiving me?" + +The young man cast about. "What interest have I?" + +"Yes. Chad MIGHT have. But you?" + +"Ah, ah, ah!" little Bilham exclaimed. + +It might, on repetition, as a mystification, have irritated our +friend a little, but he knew, once more, as we have seen, where he +was, and his being proof against everything was only another +attestation that he meant to stay there. "I couldn't, without my +own impression, realise. She's a tremendously clever brilliant +capable woman, and with an extraordinary charm on top of it all-- +the charm we surely all of us this evening know what to think of. +It isn't every clever brilliant capable woman that has it. In fact +it's rare with any woman. So there you are," Strether proceeded as +if not for little Bilham's benefit alone. "I understand what a +relation with such a woman--what such a high fine friendship-- +may be. It can't be vulgar or coarse, anyway--and that's the point." + +"Yes, that's the point," said little Bilham. "It can't be vulgar or +coarse. And, bless us and save us, it ISn't! It's, upon my word, +the very finest thing I ever saw in my life, and the most +distinguished." + +Strether, from beside him and leaning back with him as he leaned, +dropped on him a momentary look which filled a short interval and +of which he took no notice. He only gazed before him with intent +participation. "Of course what it has done for him," Strether at +all events presently pursued, "of course what it has done for him-- +that is as to HOW it has so wonderfully worked--isn't a thing I +pretend to understand. I've to take it as I find it. There he is." + +"There he is!" little Bilham echoed. "And it's really and truly +she. I don't understand either, even with my longer and closer +opportunity. But I'm like you," he added; "I can admire and rejoice +even when I'm a little in the dark. You see I've watched it for +some three years, and especially for this last. He wasn't so bad +before it as I seem to have made out that you think--" + +"Oh I don't think anything now!" Strether impatiently broke in: +"that is but what I DO think! I mean that originally, for her to +have cared for him--" + +"There must have been stuff in him? Oh yes, there was stuff indeed, +and much more of it than ever showed, I dare say, at home. Still, +you know," the young man in all fairness developed, "there was room +for her, and that's where she came in. She saw her chance and took +it. That's what strikes me as having been so fine. But of course," +he wound up, "he liked her first." + +"Naturally," said Strether. + +"I mean that they first met somehow and somewhere--I believe in +some American house--and she, without in the least then intending +it, made her impression. Then with time and opportunity he made +his; and after THAT she was as bad as he." + +Strether vaguely took it up. "As 'bad'?" + +"She began, that is, to care--to care very much. Alone, and in her +horrid position, she found it, when once she had started, an +interest. It was, it is, an interest, and it did--it continues to +do--a lot for herself as well. So she still cares. She cares in +fact," said little Bilham thoughtfully "more." + +Strether's theory that it was none of his business was somehow not +damaged by the way he took this. "More, you mean, than he?" On +which his companion looked round at him, and now for an instant +their eyes met. "More than he?" he repeated. + +Little Bilham, for as long, hung fire. "Will you never tell any +one?" + +Strether thought. "Whom should I tell?" + +"Why I supposed you reported regularly--" + +"To people at home?"--Strether took him up. "Well, I won't tell +them this." + +The young man at last looked away. "Then she does now care more +than he." + +"Oh!" Strether oddly exclaimed. + +But his companion immediately met it. "Haven't you after all had +your impression of it? That's how you've got hold of him." + +"Ah but I haven't got hold of him!" + +"Oh I say!" But it was all little Bilham said. + +"It's at any rate none of my business. I mean," Strether explained, +"nothing else than getting hold of him is." It appeared, however, +to strike him as his business to add: "The fact remains +nevertheless that she has saved him." + +Little Bilham just waited. "I thought that was what you were to do." + +But Strether had his answer ready. "I'm speaking--in connexion with +her--of his manners and morals, his character and life. I'm +speaking of him as a person to deal with and talk with and live +with--speaking of him as a social animal." + +"And isn't it as a social animal that you also want him?" + +"Certainly; so that it's as if she had saved him FOR us." + +"It strikes you accordingly then," the young man threw out, "as for +you all to save HER?" + +"Oh for us 'all'--!" Strether could but laugh at that. It brought +him back, however, to the point he had really wished to make. +"They've accepted their situation--hard as it is. They're not free +--at least she's not; but they take what's left to them. It's a +friendship, of a beautiful sort; and that's what makes them so +strong. They're straight, they feel; and they keep each other up. +It's doubtless she, however, who, as you yourself have hinted, +feels it most." + +Little Bilham appeared to wonder what he had hinted. "Feels most +that they're straight?" + +"Well, feels that SHE is, and the strength that comes from it. She +keeps HIM up--she keeps the whole thing up. When people are able to +it's fine. She's wonderful, wonderful, as Miss Barrace says; and he +is, in his way, too; however, as a mere man, he may sometimes rebel +and not feel that he finds his account in it. She has simply given +him an immense moral lift, and what that can explain is prodigious. +That's why I speak of it as a situation. It IS one, if there ever +was." And Strether, with his head back and his eyes on the ceiling, +seemed to lose himself in the vision of it. + +His companion attended deeply. "You state it much better than I +could." +"Oh you see it doesn't concern you." + +Little Bilham considered. "I thought you said just now that it +doesn't concern you either." + +"Well, it doesn't a bit as Madame de Vionnet's affair. But as we +were again saying just now, what did I come out for but to save +him?" + +"Yes--to remove him." + +"To save him by removal; to win him over to HIMSELF thinking it +best he shall take up business--thinking he must immediately do +therefore what's necessary to that end." + +"Well," said little Bilham after a moment, "you HAVE won him over. +He does think it best. He has within a day or two again said to me +as much." + +"And that," Strether asked, "is why you consider that he cares less +than she?" + +"Cares less for her than she for him? Yes, that's one of the reasons. +But other things too have given me the impression. A man, don't +you think?" little Bilham presently pursued, "CAN'T, in such +conditions, care so much as a woman. It takes different conditions +to make him, and then perhaps he cares more. Chad," he wound up, +"has his possible future before him." + +"Are you speaking of his business future?" + +"No--on the contrary; of the other, the future of what you so +justly call their situation. M. de Vionnet may live for ever." + +"So that they can't marry?" + +The young man waited a moment. "Not being able to marry is all +they've with any confidence to look forward to. A woman--a +particular woman--may stand that strain. But can a man?" he +propounded. + +Strether's answer was as prompt as if he had already, for himself, +worked it out. "Not without a very high ideal of conduct. But +that's just what we're attributing to Chad. And how, for that +matter," he mused, "does his going to America diminish the +particular strain? Wouldn't it seem rather to add to it?" + +"Out of sight out of mind!" his companion laughed. Then more +bravely: "Wouldn't distance lessen the torment?" But before +Strether could reply, "The thing is, you see, Chad ought to marry!" +he wound up. + +Strether, for a little, appeared to think of it. "If you talk of +torments you don't diminish mine!" he then broke out. The next +moment he was on his feet with a question. "He ought to marry +whom?" + +Little Bilham rose more slowly. "Well, some one he CAN--some +thoroughly nice girl " + +Strether's eyes, as they stood together, turned again to Jeanne. +"Do you mean HER?" + +His friend made a sudden strange face. "After being in love with +her mother? No." + +"But isn't it exactly your idea that he ISn't in love with her +mother?" + +His friend once more had a pause. "Well, he isn't at any rate in +love with Jeanne." + +"I dare say not." + +"How CAN he be with any other woman?" + +"Oh that I admit. But being in love isn't, you know, here"--little +Bilham spoke in friendly reminder--"thought necessary, in strictness, +for marriage." + +"And what torment--to call a torment--can there ever possibly be +with a woman like that?" As if from the interest of his own +question Strether had gone on without hearing. "Is it for her to +have turned a man out so wonderfully, too, only for somebody else?" +He appeared to make a point of this, and little Bilham looked at +him now. "When it's for each other that people give things up they +don't miss them." Then he threw off as with an extravagance of +which he was conscious: "Let them face the future together!" + +Little Bilham looked at him indeed. "You mean that after all he +shouldn't go back?" + +"I mean that if he gives her up--!" + +"Yes?" + +"Well, he ought to be ashamed of himself." But Strether spoke with +a sound that might have passed for a laugh. + + + + + +Volume II + +Book Seventh + + + + +I + + +It wasn't the first time Strether had sat alone in the great dim +church--still less was it the first of his giving himself up, so +far as conditions permitted, to its beneficent action on his +nerves. He had been to Notre Dame with Waymarsh, he had been there +with Miss Gostrey, he had been there with Chad Newsome, and had +found the place, even in company, such a refuge from the obsession +of his problem that, with renewed pressure from that source, he had +not unnaturally recurred to a remedy meeting the case, for the +moment, so indirectly, no doubt, but so relievingly. He was +conscious enough that it was only for the moment, but good moments-- +if he could call them good--still had their value for a man who by +this time struck himself as living almost disgracefully from hand +to mouth. Having so well learnt the way, he had lately made the +pilgrimage more than once by himself--had quite stolen off, taking +an unnoticed chance and making no point of speaking of the +adventure when restored to his friends. + +His great friend, for that matter, was still absent, as well as +remarkably silent; even at the end of three weeks Miss Gostrey +hadn't come back. She wrote to him from Mentone, admitting that he +must judge her grossly inconsequent--perhaps in fact for the time +odiously faithless; but asking for patience, for a deferred +sentence, throwing herself in short on his generosity. For her too, +she could assure him, life was complicated--more complicated than +he could have guessed; she had moreover made certain of him-- +certain of not wholly missing him on her return--before her +disappearance. If furthermore she didn't burden him with letters it +was frankly because of her sense of the other great commerce he had +to carry on. He himself, at the end of a fortnight, had written +twice, to show how his generosity could be trusted; but he reminded +himself in each case of Mrs. Newsome's epistolary manner at the +times when Mrs. Newsome kept off delicate ground. He sank his +problem, he talked of Waymarsh and Miss Barrace, of little Bilham +and the set over the river, with whom he had again had tea, and he +was easy, for convenience, about Chad and Madame de Vionnet and +Jeanne. He admitted that he continued to see them, he was decidedly +so confirmed a haunter of Chad's premises and that young man's +practical intimacy with them was so undeniably great; but he had +his reason for not attempting to render for Miss Gostrey's benefit +the impression of these last days. That would be to tell her too +much about himself--it being at present just from himself he was +trying to escape. + +This small struggle sprang not a little, in its way, from the same +impulse that had now carried him across to Notre Dame; the impulse +to let things be, to give them time to justify themselves or at +least to pass. He was aware of having no errand in such a place but +the desire not to be, for the hour, in certain other places; a +sense of safety, of simplification, which each time he yielded to +it he amused himself by thinking of as a private concession to +cowardice. The great church had no altar for his worship, no direct +voice for his soul; but it was none the less soothing even to +sanctity; for he could feel while there what he couldn't elsewhere, +that he was a plain tired man taking the holiday he had earned. He +was tired, but he wasn't plain--that was the pity and the trouble +of it; he was able, however, to drop his problem at the door very +much as if it had been the copper piece that he deposited, on the +threshold, in the receptacle of the inveterate blind beggar. He +trod the long dim nave, sat in the splendid choir, paused before +the cluttered chapels of the east end, and the mighty monument laid +upon him its spell. He might have been a student under the charm of +a museum--which was exactly what, in a foreign town, in the +afternoon of life, he would have liked to be free to be. This form +of sacrifice did at any rate for the occasion as well as another; +it made him quite sufficiently understand how, within the precinct, +for the real refugee, the things of the world could fall into +abeyance. That was the cowardice, probably--to dodge them, to beg +the question, not to deal with it in the hard outer light; but his +own oblivions were too brief, too vain, to hurt any one but +himself, and he had a vague and fanciful kindness for certain +persons whom he met, figures of mystery and anxiety, and whom, with +observation for his pastime, he ranked as those who were fleeing +from justice. Justice was outside, in the hard light, and injustice +too; but one was as absent as the other from the air of the long +aisles and the brightness of the many altars. + +Thus it was at all events that, one morning some dozen days after +the dinner in the Boulevard Malesherbes at which Madame de Vionnet +had been present with her daughter, he was called upon to play his +part in an encounter that deeply stirred his imagination. He had +the habit, in these contemplations, of watching a fellow visitant, +here and there, from a respectable distance, remarking some note of +behaviour, of penitence, of prostration, of the absolved, relieved +state; this was the manner in which his vague tenderness took its +course, the degree of demonstration to which it naturally had to +confine itself. It hadn't indeed so felt its responsibility as when +on this occasion he suddenly measured the suggestive effect of a +lady whose supreme stillness, in the shade of one of the chapels, +he had two or three times noticed as he made, and made once more, +his slow circuit. She wasn't prostrate--not in any degree bowed, +but she was strangely fixed, and her prolonged immobility showed +her, while he passed and paused, as wholly given up to the need, +whatever it was, that had brought her there. She only sat and gazed +before her, as he himself often sat; but she had placed herself, as +he never did, within the focus of the shrine, and she had lost +herself, he could easily see, as he would only have liked to do. +She was not a wandering alien, keeping back more than she gave, but +one of the familiar, the intimate, the fortunate, for whom these +dealings had a method and a meaning. She reminded our friend--since +it was the way of nine tenths of his current impressions to act as +recalls of things imagined--of some fine firm concentrated heroine +of an old story, something he had heard, read, something that, had +he had a hand for drama, he might himself have written, renewing +her courage, renewing her clearness, in splendidly-protected +meditation. Her back, as she sat, was turned to him, but his +impression absolutely required that she should be young and +interesting, and she carried her head moreover, even in the sacred +shade, with a discernible faith in herself, a kind of implied +conviction of consistency, security, impunity. But what had such a +woman come for if she hadn't come to pray? Strether's reading of +such matters was, it must be owned, confused; but he wondered if +her attitude were some congruous fruit of absolution, of +"indulgence." He knew but dimly what indulgence, in such a place, +might mean; yet he had, as with a soft sweep, a vision of how it +might indeed add to the zest of active rites. All this was a good +deal to have been denoted by a mere lurking figure who was nothing +to him; but, the last thing before leaving the church, he had the +surprise of a still deeper quickening. + +He had dropped upon a seat halfway down the nave and, again in the +museum mood, was trying with head thrown back and eyes aloft, +to reconstitute a past, to reduce it in fact to the convenient terms +of Victor Hugo, whom, a few days before, giving the rein for once +in a way to the joy of life, he had purchased in seventy bound volumes, +a miracle of cheapness, parted with, he was assured by the shopman, +at the price of the red-and-gold alone. He looked, doubtless, while he +played his eternal nippers over Gothic glooms, sufficiently rapt in +reverence; but what his thought had finally bumped against was the +question of where, among packed accumulations, so multiform a wedge +would be able to enter. Were seventy volumes in red-and-gold to be +perhaps what he should most substantially have to show at Woollett +as the fruit of his mission? It was a possibility that held him a +minute--held him till he happened to feel that some one, unnoticed, +had approached him and paused. Turning, he saw that a lady stood +there as for a greeting, and he sprang up as he next took her, +securely, for Madame de Vionnet, who appeared to have recognised +him as she passed near him on her way to the door. She checked, +quickly and gaily, a certain confusion in him, came to meet it, +turned it back, by an art of her own; the confusion having +threatened him as he knew her for the person he had lately been +observing. She was the lurking figure of the dim chapel; she had +occupied him more than she guessed; but it came to him in time, +luckily, that he needn't tell her and that no harm, after all, had +been done. She herself, for that matter, straightway showing she +felt their encounter as the happiest of accidents, had for him a +"You come here too?" that despoiled surprise of every awkwardness. + +"I come often," she said. "I love this place, but I'm terrible, in +general, for churches. The old women who live in them all know me; +in fact I'm already myself one of the old women. It's like that, at +all events, that I foresee I shall end." Looking about for a chair, +so that he instantly pulled one nearer, she sat down with him again +to the sound of an "Oh, I like so much your also being fond--!" + +He confessed the extent of his feeling, though she left the object +vague; and he was struck with the tact, the taste of her vagueness, +which simply took for granted in him a sense of beautiful things. +He was conscious of how much it was affected, this sense, by +something subdued and discreet in the way she had arranged herself +for her special object and her morning walk--he believed her to +have come on foot; the way her slightly thicker veil was drawn--a +mere touch, but everything; the composed gravity of her dress, in +which, here and there, a dull wine-colour seemed to gleam faintly +through black; the charming discretion of her small compact head; +the quiet note, as she sat, of her folded, grey-gloved hands. It +was, to Strether's mind, as if she sat on her own ground, the light +honours of which, at an open gate, she thus easily did him, while +all the vastness and mystery of the domain stretched off behind. +When people were so completely in possession they could be +extraordinarily civil; and our friend had indeed at this hour a +kind of revelation of her heritage. She was romantic for him far +beyond what she could have guessed, and again he found his small +comfort in the conviction that, subtle though she was, his +impression must remain a secret from her. The thing that, once +more, made him uneasy for secrets in general was this particular +patience she could have with his own want of colour; albeit that on +the other hand his uneasiness pretty well dropped after he had been +for ten minutes as colourless as possible and at the same time as +responsive. + +The moments had already, for that matter, drawn their deepest tinge +from the special interest excited in him by his vision of his +companion's identity with the person whose attitude before the +glimmering altar had so impressed him. This attitude fitted +admirably into the stand he had privately taken about her connexion +with Chad on the last occasion of his seeing them together. It +helped him to stick fast at the point he had then reached; it was +there he had resolved that he WOULD stick, and at no moment since +had it seemed as easy to do so. Unassailably innocent was a +relation that could make one of the parties to it so carry herself. +If it wasn't innocent why did she haunt the churches?--into which, +given the woman he could believe he made out, she would never have +come to flaunt an insolence of guilt. She haunted them for +continued help, for strength, for peace--sublime support which, if +one were able to look at it so, she found from day to day. They +talked, in low easy tones and with lifted lingering looks, about +the great monument and its history and its beauty--all of which, +Madame de Vionnet professed, came to her most in the other, the +outer view. "We'll presently, after we go," she said, "walk round +it again if you like. I'm not in a particular hurry, and it will be +pleasant to look at it well with you." He had spoken of the great +romancer and the great romance, and of what, to his imagination, +they had done for the whole, mentioning to her moreover the +exorbitance of his purchase, the seventy blazing volumes that were +so out of proportion. + +"Out of proportion to what?" + +"Well, to any other plunge." Yet he felt even as he spoke how at +that instant he was plunging. He had made up his mind and was +impatient to get into the air; for his purpose was a purpose to be +uttered outside, and he had a fear that it might with delay still +slip away from him. She however took her time; she drew out their +quiet gossip as if she had wished to profit by their meeting, and +this confirmed precisely an interpretation of her manner, of her +mystery. While she rose, as he would have called it, to the +question of Victor Hugo, her voice itself, the light low quaver of +her deference to the solemnity about them, seemed to make her words +mean something that they didn't mean openly. Help, strength, peace, +a sublime support--she hadn't found so much of these things as that +the amount wouldn't be sensibly greater for any scrap his +appearance of faith in her might enable her to feel in her hand. +Every little, in a long strain, helped, and if he happened to +affect her as a firm object she could hold on by, he wouldn't jerk +himself out of her reach. People in difficulties held on by what +was nearest, and he was perhaps after all not further off than +sources of comfort more abstract. It was as to this he had made up +his mind; he had made it up, that is, to give her a sign. The sign +would be that--though it was her own affair--he understood; the +sign would be that--though it was her own affair--she was free to +clutch. Since she took him for a firm object--much as he might to +his own sense appear at times to rock--he would do his best to BE one. + +The end of it was that half an hour later they were seated together +for an early luncheon at a wonderful, a delightful house of +entertainment on the left bank--a place of pilgrimage for the +knowing, they were both aware, the knowing who came, for its great +renown, the homage of restless days, from the other end of the +town. Strether had already been there three times--first with Miss +Gostrey, then with Chad, then with Chad again and with Waymarsh and +little Bilham, all of whom he had himself sagaciously entertained; +and his pleasure was deep now on learning that Madame de Vionnet +hadn't yet been initiated. When he had said as they strolled round +the church, by the river, acting at last on what, within, he had +made up his mind to, "Will you, if you have time, come to dejeuner +with me somewhere? For instance, if you know it, over there on the +other side, which is so easy a walk"--and then had named the +place; when he had done this she stopped short as for quick +intensity, and yet deep difficulty, of response. She took in the +proposal as if it were almost too charming to be true; and there +had perhaps never yet been for her companion so unexpected a moment +of pride--so fine, so odd a case, at any rate, as his finding +himself thus able to offer to a person in such universal possession +a new, a rare amusement. She had heard of the happy spot, but she +asked him in reply to a further question how in the world he could +suppose her to have been there. He supposed himself to have +supposed that Chad might have taken her, and she guessed this the +next moment to his no small discomfort. + +"Ah, let me explain," she smiled, "that I don't go about with him +in public; I never have such chances--not having them otherwise-- +and it's just the sort of thing that, as a quiet creature living in +my hole, I adore." It was more than kind of him to have thought of +it--though, frankly, if he asked whether she had time she hadn't a +single minute. That however made no difference--she'd throw +everything over. Every duty at home, domestic, maternal, social, +awaited her; but it was a case for a high line. Her affairs would +go to smash, but hadn't one a right to one's snatch of scandal when +one was prepared to pay? It was on this pleasant basis of costly +disorder, consequently, that they eventually seated themselves, on +either side of a small table, at a window adjusted to the busy quay +and the shining barge-burdened Seine; where, for an hour, in the +matter of letting himself go, of diving deep, Strether was to feel +he had touched bottom. He was to feel many things on this occasion, +and one of the first of them was that he had travelled far since +that evening in London, before the theatre, when his dinner with +Maria Gostrey, between the pink-shaded candles, had struck him as +requiring so many explanations. He had at that time gathered them +in, the explanations--he had stored them up; but it was at present +as if he had either soared above or sunk below them--he couldn't +tell which; he could somehow think of none that didn't seem to +leave the appearance of collapse and cynicism easier for him than +lucidity. How could he wish it to be lucid for others, for any one, +that he, for the hour, saw reasons enough in the mere way the +bright clean ordered water-side life came in at the open window?-- +the mere way Madame de Vionnet, opposite him over their intensely +white table-linen, their omelette aux tomates, their bottle of +straw-coloured Chablis, thanked him for everything almost with the +smile of a child, while her grey eyes moved in and out of their +talk, back to the quarter of the warm spring air, in which early +summer had already begun to throb, and then back again to his face +and their human questions. + +Their human questions became many before they had done--many more, +as one after the other came up, than our friend's free fancy had at +all foreseen. The sense he had had before, the sense he had had +repeatedly, the sense that the situation was running away with him, +had never been so sharp as now; and all the more that he could +perfectly put his finger on the moment it had taken the bit in its +teeth. That accident had definitely occurred, the other evening, +after Chad's dinner; it had occurred, as he fully knew, at the +moment when he interposed between this lady and her child, when he +suffered himself so to discuss with her a matter closely concerning +them that her own subtlety, marked by its significant "Thank you!" +instantly sealed the occasion in her favour. Again he had held off +for ten days, but the situation had continued out of hand in spite +of that; the fact that it was running so fast being indeed just WHY +he had held off. What had come over him as he recognised her in the +nave of the church was that holding off could be but a losing game +from the instant she was worked for not only by her subtlety, but +by the hand of fate itself. If all the accidents were to fight on +her side--and by the actual showing they loomed large--he could +only give himself up. This was what he had done in privately +deciding then and there to propose she should breakfast with him. +What did the success of his proposal in fact resemble but the smash +in which a regular runaway properly ends? The smash was their walk, +their dejeuner, their omelette, the Chablis, the place, the view, +their present talk and his present pleasure in it--to say nothing, +wonder of wonders, of her own. To this tune and nothing less, +accordingly, was his surrender made good. It sufficiently lighted +up at least the folly of holding off. Ancient proverbs sounded, for +his memory, in the tone of their words and the clink of their +glasses, in the hum of the town and the plash of the river. It WAS +clearly better to suffer as a sheep than as a lamb. One might as +well perish by the sword as by famine. + +"Maria's still away?"--that was the first thing she had asked him; +and when he had found the frankness to be cheerful about it in +spite of the meaning he knew her to attach to Miss Gostrey's +absence, she had gone on to enquire if he didn't tremendously miss +her. There were reasons that made him by no means sure, yet he +nevertheless answered "Tremendously"; which she took in as if it +were all she had wished to prove. Then, "A man in trouble MUST be +possessed somehow of a woman," she said; "if she doesn't come in +one way she comes in another." + +"Why do you call me a man in trouble?" + +"Ah because that's the way you strike me." She spoke ever so gently +and as if with all fear of wounding him while she sat partaking of +his bounty. "AREn't you in trouble?" + +He felt himself colour at the question, and then hated that--hated +to pass for anything so idiotic as woundable. Woundable by Chad's +lady, in respect to whom he had come out with such a fund of +indifference--was he already at that point? Perversely, none the +less, his pause gave a strange air of truth to her supposition; and +what was he in fact but disconcerted at having struck her just in +the way he had most dreamed of not doing? "I'm not in trouble yet," +he at last smiled. "I'm not in trouble now." + +"Well, I'm always so. But that you sufficiently know." She was a +woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows +on the table. It was a posture unknown to Mrs. Newsome, but it was +easy for a femme du monde. "Yes--I am 'now'!" + +"There was a question you put to me," he presently returned, "the +night of Chad's dinner. I didn't answer it then, and it has been +very handsome of you not to have sought an occasion for pressing me +about it since." + +She was instantly all there. "Of course I know what you allude to. +I asked you what you had meant by saying, the day you came to see +me, just before you left me, that you'd save me. And you then said +--at our friend's--that you'd have really to wait to see, for +yourself, what you did mean." + +"Yes, I asked for time," said Strether. "And it sounds now, as you +put it, like a very ridiculous speech." + +"Oh!" she murmured--she was full of attenuation. But she had +another thought. "If it does sound ridiculous why do you deny that +you're in trouble?" + +"Ah if I were," he replied, "it wouldn't be the trouble of fearing +ridicule. I don't fear it." + +"What then do you?" + +"Nothing--now." And he leaned back in his chair. + +"I like your 'now'!" she laughed across at him. + +"Well, it's precisely that it fully comes to me at present that +I've kept you long enough. I know by this time, at any rate, what I +meant by my speech; and I really knew it the night of Chad's +dinner." + +"Then why didn't you tell me?" + +"Because it was difficult at the moment. I had already at that +moment done something for you, in the sense of what I had said the +day I went to see you; but I wasn't then sure of the importance I +might represent this as having." + +She was all eagerness. "And you're sure now?" + +"Yes; I see that, practically, I've done for you--had done for you +when you put me your question--all that it's as yet possible to me +to do. I feel now," he went on, "that it may go further than I +thought. What I did after my visit to you," he explained, "was to +write straight off to Mrs. Newsome about you, and I'm at last, from +one day to the other, expecting her answer. It's this answer that +will represent, as I believe, the consequences." + +Patient and beautiful was her interest. "I see--the consequences of +your speaking for me." And she waited as if not to hustle him. + +He acknowledged it by immediately going on. "The question, you +understand, was HOW I should save you. Well, I'm trying it by thus +letting her know that I consider you worth saving." + +"I see--I see." Her eagerness broke through. + +"How can I thank you enough?" He couldn't tell her that, however, +and she quickly pursued. "You do really, for yourself, consider +it?" + +His only answer at first was to help her to the dish that had been +freshly put before them. "I've written to her again since then-- +I've left her in no doubt of what I think. I've told her all about +you." + +"Thanks--not so much. 'All about' me," she went on--"yes." + +"All it seems to me you've done for him." + +"Ah and you might have added all it seems to ME!" She laughed +again, while she took up her knife and fork, as in the cheer of +these assurances. "But you're not sure how she'll take it." + +"No, I'll not pretend I'm sure." + +"Voila." And she waited a moment. "I wish you'd tell me about her." + +"Oh," said Strether with a slightly strained smile, "all that +need concern you about her is that she's really a grand person." + +Madame de Vionnet seemed to demur. "Is that all that need concern +me about her?" + +But Strether neglected the question. "Hasn't Chad talked to you?" + +"Of his mother? Yes, a great deal--immensely. But not from your +point of view." + +"He can't," our friend returned, "have said any ill of her." + +"Not the least bit. He has given me, like you, the assurance that +she's really grand. But her being really grand is somehow just what +hasn't seemed to simplify our case. Nothing," she continued, "is +further from me than to wish to say a word against her; but of +course I feel how little she can like being told of her owing me +anything. No woman ever enjoys such an obligation to another +woman." + +This was a proposition Strether couldn't contradict. "And yet what +other way could I have expressed to her what I felt? It's what +there was most to say about you." + +"Do you mean then that she WILL be good to me?" + +"It's what I'm waiting to see. But I've little doubt she would," he +added, "if she could comfortably see you." + +It seemed to strike her as a happy, a beneficent thought. "Oh then +couldn't that be managed? Wouldn't she come out? Wouldn't she if +you so put it to her? DID you by any possibility?" she faintly +quavered. + +"Oh no"--he was prompt. "Not that. It would be, much more, to give +an account of you that--since there's no question of YOUR paying +the visit--I should go home first." + +It instantly made her graver. "And are you thinking of that?" + +"Oh all the while, naturally." + +"Stay with us--stay with us!" she exclaimed on this. "That's your +only way to make sure." + +"To make sure of what?" + +"Why that he doesn't break up. You didn't come out to do that to +him." + +"Doesn't it depend," Strether returned after a moment, "on what you +mean by breaking up?" + +"Oh you know well enough what I mean!" + +His silence seemed again for a little to denote an understanding. +"You take for granted remarkable things." + +"Yes, I do--to the extent that I don't take for granted vulgar +ones. You're perfectly capable of seeing that what you came out for +wasn't really at all to do what you'd now have to do." + +"Ah it's perfectly simple," Strether good-humouredly pleaded. "I've +had but one thing to do--to put our case before him. To put it as +it could only be put here on the spot--by personal pressure. My +dear lady," he lucidly pursued, "my work, you see, is really done, +and my reasons for staying on even another day are none of the +best. Chad's in possession of our case and professes to do it full +justice. What remains is with himself. I've had my rest, my +amusement and refreshment; I've had, as we say at Woollett, a +lovely time. Nothing in it has been more lovely than this happy +meeting with you--in these fantastic conditions to which you've so +delightfully consented. I've a sense of success. It's what I +wanted. My getting all this good is what Chad has waited for, and I +gather that if I'm ready to go he's the same." + +She shook her head with a finer deeper wisdom. "You're not ready. +If you're ready why did you write to Mrs. Newsome in the sense +you've mentioned to me?" + +Strether considered. "I shan't go before I hear from her. You're +too much afraid of her," he added. + +It produced between them a long look from which neither shrank. "I +don't think you believe that--believe I've not really reason to +fear her." + +"She's capable of great generosity," Strether presently stated. + +"Well then let her trust me a little. That's all I ask. Let her +recognise in spite of everything what I've done." + +"Ah remember," our friend replied, "that she can't effectually +recognise it without seeing it for herself. Let Chad go over and +show her what you've done, and let him plead with her there for it +and, as it were, for YOU." + +She measured the depth of this suggestion. "Do you give me your +word of honour that if she once has him there she won't do her best +to marry him?" + +It made her companion, this enquiry, look again a while out at the +view; after which he spoke without sharpness. "When she sees for +herself what he is--" + +But she had already broken in. "It's when she sees for herself what +he is that she'll want to marry him most." + +Strether's attitude, that of due deference to what she said, +permitted him to attend for a minute to his luncheon. "I doubt if +that will come off. It won't be easy to make it." + +"It will be easy if he remains there--and he'll remain for the +money. The money appears to be, as a probability, so hideously +much." + +"Well," Strether presently concluded, "nothing COULD really hurt +you but his marrying." + +She gave a strange light laugh. "Putting aside what may really hurt +HIM." + +But her friend looked at her as if he had thought of that too. +"The question will come up, of course, of the future that you +yourself offer him." + +She was leaning back now, but she fully faced him. "Well, let it +come up!" + +"The point is that it's for Chad to make of it what he can. His +being proof against marriage will show what he does make." + +"If he IS proof, yes"--she accepted the proposition. "But for +myself," she added, "the question is what YOU make." + +"Ah I make nothing. It's not my affair." + +"I beg your pardon. It's just there that, since you've taken it up +and are committed to it, it most intensely becomes yours. You're +not saving me, I take it, for your interest in myself, but for your +interest in our friend. The one's at any rate wholly dependent on +the other. You can't in honour not see me through," she wound up, +"because you can't in honour not see HIM." + +Strange and beautiful to him was her quiet soft acuteness. The thing +that most moved him was really that she was so deeply serious. She had +none of the portentous forms of it, but he had never come in contact, +it struck him, with a force brought to so fine a head. Mrs. Newsome, +goodness knew, was serious; but it was nothing to this. He took it +all in, he saw it all together. "No," he mused, "I can't in honour +not see him." + +Her face affected him as with an exquisite light. "You WILL then?" + +"I will." + +At this she pushed back her chair and was the next moment on her +feet. "Thank you!" she said with her hand held out to him across +the table and with no less a meaning in the words than her lips had +so particularly given them after Chad's dinner. The golden nail she +had then driven in pierced a good inch deeper. Yet he reflected +that he himself had only meanwhile done what he had made up his mind to +on the same occasion. So far as the essence of the matter went he had +simply stood fast on the spot on which he had then planted his feet. + + + +II + + +He received three days after this a communication from America, in +the form of a scrap of blue paper folded and gummed, not reaching +him through his bankers, but delivered at his hotel by a small boy +in uniform, who, under instructions from the concierge, approached +him as he slowly paced the little court. It was the evening hour, +but daylight was long now and Paris more than ever penetrating. The +scent of flowers was in the streets, he had the whiff of violets +perpetually in his nose; and he had attached himself to sounds and +suggestions, vibrations of the air, human and dramatic, he +imagined, as they were not in other places, that came out for him +more and more as the mild afternoons deepened--a far-off hum, a +sharp near click on the asphalt, a voice calling, replying, +somewhere and as full of tone as an actor's in a play. He was to +dine at home, as usual, with Waymarsh--they had settled to that for +thrift and simplicity; and he now hung about before his friend came +down. + +He read his telegram in the court, standing still a long time where +he had opened it and giving five minutes afterwards to the renewed +study of it. At last, quickly, he crumpled it up as if to get it +out of the way; in spite of which, however, he kept it there-- +still kept it when, at the end of another turn, he had dropped into +a chair placed near a small table. Here, with his scrap of paper +compressed in his fist and further concealed by his folding his +arms tight, he sat for some time in thought, gazed before him so +straight that Waymarsh appeared and approached him without catching +his eye. The latter in fact, struck with his appearance, looked at +him hard for a single instant and then, as if determined to that +course by some special vividness in it, dropped back into the salon +de lecture without addressing him. But the pilgrim from Milrose +permitted himself still to observe the scene from behind the clear +glass plate of that retreat. Strether ended, as he sat, by a fresh +scrutiny of his compressed missive, which he smoothed out carefully +again as he placed it on his table. There it remained for some +minutes, until, at last looking up, he saw Waymarsh watching him +from within. It was on this that their eyes met--met for a moment +during which neither moved. But Strether then got up, folding his +telegram more carefully and putting it into his waistcoat pocket + +A few minutes later the friends were seated together at dinner; but +Strether had meanwhile said nothing about it, and they eventually +parted, after coffee in the court, with nothing said on either +side. Our friend had moreover the consciousness that even less than +usual was on this occasion said between them, so that it was almost +as if each had been waiting for something from the other. Waymarsh +had always more or less the air of sitting at the door of his tent, +and silence, after so many weeks, had come to play its part in +their concert. This note indeed, to Strether's sense, had lately +taken a fuller tone, and it was his fancy to-night that they had +never quite so drawn it out. Yet it befell, none the less that he +closed the door to confidence when his companion finally asked him +if there were anything particular the matter with him. "Nothing," +he replied, "more than usual." + +On the morrow, however, at an early hour, he found occasion to give +an answer more in consonance with the facts. What was the matter +had continued to be so all the previous evening, the first hours of +which, after dinner, in his room, he had devoted to the copious +composition of a letter. He had quitted Waymarsh for this purpose, +leaving him to his own resources with less ceremony than their +wont, but finally coming down again with his letter unconcluded and +going forth into the streets without enquiry for his comrade. He +had taken a long vague walk, and one o'clock had struck before his +return and his re-ascent to his room by the aid of the glimmering +candle-end left for him on the shelf outside the porter's lodge. He +had possessed himself, on closing his door, of the numerous loose +sheets of his unfinished composition, and then, without reading +them over, had torn them into small pieces. He had thereupon slept-- +as if it had been in some measure thanks to that sacrifice--the +sleep of the just, and had prolonged his rest considerably beyond +his custom. Thus it was that when, between nine and ten, the tap of +the knob of a walking-stick sounded on his door, he had not yet +made himself altogether presentable. Chad Newsome's bright deep +voice determined quickly enough none the less the admission of the +visitor. The little blue paper of the evening before, plainly an +object the more precious for its escape from premature destruction, +now lay on the sill of the open window, smoothed out afresh and +kept from blowing away by the superincumbent weight of his watch. +Chad, looking about with careless and competent criticism, as he +looked wherever he went immediately espied it and permitted himself +to fix it for a moment rather hard. After which he turned his eyes +to his host. "It has come then at last?" + +Strether paused in the act of pinning his necktie. "Then you know--? +You've had one too?" + +"No, I've had nothing, and I only know what I see. I see that thing +and I guess. Well," he added, "it comes as pat as in a play, for +I've precisely turned up this morning--as I would have done +yesterday, but it was impossible--to take you." + +"To take me?" Strether had turned again to his glass. + +"Back, at last, as I promised. I'm ready--I've really been ready +this month. I've only been waiting for you--as was perfectly right. +But you're better now; you're safe--I see that for myself; you've +got all your good. You're looking, this morning, as fit as a flea." + +Strether, at his glass, finished dressing; consulting that witness +moreover on this last opinion. WAS he looking preternaturally fit? +There was something in it perhaps for Chad's wonderful eye, but he +had felt himself for hours rather in pieces. Such a judgement, +however, was after all but a contribution to his resolve; it +testified unwittingly to his wisdom. He was still firmer, +apparently--since it shone in him as a light--than he had flattered +himself. His firmness indeed was slightly compromised, as he faced +about to his friend, by the way this very personage looked--though +the case would of course have been worse hadn't the secret of +personal magnificence been at every hour Chad's unfailing +possession. There he was in all the pleasant morning freshness of +it--strong and sleek and gay, easy and fragrant and fathomless, +with happy health in his colour, and pleasant silver in his thick +young hair, and the right word for everything on the lips that his +clear brownness caused to show as red. He had never struck Strether +as personally such a success; it was as if now, for his definite +surrender, he had gathered himself vividly together. This, sharply +and rather strangely, was the form in which he was to be presented +to Woollett. Our friend took him in again--he was always taking him +in and yet finding that parts of him still remained out; though +even thus his image showed through a mist of other things. "I've +had a cable," Strether said, "from your mother." + +"I dare say, my dear man. I hope she's well." + +Strether hesitated. "No--she's not well, I'm sorry to have to tell +you." + +"Ah," said Chad, "I must have had the instinct of it. All the more +reason then that we should start straight off." + +Strether had now got together hat, gloves and stick, but Chad had +dropped on the sofa as if to show where he wished to make his +point. He kept observing his companion's things; he might have been +judging how quickly they could be packed. He might even have wished +to hint that he'd send his own servant to assist. "What do you +mean," Strether enquired, "by 'straight off'?" + +"Oh by one of next week's boats. Everything at this season goes out +so light that berths will be easy anywhere." + +Strether had in his hand his telegram, which he had kept there +after attaching his watch, and he now offered it to Chad, who, +however, with an odd movement, declined to take it. "Thanks, I'd +rather not. Your correspondence with Mother's your own affair. I'm +only WITH you both on it, whatever it is." Strether, at this, while +their eyes met, slowly folded the missive and put it in his pocket; +after which, before he had spoken again, Chad broke fresh ground. +"Has Miss Gostrey come back?" + +But when Strether presently spoke it wasn't in answer. "It's not, I +gather, that your mother's physically ill; her health, on the +whole, this spring, seems to have been better than usual. But she's +worried, she's anxious, and it appears to have risen within the +last few days to a climax. We've tired out, between us, her +patience." + +"Oh it isn't YOU!" Chad generously protested. + +"I beg your pardon--it IS me." Strether was mild and melancholy, +but firm. He saw it far away and over his companion's head. "It's +very particularly me." + +"Well then all the more reason. Marchons, marchons!" said the young +man gaily. His host, however, at this, but continued to stand +agaze; and he had the next thing repeated his question of a moment +before. "Has Miss Gostrey come back?" + +"Yes, two days ago." + +"Then you've seen her?" + +"No--I'm to see her to-day." But Strether wouldn't linger now on +Miss Gostrey. "Your mother sends me an ultimatum. If I can't bring +you I'm to leave you; I'm to come at any rate myself." + +"Ah but you CAN bring me now," Chad, from his sofa, reassuringly +replied. + +Strether had a pause. "I don't think I understand you. Why was it +that, more than a month ago, you put it to me so urgently to let +Madame de Vionnet speak for you?" + +"'Why'?" Chad considered, but he had it at his fingers' ends. "Why +but because I knew how well she'd do it? It was the way to keep you +quiet and, to that extent, do you good. Besides," he happily and +comfortably explained, "I wanted you really to know her and to get +the impression of her--and you see the good that HAS done you." + +"Well," said Strether, "the way she has spoken for you, all the +same--so far as I've given her a chance--has only made me feel how +much she wishes to keep you. If you make nothing of that I don't +see why you wanted me to listen to her." + +"Why my dear man," Chad exclaimed, "I make everything of it! How +can you doubt--?" + +"I doubt only because you come to me this morning with your signal +to start." + +Chad stared, then gave a laugh. "And isn't my signal to start just +what you've been waiting for?" + +Strether debated; he took another turn. "This last month I've been +awaiting, I think, more than anything else, the message I have +here." + +"You mean you've been afraid of it?" + +"Well, I was doing my business in my own way. And I suppose your +present announcement," Strether went on, "isn't merely the result +of your sense of what I've expected. Otherwise you wouldn't have +put me in relation--" But he paused, pulling up. + +At this Chad rose. "Ah HER wanting me not to go has nothing to do +with it! It's only because she's afraid--afraid of the way that, +over there, I may get caught. But her fear's groundless." + +He had met again his companion's sufficiently searching look. "Are +you tired of her?" + +Chad gave him in reply to this, with a movement of the head, the +strangest slow smile he had ever had from him. "Never." + +It had immediately, on Strether's imagination, so deep and soft an +effect that our friend could only for the moment keep it before +him. "Never?" + +"Never," Chad obligingly and serenely repeated. + +It made his companion take several more steps. "Then YOU'RE not +afraid." + +"Afraid to go?" + +Strether pulled up again. "Afraid to stay." + +The young man looked brightly amazed. "You want me now to 'stay'?" + +"If I don't immediately sail the Pococks will immediately come out. +That's what I mean," said Strether, "by your mother's ultimatum ." + +Chad showed a still livelier, but not an alarmed interest. "She has +turned on Sarah and Jim?" + +Strether joined him for an instant in the vision. "Oh and you may +be sure Mamie. THAT'S whom she's turning on." + +This also Chad saw--he laughed out. "Mamie--to corrupt me?" + +"Ah," said Strether, "she's very charming." + +"So you've already more than once told me. I should like to see +her." + +Something happy and easy, something above all unconscious, in the +way he said this, brought home again to his companion the facility +of his attitude and the enviability of his state. "See her then by +all means. And consider too," Strether went on, "that you really +give your sister a lift in letting her come to you. You give her a +couple of months of Paris, which she hasn't seen, if I'm not +mistaken, since just after she was married, and which I'm sure she +wants but the pretext to visit." + +Chad listened, but with all his own knowledge of the world. "She +has had it, the pretext, these several years, yet she has never +taken it." + +"Do you mean YOU?" Strether after an instant enquired. + +"Certainly--the lone exile. And whom do you mean?" said Chad. + +"Oh I mean ME. I'm her pretext. That is--for it comes to the same +thing--I'm your mother's." + +"Then why," Chad asked, "doesn't Mother come herself?" + +His friend gave him a long look. "Should you like her to?" And as +he for the moment said nothing: "It's perfectly open to you to +cable for her." + +Chad continued to think. "Will she come if I do?" + +"Quite possibly. But try, and you'll see." + +"Why don't YOU try?" Chad after a moment asked. + +"Because I don't want to." + +Chad thought. "Don't desire her presence here?" + +Strether faced the question, and his answer was the more emphatic. +"Don't put it off, my dear boy, on ME!" + +"Well--I see what you mean. I'm sure you'd behave beautifully but you +DON'T want to see her. So I won't play you that trick.' + +"Ah," Strether declared, "I shouldn't call it a trick. You've a +perfect right, and it would be perfectly straight of you." Then he +added in a different tone: "You'd have moreover, in the person of +Madame de Vionnet, a very interesting relation prepared for her." + +Their eyes, on this proposition, continued to meet, but Chad's +pleasant and bold, never flinched for a moment. He got up at last +and he said something with which Strether was struck. "She wouldn't +understand her, but that makes no difference. Madame de Vionnet +would like to see her. She'd like to be charming to her. She +believes she could work it." + +Strether thought a moment, affected by this, but finally turning +away. "She couldn't!" + +"You're quite sure?" Chad asked. + +"Well, risk it if you like!" + +Strether, who uttered this with serenity, had urged a plea for their +now getting into the air; but the young man still waited. "Have you +sent your answer?" + +"No, I've done nothing yet." + +"Were you waiting to see me?" + +"No, not that." + +"Only waiting"--and Chad, with this, had a smile for him--"to see +Miss Gostrey?" + +"No--not even Miss Gostrey. I wasn't waiting to see any one. I had +only waited, till now, to make up my mind--in complete solitude; +and, since I of course absolutely owe you the information, was on +the point of going out with it quite made up. Have therefore a +little more patience with me. Remember," Strether went on, "that +that's what you originally asked ME to have. I've had it, you see, +and you see what has come of it. Stay on with me." + +Chad looked grave. "How much longer?" + +"Well, till I make you a sign. I can't myself, you know, at the +best, or at the worst, stay for ever. Let the Pococks come," +Strether repeated. + +"Because it gains you time?" + +"Yes--it gains me time." + +Chad, as if it still puzzled him, waited a minute. "You don't want +to get back to Mother?" + +"Not just yet. I'm not ready." + +"You feel," Chad asked in a tone of his own, "the charm of life +over here?" + +"Immensely." Strether faced it. "You've helped me so to feel it +that that surely needn't surprise you." + +"No, it doesn't surprise me, and I'm delighted. But what, my dear +man," Chad went on with conscious queerness, "does it all lead to +for you?" + +The change of position and of relation, for each, was so oddly +betrayed in the question that Chad laughed out as soon as he had +uttered it--which made Strether also laugh. "Well, to my having a +certitude that has been tested--that has passed through the fire. +But oh," he couldn't help breaking out, "if within my first month +here you had been willing to move with me--!" + +"Well?" said Chad, while he broke down as for weight of thought. + +"Well, we should have been over there by now." + +"Ah but you wouldn't have had your fun!" + +"I should have had a month of it; and I'm having now, if you want +to know," Strether continued, "enough to last me for the rest of my +days." + +Chad looked amused and interested, yet still somewhat in the dark; +partly perhaps because Strether's estimate of fun had required of +him from the first a good deal of elucidation. "It wouldn't do if +I left you--?" + +"Left me?"--Strether remained blank. + +"Only for a month or two--time to go and come. Madame de Vionnet," +Chad smiled, "would look after you in the interval." + +"To go back by yourself, I remaining here?" Again for an instant +their eyes had the question out; after which Strether said: +"Grotesque!" + +"But I want to see Mother," Chad presently returned. "Remember how +long it is since I've seen Mother." + +"Long indeed; and that's exactly why I was originally so keen for +moving you. Hadn't you shown us enough how beautifully you could do +without it?" + +"Oh but," said Chad wonderfully, "I'm better now." + +There was an easy triumph in it that made his friend laugh out +again. "Oh if you were worse I SHOULD know what to do with you. In +that case I believe I'd have you gagged and strapped down, carried +on board resisting, kicking. How MUCH," Strether asked, "do you +want to see Mother?" + +"How much?"--Chad seemed to find it in fact difficult to say. + +"How much." + +"Why as much as you've made me. I'd give anything to see her. And +you've left me," Chad went on, "in little enough doubt as to how +much SHE wants it." + +Strether thought a minute. "Well then if those things are really +your motive catch the French steamer and sail to-morrow. Of course, +when it comes to that, you're absolutely free to do as you choose. +From the moment you can't hold yourself I can only accept your +flight." + +"I'll fly in a minute then," said Chad, "if you'll stay here." + +"I'll stay here till the next steamer--then I'll follow you." + +"And do you call that," Chad asked, "accepting my flight?" + +"Certainly--it's the only thing to call it. The only way to keep me +here, accordingly," Strether explained, "is by staying yourself." + +Chad took it in. "All the more that I've really dished you, eh?" + +"Dished me?" Strether echoed as inexpressively as possible. + +"Why if she sends out the Pococks it will be that she doesn't trust +you, and if she doesn't trust you, that bears upon--well, you know +what." + +Strether decided after a moment that he did know what, and in +consonance with this he spoke. "You see then all the more what you +owe me." + +"Well, if I do see, how can I pay?" + +"By not deserting me. By standing by me." + +"Oh I say--!" But Chad, as they went downstairs, clapped a firm +hand, in the manner of a pledge, upon his shoulder. They descended +slowly together and had, in the court of the hotel, some further +talk, of which the upshot was that they presently separated. Chad +Newsome departed, and Strether, left alone, looked about, superficially, +for Waymarsh. But Waymarsh hadn't yet, it appeared, come down, and +our friend finally went forth without sight of him. + + + +III + + +At four o'clock that afternoon he had still not seen him, but he +was then, as to make up for this, engaged in talk about him with +Miss Gostrey. Strether had kept away from home all day, given +himself up to the town and to his thoughts, wandered and mused, +been at once restless and absorbed--and all with the present climax +of a rich little welcome in the Quartier Marboeuf. "Waymarsh has +been, 'unbeknown' to me, I'm convinced"--for Miss Gostrey had +enquired--"in communication with Woollett: the consequence of which +was, last night, the loudest possible call for me." + +"Do you mean a letter to bring you home?" + +"No--a cable, which I have at this moment in my pocket: a 'Come +back by the first ship.'" + +Strether's hostess, it might have been made out, just escaped +changing colour. Reflexion arrived but in time and established a +provisional serenity. It was perhaps exactly this that enabled her +to say with duplicity: "And you're going--?" + +"You almost deserve it when you abandon me so." + +She shook her head as if this were not worth taking up. "My absence +has helped you--as I've only to look at you to see. It was my +calculation, and I'm justified. You're not where you were. And the +thing," she smiled, "was for me not to be there either. You can go +of yourself." + +"Oh but I feel to-day," he comfortably declared, "that I shall want +you yet." + +She took him all in again. "Well, I promise you not again to leave +you, but it will only be to follow you. You've got your momentum +and can toddle alone." + +He intelligently accepted it. "Yes--I suppose I can toddle. It's +the sight of that in fact that has upset Waymarsh. He can bear it-- +the way I strike him as going--no longer. That's only the climax +of his original feeling. He wants me to quit; and he must have +written to Woollett that I'm in peril of perdition." + +"Ah good!" she murmured. "But is it only your supposition?" + +"I make it out--it explains." + +"Then he denies?--or you haven't asked him?" + +"I've not had time," Strether said; "I made it out but last night, +putting various things together, and I've not been since then face +to face with him." + +She wondered. "Because you're too disgusted? You can't trust +yourself?" + +He settled his glasses on his nose. "Do I look in a great rage?" + +"You look divine!" + +"There's nothing," he went on, "to be angry about. He has done me +on the contrary a service." + +She made it out. "By bringing things to a head?" + +"How well you understand!" he almost groaned. "Waymarsh won't in +the least, at any rate, when I have it out with him, deny or +extenuate. He has acted from the deepest conviction, with the best +conscience and after wakeful nights. He'll recognise that he's +fully responsible, and will consider that he has been highly +successful; so that any discussion we may have will bring us quite +together again--bridge the dark stream that has kept us so +thoroughly apart. We shall have at last, in the consequences of his +act, something we can definitely talk about." + +She was silent a little. "How wonderfully you take it! But you're +always wonderful." + +He had a pause that matched her own; then he had, with an adequate +spirit, a complete admission. "It's quite true. I'm extremely +wonderful just now. I dare say in fact I'm quite fantastic, and I +shouldn't be at all surprised if I were mad." + +"Then tell me!" she earnestly pressed. As he, however, for the time +answered nothing, only returning the look with which she watched +him, she presented herself where it was easier to meet her. "What +will Mr. Waymarsh exactly have done?" + +"Simply have written a letter. One will have been quite enough. He +has told them I want looking after." + +"And DO you?"--she was all interest. + +"Immensely. And I shall get it." + +"By which you mean you don't budge?" + +"I don't budge." + +"You've cabled?" + +"No--I've made Chad do it." + +"That you decline to come?" + +"That HE declines. We had it out this morning and I brought him +round. He had come in, before I was down, to tell me he was ready-- +ready, I mean, to return. And he went off, after ten minutes with +me, to say he wouldn't." + +Miss Gostrey followed with intensity. "Then you've STOPPED him?" + +Strether settled himself afresh in his chair. "I've stopped him. +That is for the time. That"--he gave it to her more vividly--"is +where I am." + +"I see, I see. But where's Mr. Newsome? He was ready," she asked, +"to go?" + +"All ready." + +"And sincerely--believing YOU'D be?" + +"Perfectly, I think; so that he was amazed to find the hand I had +laid on him to pull him over suddenly converted into an engine for +keeping him still." + +It was an account of the matter Miss Gostrey could weigh. "Does he +think the conversion sudden?" + +"Well," said Strether, "I'm not altogether sure what he thinks. I'm +not sure of anything that concerns him, except that the more I've +seen of him the less I've found him what I originally expected. +He's obscure, and that's why I'm waiting." + +She wondered. "But for what in particular?" + +"For the answer to his cable." + +"And what was his cable?" + +"I don't know," Strether replied; "it was to be, when he left me, +according to his own taste. I simply said to him: 'I want to stay, +and the only way for me to do so is for you to.' That I wanted to +stay seemed to interest him, and he acted on that." + +Miss Gostrey turned it over. "He wants then himself to stay." + +"He half wants it. That is he half wants to go. My original appeal +has to that extent worked in him. Nevertheless," Strether pursued, +"he won't go. Not, at least, so long as I'm here." + +"But you can't," his companion suggested, "stay here always. I wish +you could." + +"By no means. Still, I want to see him a little further. He's not +in the least the case I supposed, he's quite another case. And it's +as such that he interests me." It was almost as if for his own +intelligence that, deliberate and lucid, our friend thus expressed +the matter. "I don't want to give him up." + +Miss Gostrey but desired to help his lucidity. She had however to +be light and tactful. "Up, you mean--a--to his mother?" + +"Well, I'm not thinking of his mother now. I'm thinking of the plan +of which I was the mouthpiece, which, as soon as we met, I put +before him as persuasively as I knew how, and which was drawn up, +as it were, in complete ignorance of all that, in this last long +period, has been happening to him. It took no account whatever of +the impression I was here on the spot immediately to begin to +receive from him--impressions of which I feel sure I'm far from +having had the last." + +Miss Gostrey had a smile of the most genial criticism. "So your +idea is--more or less--to stay out of curiosity?" + +"Call it what you like! I don't care what it's called--" + +"So long as you do stay? Certainly not then. I call it, all the +same, immense fun," Maria Gostrey declared; "and to see you work it +out will be one of the sensations of my life. It IS clear you can +toddle alone!" + +He received this tribute without elation. "I shan't be alone when +the Pococks have come." + +Her eyebrows went up. "The Pococks are coming?" + +"That, I mean, is what will happen--and happen as quickly as +possible--in consequence of Chad's cable. They'll simply embark. +Sarah will come to speak for her mother--with an effect different +from MY muddle." + +Miss Gostrey more gravely wondered. "SHE then will take him back?" + +"Very possibly--and we shall see. She must at any rate have the +chance, and she may be trusted to do all she can." + +"And do you WANT that?" + +"Of course," said Strether, "I want it. I want to play fair " + +But she had lost for a moment the thread. "If it devolves on the +Pococks why do you stay?" + +"Just to see that I DO play fair--and a little also, no doubt, that +they do." Strether was luminous as he had never been. "I came out +to find myself in presence of new facts--facts that have kept +striking me as less and less met by our old reasons. The matter's +perfectly simple. New reasons--reasons as new as the facts +themselves--are wanted; and of this our friends at Woollett--Chad's +and mine--were at the earliest moment definitely notified. If any +are producible Mrs. Pocock will produce them; she'll bring over the +whole collection. They'll be," he added with a pensive smile "a +part of the 'fun' you speak of." + +She was quite in the current now and floating by his side. "It's +Mamie--so far as I've had it from you--who'll be their great card." +And then as his contemplative silence wasn't a denial she +significantly added: "I think I'm sorry for her." + +"I think I am!"--and Strether sprang up, moving about a little as +her eyes followed him. "But it can't be helped." + +"You mean her coming out can't be?" + +He explained after another turn what he meant. "The only way for +her not to come is for me to go home--as I believe that on the spot +I could prevent it. But the difficulty as to that is that if I do +go home--" + +"I see, I see"--she had easily understood. "Mr. Newsome will do the +same, and that's not"--she laughed out now--"to be thought of." + +Strether had no laugh; he had only a quiet comparatively placid +look that might have shown him as proof against ridicule. "Strange, +isn't it?" + +They had, in the matter that so much interested them, come so far +as this without sounding another name--to which however their +present momentary silence was full of a conscious reference. +Strether's question was a sufficient implication of the weight it +had gained with him during the absence of his hostess; and just for +that reason a single gesture from her could pass for him as a vivid +answer. Yet he was answered still better when she said in a moment: +"Will Mr. Newsome introduce his sister--?" + +"To Madame de Vionnet?" Strether spoke the name at last. "I shall +be greatly surprised if he doesn't." + +She seemed to gaze at the possibility. "You mean you've thought of +it and you're prepared." + +"I've thought of it and I'm prepared." + +It was to her visitor now that she applied her consideration. "Bon! +You ARE magnificent!" + +"Well," he answered after a pause and a little wearily, but still +standing there before her--"well, that's what, just once in all my +dull days, I think I shall like to have been!" + +Two days later he had news from Chad of a communication from +Woollett in response to their determinant telegram, this missive +being addressed to Chad himself and announcing the immediate +departure for France of Sarah and Jim and Mamie. Strether had +meanwhile on his own side cabled; he had but delayed that act till +after his visit to Miss Gostrey, an interview by which, as so often +before, he felt his sense of things cleared up and settled. His +message to Mrs. Newsome, in answer to her own, had consisted of the +words: "Judge best to take another month, but with full +appreciation of all re-enforcements." He had added that he was +writing, but he was of course always writing; it was a practice +that continued, oddly enough, to relieve him, to make him come +nearer than anything else to the consciousness of doing something: +so that he often wondered if he hadn't really, under his recent +stress, acquired some hollow trick, one of the specious arts of +make-believe. Wouldn't the pages he still so freely dispatched by +the American post have been worthy of a showy journalist, some +master of the great new science of beating the sense out of words? +Wasn't he writing against time, and mainly to show he was kind?-- +since it had become quite his habit not to like to read himself +over. On those lines he could still be liberal, yet it was at best +a sort of whistling in the dark. It was unmistakeable moreover that +the sense of being in the dark now pressed on him more sharply-- +creating thereby the need for a louder and livelier whistle. He +whistled long and hard after sending his message; he whistled again +and again in celebration of Chad's news; there was an interval of a +fortnight in which this exercise helped him. He had no great notion +of what, on the spot, Sarah Pocock would have to say, though he had +indeed confused premonitions; but it shouldn't be in her power to +say--it shouldn't be in any one's anywhere to say--that he was +neglecting her mother. He might have written before more freely, +but he had never written more copiously; and he frankly gave for a +reason at Woollett that he wished to fill the void created there by +Sarah's departure. + +The increase of his darkness, however, and the quickening, as I +have called it, of his tune, resided in the fact that he was +hearing almost nothing. He had for some time been aware that he was +hearing less than before, and he was now clearly following a +process by which Mrs. Newsome's letters could but logically stop. +He hadn't had a line for many days, and he needed no proof--though +he was, in time, to have plenty--that she wouldn't have put pen to +paper after receiving the hint that had determined her telegram. +She wouldn't write till Sarah should have seen him and reported on +him. It was strange, though it might well be less so than his own +behaviour appeared at Woollett. It was at any rate significant, and +what WAS remarkable was the way his friend's nature and manner put +on for him, through this very drop of demonstration, a greater +intensity. It struck him really that he had never so lived with her +as during this period of her silence; the silence was a sacred +hush, a finer clearer medium, in which her idiosyncrasies showed. +He walked about with her, sat with her, drove with her and dined +face-to-face with her--a rare treat "in his life," as he could +perhaps have scarce escaped phrasing it; and if he had never seen +her so soundless he had never, on the other hand, felt her so +highly, so almost austerely, herself: pure and by the vulgar +estimate "cold," but deep devoted delicate sensitive noble. Her +vividness in these respects became for him, in the special +conditions, almost an obsession; and though the obsession sharpened +his pulses, adding really to the excitement of life, there were +hours at which, to be less on the stretch, he directly sought +forgetfulness. He knew it for the queerest of adventures--a +circumstance capable of playing such a part only for Lambert +Strether--that in Paris itself, of all places, he should find this +ghost of the lady of Woollett more importunate than any other +presence. + +When he went back to Maria Gostrey it was for the change to +something else. And yet after all the change scarcely operated for +he talked to her of Mrs. Newsome in these days as he had never +talked before. He had hitherto observed in that particular a +discretion and a law; considerations that at present broke down +quite as if relations had altered. They hadn't REALLY altered, he +said to himself, so much as that came to; for if what had occurred +was of course that Mrs. Newsome had ceased to trust him, there was +nothing on the other hand to prove that he shouldn't win back her +confidence. It was quite his present theory that he would leave no +stone unturned to do so; and in fact if he now told Maria things +about her that he had never told before this was largely because it +kept before him the idea of the honour of such a woman's esteem. +His relation with Maria as well was, strangely enough, no longer +quite the same; this truth--though not too disconcertingly--had +come up between them on the renewal of their meetings. It was all +contained in what she had then almost immediately said to him; it +was represented by the remark she had needed but ten minutes to +make and that he hadn't been disposed to gainsay. He could toddle +alone, and the difference that showed was extraordinary. The turn +taken by their talk had promptly confirmed this difference; his +larger confidence on the score of Mrs. Newsome did the rest; and +the time seemed already far off when he had held out his small +thirsty cup to the spout of her pail. Her pail was scarce touched +now, and other fountains had flowed for him; she fell into her +place as but one of his tributaries; and there was a strange +sweetness--a melancholy mildness that touched him--in her +acceptance of the altered order. + +It marked for himself the flight of time, or at any rate what he +was pleased to think of with irony and pity as the rush of experience; +it having been but the day before yesterday that he sat at her feet +and held on by her garment and was fed by her hand. It was the +proportions that were changed, and the proportions were at all +times, he philosophised, the very conditions of perception, the +terms of thought. It was as if, with her effective little entresol and +and her wide acquaintance, her activities, varieties, promiscuities, +the duties and devotions that took up nine tenths of her time and +of which he got, guardedly, but the side-wind--it was as if she had +shrunk to a secondary element and had consented to the shrinkage +with the perfection of tact. This perfection had never failed +her; it had originally been greater than his prime measure for it; +it had kept him quite apart, kept him out of the shop, as she +called her huge general acquaintance, made their commerce as +quiet, as much a thing of the home alone--the opposite of the +shop--as if she had never another customer. She had been wonderful +to him at first, with the memory of her little entresol, the image +to which, on most mornings at that time, his eyes directly opened; +but now she mainly figured for him as but part of the bristling +total--though of course always as a person to whom he should never +cease to be indebted. It would never be given to him certainly +to inspire a greater kindness. She had decked him out for others, +and he saw at this point at least nothing she would ever ask for. +She only wondered and questioned and listened, rendering him the +homage of a wistful speculation. She expressed it repeatedly; +he was already far beyond her, and she must prepare herself to +lose him. There was but one little chance for her. + +Often as she had said it he met it--for it was a touch he liked-- +each time the same way. "My coming to grief?" + +"Yes--then I might patch you up." + +"Oh for my real smash, if it takes place, there will be no +patching." + +"But you surely don't mean it will kill you." + +"No--worse. It will make me old." + +"Ah nothing can do that! The wonderful and special thing about you +is that you ARE, at this time of day, youth." Then she always made, +further, one of those remarks that she had completely ceased to +adorn with hesitations or apologies, and that had, by the same +token, in spite of their extreme straightness, ceased to produce in +Strether the least embarrassment. She made him believe them, and +they became thereby as impersonal as truth itself. "It's just your +particular charm." + +His answer too was always the same. "Of course I'm youth--youth +for the trip to Europe. I began to be young, or at least to get the +benefit of it, the moment I met you at Chester, and that's what has +been taking place ever since. I never had the benefit at the proper +time--which comes to saying that I never had the thing itself. I'm +having the benefit at this moment; I had it the other day when I +said to Chad 'Wait'; I shall have it still again when Sarah Pocock +arrives. It's a benefit that would make a poor show for many +people; and I don't know who else but you and I, frankly, could +begin to see in it what I feel. I don't get drunk; I don't pursue +the ladies; I don't spend money; I don't even write sonnets. But +nevertheless I'm making up late for what I didn't have early. I +cultivate my little benefit in my own little way. It amuses me more +than anything that has happened to me in all my life. They may say +what they like--it's my surrender, it's my tribute, to youth. One +puts that in where one can--it has to come in somewhere, if only +out of the lives, the conditions, the feelings of other persons. +Chad gives me the sense of it, for all his grey hairs, which merely +make it solid in him and safe and serene; and SHE does the same, +for all her being older than he, for all her marriageable daughter, +her separated husband, her agitated history. Though they're young +enough, my pair, I don't say they're, in the freshest way, their +own absolutely prime adolescence; for that has nothing to do with +it. The point is that they're mine. Yes, they're my youth; since +somehow at the right time nothing else ever was. What I meant just +now therefore is that it would all go--go before doing its work-- +if they were to fail me." + +On which, just here, Miss Gostrey inveterately questioned. "What do +you, in particular, call its work?" + +"Well, to see me through." + +"But through what?"--she liked to get it all out of him. + +"Why through this experience." That was all that would come. + +It regularly gave her none the less the last word. "Don't you +remember how in those first days of our meeting it was I who was to +see you through?" + +"Remember? Tenderly, deeply"--he always rose to it. "You're just +doing your part in letting me maunder to you thus." + +"Ah don't speak as if my part were small; since whatever else fails +you--" + +"YOU won't, ever, ever, ever?"--he thus took her up. "Oh I beg your +pardon; you necessarily, you inevitably WILL. Your conditions--that's +what I mean--won't allow me anything to do for you." + +"Let alone--I see what you mean--that I'm drearily dreadfully old. +I AM, but there's a service--possible for you to render--that I know, +all the same, I shall think of." + +"And what will it be?" + +This, in fine, however, she would never tell him. "You shall hear +only if your smash takes place. As that's really out of the +question, I won't expose myself''--a point at which, for reasons of +his own, Strether ceased to press. + +He came round, for publicity--it was the easiest thing--to the idea +that his smash WAS out of the question, and this rendered idle the +discussion of what might follow it. He attached an added +importance, as the days elapsed, to the arrival of the Pococks; he +had even a shameful sense of waiting for it insincerely and +incorrectly. He accused himself of making believe to his own mind +that Sarah's presence, her impression, her judgement would simplify +and harmonise, he accused himself of being so afraid of what they +MIGHT do that he sought refuge, to beg the whole question, in a +vain fury. He had abundantly seen at home what they were in the +habit of doing, and he had not at present the smallest ground. His +clearest vision was when he made out that what he most desired was +an account more full and free of Mrs. Newsome's state of mind than +any he felt he could now expect from herself; that calculation at +least went hand in hand with the sharp consciousness of wishing to +prove to himself that he was not afraid to look his behaviour in +the face. If he was by an inexorable logic to pay for it he was +literally impatient to know the cost, and he held himself ready to +pay in instalments. The first instalment would be precisely this +entertainment of Sarah; as a consequence of which moreover. he +should know vastly better how he stood. + + + + + +Book Eighth + + + + +I + + +Strether rambled alone during these few days, the effect of the +incident of the previous week having been to simplify in a marked +fashion his mixed relations with Waymarsh. Nothing had passed +between them in reference to Mrs. Newsome's summons but that our +friend had mentioned to his own the departure of the deputation +actually at sea--giving him thus an opportunity to confess to the +occult intervention he imputed to him. Waymarsh however in the +event confessed to nothing; and though this falsified in some +degree Strether's forecast the latter amusedly saw in it the same +depth of good conscience out of which the dear man's impertinence +had originally sprung. He was patient with the dear man now and +delighted to observe how unmistakeably he had put on flesh; he felt +his own holiday so successfully large and free that he was full of +allowances and charities in respect to those cabined and confined' +his instinct toward a spirit so strapped down as Waymarsh's was to +walk round it on tiptoe for fear of waking it up to a sense of +losses by this time irretrievable. It was all very funny he knew, +and but the difference, as he often said to himself, of tweedledum +and tweedledee--an emancipation so purely comparative that it was +like the advance of the door-mat on the scraper; yet the present +crisis was happily to profit by it and the pilgrim from Milrose to +know himself more than ever in the right. + +Strether felt that when he heard of the approach of the Pococks the +impulse of pity quite sprang up in him beside the impulse of +triumph. That was exactly why Waymarsh had looked at him with eyes +in which the heat of justice was measured and shaded. He had looked +very hard, as if affectionately sorry for the friend--the friend of +fifty-five--whose frivolity had had thus to be recorded; becoming, +however, but obscurely sententious and leaving his companion to +formulate a charge. It was in this general attitude that he had of +late altogether taken refuge; with the drop of discussion they were +solemnly sadly superficial; Strether recognised in him the mere +portentous rumination to which Miss Barrace had so good-humouredly +described herself as assigning a corner of her salon. It was quite +as if he knew his surreptitious step had been divined, and it was +also as if he missed the chance to explain the purity of his +motive; but this privation of relief should be precisely his small +penance: it was not amiss for Strether that he should find himself +to that degree uneasy. If he had been challenged or accused, +rebuked for meddling or otherwise pulled up, he would probably have +shown, on his own system, all the height of his consistency, all +the depth of his good faith. Explicit resentment of his course +would have made him take the floor, and the thump of his fist on +the table would have affirmed him as consciously incorruptible. Had +what now really prevailed with Strether been but a dread of that +thump--a dread of wincing a little painfully at what it might +invidiously demonstrate? However this might be, at any rate, one of +the marks of the crisis was a visible, a studied lapse, in +Waymarsh, of betrayed concern. As if to make up to his comrade for +the stroke by which he had played providence he now conspicuously +ignored his movements, withdrew himself from the pretension to +share them, stiffened up his sensibility to neglect, and, clasping +his large empty hands and swinging his large restless foot, clearly +looked to another quarter for justice. + +This made for independence on Strether's part, and he had in truth +at no moment of his stay been so free to go and come. The early +summer brushed the picture over and blurred everything but the +near; it made a vast warm fragrant medium in which the elements +floated together on the best of terms, in which rewards were +immediate and reckonings postponed. Chad was out of town again, for +the first time since his visitor's first view of him; he had +explained this necessity--without detail, yet also without +embarrassment, the circumstance was one of those which, in the +young man's life, testified to the variety of his ties. Strether +wasn't otherwise concerned with it than for its so testifying--a +pleasant multitudinous image in which he took comfort. He took +comfort, by the same stroke, in the swing of Chad's pendulum back +from that other swing, the sharp jerk towards Woollett, so stayed +by his own hand. He had the entertainment of thinking that if he +had for that moment stopped the clock it was to promote the next +minute this still livelier motion. He himself did what he hadn't +done before; he took two or three times whole days off-- +irrespective of others, of two or three taken with Miss Gostrey, +two or three taken with little Bilham: he went to Chartres and +cultivated, before the front of the cathedral, a general easy +beatitude; he went to Fontainebleau and imagined himself on the way +to Italy; he went to Rouen with a little handbag and inordinately +spent the night. + +One afternoon he did something quite different; finding himself in +the neighbourhood of a fine old house across the river, he passed +under the great arch of its doorway and asked at the porter's lodge +for Madame de Vionnet. He had already hovered more than once about +that possibility, been aware of it, in the course of ostensible +strolls, as lurking but round the corner. Only it had perversely +happened, after his morning at Notre Dame, that his consistency, as +he considered and intended it, had come back to him; whereby he had +reflected that the encounter in question had been none of his +making; clinging again intensely to the strength of his position, +which was precisely that there was nothing in it for himself. From +the moment he actively pursued the charming associate of his +adventure, from that moment his position weakened, for he was then +acting in an interested way. It was only within a few days that he +had fixed himself a limit: he promised himself his consistency +should end with Sarah's arrival. It was arguing correctly to feel +the title to a free hand conferred on him by this event. If he +wasn't to be let alone he should be merely a dupe to act with +delicacy. If he wasn't to be trusted he could at least take his +ease. If he was to be placed under control he gained leave to try +what his position MIGHT agreeably give him. An ideal rigour would +perhaps postpone the trial till after the Pococks had shown their +spirit; and it was to an ideal rigour that he had quite promised +himself to conform. + +Suddenly, however, on this particular day, he felt a particular +fear under which everything collapsed. He knew abruptly that he was +afraid of himself--and yet not in relation to the effect on his +sensibilities of another hour of Madame de Vionnet. What he dreaded +was the effect of a single hour of Sarah Pocock, as to whom he was +visited, in troubled nights, with fantastic waking dreams. She +loomed at him larger than life; she increased in volume as she drew +nearer; she so met his eyes that, his imagination taking, after the +first step, all, and more than all, the strides, he already felt +her come down on him, already burned, under her reprobation, with +the blush of guilt, already consented, by way of penance, to the +instant forfeiture of everything. He saw himself, under her +direction, recommitted to Woollett as juvenile offenders are +committed to reformatories. It wasn't of course that Woollett was +really a place of discipline; but he knew in advance that Sarah's +salon at the hotel would be. His danger, at any rate, in such moods +of alarm, was some concession, on this ground, that would involve a +sharp rupture with the actual; therefore if he waited to take leave +of that actual he might wholly miss his chance. It was represented +with supreme vividness by Madame de Vionnet, and that is why, in a +word, he waited no longer. He had seen in a flash that he must +anticipate Mrs. Pocock. He was accordingly much disappointed on now +learning from the portress that the lady of his quest was not in +Paris. She had gone for some days to the country. There was nothing +in this accident but what was natural; yet it produced for poor +Strether a drop of all confidence. It was suddenly as if he should +never see her again, and as if moreover he had brought it on +himself by not having been quite kind to her. + +It was the advantage of his having let his fancy lose itself for a +little in the gloom that, as by reaction, the prospect began really +to brighten from the moment the deputation from Woollett alighted +on the platform of the station. They had come straight from Havre, +having sailed from New York to that port, and having also, thanks +to a happy voyage, made land with a promptitude that left Chad +Newsome, who had meant to meet them at the dock, belated. He had +received their telegram, with the announcement of their immediate +further advance, just as he was taking the train for Havre, so that +nothing had remained for him but to await them in Paris. He hastily +picked up Strether, at the hotel, for this purpose, and he even, +with easy pleasantry, suggested the attendance of Waymarsh as well-- +Waymarsh, at the moment his cab rattled up, being engaged, under +Strether's contemplative range, in a grave perambulation of the +familiar court. Waymarsh had learned from his companion, who had +already had a note, delivered by hand, from Chad, that the Pococks +were due, and had ambiguously, though, as always, impressively, +glowered at him over the circumstance; carrying himself in a manner +in which Strether was now expert enough to recognise his uncertainty, +in the premises, as to the best tone. The only tone he aimed at with +confidence was a full tone--which was necessarily difficult in the +absence of a full knowledge. The Pococks were a quantity as yet +unmeasured, and, as he had practically brought them over, so this +witness had to that extent exposed himself. He wanted to feel right +about it, but could only, at the best, for the time, feel vague. +"I shall look to you, you know, immensely," our friend had said, +"to help me with them," and he had been quite conscious of the +effect of the remark, and of others of the same sort, on his +comrade's sombre sensibility. He had insisted on the fact that +Waymarsh would quite like Mrs. Pocock--one could be certain he +would: he would be with her about everything, and she would also be +with HIM, and Miss Barrace's nose, in short, would find itself out +of joint. + +Strether had woven this web of cheerfulness while they waited in +the court for Chad; he had sat smoking cigarettes to keep himself +quiet while, caged and leonine, his fellow traveller paced and +turned before him. Chad Newsome was doubtless to be struck, when he +arrived, with the sharpness of their opposition at this particular +hour; he was to remember, as a part of it, how Waymarsh came with +him and with Strether to the street and stood there with a face +half-wistful and half-rueful. They talked of him, the two others, as +they drove, and Strether put Chad in possession of much of his own +strained sense of things. He had already, a few days before, named +to him the wire he was convinced their friend had pulled--a +confidence that had made on the young man's part quite hugely for +curiosity and diversion. The action of the matter, moreover, +Strether could see, was to penetrate; he saw that is, how Chad +judged a system of influence in which Waymarsh had served as a +determinant--an impression just now quickened again; with the whole +bearing of such a fact on the youth's view of his relatives. As it +came up between them that they might now take their friend for a +feature of the control of these latter now sought to be exerted +from Woollett, Strether felt indeed how it would be stamped all +over him, half an hour later for Sarah Pocock's eyes, that he was +as much on Chad's "side" as Waymarsh had probably described him. He +was letting himself at present, go; there was no denying it; it +might be desperation, it might be confidence; he should offer +himself to the arriving travellers bristling with all the lucidity +he had cultivated. + +He repeated to Chad what he had been saying in the court to +Waymarsh; how there was no doubt whatever that his sister would +find the latter a kindred spirit, no doubt of the alliance, based +on an exchange of views, that the pair would successfully strike +up. They would become as thick as thieves--which moreover was but a +development of what Strether remembered to have said in one of his +first discussions with his mate, struck as he had then already been +with the elements of affinity between that personage and Mrs. +Newsome herself. "I told him, one day, when he had questioned me on +your mother, that she was a person who, when he should know her, +would rouse in him, I was sure, a special enthusiasm; and that +hangs together with the conviction we now feel--this certitude that +Mrs. Pocock will take him into her boat. For it's your mother's own +boat that she's pulling." + +"Ah," said Chad, "Mother's worth fifty of Sally!" + +"A thousand; but when you presently meet her, all the same you'll +be meeting your mother's representative--just as I shall. I feel +like the outgoing ambassador," said Strether, "doing honour to his +appointed successor." A moment after speaking as he had just done +he felt he had inadvertently rather cheapened Mrs. Newsome to her +son; an impression audibly reflected, as at first seen, in Chad's +prompt protest. He had recently rather failed of apprehension of +the young man's attitude and temper--remaining principally +conscious of how little worry, at the worst, he wasted, and he +studied him at this critical hour with renewed interest. Chad had +done exactly what he had promised him a fortnight previous--had +accepted without another question his plea for delay. He was +waiting cheerfully and handsomely, but also inscrutably and with a +slight increase perhaps of the hardness originally involved in his +acquired high polish. He was neither excited nor depressed; was +easy and acute and deliberate--unhurried unflurried unworried, only +at most a little less amused than usual. Strether felt him more +than ever a justification of the extraordinary process of which his +own absurd spirit had been the arena; he knew as their cab rolled +along, knew as he hadn't even yet known, that nothing else than +what Chad had done and had been would have led to his present +showing. They had made him, these things, what he was, and the +business hadn't been easy; it had taken time and trouble, it had +cost, above all, a price. The result at any rate was now to be +offered to Sally; which Strether, so far as that was concerned, was +glad to be there to witness. Would she in the least make it out or +take it in, the result, or would she in the least care for it if +she did? He scratched his chin as he asked himself by what name, +when challenged--as he was sure he should be--he could call it for +her. Oh those were determinations she must herself arrive at; since +she wanted so much to see, let her see then and welcome. She had +come out in the pride of her competence, yet it hummed in +Strether's inner sense that she practically wouldn't see. + +That this was moreover what Chad shrewdly suspected was clear from +a word that next dropped from him. "They're children; they play at +life!"--and the exclamation was significant and reassuring. It +implied that he hadn't then, for his companion's sensibility, +appeared to give Mrs. Newsome away; and it facilitated our friend's +presently asking him if it were his idea that Mrs. Pocock and +Madame de Vionnet should become acquainted. Strether was still more +sharply struck, hereupon, with Chad's lucidity. "Why, isn't that +exactly--to get a sight of the company I keep--what she has come +out for?" + +"Yes--I'm afraid it is," Strether unguardedly replied. + +Chad's quick rejoinder lighted his precipitation. "Why do you say +you're afraid?" + +"Well, because I feel a certain responsibility. It's my testimony, +I imagine, that will have been at the bottom of Mrs. Pocock's +curiosity. My letters, as I've supposed you to understand from the +beginning, have spoken freely. I've certainly said my little say +about Madame de Vionnet." + +All that, for Chad, was beautifully obvious. "Yes, but you've only +spoken handsomely." + +"Never more handsomely of any woman. But it's just that tone--!" + +"That tone," said Chad, "that has fetched her? I dare say; but I've +no quarrel with you about it. And no more has Madame de Vionnet. +Don't you know by this time how she likes you?" + +"Oh!"--and Strether had, with his groan, a real pang of melancholy. +"For all I've done for her!" + +"Ah you've done a great deal." + +Chad's urbanity fairly shamed him, and he was at this moment +absolutely impatient to see the face Sarah Pocock would present to +a sort of thing, as he synthetically phrased it to himself, with no +adequate forecast of which, despite his admonitions, she would +certainly arrive. "I've done THIS!" + +"Well, this is all right. She likes," Chad comfortably remarked, + "to be liked." + +It gave his companion a moment's thought. "And she's sure Mrs. +Pocock WILL--?" + +"No, I say that for you. She likes your liking her; it's so much, +as it were," Chad laughed, "to the good. However, she doesn't +despair of Sarah either, and is prepared, on her own side, to go +all lengths." + +"In the way of appreciation?" + +"Yes, and of everything else. In the way of general amiability, +hospitality and welcome. She's under arms," Chad laughed again; +"she's prepared." + +Strether took it in; then as if an echo of Miss Barrace were in the +air: "She's wonderful." + +"You don't begin to know HOW wonderful!" + +There was a depth in it, to Strether's ear, of confirmed luxury-- +almost a kind of unconscious insolence of proprietorship; but the +effect of the glimpse was not at this moment to foster speculation: +there was something so conclusive in so much graceful and generous +assurance. It was in fact a fresh evocation; and the evocation had +before many minutes another consequence. "Well, I shall see her +oftener now. I shall see her as much as I like--by your leave; +which is what I hitherto haven't done." + +"It has been," said Chad, but without reproach, "only your own +fault. I tried to bring you together, and SHE, my dear fellow--I +never saw her more charming to any man. But you've got your +extraordinary ideas." + +"Well, I DID have," Strether murmured, while he felt both how they +had possessed him and how they had now lost their authority. He +couldn't have traced the sequence to the end, but it was all +because of Mrs. Pocock. Mrs. Pocock might be because of Mrs. Newsome, +but that was still to be proved. What came over him was the sense +of having stupidly failed to profit where profit would have been +precious. It had been open to him to see so much more of her, and +he had but let the good days pass. Fierce in him almost was the +resolve to lose no more of them, and he whimsically reflected, +while at Chad's side he drew nearer to his destination, that it +was after all Sarah who would have quickened his chance. What +her visit of inquisition might achieve in other directions was +as yet all obscure--only not obscure that it would do supremely +much to bring two earnest persons together. He had but to listen +to Chad at this moment to feel it; for Chad was in the act of +remarking to him that they of course both counted on him--he +himself and the other earnest person--for cheer and support. It was +brave to Strether to hear him talk as if the line of wisdom they +had struck out was to make things ravishing to the Pococks. No, if +Madame de Vionnet compassed THAT, compassed the ravishment of the +Pococks, Madame de Vionnet would be prodigious. It would be a +beautiful plan if it succeeded, and it all came to the question of +Sarah's being really bribeable. The precedent of his own case +helped Strether perhaps but little to consider she might prove so; +it being distinct that her character would rather make for every +possible difference. This idea of his own bribeability set him +apart for himself; with the further mark in fact that his case was +absolutely proved. He liked always, where Lambert Strether was +concerned, to know the worst, and what he now seemed to know was +not only that he was bribeable, but that he had been effectually +bribed. The only difficulty was that he couldn't quite have said +with what. It was as if he had sold himself, but hadn't somehow got +the cash. That, however, was what, characteristically, WOULD happen +to him. It would naturally be his kind of traffic. While he thought +of these things he reminded Chad of the truth they mustn't lose +sight of--the truth that, with all deference to her susceptibility +to new interests, Sarah would have come out with a high firm +definite purpose. "She hasn't come out, you know, to be bamboozled. +We may all be ravishing--nothing perhaps can be more easy for us; +but she hasn't come out to be ravished. She has come out just +simply to take you home." + +"Oh well, with HER I'll go," said Chad good-humouredly. "I suppose +you'll allow THAT." And then as for a minute Strether said nothing: +"Or is your idea that when I've seen her I shan't want to go?" As +this question, however, again left his friend silent he presently went +on: "My own idea at any rate is that they shall have while they're here +the best sort of time." + +It was at this that Strether spoke. "Ah there you are! I think if +you really wanted to go--!" + +"Well?" said Chad to bring it out. + +"Well, you wouldn't trouble about our good time. You wouldn't care +what sort of a time we have." + +Chad could always take in the easiest way in the world any +ingenious suggestion. "I see. But can I help it? I'm too decent." + +"Yes, you're too decent!" Strether heavily sighed. And he felt for +the moment as if it were the preposterous end of his mission. + +It ministered for the time to this temporary effect that Chad made +no rejoinder. But he spoke again as they came in sight of the +station. "Do you mean to introduce her to Miss Gostrey?" + +As to this Strether was ready. "No." + +"But haven't you told me they know about her?" + +"I think I've told you your mother knows." + +"And won't she have told Sally?" + +"That's one of the things I want to see." + +"And if you find she HAS--?" + +"Will I then, you mean, bring them together?" + +"Yes," said Chad with his pleasant promptness: "to show her there's +nothing in it." + +Strether hesitated. "I don't know that I care very much what she +may think there's in it." + +"Not if it represents what Mother thinks?" + +"Ah what DOES your mother think?" There was in this some sound of +bewilderment. + +But they were just driving up, and help, of a sort, might after all +be quite at hand. "Isn't that, my dear man, what we're both just +going to make out?" + + + + + +II + + +Strether quitted the station half an hour later in different +company. Chad had taken charge, for the journey to the hotel, of +Sarah, Mamie, the maid and the luggage, all spaciously installed +and conveyed; and it was only after the four had rolled away that +his companion got into a cab with Jim. A strange new feeling had +come over Strether, in consequence of which his spirits had risen; +it was as if what had occurred on the alighting of his critics had +been something other than his fear, though his fear had vet not +been of an instant scene of violence. His impression had been +nothing but what was inevitable--he said that to himself; yet +relief and reassurance had softly dropped upon him. Nothing could +be so odd as to be indebted for these things to the look of faces +and the sound of voices that had been with him to satiety, as he +might have said, for years; but he now knew, all the same, how +uneasy he had felt; that was brought home to him by his present +sense of a respite. It had come moreover in the flash of an eye, it +had come in the smile with which Sarah, whom, at the window of her +compartment, they had effusively greeted from the platform, rustled +down to them a moment later, fresh and handsome from her cool June +progress through the charming land. It was only a sign, but enough: +she was going to be gracious and unallusive, she was going to play +the larger game--which was still more apparent, after she had +emerged from Chad's arms, in her direct greeting to the valued +friend of her family. + +Strether WAS then as much as ever the valued friend of her family, +it was something he could at all events go on with; and the manner +of his response to it expressed even for himself how little he had +enjoyed the prospect of ceasing to figure in that likeness. He had +always seen Sarah gracious--had in fact rarely seen her shy or dry, +her marked thin-lipped smile, intense without brightness and as +prompt to act as the scrape of a safety-match; the protrusion of +her rather remarkably long chin, which in her case represented +invitation and urbanity, and not, as in most others, pugnacity and +defiance; the penetration of her voice to a distance, the general +encouragement and approval of her manner, were all elements with +which intercourse had made him familiar, but which he noted today +almost as if she had been a new acquaintance. This first glimpse of +her had given a brief but vivid accent to her resemblance to her +mother; he could have taken her for Mrs. Newsome while she met his +eyes as the train rolled into the station. It was an impression +that quickly dropped; Mrs. Newsome was much handsomer, and while +Sarah inclined to the massive her mother had, at an age, still the +girdle of a maid; also the latter's chin was rather short, than +long, and her smile, by good fortune, much more, oh ever so much +more, mercifully vague. Strether had seen Mrs. Newsome reserved; he +had literally heard her silent, though he had never known her +unpleasant. It was the case with Mrs. Pocock that he had known HER +unpleasant, even though he had never known her not affable. She had +forms of affability that were in a high degree assertive; nothing +for instance had ever been more striking than that she was affable +to Jim. + +What had told in any case at the window of the train was her high +clear forehead, that forehead which her friends, for some reason, +always thought of as a "brow"; the long reach of her eyes--it came +out at this juncture in such a manner as to remind him, oddly +enough, also of that of Waymarsh's; and the unusual gloss of her +dark hair, dressed and hatted, after her mother's refined example, +with such an avoidance of extremes that it was always spoken of at +Woollett as "their own." Though this analogy dropped as soon as she +was on the platform it had lasted long enough to make him feel all +the advantage, as it were, of his relief. The woman at home, the +woman to whom he was attached, was before him just long enough to +give him again the measure of the wretchedness, in fact really of +the shame, of their having to recognise the formation, between +them, of a "split." He had taken this measure in solitude and +meditation: but the catastrophe, as Sarah steamed up, looked for +its seconds unprecedentedly dreadful--or proved, more exactly, +altogether unthinkable; so that his finding something free and +familiar to respond to brought with it an instant renewal of his +loyalty. He had suddenly sounded the whole depth, had gasped at +what he might have lost. + +Well, he could now, for the quarter of an hour of their detention +hover about the travellers as soothingly as if their direct message +to him was that he had lost nothing. He wasn't going to have Sarah +write to her mother that night that he was in any way altered or +strange. There had been times enough for a month when it had seemed +to him that he was strange, that he was altered, in every way; but +that was a matter for himself; he knew at least whose business it +was not; it was not at all events such a circumstance as Sarah's +own unaided lights would help her to. Even if she had come out to +flash those lights more than yet appeared she wouldn't make much +headway against mere pleasantness. He counted on being able to be +merely pleasant to the end, and if only from incapacity moreover to +formulate anything different. He couldn't even formulate to himself +his being changed and queer; it had taken place, the process, +somewhere deep down; Maria Gostrey had caught glimpses of it; but +how was he to fish it up, even if he desired, for Mrs. Pocock? This +was then the spirit in which he hovered, and with the easier throb +in it much indebted furthermore to the impression of high and +established adequacy as a pretty girl promptly produced in him by +Mamie. He had wondered vaguely--turning over many things in the +fidget of his thoughts--if Mamie WERE as pretty as Woollett +published her; as to which issue seeing her now again was to be so +swept away by Woollett's opinion that this consequence really let +loose for the imagination an avalanche of others. There were +positively five minutes in which the last word seemed of necessity +to abide with a Woollett represented by a Mamie. This was the sort +of truth the place itself would feel; it would send her forth in +confidence; it would point to her with triumph; it would take its +stand on her with assurance; it would be conscious of no +requirements she didn't meet, of no question she couldn't answer. + +Well, it was right, Strether slipped smoothly enough into the +cheerfulness of saying: granted that a community MIGHT be best +represented by a young lady of twenty-two, Mamie perfectly played +the part, played it as if she were used to it, and looked and spoke +and dressed the character. He wondered if she mightn't, in the high +light of Paris, a cool full studio-light, becoming yet treacherous, +show as too conscious of these matters; but the next moment he felt +satisfied that her consciousness was after all empty for its size, +rather too simple than too mixed, and that the kind way with her +would be not to take many things out of it, but to put as many as +possible in. She was robust and conveniently tall; just a trifle +too bloodlessly fair perhaps, but with a pleasant public familiar +radiance that affirmed her vitality. She might have been +"receiving" for Woollett, wherever she found herself, and there was +something in her manner, her tone, her motion, her pretty blue +eyes, her pretty perfect teeth and her very small, too small, nose, +that immediately placed her, to the fancy, between the windows of a +hot bright room in which voices were high--up at that end to which +people were brought to be "presented." They were there to +congratulate, these images, and Strether's renewed vision, on this +hint, completed the idea. What Mamie was like was the happy bride, +the bride after the church and just before going away. She wasn't +the mere maiden, and yet was only as much married as that quantity +came to. She was in the brilliant acclaimed festal stage. Well, +might it last her long! + +Strether rejoiced in these things for Chad, who was all genial +attention to the needs of his friends, besides having arranged that +his servant should reinforce him; the ladies were certainly +pleasant to see, and Mamie would be at any time and anywhere +pleasant to exhibit. She would look extraordinarily like his young +wife--the wife of a honeymoon, should he go about with her; but +that was his own affair--or perhaps it was hers; it was at any rate +something she couldn't help. Strether remembered how he had seen +him come up with Jeanne de Vionnet in Gloriani's garden, and the +fancy he had had about that--the fancy obscured now, thickly +overlaid with others; the recollection was during these minutes his +only note of trouble. He had often, in spite of himself, wondered +if Chad but too probably were not with Jeanne the object of a still +and shaded flame. It was on the cards that the child MIGHT be +tremulously in love, and this conviction now flickered up not a bit +the less for his disliking to think of it, for its being, in a +complicated situation, a complication the more, and for something +indescribable in Mamie, something at all events straightway lent +her by his own mind, something that gave her value, gave her +intensity and purpose, as the symbol of an opposition. Little +Jeanne wasn't really at all in question--how COULD she be?--yet +from the moment Miss Pocock had shaken her skirts on the platform, +touched up the immense bows of her hat and settled properly over +her shoulder the strap of her morocco-and-gilt travelling-satchel, +from that moment little Jeanne was opposed. + +It was in the cab with Jim that impressions really crowded on +Strether, giving him the strangest sense of length of absence from +people among whom he had lived for years. Having them thus come out +to him was as if he had returned to find them: and the droll +promptitude of Jim's mental reaction threw his own initiation far +back into the past. Whoever might or mightn't be suited by what was +going on among them, Jim, for one, would certainly be: his instant +recognition--frank and whimsical--of what the affair was for HIM +gave Strether a glow of pleasure. "I say, you know, this IS about +my shape, and if it hadn't been for YOU--!" so he broke out as the +charming streets met his healthy appetite; and he wound up, after +an expressive nudge, with a clap of his companion's knee and an "Oh +you, you--you ARE doing it!" that was charged with rich meaning. +Strether felt in it the intention of homage, but, with a curiosity +otherwise occupied, postponed taking it up. What he was asking +himself for the time was how Sarah Pocock, in the opportunity +already given her, had judged her brother--from whom he himself, as +they finally, at the station, separated for their different +conveyances, had had a look into which he could read more than one +message. However Sarah was judging her brother, Chad's conclusion +about his sister, and about her husband and her husband's sister, +was at the least on the way not to fail of confidence. Strether +felt the confidence, and that, as the look between them was an +exchange, what he himself gave back was relatively vague. This +comparison of notes however could wait; everything struck him as +depending on the effect produced by Chad. Neither Sarah nor Mamie +had in any way, at the station--where they had had after all ample +time--broken out about it; which, to make up for this, was what our +friend had expected of Jim as soon as they should find themselves +together. + +It was queer to him that he had that noiseless brush with Chad; an +ironic intelligence with this youth on the subject of his +relatives, an intelligence carried on under their nose and, as +might be said, at their expense--such a matter marked again for him +strongly the number of stages he had come; albeit that if the +number seemed great the time taken for the final one was but the +turn of a hand. He had before this had many moments of wondering if +he himself weren't perhaps changed even as Chad was changed. Only +what in Chad was conspicuous improvement--well, he had no name +ready for the working, in his own organism, of his own more timid +dose. He should have to see first what this action would amount to. +And for his occult passage with the young man, after all, the +directness of it had no greater oddity than the fact that the young +man's way with the three travellers should have been so happy a +manifestation. Strether liked him for it, on the spot, as he hadn't +yet liked him; it affected him while it lasted as he might have +been affected by some light pleasant perfect work of art: to that +degree that he wondered if they were really worthy of it, took it +in and did it justice; to that degree that it would have been +scarce a miracle if, there in the luggage-room, while they waited +for their things, Sarah had pulled his sleeve and drawn him aside. +"You're right; we haven't quite known what you mean, Mother and I, +but now we see. Chad's magnificent; what can one want more? If THIS +is the kind of thing--!" On which they might, as it were, have +embraced and begun to work together. + +Ah how much, as it was, for all her bridling brightness--which was +merely general and noticed nothing--WOULD they work together? +Strether knew he was unreasonable; he set it down to his being +nervous: people couldn't notice everything and speak of everything +in a quarter of an hour. Possibly, no doubt, also, he made too much +of Chad's display. Yet, none the less, when, at the end of five +minutes, in the cab, Jim Pocock had said nothing either--hadn't +said, that is, what Strether wanted, though he had said much else-- +it all suddenly bounced back to their being either stupid or +wilful. It was more probably on the whole the former; so that that +would be the drawback of the bridling brightness. Yes, they would +bridle and be bright; they would make the best of what was before +them, but their observation would fail; it would be beyond them; +they simply wouldn't understand. Of what use would it be then that +they had come?--if they weren't to be intelligent up to THAT point: +unless indeed he himself were utterly deluded and extravagant? Was +he, on this question of Chad's improvement, fantastic and away from +the truth? Did he live in a false world, a world that had grown +simply to suit him, and was his present slight irritation--in the +face now of Jim's silence in particular--but the alarm of the vain +thing menaced by the touch of the real? Was this contribution of +the real possibly the mission of the Pococks?--had they come to +make the work of observation, as HE had practised observation, +crack and crumble, and to reduce Chad to the plain terms in which +honest minds could deal with him? Had they come in short to be sane +where Strether was destined to feel that he himself had only been +silly? + +He glanced at such a contingency, but it failed to hold him long +when once he had reflected that he would have been silly, in this +case, with Maria Gostrey and little Bilham, with Madame de Vionnet +and little Jeanne, with Lambert Strether, in fine, and above all +with Chad Newsome himself. Wouldn't it be found to have made more +for reality to be silly with these persons than sane with Sarah and +Jim? Jim in fact, he presently made up his mind, was individually +out of it; Jim didn't care; Jim hadn't come out either for Chad or +for him; Jim in short left the moral side to Sally and indeed +simply availed himself now, for the sense of recreation, of the +fact that he left almost everything to Sally. He was nothing +compared to Sally, and not so much by reason of Sally's temper and +will as by that of her more developed type and greater acquaintance +with the world. He quite frankly and serenely confessed, as he sat +there with Strether, that he felt his type hang far in the rear of +his wife's and still further, if possible, in the rear of his +sister's. Their types, he well knew, were recognised and acclaimed; +whereas the most a leading Woollett business-man could hope to +achieve socially, and for that matter industrially, was a certain +freedom to play into this general glamour. + +The impression he made on our friend was another of the things that +marked our friend's road. It was a strange impression, especially +as so soon produced; Strether had received it, he judged, all in +the twenty minutes; it struck him at least as but in a minor degree +the work of the long Woollett years. Pocock was normally and +consentingly though not quite wittingly out of the question. It was +despite his being normal; it was despite his being cheerful; it was +despite his being a leading Woollett business-man; and the +determination of his fate left him thus perfectly usual--as +everything else about it was clearly, to his sense, not less so. He +seemed to say that there was a whole side of life on which the +perfectly usual WAS for leading Woollett business-men to be out of +the question. He made no more of it than that, and Strether, so far +as Jim was concerned, desired to make no more. Only Strether's +imagination, as always, worked, and he asked himself if this side +of life were not somehow connected, for those who figured on it +with the fact of marriage. Would HIS relation to it, had he married +ten years before, have become now the same as Pocock's? Might it +even become the same should he marry in a few months? Should he +ever know himself as much out of the question for Mrs. Newsome as +Jim knew himself--in a dim way--for Mrs. Jim? + +To turn his eyes in that direction was to be personally reassured; +he was different from Pocock; he had affirmed himself differently +and was held after all in higher esteem. What none the less came +home to him, however, at this hour, was that the society over +there, that of which Sarah and Mamie--and, in a more eminent way, +Mrs. Newsome herself--were specimens, was essentially a society of +women, and that poor Jim wasn't in it. He himself Lambert Strether, +WAS as yet in some degree--which was an odd situation for a man; +but it kept coming back to him in a whimsical way that he should +perhaps find his marriage had cost him his place. This occasion +indeed, whatever that fancy represented, was not a time of sensible +exclusion for Jim, who was in a state of manifest response to the +charm of his adventure. Small and fat and constantly facetious, +straw-coloured and destitute of marks, he would have been +practically indistinguishable hadn't his constant preference for +light-grey clothes, for white hats, for very big cigars and very +little stories, done what it could for his identity. There were +signs in him, though none of them plaintive, of always paying for +others; and the principal one perhaps was just this failure of +type. It was with this that he paid, rather than with fatigue or +waste; and also doubtless a little with the effort of humour--never +irrelevant to the conditions, to the relations, with which he was +acquainted. + +He gurgled his joy as they rolled through the happy streets; he +declared that his trip was a regular windfall, and that he wasn't +there, he was eager to remark, to hang back from anything: he +didn't know quite what Sally had come for, but HE had come for a +good time. Strether indulged him even while wondering if what Sally +wanted her brother to go back for was to become like her husband. +He trusted that a good time was to be, out and out, the programme +for all of them; and he assented liberally to Jim's proposal that, +disencumbered and irresponsible--his things were in the omnibus +with those of the others--they should take a further turn round +before going to the hotel. It wasn't for HIM to tackle Chad--it was +Sally's job; and as it would be like her, he felt, to open fire on +the spot, it wouldn't be amiss of them to hold off and give her +time. Strether, on his side, only asked to give her time; so he +jogged with his companion along boulevards and avenues, trying to +extract from meagre material some forecast of his catastrophe. He +was quick enough to see that Jim Pocock declined judgement, had +hovered quite round the outer edge of discussion and anxiety, +leaving all analysis of their question to the ladies alone and now +only feeling his way toward some small droll cynicism. It broke out +afresh, the cynicism--it had already shown a flicker--in a but +slightly deferred: "Well, hanged if I would if I were he!" + +"You mean you wouldn't in Chad's place--?" + +"Give up this to go back and boss the advertising!" Poor Jim, with +his arms folded and his little legs out in the open fiacre, drank +in the sparkling Paris noon and carried his eyes from one side of +their vista to the other. "Why I want to come right out and live +here myself. And I want to live while I AM here too. I feel with +YOU--oh you've been grand, old man, and I've twigged--that it ain't +right to worry Chad. I don't mean to persecute him; I couldn't in +conscience. It's thanks to you at any rate that I'm here, and I'm +sure I'm much obliged. You're a lovely pair." + +There were things in this speech that Strether let pass for the +time. "Don't you then think it important the advertising should be +thoroughly taken in hand? Chad WILL be, so far as capacity is +concerned," he went on, "the man to do it." + +"Where did he get his capacity," Jim asked, "over here?" + +"He didn't get it over here, and the wonderful thing is that over +here he hasn't inevitably lost it. He has a natural turn for +business, an extraordinary head. He comes by that," Strether +explained, "honestly enough. He's in that respect his father's son, +and also--for she's wonderful in her way too--his mother's. He has +other tastes and other tendencies; but Mrs. Newsome and your wife +are quite right about his having that. He's very remarkable." + +"Well, I guess he is!" Jim Pocock comfortably sighed. "But if +you've believed so in his making us hum, why have you so prolonged +the discussion? Don't you know we've been quite anxious about you?" + +These questions were not informed with earnestness, but Strether +saw he must none the less make a choice and take a line. "Because, +you see, I've greatly liked it. I've liked my Paris, I dare say +I've liked it too much." + +"Oh you old wretch!" Jim gaily exclaimed. + +"But nothing's concluded," Strether went on. "The case is more +complex than it looks from Woollett." + +"Oh well, it looks bad enough from Woollett!" Jim declared. + +"Even after all I've written?" + +Jim bethought himself. "Isn't it what you've written that has made +Mrs. Newsome pack us off? That at least and Chad's not turning up?" + +Strether made a reflexion of his own. "I see. That she should do +something was, no doubt, inevitable, and your wife has therefore of +course come out to act." + +"Oh yes," Jim concurred--"to act. But Sally comes out to act, you +know," he lucidly added, "every time she leaves the house. She +never comes out but she DOES act. She's acting moreover now for her +mother, and that fixes the scale." Then he wound up, opening all +his senses to it, with a renewed embrace of pleasant Paris. "We +haven't all the same at Woollett got anything like this." + +Strether continued to consider. "I'm bound to say for you all that +you strike me as having arrived in a very mild and reasonable frame +of mind. You don't show your claws. I felt just now in Mrs. Pocock +no symptom of that. She isn't fierce," he went on. "I'm such a +nervous idiot that I thought she might be." + +"Oh don't you know her well enough," Pocock asked, "to have noticed +that she never gives herself away, any more than her mother ever +does? They ain't fierce, either of 'em; they let you come quite +close. They wear their fur the smooth side out--the warm side in. +Do you know what they are?" Jim pursued as he looked about him, +giving the question, as Strether felt, but half his care--"do you +know what they are? They're about as intense as they can live." + +"Yes"--and Strether's concurrence had a positive precipitation; +"they're about as intense as they can live." + +"They don't lash about and shake the cage," said Jim, who seemed +pleased with his analogy; "and it's at feeding-time that they're +quietest. But they always get there." + +"They do indeed--they always get there!" Strether replied with a +laugh that justified his confession of nervousness. He disliked to +be talking sincerely of Mrs. Newsome with Pocock; he could have +talked insincerely. But there was something he wanted to know, a +need created in him by her recent intermission, by his having +given from the first so much, as now more than ever appeared to +him, and got so little. It was as if a queer truth in his +companion's metaphor had rolled over him with a rush. She HAD been +quiet at feeding-time; she had fed, and Sarah had fed with her, +out of the big bowl of all his recent free communication, his +vividness and pleasantness, his ingenuity and even his eloquence, +while the current of her response had steadily run thin. Jim +meanwhile however, it was true, slipped characteristically into +shallowness from the moment he ceased to speak out of the +experience of a husband. + +"But of course Chad has now the advantage of being there before +her. If he doesn't work that for all it's worth--!" He sighed with +contingent pity at his brother-in-law's possible want of resource. +"He has worked it on YOU, pretty well, eh?" and he asked the next +moment if there were anything new at the Varieties, which he +pronounced in the American manner. They talked about the +Varieties--Strether confessing to a knowledge which produced again +on Pocock's part a play of innuendo as vague as a nursery-rhyme, +yet as aggressive as an elbow in his side; and they finished their +drive under the protection of easy themes. Strether waited to the +end, but still in vain, for any show that Jim had seen Chad as +different; and he could scarce have explained the discouragement +he drew from the absence of this testimony. It was what he had +taken his own stand on, so far as he had taken a stand; and if +they were all only going to see nothing he had only wasted his +time. He gave his friend till the very last moment, till they had +come into sight of the hotel; and when poor Pocock only continued +cheerful and envious and funny he fairly grew to dislike him, to +feel him extravagantly common. If they were ALL going to see +nothing!--Strether knew, as this came back to him, that he was +also letting Pocock represent for him what Mrs. Newsome wouldn't +see. He went on disliking, in the light of Jim's commonness, to +talk to him about that lady; yet just before the cab pulled up he +knew the extent of his desire for the real word from Woollett. + +"Has Mrs. Newsome at all given way--?" + +"'Given way'?"--Jim echoed it with the practical derision of his +sense of a long past. + +"Under the strain, I mean, of hope deferred, of disappointment +repeated and thereby intensified." + +"Oh is she prostrate, you mean?"--he had his categories in hand. +"Why yes, she's prostrate--just as Sally is. But they're never so +lively, you know, as when they're prostrate." + +"Ah Sarah's prostrate?" Strether vaguely murmured. + +"It's when they're prostrate that they most sit up." + +"And Mrs. Newsome's sitting up?" + +"All night, my boy--for YOU!" And Jim fetched him, with a vulgar +little guffaw, a thrust that gave relief to the picture. But he +had got what he wanted. He felt on the spot that this WAS the real +word from Woollett. "So don't you go home!" Jim added while he +alighted and while his friend, letting him profusely pay the +cabman, sat on in a momentary muse. Strether wondered if that +were the real word too. + + + +III + + +As the door of Mrs. Pocock's salon was pushed open for him, the +next day, well before noon, he was reached by a voice with a +charming sound that made him just falter before crossing the +threshold. Madame de Vionnet was already on the field, and this +gave the drama a quicker pace than he felt it as yet--though his +suspense had increased--in the power of any act of his own to do. +He had spent the previous evening with all his old friends +together yet he would still have described himself as quite in the +dark in respect to a forecast of their influence on his situation. +It was strange now, none the less, that in the light of this +unexpected note of her presence he felt Madame de Vionnet a part +of that situation as she hadn't even yet been. She was alone, he +found himself assuming, with Sarah, and there was a bearing in +that--somehow beyond his control--on his personal fate. Yet she +was only saying something quite easy and independent--the thing +she had come, as a good friend of Chad's, on purpose to say. +"There isn't anything at all--? I should be so delighted." + +It was clear enough, when they were there before him, how she had +been received. He saw this, as Sarah got up to greet him, from +something fairly hectic in Sarah's face. He saw furthermore that +they weren't, as had first come to him, alone together; he was at +no loss as to the identity of the broad high back presented to +him in the embrasure of the window furthest from the door. +Waymarsh, whom he had to-day not yet seen, whom he only knew to +have left the hotel before him, and who had taken part, the night +previous, on Mrs. Pocock's kind invitation, conveyed by Chad, in +the entertainment, informal but cordial, promptly offered by that +lady--Waymarsh had anticipated him even as Madame de Vionnet had +done, and, with his hands in his pockets and his attitude +unaffected by Strether's entrance, was looking out, in marked +detachment, at the Rue de Rivoli. The latter felt it in the air-- +it was immense how Waymarsh could mark things---that he had remained +deeply dissociated from the overture to their hostess that we have +recorded on Madame de Vionnet's side. He had, conspicuously, tact, +besides a stiff general view; and this was why he had left Mrs. +Pocock to struggle alone. He would outstay the visitor; he would +unmistakeably wait; to what had he been doomed for months past but +waiting? Therefore she was to feel that she had him in reserve. +What support she drew from this was still to be seen, for, although +Sarah was vividly bright, she had given herself up for the moment +to an ambiguous flushed formalism. She had had to reckon more +quickly than she expected; but it concerned her first of all to +signify that she was not to be taken unawares. Strether arrived +precisely in time for her showing it. "Oh you're too good; but I +don't think I feel quite helpless. I have my brother--and these +American friends. And then you know I've been to Paris. I KNOW +Paris," said Sally Pocock in a tone that breathed a certain chill +on Strether's heart. + +"Ah but a woman, in this tiresome place where everything's always +changing, a woman of good will," Madame de Vionnet threw off, "can +always help a woman. I'm sure you 'know'--but we know perhaps +different things." She too, visibly, wished to make no mistake; but +it was a fear of a different order and more kept out of sight. She +smiled in welcome at Strether; she greeted him more familiarly than +Mrs. Pocock; she put out her hand to him without moving from her +place; and it came to him in the course of a minute and in the +oddest way that--yes, positively--she was giving him over to ruin. +She was all kindness and ease, but she couldn't help so giving him; +she was exquisite, and her being just as she was poured for Sarah a +sudden rush of meaning into his own equivocations. How could she +know how she was hurting him? She wanted to show as simple and +humble--in the degree compatible with operative charm; but it was +just this that seemed to put him on her side. She struck him as +dressed, as arranged, as prepared infinitely to conciliate--with +the very poetry of good taste in her view of the conditions of her +early call. She was ready to advise about dressmakers and shops; +she held herself wholly at the disposition of Chad's family. +Strether noticed her card on the table--her coronet and her +"Comtesse"--and the imagination was sharp in him of certain private +adjustments in Sarah's mind. She had never, he was sure, sat with a +"Comtesse" before, and such was the specimen of that class he had +been keeping to play on her. She had crossed the sea very +particularly for a look at her; but he read in Madame de Vionnet's +own eyes that this curiosity hadn't been so successfully met as +that she herself wouldn't now have more than ever need of him. She +looked much as she had looked to him that morning at Notre Dame; he +noted in fact the suggestive sameness of her discreet and delicate +dress. It seemed to speak--perhaps a little prematurely or too +finely--of the sense in which she would help Mrs. Pocock with the +shops. The way that lady took her in, moreover, added depth to his +impression of what Miss Gostrey, by their common wisdom, had +escaped. He winced as he saw himself but for that timely prudence +ushering in Maria as a guide and an example. There was however a +touch of relief for him in his glimpse, so far as he had got it, of +Sarah's line. She "knew Paris." Madame de Vionnet had, for that +matter, lightly taken this up. "Ah then you've a turn for that, an +affinity that belongs to your family. Your brother, though his long +experience makes a difference, I admit, has become one of us in a +marvellous way." And she appealed to Strether in the manner of a +woman who could always glide off with smoothness into another +subject. Wasn't HE struck with the way Mr. Newsome had made the +place his own, and hadn't he been in a position to profit by his +friend's wondrous expertness? + +Strether felt the bravery, at the least, of her presenting herself +so promptly to sound that note, and yet asked himself what other +note, after all, she COULD strike from the moment she presented +herself at all. She could meet Mrs. Pocock only on the ground of +the obvious, and what feature of Chad's situation was more eminent +than the fact that he had created for himself a new set of +circumstances? Unless she hid herself altogether she could show but +as one of these, an illustration of his domiciled and indeed of his +confirmed condition. And the consciousness of all this in her +charming eyes was so clear and fine that as she thus publicly drew +him into her boat she produced in him such a silent agitation as he +was not to fail afterwards to denounce as pusillanimous. "Ah don't +be so charming to me!--for it makes us intimate, and after all what +IS between us when I've been so tremendously on my guard and have +seen you but half a dozen times?" He recognised once more the +perverse law that so inveterately governed his poor personal +aspects: it would be exactly LIKE the way things always turned out +for him that he should affect Mrs. Pocock and Waymarsh as launched +in a relation in which he had really never been launched at all. +They were at this very moment--they could only be--attributing to +him the full licence of it, and all by the operation of her own +tone with him; whereas his sole licence had been to cling with +intensity to the brink, not to dip so much as a toe into the flood. +But the flicker of his fear on this occasion was not, as may be +added, to repeat itself; it sprang up, for its moment, only to die +down and then go out for ever. To meet his fellow visitor's +invocation and, with Sarah's brilliant eyes on him, answer, WAS +quite sufficiently to step into her boat. During the rest of the +time her visit lasted he felt himself proceed to each of the proper +offices, successively, for helping to keep the adventurous skiff +afloat. It rocked beneath him, but he settled himself in his place. +He took up an oar and, since he was to have the credit of pulling, +pulled. + +"That will make it all the pleasanter if it so happens that we DO +meet," Madame de Vionnet had further observed in reference to Mrs. +Pocock's mention of her initiated state; and she had immediately +added that, after all, her hostess couldn't be in need with the +good offices of Mr. Strether so close at hand. "It's he, I gather, +who has learnt to know his Paris, and to love it, better than any +one ever before in so short a time; so that between him and your +brother, when it comes to the point, how can you possibly want for +good guidance? The great thing, Mr. Strether will show you," she +smiled, "is just to let one's self go." + +"Oh I've not let myself go very far," Strether answered, feeling +quite as if he had been called upon to hint to Mrs. Pocock how +Parisians could talk. "I'm only afraid of showing I haven't let +myself go far enough. I've taken a good deal of time, but I must +quite have had the air of not budging from one spot." He looked at +Sarah in a manner that he thought she might take as engaging, and +he made, under Madame de Vionnet's protection, as it were, his +first personal point. "What has really happened has been that, all +the while, I've done what I came out for." + +Yet it only at first gave Madame de Vionnet a chance immediately to +take him up. "You've renewed acquaintance with your friend--you've +learnt to know him again." She spoke with such cheerful helpfulness +that they might, in a common cause, have been calling together and +pledged to mutual aid. + +Waymarsh, at this, as if he had been in question, straightway +turned from the window. "Oh yes, Countess--he has renewed +acquaintance with ME, and he HAS, I guess, learnt something about +me, though I don't know how much he has liked it. It's for Strether +himself to say whether he has felt it justifies his course." + +"Oh but YOU," said the Countess gaily, "are not in the least what +he came out for--is he really, Strether? and I hadn't you at all in +my mind. I was thinking of Mr. Newsome, of whom we think so much +and with whom, precisely, Mrs. Pocock has given herself the +opportunity to take up threads. What a pleasure for you both!" +Madame de Vionnet, with her eyes on Sarah, bravely continued. + +Mrs. Pocock met her handsomely, but Strether quickly saw she meant +to accept no version of her movements or plans from any other lips. +She required no patronage and no support, which were but other +names for a false position; she would show in her own way what she +chose to show, and this she expressed with a dry glitter that +recalled to him a fine Woollett winter morning. "I've never wanted +for opportunities to see my brother. We've many things to think of +at home, and great responsibilities and occupations, and our home's +not an impossible place. We've plenty of reasons," Sarah continued +a little piercingly, "for everything we do"--and in short she +wouldn't give herself the least little scrap away. But she added as +one who was always bland and who could afford a concession: "I've +come because--well, because we do come." + +"Ah then fortunately!"--Madame de Vionnet breathed it to the air. +Five minutes later they were on their feet for her to take leave, +standing together in an affability that had succeeded in surviving +a further exchange of remarks; only with the emphasised appearance +on Waymarsh's part of a tendency to revert, in a ruminating manner +and as with an instinctive or a precautionary lightening of his +tread, to an open window and his point of vantage. The glazed and +gilded room, all red damask, ormolu, mirrors, clocks, looked south, +and the shutters were bowed upon the summer morning; but the +Tuileries garden and what was beyond it, over which the whole place +hung, were things visible through gaps; so that the far-spreading +presence of Paris came up in coolness, dimness and invitation, in +the twinkle of gilt-tipped palings, the crunch of gravel, the click +of hoofs, the crack of whips, things that suggested some parade of +the circus. "I think it probable," said Mrs. Pocock, "that I shall +have the opportunity of going to my brother's I've no doubt it's +very pleasant indeed." She spoke as to Strether, but her face was +turned with an intensity of brightness to Madame de Vionnet, and +there was a moment during which, while she thus fronted her, our +friend expected to hear her add: "I'm much obliged to you, I'm +sure, for inviting me there." He guessed that for five seconds +these words were on the point of coming; he heard them as clearly +as if they had been spoken; but he presently knew they had just +failed--knew it by a glance, quick and fine, from Madame de +Vionnet, which told him that she too had felt them in the air, but +that the point had luckily not been made in any manner requiring +notice. This left her free to reply only to what had been said. + +"That the Boulevard Malesherbes may be common ground for us offers +me the best prospect I see for the pleasure of meeting you again." + +"Oh I shall come to see you, since you've been so good": and Mrs. +Pocock looked her invader well in the eyes. The flush in Sarah's +cheeks had by this time settled to a small definite crimson spot +that was not without its own bravery; she held her head a good deal +up, and it came to Strether that of the two, at this moment, she +was the one who most carried out the idea of a Countess. He quite +took in, however, that she would really return her visitor's +civility: she wouldn't report again at Woollett without at least so +much producible history as that in her pocket. + +"I want extremely to be able to show you my little daughter." +Madame de Vionnet went on; "and I should have brought her with me +if I hadn't wished first to ask your leave. I was in hopes I should +perhaps find Miss Pocock, of whose being with you I've heard from +Mr. Newsome and whose acquaintance I should so much like my child +to make. If I have the pleasure of seeing her and you do permit it +I shall venture to ask her to be kind to Jeanne. Mr. Strether will +tell you"--she beautifully kept it up--"that my poor girl is gentle +and good and rather lonely. They've made friends, he and she, ever +so happily, and he doesn't, I believe, think ill of her. As for +Jeanne herself he has had the same success with her that I know he +has had here wherever he has turned." She seemed to ask him for +permission to say these things, or seemed rather to take it, softly +and happily, with the ease of intimacy, for granted, and he had +quite the consciousness now that not to meet her at any point more +than halfway would be odiously, basely to abandon her. Yes, he was +WITH her, and, opposed even in this covert, this semi-safe fashion +to those who were not, he felt, strangely and confusedly, but +excitedly, inspiringly, how much and how far. It was as if he had +positively waited in suspense for something from her that would let +him in deeper, so that he might show her how he could take it. And +what did in fact come as she drew out a little her farewell served +sufficiently the purpose. "As his success is a matter that I'm sure +he'll never mention for himself, I feel, you see, the less scruple; +which it's very good of me to say, you know, by the way," she added +as she addressed herself to him; "considering how little direct +advantage I've gained from your triumphs with ME. When does one +ever see you? I wait at home and I languish. You'll have rendered +me the service, Mrs. Pocock, at least," she wound up, "of giving me +one of my much-too-rare glimpses of this gentleman." + +"I certainly should be sorry to deprive you of anything that seems +so much, as you describe it, your natural due. Mr. Strether and I +are very old friends," Sarah allowed, "but the privilege of his +society isn't a thing I shall quarrel about with any one." + +"And yet, dear Sarah," he freely broke in, "I feel, when I hear you +say that, that you don't quite do justice to the important truth of +the extent to which--as you're also mine--I'm your natural due. I +should like much better," he laughed, "to see you fight for me." + +She met him, Mrs. Pocock, on this, with an arrest of speech--with a +certain breathlessness, as he immediately fancied, on the score of +a freedom for which she wasn't quite prepared. It had flared up-- +for all the harm he had intended by it--because, confoundedly, he +didn't want any more to be afraid about her than he wanted to be +afraid about Madame de Vionnet. He had never, naturally, called her +anything but Sarah at home, and though he had perhaps never quite +so markedly invoked her as his "dear," that was somehow partly +because no occasion had hitherto laid so effective a trap for it. +But something admonished him now that it was too late--unless +indeed it were possibly too early; and that he at any rate +shouldn't have pleased Mrs. Pocock the more by it. "Well, Mr. +Strether--!" she murmured with vagueness, yet with sharpness, while +her crimson spot burned a trifle brighter and he was aware that +this must be for the present the limit of her response. Madame de +Vionnet had already, however, come to his aid, and Waymarsh, as if +for further participation, moved again back to them. It was true +that the aid rendered by Madame de Vionnet was questionable; it was +a sign that, for all one might confess to with her, and for all she +might complain of not enjoying, she could still insidiously show +how much of the material of conversation had accumulated between +them. + +"The real truth is, you know, that you sacrifice one without mercy +to dear old Maria. She leaves no room in your life for anybody +else. Do you know," she enquired of Mrs. Pocock, "about dear old +Maria? The worst is that Miss Gostrey is really a wonderful woman." + +"Oh yes indeed," Strether answered for her, "Mrs. Pocock knows +about Miss Gostrey. Your mother, Sarah, must have told you about +her; your mother knows everything," he sturdily pursued. "And I +cordially admit," he added with his conscious gaiety of courage, +"that she's as wonderful a woman as you like." + +"Ah it isn't I who 'like,' dear Mr. Strether, anything to do with +the matter!" Sarah Pocock promptly protested; "and I'm by no means +sure I have--from my mother or from any one else--a notion of whom +you're talking about." + +"Well, he won't let you see her, you know," Madame de Vionnet +sympathetically threw in. "He never lets me--old friends as we are: +I mean as I am with Maria. He reserves her for his best hours; +keeps her consummately to himself; only gives us others the crumbs +of the feast." + +"Well, Countess, I'VE had some of the crumbs," Waymarsh observed +with weight and covering her with his large look; which led her to +break in before he could go on. + +"Comment donc, he shares her with YOU?" she exclaimed in droll +stupefaction. "Take care you don't have, before you go much +further, rather more of all ces dames than you may know what to do +with!" + +But he only continued in his massive way. "I can post you about the +lady, Mrs. Pocock, so far as you may care to hear. I've seen her +quite a number of times, and I was practically present when they +made acquaintance. I've kept my eye on her right along, but I don't +know as there's any real harm in her." + +"'Harm'?" Madame de Vionnet quickly echoed. "Why she's the dearest +and cleverest of all the clever and dear." + +"Well, you run her pretty close, Countess," Waymarsh returned with +spirit; "though there's no doubt she's pretty well up in things. +She knows her way round Europe. Above all there's no doubt she does +love Strether." + +"Ah but we all do that--we all love Strether: it isn't a merit!" +their fellow visitor laughed, keeping to her idea with a good +conscience at which our friend was aware that he marvelled, though +he trusted also for it, as he met her exquisitely expressive eyes, +to some later light. + +The prime effect of her tone, however--and it was a truth which his +own eyes gave back to her in sad ironic play--could only be to make +him feel that, to say such things to a man in public, a woman must +practically think of him as ninety years old. He had turned +awkwardly, responsively red, he knew, at her mention of Maria +Gostrey; Sarah Pocock's presence--the particular quality of it--had +made this inevitable; and then he had grown still redder in +proportion as he hated to have shown anything at all. He felt +indeed that he was showing much, as, uncomfortably and almost in +pain, he offered up his redness to Waymarsh, who, strangely enough, +seemed now to be looking at him with a certain explanatory +yearning. Something deep--something built on their old old +relation--passed, in this complexity, between them; he got the +side-wind of a loyalty that stood behind all actual queer +questions. Waymarsh's dry bare humour--as it gave itself to be +taken--gloomed out to demand justice. "Well, if you talk of Miss +Barrace I've MY chance too," it appeared stiffly to nod, and it +granted that it was giving him away, but struggled to add that it +did so only to save him. The sombre glow stared it at him till it +fairly sounded out--"to save you, poor old man, to save you; to +save you in spite of yourself." Yet it was somehow just this +communication that showed him to himself as more than ever lost. +Still another result of it was to put before him as never yet that +between his comrade and the interest represented by Sarah there was +already a basis. Beyond all question now, yes: Waymarsh had been in +occult relation with Mrs. Newsome--out, out it all came in the very +effort of his face. "Yes, you're feeling my hand"--he as good as +proclaimed it; "but only because this at least I SHALL have got out +of the damned Old World: that I shall have picked up the pieces +into which it has caused you to crumble." It was as if in short, +after an instant, Strether had not only had it from him, but had +recognised that so far as this went the instant had cleared the +air. Our friend understood and approved; he had the sense that they +wouldn't otherwise speak of it. This would be all, and it would +mark in himself a kind of intelligent generosity. It was with grim +Sarah then--Sarah grim for all her grace--that Waymarsh had begun +at ten o'clock in the morning to save him. Well--if he COULD, poor +dear man, with his big bleak kindness! The upshot of which crowded +perception was that Strether, on his own side, still showed no more +than he absolutely had to. He showed the least possible by saying +to Mrs. Pocock after an interval much briefer than our glance at +the picture reflected in him: "Oh it's as true as they please!-- +There's no Miss Gostrey for any one but me--not the least little +peep. I keep her to myself." + +"Well, it's very good of you to notify me," Sarah replied without +looking at him and thrown for a moment by this discrimination, as +the direction of her eyes showed, upon a dimly desperate little +community with Madame de Vionnet. "But I hope I shan't miss her too +much." + +Madame de Vionnet instantly rallied. "And you know--though it might +occur to one--it isn't in the least that he's ashamed of her. +She's really--in a way--extremely good-looking." + +"Ah but extremely!" Strether laughed while he wondered at the odd +part he found thus imposed on him. + +It continued to be so by every touch from Madame de Vionnet. "Well, +as I say, you know, I wish you would keep ME a little more to +yourself. Couldn't you name some day for me, some hour--and better +soon than late? I'll be at home whenever it best suits you. +There--I can't say fairer." + +Strether thought a moment while Waymarsh and Mrs. Pocock affected +him as standing attentive. "I did lately call on you. Last week-- +while Chad was out of town." + +"Yes--and I was away, as it happened, too. You choose your moments +well. But don't wait for my next absence, for I shan't make +another," Madame de Vionnet declared, "while Mrs. Pocock's here." + +"That vow needn't keep you long, fortunately," Sarah observed with +reasserted suavity. "I shall be at present but a short time in +Paris. I have my plans for other countries. I meet a number of +charming friends"--and her voice seemed to caress that description +of these persons. + +"Ah then," her visitor cheerfully replied, "all the more reason! +To-morrow, for instance, or next day?" she continued to Strether. +"Tuesday would do for me beautifully." + +"Tuesday then with pleasure." + +"And at half-past five?--or at six?" + +It was ridiculous, but Mrs. Pocock and Waymarsh struck him as +fairly waiting for his answer. It was indeed as if they were +arranged, gathered for a performance, the performance of "Europe" +by his confederate and himself. Well, the performance could only +go on. "Say five forty-five." + +"Five forty-five--good." And now at last Madame de Vionnet must +leave them, though it carried, for herself, the performance a +little further. "I DID hope so much also to see Miss Pocock. +Mayn't I still?" + +Sarah hesitated, but she rose equal. "She'll return your visit with +me. She's at present out with Mr. Pocock and my brother." + +"I see--of course Mr. Newsome has everything to show them. He has +told me so much about her. My great desire's to give my daughter +the opportunity of making her acquaintance. I'm always on the +lookout for such chances for her. If I didn't bring her to-day it +was only to make sure first that you'd let me." After which the +charming woman risked a more intense appeal. "It wouldn't suit you +also to mention some near time, so that we shall be sure not to +lose you?" Strether on his side waited, for Sarah likewise had, +after all, to perform; and it occupied him to have been thus +reminded that she had stayed at home--and on her first morning of +Paris--while Chad led the others forth. Oh she was up to her eyes; +if she had stayed at home she had stayed by an understanding, +arrived at the evening before, that Waymarsh would come and find +her alone. This was beginning well--for a first day in Paris; and +the thing might be amusing yet. But Madame de Vionnet's earnestness +was meanwhile beautiful. "You may think me indiscreet, but I've +SUCH a desire my Jeanne shall know an American girl of the really +delightful kind. You see I throw myself for it on your charity." + +The manner of this speech gave Strether such a sense of depths +below it and behind it as he hadn't yet had--ministered in a way +that almost frightened him to his dim divinations of reasons; but +if Sarah still, in spite of it, faltered, this was why he had time +for a sign of sympathy with her petitioner. "Let me say then, dear +lady, to back your plea, that Miss Mamie is of the most delightful +kind of all--is charming among the charming." + +Even Waymarsh, though with more to produce on the subject, could +get into motion in time. "Yes, Countess, the American girl's a +thing that your country must at least allow ours the privilege to +say we CAN show you. But her full beauty is only for those who know +how to make use of her." + +"Ah then," smiled Madame de Vionnet, "that's exactly what I want to +do. I'm sure she has much to teach us." + +It was wonderful, but what was scarce less so was that Strether +found himself, by the quick effect of it, moved another way. "Oh +that may be! But don't speak of your own exquisite daughter, you +know, as if she weren't pure perfection. I at least won't take that +from you. Mademoiselle de Vionnet," he explained, in considerable +form, to Mrs. Pocock, "IS pure perfection. Mademoiselle de Vionnet +IS exquisite." + +It had been perhaps a little portentous, but "Ah?" Sarah simply +glittered. + +Waymarsh himself, for that matter, apparently recognised, in +respect to the facts, the need of a larger justice, and he had with +it an inclination to Sarah. "Miss Jane's strikingly handsome-- +in the regular French style." + +It somehow made both Strether and Madame de Vionnet laugh out, +though at the very moment he caught in Sarah's eyes, as glancing at +the speaker, a vague but unmistakeable "You too?" It made Waymarsh +in fact look consciously over her head. Madame de Vionnet +meanwhile, however, made her point in her own way. "I wish indeed I +could offer you my poor child as a dazzling attraction: it would +make one's position simple enough! She's as good as she can be, but +of course she's different, and the question is now--in the light of +the way things seem to go--if she isn't after all TOO different: +too different I mean from the splendid type every one is so agreed +that your wonderful country produces. On the other hand of course +Mr. Newsome, who knows it so well, has, as a good friend, dear kind +man that he is, done everything he can--to keep us from fatal +benightedness--for my small shy creature. Well," she wound up after +Mrs. Pocock had signified, in a murmur still a little stiff, that +she would speak to her own young charge on the question--"well, we +shall sit, my child and I, and wait and wait and wait for you." But +her last fine turn was for Strether. "Do speak of us in such a way--!" + +"As that something can't but come of it? Oh something SHALL come of +it! I take a great interest!" he further declared; and in proof of +it, the next moment, he had gone with her down to her carriage. + + + + + +Book Ninth + + + + +I + + +"The difficulty is," Strether said to Madame de Vionnet a couple of +days later, "that I can't surprise them into the smallest sign of +his not being the same old Chad they've been for the last three +years glowering at across the sea. They simply won't give any, and +as a policy, you know--what you call a parti pris, a deep game-- +that's positively remarkable." + +It was so remarkable that our friend had pulled up before his +hostess with the vision of it; he had risen from his chair at the +end of ten minutes and begun, as a help not to worry, to move about +before her quite as he moved before Maria. He had kept his +appointment with her to the minute and had been intensely impatient, +though divided in truth between the sense of having everything +to tell her and the sense of having nothing at all. The short +interval had, in the face of their complication, multiplied his +impressions--it being meanwhile to be noted, moreover, that he +already frankly, already almost publicly, viewed the complication +as common to them. If Madame de Vionnet, under Sarah's eyes, had +pulled him into her boat, there was by this time no doubt whatever +that he had remained in it and that what he had really most been +conscious of for many hours together was the movement of the vessel +itself. They were in it together this moment as they hadn't yet +been, and he hadn't at present uttered the least of the words of +alarm or remonstrance that had died on his lips at the hotel. He +had other things to say to her than that she had put him in a +position; so quickly had his position grown to affect him as quite +excitingly, altogether richly, inevitable. That the outlook, +however--given the point of exposure--hadn't cleared up half so +much as he had reckoned was the first warning she received from him +on his arrival. She had replied with indulgence that he was in too +great a hurry, and had remarked soothingly that if she knew how to +be patient surely HE might be. He felt her presence, on the spot, +he felt her tone and everything about her, as an aid to that effort; +and it was perhaps one of the proofs of her success with him +that he seemed so much to take his ease while they talked. +By the time he had explained to her why his impressions, though +multiplied, still baffled him, it was as if he had been familiarly +talking for hours. They baffled him because Sarah--well, Sarah was +deep, deeper than she had ever yet had a chance to show herself. +He didn't say that this was partly the effect of her opening so +straight down, as it were, into her mother, and that, given +Mrs. Newsome's profundity, the shaft thus sunk might well have a reach; +but he wasn't without a resigned apprehension that, at such a rate +of confidence between the two women, he was likely soon to be moved +to show how already, at moments, it had been for him as if he were +dealing directly with Mrs. Newsome. Sarah, to a certainty, would +have begun herself to feel it in him--and this naturally put it in +her power to torment him the more. From the moment she knew he +COULD be tormented--! + +"But WHY can you be?"--his companion was surprised at his use of +the word. + +"Because I'm made so--I think of everything." + +"Ah one must never do that," she smiled. "One must think of as few +things as possible." + +"Then," he answered, "one must pick them out right. But all I mean +is--for I express myself with violence--that she's in a position to +watch me. There's an element of suspense for me, and she can see me +wriggle. But my wriggling doesn't matter," he pursued. "I can bear +it. Besides, I shall wriggle out." + +The picture at any rate stirred in her an appreciation that he felt +to be sincere. "I don't see how a man can be kinder to a woman than +you are to me." + +Well, kind was what he wanted to be; yet even while her charming +eyes rested on him with the truth of this he none the less had his +humour of honesty. "When I say suspense I mean, you know," he +laughed, "suspense about my own case too!" + +"Oh yes--about your own case too!" It diminished his magnanimity, +but she only looked at him the more tenderly. + +"Not, however," he went on, "that I want to talk to you about that. +It's my own little affair, and I mentioned it simply as part of +Mrs. Pocock's advantage." No, no; though there was a queer present +temptation in it, and his suspense was so real that to fidget was a +relief, he wouldn't talk to her about Mrs. Newsome, wouldn't work +off on her the anxiety produced in him by Sarah's calculated +omissions of reference. The effect she produced of representing her +mother had been produced--and that was just the immense, the +uncanny part of it--without her having so much as mentioned that +lady. She had brought no message, had alluded to no question, had +only answered his enquiries with hopeless limited propriety. She +had invented a way of meeting them--as if he had been a polite +perfunctory poor relation, of distant degree--that made them almost +ridiculous in him. He couldn't moreover on his own side ask much +without appearing to publish how he had lately lacked news; +a circumstance of which it was Sarah's profound policy not to betray +a suspicion. These things, all the same, he wouldn't breathe to +Madame de Vionnet--much as they might make him walk up and down. +And what he didn't say--as well as what SHE didn't, for she had +also her high decencies--enhanced the effect of his being there +with her at the end of ten minutes more intimately on the basis of +saving her than he had yet had occasion to be. It ended in fact by +being quite beautiful between them, the number of things they had a +manifest consciousness of not saying. He would have liked to turn +her, critically, to the subject of Mrs. Pocock, but he so stuck to +the line he felt to be the point of honour and of delicacy that he +scarce even asked her what her personal impression had been. +He knew it, for that matter, without putting her to trouble: +that she wondered how, with such elements, Sarah could still have +no charm, was one of the principal things she held her tongue about. +Strether would have been interested in her estimate of the elements-- +indubitably there, some of them, and to be appraised according to +taste--but he denied himself even the luxury of this diversion. The +way Madame de Vionnet affected him to-day was in itself a kind of +demonstration of the happy employment of gifts. How could a woman +think Sarah had charm who struck one as having arrived at it +herself by such different roads? On the other hand of course Sarah +wasn't obliged to have it. He felt as if somehow Madame de Vionnet +WAS. The great question meanwhile was what Chad thought of his +sister; which was naturally ushered in by that of Sarah's +apprehension of Chad. THAT they could talk of, and with a freedom +purchased by their discretion in other senses. The difficulty +however was that they were reduced as yet to conjecture. He had +given them in the day or two as little of a lead as Sarah, and +Madame de Vionnet mentioned that she hadn't seen him since his +sister's arrival. + +"And does that strike you as such an age?" + +She met it in all honesty. "Oh I won't pretend I don't miss him. +Sometimes I see him every day. Our friendship's like that. Make +what you will of it!" she whimsically smiled; a little flicker of +the kind, occasional in her, that had more than once moved him to +wonder what he might best make of HER. "But he's perfectly right," +she hastened to add, "and I wouldn't have him fail in any way at +present for the world. I'd sooner not see him for three months. +I begged him to be beautiful to them, and he fully feels it for +himself." + +Strether turned away under his quick perception; she was so odd a +mixture of lucidity and mystery. She fell in at moments with the +theory about her he most cherished, and she seemed at others to +blow it into air. She spoke now as if her art were all an +innocence, and then again as if her innocence were all an art. +"Oh he's giving himself up, and he'll do so to the end. How can he +but want, now that it's within reach, his full impression?--which is +much more important, you know, than either yours or mine. But he's +just soaking," Strether said as he came back; "he's going in +conscientiously for a saturation. I'm bound to say he IS very good." + +"Ah," she quietly replied, "to whom do you say it?" And then more +quietly still: "He's capable of anything." + +Strether more than reaffirmed--"Oh he's excellent. I more and more +like," he insisted, "to see him with them;" though the oddity of +this tone between them grew sharper for him even while they spoke. +It placed the young man so before them as the result of her +interest and the product of her genius, acknowledged so her part in +the phenomenon and made the phenomenon so rare, that more than ever +yet he might have been on the very point of asking her for some +more detailed account of the whole business than he had yet +received from her. The occasion almost forced upon him some +question as to how she had managed and as to the appearance such +miracles presented from her own singularly close place of survey. +The moment in fact however passed, giving way to more present +history, and he continued simply to mark his appreciation of the +happy truth. "It's a tremendous comfort to feel how one can trust +him." And then again while for a little she said nothing--as if +after all to HER trust there might be a special limit: "I mean for +making a good show to them." + +"Yes," she thoughtfully returned--"but if they shut their eyes +to it!" + +Strether for an instant had his own thought. "Well perhaps that +won't matter!" + +"You mean because he probably--do what they will--won't like them?" + +"Oh 'do what they will'--! They won't do much; especially if Sarah +hasn't more--well, more than one has yet made out--to give." + +Madame de Vionnet weighed it. "Ah she has all her grace!" It was a +statement over which, for a little, they could look at each other +sufficiently straight, and though it produced no protest from +Strether the effect was somehow as if he had treated it as a joke. +"She may be persuasive and caressing with him; she may be eloquent +beyond words. She may get hold of him," she wound up--"well, as +neither you nor I have." + +"Yes, she MAY"--and now Strether smiled. "But he has spent all his +time each day with Jim. He's still showing Jim round." + +She visibly wondered. "Then how about Jim?" + +Strether took a turn before he answered. "Hasn't he given you Jim? +Hasn't he before this 'done' him for you?" He was a little at a +loss. "Doesn't he tell you things?" + +She hesitated. "No"--and their eyes once more gave and took. +"Not as you do. You somehow make me see them--or at least feel them. +And I haven't asked too much," she added; "I've of late wanted so +not to worry him." + +"Ah for that, so have I," he said with encouraging assent; so that-- +as if she had answered everything--they were briefly sociable on it. +It threw him back on his other thought, with which he took another +turn; stopping again, however, presently with something of a glow. +"You see Jim's really immense. I think it will be Jim who'll do it." + +She wondered. "Get hold of him?" + +"No--just the other thing. Counteract Sarah's spell." And he +showed now, our friend, how far he had worked it out. "Jim's +intensely cynical." + +"Oh dear Jim!" Madame de Vionnet vaguely smiled. + +"Yes, literally--dear Jim! He's awful. What HE wants, heaven +forgive him, is to help us." + +"You mean"--she was eager--"help ME?" + +"Well, Chad and me in the first place. But he throws you in too, +though without as yet seeing you much. Only, so far as he does see +you--if you don't mind--he sees you as awful." + +"'Awful'?"--she wanted it all. + +"A regular bad one--though of course of a tremendously superior kind. +Dreadful, delightful, irresistible." + +"Ah dear Jim! I should like to know him. I MUST." + +"Yes, naturally. But will it do? You may, you know," Strether +suggested, "disappoint him." + +She was droll and humble about it. "I can but try. But my +wickedness then," she went on, "is my recommendation for him?" + +"Your wickedness and the charms with which, in such a degree as +yours, he associates it. He understands, you see, that Chad and I +have above all wanted to have a good time, and his view is simple +and sharp. Nothing will persuade him--in the light, that is, of my +behaviour--that I really didn't, quite as much as Chad, come over +to have one before it was too late. He wouldn't have expected it of +me; but men of my age, at Woollett--and especially the least likely +ones--have been noted as liable to strange outbreaks, belated +uncanny clutches at the unusual, the ideal. It's an effect that a +lifetime of Woollett has quite been observed as having; and I thus +give it to you, in Jim's view, for what it's worth. Now his wife +and his mother-in-law," Strether continued to explain, "have, as in +honour bound, no patience with such phenomena, late or early--which +puts Jim, as against his relatives, on the other side. Besides," he +added, "I don't think he really wants Chad back. If Chad doesn't +come--" + +"He'll have"--Madame de Vionnet quite apprehended--"more of the +free hand?" + +"Well, Chad's the bigger man." + +"So he'll work now, en dessous, to keep him quiet?" + +"No--he won't 'work' at all, and he won't do anything en dessous. +He's very decent and won't be a traitor in the camp. But he'll be +amused with his own little view of our duplicity, he'll sniff up +what he supposes to be Paris from morning till night, and he'll be, +as to the rest, for Chad--well, just what he is." + +She thought it over. "A warning?" + +He met it almost with glee. "You ARE as wonderful as everybody +says!" And then to explain all he meant: "I drove him about for his +first hour, and do you know what--all beautifully unconscious--he +most put before me? Why that something like THAT is at bottom, as +an improvement to his present state, as in fact the real redemption +of it, what they think it may not be too late to make of our +friend." With which, as, taking it in, she seemed, in her recurrent +alarm, bravely to gaze at the possibility, he completed his +statement. "But it IS too late. Thanks to you!" + +It drew from her again one of her indefinite reflexions. "Oh 'me'-- +after all!" + +He stood before her so exhilarated by his demonstration that he +could fairly be jocular. "Everything's comparative. You're better +than THAT." + +"You"--she could but answer him--"are better than anything." But +she had another thought. "WILL Mrs. Pocock come to me?" + +"Oh yes--she'll do that. As soon, that is, as my friend Waymarsh-- +HER friend now--leaves her leisure." + +She showed an interest. "Is he so much her friend as that?" + +"Why, didn't you see it all at the hotel?" + +"Oh"--she was amused--"'all' is a good deal to say. I don't know-- +I forget. I lost myself in HER." + +"You were splendid," Strether returned--"but 'all' isn't a good +deal to say: it's only a little. Yet it's charming so far as it +goes. She wants a man to herself." + +"And hasn't she got you?" + +"Do you think she looked at me--or even at you--as if she had?" +Strether easily dismissed that irony. "Every one, you see, must +strike her as having somebody. You've got Chad--and Chad has +got you." + +"I see"--she made of it what she could. "And you've got Maria." + +Well, he on his side accepted that. "I've got Maria. And Maria has +got me. So it goes." + +"But Mr. Jim--whom has he got?" + +"Oh he has got--or it's as IF he had--the whole place." + +"But for Mr. Waymarsh"--she recalled--"isn't Miss Barrace before +any one else?" + +He shook his head. "Miss Barrace is a raffinee, and her amusement +won't lose by Mrs. Pocock. It will gain rather--especially if Sarah +triumphs and she comes in for a view of it." + +"How well you know us!" Madame de Vionnet, at this, frankly sighed. + +"No--it seems to me it's we that I know. I know Sarah--it's perhaps +on that ground only that my feet are firm. Waymarsh will take her +round while Chad takes Jim--and I shall be, I assure you delighted +for both of them. Sarah will have had what she requires--she will +have paid her tribute to the ideal; and he will have done about the +same. In Paris it's in the air--so what can one do less? If there's +a point that, beyond any other, Sarah wants to make, it's that she +didn't come out to be narrow. We shall feel at least that." + +"Oh," she sighed, "the quantity we seem likely to 'feel'! But what +becomes, in these conditions, of the girl?" + +"Of Mamie--if we're all provided? Ah for that," said Strether, +"you can trust Chad." + +"To be, you mean, all right to her?" + +"To pay her every attention as soon as he has polished off Jim. +He wants what Jim can give him--and what Jim really won't--though he +has had it all, and more than all, from me. He wants in short his +own personal impression, and he'll get it--strong. But as soon as +he has got it Mamie won't suffer." + +"Oh Mamie mustn't SUFFER!" Madame de Vionnet soothingly emphasised. + +But Strether could reassure her. "Don't fear. As soon as he has +done with Jim, Jim will fall to me. And then you'll see." + +It was as if in a moment she saw already; yet she still waited. +Then "Is she really quite charming?" she asked. + +He had got up with his last words and gathered in his hat and gloves. +"I don't know; I'm watching. I'm studying the case, as it were-- +and I dare say I shall be able to tell you." + +She wondered. "Is it a case?" + +"Yes--I think so. At any rate I shall see.' + +"But haven't you known her before?" + +"Yes," he smiled--"but somehow at home she wasn't a case. +She has become one since." It was as if he made it out for himself. +"She has become one here." + +"So very very soon?" + +He measured it, laughing. "Not sooner than I did." + +"And you became one--?" + +"Very very soon. The day I arrived." + +Her intelligent eyes showed her thought of it. "Ah but the day you +arrived you met Maria. Whom has Miss Pocock met?" + +He paused again, but he brought it out. "Hasn't she met Chad?" + +"Certainly--but not for the first time. He's an old friend." At +which Strether had a slow amused significant headshake that made +her go on: "You mean that for HER at least he's a new person-- +that she sees him as different?" + +"She sees him as different." + +"And how does she see him?" + +Strether gave it up. "How can one tell how a deep little girl sees +a deep young man?" + +"Is every one so deep? Is she too?" + +"So it strikes me deeper than I thought. But wait a little--between +us we'll make it out. You'll judge for that matter yourself." + +Madame de Vionnet looked for the moment fairly bent on the chance. +"Then she WILL come with her?--I mean Mamie with Mrs. Pocock?" + +"Certainly. Her curiosity, if nothing else, will in any case work +that. But leave it all to Chad." + +"Ah," wailed Madame de Vionnet, turning away a little wearily, "the +things I leave to Chad!" + +The tone of it made him look at her with a kindness that showed his +vision of her suspense. But he fell back on his confidence. +"Oh well--trust him. Trust him all the way." He had indeed no sooner +so spoken than the queer displacement of his point of view appeared +again to come up for him in the very sound, which drew from him a +short laugh, immediately checked. He became still more advisory. +"When they do come give them plenty of Miss Jeanne. Let Mamie see +her well." + +She looked for a moment as if she placed them face to face. +"For Mamie to hate her?" + +He had another of his corrective headshakes. "Mamie won't. +Trust THEM." + +She looked at him hard, and then as if it were what she must always +come back to: "It's you I trust. But I was sincere," she said, "at +the hotel. I did, I do, want my child--" + +"Well?"--Strether waited with deference while she appeared to hesitate +as to how to put it. + +"Well, to do what she can for me." + +Strether for a little met her eyes on it; after which something +that might have been unexpected to her came from him. "Poor little +duck!" + +Not more expected for himself indeed might well have been her echo +of it. "Poor little duck! But she immensely wants herself," she +said, "to see our friend's cousin." + +"Is that what she thinks her?" + +"It's what we call the young lady." + +He thought again; then with a laugh: "Well, your daughter will +help you." + +And now at last he took leave of her, as he had been intending for +five minutes. But she went part of the way with him, accompanying +him out of the room and into the next and the next. Her noble old +apartment offered a succession of three, the first two of which +indeed, on entering, smaller than the last, but each with its faded +and formal air, enlarged the office of the antechamber and enriched +the sense of approach. Strether fancied them, liked them, and, +passing through them with her more slowly now, met a sharp renewal +of his original impression. He stopped, he looked back; the whole +thing made a vista, which he found high melancholy and sweet--full, +once more, of dim historic shades, of the faint faraway cannon-roar +of the great Empire. It was doubtless half the projection of his +mind, but his mind was a thing that, among old waxed parquets, pale +shades of pink and green, pseudo-classic candelabra, he had always +needfully to reckon with. They could easily make him irrelevant. +The oddity, the originality, the poetry--he didn't know what to +call it--of Chad's connexion reaffirmed for him its romantic side. +"They ought to see this, you know. They MUST." + +"The Pococks?"--she looked about in deprecation; she seemed to see +gaps he didn't. + +"Mamie and Sarah--Mamie in particular." + +"My shabby old place? But THEIR things--!" + +"Oh their things! You were talking of what will do something for +you--" + +"So that it strikes you," she broke in, "that my poor place may? +Oh," she ruefully mused, "that WOULD be desperate!" + +"Do you know what I wish?" he went on. "I wish Mrs. Newsome herself +could have a look." + +She stared, missing a little his logic. "It would make a +difference?" + +Her tone was so earnest that as he continued to look about he +laughed. "It might!" + +"But you've told her, you tell me--" + +"All about you? Yes, a wonderful story. But there's all the +indescribable--what one gets only on the spot." + +"Thank you!" she charmingly and sadly smiled. + +"It's all about me here," he freely continued. "Mrs. Newsome feels +things." + +But she seemed doomed always to come back to doubt. "No one feels +so much as YOU. No--not any one." + +"So much the worse then for every one. It's very easy." + +They were by this time in the antechamber, still alone together, as +she hadn't rung for a servant. The antechamber was high and square, +grave and suggestive too, a little cold and slippery even in +summer, and with a few old prints that were precious, Strether +divined, on the walls. He stood in the middle, slightly lingering, +vaguely directing his glasses, while, leaning against the door-post +of the room, she gently pressed her cheek to the side of the +recess. "YOU would have been a friend." + +"I?"--it startled him a little. + +"For the reason you say. You're not stupid." And then abruptly, as +if bringing it out were somehow founded on that fact: +"We're marrying Jeanne." + +It affected him on the spot as a move in a game, and he was even +then not without the sense that that wasn't the way Jeanne should +be married. But he quickly showed his interest, though--as quickly +afterwards struck him--with an absurd confusion of mind. "'You'? +You and--a--not Chad?" Of course it was the child's father who made +the 'we,' but to the child's father it would have cost him an +effort to allude. Yet didn't it seem the next minute that Monsieur +de Vionnet was after all not in question?--since she had gone on to +say that it was indeed to Chad she referred and that he had been in +the whole matter kindness itself. + +"If I must tell you all, it is he himself who has put us in the +way. I mean in the way of an opportunity that, so far as I can yet +see, is all I could possibly have dreamed of. For all the trouble +Monsieur de Vionnet will ever take!" It was the first time she had +spoken to him of her husband, and he couldn't have expressed how +much more intimate with her it suddenly made him feel. It wasn't +much, in truth--there were other things in what she was saying that +were far more; but it was as if, while they stood there together so +easily in these cold chambers of the past, the single touch had +shown the reach of her confidence. "But our friend," she asked, +"hasn't then told you?" + +"He has told me nothing." + +"Well, it has come with rather a rush--all in a very few days; and +hasn't moreover yet taken a form that permits an announcement. It's +only for you--absolutely you alone--that I speak; I so want you to +know." The sense he had so often had, since the first hour of his +disembarkment, of being further and further "in," treated him again +at this moment to another twinge; but in this wonderful way of her +putting him in there continued to be something exquisitely +remorseless. "Monsieur de Vionnet will accept what he MUST accept. +He has proposed half a dozen things--each one more impossible than +the other; and he wouldn't have found this if he lives to a hundred. +Chad found it," she continued with her lighted, faintly flushed, +her conscious confidential face, "in the quietest way in the world. +Or rather it found HIM--for everything finds him; I mean finds +him right. You'll think we do such things strangely--but at my age," +she smiled, "one has to accept one's conditions. Our young man's people +had seen her; one of his sisters, a charming woman--we know all +about them--had observed her somewhere with me. She had spoken +to her brother--turned him on; and we were again observed, poor Jeanne +and I, without our in the least knowing it. It was at the beginning +of the winter; it went on for some time; it outlasted our absence; it +began again on our return; and it luckily seems all right. The +young man had met Chad, and he got a friend to approach him--as +having a decent interest in us. Mr. Newsome looked well before he +leaped; he kept beautifully quiet and satisfied himself fully; then +only he spoke. It's what has for some time past occupied us. It +seems as if it were what would do; really, really all one could +wish. There are only two or three points to be settled--they depend +on her father. But this time I think we're safe." + +Strether, consciously gaping a little, had fairly hung upon her +lips. "I hope so with all my heart." And then he permitted himself: +"Does nothing depend on HER?" + +"Ah naturally; everything did. But she's pleased comme tout. She +has been perfectly free; and he--our young friend--is really a +combination. I quite adore him." + +Strether just made sure. "You mean your future son-in-law?" + +"Future if we all bring it off." + +"Ah well," said Strether decorously, "I heartily hope you may." +There seemed little else for him to say, though her communication +had the oddest effect on him. Vaguely and confusedly he was +troubled by it; feeling as if he had even himself been concerned in +something deep and dim. He had allowed for depths, but these were +greater: and it was as if, oppressively--indeed absurdly--he was +responsible for what they had now thrown up to the surface. It was-- +through something ancient and cold in it--what he would have +called the real thing. In short his hostess's news, though he +couldn't have explained why, was a sensible shock, and his +oppression a weight he felt he must somehow or other immediately +get rid of. There were too many connexions missing to make it +tolerable he should do anything else. He was prepared to suffer-- +before his own inner tribunal--for Chad; he was prepared to suffer +even for Madame de Vionnet. But he wasn't prepared to suffer for +the little girl So now having said the proper thing, he wanted to +get away. She held him an instant, however, with another appeal. + +"Do I seem to you very awful?" + +"Awful? Why so?" But he called it to himself, even as he spoke, his +biggest insincerity yet. + +"Our arrangements are so different from yours." + +"Mine?" Oh he could dismiss that too! "I haven't any arrangements." + +"Then you must accept mine; all the more that they're excellent. +They're founded on a vieille sagesse. There will be much more, if +all goes well, for you to hear and to know, and everything, believe +me, for you to like. Don't be afraid; you'll be satisfied." Thus +she could talk to him of what, of her innermost life--for that was +what it came to--he must "accept"; thus she could extraordinarily +speak as if in such an affair his being satisfied had an +importance. It was all a wonder and made the whole case larger. He +had struck himself at the hotel, before Sarah and Waymarsh, as +being in her boat; but where on earth was he now? This question was +in the air till her own lips quenched it with another. "And do you +suppose HE--who loves her so--would do anything reckless or cruel?" + +He wondered what he supposed. "Do you mean your young man--?" + +"I mean yours. I mean Mr. Newsome." It flashed for Strether the +next moment a finer light, and the light deepened as she went on. +"He takes, thank God, the truest tenderest interest in her." + +It deepened indeed. "Oh I'm sure of that!" + +"You were talking," she said, "about one's trusting him. You see +then how I do." + +He waited a moment--it all came. "I see--I see." He felt he really +did see. + +"He wouldn't hurt her for the world, nor--assuming she marries at +all--risk anything that might make against her happiness. And-- +willingly, at least--he would never hurt ME." + +Her face, with what he had by this time grasped, told him more than +her words; whether something had come into it, or whether he only read +clearer, her whole story--what at least he then took for such--reached +out to him from it. With the initiative she now attributed to Chad +it all made a sense, and this sense--a light, a lead, was what had +abruptly risen before him. He wanted, once more, to get off with +these things; which was at last made easy, a servant having, for +his assistance, on hearing voices in the hall, just come forward. +All that Strether had made out was, while the man opened the door +and impersonally waited, summed up in his last word. "I don't +think, you know, Chad will tell me anything." + +"No--perhaps not yet." + +"And I won't as yet speak to him." + +"Ah that's as you'll think best. You must judge." + +She had finally given him her hand, which he held a moment. "How +MUCH I have to judge!" + +"Everything," said Madame de Vionnet: a remark that was indeed-- +with the refined disguised suppressed passion of her face--what he +most carried away. + + + +II + + +So far as a direct approach was concerned Sarah had neglected him, +for the week now about to end, with a civil consistency of chill +that, giving him a higher idea of her social resource, threw him +back on the general reflexion that a woman could always be amazing. +It indeed helped a little to console him that he felt sure she had +for the same period also left Chad's curiosity hanging; though on +the other hand, for his personal relief, Chad could at least go +through the various motions--and he made them extraordinarily +numerous--of seeing she had a good time. There wasn't a motion on +which, in her presence, poor Strether could so much as venture, and +all he could do when he was out of it was to walk over for a talk +with Maria. He walked over of course much less than usual, but he +found a special compensation in a certain half-hour during which, +toward the close of a crowded empty expensive day, his several +companions seemed to him so disposed of as to give his forms and +usages a rest. He had been with them in the morning and had +nevertheless called on the Pococks in the afternoon; but their +whole group, he then found, had dispersed after a fashion of which +it would amuse Miss Gostrey to hear. He was sorry again, gratefully +sorry she was so out of it--she who had really put him in; but she +had fortunately always her appetite for news. The pure flame of the +disinterested burned in her cave of treasures as a lamp in a +Byzantine vault. It was just now, as happened, that for so fine a +sense as hers a near view would have begun to pay. Within three +days, precisely, the situation on which he was to report had shown +signs of an equilibrium; the effect of his look in at the hotel was +to confirm this appearance. If the equilibrium might only prevail! +Sarah was out with Waymarsh, Mamie was out with Chad, and Jim was +out alone. Later on indeed he himself was booked to Jim, was to +take him that evening to the Varieties--which Strether was careful +to pronounce as Jim pronounced them. + +Miss Gostrey drank it in. "What then to-night do the others do?" + +"Well, it has been arranged. Waymarsh takes Sarah to dine at +Bignons. + +She wondered. "And what do they do after? They can't come straight +home." + +"No, they can't come straight home--at least Sarah can't. +It's their secret, but I think I've guessed it." Then as she waited: +"The circus." + +It made her stare a moment longer, then laugh almost to +extravagance. "There's no one like you!" + +"Like ME?"--he only wanted to understand. + +"Like all of you together--like all of us: Woollett, Milrose and +their products. We're abysmal--but may we never be less so! +Mr. Newsome," she continued, "meanwhile takes Miss Pocock--?" + +"Precisely--to the Francais: to see what you took Waymarsh and me +to, a family-bill." + +"Ah then may Mr. Chad enjoy it as I did!" But she saw so much in +things. "Do they spend their evenings, your young people, like +that, alone together?" + +"Well, they're young people--but they're old friends." + +"I see, I see. And do THEY dine--for a difference--at Brebant's?" + +"Oh where they dine is their secret too. But I've my idea that it +will be, very quietly, at Chad's own place." + +"She'll come to him there alone?" + +They looked at each other a moment. "He has known her from a child. +Besides," said Strether with emphasis, "Mamie's remarkable. She's +splendid." + +She wondered. "Do you mean she expects to bring it off?" + +"Getting hold of him? No--I think not." + +"She doesn't want him enough?--or doesn't believe in her power?" +On which as he said nothing she continued: "She finds she doesn't +care for him?" + +"No--I think she finds she does. But that's what I mean by so +describing her. It's IF she does that she's splendid. But we'll +see," he wound up, "where she comes out." + +"You seem to show me sufficiently," Miss Gostrey laughed, "where +she goes in! But is her childhood's friend," she asked, "permitting +himself recklessly to flirt with her?" + +"No--not that. Chad's also splendid. They're ALL splendid!" he +declared with a sudden strange sound of wistfulness and envy. +"They're at least HAPPY." + +"Happy?"--it appeared, with their various difficulties, to surprise +her. + +"Well--I seem to myself among them the only one who isn't." + +She demurred. "With your constant tribute to the ideal?" + +He had a laugh at his tribute to the ideal, but he explained after +a moment his impression. "I mean they're living. They're rushing +about. I've already had my rushing. I'm waiting." + +"But aren't you," she asked by way of cheer, "waiting with ME?" + +He looked at her in all kindness. "Yes--if it weren't for that!" + +"And you help me to wait," she said. "However," she went on, "I've +really something for you that will help you to wait and which you +shall have in a minute. Only there's something more I want from you +first. I revel in Sarah." + +"So do I. If it weren't," he again amusedly sighed, "for THAT--!" + +"Well, you owe more to women than any man I ever saw. We do seem to +keep you going. Yet Sarah, as I see her, must be great," + +"She IS "Strether fully assented: "great! Whatever happens, she +won't, with these unforgettable days, have lived in vain." + +Miss Gostrey had a pause. "You mean she has fallen in love?" + +"I mean she wonders if she hasn't--and it serves all her purpose." + +"It has indeed," Maria laughed, "served women's purposes before!" + +"Yes--for giving in. But I doubt if the idea--as an idea--has ever +up to now answered so well for holding out. That's HER tribute to +the ideal--we each have our own. It's her romance--and it seems to +me better on the whole than mine. To have it in Paris too," he +explained--"on this classic ground, in this charged infectious air, +with so sudden an intensity: well, it's more than she expected. She +has had in short to recognise the breaking out for her of a real +affinity--and with everything to enhance the drama." + +Miss Gostrey followed. "Jim for instance?" + +"Jim. Jim hugely enhances. Jim was made to enhance. And then +Mr. Waymarsh. It's the crowning touch--it supplies the colour. +He's positively separated." + +"And she herself unfortunately isn't--that supplies the colour +too." Miss Gostrey was all there. But somehow--! "Is HE in love?" + +Strether looked at her a long time; then looked all about the room; +then came a little nearer. "Will you never tell any one in the +world as long as ever you live?" + +"Never." It was charming. + +"He thinks Sarah really is. But he has no fear," Strether hastened +to add. + +"Of her being affected by it?" + +"Of HIS being. He likes it, but he knows she can hold out. He's +helping her, he's floating her over, by kindness." + +Maria rather funnily considered it. "Floating her over in +champagne? The kindness of dining her, nose to nose, at the hour +when all Paris is crowding to profane delights, and in the--well, +in the great temple, as one hears of it, of pleasure?" + +"That's just IT, for both of them," Strether insisted--"and all of +a supreme innocence. The Parisian place, the feverish hour, the + +putting before her of a hundred francs' worth of food and drink, +which they'll scarcely touch--all that's the dear man's own +romance; the expensive kind, expensive in francs and centimes, in +which he abounds. And the circus afterwards--which is cheaper, but +which he'll find some means of making as dear as possible--that's +also HIS tribute to the ideal. It does for him. He'll see her +through. They won't talk of anything worse than you and me." + +"Well, we're bad enough perhaps, thank heaven," she laughed. "to +upset them! Mr. Waymarsh at any rate is a hideous old coquette." +And the next moment she had dropped everything for a different +pursuit. "What you don't appear to know is that Jeanne de Vionnet +has become engaged. She's to marry--it has been definitely +arranged--young Monsieur de Montbron." + +He fairly blushed. "Then--if you know it--it's 'out'?" + +"Don't I often know things that are NOT out? However," she said, +"this will be out to-morrow. But I see I've counted too much on +your possible ignorance. You've been before me, and I don't make +you jump as I hoped." + +He gave a gasp at her insight. "You never fail! I've HAD my jump. +I had it when I first heard." + +"Then if you knew why didn't you tell me as soon as you came in?" + +"Because I had it from her as a thing not yet to be spoken of." + +Miss Gostrey wondered. "From Madame de Vionnet herself?" + +"As a probability--not quite a certainty: a good cause in which +Chad has been working. So I've waited." + +"You need wait no longer," she returned. "It reached me yesterday-- +roundabout and accidental, but by a person who had had it from one +of the young man's own people--as a thing quite settled. I was only +keeping it for you." + +"You thought Chad wouldn't have told me?" + +She hesitated. "Well, if he hasn't--" + +"He hasn't. And yet the thing appears to have been practically his +doing. So there we are." + +"There we are!" Maria candidly echoed. + +"That's why I jumped. I jumped," he continued to explain, "because +it means, this disposition of the daughter, that there's now +nothing else: nothing else but him and the mother." + +"Still--it simplifies." + +"It simplifies"--he fully concurred. "But that's precisely where we +are. It marks a stage in his relation. The act is his answer to +Mrs. Newsome's demonstration." + +"It tells," Maria asked, "the worst?" + +"The worst." + +"But is the worst what he wants Sarah to know?" + +"He doesn't care for Sarah." + +At which Miss Gostrey's eyebrows went up. "You mean she has already +dished herself?" + +Strether took a turn about; he had thought it out again and again +before this, to the end; but the vista seemed each time longer. "He +wants his good friend to know the best. I mean the measure of his +attachment. She asked for a sign, and he thought of that one. There +it is." + +"A concession to her jealousy?" + +Strether pulled up. "Yes--call it that. Make it lurid--for that +makes my problem richer." + +"Certainly, let us have it lurid--for I quite agree with you that +we want none of our problems poor. But let us also have it clear. +Can he, in the midst of such a preoccupation, or on the heels of +it, have seriously cared for Jeanne?--cared, I mean, as a young man +at liberty would have cared?" + +Well, Strether had mastered it. "I think he can have thought it +would be charming if he COULD care. It would be nicer." + +"Nicer than being tied up to Marie?" + +"Yes--than the discomfort of an attachment to a person he can never +hope, short of a catastrophe, to marry. And he was quite right," +said Strether. "It would certainly have been nicer. Even when a +thing's already nice there mostly is some other thing that would +have been nicer--or as to which we wonder if it wouldn't. But his +question was all the same a dream. He COULDn't care in that way. He +IS tied up to Marie. The relation is too special and has gone too +far. It's the very basis, and his recent lively contribution toward +establishing Jeanne in life has been his definite and final +acknowledgement to Madame de Vionnet that he has ceased squirming. +I doubt meanwhile," he went on, "if Sarah has at all directly +attacked him." + +His companion brooded. "But won't he wish for his own satisfaction +to make his ground good to her?" + +"No--he'll leave it to me, he'll leave everything to me. I 'sort +of' feel"--he worked it out--"that the whole thing will come upon +me. Yes, I shall have every inch and every ounce of it. I shall be +USED for it--!" And Strether lost himself in the prospect. Then he +fancifully expressed the issue. "To the last drop of my blood." + +Maria, however, roundly protested. "Ah you'll please keep a drop +for ME. I shall have a use for it!"--which she didn't however +follow up. She had come back the next moment to another matter. +"Mrs. Pocock, with her brother, is trusting only to her general +charm?" + +"So it would seem." + +"And the charm's not working?" + +Well, Strether put it otherwise, "She's sounding the note of home-- +which is the very best thing she can do." + +"The best for Madame de Vionnet?" + +"The best for home itself. The natural one; the right one." + +"Right," Maria asked, "when it fails?" + +Strether had a pause. "The difficulty's Jim. Jim's the note of +home." + +She debated. "Ah surely not the note of Mrs. Newsome." + +But he had it all. "The note of the home for which Mrs. Newsome +wants him--the home of the business. Jim stands, with his little +legs apart, at the door of THAT tent; and Jim is, frankly speaking, +extremely awful." + +Maria stared. "And you in, you poor thing, for your evening with +him?" + +"Oh he's all right for ME!" Strether laughed. "Any one's good +enough for ME. But Sarah shouldn't, all the same, have brought him. +She doesn't appreciate him." + +His friend was amused with this statement of it. "Doesn't know, you +mean, how bad he is?" + +Strether shook his head with decision. "Not really." + +She wondered. "Then doesn't Mrs. Newsome?" + +It made him frankly do the same. "Well, no--since you ask me." + +Maria rubbed it in. "Not really either?" + +"Not at all. She rates him rather high." With which indeed, +immediately, he took himself up. "Well, he IS good too, in his way. +It depends on what you want him for." + +Miss Gostrey, however, wouldn't let it depend on anything--wouldn't +have it, and wouldn't want him, at any price. "It suits my book," +she said, "that he should be impossible; and it suits it still +better," she more imaginatively added, "that Mrs. Newsome doesn't +know he is." + +Strether, in consequence, had to take it from her, but he fell back +on something else. "I'll tell you who does really know." + +"Mr. Waymarsh? Never!" + +"Never indeed. I'm not ALWAYS thinking of Mr. Waymarsh; in fact I +find now I never am." Then he mentioned the person as if there were +a good deal in it. "Mamie." + +"His own sister?" Oddly enough it but let her down. "What good will +that do?" + +"None perhaps. But there--as usual--we are!" + + + +III + + +There they were yet again, accordingly, for two days more; when +Strether, on being, at Mrs. Pocock's hotel, ushered into that +lady's salon, found himself at first assuming a mistake on the part +of the servant who had introduced him and retired. The occupants +hadn't come in, for the room looked empty as only a room can look +in Paris, of a fine afternoon when the faint murmur of the huge +collective life, carried on out of doors, strays among scattered +objects even as a summer air idles in a lonely garden. Our friend +looked about and hesitated; observed, on the evidence of a table +charged with purchases and other matters, that Sarah had become +possessed--by no aid from HIM--of the last number of the +salmon-coloured Revue; noted further that Mamie appeared to have +received a present of Fromentin's "Maitres d'Autrefois" from Chad, +who had written her name on the cover; and pulled up at the sight of +a heavy letter addressed in a hand he knew. This letter, forwarded +by a banker and arriving in Mrs. Pocock's absence, had been placed +in evidence, and it drew from the fact of its being unopened a sudden +queer power to intensify the reach of its author. It brought home +to him the scale on which Mrs. Newsome--for she had been copious +indeed this time--was writing to her daughter while she kept HIM in +durance; and it had altogether such an effect upon him as made him +for a few minutes stand still and breathe low. In his own room, at +his own hotel, he had dozens of well-filled envelopes superscribed +in that character; and there was actually something in the renewal +of his interrupted vision of the character that played straight +into the so frequent question of whether he weren't already +disinherited beyond appeal. It was such an assurance as the sharp +downstrokes of her pen hadn't yet had occasion to give him; but +they somehow at the present crisis stood for a probable +absoluteness in any decree of the writer. He looked at Sarah's name +and address, in short, as if he had been looking hard into her +mother's face, and then turned from it as if the face had declined +to relax. But since it was in a manner as if Mrs. Newsome were +thereby all the more, instead of the less, in the room, and were +conscious, sharply and sorely conscious, of himself, so he felt +both held and hushed, summoned to stay at least and take his +punishment. By staying, accordingly, he took it--creeping softly +and vaguely about and waiting for Sarah to come in. She WOULD come +in if he stayed long enough, and he had now more than ever the +sense of her success in leaving him a prey to anxiety. It wasn't to +be denied that she had had a happy instinct, from the point of view +of Woollett, in placing him thus at the mercy of her own initiative. +It was very well to try to say he didn't care--that she might +break ground when she would, might never break it at all if she +wouldn't, and that he had no confession whatever to wait upon her +with: he breathed from day to day an air that damnably required +clearing, and there were moments when he quite ached to precipitate +that process. He couldn't doubt that, should she only oblige him by +surprising him just as he then was, a clarifying scene of some sort +would result from the concussion. + +He humbly circulated in this spirit till he suddenly had a fresh +arrest. Both the windows of the room stood open to the balcony, but +it was only now that, in the glass of the leaf of one of them, +folded back, he caught a reflexion quickly recognised as the colour +of a lady's dress. Somebody had been then all the while on the +balcony, and the person, whoever it might be, was so placed between +the windows as to be hidden from him; while on the other hand the +many sounds of the street had covered his own entrance and +movements. If the person were Sarah he might on the spot therefore +be served to his taste. He might lead her by a move or two up to +the remedy for his vain tension; as to which, should he get nothing +else from it, he would at least have the relief of pulling down the +roof on their heads. There was fortunately no one at hand to +observe--in respect to his valour--that even on this completed +reasoning he still hung fire. He had been waiting for Mrs. Pocock +and the sound of the oracle; but he had to gird himself afresh-- +which he did in the embrasure of the window, neither advancing nor +retreating--before provoking the revelation. It was apparently for +Sarah to come more into view; he was in that case there at her +service. She did however, as meanwhile happened, come more into +view; only she luckily came at the last minute as a contradiction +of Sarah. The occupant of the balcony was after all quite another +person, a person presented, on a second look, by a charming back +and a slight shift of her position, as beautiful brilliant +unconscious Mamie--Mamie alone at home, Mamie passing her time in +her own innocent way, Mamie in short rather shabbily used, but +Mamie absorbed interested and interesting. With her arms on the +balustrade and her attention dropped to the street she allowed +Strether to watch her, to consider several things, without her +turning round. + +But the oddity was that when he HAD so watched and considered he +simply stepped back into the room without following up his +advantage. He revolved there again for several minutes, quite as +with something new to think of and as if the bearings of the +possibility of Sarah had been superseded. For frankly, yes, it HAD +bearings thus to find the girl in solitary possession. There was +something in it that touched him to a point not to have been +reckoned beforehand, something that softly but quite pressingly +spoke to him, and that spoke the more each time he paused again at +the edge of the balcony and saw her still unaware. Her companions +were plainly scattered; Sarah would be off somewhere with Waymarsh +and Chad off somewhere with Jim. Strether didn't at all mentally +impute to Chad that he was with his "good friend"; he gave him the +benefit of supposing him involved in appearances that, had he had +to describe them--for instance to Maria--he would have conveniently +qualified as more subtle. It came to him indeed the next thing that +there was perhaps almost an excess of refinement in having left +Mamie in such weather up there alone; however she might in fact +have extemporised, under the charm of the Rue de Rivoli, a little +makeshift Paris of wonder arid fancy. Our friend in any case now +recognised--and it was as if at the recognition Mrs. Newsome's +fixed intensity had suddenly, with a deep audible gasp, grown thin +and vague--that day after day he had been conscious in respect to +his young lady of something odd and ambiguous, yet something into +which he could at last read a meaning. It had been at the most, +this mystery, an obsession--oh an obsession agreeable; and it had +just now fallen into its place as at the touch of a spring. It had +represented the possibility between them of some communication +baffled by accident and delay--the possibility even of some +relation as yet unacknowledged. + +There was always their old relation, the fruit of the Woollett +years; but that--and it was what was strangest--had nothing +whatever in common with what was now in the air. As a child, as a +"bud," and then again as a flower of expansion, Mamie had bloomed +for him, freely, in the almost incessantly open doorways of home; +where he remembered her as first very forward, as then very +backward--for he had carried on at one period, in Mrs. Newsome's +parlours (oh Mrs. Newsome's phases and his own!) a course of +English Literature re-enforced by exams and teas--and once more, +finally, as very much in advance. But he had kept no great sense of +points of contact; it not being in the nature of things at Woollett +that the freshest of the buds should find herself in the same +basket with the most withered of the winter apples. The child had +given sharpness, above all, to his sense of the flight of time; it +was but the day before yesterday that he had tripped up on her +hoop, yet his experience of remarkable women--destined, it would +seem, remarkably to grow--felt itself ready this afternoon, quite +braced itself, to include her. She had in fine more to say to him +than he had ever dreamed the pretty girl of the moment COULD have; +and the proof of the circumstance was that, visibly, unmistakeably, +she had been able to say it to no one else. It was something she +could mention neither to her brother, to her sister-in-law nor to +Chad; though he could just imagine that had she still been at home +she might have brought it out, as a supreme tribute to age, +authority and attitude, for Mrs. Newsome. It was moreover something +in which they all took an interest; the strength of their interest +was in truth just the reason of her prudence. All this then, for +five minutes, was vivid to Strether, and it put before him that, +poor child, she had now but her prudence to amuse her. That, for a +pretty girl in Paris, struck him, with a rush, as a sorry state; so +that under the impression he went out to her with a step as +hypocritically alert, he was well aware, as if he had just come +into the room. She turned with a start at his voice; preoccupied +with him though she might be, she was just a scrap disappointed. +"Oh I thought you were Mr. Bilham!" + +The remark had been at first surprising and our friend's private +thought, under the influence of it, temporarily blighted; yet we +are able to add that he presently recovered his inward tone and +that many a fresh flower of fancy was to bloom in the same air. +Little Bilham--since little Bilham was, somewhat incongruously, +expected--appeared behindhand; a circumstance by which Strether was +to profit. They came back into the room together after a little, +the couple on the balcony, and amid its crimson-and-gold elegance, +with the others still absent, Strether passed forty minutes that he +appraised even at the time as far, in the whole queer connexion, +from his idlest. Yes indeed, since he had the other day so agreed +with Maria about the inspiration of the lurid, here was something +for his problem that surely didn't make it shrink and that was +floated in upon him as part of a sudden flood. He was doubtless not +to know till afterwards, on turning them over in thought, of how +many elements his impression was composed; but he none the less +felt, as he sat with the charming girl, the signal growth of a +confidence. For she WAS charming, when all was said--and none the +less so for the visible habit and practice of freedom and fluency. +She was charming, he was aware, in spite of the fact that if he +hadn't found her so he would have found her something he should +have been in peril of expressing as "funny." Yes, she was funny, +wonderful Mamie, and without dreaming it; she was bland, she was +bridal--with never, that he could make out as yet, a bridegroom to +support it; she was handsome and portly and easy and chatty, soft +and sweet and almost disconcertingly reassuring. She was dressed, +if we might so far discriminate, less as a young lady than as an +old one--had an old one been supposable to Strether as so committed +to vanity; the complexities of her hair missed moreover also the +looseness of youth; and she had a mature manner of bending a +little, as to encourage and reward, while she held neatly together +in front of her a pair of strikingly polished hands: the +combination of all of which kept up about her the glamour of her +"receiving," placed her again perpetually between the windows and +within sound of the ice-cream plates, suggested the enumeration of +all the names, all the Mr. Brookses and Mr. Snookses, gregarious +specimens of a single type. she was happy to "meet." But if all +this was where she was funny, and if what was funnier than the rest +was the contrast between her beautiful benevolent patronage--such a +hint of the polysyllabic as might make her something of a bore +toward middle age--and her rather flat little voice, the voice, +naturally, unaffectedly yet, of a girl of fifteen; so Strether, +none the less, at the end of ten minutes, felt in her a quiet +dignity that pulled things bravely together. If quiet dignity, +almost more than matronly, with voluminous, too voluminous clothes, +was the effect she proposed to produce, that was an ideal one could +like in her when once one had got into relation. The great thing +now for her visitor was that this was exactly what he had done; it +made so extraordinary a mixture of the brief and crowded hour. It +was the mark of a relation that he had begun so quickly to find +himself sure she was, of all people, as might have been said, on +the side and of the party of Mrs. Newsome's original ambassador. +She was in HIS interest and not in Sarah's, and some sign of that +was precisely what he had been feeling in her, these last days, as +imminent. Finally placed, in Paris, in immediate presence of the +situation and of the hero of it--by whom Strether was incapable of +meaning any one but Chad--she had accomplished, and really in a +manner all unexpected to herself, a change of base; deep still +things had come to pass within her, and by the time she had grown +sure of them Strether had become aware of the little drama. When +she knew where she was, in short, he had made it out; and he made +it out at present still better; though with never a direct word +passing between them all the while on the subject of his own +predicament. There had been at first, as he sat there with her, a +moment during which he wondered if she meant to break ground in +respect to his prime undertaking. That door stood so strangely ajar +that he was half-prepared to be conscious, at any juncture, of her +having, of any one's having, quite bounced in. But, friendly, +familiar, light of touch and happy of tact, she exquisitely stayed +out; so that it was for all the world as if to show she could deal +with him without being reduced to--well, scarcely anything. + +It fully came up for them then, by means of their talking of +everything BUT Chad, that Mamie, unlike Sarah, unlike Jim, knew +perfectly what had become of him. It fully came up that she had +taken to the last fraction of an inch the measure of the change in +him, and that she wanted Strether to know what a secret she +proposed to make of it. They talked most conveniently--as if they +had had no chance yet--about Woollett; and that had virtually the +effect of their keeping the secret more close. The hour took on for +Strether, little by little, a queer sad sweetness of quality, he +had such a revulsion in Mamie's favour and on behalf of her social +value as might have come from remorse at some early injustice. She +made him, as under the breath of some vague western whiff, homesick +and freshly restless; he could really for the time have fancied +himself stranded with her on a far shore, during an ominous calm, +in a quaint community of shipwreck. Their little interview was like +a picnic on a coral strand; they passed each other, with melancholy +smiles and looks sufficiently allusive, such cupfuls of water as +they had saved. Especially sharp in Strether meanwhile was the +conviction that his companion really knew, as we have hinted, where +she had come out. It was at a very particular place--only THAT she +would never tell him; it would be above all what he should have to +puzzle for himself. This was what he hoped for, because his interest +in the girl wouldn't be complete without it. No more would the +appreciation to which she was entitled--so assured was he that +the more he saw of her process the more he should see of her pride. +She saw, herself, everything; but she knew what she didn't want, +and that it was that had helped her. What didn't she want?--there +was a pleasure lost for her old friend in not yet knowing, as there +would doubtless be a thrill in getting a glimpse. Gently and +sociably she kept that dark to him, and it was as if she soothed +and beguiled him in other ways to make up for it. She came out with +her impression of Madame de Vionnet--of whom she had "heard so +much"; she came out with her impression of Jeanne, whom she had +been "dying to see": she brought it out with a blandness by which +her auditor was really stirred that she had been with Sarah early +that very afternoon, and after dreadful delays caused by all sorts +of things, mainly, eternally, by the purchase of clothes--clothes +that unfortunately wouldn't be themselves eternal--to call in the +Rue de Bellechasse. + +At the sound of these names Strether almost blushed to feel that he +couldn't have sounded them first--and yet couldn't either have +justified his squeamishness. Mamie made them easy as he couldn't +have begun to do, and yet it could only have cost her more than he +should ever have had to spend. It was as friends of Chad's, friends +special, distinguished, desirable, enviable, that she spoke of +them, and she beautifully carried it off that much as she had heard +of them--though she didn't say how or where, which was a touch of +her own--she had found them beyond her supposition. She abounded in +praise of them, and after the manner of Woollett--which made the +manner of Woollett a loveable thing again to Strether. He had never +so felt the true inwardness of it as when his blooming companion +pronounced the elder of the ladies of the Rue de Bellechasse too +fascinating for words and declared of the younger that she was +perfectly ideal, a real little monster of charm. "Nothing," she said +of Jeanne, "ought ever to happen to her--she's so awfully right as +she is. Another touch will spoil her--so she oughtn't to BE touched." + +"Ah but things, here in Paris," Strether observed, "do happen to +little girls." And then for the joke's and the occasion's sake: +"Haven't you found that yourself?" + +"That things happen--? Oh I'm not a little girl. I'm a big +battered blowsy one. I don't care," Mamie laughed, "WHAT happens." + +Strether had a pause while he wondered if it mightn't happen that +he should give her the pleasure of learning that he found her nicer +than he had really dreamed--a pause that ended when he had said to +himself that, so far as it at all mattered for her, she had in fact +perhaps already made this out. He risked accordingly a different +question--though conscious, as soon as he had spoken, that he +seemed to place it in relation to her last speech. "But that +Mademoiselle de Vionnet is to be married--I suppose you've heard of +THAT." +For all, he then found, he need fear! "Dear, yes; the gentleman +was there: Monsieur de Montbron, whom Madame de Vionnet +presented to us." + +"And was he nice?" + +Mamie bloomed and bridled with her best reception manner. "Any +man's nice when he's in love." + +It made Strether laugh. "But is Monsieur de Montbron in love-- +already--with YOU?" + +"Oh that's not necessary--it's so much better he should be so with +HER: which, thank goodness, I lost no time in discovering for +myself. He's perfectly gone--and I couldn't have borne it for her +if he hadn't been. She's just too sweet." + +Strether hesitated. "And through being in love too?" + +On which with a smile that struck him as wonderful Mamie had a +wonderful answer. "She doesn't know if she is or not." + +It made him again laugh out. "Oh but YOU do!" + +She was willing to take it that way. "Oh yes, I know everything." +And as she sat there rubbing her polished hands and making the best +of it--only holding her elbows perhaps a little too much out--the +momentary effect for Strether was that every one else, in all their +affair, seemed stupid. + +"Know that poor little Jeanne doesn't know what's the matter with +her?" + +It was as near as they came to saying that she was probably in love +with Chad; but it was quite near enough for what Strether wanted; +which was to be confirmed in his certitude that, whether in love or +not, she appealed to something large and easy in the girl before +him. Mamie would be fat, too fat, at thirty; but she would always +be the person who, at the present sharp hour, had been +disinterestedly tender. "If I see a little more of her, as I hope +I shall, I think she'll like me enough--for she seemed to like me +to-day--to want me to tell her." + +"And SHALL you?" + +"Perfectly. I shall tell her the matter with her is that she wants +only too much to do right. To do right for her, naturally," said +Mamie, "is to please." + +"Her mother, do you mean?" + +"Her mother first." + +Strether waited. "And then?" + +"Well, 'then'--Mr. Newsome." + +There was something really grand for him in the serenity of this +reference. "And last only Monsieur de Montbron?" + +"Last only"--she good-humouredly kept it up. + +Strether considered. "So that every one after all then will be +suited?" + +She had one of her few hesitations, but it was a question only of a +moment; and it was her nearest approach to being explicit with him +about what was between them. "I think I can speak for myself. I +shall be." + +It said indeed so much, told such a story of her being ready to +help him, so committed to him that truth, in short, for such use as +he might make of it toward those ends of his own with which, +patiently and trustfully, she had nothing to do--it so fully +achieved all this that he appeared to himself simply to meet it in +its own spirit by the last frankness of admiration. Admiration was +of itself almost accusatory, but nothing less would serve to show +her how nearly he understood. He put out his hand for good-bye +with a "Splendid, splendid, splendid!" And he left her, in her +splendour, still waiting for little Bilham. + + + + + +Book Tenth + + + + +I + + +Strether occupied beside little Bilham, three evenings after his +interview with Mamie Pocock, the same deep divan they had enjoyed +together on the first occasion of our friend's meeting Madame de +Vionnet and her daughter in the apartment of the Boulevard +Malesherbes, where his position affirmed itself again as ministering +to an easy exchange of impressions. The present evening had a +different stamp; if the company was much more numerous, so, +inevitably, were the ideas set in motion. It was on the other +hand, however, now strongly marked that the talkers moved, +in respect to such matters, round an inner, a protected circle. +They knew at any rate what really concerned them to-night, and +Strether had begun by keeping his companion close to it. +Only a few of Chad's guests had dined--that is fifteen or twenty, +a few compared with the large concourse offered to sight by eleven +o'clock; but number and mass, quantity and quality, light, +fragrance, sound, the overflow of hospitality meeting the high tide +of response, had all from the first pressed upon Strether's +consciousness, and he felt himself somehow part and parcel of the +most festive scene, as the term was, in which he had ever in his +life been engaged. He had perhaps seen, on Fourths of July and on +dear old domestic Commencements, more people assembled, but he had +never seen so many in proportion to the space, or had at all events +never known so great a promiscuity to show so markedly as picked. +Numerous as was the company, it had still been made so by +selection, and what was above all rare for Strether was that, by no +fault of his own, he was in the secret of the principle that had +worked. He hadn't enquired, he had averted his head, but Chad had +put him a pair of questions that themselves smoothed the ground. +He hadn't answered the questions, he had replied that they were +the young man's own affair; and he had then seen perfectly that the +latter's direction was already settled. + +Chad had applied for counsel only by way of intimating that he knew +what to do; and he had clearly never known it better than in now +presenting to his sister the whole circle of his society. This was +all in the sense and the spirit of the note struck by him on that +lady's arrival; he had taken at the station itself a line that led +him without a break, and that enabled him to lead the Pococks-- +though dazed a little, no doubt, breathless, no doubt, and +bewildered--to the uttermost end of the passage accepted by them +perforce as pleasant. He had made it for them violently pleasant +and mercilessly full; the upshot of which was, to Strether's +vision, that they had come all the way without discovering it to be +really no passage at all. It was a brave blind alley, where to +pass was impossible and where, unless they stuck fast, they would +have--which was always awkward--publicly to back out. They were +touching bottom assuredly tonight; the whole scene represented the +terminus of the cul-de-sac. So could things go when there was a +hand to keep them consistent--a hand that pulled the wire with a +skill at which the elder man more and more marvelled. The elder +man felt responsible, but he also felt successful, since what had +taken place was simply the issue of his own contention, six weeks +before, that they properly should wait to see what their friends +would have really to say. He had determined Chad to wait, he had +determined him to see; he was therefore not to quarrel with the +time given up to the business. As much as ever, accordingly, now +that a fortnight had elapsed, the situation created for Sarah, and +against which she had raised no protest, was that of her having +accommodated herself to her adventure as to a pleasure-party +surrendered perhaps even somewhat in excess to bustle and to +"pace." If her brother had been at any point the least bit open to +criticism it might have been on the ground of his spicing the +draught too highly and pouring the cup too full. Frankly treating +the whole occasion of the presence of his relatives as an +opportunity for amusement, he left it, no doubt, but scant margin +as an opportunity for anything else. He suggested, invented, +abounded--yet all the while with the loosest easiest rein. +Strether, during his own weeks, had gained a sense of knowing +Paris; but he saw it afresh, and with fresh emotion, in the form of +the knowledge offered to his colleague. + +A thousand unuttered thoughts hummed for him in the air of these +observations; not the least frequent of which was that Sarah might +well of a truth not quite know whither she was drifting. She was +in no position not to appear to expect that Chad should treat her +handsomely; yet she struck our friend as privately stiffening a +little each time she missed the chance of marking the great nuance. +The great nuance was in brief that of course her brother must treat +her handsomely--she should like to see him not; but that treating +her handsomely, none the less, wasn't all in all--treating her +handsomely buttered no parsnips; and that in fine there were +moments when she felt the fixed eyes of their admirable absent +mother fairly screw into the flat of her back. Strether, watching, +after his habit, and overscoring with thought, positively had +moments of his own in which he found himself sorry for her-- +occasions on which she affected him as a person seated in a runaway +vehicle and turning over the question of a possible jump. WOULD +she jump, could she, would THAT be a safe placed--this question, at +such instants, sat for him in her lapse into pallor, her tight +lips, her conscious eyes. It came back to the main point at issue: +would she be, after all, to be squared? He believed on the whole +she would jump; yet his alternations on this subject were the more +especial stuff of his suspense. One thing remained well before +him--a conviction that was in fact to gain sharpness from the +impressions of this evening: that if she SHOULD gather in her +skirts, close her eyes and quit the carriage while in motion, he +would promptly enough become aware. She would alight from her +headlong course more or less directly upon him; it would be +appointed to him, unquestionably, to receive her entire weight. +Signs and portents of the experience thus in reserve for him had as +it happened, multiplied even through the dazzle of Chad's party. +It was partly under the nervous consciousness of such a prospect +that, leaving almost every one in the two other rooms, leaving +those of the guests already known to him as well as a mass of +brilliant strangers of both sexes and of several varieties of +speech, he had desired five quiet minutes with little Bilham, whom +he always found soothing and even a little inspiring, and to whom +he had actually moreover something distinct and important to say. + +He had felt of old--for it already seemed long ago--rather +humiliated at discovering he could learn in talk with a personage +so much his junior the lesson of a certain moral ease; but he had +now got used to that--whether or no the mixture of the fact with +other humiliations had made it indistinct, whether or no directly +from little Bilham's example, the example of his being contentedly +just the obscure and acute little Bilham he was. It worked so for +him, Strether seemed to see; and our friend had at private hours a +wan smile over the fact that he himself, after so many more years, +was still in search of something that would work. However, as we +have said, it worked just now for them equally to have found a +corner a little apart. What particularly kept it apart was the +circumstance that the music in the salon was admirable, with two or +three such singers as it was a privilege to hear in private. Their +presence gave a distinction to Chad's entertainment, and the +interest of calculating their effect on Sarah was actually so sharp +as to be almost painful. Unmistakeably, in her single person, the +motive of the composition and dressed in a splendour of crimson +which affected Strether as the sound of a fall through a skylight, +she would now be in the forefront of the listening circle and +committed by it up to her eyes. Those eyes during the wonderful +dinner itself he hadn't once met; having confessedly--perhaps a +little pusillanimously--arranged with Chad that he should be on the +same side of the table. But there was no use in having arrived now +with little Bilham at an unprecedented point of intimacy unless he +could pitch everything into the pot. "You who sat where you could +see her, what does she make of it all? By which I mean on what +terms does she take it?" + +"Oh she takes it, I judge, as proving that the claim of his family +is more than ever justified " + +"She isn't then pleased with what he has to show?" + +"On the contrary; she's pleased with it as with his capacity to do +this kind of thing--more than she has been pleased with anything +for a long time. But she wants him to show it THERE. He has no +right to waste it on the likes of us." + +Strether wondered. "She wants him to move the whole thing over?" + +"The whole thing--with an important exception. Everything he has +'picked up'--and the way he knows how. She sees no difficulty in +that. She'd run the show herself, and she'll make the handsome +concession that Woollett would be on the whole in some ways the +better for it. Not that it wouldn't be also in some ways the +better for Woollett. The people there are just as good." + +"Just as good as you and these others? Ah that may be. But such +an occasion as this, whether or no," Strether said, "isn't the +people. It's what has made the people possible." + +"Well then," his friend replied, "there you are; I give you my +impression for what it's worth. Mrs. Pocock has SEEN, and that's +to-night how she sits there. If you were to have a glimpse of her +face you'd understand me. She has made up her mind--to the sound +of expensive music." + +Strether took it freely in. "Ah then I shall have news of her." + +"I don't want to frighten you, but I think that likely. However," + +little Bilham continued, "if I'm of the least use to you to hold on +by--!" + +"You're not of the least!"--and Strether laid an appreciative hand +on him to say it. "No one's of the least." With which, to mark how +gaily he could take it, he patted his companion's knee. "I must +meet my fate alone, and I SHALL--oh you'll see! And yet," he +pursued the next moment, "you CAN help me too. You once said to +me"--he followed this further--"that you held Chad should marry. +I didn't see then so well as I know now that you meant he should +marry Miss Pocock. Do you still consider that he should? Because +if you do"--he kept it up--"I want you immediately to change your +mind. You can help me that way." + +"Help you by thinking he should NOT marry?" + +"Not marry at all events Mamie." + +"And who then?" + +"Ah," Strether returned, "that I'm not obliged to say. But Madame +de Vionnet--I suggest--when he can.' + +"Oh!" said little Bilham with some sharpness. + +"Oh precisely! But he needn't marry at all--I'm at any rate not +obliged to provide for it. Whereas in your case I rather feel that +I AM." + +Little Bilham was amused. "Obliged to provide for my marrying?" + +"Yes--after all I've done to you!" + +The young man weighed it. "Have you done as much as that?" + +"Well," said Strether, thus challenged, "of course I must remember +what you've also done to ME. We may perhaps call it square. But +all the same," he went on, "I wish awfully you'd marry Mamie Pocock +yourself." + +Little Bilham laughed out. "Why it was only the other night, in +this very place, that you were proposing to me a different union +altogether." + +''Mademoiselle de Vionnet?" Well, Strether easily confessed it. +"That, I admit, was a vain image. THIS is practical politics. +I want to do something good for both of you--I wish you each so well; +and you can see in a moment the trouble it will save me to polish +you off by the same stroke. She likes you, you know. You console +her. And she's splendid." + +Little Bilham stared as a delicate appetite stares at an overheaped +plate. "What do I console her for?" + +It just made his friend impatient. "Oh come, you knows" + +"And what proves for you that she likes me?" + +"Why the fact that I found her three days ago stopping at home +alone all the golden afternoon on the mere chance that you'd come +to her, and hanging over her balcony on that of seeing your cab +drive up. I don't know what you want more." + +Little Bilham after a moment found it. "Only just to know what +proves to you that I like HER." + +"Oh if what I've just mentioned isn't enough to make you do it, +you're a stony-hearted little fiend. Besides"--Strether encouraged +his fancy's flight--"you showed your inclination in the way you +kept her waiting, kept her on purpose to see if she cared enough +for you." + +His companion paid his ingenuity the deference of a pause. "I didn't +keep her waiting. I came at the hour. I wouldn't have kept her +waiting for the world," the young man honourably declared. + +"Better still--then there you are!" And Strether, charmed, held +him the faster. "Even if you didn't do her justice, moreover," he +continued, "I should insist on your immediately coming round to it. +I want awfully to have worked it. I want"--and our friend spoke +now with a yearning that was really earnest--"at least to have done +THAT." + +"To have married me off--without a penny?" + +"Well, I shan't live long; and I give you my word, now and here, +that I'll leave you every penny of my own. I haven't many, +unfortunately, but you shall have them all. And Miss Pocock, I +think, has a few. I want," Strether went on, "to have been at +least to that extent constructive even expiatory. I've been +sacrificing so to strange gods that I feel I want to put on record, +somehow, my fidelity--fundamentally unchanged after all--to our +own. I feel as if my hands were embrued with the blood of +monstrous alien altars--of another faith altogether. There it is-- +it's done." And then he further explained. "It took hold of me +because the idea of getting her quite out of the way for Chad +helps to clear my ground." + +The young man, at this, bounced about, and it brought them face to +face in admitted amusement. "You want me to marry as a convenience +to Chad?" + +"No," Strether debated--"HE doesn't care whether you marry or not. +It's as a convenience simply to my own plan FOR him." + +"'Simply'!"--and little Bilham's concurrence was in itself a lively +comment. "Thank you. But I thought," he continued, "you had +exactly NO plan 'for' him." + +"Well then call it my plan for myself--which may be well, as you +say, to have none. His situation, don't you see? is reduced now to +the bare facts one has to recognise. Mamie doesn't want him, and +he doesn't want Mamie: so much as that these days have made +clear. It's a thread we can wind up and tuck in." + +But little Bilham still questioned. "YOU can--since you seem so +much to want to. But why should I?" + +Poor Strether thought it over, but was obliged of course to admit +that his demonstration did superficially fail. "Seriously, there +is no reason. It's my affair--I must do it alone. I've only my +fantastic need of making my dose stiff." + +Little Bilham wondered. "What do you call your dose?" + +"Why what I have to swallow. I want my conditions unmitigated." + +He had spoken in the tone of talk for talk's sake, and yet with an +obscure truth lurking in the loose folds; a circumstance presently +not without its effect on his young friend. Little Bilham's eyes +rested on him a moment with some intensity; then suddenly, as if +everything had cleared up, he gave a happy laugh. It seemed to say +that if pretending, or even trying, or still even hoping, to be +able to care for Mamie would be of use, he was all there for the +job. "I'll do anything in the world for you!" + +"Well," Strether smiled, "anything in the world is all I want. I +don't know anything that pleased me in her more," he went on, "than +the way that, on my finding her up there all alone, coming on her +unawares and feeling greatly for her being so out of it, she +knocked down my tall house of cards with her instant and cheerful +allusion to the next young man. It was somehow so the note I +needed--her staying at home to receive him." + +"It was Chad of course," said little Bilham, "who asked the next +young man--I like your name for me!--to call." + +"So I supposed--all of which, thank God, is in our innocent and +natural manners. But do you know," Strether asked, "if Chad +knows--?" And then as this interlocutor seemed at a loss: +"Why where she has come out." + +Little Bilham, at this, met his face with a conscious look--it was +as if, more than anything yet, the allusion had penetrated. "Do +you know yourself?" + +Strether lightly shook his head. "There I stop. Oh, odd as it may +appear to you, there ARE things I don't know. I only got the sense +from her of something very sharp, and yet very deep down, that she +was keeping all to herself. That is I had begun with the belief +that she HAD kept it to herself; but face to face with her there +I soon made out that there was a person with whom she would have +shared it. I had thought she possibly might with ME--but I saw +then that I was only half in her confidence. When, turning to me +to greet me--for she was on the balcony and I had come in without +her knowing it--she showed me she had been expecting YOU and was +proportionately disappointed, I got hold of the tail of my +conviction. Half an hour later I was in possession of all the rest +of it. You know what has happened." He looked at his young friend +hard--then he felt sure. "For all you say, you're up to your eyes. +So there you are." + +Little Bilham after an instant pulled half round. "I assure you +she hasn't told me anything." + +"Of course she hasn't. For what do you suggest that I suppose her +to take you? But you've been with her every day, you've seen her +freely, you've liked her greatly--I stick to that--and you've made +your profit of it. You know what she has been through as well as +you know that she has dined here to-night--which must have put her, +by the way, through a good deal more." + +The young man faced this blast; after which he pulled round the +rest of the way. "I haven't in the least said she hasn't been +nice to me. But she's proud." + +"And quite properly. But not too proud for that." + +"It's just her pride that has made her. Chad," little Bilham +loyally went on, "has really been as kind to her as possible. +It's awkward for a man when a girl's in love with him." + +"Ah but she isn't--now." + +Little Bilham sat staring before him; then he sprang up as if his +friend's penetration, recurrent and insistent, made him really +after all too nervous. "No--she isn't now. It isn't in the +least," he went on, "Chad's fault. He's really all right. I mean +he would have been willing. But she came over with ideas. Those +she had got at home. They had been her motive and support in +joining her brother and his wife. She was to SAVE our friend." + +"Ah like me, poor thing?" Strether also got to his feet. + +"Exactly--she had a bad moment. It was very soon distinct to her, +to pull her up, to let her down, that, alas, he was, he IS, saved. +There's nothing left for her to do." + +"Not even to love him?" + +"She would have loved him better as she originally believed him." + +Strether wondered "Of course one asks one's self what notion a +little girl forms, where a young man's in question, of such a +history and such a state." + +"Well, this little girl saw them, no doubt, as obscure, but she saw +them practically as wrong. The wrong for her WAS the obscure. +Chad turns out at any rate right and good and disconcerting, while +what she was all prepared for, primed and girded and wound up for, +was to deal with him as the general opposite." + +"Yet wasn't her whole point"--Strether weighed it--"that he was to +be, that he COULD be, made better, redeemed?" + +Little Bilham fixed it all a moment, and then with a small +headshake that diffused a tenderness: "She's too late. Too late +for the miracle." + +"Yes"--his companion saw enough. "Still, if the worst fault of his +condition is that it may be all there for her to profit by--?" + +"Oh she doesn't want to 'profit,' in that flat way. She doesn't +want to profit by another woman's work--she wants the miracle to +have been her own miracle. THAT'S what she's too late for." + +Strether quite felt how it all fitted, yet there seemed one loose +piece. "I'm bound to say, you know, that she strikes one, on these +lines, as fastidious--what you call here difficile." + +Little Bilham tossed up his chin. "Of course she's difficile--on +any lines! What else in the world ARE our Mamies--the real, the +right ones?" + +"I see, I see," our friend repeated, charmed by the responsive +wisdom he had ended by so richly extracting. "Mamie is one of the +real and the right." + +"The very thing itself." + +"And what it comes to then," Strether went on, "is that poor awful +Chad is simply too good for her." + +"Ah too good was what he was after all to be; but it was she +herself, and she herself only, who was to have made him so." + +It hung beautifully together, but with still a loose end. "Wouldn't +he do for her even if he should after all break--" + +"With his actual influence?" Oh little Bilham had for this +enquiry the sharpest of all his controls. "How can he 'do'--on any +terms whatever--when he's flagrantly spoiled?" + +Strether could only meet the question with his passive, his +receptive pleasure. "Well, thank goodness, YOU'RE not! You +remain for her to save, and I come back, on so beautiful and full a +demonstration, to my contention of just now--that of your showing +distinct signs of her having already begun." + +The most he could further say to himself--as his young friend turned +away--was that the charge encountered for the moment no renewed +denial. Little Bilham, taking his course back to the music, only +shook his good-natured ears an instant, in the manner of a terrier +who has got wet; while Strether relapsed into the sense--which had +for him in these days most of comfort--that he was free to believe +in anything that from hour to hour kept him going. He had +positively motions and flutters of this conscious hour-to-hour +kind, temporary surrenders to irony, to fancy, frequent instinctive +snatches at the growing rose of observation, constantly stronger +for him, as he felt, in scent and colour, and in which he could +bury his nose even to wantonness. This last resource was offered +him, for that matter, in the very form of his next clear +perception--the vision of a prompt meeting, in the doorway of the +room, between little Bilham and brilliant Miss Barrace, who was +entering as Bilham withdrew. She had apparently put him a +question, to which he had replied by turning to indicate his late +interlocutor; toward whom, after an interrogation further aided by +a resort to that optical machinery which seemed, like her other +ornaments, curious and archaic, the genial lady, suggesting more +than ever for her fellow guest the old French print, the historic +portrait, directed herself with an intention that Strether +instantly met. He knew in advance the first note she would sound, +and took in as she approached all her need of sounding it. Nothing +yet had been so "wonderful" between them as the present occasion; +and it was her special sense of this quality in occasions that she +was there, as she was in most places, to feed. That sense had +already been so well fed by the situation about them that she had +quitted the other room, forsaken the music, dropped out of the +play, abandoned, in a word, the stage itself, that she might stand +a minute behind the scenes with Strether and so perhaps figure as +one of the famous augurs replying, behind the oracle, to the wink +of the other. Seated near him presently where little Bilham had +sat, she replied in truth to many things; beginning as soon as he +had said to her--what he hoped he said without fatuity--"All you +ladies are extraordinarily kind to me." + +She played her long handle, which shifted her observation; she saw +in an instant all the absences that left them free. "How can we be +anything else? But isn't that exactly your plight? 'We ladies'-- +oh we're nice, and you must be having enough of us! As one of us, +you know, I don't pretend I'm crazy about us. But Miss Gostrey at +least to-night has left you alone, hasn't she?" With which she +again looked about as if Maria might still lurk. + +"Oh yes," said Strether; "she's only sitting up for me at home." +And then as this elicited from his companion her gay "Oh, oh, oh!" +he explained that he meant sitting up in suspense and prayer. "We +thought it on the whole better she shouldn't be present; and +either way of course it's a terrible worry for her." He abounded in +the sense of his appeal to the ladies, and they might take their +choice of his doing so from humility or from pride. "Yet she +inclines to believe I shall come out." + +"Oh I incline to believe too you'll come out!"--Miss Barrace, with +her laugh, was not to be behind. "Only the question's about WHERE, +isn't it? However," she happily continued, "if it's anywhere at +all it must be very far on, mustn't it? To do us justice, I +think, you know," she laughed, "we do, among us all, want you +rather far on. Yes, yes," she repeated in her quick droll way; +"we want you very, VERY far on!" After which she wished to know +why he had thought it better Maria shouldn't be present. + +"Oh," he replied, "it was really her own idea. I should have +wished it. But she dreads responsibility." + +"And isn't that a new thing for her?" + +"To dread it? No doubt--no doubt. But her nerve has given way." + +Miss Barrace looked at him a moment. "She has too much at stake." +Then less gravely: "Mine, luckily for me, holds out." + +"Luckily for me too"--Strether came back to that. "My own isn't +so firm, MY appetite for responsibility isn't so sharp, as that I +haven't felt the very principle of this occasion to be 'the more +the merrier.' If we ARE so merry it's because Chad has understood +so well." + +"He has understood amazingly," said Miss Barrace. + +"It's wonderful--Strether anticipated for her. + +"It's wonderful!" she, to meet it, intensified; so that, face to +face over it, they largely and recklessly laughed. But she +presently added: "Oh I see the principle. If one didn't one +would be lost. But when once one has got hold of it--" + +"It's as simple as twice two! From the moment he had to do +something--" + +"A crowd"--she took him straight up--"was the only thing? Rather, +rather: a rumpus of sound," she laughed, "or nothing. Mrs. +Pocock's built in, or built out--whichever you call it; she's +packed so tight she can't move. She's in splendid isolation"-- +Miss Barrace embroidered the theme. + +Strether followed, but scrupulous of justice. "Yet with every one +in the place successively introduced to her." + +"Wonderfully--but just so that it does build her out. She's +bricked up, she's buried alive!" + +Strether seemed for a moment to look at it; but it brought him to +a sigh. "Oh but she's not dead! It will take more than this to +kill her." + +His companion had a pause that might have been for pity. "No, I +can't pretend I think she's finished--or that it's for more than +to-night." She remained pensive as if with the same compunction. +"It's only up to her chin." Then again for the fun of it: "She +can breathe." + +"She can breathe!"--he echoed it in the same spirit. "And do you +know," he went on, "what's really all this time happening to me?-- +through the beauty of music, the gaiety of voices, the uproar in +short of our revel and the felicity of your wit? The sound of +Mrs. Pocock's respiration drowns for me, I assure you, every other. +It's literally all I hear." + +She focussed him with her clink of chains. "Well--!" she breathed +ever so kindly. + +"Well, what?" + +"She IS free from her chin up," she mused; "and that WILL be enough +for her." + +"It will be enough for me!" Strether ruefully laughed. "Waymarsh +has really," he then asked, "brought her to see you?" + +"Yes--but that's the worst of it. I could do you no good. And yet +I tried hard." + +Strether wondered. "And how did you try?" + +"Why I didn't speak of you." + +"I see. That was better." + +"Then what would have been worse? For speaking or silent," she +lightly wailed, "I somehow 'compromise.' And it has never been any +one but you." + +"That shows"--he was magnanimous--"that it's something not in you, +but in one's self. It's MY fault." + +She was silent a little. "No, it's Mr. Waymarsh's. It's the fault +of his having brought her." + +"Ah then," said Strether good-naturedly, "why DID he bring her?" + +"He couldn't afford not to." + +"Oh you were a trophy--one of the spoils of conquest? But why in +that case, since you do 'compromise'--" + +"Don't I compromise HIM as well? I do compromise him as well," +Miss Barrace smiled. "I compromise him as hard as I can. But for +Mr. Waymarsh it isn't fatal. It's--so far as his wonderful +relation with Mrs. Pocock is concerned--favourable." And then, as +he still seemed slightly at sea: "The man who had succeeded with +ME, don't you see? For her to get him from me was such an added +incentive." + +Strether saw, but as if his path was still strewn with surprises. +"It's 'from' you then that she has got him?" + +She was amused at his momentary muddle. "You can fancy my fight! +She believes in her triumph. I think it has been part of her joy. + +"Oh her joy!" Strether sceptically murmured. + +"Well, she thinks she has had her own way. And what's to-night for +her but a kind of apotheosis? Her frock's really good." + +"Good enough to go to heaven in? For after a real apotheosis," +Strether went on, "there's nothing BUT heaven. For Sarah there's +only to-morrow." + +"And you mean that she won't find to-morrow heavenly?" + +"Well, I mean that I somehow feel to-night--on her behalf--too good +to be true. She has had her cake; that is she's in the act now of +having it, of swallowing the largest and sweetest piece. There +won't be another left for her. Certainly I haven't one. It can +only, at the best, be Chad." He continued to make it out as for +their common entertainment. "He may have one, as it were. up his +sleeve; yet it's borne in upon me that if he had--" + +"He wouldn't"--she quite understood--"have taken all THIS trouble? +I dare say not, and, if I may be quite free and dreadful, I very +much hope he won't take any more. Of course I won't pretend now," +she added, "not to know what it's a question of." + +"Oh every one must know now," poor Strether thoughtfully admitted; +"and it's strange enough and funny enough that one should feel +everybody here at this very moment to be knowing and watching and +waiting." + +"Yes--isn't it indeed funny?" Miss Barrace quite rose to it. +"That's the way we ARE in Paris." She was always pleased with a new +contribution to that queerness. "It's wonderful! But, you know," +she declared, "it all depends on you. I don't want to turn the +knife in your vitals, but that's naturally what you just now meant +by our all being on top of you. We know you as the hero of the +drama, and we're gathered to see what you'll do." + +Strether looked at her a moment with a light perhaps slightly +obscured. "I think that must be why the hero has taken refuge in +this corner. He's scared at his heroism--he shrinks from his +part." + +"Ah but we nevertheless believe he'll play it. That's why," +Miss Barrace kindly went on, "we take such an interest in you. +We feel you'll come up to the scratch." And then as he seemed +perhaps not quite to take fire: "Don't let him do it." + +"Don't let Chad go?" + +"Yes, keep hold of him. With all this"--and she indicated the +general tribute--"he has done enough. We love him here-- +he's charming." + +"It's beautiful," said Strether, "the way you all can simplify +when you will." + +But she gave it to him back. "It's nothing to the way you will +when you must." + +He winced at it as at the very voice of prophecy, and it kept him +a moment quiet. He detained her, however, on her appearing about +to leave him alone in the rather cold clearance their talk had +made. "There positively isn't a sign of a hero to-night; the +hero's dodging and shirking, the hero's ashamed. Therefore, you +know, I think, what you must all REALLY be occupied with is the +heroine." + +Miss Barrace took a minute. "The heroine?" + +"The heroine. I've treated her," said Strether, "not a bit like a +hero. Oh," he sighed, "I don't do it well!" + +She eased him off. "You do it as you can." And then after another +hesitation: "I think she's satisfied." + +But he remained compunctious. "I haven't been near her. I haven't +looked at her." + +"Ah then you've lost a good deal!" + +He showed he knew it. "She's more wonderful than ever?" + +"Than ever. With Mr. Pocock." + +Strether wondered. "Madame de Vionnet--with Jim?" + +"Madame de Vionnet--with 'Jim.' " Miss Barrace was historic. + +"And what's she doing with him?" + +"Ah you must ask HIM!" + +Strether's face lighted again at the prospect. "It WILL be amusing +to do so." Yet he continued to wonder. "But she must have some +idea." + +"Of course she has--she has twenty ideas. She has in the first +place," said Miss Barrace, swinging a little her tortoise-shell, +"that of doing her part. Her part is to help YOU." + +It came out as nothing had come yet; links were missing and +connexions unnamed, but it was suddenly as if they were at the +heart of their subject. "Yes; how much more she does it," Strether +gravely reflected, "than I help HER!" It all came over him as with +the near presence of the beauty, the grace, the intense, +dissimulated spirit with which he had, as he said, been putting off +contact. "SHE has courage." + +"Ah she has courage!" Miss Barrace quite agreed; and it was as if +for a moment they saw the quantity in each other's face. + +But indeed the whole thing was present. "How much she must care!" + +"Ah there it is. She does care. But it isn't, is it," Miss +Barrace considerately added, "as if you had ever had any doubt of +that?" + +Strether seemed suddenly to like to feel that he really never had. +"Why of course it's the whole point." + +"Voila!" Miss Barrace smiled. + +"It's why one came out," Strether went on. "And it's why one has +stayed so long. And it's also"--he abounded--"why one's going +home. It's why, it's why--" + +"It's why everything!" she concurred. "It's why she might be +to-night--for all she looks and shows, and for all your friend 'Jim' +does--about twenty years old. That's another of her ideas; to be +for him, and to be quite easily and charmingly, as young as a +little girl." + +Strether assisted at his distance. "'For him'? For Chad--?" + +"For Chad, in a manner, naturally, always. But in particular +to-night for Mr. Pocock." And then as her friend still stared: +"Yes, it IS of a bravery But that's what she has: her high sense +of duty." It was more than sufficiently before them. "When Mr. +Newsome has his hands so embarrassed with his sister--" + +"It's quite the least"--Strether filled it out--"that she should +take his sister's husband? Certainly--quite the least. So she has +taken him." + +"She has taken him." It was all Miss Barrace had meant. + +Still it remained enough. "It must be funny." + +"Oh it IS funny." That of course essentially went with it. + +But it brought them back. "How indeed then she must cared In +answer to which Strether's entertainer dropped a comprehensive +"Ah!" expressive perhaps of some impatience for the time he took to +get used to it. She herself had got used to it long before. + + + +II + + +When one morning within the week he perceived the whole thing to be +really at last upon him Strether's immediate feeling was all +relief. He had known this morning that something was about to +happen--known it, in a moment, by Waymarsh's manner when Waymarsh +appeared before him during his brief consumption of coffee and a +roll in the small slippery salle-a-manger so associated with rich +rumination. Strether had taken there of late various lonely and +absent-minded meals; he communed there, even at the end of June, +with a suspected chill, the air of old shivers mixed with old +savours, the air in which so many of his impressions had perversely +matured; the place meanwhile renewing its message to him by the +very circumstance of his single state. He now sat there, for the +most part, to sigh softly, while he vaguely tilted his carafe, over +the vision of how much better Waymarsh was occupied. That was +really his success by the common measure--to have led this +companion so on and on. He remembered how at first there had been +scarce a squatting-place he could beguile him into passing; +the actual outcome of which at last was that there was scarce one +that could arrest him in his rush. His rush--as Strether vividly and +amusedly figured it--continued to be all with Sarah, and contained +perhaps moreover the word of the whole enigma, whipping up in its +fine full-flavoured froth the very principle, for good or for ill, +of his own, of Strether's destiny. It might after all, to the end, +only be that they had united to save him, and indeed, so far as +Waymarsh was concerned, that HAD to be the spring of action. +Strether was glad at all events, in connexion with the case, that +the saving he required was not more scant; so constituted a luxury +was it in certain lights just to lurk there out of the full glare. +He had moments of quite seriously wondering whether Waymarsh wouldn't +in fact, thanks to old friendship and a conceivable indulgence, +make about as good terms for him as he might make for himself. +They wouldn't be the same terms of course; but they might have the +advantage that he himself probably should be able to make none at +all. + +He was never in the morning very late, but Waymarsh had already +been out, and, after a peep into the dim refectory, he presented +himself with much less than usual of his large looseness. He had +made sure, through the expanse of glass exposed to the court, that +they would be alone; and there was now in fact that about him that +pretty well took up the room. He was dressed in the garments of +summer; and save that his white waistcoat was redundant and bulging +these things favoured, they determined, his expression. He wore a +straw hat such as his friend hadn't yet seen in Paris, and he +showed a buttonhole freshly adorned with a magnificent rose. +Strether read on the instant his story--how, astir for the previous +hour, the sprinkled newness of the day, so pleasant at that season +in Paris, he was fairly panting with the pulse of adventure and had +been with Mrs. Pocock, unmistakeably, to the Marche aux Fleurs. +Strether really knew in this vision of him a joy that was akin to +envy; so reversed as he stood there did their old positions seem; +so comparatively doleful now showed, by the sharp turn of the +wheel, the posture of the pilgrim from Woollett. He wondered, this +pilgrim, if he had originally looked to Waymarsh so brave and well, +so remarkably launched, as it was at present the latter's privilege +to appear. He recalled that his friend had remarked to him even at +Chester that his aspect belied his plea of prostration; but there +certainly couldn't have been, for an issue, an aspect less +concerned than Waymarsh's with the menace of decay. Strether had +at any rate never resembled a Southern planter of the great days-- +which was the image picturesquely suggested by the happy relation +between the fuliginous face and the wide panama of his visitor. +This type, it further amused him to guess, had been, on Waymarsh's +part, the object of Sarah's care; he was convinced that her taste +had not been a stranger to the conception and purchase of the hat, +any more than her fine fingers had been guiltless of the bestowal +of the rose. It came to him in the current of thought, as things +so oddly did come, that HE had never risen with the lark to attend +a brilliant woman to the Marche aux Fleurs; this could be fastened +on him in connexion neither with Miss Gostrey nor with Madame de +Vionnet; the practice of getting up early for adventures could +indeed in no manner be fastened on him. It came to him in fact +that just here was his usual case: he was for ever missing things +through his general genius for missing them, while others were for +ever picking them up through a contrary bent. And it was others +who looked abstemious and he who looked greedy; it was he somehow +who finally paid, and it was others who mainly partook. Yes, he +should go to the scaffold yet for he wouldn't know quite whom. He +almost, for that matter, felt on the scaffold now and really quite +enjoying it. It worked out as BECAUSE he was anxious there--it +worked out as for this reason that Waymarsh was so blooming. It +was HIS trip for health, for a change, that proved the success-- +which was just what Strether, planning and exerting himself, had +desired it should be. That truth already sat full-blown on his +companion's lips; benevolence breathed from them as with the warmth +of active exercise, and also a little as with the bustle of haste. + +"Mrs. Pocock, whom I left a quarter of an hour ago at her hotel, +has asked me to mention to you that she would like to find you at +home here in about another hour. She wants to see you; she has +something to say--or considers, I believe, that you may have: so +that I asked her myself why she shouldn't come right round. She +hasn't BEEN round yet--to see our place; and I took upon myself to +say that I was sure you'd be glad to have her. The thing's +therefore, you see, to keep right here till she comes." + +The announcement was sociably, even though, after Waymarsh's wont, +somewhat solemnly made; but Strether quickly felt other things in +it than these light features. It was the first approach, from that +quarter, to admitted consciousness; it quickened his pulse; it +simply meant at last that he should have but himself to thank if he +didn't know where he was. He had finished his breakfast; he +pushed it away and was on his feet. There were plenty of elements +of surprise, but only one of doubt. "The thing's for YOU to keep +here too?" Waymarsh had been slightly ambiguous. + +He wasn't ambiguous, however, after this enquiry; and Strether's +understanding had probably never before opened so wide and +effective a mouth as it was to open during the next five minutes. +It was no part of his friend's wish, as appeared, to help to +receive Mrs. Pocock; he quite understood the spirit in which she +was to present herself, but his connexion with her visit was +limited to his having--well, as he might say--perhaps a little +promoted it. He had thought, and had let her know it, that +Strether possibly would think she might have been round before. At +any rate, as turned out, she had been wanting herself, quite a +while, to come. "I told her," said Waymarsh, "that it would have +been a bright idea if she had only carried it out before." + +Strether pronounced it so bright as to be almost dazzling. "But +why HASn't she carried it out before? She has seen me every day-- +she had only to name her hour. I've been waiting and waiting." + +"Well, I told her you had. And she has been waiting too." It was, +in the oddest way in the world, on the showing of this tone, a +genial new pressing coaxing Waymarsh; a Waymarsh conscious with a +different consciousness from any he had yet betrayed, and actually +rendered by it almost insinuating. He lacked only time for full +persuasion, and Strether was to see in a moment why. Meantime, +however, our friend perceived, he was announcing a step of some +magnanimity on Mrs. Pocock's part, so that he could deprecate a +sharp question. It was his own high purpose in fact to have +smoothed sharp questions to rest. He looked his old comrade very +straight in the eyes, and he had never conveyed to him in so mute a +manner so much kind confidence and so much good advice. Everything +that was between them was again in his face, but matured and +shelved and finally disposed of. "At any rate," he added, "she's +coming now." + +Considering how many pieces had to fit themselves, it all fell, in +Strether's brain, into a close rapid order. He saw on the spot +what had happened, and what probably would yet; and it was all +funny enough. It was perhaps just this freedom of appreciation +that wound him up to his flare of high spirits. "What is she +coming FOR?--to kill me?" + +"She's coming to be very VERY kind to you, and you must let me say +that I greatly hope you'll not be less so to herself." + +This was spoken by Waymarsh with much gravity of admonition, and as +Strether stood there he knew he had but to make a movement to take +the attitude of a man gracefully receiving a present. The present +was that of the opportunity dear old Waymarsh had flattered himself +he had divined in him the slight soreness of not having yet +thoroughly enjoyed; so he had brought it to him thus, as on a +little silver breakfast-tray, familiarly though delicately--without +oppressive pomp; and he was to bend and smile and acknowledge, was +to take and use and be grateful. He was not--that was the beauty +of it--to be asked to deflect too much from his dignity. No wonder +the old boy bloomed in this bland air of his own distillation. +Strether felt for a moment as if Sarah were actually walking up and +down outside. Wasn't she hanging about the porte-cochere while +her friend thus summarily opened a way? Strether would meet her +but to take it, and everything would be for the best in the best of +possible worlds. He had never so much known what any one meant as, +in the light of this demonstration, he knew what Mrs. Newsome did. +It had reached Waymarsh from Sarah, but it had reached Sarah from +her mother, and there was no break in the chain by which it reached +HIM. "Has anything particular happened," he asked after a minute-- +"so suddenly to determine her? Has she heard anything unexpected +from home?" + +Waymarsh, on this, it seemed to him, looked at him harder than +ever. "'Unexpected'?" He had a brief hesitation; then, however, +he was firm. "We're leaving Paris." + +"Leaving? That IS sudden." + +Waymarsh showed a different opinion. "Less so than it may seem. +The purpose of Mrs. Pocock's visit is to explain to you in fact +that it's NOT." + +Strether didn't at all know if he had really an advantage-- +anything that would practically count as one; but he enjoyed for +the moment--as for the first time in his life--the sense of so +carrying it off. He wondered--it was amusing--if he felt as the +impudent feel. "I shall take great pleasure, I assure you, in any +explanation. I shall be delighted to receive Sarah." + +The sombre glow just darkened in his comrade's eyes; but he was +struck with the way it died out again. It was too mixed with +another consciousness--it was too smothered, as might be said, in +flowers. He really for the time regretted it--poor dear old sombre +glow! Something straight and simple, something heavy and empty, had +been eclipsed in its company; something by which he had best known +his friend. Waymarsh wouldn't BE his friend, somehow, without the +occasional ornament of the sacred rage, and the right to the sacred +rage--inestimably precious for Strether's charity--he also seemed +in a manner, and at Mrs. Pocock's elbow, to have forfeited. +Strether remembered the occasion early in their stay when on that +very spot he had come out with his earnest, his ominous "Quit it!"-- +and, so remembering, felt it hang by a hair that he didn't +himself now utter the same note. Waymarsh was having a good time-- +this was the truth that was embarrassing for him, and he was having +it then and there, he was having it in Europe, he was having it +under the very protection of circumstances of which he didn't in +the least approve; all of which placed him in a false position, +with no issue possible--none at least by the grand manner. It was +practically in the manner of any one--it was all but in poor +Strether's own--that instead of taking anything up he merely made +the most of having to be himself explanatory. "I'm not leaving for +the United States direct. Mr. and Mrs. Pocock and Miss Mamie are +thinking of a little trip before their own return, and we've been +talking for some days past of our joining forces. We've settled it +that we do join and that we sail together the end of next month. +But we start to-morrow for Switzerland. Mrs. Pocock wants some +scenery. She hasn't had much yet." + +He was brave in his way too, keeping nothing back, confessing all +there was, and only leaving Strether to make certain connexions. +"Is what Mrs. Newsome had cabled her daughter an injunction to +break off short?" + +The grand manner indeed at this just raised its head a little. +"I know nothing about Mrs. Newsome's cables." + +Their eyes met on it with some intensity--during the few seconds of +which something happened quite out of proportion to the time. +It happened that Strether, looking thus at his friend, didn't take +his answer for truth--and that something more again occurred in +consequence of THAT. Yes--Waymarsh just DID know about +Mrs. Newsome's cables: to what other end than that had they dined +together at Bignon's? Strether almost felt for the instant that it +was to Mrs. Newsome herself the dinner had been given; and, for +that matter, quite felt how she must have known about it and, as he +might think, protected and consecrated it. He had a quick blurred +view of daily cables, questions, answers, signals: clear enough +was his vision of the expense that, when so wound up, the lady at +home was prepared to incur. Vivid not less was his memory of what, +during his long observation of her, some of her attainments of that +high pitch had cost her. Distinctly she was at the highest now, +and Waymarsh, who imagined himself an independent performer, was +really, forcing his fine old natural voice, an overstrained +accompanist. The whole reference of his errand seemed to mark her +for Strether as by this time consentingly familiar to him, and +nothing yet had so despoiled her of a special shade of +consideration. "You don't know," he asked, "whether Sarah has been +directed from home to try me on the matter of my also going to +Switzerland?" + +"I know," said Waymarsh as manfully as possible, "nothing whatever +about her private affairs; though I believe her to be acting in +conformity with things that have my highest respect." It was as +manful as possible, but it was still the false note--as it had to +be to convey so sorry a statement. He knew everything, Strether +more and more felt, that he thus disclaimed, and his little +punishment was just in this doom to a second fib. What falser +position--given the man--could the most vindictive mind impose? +He ended by squeezing through a passage in which three months before +he would certainly have stuck fast. "Mrs Pocock will probably be +ready herself to answer any enquiry you may put to her. But," +he continued, "BUT--!" He faltered on it. + +"But what? Don't put her too many?" + +Waymarsh looked large, but the harm was done; he couldn't, do what +he would, help looking rosy. "Don't do anything you'll be sorry for." + +It was an attenuation, Strether guessed, of something else that had +been on his lips; it was a sudden drop to directness, and was +thereby the voice of sincerity. He had fallen to the supplicating +note, and that immediately, for our friend, made a difference and +reinstated him. They were in communication as they had been, that +first morning, in Sarah's salon and in her presence and Madame de +Vionnet's; and the same recognition of a great good will was again, +after all, possible. Only the amount of response Waymarsh had then +taken for granted was doubled, decupled now. This came out when he +presently said: "Of course I needn't assure you I hope you'll +come with us." Then it was that his implications and expectations +loomed up for Strether as almost pathetically gross. + +The latter patted his shoulder while he thanked him, giving the +go-by to the question of joining the Pococks; he expressed the joy he +felt at seeing him go forth again so brave and free, and he in fact +almost took leave of him on the spot. "I shall see you again of +course before you go; but I'm meanwhile much obliged to you for +arranging so conveniently for what you've told me. I shall walk up +and down in the court there--dear little old court which we've each +bepaced so, this last couple of months, to the tune of our flights +and our drops, our hesitations and our plunges: I shall hang about +there, all impatience and excitement, please let Sarah know, till +she graciously presents herself. Leave me with her without fear," +he laughed; "I assure you I shan't hurt her. I don't think either +she'll hurt ME: I'm in a situation in which damage was some time +ago discounted. Besides, THAT isn't what worries you--but don't, +don't explain! We're all right as we are: which was the degree of +success our adventure was pledged to for each of us. We weren't, +it seemed, all right as we were before; and we've got over the +ground, all things considered, quickly. I hope you'll have a +lovely time in the Alps." + +Waymarsh fairly looked up at him as from the foot of them. "I +don't know as I OUGHT really to go." + +It was the conscience of Milrose in the very voice of Milrose, but, +oh it was feeble and flat! Strether suddenly felt quite ashamed for +him; he breathed a greater boldness. "LET yourself, on the +contrary, go--in all agreeable directions. These are precious +hours--at our age they mayn't recur. Don't have it to say to +yourself at Milrose, next winter, that you hadn't courage for +them." And then as his comrade queerly stared: "Live up to Mrs. +Pocock." + +"Live up to her?" + +"You're a great help to her." + +Waymarsh looked at it as at one of the uncomfortable things that +were certainly true and that it was yet ironical to say. "It's +more then than you are." + +"That's exactly your own chance and advantage. Besides," said +Strether, "I do in my way contribute. I know what I'm about." + +Waymarsh had kept on his great panama, and, as he now stood nearer +the door, his last look beneath the shade of it had turned again to +darkness and warning. "So do I! See here, Strether." + +"I know what you're going to say. 'Quit this'?" + +"Quit this!" But it lacked its old intensity; nothing of it +remained; it went out of the room with him. + + + +III + + +Almost the first thing, strangely enough, that, about an hour +later, Strether found himself doing in Sarah's presence was to +remark articulately on this failure, in their friend, of what had +been superficially his great distinction. It was as if--he alluded +of course to the grand manner--the dear man had sacrificed it to +some other advantage; which would be of course only for himself to +measure. It might be simply that he was physically so much more +sound than on his first coming out; this was all prosaic, +comparatively cheerful and vulgar. And fortunately, if one came to +that, his improvement in health was really itself grander than any +manner it could be conceived as having cost him. "You yourself +alone, dear Sarah"--Strether took the plunge--"have done him, it +strikes me, in these three weeks, as much good as all the rest of +his time together." + +It was a plunge because somehow the range of reference was, in the +conditions, "funny," and made funnier still by Sarah's attitude, by +the turn the occasion had, with her appearance, so sensibly taken. +Her appearance was really indeed funnier than anything else--the +spirit in which he felt her to be there as soon as she was there, +the shade of obscurity that cleared up for him as soon as he was +seated with her in the small salon de lecture that had, for the +most part, in all the weeks, witnessed the wane of his early +vivacity of discussion with Waymarsh. It was an immense thing, +quite a tremendous thing, for her to have come: this truth opened +out to him in spite of his having already arrived for himself at a +fairly vivid view of it. He had done exactly what he had given +Waymarsh his word for--had walked and re-walked the court while he +awaited her advent; acquiring in this exercise an amount of light +that affected him at the time as flooding the scene. She had +decided upon the step in order to give him the benefit of a doubt, +in order to be able to say to her mother that she had, even to +abjectness, smoothed the way for him. The doubt had been as to +whether he mightn't take her as not having smoothed it--and the +admonition had possibly come from Waymarsh's more detached spirit. +Waymarsh had at any rate, certainly, thrown his weight into the +scale--he had pointed to the importance of depriving their friend +of a grievance. She had done justice to the plea, and it was to +set herself right with a high ideal that she actually sat there in +her state. Her calculation was sharp in the immobility with which +she held her tall parasol-stick upright and at arm's length, quite +as if she had struck the place to plant her flag; in the separate +precautions she took not to show as nervous; in the aggressive +repose in which she did quite nothing but wait for him. Doubt +ceased to be possible from the moment he had taken in that she had +arrived with no proposal whatever; that her concern was simply to +show what she had come to receive. She had come to receive his +submission, and Waymarsh was to have made it plain to him that she +would expect nothing less. He saw fifty things, her host, at this +convenient stage; but one of those he most saw was that their +anxious friend hadn't quite had the hand required of him. +Waymarsh HAD, however, uttered the request that she might find him +mild, and while hanging about the court before her arrival he had +turned over with zeal the different ways in which he could be so. +The difficulty was that if he was mild he wasn't, for her purpose, +conscious. If she wished him conscious--as everything about her +cried aloud that she did--she must accordingly be at costs to make +him so. Conscious he was, for himself--but only of too many +things; so she must choose the one she required. + +Practically, however, it at last got itself named, and when once +that had happened they were quite at the centre of their situation. +One thing had really done as well as another; when Strether had +spoken of Waymarsh's leaving him, and that had necessarily brought +on a reference to Mrs. Pocock's similar intention, the jump was but +short to supreme lucidity. Light became indeed after that so +intense that Strether would doubtless have but half made out, in +the prodigious glare, by which of the two the issue had been in +fact precipitated. It was, in their contracted quarters, as much +there between them as if it had been something suddenly spilled +with a crash and a splash on the floor. The form of his submission +was to be an engagement to acquit himself within the twenty-four +hours. "He'll go in a moment if you give him the word--he assures +me on his honour he'll do that": this came in its order, out of +its order, in respect to Chad, after the crash had occurred. It +came repeatedly during the time taken by Strether to feel that he +was even more fixed in his rigour than he had supposed--the time he +was not above adding to a little by telling her that such a way of +putting it on her brother's part left him sufficiently surprised. +She wasn't at all funny at last--she was really fine; and he felt +easily where she was strong--strong for herself. It hadn't yet so +come home to him that she was nobly and appointedly officious. +She was acting in interests grander and clearer than that of her +poor little personal, poor little Parisian equilibrium, and all his +consciousness of her mother's moral pressure profited by this proof +of its sustaining force. She would be held up; she would be +strengthened; he needn't in the least be anxious for her. +What would once more have been distinct to him had he tried to +make it so was that, as Mrs. Newsome was essentially all moral pressure, +the presence of this element was almost identical with her own presence. +It wasn't perhaps that he felt he was dealing with her straight, +but it was certainly as if she had been dealing straight with HIM. +She was reaching him somehow by the lengthened arm of the spirit, +and he was having to that extent to take her into account; +but he wasn't reaching her in turn, not making her take HIM; +he was only reaching Sarah, who appeared to take so little of him. +"Something has clearly passed between you and Chad," he presently said, +"that I think I ought to know something more about. Does he put it all," +he smiled, "on me?" + +"Did you come out," she asked, "to put it all on HIM?" + +But he replied to this no further than, after an instant, by +saying: "Oh it's all right. Chad I mean's all right in having +said to you--well anything he may have said. I'll TAKE it all-- +what he does put on me. Only I must see him before I see you +again." + +She hesitated, but she brought it out. "Is it absolutely necessary +you should see me again?" + +"Certainly, if I'm to give you any definite word about anything." + +"Is it your idea then," she returned, "that I shall keep on meeting +you only to be exposed to fresh humiliation?" + +He fixed her a longer time. "Are your instructions from +Mrs. Newsome that you shall, even at the worst, absolutely and +irretrievably break with me?" + +"My instructions from Mrs. Newsome are, if you please, my affair. +You know perfectly what your own were, and you can judge for +yourself of what it can do for you to have made what you have of +them. You can perfectly see, at any rate, I'll go so far as to +say, that if I wish not to expose myself I must wish still less to +expose HER." She had already said more than she had quite +expected; but, though she had also pulled up, the colour in her +face showed him he should from one moment to the other have it all. +He now indeed felt the high importance of his having it. "What is +your conduct," she broke out as if to explain--"what is your +conduct but an outrage to women like US? I mean your acting as if +there can be a doubt--as between us and such another--of his duty?" + +He thought a moment. It was rather much to deal with at once; not +only the question itself, but the sore abysses it revealed. +"Of course they're totally different kinds of duty." + +"And do you pretend that he has any at all--to such another?" + +"Do you mean to Madame de Vionnet?" He uttered the name not to +affront her, but yet again to gain time--time that he needed for +taking in something still other and larger than her demand of a +moment before. It wasn't at once that he could see all that was +in her actual challenge; but when he did he found himself just +checking a low vague sound, a sound which was perhaps the nearest +approach his vocal chords had ever known to a growl. Everything +Mrs. Pocock had failed to give a sign of recognising in Chad as a +particular part of a transformation--everything that had lent +intention to this particular failure--affected him as gathered into +a large loose bundle and thrown, in her words, into his face. The +missile made him to that extent catch his breath; which however he +presently recovered. "Why when a woman's at once so charming and +so beneficent--" + +"You can sacrifice mothers and sisters to her without a blush and +can make them cross the ocean on purpose to feel the more and take +from you the straighter, HOW you do it?" + +Yes, she had taken him up as short and as sharply as that, but he +tried not to flounder in her grasp. "I don't think there's +anything I've done in any such calculated way as you describe. +Everything has come as a sort of indistinguishable part of +everything else. Your coming out belonged closely to my having +come before you, and my having come was a result of our general +state of mind. Our general state of mind had proceeded, on its +side, from our queer ignorance, our queer misconceptions and +confusions--from which, since then, an inexorable tide of light +seems to have floated us into our perhaps still queerer knowledge. +Don't you LIKE your brother as he is," he went on, "and haven't +you given your mother an intelligible account of all that that +comes to?" + +It put to her also, doubtless, his own tone, too many things, this +at least would have been the case hadn't his final challenge +directly helped her. Everything, at the stage they had reached, +directly helped her, because everything betrayed in him such a +basis of intention. He saw--the odd way things came out!--that he +would have been held less monstrous had he only been a little +wilder. What exposed him was just his poor old trick of quiet +inwardness, what exposed him was his THINKING such offence. He hadn't +in the least however the desire to irritate that Sarah imputed to him, +and he could only at last temporise, for the moment, with her +indignant view. She was altogether more inflamed than he had +expected, and he would probably understand this better when he +should learn what had occurred for her with Chad. Till then her +view of his particular blackness, her clear surprise at his not +clutching the pole she held out, must pass as extravagant. "I +leave you to flatter yourself," she returned, "that what you speak +of is what YOU'VE beautifully done. When a thing has been already +described in such a lovely way--!" But she caught herself up, and +her comment on his description rang out sufficiently loud. "Do you +consider her even an apology for a decent woman?" + +Ah there it was at last! She put the matter more crudely than, for +his own mixed purposes, he had yet had to do; but essentially it +was all one matter. It was so much--so much; and she treated it, +poor lady, as so little. He grew conscious, as he was now apt to +do, of a strange smile, and the next moment he found himself +talking like Miss Barrace. "She has struck me from the first as +wonderful. I've been thinking too moreover that, after all, she +would probably have represented even for yourself something rather +new and rather good." + +He was to have given Mrs. Pocock with this, however, but her best +opportunity for a sound of derision. "Rather new? I hope so with +all my heart!" + +"I mean," he explained, "that she might have affected you by her +exquisite amiability--a real revelation, it has seemed to myself; +her high rarity, her distinction of every sort." + +He had been, with these words, consciously a little "precious"; but +he had had to be--he couldn't give her the truth of the case +without them; and it seemed to him moreover now that he didn't +care. He had at all events not served his cause, for she sprang at +its exposed side. "A 'revelation'--to ME: I've come to such a +woman for a revelation? You talk to me about 'distinction'-- +YOU, you who've had your privilege?--when the most distinguished woman +we shall either of us have seen in this world sits there insulted, +in her loneliness, by your incredible comparison!" + +Strether forbore, with an effort, from straying; but he looked all +about him. "Does your mother herself make the point that she +sits insulted?" + +Sarah's answer came so straight, so "pat," as might have been said, +that he felt on the instant its origin. "She has confided to my +judgement and my tenderness the expression of her personal sense of +everything, and the assertion of her personal dignity." + +They were the very words of the lady of Woollett--he would have +known them in a thousand; her parting charge to her child. Mrs. +Pocock accordingly spoke to this extent by book, and the fact +immensely moved him. "If she does really feel as you say it's of +course very very dreadful. I've given sufficient proof, one would +have thought," he added, "of my deep admiration for Mrs. Newsome." + +"And pray what proof would one have thought you'd CALL sufficient? +That of thinking this person here so far superior to her?" + +He wondered again; he waited. "Ah dear Sarah, you must LEAVE me +this person here!" + +In his desire to avoid all vulgar retorts, to show how, even +perversely, he clung to his rag of reason, he had softly almost +wailed this plea. Yet he knew it to be perhaps the most positive +declaration he had ever made in his life, and his visitor's +reception of it virtually gave it that importance. "That's exactly +what I'm delighted to do. God knows WE don't want her! You take +good care not to meet," she observed in a still higher key, +"my question about their life. If you do consider it a thing +one can even SPEAK of, I congratulate you on your taste!" + +The life she alluded to was of course Chad's and Madame de Vionnet's, +which she thus bracketed together in a way that made him wince +a little; there being nothing for him but to take home her +full intention. It was none the less his inconsequence that while +he had himself been enjoying for weeks the view of the brilliant +woman's specific action, he just suffered from any characterisation +of it by other lips. "I think tremendously well of her, at the +same time that I seem to feel her 'life' to be really none of my +business. It's my business, that is, only so far as Chad's own +life is affected by it; and what has happened, don't you see? is +that Chad's has been affected so beautifully. The proof of the +pudding's in the eating"--he tried, with no great success, to help +it out with a touch of pleasantry, while she let him go on as if to +sink and sink. He went on however well enough, as well as he could +do without fresh counsel; he indeed shouldn't stand quite firm, he +felt, till he should have re-established his communications with +Chad. Still, he could always speak for the woman he had so +definitely promised to "save." This wasn't quite for her the air +of salvation; but as that chill fairly deepened what did it become +but a reminder that one might at the worst perish WITH her? And it +was simple enough--it was rudimentary: not, not to give her away. +"I find in her more merits than you would probably have patience +with my counting over. And do you know," he enquired, "the effect +you produce on me by alluding to her in such terms? It's as if you +had some motive in not recognising all she has done for your +brother, and so shut your eyes to each side of the matter, in +order, whichever side comes up, to get rid of the other. I don't, +you must allow me to say, see how you can with any pretence to +candour get rid of the side nearest you." + +"Near me--THAT sort of thing?" And Sarah gave a jerk back of her +head that well might have nullified any active proximity. + +It kept her friend himself at his distance, and he respected for a +moment the interval. Then with a last persuasive effort he bridged +it. "You don't, on your honour, appreciate Chad's fortunate +development?" + +"Fortunate?" she echoed again. And indeed she was prepared. +"I call it hideous." + +Her departure had been for some minutes marked as imminent, and she +was already at the door that stood open to the court, from the +threshold of which she delivered herself of this judgement. It +rang out so loud as to produce for the time the hush of everything +else. Strether quite, as an effect of it, breathed less bravely; +he could acknowledge it, but simply enough. "Oh if you think THAT--!" + +"Then all's at an end? So much the better. I do think that!" She +passed out as she spoke and took her way straight across the court, +beyond which, separated from them by the deep arch of the +porte-cochere the low victoria that had conveyed her from her own hotel +was drawn up. She made for it with decision, and the manner of her +break, the sharp shaft of her rejoinder, had an intensity by which +Strether was at first kept in arrest. She had let fly at him as +from a stretched cord, and it took him a minute to recover from the +sense of being pierced. It was not the penetration of surprise; +it was that, much more, of certainty; his case being put for him as +he had as yet only put it to himself. She was away at any rate; +she had distanced him--with rather a grand spring, an effect of pride +and ease, after all; she had got into her carriage before he could +overtake her, and the vehicle was already in motion. He stopped +halfway; he stood there in the court only seeing her go and noting +that she gave him no other look. The way he had put it to himself +was that all quite MIGHT be at an end. Each of her movements, +in this resolute rupture, reaffirmed, re-enforced that idea. +Sarah passed out of sight in the sunny street while, planted there +in the centre of the comparatively grey court, he continued merely +to look before him. It probably WAS all at an end. + + + + + +Book Eleventh + +[Note: In the 1909 New York Edition the following two chapters were placed +in the reverse of the order appearing below. Since 1950, most scholars have +agreed, because of the internal evidence of the two chapters, that an +editorial error caused them to be printed in reverse order. This Etext, +like other editions of the past four decades, corrects the apparent error. + -- Richard D. Hathaway, preparer of this electronic text] + + + + +I + + +He went late that evening to the Boulevard Malesherbes, having his +impression that it would be vain to go early, and having also, more +than once in the course of the day, made enquiries of the concierge. +Chad hadn't come in and had left no intimation; he had affairs, +apparently, at this juncture--as it occurred to Strether he so well +might have--that kept him long abroad. Our friend asked once for +him at the hotel in the Rue de Rivoli, but the only contribution +offered there was the fact that every one was out. It was with +the idea that he would have to come home to sleep that Strether +went up to his rooms, from which however he was still absent, though, +from the balcony, a few moments later, his visitor heard eleven +o'clock strike. Chad's servant had by this time answered for his +reappearance; he HAD, the visitor learned, come quickly in to dress +for dinner and vanish again. Strether spent an hour in waiting +for him--an hour full of strange suggestions, persuasions, recognitions; +one of those that he was to recall, at the end of his adventure, as +the particular handful that most had counted. The mellowest lamplight +and the easiest chair had been placed at his disposal by Baptiste, +subtlest of servants; the novel half-uncut, the novel lemon-coloured +and tender, with the ivory knife athwart it like the dagger in a +contadina's hair, had been pushed within the soft circle--a circle +which, for some reason, affected Strether as softer still after +the same Baptiste had remarked that in the absence of a further need +of anything by Monsieur he would betake himself to bed. The night +was hot and heavy and the single lamp sufficient; the great flare +of the lighted city, rising high, spending itself afar, played up +from the Boulevard and, through the vague vista of the successive +rooms, brought objects into view and added to their dignity. +Strether found himself in possession as he never yet had been; +he had been there alone, had turned over books and prints, +had invoked, in Chad's absence, the spirit of the place, +but never at the witching hour and never with a relish quite +so like a pang. + +He spent a long time on the balcony; he hung over it as he had seen +little Bilham hang the day of his first approach, as he had seen +Mamie hang over her own the day little Bilham himself might have +seen her from below; he passed back into the rooms, the three that +occupied the front and that communicated by wide doors; and, while +he circulated and rested, tried to recover the impression that they +had made on him three months before, to catch again the voice in +which they had seemed then to speak to him. That voice, he had to +note, failed audibly to sound; which he took as the proof of all +the change in himself. He had heard, of old, only what he COULD +then hear; what he could do now was to think of three months ago as +a point in the far past. All voices had grown thicker and meant +more things; they crowded on him as he moved about--it was the way +they sounded together that wouldn't let him be still. He felt, +strangely, as sad as if he had come for some wrong, and yet as +excited as if he had come for some freedom. But the freedom was +what was most in the place and the hour, it was the freedom that +most brought him round again to the youth of his own that he had +long ago missed. He could have explained little enough to-day +either why he had missed it or why, after years and years, he +should care that he had; the main truth of the actual appeal of +everything was none the less that everything represented the +substance of his loss put it within reach, within touch, made it, +to a degree it had never been, an affair of the senses. That was +what it became for him at this singular time, the youth he had long +ago missed--a queer concrete presence, full of mystery, yet full of +reality, which he could handle, taste, smell, the deep breathing of +which he could positively hear. It was in the outside air as well +as within; it was in the long watch, from the balcony, in the +summer night, of the wide late life of Paris, the unceasing soft +quick rumble, below, of the little lighted carriages that, in the +press, always suggested the gamblers he had seen of old at Monte +Carlo pushing up to the tables. This image was before him when he +at last became aware that Chad was behind. + +"She tells me you put it all on ME"--he had arrived after this +promptly enough at that information; which expressed the case +however quite as the young man appeared willing for the moment to +leave it. Other things, with this advantage of their virtually +having the night before them, came up for them, and had, as well, +the odd effect of making the occasion, instead of hurried and +feverish, one of the largest, loosest and easiest to which +Strether's whole adventure was to have treated him. He had been +pursuing Chad from an early hour and had overtaken him only now; +but now the delay was repaired by their being so exceptionally +confronted. They had foregathered enough of course in all the +various times; they had again and again, since that first night at +the theatre, been face to face over their question; but they had +never been so alone together as they were actually alone--their +talk hadn't yet been so supremely for themselves. And if many +things moreover passed before them, none passed more distinctly for +Strether than that striking truth about Chad of which he had been +so often moved to take note: the truth that everything came +happily back with him to his knowing how to live. It had been +seated in his pleased smile--a smile that pleased exactly in the +right degree--as his visitor turned round, on the balcony, to greet +his advent; his visitor in fact felt on the spot that there was +nothing their meeting would so much do as bear witness to that +facility. He surrendered himself accordingly to so approved a +gift; for what was the meaning of the facility but that others DID +surrender themselves? He didn't want, luckily, to prevent Chad +from living; but he was quite aware that even if he had he would +himself have thoroughly gone to pieces. It was in truth +essentially by bringing down his personal life to a function all +subsidiary to the young man's own that he held together. And the +great point, above all, the sign of how completely Chad possessed +the knowledge in question, was that one thus became, not only with +a proper cheerfulness, but with wild native impulses, the feeder of +his stream. Their talk had accordingly not lasted three minutes +without Strether's feeling basis enough for the excitement in which +he had waited. This overflow fairly deepened, wastefully abounded, +as he observed the smallness of anything corresponding to it on the +part of his friend. That was exactly this friend's happy case; he +"put out" his excitement, or whatever other emotion the matter +involved, as he put out his washing; than which no arrangement +could make more for domestic order. It was quite for Strether +himself in short to feel a personal analogy with the laundress +bringing home the triumphs of the mangle. + +When he had reported on Sarah's visit, which he did very fully, +Chad answered his question with perfect candour. "I positively +referred her to you--told her she must absolutely see you. This was +last night, and it all took place in ten minutes. It was our first +free talk--really the first time she had tackled me. She knew I +also knew what her line had been with yourself; knew moreover how +little you had been doing to make anything difficult for her. +So I spoke for you frankly--assured her you were all at her service. +I assured her I was too," the young man continued; "and I pointed out +how she could perfectly, at any time, have got at me. Her difficulty +has been simply her not finding the moment she fancied." + +"Her difficulty," Strether returned, "has been simply that she +finds she's afraid of you. She's not afraid of ME, Sarah, one +little scrap; and it was just because she has seen how I can fidget +when I give my mind to it that she has felt her best chance, +rightly enough to be in making me as uneasy as possible. I think +she's at bottom as pleased to HAVE you put it on me as you yourself +can possibly be to put it." + +"But what in the world, my dear man," Chad enquired in objection to +this luminosity, "have I done to make Sally afraid?" + +"You've been 'wonderful, wonderful,' as we say--we poor people who +watch the play from the pit; and that's what has, admirably, made +her. Made her all the more effectually that she could see you didn't +set about it on purpose--I mean set about affecting her as with fear." + +Chad cast a pleasant backward glance over his possibilities of +motive. "I've only wanted to be kind and friendly, to be decent +and attentive--and I still only want to be." + +Strether smiled at his comfortable clearness. "Well, there can +certainly be no way for it better than by my taking the onus. It +reduces your personal friction and your personal offence to almost +nothing." + +Ah but Chad, with his completer conception of the friendly, wouldn't +quite have this! They had remained on the balcony, where, after their +day of great and premature heat, the midnight air was delicious; +and they leaned back in turn against the balustrade, all in harmony with +the chairs and the flower-pots, the cigarettes and the starlight. +"The onus isn't REALLY yours--after our agreeing so to wait together +and judge together. That was all my answer to Sally," Chad pursued-- +"that we have been, that we are, just judging together." + +"I'm not afraid of the burden," Strether explained; "I haven't +come in the least that you should take it off me. I've come very +much, it seems to me, to double up my fore legs in the manner of +the camel when he gets down on his knees to make his back convenient. +But I've supposed you all this while to have been doing a lot of +special and private judging--about which I haven't troubled you; +and I've only wished to have your conclusion first from you. +I don't ask more than that; I'm quite ready to take it as it has come." + +Chad turned up his face to the sky with a slow puff of his smoke. +"Well, I've seen." + +Strether waited a little. "I've left you wholly alone; haven't, I +think I may say, since the first hour or two--when I merely +preached patience--so much as breathed on you." + +"Oh you've been awfully good!" + +"We've both been good then--we've played the game. We've given +them the most liberal conditions." + +"Ah," said Chad, "splendid conditions! It was open to them, open +to them"--he seemed to make it out, as he smoked, with his eyes +still on the stars. He might in quiet sport have been reading +their horoscope. Strether wondered meanwhile what had been open to +them, and he finally let him have it. "It was open to them simply +to let me alone; to have made up their minds, on really seeing me +for themselves, that I could go on well enough as I was." + +Strether assented to this proposition with full lucidity, his +companion's plural pronoun, which stood all for Mrs. Newsome and +her daughter, having no ambiguity for him. There was nothing, +apparently, to stand for Mamie and Jim; and this added to our +friend's sense of Chad's knowing what he thought. "But they've made +up their minds to the opposite--that you CAN'T go on as you are." + +"No," Chad continued in the same way; "they won't have it for a minute." + +Strether on his side also reflectively smoked. It was as if their +high place really represented some moral elevation from which they +could look down on their recent past. "There never was the +smallest chance, do you know, that they WOULD have it for a moment." + +"Of course not--no real chance. But if they were willing to think +there was--!" + +"They weren't willing." Strether had worked it all out. "It wasn't +for you they came out, but for me. It wasn't to see for themselves +what you're doing, but what I'm doing. The first branch of their +curiosity was inevitably destined, under my culpable delay, to give way +to the second; and it's on the second that, if I may use the expression +and you don't mind my marking the invidious fact, they've been of late +exclusively perched. When Sarah sailed it was me, in other words, +they were after." + +Chad took it in both with intelligence and with indulgence. "It IS +rather a business then--what I've let you in for!" + +Strether had again a brief pause; which ended in a reply that +seemed to dispose once for all of this element of compunction. +Chad was to treat it, at any rate, so far as they were again +together, as having done so. "I was 'in' when you found me." + +"Ah but it was you," the young man laughed, "who found ME." + +"I only found you out. It was you who found me in. It was all in +the day's work for them, at all events, that they should come. And +they've greatly enjoyed it," Strether declared. + +"Well, I've tried to make them," said Chad. + +His companion did himself presently the same justice. "So have I. +I tried even this very morning--while Mrs. Pocock was with me. She +enjoys for instance, almost as much as anything else, not being, as +I've said, afraid of me; and I think I gave her help in that." + +Chad took a deeper interest. "Was she very very nasty?" + +Strether debated. "Well, she was the most important thing--she was +definite. She was--at last--crystalline. And I felt no remorse. +I saw that they must have come." + +"Oh I wanted to see them for myself; so that if it were only for +THAT--!" Chad's own remorse was as small. + +This appeared almost all Strether wanted. "Isn't your having seen +them for yourself then THE thing, beyond all others, that has come +of their visit?" + +Chad looked as if he thought it nice of his old friend to put it +so. "Don't you count it as anything that you're dished--if you ARE +dished? Are you, my dear man, dished?" + +It sounded as if he were asking if he had caught cold or hurt his +foot, and Strether for a minute but smoked and smoked. "I want to +see her again. I must see her." + +"Of course you must." Then Chad hesitated. "Do you mean--a--Mother +herself?" + +"Oh your mother--that will depend." + +It was as if Mrs. Newsome had somehow been placed by the words +very far off. Chad however endeavoured in spite of this to reach +the place. "What do you mean it will depend on?" + +Strether, for all answer, gave him a longish look. "I was speaking +of Sarah. I must positively--though she quite cast me off--see HER +again. I can't part with her that way." + +"Then she was awfully unpleasant?" + +Again Strether exhaled. "She was what she had to be. I mean that +from the moment they're not delighted they can only be--well what I +admit she was. We gave them," he went on, "their chance to be +delighted, and they've walked up to it, and looked all round it, +and not taken it." + +"You can bring a horse to water--!" Chad suggested. + +"Precisely. And the tune to which this morning Sarah wasn't +delighted--the tune to which, to adopt your metaphor, she refused +to drink--leaves us on that side nothing more to hope." + +Chad had a pause, and then as if consolingly: "It was never of +course really the least on the cards that they would be 'delighted.'" + +"Well, I don't know, after all," Strether mused. "I've had to come +as far round. However"--he shook it off--"it's doubtless MY +performance that's absurd." + +"There are certainly moments," said Chad, "when you seem to me too +good to be true. Yet if you are true," he added, "that seems to be +all that need concern me." + +"I'm true, but I'm incredible. I'm fantastic and ridiculous-- +I don't explain myself even TO myself. How can they then," +Strether asked, "understand me? So I don't quarrel with them." + +"I see. They quarrel," said Chad rather comfortably, "with US." +Strether noted once more the comfort, but his young friend had +already gone on. "I should feel greatly ashamed, all the same, +if I didn't put it before you again that you ought to think, +after all, tremendously well. I mean before giving up beyond recall--" +With which insistence, as from a certain delicacy, dropped. + +Ah but Strether wanted it. "Say it all, say it all." + +"Well, at your age, and with what--when all's said and done-- +Mother might do for you and be for you." + +Chad had said it all, from his natural scruple, only to that +extent; so that Strether after an instant himself took a hand. +"My absence of an assured future. The little I have to show toward +the power to take care of myself. The way, the wonderful way, +she would certainly take care of me. Her fortune, her kindness, +and the constant miracle of her having been disposed to go even so far. +Of course, of course"--he summed it up. "There are those sharp facts." + +Chad had meanwhile thought of another still. "And don't you really +care--?" + +His friend slowly turned round to him. "Will you go?" + +"I'll go if you'll say you now consider I should. You know," he +went on, "I was ready six weeks ago." + +"Ah," said Strether, "that was when you didn't know I wasn't! +You're ready at present because you do know it." + +"That may be," Chad returned; "but all the same I'm sincere. You +talk about taking the whole thing on your shoulders, but in what +light do you regard me that you think me capable of letting you +pay?" Strether patted his arm, as they stood together against the +parapet, reassuringly--seeming to wish to contend that he HAD the +wherewithal; but it was again round this question of purchase and +price that the young man's sense of fairness continued to hover. +"What it literally comes to for you, if you'll pardon my putting it +so, is that you give up money. Possibly a good deal of money." + +"Oh," Strether laughed, "if it were only just enough you'd still be +justified in putting it so! But I've on my side to remind you too +that YOU give up money; and more than 'possibly'--quite certainly, +as I should suppose--a good deal." + +"True enough; but I've got a certain quantity," Chad returned after +a moment. "Whereas you, my dear man, you--" + +"I can't be at all said"--Strether took him up--"to have a 'quantity' +certain or uncertain? Very true. Still, I shan't starve." + +"Oh you mustn't STARVE!" Chad pacifically emphasised; and so, in +the pleasant conditions, they continued to talk; though there was, +for that matter, a pause in which the younger companion might have +been taken as weighing again the delicacy of his then and there +promising the elder some provision against the possibility just +mentioned. This, however, he presumably thought best not to do, +for at the end of another minute they had moved in quite a different +direction. Strether had broken in by returning to the subject of +Chad's passage with Sarah and enquiring if they had arrived, in the +event, at anything in the nature of a "scene." To this Chad replied +that they had on the contrary kept tremendously polite; adding moreover +that Sally was after all not the woman to have made the mistake of +not being. "Her hands are a good deal tied, you see. I got so, +from the first," he sagaciously observed, "the start of her." + +"You mean she has taken so much from you?" + +"Well, I couldn't of course in common decency give less: only she +hadn't expected, I think, that I'd give her nearly so much. And +she began to take it before she knew it." + +"And she began to like it," said Strether, "as soon as she began to +take it!" + +"Yes, she has liked it--also more than she expected." After which +Chad observed: "But she doesn't like ME. In fact she hates me." + +Strether's interest grew. "Then why does she want you at home?" + +"Because when you hate you want to triumph, and if she should get +me neatly stuck there she WOULD triumph." + +Strether followed afresh, but looking as he went. "Certainly--in a +manner. But it would scarce be a triumph worth having if, once +entangled, feeling her dislike and possibly conscious in time of a +certain quantity of your own, you should on the spot make yourself +unpleasant to her." + +"Ah," said Chad, "she can bear ME--could bear me at least at home. +It's my being there that would be her triumph. She hates me in Paris." + +"She hates in other words--" + +"Yes, THAT'S it!"--Chad had quickly understood this understanding; +which formed on the part of each as near an approach as they had +yet made to naming Madame de Vionnet. The limitations of their +distinctness didn't, however, prevent its fairly lingering in the +air that it was this lady Mrs. Pocock hated. It added one more +touch moreover to their established recognition of the rare intimacy +of Chad's association with her. He had never yet more twitched away +the last light veil from this phenomenon than in presenting himself +as confounded and submerged in the feeling she had created at Woollett. +"And I'll tell you who hates me too," he immediately went on. + +Strether knew as immediately whom he meant, but with as prompt a +protest. "Ah no! Mamie doesn't hate--well," he caught himself in +time--"anybody at all. Mamie's beautiful." + +Chad shook his head. "That's just why I mind it. She certainly +doesn't like me." + +"How much do you mind it? What would you do for her?" + +"Well, I'd like her if she'd like me. Really, really," Chad declared. + +It gave his companion a moment's pause. "You asked me just now if +I don't, as you said, 'care' about a certain person. You rather +tempt me therefore to put the question in my turn. Don't YOU care +about a certain other person?" + +Chad looked at him hard in the lamplight of the window. "The +difference is that I don't want to." + +Strether wondered. "'Don't want' to?" + +"I try not to--that is I HAVE tried. I've done my best. You can't +be surprised," the young man easily went on, "when you yourself set +me on it. I was indeed," he added, "already on it a little; but you +set me harder. It was six weeks ago that I thought I had come out." + +Strether took it well in. "But you haven't come out!" + +"I don't know--it's what I WANT to know," said Chad. "And if I +could have sufficiently wanted--by myself--to go back, I think I +might have found out." + +"Possibly"--Strether considered. "But all you were able to achieve +was to want to want to! And even then," he pursued, "only till our +friends there came. Do you want to want to still?" As with a +sound half-dolorous, half-droll and all vague and equivocal, Chad +buried his face for a little in his hands, rubbing it in a +whimsical way that amounted to an evasion, he brought it out more +sharply: "DO you?" + +Chad kept for a time his attitude, but at last he looked up, and +then abruptly, "Jim IS a damned dose!" he declared. + +"Oh I don't ask you to abuse or describe or in any way pronounce on +your relatives; I simply put it to you once more whether you're NOW +ready. You say you've 'seen.' Is what you've seen that you can't +resist?" + +Chad gave him a strange smile--the nearest approach he had ever +shown to a troubled one. "Can't you make me NOT resist?" + +"What it comes to," Strether went on very gravely now and as if he +hadn't heard him, "what it comes to is that more has been done for +you, I think, than I've ever seen done--attempted perhaps, but +never so successfully done--by one human being for another." + +"Oh an immense deal certainly"--Chad did it full justice. "And you +yourself are adding to it." + +It was without heeding this either that his visitor continued. +"And our friends there won't have it." + +"No, they simply won't." + +"They demand you on the basis, as it were, of repudiation and +ingratitude; and what has been the matter with me," Strether went +on, "is that I haven't seen my way to working with you for +repudiation." + +Chad appreciated this. "Then as you haven't seen yours you +naturally haven't seen mine. There it is." After which he +proceeded, with a certain abruptness, to a sharp interrogation. +"NOW do you say she doesn't hate me?" + +Strether hesitated. "'She'--?" + +"Yes--Mother. We called it Sarah, but it comes to the same thing." + +"Ah," Strether objected, "not to the same thing as her hating YOU." + +On which--though as if for an instant it had hung fire--Chad +remarkably replied: "Well, if they hate my good friend, THAT comes +to the same thing." It had a note of inevitable truth that made +Strether take it as enough, feel he wanted nothing more. The young +man spoke in it for his "good friend" more than he had ever yet +directly spoken, confessed to such deep identities between them as +he might play with the idea of working free from, but which at a +given moment could still draw him down like a whirlpool. And +meanwhile he had gone on. "Their hating you too moreover--that +also comes to a good deal." + +"Ah," said Strether, "your mother doesn't." + +Chad, however, loyally stuck to it--loyally, that is, to Strether. +"She will if you don't look out." + +"Well, I do look out. I am, after all, looking out. That's just +why," our friend explained, "I want to see her again." + +It drew from Chad again the same question. "To see Mother?" + +"To see--for the present--Sarah." + +"Ah then there you are! And what I don't for the life of me make +out," Chad pursued with resigned perplexity, "is what you GAIN by it." + +Oh it would have taken his companion too long to say! "That's +because you have, I verily believe, no imagination. You've other +qualities. But no imagination, don't you see? at all." + +"I dare say. I do see." It was an idea in which Chad showed +interest. "But haven't you yourself rather too much?" + +"Oh RATHER--!" So that after an instant, under this reproach and +as if it were at last a fact really to escape from, Strether made +his move for departure. + + + +II + + +One of the features of the restless afternoon passed by him after +Mrs. Pocock's visit was an hour spent, shortly before dinner, with +Maria Gostrey, whom of late, in spite of so sustained a call on his +attention from other quarters, he had by no means neglected. And +that he was still not neglecting her will appear from the fact that +he was with her again at the same hour on the very morrow--with no +less fine a consciousness moreover of being able to hold her ear. +It continued inveterately to occur, for that matter, that whenever +he had taken one of his greater turns he came back to where she so +faithfully awaited him. None of these excursions had on the whole +been livelier than the pair of incidents--the fruit of the short +interval since his previous visit--on which he had now to report to +her. He had seen Chad Newsome late the night before, and he had +had that morning, as a sequel to this conversation, a second +interview with Sarah. "But they're all off," he said, "at last." + +It puzzled her a moment. "All?--Mr. Newsome with them?" + +"Ah not yet! Sarah and Jim and Mamie. But Waymarsh with them-- +for Sarah. It's too beautiful," Strether continued; "I find I don't +get over that--it's always a fresh joy. But it's a fresh joy too," +he added, "that--well, what do you think? Little Bilham also goes. +But he of course goes for Mamie." + +Miss Gostrey wondered. "'For' her? Do you mean they're already +engaged?" + +"Well," said Strether, "say then for ME. He'll do anything for me; +just as I will, for that matter--anything I can--for him. Or for +Mamie either. SHE'LL do anything for me." + +Miss Gostrey gave a comprehensive sigh. "The way you reduce people +to subjection!" + +"It's certainly, on one side, wonderful. But it's quite equalled, +on another, by the way I don't. I haven't reduced Sarah, since +yesterday; though I've succeeded in seeing her again, as I'll +presently tell you. The others however are really all right. +Mamie, by that blessed law of ours, absolutely must have a young +man." + +"But what must poor Mr. Bilham have? Do you mean they'll MARRY +for you?" + +"I mean that, by the same blessed law, it won't matter a grain if +they don't--I shan't have in the least to worry." + +She saw as usual what he meant. "And Mr. Jim?--who goes for him?" + +"Oh," Strether had to admit, "I couldn't manage THAT. He's +thrown, as usual, on the world; the world which, after all, by his +account--for he has prodigious adventures--seems very good to him. +He fortunately--'over here,' as he says--finds the world +everywhere; and his most prodigious adventure of all," he went on, +"has been of course of the last few days." + +Miss Gostrey, already knowing, instantly made the connexion. "He +has seen Marie de Vionnet again?" + +"He went, all by himself, the day after Chad's party--didn't I +tell you?--to tea with her. By her invitation--all alone." + +"Quite like yourself!" Maria smiled. + +"Oh but he's more wonderful about her than I am!" And then as his +friend showed how she could believe it, filling it out, fitting it +on to old memories of the wonderful woman: "What I should have +liked to manage would have been HER going." + +"To Switzerland with the party?" + +"For Jim--and for symmetry. If it had been workable moreover for +a fortnight she'd have gone. She's ready"--he followed up his +renewed vision of her--"for anything." + +Miss Gostrey went with him a minute. "She's too perfect!" + +"She WILL, I think," he pursued, "go to-night to the station." + +"To see him off?" + +"With Chad--marvellously--as part of their general attention. And +she does it"--it kept before him--"with a light, light grace, a +free, free gaiety, that may well softly bewilder Mr. Pocock." + +It kept her so before him that his companion had after an instant a +friendly comment. "As in short it has softly bewildered a saner +man. Are you really in love with her?" Maria threw off. + +"It's of no importance I should know," he replied. "It matters so +little--has nothing to do, practically, with either of us." + +"All the same"--Maria continued to smile--"they go, the five, as I +understand you, and you and Madame de Vionnet stay." + +"Oh and Chad." To which Strether added: "And you." + +"Ah 'me'!"--she gave a small impatient wail again, in which +something of the unreconciled seemed suddenly to break out. "I +don't stay, it somehow seems to me, much to my advantage. In the +presence of all you cause to pass before me I've a tremendous sense +of privation." + +Strether hesitated. "But your privation, your keeping out of +everything, has been--hasn't it?--by your own choice." + +"Oh yes; it has been necessary--that is it has been better for you. +What I mean is only that I seem to have ceased to serve you." + +"How can you tell that?" he asked. "You don't know how you serve me. +When you cease--" + +"Well?" she said as he dropped. + +"Well, I'll LET you know. Be quiet till then." + +She thought a moment. "Then you positively like me to stay?" + +"Don't I treat you as if I did?" + +"You're certainly very kind to me. But that," said Maria, "is for +myself. It's getting late, as you see, and Paris turning rather +hot and dusty. People are scattering, and some of them, in other +places want me. But if you want me here--!" + +She had spoken as resigned to his word, but he had of a sudden a +still sharper sense than he would have expected of desiring not to +lose her. "I want you here." + +She took it as if the words were all she had wished; as if they +brought her, gave her something that was the compensation of her +case. "Thank you," she simply answered. And then as he looked at +her a little harder, "Thank you very much," she repeated. + +It had broken as with a slight arrest into the current of their +talk, and it held him a moment longer. "Why, two months, or +whatever the time was, ago, did you so suddenly dash off? The +reason you afterwards gave me for having kept away three weeks wasn't +the real one." + +She recalled. "I never supposed you believed it was. Yet," she +continued, "if you didn't guess it that was just what helped you." + +He looked away from her on this; he indulged, so far as space +permitted, in one of his slow absences. "I've often thought of it, +but never to feel that I could guess it. And you see the +consideration with which I've treated you in never asking till now." + +"Now then why DO you ask?" + +"To show you how I miss you when you're not here, and what it does +for me." + +"It doesn't seem to have done," she laughed, "all it might! +However," she added, "if you've really never guessed the truth I'll +tell it you." + +"I've never guessed it," Strether declared. + +"Never?" + +"Never." + +"Well then I dashed off, as you say, so as not to have the +confusion of being there if Marie de Vionnet should tell you +anything to my detriment." + +He looked as if he considerably doubted. "You even then would have +had to face it on your return." + +"Oh if I had found reason to believe it something very bad I'd have +left you altogether." + +"So then," he continued, "it was only on guessing she had been on +the whole merciful that you ventured back?" + +Maria kept it together. "I owe her thanks. Whatever her temptation +she didn't separate us. That's one of my reasons," she went on +"for admiring her so." + +"Let it pass then," said Strether, "for one of mine as well. But +what would have been her temptation?" + +"What are ever the temptations of women?" + +He thought--but hadn't, naturally, to think too long. "Men?" + +"She would have had you, with it, more for herself. But she saw +she could have you without it." + +"Oh 'have' me!" Strether a trifle ambiguously sighed. "YOU," he +handsomely declared, "would have had me at any rate WITH it." + +"Oh 'have' you!"--she echoed it as he had done. "I do have you, +however," she less ironically said, "from the moment you express a +wish." + +He stopped before her, full of the disposition. "I'll express fifty." + +Which indeed begot in her, with a certain inconsequence, a return +of her small wail. "Ah there you are!" + +There, if it were so, he continued for the rest of the time to be, +and it was as if to show her how she could still serve him that, +coming back to the departure of the Pococks, he gave her the view, +vivid with a hundred more touches than we can reproduce, of what +had happened for him that morning. He had had ten minutes with +Sarah at her hotel, ten minutes reconquered, by irresistible pressure, +from the time over which he had already described her to Miss Gostrey +as having, at the end of their interview on his own premises, passed +the great sponge of the future. He had caught her by not announcing +himself, had found her in her sitting-room with a dressmaker and a +lingere whose accounts she appeared to have been more or less +ingenuously settling and who soon withdrew. Then he had explained +to her how he had succeeded, late the night before, in keeping +his promise of seeing Chad. "I told her I'd take it all." + +"You'd 'take' it?" + +"Why if he doesn't go." + +Maria waited. "And who takes it if he does?" she enquired with a +certain grimness of gaiety. + +"Well," said Strether, "I think I take, in any event, everything." + +"By which I suppose you mean," his companion brought out after a +moment, "that you definitely understand you now lose everything." + +He stood before her again. "It does come perhaps to the same +thing. But Chad, now that he has seen, doesn't really want it." + +She could believe that, but she made, as always, for clearness. +"Still, what, after all, HAS he seen?" + +"What they want of him. And it's enough." + +"It contrasts so unfavourably with what Madame de Vionnet wants?" + +"It contrasts--just so; all round, and tremendously." + +"Therefore, perhaps, most of all with what YOU want?" + +"Oh," said Strether, "what I want is a thing I've ceased to measure +or even to understand." + +But his friend none the less went on. "Do you want Mrs. Newsome-- +after such a way of treating you?" + +It was a straighter mode of dealing with this lady than they had as +yet--such was their high form--permitted themselves; but it seemed +not wholly for this that he delayed a moment. "I dare say it has +been, after all, the only way she could have imagined." + +"And does that make you want her any more?" + +"I've tremendously disappointed her," Strether thought it worth +while to mention. + +"Of course you have. That's rudimentary; that was plain to us long +ago. But isn't it almost as plain," Maria went on, "that you've +even yet your straight remedy? Really drag him away, as I believe +you still can, and you'd cease to have to count with her +disappointment." + +"Ah then," he laughed, "I should have to count with yours!" + +But this barely struck her now. "What, in that case, should you +call counting? You haven't come out where you are, I think, to +please ME." + +"Oh," he insisted, "that too, you know, has been part of it. +I can't separate--it's all one; and that's perhaps why, as I say, +I don't understand." But he was ready to declare again that this +didn't in the least matter; all the more that, as he affirmed, +he HADn't really as yet "come out." "She gives me after all, on +its coming to the pinch, a last mercy, another chance. They don't +sail, you see, for five or six weeks more, and they haven't--she +admits that--expected Chad would take part in their tour. It's +still open to him to join them, at the last, at Liverpool." + +Miss Gostrey considered. "How in the world is it 'open' unless you +open it? How can he join them at Liverpool if he but sinks deeper +into his situation here?" + +"He has given her--as I explained to you that she let me know +yesterday--his word of honour to do as I say." + +Maria stared. "But if you say nothing!" + +Well, he as usual walked about on it. "I did say something this +morning. I gave her my answer--the word I had promised her after +hearing from himself what HE had promised. What she demanded of +me yesterday, you'll remember, was the engagement then and there to +make him take up this vow." + +"Well then," Miss Gostrey enquired, "was the purpose of your visit +to her only to decline?" + +"No; it was to ask, odd as that may seem to you, for another delay." + +"Ah that's weak!" + +"Precisely!" She had spoken with impatience, but, so far as that +at least, he knew where he was. "If I AM weak I want to find it +out. If I don't find it out I shall have the comfort, the little +glory, of thinking I'm strong." + +"It's all the comfort, I judge," she returned, "that you WILL have!" + +"At any rate," he said, "it will have been a month more. Paris may +grow, from day to day, hot and dusty, as you say; but there are +other things that are hotter and dustier. I'm not afraid to stay +on; the summer here must be amusing in a wild--if it isn't a tame-- +way of its own; the place at no time more picturesque. I think I +shall like it. And then," he benevolently smiled for her, "there +will be always you." + +"Oh," she objected, "it won't be as a part of the picturesqueness +that I shall stay, for I shall be the plainest thing about you. +You may, you see, at any rate," she pursued, "have nobody else. +Madame de Vionnet may very well be going off, mayn't she?--and +Mr. Newsome by the same stroke: unless indeed you've had an assurance +from them to the contrary. So that if your idea's to stay for them"-- +it was her duty to suggest it--"you may be left in the lurch. +Of course if they do stay"--she kept it up--"they would be part of +the picturesqueness. Or else indeed you might join them somewhere." + +Strether seemed to face it as if it were a happy thought; but the +next moment he spoke more critically. "Do you mean that they'll +probably go off together?" + +She just considered. "I think it will be treating you quite +without ceremony if they do; though after all," she added, "it +would be difficult to see now quite what degree of ceremony properly +meets your case." + +"Of course," Strether conceded, "my attitude toward them is extraordinary." + +"Just so; so that one may ask one's self what style of proceeding +on their own part can altogether match it. The attitude of their +own that won't pale in its light they've doubtless still to work +out. The really handsome thing perhaps," she presently threw off, +"WOULD be for them to withdraw into more secluded conditions, +offering at the same time to share them with you." He looked at +her, on this, as if some generous irritation--all in his interest-- +had suddenly again flickered in her; and what she next said indeed +half-explained it. "Don't really be afraid to tell me if what now +holds you IS the pleasant prospect of the empty town, with plenty +of seats in the shade, cool drinks, deserted museums, drives to the +Bois in the evening, and our wonderful woman all to yourself." And +she kept it up still more. "The handsomest thing of ALL, when one +makes it out, would, I dare say, be that Mr. Chad should for a +while go off by himself. It's a pity, from that point of view," +she wound up, "that he doesn't pay his mother a visit. It would +at least occupy your interval." The thought in fact held her a +moment. "Why doesn't he pay his mother a visit? Even a week, at +this good moment, would do." + +"My dear lady," Strether replied--and he had it even to himself +surprisingly ready--"my dear lady, his mother has paid HIM a visit. +Mrs. Newsome has been with him, this month, with an intensity that +I'm sure he has thoroughly felt; he has lavishly entertained her, +and she has let him have her thanks. Do you suggest he shall go +back for more of them?" + +Well, she succeeded after a little in shaking it off. "I see. +It's what you don't suggest--what you haven't suggested. +And you know." + +"So would you, my dear," he kindly said, "if you had so much as +seen her." + +"As seen Mrs. Newsome?" + +"No, Sarah--which, both for Chad and for myself, has served all +the purpose." + +"And served it in a manner," she responsively mused, "so extraordinary!" + +"Well, you see," he partly explained, "what it comes to is that she's +all cold thought--which Sarah could serve to us cold without its +really losing anything. So it is that we know what she thinks of us." + +Maria had followed, but she had an arrest. "What I've never made +out, if you come to that, is what you think--I mean you personally-- +of HER. Don't you so much, when all's said, as care a little?" + +"That," he answered with no loss of promptness, "is what even Chad +himself asked me last night. He asked me if I don't mind the loss-- +well, the loss of an opulent future. Which moreover," he hastened +to add, "was a perfectly natural question." + +"I call your attention, all the same," said Miss Gostrey, "to the +fact that I don't ask it. What I venture to ask is whether it's to +Mrs. Newsome herself that you're indifferent." + +"I haven't been so"--he spoke with all assurance. "I've been the +very opposite. I've been, from the first moment, preoccupied with +the impression everything might be making on her--quite oppressed, +haunted, tormented by it. I've been interested ONLY in her seeing +what I've seen. And I've been as disappointed in her refusal to +see it as she has been in what has appeared to her the perversity +of my insistence." + +"Do you mean that she has shocked you as you've shocked her?" + +Strether weighed it. "I'm probably not so shockable. But on the +other hand I've gone much further to meet her. She, on her side, +hasn't budged an inch." + +"So that you're now at last"--Maria pointed the moral--"in the sad +stage of recriminations." + +"No--it's only to you I speak. I've been like a lamb to Sarah. +I've only put my back to the wall. It's to THAT one naturally +staggers when one has been violently pushed there." + +She watched him a moment. "Thrown over?" + +"Well, as I feel I've landed somewhere I think I must have been thrown." + +She turned it over, but as hoping to clarify much rather than to +harmonise. "The thing is that I suppose you've been disappointing--" + +"Quite from the very first of my arrival? I dare say. I admit I +was surprising even to myself." + +"And then of course," Maria went on, "I had much to do with it." + +"With my being surprising--?" + +"That will do," she laughed, "if you're too delicate to call it MY +being! Naturally," she added, "you came over more or less for +surprises." + +"Naturally!"--he valued the reminder. + +"But they were to have been all for you"--she continued to piece it +out--"and none of them for HER." + +Once more he stopped before her as if she had touched the point. +"That's just her difficulty--that she doesn't admit surprises. +It's a fact that, I think, describes and represents her; and it +falls in with what I tell you--that she's all, as I've called it, +fine cold thought. She had, to her own mind, worked the whole +thing out in advance, and worked it out for me as well as for +herself. Whenever she has done that, you see, there's no room +left; no margin, as it were, for any alteration. She's filled as +full, packed as tight, as she'll hold and if you wish to get +anything more or different either out or in--" + +"You've got to make over altogether the woman herself?" + +"What it comes to," said Strether, "is that you've got morally and +intellectually to get rid of her." + +"Which would appear," Maria returned, "to be practically what +you've done." + +But her friend threw back his head. "I haven't touched her. She +won't BE touched. I see it now as I've never done; and she hangs +together with a perfection of her own," he went on, "that does +suggest a kind of wrong in ANY change of her composition. It was +at any rate," he wound up, "the woman herself, as you call her the +whole moral and intellectual being or block, that Sarah brought me +over to take or to leave." + +It turned Miss Gostrey to deeper thought. "Fancy having to take at the +point of the bayonet a whole moral and intellectual being or block!" + +"It was in fact," said Strether, "what, at home, I HAD done. +But somehow over there I didn't quite know it." + +"One never does, I suppose," Miss Gostrey concurred, "realise in +advance, in such a case, the size, as you may say, of the block. +Little by little it looms up. It has been looming for you more and +more till at last you see it all." + +"I see it all," he absently echoed, while his eyes might have been +fixing some particularly large iceberg in a cool blue northern sea. +"It's magnificent!" he then rather oddly exclaimed. + +But his friend, who was used to this kind of inconsequence in him, +kept the thread. "There's nothing so magnificent--for making +others feel you--as to have no imagination." + +It brought him straight round. "Ah there you are! It's what I said +last night to Chad. That he himself, I mean, has none." + +"Then it would appear," Maria suggested, "that he has, after all, +something in common with his mother." + +"He has in common that he makes one, as you say, 'feel' him. And +yet," he added, as if the question were interesting, "one feels +others too, even when they have plenty." + +Miss Gostrey continued suggestive. "Madame de Vionnet?" + +"SHE has plenty." + +"Certainly--she had quantities of old. But there are different +ways of making one's self felt." + +"Yes, it comes, no doubt, to that. You now--' + +He was benevolently going on, but she wouldn't have it. +"Oh I DON'T make myself felt; so my quantity needn't be settled. +Yours, you know," she said, "is monstrous. No one has ever had so much." + +It struck him for a moment. "That's what Chad also thinks." + +"There YOU are then--though it isn't for him to complain of it!" + +"Oh he doesn't complain of it," said Strether. + +"That's all that would be wanting! But apropos of what," Maria went +on, "did the question come up?" + +"Well, of his asking me what it is I gain." + +She had a pause. "Then as I've asked you too it settles my case. +Oh you HAVE," she repeated, "treasures of imagination." + +But he had been for an instant thinking away from this, and he came +up in another place. "And yet Mrs. Newsome--it's a thing to +remember--HAS imagined, did, that is, imagine, and apparently still +does, horrors about what I should have found. I was booked, by her +vision--extraordinarily intense, after all--to find them; and that +I didn't, that I couldn't, that, as she evidently felt, I wouldn't-- +this evidently didn't at all, as they say, 'suit' her book. +It was more than she could bear. That was her disappointment." + +"You mean you were to have found Chad himself horrible?" + +"I was to have found the woman." + +"Horrible?" + +"Found her as she imagined her." And Strether paused as if for his +own expression of it he could add no touch to that picture. + +His companion had meanwhile thought. "She imagined stupidly--so it +comes to the same thing." + +"Stupidly? Oh!" said Strether. + +But she insisted. "She imagined meanly." + +He had it, however, better. "It couldn't but be ignorantly." + +"Well, intensity with ignorance--what do you want worse?" + +This question might have held him, but he let it pass. "Sarah +isn't ignorant--now; she keeps up the theory of the horrible." + +"Ah but she's intense--and that by itself will do sometimes as +well. If it doesn't do, in this case, at any rate, to deny that +Marie's charming, it will do at least to deny that she's good." + +"What I claim is that she's good for Chad." + +"You don't claim"--she seemed to like it clear--"that she's good +for YOU." + +But he continued without heeding. "That's what I wanted them to +come out for--to see for themselves if she's bad for him." + +"And now that they've done so they won't admit that she's good even +for anything?" + +"They do think," Strether presently admitted, "that she's on the +whole about as bad for me. But they're consistent of course, +inasmuch as they've their clear view of what's good for both of us." + +"For you, to begin with"--Maria, all responsive, confined the +question for the moment--"to eliminate from your existence and if +possible even from your memory the dreadful creature that I must +gruesomely shadow forth for them, even more than to eliminate the +distincter evil--thereby a little less portentous--of the person +whose confederate you've suffered yourself to become. However, +that's comparatively simple. You can easily, at the worst, after +all, give me up." + +"I can easily at the worst, after all, give you up." The irony was +so obvious that it needed no care. "I can easily at the worst, +after all, even forget you." + +"Call that then workable. But Mr. Newsome has much more to forget. +How can HE do it?" + +"Ah there again we are! That's just what I was to have made him do; +just where I was to have worked with him and helped." + +She took it in silence and without attenuation--as if perhaps from +very familiarity with the facts; and her thought made a connexion +without showing the links. "Do you remember how we used to talk at +Chester and in London about my seeing you through?" She spoke as +of far-off things and as if they had spent weeks at the places +she named. + +"It's just what you ARE doing." + +"Ah but the worst--since you've left such a margin--may be still +to come. You may yet break down." + +"Yes, I may yet break down. But will you take me--?" + +He had hesitated, and she waited. "Take you?" + +"For as long as I can bear it." + +She also debated "Mr. Newsome and Madame de Vionnet may, as we were +saying, leave town. How long do you think you can bear it without them?" + +Strether's reply to this was at first another question. "Do you mean +in order to get away from me?" + +Her answer had an abruptness. "Don't find me rude if I say I should +think they'd want to!" + +He looked at her hard again--seemed even for an instant to have an +intensity of thought under which his colour changed. But he +smiled. "You mean after what they've done to me?" + +"After what SHE has." + +At this, however, with a laugh, he was all right again. "Ah but +she hasn't done it yet!" + + + +III + + +He had taken the train a few days after this from a station-- +as well as to a station--selected almost at random; such days, +whatever should happen, were numbered, and he had gone forth under +the impulse--artless enough, no doubt--to give the whole of one of +them to that French ruralism, with its cool special green, into +which he had hitherto looked only through the little oblong window +of the picture-frame. It had been as yet for the most part but a +land of fancy for him--the background of fiction, the medium of +art, the nursery of letters; practically as distant as Greece, but +practically also well-nigh as consecrated. Romance could weave +itself, for Strether's sense, out of elements mild enough; and even +after what he had, as he felt, lately "been through," he could +thrill a little at the chance of seeing something somewhere that +would remind him of a certain small Lambinet that had charmed him, +long years before, at a Boston dealer's and that he had quite +absurdly never forgotten. It had been offered, he remembered, at a +price he had been instructed to believe the lowest ever named for a +Lambinet, a price he had never felt so poor as on having to recognise, +all the same, as beyond a dream of possibility. He had dreamed-- +had turned and twisted possibilities for an hour: it had been +the only adventure of his life in connexion with the purchase +of a work of art. The adventure, it will be perceived, was modest; +but the memory, beyond all reason and by some accident of +association, was sweet. The little Lambinet abode with him as the +picture he WOULD have bought--the particular production that had +made him for the moment overstep the modesty of nature. He was +quite aware that if he were to see it again he should perhaps have +a drop or a shock, and he never found himself wishing that the +wheel of time would turn it up again, just as he had seen it in the +maroon-coloured, sky-lighted inner shrine of Tremont Street. +It would be a different thing, however, to see the remembered mixture +resolved back into its elements--to assist at the restoration to +nature of the whole far-away hour: the dusty day in Boston, the +background of the Fitchburg Depot, of the maroon-coloured sanctum, +the special-green vision, the ridiculous price, the poplars, the +willows, the rushes, the river, the sunny silvery sky, the shady +woody horizon. + +He observed in respect to his train almost no condition save that +it should stop a few times after getting out of the banlieue; +he threw himself on the general amiability of the day for the hint of +where to alight. His theory of his excursion was that he could +alight anywhere--not nearer Paris than an hour's run--on catching a +suggestion of the particular note required. It made its sign, the +suggestion--weather, air, light, colour and his mood all favouring-- +at the end of some eighty minutes; the train pulled up just at the +right spot, and he found himself getting out as securely as if to +keep an appointment. It will be felt of him that he could amuse +himself, at his age, with very small things if it be again noted +that his appointment was only with a superseded Boston fashion. He +hadn't gone far without the quick confidence that it would be +quite sufficiently kept. The oblong gilt frame disposed its +enclosing lines; the poplars and willows, the reeds and river-- +a river of which he didn't know, and didn't want to know, the name-- +fell into a composition, full of felicity, within them; the sky +was silver and turquoise and varnish; the village on the left was +white and the church on the right was grey; it was all there, in +short--it was what he wanted: it was Tremont Street, it was France, +it was Lambinet. Moreover he was freely walking about in it. +He did this last, for an hour, to his heart's content, making +for the shady woody horizon and boring so deep into his impression +and his idleness that he might fairly have got through them again +and reached the maroon-coloured wall. It was a wonder, no doubt, +that the taste of idleness for him shouldn't need more time to +sweeten; but it had in fact taken the few previous days; it had +been sweetening in truth ever since the retreat of the Pococks. +He walked and walked as if to show himself how little he had now to do; +he had nothing to do but turn off to some hillside where he might +stretch himself and hear the poplars rustle, and whence--in the +course of an afternoon so spent, an afternoon richly suffused too +with the sense of a book in his pocket--he should sufficiently +command the scene to be able to pick out just the right little +rustic inn for an experiment in respect to dinner. There was a +train back to Paris at 9.20, and he saw himself partaking, at the +close of the day, with the enhancements of a coarse white cloth and +a sanded door, of something fried and felicitous, washed down with +authentic wine; after which he might, as he liked, either stroll +back to his station in the gloaming or propose for the local +carriole and converse with his driver, a driver who naturally wouldn't +fail of a stiff clean blouse, of a knitted nightcap and of the genius +of response--who, in fine, would sit on the shafts, tell him what +the French people were thinking, and remind him, as indeed the whole +episode would incidentally do, of Maupassant. Strether heard his lips, +for the first time in French air, as this vision assumed consistency, +emit sounds of expressive intention without fear of his company. +He had been afraid of Chad and of Maria and of Madame de Vionnet; +he had been most of all afraid of Waymarsh, in whose presence, +so far as they had mixed together in the light of the town, he had +never without somehow paying for it aired either his vocabulary +or his accent. He usually paid for it by meeting immediately +afterwards Waymarsh's eye. + +Such were the liberties with which his fancy played after he had +turned off to the hillside that did really and truly, as well as +most amiably, await him beneath the poplars, the hillside that made +him feel, for a murmurous couple of hours, how happy had been his +thought. He had the sense of success, of a finer harmony in +things; nothing but what had turned out as yet according to his plan. +It most of all came home to him, as he lay on his back on the grass, +that Sarah had really gone, that his tension was really relaxed; +the peace diffused in these ideas might be delusive, but it hung about +him none the less for the time. It fairly, for half an hour, +sent him to sleep; he pulled his straw hat over his eyes-- +he had bought it the day before with a reminiscence of Waymarsh's-- +and lost himself anew in Lambinet. It was as if he had found out +he was tired--tired not from his walk, but from that inward +exercise which had known, on the whole, for three months, so little +intermission. That was it--when once they were off he had dropped; +this moreover was what he had dropped to, and now he was touching +bottom. He was kept luxuriously quiet, soothed and amused by the +consciousness of what he had found at the end of his descent. It +was very much what he had told Maria Gostrey he should like to stay +on for, the hugely-distributed Paris of summer, alternately +dazzling and dusky, with a weight lifted for him off its columns +and cornices and with shade and air in the flutter of awnings as +wide as avenues. It was present to him without attenuation that, +reaching out, the day after making the remark, for some proof of +his freedom, he had gone that very afternoon to see Madame de Vionnet. +He had gone again the next day but one, and the effect of the two +visits, the after-sense of the couple of hours spent with her, +was almost that of fulness and frequency. The brave intention of +frequency, so great with him from the moment of his finding himself +unjustly suspected at Woollett, had remained rather theoretic, +and one of the things he could muse about under his poplars was +the source of the special shyness that had still made him careful. +He had surely got rid of it now, this special shyness; what had become +of it if it hadn't precisely, within the week, rubbed off? + +It struck him now in fact as sufficiently plain that if he had +still been careful he had been so for a reason. He had really +feared, in his behaviour, a lapse from good faith; if there was a +danger of one's liking such a woman too much one's best safety was +in waiting at least till one had the right to do so. In the light +of the last few days the danger was fairly vivid; so that it was +proportionately fortunate that the right was likewise established. +It seemed to our friend that he had on each occasion profited to +the utmost by the latter: how could he have done so more, he at +all events asked himself, than in having immediately let her know +that, if it was all the same to her, he preferred not to talk about +anything tiresome? He had never in his life so sacrificed an +armful of high interests as in that remark; he had never so prepared +the way for the comparatively frivolous as in addressing it to +Madame de Vionnet's intelligence. It hadn't been till later that +he quite recalled how in conjuring away everything but the pleasant +he had conjured away almost all they had hitherto talked about; +it was not till later even that he remembered how, with their new tone, +they hadn't so much as mentioned the name of Chad himself. +One of the things that most lingered with him on his hillside was +this delightful facility, with such a woman, of arriving at a new tone; +he thought, as he lay on his back, of all the tones she might make +possible if one were to try her, and at any rate of the probability +that one could trust her to fit them to occasions. He had wanted her +to feel that, as he was disinterested now, so she herself should be, +and she had showed she felt it, and he had showed he was grateful, +and it had been for all the world as if he were calling for +the first time. They had had other, but irrelevant, meetings; +it was quite as if, had they sooner known how much they REALLY +had in common, there were quantities of comparatively dull matters +they might have skipped. Well, they were skipping them now, +even to graceful gratitude, even to handsome "Don't mention it!"-- +and it was amazing what could still come up without reference to +what had been going on between them. It might have been, on analysis, +nothing more than Shakespeare and the musical glasses; but it had +served all the purpose of his appearing to have said to her: +"Don't like me, if it's a question of liking me, for anything obvious +and clumsy that I've, as they call it, 'done' for you: like me-- +well, like me, hang it, for anything else you choose. So, by +the same propriety, don't be for me simply the person I've come to know +through my awkward connexion with Chad--was ever anything, by the way, +MORE awkward? Be for me, please, with all your admirable tact and trust, +just whatever I may show you it's a present pleasure to me to think you." +It had been a large indication to meet; but if she hadn't met it +what HAD she done, and how had their time together slipped along +so smoothly, mild but not slow, and melting, liquefying, into his +happy illusion of idleness? He could recognise on the other hand +that he had probably not been without reason, in his prior, his +restricted state, for keeping an eye on his liability to lapse +from good faith. + +He really continued in the picture--that being for himself his +situation--all the rest of this rambling day; so that the charm was +still, was indeed more than ever upon him when, toward six o'clock +he found himself amicably engaged with a stout white-capped +deep-voiced woman at the door of the auberge of the biggest village, +a village that affected him as a thing of whiteness, blueness and +crookedness, set in coppery green, and that had the river flowing +behind or before it--one couldn't say which; at the bottom, in +particular, of the inn-garden. He had had other adventures before this; +had kept along the height, after shaking off slumber; had admired, +had almost coveted, another small old church, all steep roof and +dim slate-colour without and all whitewash and paper flowers within; +had lost his way and had found it again; had conversed with rustics +who struck him perhaps a little more as men of the world than he had +expected; had acquired at a bound a fearless facility in French; +had had, as the afternoon waned, a watery bock, all pale and Parisian, +in the cafe of the furthest village, which was not the biggest; +and had meanwhile not once overstepped the oblong gilt frame. +The frame had drawn itself out for him, as much as you please; +but that was just his luck. He had finally come down again to the +valley, to keep within touch of stations and trains, turning his face +to the quarter from which he had started; and thus it was that he had +at last pulled up before the hostess of the Cheval Blanc, who met him, +with a rough readiness that was like the clatter of sabots over stones, +on their common ground of a cotelette de veau a l'oseille and a +subsequent lift. He had walked many miles and didn't know he was tired; +but he still knew he was amused, and even that, though he had been +alone all day, he had never yet so struck himself as engaged with +others and in midstream of his drama. It might have passed for +finished his drama, with its catastrophe all but reached: it had, +however, none the less been vivid again for him as he thus gave it +its fuller chance. He had only had to be at last well out of it to +feel it, oddly enough, still going on. + +For this had been all day at bottom the spell of the picture--that +it was essentially more than anything else a scene and a stage, +that the very air of the play was in the rustle of the willows and +the tone of the sky. The play and the characters had, without his +knowing it till now, peopled all his space for him, and it seemed +somehow quite happy that they should offer themselves, in the +conditions so supplied, with a kind of inevitability. It was as if +the conditions made them not only inevitable, but so much more +nearly natural and right as that they were at least easier, +pleasanter, to put up with. The conditions had nowhere so asserted +their difference from those of Woollett as they appeared to him to +assert it in the little court of the Cheval Blanc while he arranged +with his hostess for a comfortable climax. They were few and +simple, scant and humble, but they were THE THING, as he would have +called it, even to a greater degree than Madame de Vionnet's old +high salon where the ghost of the Empire walked. "The" thing was +the thing that implied the greatest number of other things of the +sort he had had to tackle; and it was queer of course, but so it +was--the implication here was complete. Not a single one of his +observations but somehow fell into a place in it; not a breath of +the cooler evening that wasn't somehow a syllable of the text. +The text was simply, when condensed, that in THESE places such +things were, and that if it was in them one elected to move about +one had to make one's account with what one lighted on. Meanwhile +at all events it was enough that they did affect one--so far as the +village aspect was concerned--as whiteness, crookedness and +blueness set in coppery green; there being positively, for that +matter, an outer wall of the White Horse that was painted the most +improbable shade. That was part of the amusement--as if to show +that the fun was harmless; just as it was enough, further, that the +picture and the play seemed supremely to melt together in the good +woman's broad sketch of what she could do for her visitor's +appetite. He felt in short a confidence, and it was general, and +it was all he wanted to feel. It suffered no shock even on her +mentioning that she had in fact just laid the cloth for two persons +who, unlike Monsieur, had arrived by the river--in a boat of their +own; who had asked her, half an hour before, what she could do for +them, and had then paddled away to look at something a little +further up--from which promenade they would presently return. +Monsieur might meanwhile, if he liked, pass into the garden, such +as it was, where she would serve him, should he wish it--for there +were tables and benches in plenty--a "bitter" before his repast. +Here she would also report to him on the possibility of a +conveyance to his station, and here at any rate he would have the +agrement of the river . + +It may be mentioned without delay that Monsieur had the agrement of +everything, and in particular, for the next twenty minutes, +of a small and primitive pavilion that, at the garden's edge, almost +overhung the water, testifying, in its somewhat battered state, to +much fond frequentation. It consisted of little more than a +platform, slightly raised, with a couple of benches and a table, a +protecting rail and a projecting roof; but it raked the full +grey-blue stream, which, taking a turn a short distance above, +passed out of sight to reappear much higher up; and it was clearly +in esteemed requisition for Sundays and other feasts. Strether sat +there and, though hungry, felt at peace; the confidence that had so +gathered for him deepened with the lap of the water, the ripple of +the surface, the rustle of the reeds on the opposite bank, the +faint diffused coolness and the slight rock of a couple of small +boats attached to a rough landing-place hard by. The valley on the +further side was all copper-green level and glazed pearly sky, a +sky hatched across with screens of trimmed trees, which looked +flat, like espaliers; and though the rest of the village straggled +away in the near quarter the view had an emptiness that made one of +the boats suggestive. Such a river set one afloat almost before +one could take up the oars--the idle play of which would be +moreover the aid to the full impression. This perception went so +far as to bring him to his feet; but that movement, in turn, made +him feel afresh that he was tired, and while he leaned against a +post and continued to look out he saw something that gave him a +sharper arrest. + + + +IV + + +What he saw was exactly the right thing--a boat advancing round the +bend and containing a man who held the paddles and a lady, at the +stern, with a pink parasol. It was suddenly as if these figures, +or something like them, had been wanted in the picture, had been +wanted more or less all day, and had now drifted into sight, with +the slow current, on purpose to fill up the measure. They came +slowly, floating down, evidently directed to the landing-place near +their spectator and presenting themselves to him not less clearly +as the two persons for whom his hostess was already preparing a +meal. For two very happy persons he found himself straightway +taking them--a young man in shirt-sleeves, a young woman easy and +fair, who had pulled pleasantly up from some other place and, being +acquainted with the neighbourhood, had known what this particular +retreat could offer them. The air quite thickened, at their +approach, with further intimations; the intimation that they were +expert, familiar, frequent--that this wouldn't at all events be +the first time. They knew how to do it, he vaguely felt--and it +made them but the more idyllic, though at the very moment +of the impression, as happened, their boat seemed to have begun to +drift wide, the oarsman letting it go. It had by this time none +the less come much nearer--near enough for Strether to dream the +lady in the stern had for some reason taken account of his being +there to watch them. She had remarked on it sharply, yet her +companion hadn't turned round; it was in fact almost as if our +friend had felt her bid him keep still. She had taken in something +as a result of which their course had wavered, and it continued to +waver while they just stood off. This little effect was sudden and +rapid, so rapid that Strether's sense of it was separate only for +an instant from a sharp start of his own. He too had within the +minute taken in something, taken in that he knew the lady whose +parasol, shifting as if to hide her face, made so fine a pink point +in the shining scene. It was too prodigious, a chance in a million, +but, if he knew the lady, the gentleman, who still presented his back +and kept off, the gentleman, the coatless hero of the idyll, +who had responded to her start, was, to match the marvel, none other +than Chad. + +Chad and Madame de Vionnet were then like himself taking a day in +the country--though it was as queer as fiction, as farce, that +their country could happen to be exactly his; and she had been the +first at recognition, the first to feel, across the water, the shock-- +for it appeared to come to that--of their wonderful accident. +Strether became aware, with this, of what was taking place-- +that her recognition had been even stranger for the pair in the boat, +that her immediate impulse had been to control it, and that she was +quickly and intensely debating with Chad the risk of betrayal. +He saw they would show nothing if they could feel sure he hadn't +made them out; so that he had before him for a few seconds his +own hesitation. It was a sharp fantastic crisis that had popped up +as if in a dream, and it had had only to last the few seconds to +make him feel it as quite horrible. They were thus, on either side, +TRYING the other side, and all for some reason that broke the stillness +like some unprovoked harsh note. It seemed to him again, within the +limit, that he had but one thing to do--to settle their common question +by some sign of surprise and joy. He hereupon gave large play to +these things, agitating his hat and his stick and loudly calling out-- +a demonstration that brought him relief as soon as he had seen it +answered. The boat, in mid-stream, still went a little wild-- +which seemed natural, however, while Chad turned round, half +springing up; and his good friend, after blankness and wonder, +began gaily to wave her parasol. Chad dropped afresh to his paddles +and the boat headed round, amazement and pleasantry filling the air +meanwhile, and relief, as Strether continued to fancy, superseding +mere violence. Our friend went down to the water under this odd +impression as of violence averted--the violence of their having +"cut" him, out there in the eye of nature, on the assumption that +he wouldn't know it. He awaited them with a face from which he +was conscious of not being able quite to banish this idea that they +would have gone on, not seeing and not knowing, missing their dinner +and disappointing their hostess, had he himself taken a line to match. +That at least was what darkened his vision for the moment. Afterwards, +after they had bumped at the landing-place and he had assisted their +getting ashore, everything found itself sponged over by the mere +miracle of the encounter. + +They could so much better at last, on either side, treat it as a +wild extravagance of hazard, that the situation was made elastic by +the amount of explanation called into play. Why indeed--apart from +oddity--the situation should have been really stiff was a question +naturally not practical at the moment, and in fact, so far as we +are concerned, a question tackled, later on and in private, only by +Strether himself. He was to reflect later on and in private that +it was mainly HE who had explained--as he had had moreover +comparatively little difficulty in doing. He was to have at all +events meanwhile the worrying thought of their perhaps secretly +suspecting him of having plotted this coincidence, taking such +pains as might be to give it the semblance of an accident. That +possibility--as their imputation--didn't of course bear looking +into for an instant; yet the whole incident was so manifestly, +arrange it as they would, an awkward one, that he could scarce keep +disclaimers in respect to his own presence from rising to his lips. +Disclaimers of intention would have been as tactless as his +presence was practically gross; and the narrowest escape they +either of them had was his lucky escape, in the event, from making +any. Nothing of the sort, so far as surface and sound were +involved, was even in question; surface and sound all made for +their common ridiculous good fortune, for the general +invraisemblance of the occasion, for the charming chance that they +had, the others, in passing, ordered some food to be ready, the +charming chance that he had himself not eaten, the charming chance, +even more, that their little plans, their hours, their train, in +short, from la-bas, would all match for their return together to +Paris. The chance that was most charming of all, the chance that +drew from Madame de Vionnet her clearest, gayest "Comme cela se +trouve!" was the announcement made to Strether after they were +seated at table, the word given him by their hostess in respect to +his carriage for the station, on which he might now count. It +settled the matter for his friends as well; the conveyance-- +it WAS all too lucky!--would serve for them; and nothing was more +delightful than his being in a position to make the train so definite. +It might have been, for themselves--to hear Madame de Vionnet-- +almost unnaturally vague, a detail left to be fixed; though Strether +indeed was afterwards to remember that Chad had promptly enough +intervened to forestall this appearance, laughing at his companion's +flightiness and making the point that he had after all, in spite of +the bedazzlement of a day out with her, known what he was about. + +Strether was to remember afterwards further that this had had for +him the effect of forming Chad's almost sole intervention; and +indeed he was to remember further still, in subsequent meditation, +many things that, as it were, fitted together. Another of them was +for instance that the wonderful woman's overflow of surprise and +amusement was wholly into French, which she struck him as speaking +with an unprecedented command of idiomatic turns, but in which she +got, as he might have said, somewhat away from him, taking all at +once little brilliant jumps that he could but lamely match. The +question of his own French had never come up for them; it was the +one thing she wouldn't have permitted--it belonged, for a person +who had been through much, to mere boredom; but the present result +was odd, fairly veiling her identity, shifting her back into a mere +voluble class or race to the intense audibility of which he was by +this time inured. When she spoke the charming slightly strange +English he best knew her by he seemed to feel her as a creature, +among all the millions, with a language quite to herself, the real +monopoly of a special shade of speech, beautifully easy for her, +yet of a colour and a cadence that were both inimitable and matters +of accident. She came back to these things after they had shaken +down in the inn-parlour and knew, as it were, what was to become of +them; it was inevitable that loud ejaculation over the prodigy of +their convergence should at last wear itself out. Then it was that +his impression took fuller form--the impression, destined only to +deepen, to complete itself, that they had something to put a face +upon, to carry off and make the best of, and that it was she who, +admirably on the whole, was doing this. It was familiar to him of +course that they had something to put a face upon; their +friendship, their connexion, took any amount of explaining--that +would have been made familiar by his twenty minutes with Mrs. Pocock +if it hadn't already been so. Yet his theory, as we know, had +bountifully been that the facts were specifically none of his +business, and were, over and above, so far as one had to do with +them, intrinsically beautiful; and this might have prepared him for +anything, as well as rendered him proof against mystification. +When he reached home that night, however, he knew he had been, at +bottom, neither prepared nor proof; and since we have spoken of +what he was, after his return, to recall and interpret, it may as +well immediately be said that his real experience of these few +hours put on, in that belated vision--for he scarce went to bed +till morning--the aspect that is most to our purpose. + +He then knew more or less how he had been affected--he but half +knew at the time. There had been plenty to affect him even after, +as has been said, they had shaken down; for his consciousness, +though muffled, had its sharpest moments during this passage, a +marked drop into innocent friendly Bohemia. They then had put +their elbows on the table, deploring the premature end of their two +or three dishes; which they had tried to make up with another +bottle while Chad joked a little spasmodically, perhaps even a +little irrelevantly, with the hostess. What it all came to had +been that fiction and fable WERE, inevitably, in the air, and not +as a simple term of comparison, but as a result of things said; +also that they were blinking it, all round, and that they yet needn't, +so much as that, have blinked it--though indeed if they hadn't +Strether didn't quite see what else they could have done. +Strether didn't quite see THAT even at an hour or two past midnight, +even when he had, at his hotel, for a long time, without a light +and without undressing, sat back on his bedroom sofa and stared +straight before him. He was, at that point of vantage, in full +possession, to make of it all what he could. He kept making of it +that there had been simply a LIE in the charming affair--a lie +on which one could now, detached and deliberate, perfectly put +one's finger. It was with the lie that they had eaten and drunk +and talked and laughed, that they had waited for their carriole +rather impatiently, and had then got into the vehicle and, sensibly +subsiding, driven their three or four miles through the darkening +summer night. The eating and drinking, which had been a resource, +had had the effect of having served its turn; the talk and laughter +had done as much; and it was during their somewhat tedious progress +to the station, during the waits there, the further delays, their +submission to fatigue, their silences in the dim compartment of the +much-stopping train, that he prepared himself for reflexions to come. +It had been a performance, Madame de Vionnet's manner, and though +it had to that degree faltered toward the end, as through her ceasing +to believe in it, as if she had asked herself, or Chad had found +a moment surreptitiously to ask her, what after all was the use, +a performance it had none the less quite handsomely remained, +with the final fact about it that it was on the whole easier to +keep up than to abandon. + +From the point of view of presence of mind it had been very +wonderful indeed, wonderful for readiness, for beautiful assurance, +for the way her decision was taken on the spot, without time to +confer with Chad, without time for anything. Their only conference +could have been the brief instants in the boat before they confessed +to recognising the spectator on the bank, for they hadn't been alone +together a moment since and must have communicated all in silence. +It was a part of the deep impression for Strether, and not the least +of the deep interest, that they COULD so communicate--that Chad +in particular could let her know he left it to her. He habitually +left things to others, as Strether was so well aware, and it in fact +came over our friend in these meditations that there had been as yet +no such vivid illustration of his famous knowing how to live. +It was as if he had humoured her to the extent of letting her lie +without correction--almost as if, really, he would be coming round +in the morning to set the matter, as between Strether and himself, +right. Of course he couldn't quite come; it was a case in which +a man was obliged to accept the woman's version, even when fantastic; +if she had, with more flurry than she cared to show, elected, +as the phrase was, to represent that they had left Paris that morning, +and with no design but of getting back within the day--if she had +so sized-up, in the Woollett phrase, their necessity, she knew best +her own measure. There were things, all the same, it was impossible +to blink and which made this measure an odd one--the too evident fact +for instance that she hadn't started out for the day dressed and hatted +and shod, and even, for that matter, pink parasol'd, as she had been +in the boat. From what did the drop in her assurance proceed as the +tension increased--from what did this slightly baffled ingenuity spring +but from her consciousness of not presenting, as night closed in, +with not so much as a shawl to wrap her round, an appearance that +matched her story? She admitted that she was cold, but only to +blame her imprudence which Chad suffered her to give such account +of as she might. Her shawl and Chad's overcoat and her other +garments, and his, those they had each worn the day before, were at +the place, best known to themselves--a quiet retreat enough, no +doubt--at which they had been spending the twenty-four hours, to +which they had fully meant to return that evening, from which they +had so remarkably swum into Strether's ken, and the tacit +repudiation of which had been thus the essence of her comedy. +Strether saw how she had perceived in a flash that they couldn't +quite look to going back there under his nose; though, honestly, +as he gouged deeper into the matter, he was somewhat surprised, as +Chad likewise had perhaps been, at the uprising of this scruple. +He seemed even to divine that she had entertained it rather for +Chad than for herself, and that, as the young man had lacked the +chance to enlighten her, she had had to go on with it, he meanwhile +mistaking her motive. + +He was rather glad, none the less, that they had in point of fact +not parted at the Cheval Blanc, that he hadn't been reduced to +giving them his blessing for an idyllic retreat down the river. +He had had in the actual case to make-believe more than he liked, +but this was nothing, it struck him, to what the other event +would have required. Could he, literally, quite have faced the +other event? Would he have been capable of making the best of it +with them? This was what he was trying to do now; but with the +advantage of his being able to give more time to it a good deal +counteracted by his sense of what, over and above the central fact +itself, he had to swallow. It was the quantity of make-believe +involved and so vividly exemplified that most disagreed with his +spiritual stomach. He moved, however, from the consideration of +that quantity--to say nothing of the consciousness of that organ-- +back to the other feature of the show, the deep, deep truth of +the intimacy revealed. That was what, in his vain vigil, he oftenest +reverted to: intimacy, at such a point, was LIKE that--and what in +the world else would one have wished it to be like? It was all +very well for him to feel the pity of its being so much like lying; +he almost blushed, in the dark, for the way he had dressed the +possibility in vagueness, as a little girl might have dressed her doll. +He had made them--and by no fault of their own--momentarily pull it for +him, the possibility, out of this vagueness; and must he not therefore +take it now as they had had simply, with whatever thin attenuations, +to give it to him? The very question, it may be added, made him feel +lonely and cold. There was the element of the awkward all round, but +Chad and Madame de Vionnet had at least the comfort that they could talk +it over together. With whom could HE talk of such things?--unless +indeed always, at almost any stage, with Maria? He foresaw that +Miss Gostrey would come again into requisition on the morrow; +though it wasn't to be denied that he was already a little afraid +of her "What on earth--that's what I want to know now--had you +then supposed?" He recognised at last that he had really been trying +all along to suppose nothing. Verily, verily, his labour had been lost. +He found himself supposing innumerable and wonderful things. + + + + + +Book Twelfth + + + + +I + + +Strether couldn't have said he had during the previous hours +definitely expected it; yet when. later on, that morning--though +no later indeed than for his coming forth at ten o'clock--he saw +the concierge produce, on his approach, a petit bleu delivered +since his letters had been sent up, he recognised the appearance as +the first symptom of a sequel. He then knew he had been thinking +of some early sign from Chad as more likely, after all, than not; +and this would be precisely the early sign. He took it so for +granted that he opened the petit bleu just where he had stopped, in +the pleasant cool draught of the porte-cochere--only curious to see +where the young man would, at such a juncture, break out. His +curiosity, however, was more than gratified; the small missive, +whose gummed edge he had detached without attention to the address, +not being from the young man at all, but from the person whom the +case gave him on the spot as still more worth while. Worth while +or not, he went round to the nearest telegraph-office, the big one +on the Boulevard, with a directness that almost confessed to a fear +of the danger of delay. He might have been thinking that if he didn't +go before he could think he wouldn't perhaps go at all. He at +any rate kept, in the lower side-pocket of his morning coat, a very +deliberate hand on his blue missive, crumpling it up rather tenderly +than harshly. He wrote a reply, on the Boulevard, also in the form +of a petit bleu--which was quickly done, under pressure of the place, +inasmuch as, like Madame de Vionnet's own communication, it consisted +of the fewest words. She had asked him if he could do her the very +great kindness of coming to see her that evening at half-past nine, +and he answered, as if nothing were easier, that he would present +himself at the hour she named. She had added a line of postscript, +to the effect that she would come to him elsewhere and at his own hour +if he preferred; but he took no notice of this, feeling that if he +saw her at all half the value of it would be in seeing her where he +had already seen her best. He mightn't see her at all; that was +one of the reflexions he made after writing and before he dropped +his closed card into the box; he mightn't see any one at all +any more at all; he might make an end as well now as ever, +leaving things as they were, since he was doubtless not to leave +them better, and taking his way home so far as should appear that +a home remained to him. This alternative was for a few minutes +so sharp that if he at last did deposit his missive it was perhaps +because the pressure of the place had an effect. + +There was none other, however, than the common and constant pressure, +familiar to our friend under the rubric of Postes et Telegraphes-- +the something in the air of these establishments; the vibration of +the vast strange life of the town, the influence of the types, +the performers concocting their messages; the little prompt Paris women, +arranging, pretexting goodness knew what, driving the dreadful +needle-pointed public pen at the dreadful sand-strewn public table: +implements that symbolised for Strether's too interpretative innocence +something more acute in manners, more sinister in morals, more fierce +in the national life. After he had put in his paper he had ranged +himself, he was really amused to think, on the side of the fierce, +the sinister, the acute. He was carrying on a correspondence, +across the great city, quite in the key of the Postes et Telegraphes +in general; and it was fairly as if the acceptance of that fact had +come from something in his state that sorted with the occupation of +his neighbours. He was mixed up with the typical tale of Paris, and so +were they, poor things--how could they all together help being? +They were no worse than he, in short, and he no worse than they-- +if, queerly enough, no better; and at all events he had settled his +hash, so that he went out to begin, from that moment, his day of +waiting. The great settlement was, as he felt, in his preference +for seeing his correspondent in her own best conditions. THAT was +part of the typical tale, the part most significant in respect to +himself. He liked the place she lived in, the picture that each +time squared itself, large and high and clear, around her: every +occasion of seeing it was a pleasure of a different shade. Yet +what precisely was he doing with shades of pleasure now, and why +hadn't he properly and logically compelled her to commit herself +to whatever of disadvantage and penalty the situation might throw +up? He might have proposed, as for Sarah Pocock, the cold +hospitality of his own salon de lecture, in which the chill of +Sarah's visit seemed still to abide and shades of pleasure were +dim; he might have suggested a stone bench in the dusty Tuileries +or a penny chair at the back part of the Champs Elysees. These +things would have been a trifle stern, and sternness alone now +wouldn't be sinister. An instinct in him cast about for some form +of discipline in which they might meet--some awkwardness they would +suffer from, some danger, or at least some grave inconvenience, +they would incur. This would give a sense--which the spirit +required, rather ached and sighed in the absence of--that somebody +was paying something somewhere and somehow, that they were at least +not all floating together on the silver stream of impunity. Just +instead of that to go and see her late in the evening, as if, for +all the world--well, as if he were as much in the swim as anybody +else: this had as little as possible in common with the penal form. + +Even when he had felt that objection melt away, however, the +practical difference was small; the long stretch of his interval +took the colour it would, and if he lived on thus with the sinister +from hour to hour it proved an easier thing than one might have +supposed in advance. He reverted in thought to his old tradition, +the one he had been brought up on and which even so many years of +life had but little worn away; the notion that the state of the +wrongdoer, or at least this person's happiness, presented some +special difficulty. What struck him now rather was the ease of it-- +for nothing in truth appeared easier. It was an ease he himself +fairly tasted of for the rest of the day; giving himself quite up; +not so much as trying to dress it out, in any particular whatever, +as a difficulty; not after all going to see Maria--which would have +been in a manner a result of such dressing; only idling, lounging, +smoking, sitting in the shade, drinking lemonade and consuming +ices. The day had turned to heat and eventual thunder, and he now +and again went back to his hotel to find that Chad hadn't been +there. He hadn't yet struck himself, since leaving Woollett, so +much as a loafer, though there had been times when he believed +himself touching bottom. This was a deeper depth than any, and +with no foresight, scarcely with a care, as to what he should bring +up. He almost wondered if he didn't LOOK demoralised and +disreputable; he had the fanciful vision, as he sat and smoked, +of some accidental, some motived, return of the Pococks, who would +be passing along the Boulevard and would catch this view of him. +They would have distinctly, on his appearance, every ground for scandal. +But fate failed to administer even that sternness; the Pococks never +passed and Chad made no sign. Strether meanwhile continued to hold off +from Miss Gostrey, keeping her till to-morrow; so that by evening +his irresponsibility, his impunity, his luxury, had become--there was +no other word for them--immense. + +Between nine and ten, at last, in the high clear picture--he was +moving in these days, as in a gallery, from clever canvas to clever +canvas--he drew a long breath: it was so presented to him from the +first that the spell of his luxury wouldn't be broken. He wouldn't +have, that is, to become responsible--this was admirably in the air: +she had sent for him precisely to let him feel it, so that he +might go on with the comfort (comfort already established, hadn't +it been?) of regarding his ordeal, the ordeal of the weeks of +Sarah's stay and of their climax, as safely traversed and left +behind him. Didn't she just wish to assure him that SHE now took +it all and so kept it; that he was absolutely not to worry any +more, was only to rest on his laurels and continue generously to +help her? The light in her beautiful formal room was dim, though +it would do, as everything would always do; the hot night had kept +out lamps, but there was a pair of clusters of candles that +glimmered over the chimney-piece like the tall tapers of an altar. +The windows were all open, their redundant hangings swaying a +little, and he heard once more, from the empty court, the small +plash of the fountain. From beyond this, and as from a great +distance--beyond the court, beyond the corps de logis forming the +front--came, as if excited and exciting, the vague voice of Paris. +Strether had all along been subject to sudden gusts of fancy in +connexion with such matters as these--odd starts of the historic +sense, suppositions and divinations with no warrant but their +intensity. Thus and so, on the eve of the great recorded dates, +the days and nights of revolution, the sounds had come in, the +omens, the beginnings broken out. They were the smell of +revolution, the smell of the public temper--or perhaps simply the +smell of blood. + +It was at present queer beyond words, "subtle," he would have +risked saying, that such suggestions should keep crossing the +scene; but it was doubtless the effect of the thunder in the air, +which had hung about all day without release. His hostess was +dressed as for thunderous times, and it fell in with the kind of +imagination we have just attributed to him that she should be in +simplest coolest white, of a character so old-fashioned, if he were +not mistaken, that Madame Roland must on the scaffold have worn +something like it. This effect was enhanced by a small black fichu +or scarf, of crape or gauze, disposed quaintly round her bosom and +now completing as by a mystic touch the pathetic, the noble analogy. +Poor Strether in fact scarce knew what analogy was evoked for him +as the charming woman, receiving him and making him, as she could do +such things, at once familiarly and gravely welcome, moved over her +great room with her image almost repeated in its polished floor, +which had been fully bared for summer. The associations of the place, +all felt again; the gleam here and there, in the subdued light, +of glass and gilt and parquet, with the quietness of her own note +as the centre--these things were at first as delicate as if they +had been ghostly, and he was sure in a moment that, whatever he should +find he had come for, it wouldn't be for an impression that had +previously failed him. That conviction held him from the outset, +and, seeming singularly to simplify, certified to him that the objects +about would help him, would really help them both. No, he might +never see them again--this was only too probably the last time; +and he should certainly see nothing in the least degree like them. +He should soon be going to where such things were not, and it would be +a small mercy for memory, for fancy, to have, in that stress, +a loaf on the shelf. He knew in advance he should look back on the +perception actually sharpest with him as on the view of something +old, old, old, the oldest thing he had ever personally touched; +and he also knew, even while he took his companion in as the feature +among features, that memory and fancy couldn't help being enlisted +for her. She might intend what she would, but this was beyond anything +she could intend, with things from far back--tyrannies of history, +facts of type, values, as the painters said, of expression-- +all working for her and giving her the supreme chance, the chance +of the happy, the really luxurious few, the chance, on a great +occasion, to be natural and simple. She had never, with him, +been more so; or if it was the perfection of art it would never-- +and that came to the same thing--be proved against her. + +What was truly wonderful was her way of differing so from time to +time without detriment to her simplicity. Caprices, he was sure +she felt, were before anything else bad manners, and that judgement +in her was by itself a thing making more for safety of intercourse +than anything that in his various own past intercourses he had had +to reckon on. If therefore her presence was now quite other than +the one she had shown him the night before, there was nothing of +violence in the change--it was all harmony and reason. It gave him +a mild deep person, whereas he had had on the occasion to which +their interview was a direct reference a person committed to +movement and surface and abounding in them; but she was in either +character more remarkable for nothing than for her bridging of +intervals, and this now fell in with what he understood he was to +leave to her. The only thing was that, if he was to leave it ALL +to her, why exactly had she sent for him? He had had, vaguely, in +advance, his explanation, his view of the probability of her +wishing to set something right, to deal in some way with the fraud +so lately practised on his presumed credulity. Would she attempt +to carry it further or would she blot it out? Would she throw over +it some more or less happy colour; or would she do nothing about it +at all? He perceived soon enough at least that, however reasonable +she might be, she wasn't vulgarly confused, and it herewith +pressed upon him that their eminent "lie," Chad's and hers, was +simply after all such an inevitable tribute to good taste as he +couldn't have wished them not to render. Away from them, during +his vigil, he had seemed to wince at the amount of comedy involved; +whereas in his present posture he could only ask himself how he +should enjoy any attempt from her to take the comedy back. He +shouldn't enjoy it at all; but, once more and yet once more, he +could trust her. That is he could trust her to make deception +right. As she presented things the ugliness--goodness knew why-- +went out of them; none the less too that she could present them, +with an art of her own, by not so much as touching them. She let +the matter, at all events, lie where it was--where the previous +twenty-four hours had placed it; appearing merely to circle about +it respectfully, tenderly, almost piously, while she took up +another question. + +She knew she hadn't really thrown dust in his eyes; this, the +previous night, before they separated, had practically passed +between them; and, as she had sent for him to see what the +difference thus made for him might amount to, so he was conscious +at the end of five minutes that he had been tried and tested. She +had settled with Chad after he left them that she would, for her +satisfaction, assure herself of this quantity, and Chad had, as +usual, let her have her way. Chad was always letting people have +their way when he felt that it would somehow turn his wheel for +him; it somehow always did turn his wheel. Strether felt, oddly +enough, before these facts, freshly and consentingly passive; they +again so rubbed it into him that the couple thus fixing his +attention were intimate, that his intervention had absolutely aided +and intensified their intimacy, and that in fine he must accept the +consequence of that. He had absolutely become, himself, with his +perceptions and his mistakes, his concessions and his reserves, the +droll mixture, as it must seem to them, of his braveries and his +fears, the general spectacle of his art and his innocence, almost +an added link and certainly a common priceless ground for them to +meet upon. It was as if he had been hearing their very tone when +she brought out a reference that was comparatively straight. +"The last twice that you've been here, you know, I never asked you," +she said with an abrupt transition--they had been pretending before +this to talk simply of the charm of yesterday and of the interest +of the country they had seen. The effort was confessedly vain; not +for such talk had she invited him; and her impatient reminder was +of their having done for it all the needful on his coming to her +after Sarah's flight. What she hadn't asked him then was to state +to her where and how he stood for her; she had been resting on +Chad's report of their midnight hour together in the Boulevard +Malesherbes. The thing therefore she at present desired was +ushered in by this recall of the two occasions on which, +disinterested and merciful, she hadn't worried him. To-night +truly she WOULD worry him, and this was her appeal to him to let +her risk it. He wasn't to mind if she bored him a little: +she had behaved, after all--hadn't she?--so awfully, awfully well. + + + +II + + +"Oh, you're all right, you're all right," he almost impatiently +declared; his impatience being moreover not for her pressure, but +for her scruple. More and more distinct to him was the tune to +which she would have had the matter out with Chad: more and more +vivid for him the idea that she had been nervous as to what he +might be able to "stand." Yes, it had been a question if he had +"stood" what the scene on the river had given him, and, though the +young man had doubtless opined in favour of his recuperation, her +own last word must have been that she should feel easier in seeing +for herself. That was it, unmistakeably; she WAS seeing for +herself. What he could stand was thus, in these moments, in the +balance for Strether, who reflected, as he became fully aware of +it, that he must properly brace himself. He wanted fully to appear +to stand all he might; and there was a certain command of the +situation for him in this very wish not to look too much at sea. +She was ready with everything, but so, sufficiently, was he; that +is he was at one point the more prepared of the two, inasmuch as, +for all her cleverness, she couldn't produce on the spot--and it +was surprising--an account of the motive of her note. He had the +advantage that his pronouncing her "all right" gave him for an +enquiry. "May I ask, delighted as I've been to come, if you've +wished to say something special?" He spoke as if she might have +seen he had been waiting for it--not indeed with discomfort, but +with natural interest. Then he saw that she was a little taken +aback, was even surprised herself at the detail she had neglected-- +the only one ever yet; having somehow assumed he would know, would +recognise, would leave some things not to be said. She looked at +him, however, an instant as if to convey that if he wanted them +ALL--! + +"Selfish and vulgar--that's what I must seem to you. You've done +everything for me, and here I am as if I were asking for more. But +it isn't," she went on, "because I'm afraid--though I AM of course +afraid, as a woman in my position always is. I mean it isn't +because one lives in terror--it isn't because of that one is +selfish, for I'm ready to give you my word to-night that I don't +care; don't care what still may happen and what I may lose. I don't +ask you to raise your little finger for me again, nor do I wish +so much as to mention to you what we've talked of before, either +my danger or my safety, or his mother, or his sister, or the girl +he may marry, or the fortune he may make or miss, or the right +or the wrong, of any kind, he may do. If after the help one has +had from you one can't either take care of one's self or simply +hold one's tongue, one must renounce all claim to be an object of +interest. It's in the name of what I DO care about that I've tried +still to keep hold of you. How can I be indifferent," she asked, +"to how I appear to you?" And as he found himself unable +immediately to say: "Why, if you're going, NEED you, after all? +Is it impossible you should stay on--so that one mayn't lose you?" + +"Impossible I should live with you here instead of going home?" + +"Not 'with' us, if you object to that, but near enough to us, +somewhere, for us to see you--well," she beautifully brought out, +"when we feel we MUST. How shall we not sometimes feel it? I've +wanted to see you often when I couldn't," she pursued, "all these +last weeks. How shan't I then miss you now, with the sense of your +being gone forever?" Then as if the straightness of this appeal, +taking him unprepared, had visibly left him wondering: "Where IS +your 'home' moreover now--what has become of it? I've made a +change in your life, I know I have; I've upset everything in your +mind as well; in your sense of--what shall I call it?--all the +decencies and possibilities. It gives me a kind of detestation--" +She pulled up short. + +Oh but he wanted to hear. "Detestation of what?" + +"Of everything--of life." + +"Ah that's too much," he laughed--"or too little!" + +"Too little, precisely"--she was eager. "What I hate is myself-- +when I think that one has to take so much, to be happy, out of the +lives of others, and that one isn't happy even then. One does it +to cheat one's self and to stop one's mouth--but that's only at the +best for a little. The wretched self is always there, always +making one somehow a fresh anxiety. What it comes to is that it's +not, that it's never, a happiness, any happiness at all, to TAKE. +The only safe thing is to give. It's what plays you least false." +Interesting, touching, strikingly sincere as she let these things +come from her, she yet puzzled and troubled him--so fine was the +quaver of her quietness. He felt what he had felt before with her, +that there was always more behind what she showed, and more and +more again behind that. "You know so, at least," she added, "where +you are!" + +"YOU ought to know it indeed then; for isn't what you've been +giving exactly what has brought us together this way? You've been +making, as I've so fully let you know I've felt," Strether said, +"the most precious present I've ever seen made, and if you can't +sit down peacefully on that performance you ARE, no doubt, born to +torment yourself. But you ought," he wound up, "to be easy." + +"And not trouble you any more, no doubt--not thrust on you even the +wonder and the beauty of what I've done; only let you regard our +business as over, and well over, and see you depart in a peace that +matches my own? No doubt, no doubt, no doubt," she nervously +repeated--"all the more that I don't really pretend I believe you +couldn't, for yourself, NOT have done what you have. I don't +pretend you feel yourself victimised, for this evidently is the way +you live, and it's what--we're agreed--is the best way. Yes, as +you say," she continued after a moment, "I ought to be easy and +rest on my work. Well then here am I doing so. I AM easy. You'll +have it for your last impression. When is it you say you go?" she +asked with a quick change. + +He took some time to reply--his last impression was more and more +so mixed a one. It produced in him a vague disappointment, a drop +that was deeper even than the fall of his elation the previous +night. The good of what he had done, if he had done so much, wasn't +there to enliven him quite to the point that would have been ideal +for a grand gay finale. Women were thus endlessly absorbent, and +to deal with them was to walk on water. What was at bottom the matter +with her, embroider as she might and disclaim as she might-- +what was at bottom the matter with her was simply Chad himself. +It was of Chad she was after all renewedly afraid; the strange +strength of her passion was the very strength of her fear; she clung +to HIM, Lambert Strether, as to a source of safety she had tested, +and, generous graceful truthful as she might try to be, exquisite +as she was, she dreaded the term of his being within reach. +With this sharpest perception yet, it was like a chill in the air +to him, it was almost appalling, that a creature so fine could be, +by mysterious forces, a creature so exploited. For at the end +of all things they WERE mysterious: she had but made Chad what +he was--so why could she think she had made him infinite? +She had made him better, she had made him best, she had made him +anything one would; but it came to our friend with supreme +queerness that he was none the less only Chad. Strether had the +sense that HE, a little, had made him too; his high appreciation +had as it were, consecrated her work The work, however admirable, +was nevertheless of the strict human order, and in short it was +marvellous that the companion of mere earthly joys, of comforts, +aberrations (however one classed them) within the common experience +should be so transcendently prized. It might have made Strether +hot or shy, as such secrets of others brought home sometimes do +make us; but he was held there by something so hard that it was +fairly grim. This was not the discomposure of last night; that had +quite passed--such discomposures were a detail; the real coercion +was to see a man ineffably adored. There it was again--it took +women, it took women; if to deal with them was to walk on water +what wonder that the water rose? And it had never surely risen +higher than round this woman. He presently found himself taking a +long look from her, and the next thing he knew he had uttered all +his thought. "You're afraid for your life!" + +It drew out her long look, and he soon enough saw why. A spasm +came into her face, the tears she had already been unable to hide +overflowed at first in silence, and then, as the sound suddenly +comes from a child, quickened to gasps, to sobs. She sat and +covered her face with her hands, giving up all attempt at a manner. +"It's how you see me, it's how you see me"--she caught her breath +with it--"and it's as I AM, and as I must take myself, and of +course it's no matter." Her emotion was at first so incoherent that +he could only stand there at a loss, stand with his sense of having +upset her, though of having done it by the truth. He had to listen +to her in a silence that he made no immediate effort to attenuate, +feeling her doubly woeful amid all her dim diffused elegance; +consenting to it as he had consented to the rest, and even +conscious of some vague inward irony in the presence of such a fine +free range of bliss and bale. He couldn't say it was NOT no +matter; for he was serving her to the end, he now knew, anyway-- +quite as if what he thought of her had nothing to do with it. +It was actually moreover as if he didn't think of her at all, +as if he could think of nothing but the passion, mature, abysmal, +pitiful, she represented, and the possibilities she betrayed. +She was older for him to-night, visibly less exempt from the +touch of time; but she was as much as ever the finest and +subtlest creature, the happiest apparition, it had been given him, +in all his years, to meet; and yet he could see her there as +vulgarly troubled, in very truth, as a maidservant crying for +her young man. The only thing was that she judged herself as +the maidservant wouldn't; the weakness of which wisdom too, +the dishonour of which judgement, seemed but to sink her lower. +Her collapse, however, no doubt, was briefer and she had in a +manner recovered herself before he intervened. "Of course +I'm afraid for my life. But that's nothing. It isn't that." + +He was silent a little longer, as if thinking what it might be. +"There's something I have in mind that I can still do." + +But she threw off at last, with a sharp sad headshake, drying her +eyes, what he could still do. "I don't care for that. Of course, +as I've said, you're acting, in your wonderful way, for yourself; +and what's for yourself is no more my business--though I may reach +out unholy hands so clumsily to touch it--than if it were something +in Timbuctoo. It's only that you don't snub me, as you've had +fifty chances to do--it's only your beautiful patience that makes +one forget one's manners. In spite of your patience, all the +same," she went on, "you'd do anything rather than be with us here, +even if that were possible. You'd do everything for us but be +mixed up with us--which is a statement you can easily answer to the +advantage of your own manners. You can say 'What's the use of +talking of things that at the best are impossible?' What IS of +course the use? It's only my little madness. You'd talk if you +were tormented. And I don't mean now about HIM. Oh for him--!" +Positively, strangely, bitterly, as it seemed to Strether, she gave +"him," for the moment, away. "You don't care what I think of you; +but I happen to care what you think of me. And what you MIGHT," +she added. "What you perhaps even did." + +He gained time. "What I did--?" + +"Did think before. Before this. DIDn't you think--?" + +But he had already stopped her. "I didn't think anything. I +never think a step further than I'm obliged to." + +"That's perfectly false, I believe," she returned--"except that you +may, no doubt, often pull up when things become TOO ugly; or even, +I'll say, to save you a protest, too beautiful. At any rate, even +so far as it's true, we've thrust on you appearances that you've +had to take in and that have therefore made your obligation. Ugly +or beautiful--it doesn't matter what we call them--you were +getting on without them, and that's where we're detestable. We +bore you--that's where we are. And we may well--for what we've +cost you. All you can do NOW is not to think at all. And I who +should have liked to seem to you--well, sublime!" + +He could only after a moment re-echo Miss Barrace. "You're +wonderful!" + +"I'm old and abject and hideous"--she went on as without hearing +him. "Abject above all. Or old above all. It's when one's old +that it's worst. I don't care what becomes of it--let what WILL; +there it is. It's a doom--I know it; you can't see it more than I +do myself. Things have to happen as they will." With which she +came back again to what, face to face with him, had so quite broken +down. "Of course you wouldn't, even if possible, and no matter +what may happen to you, be near us. But think of me, think of me--!" +She exhaled it into air. + +He took refuge in repeating something he had already said and that +she had made nothing of. "There's something I believe I can still +do." And he put his hand out for good-bye. + +She again made nothing of it; she went on with her insistence. +"That won't help you. There's nothing to help you." + +"Well, it may help YOU," he said. + +She shook her head. "There's not a grain of certainty in my +future--for the only certainty is that I shall be the loser in the +end." + +She hadn't taken his hand, but she moved with him to the door. +"That's cheerful," he laughed, "for your benefactor!" + +"What's cheerful for ME," she replied, "is that we might, you and +I, have been friends. That's it--that's it. You see how, as I +say, I want everything. I've wanted you too." + +"Ah but you've HAD me!" he declared, at the door, with an emphasis +that made an end. + + + +III + + +His purpose had been to see Chad the next day, and he had prefigured +seeing him by an early call; having in general never stood on ceremony +in respect to visits at the Boulevard Malesherbes. It had been +more often natural for him to go there than for Chad to come to the +small hotel, the attractions of which were scant; yet it nevertheless, +just now, at the eleventh hour, did suggest itself to Strether to begin +by giving the young man a chance. It struck him that, in the +inevitable course, Chad would be "round," as Waymarsh used to say-- +Waymarsh who already, somehow, seemed long ago. He hadn't come the +day before, because it had been arranged between them that Madame de Vionnet +should see their friend first; but now that this passage had taken place +he would present himself, and their friend wouldn't have long to wait. +Strether assumed, he became aware, on this reasoning, that the +interesting parties to the arrangement would have met betimes, and +that the more interesting of the two--as she was after all--would +have communicated to the other the issue of her appeal. Chad would +know without delay that his mother's messenger had been with her, +and, though it was perhaps not quite easy to see how she could +qualify what had occurred, he would at least have been sufficiently +advised to feel he could go on. The day, however, brought, early +or late, no word from him, and Strether felt, as a result of this, +that a change had practically come over their intercourse. It was +perhaps a premature judgement; or it only meant perhaps--how could +he tell?--that the wonderful pair he protected had taken up again +together the excursion he had accidentally checked. They might +have gone back to the country, and gone back but with a long breath drawn; +that indeed would best mark Chad's sense that reprobation hadn't +rewarded Madame de Vionnet's request for an interview. At the end of +the twenty-four hours, at the end of the forty-eight, there was still +no overture; so that Strether filled up the time, as he had so often +filled it before, by going to see Miss Gostrey. + +He proposed amusements to her; he felt expert now in proposing +amusements; and he had thus, for several days, an odd sense of +leading her about Paris, of driving her in the Bois, of showing her +the penny steamboats--those from which the breeze of the Seine was +to be best enjoyed--that might have belonged to a kindly uncle +doing the honours of the capital to an Intelligent niece from the +country. He found means even to take her to shops she didn't +know, or that she pretended she didn't; while she, on her side, +was, like the country maiden, all passive modest and grateful-- +going in fact so far as to emulate rusticity in occasional fatigues +and bewilderments. Strether described these vague proceedings to +himself, described them even to her, as a happy interlude; the sign +of which was that the companions said for the time no further word +about the matter they had talked of to satiety. He proclaimed +satiety at the outset, and she quickly took the hint; as docile +both in this and in everything else as the intelligent obedient +niece. He told her as yet nothing of his late adventure--for as +an adventure it now ranked with him; he pushed the whole business +temporarily aside and found his interest in the fact of her +beautiful assent. She left questions unasked--she who for so long +had been all questions; she gave herself up to him with an +understanding of which mere mute gentleness might have seemed the +sufficient expression. She knew his sense of his situation had +taken still another step--of that he was quite aware; but she +conveyed that, whatever had thus happened for him, it was thrown +into the shade by what was happening for herself. This--though it +mightn't to a detached spirit have seemed much--was the major +interest, and she met it with a new directness of response, +measuring it from hour to hour with her grave hush of acceptance. +Touched as he had so often been by her before, he was, for his part +too, touched afresh; all the more that though he could be duly +aware of the principle of his own mood he couldn't be equally so +of the principle of hers. He knew, that is, in a manner--knew +roughly and resignedly--what he himself was hatching; whereas he +had to take the chance of what he called to himself Maria's +calculations. It was all he needed that she liked him enough for +what they were doing, and even should they do a good deal more +would still like him enough for that; the essential freshness of a +relation so simple was a cool bath to the soreness produced by +other relations. These others appeared to him now horribly +complex; they bristled with fine points, points all unimaginable +beforehand, points that pricked and drew blood; a fact that gave to +an hour with his present friend on a bateau-mouche, or in the +afternoon shade of the Champs Elysees, something of the innocent +pleasure of handling rounded ivory. His relation with Chad +personally--from the moment he had got his point of view--had been +of the simplest; yet this also struck him as bristling, after a +third and a fourth blank day had passed. It was as if at last +however his care for such indications had dropped; there came a +fifth blank day and he ceased to enquire or to heed. + +They now took on to his fancy, Miss Gostrey and he, the image of +the Babes in the Wood; they could trust the merciful elements to +let them continue at peace. He had been great already, as he knew, +at postponements; but he had only to get afresh into the rhythm of +one to feel its fine attraction. It amused him to say to himself +that he might for all the world have been going to die--die resignedly; +the scene was filled for him with so deep a death-bed hush, so +melancholy a charm. That meant the postponement of everything else-- +which made so for the quiet lapse of life; and the postponement +in especial of the reckoning to come--unless indeed the reckoning +to come were to be one and the same thing with extinction. It faced +him, the reckoning, over the shoulder of much interposing experience-- +which also faced him; and one would float to it doubtless duly +through these caverns of Kubla Khan. It was really behind everything; +it hadn't merged in what he had done; his final appreciation of what +he had done--his appreciation on the spot--would provide it with +its main sharpness. The spot so focussed was of course Woollett, +and he was to see, at the best, what Woollett would be with everything +there changed for him. Wouldn't THAT revelation practically amount to +the wind-up of his career? Well, the summer's end would show; +his suspense had meanwhile exactly the sweetness of vain delay; +and he had with it, we should mention, other pastimes than Maria's +company--plenty of separate musings in which his luxury failed him +but at one point. He was well in port, the outer sea behind him, +and it was only a matter of getting ashore. There was a question +that came and went for him, however, as he rested against the +side of his ship, and it was a little to get rid of the obsession +that he prolonged his hours with Miss Gostrey. It was a question +about himself, but it could only be settled by seeing Chad again; +it was indeed his principal reason for wanting to see Chad. +After that it wouldn't signify--it was a ghost that certain words +would easily lay to rest. Only the young man must be there to +take the words. Once they were taken he wouldn't have a question left; +none, that is, in connexion with this particular affair. It wouldn't +then matter even to himself that he might now have been guilty of +speaking BECAUSE of what he had forfeited. That was the refinement +of his supreme scruple--he wished so to leave what he had forfeited +out of account. He wished not to do anything because he had missed +something else, because he was sore or sorry or impoverished, +because he was maltreated or desperate; he wished to do everything +because he was lucid and quiet, just the same for himself on all +essential points as he had ever been. Thus it was that while he +virtually hung about for Chad he kept mutely putting it: "You've +been chucked, old boy; but what has that to do with it?" It would +have sickened him to feel vindictive. + +These tints of feeling indeed were doubtless but the iridescence of +his idleness, and they were presently lost in a new light from +Maria. She had a fresh fact for him before the week was out, and +she practically met him with it on his appearing one night. He hadn't +on this day seen her, but had planned presenting himself in due course +to ask her to dine with him somewhere out of doors, on one of the +terraces, in one of the gardens, of which the Paris of summer was +profuse. It had then come on to rain, so that, disconcerted, he changed +his mind; dining alone at home, a little stuffily and stupidly, and +waiting on her afterwards to make up his loss. He was sure within a +minute that something had happened; it was so in the air of the rich +little room that he had scarcely to name his thought. Softly lighted, +the whole colour of the place, with its vague values, was in cool +fusion--an effect that made the visitor stand for a little agaze. It +was as if in doing so now he had felt a recent presence--his recognition +of the passage of which his hostess in turn divined. She had scarcely +to say it--"Yes, she has been here, and this time I received her." It +wasn't till a minute later that she added: "There being, as I +understand you, no reason NOW--!" + +"None for your refusing?" + +"No--if you've done what you've had to do." + +"I've certainly so far done it," Strether said, "as that you needn't +fear the effect, or the appearance of coming between us. There's +nothing between us now but what we ourselves have put there, and +not an inch of room for anything else whatever. Therefore you're +only beautifully WITH us as always--though doubtless now, if she +has talked to you, rather more with us than less. Of course if +she came," he added, "it was to talk to you." + +"It was to talk to me," Maria returned; on which he was further +sure that she was practically in possession of what he himself hadn't +yet told her. He was even sure she was in possession of things +he himself couldn't have told; for the consciousness of them was +now all in her face and accompanied there with a shade of sadness +that marked in her the close of all uncertainties. It came out for +him more than ever yet that she had had from the first a knowledge +she believed him not to have had, a knowledge the sharp acquisition +of which might be destined to make a difference for him. The +difference for him might not inconceivably be an arrest of his +independence and a change in his attitude--in other words a +revulsion in favour of the principles of Woollett. She had really +prefigured the possibility of a shock that would send him swinging +back to Mrs. Newsome. He hadn't, it was true, week after week, +shown signs of receiving it, but the possibility had been none the +less in the air. What Maria accordingly had had now to take in was +that the shock had descended and that he hadn't, all the same, +swung back. He had grown clear, in a flash, on a point long since +settled for herself; but no reapproximation to Mrs. Newsome had +occurred in consequence. Madame de Vionnet had by her visit held +up the torch to these truths, and what now lingered in poor Maria's +face was the somewhat smoky light of the scene between them. +If the light however wasn't, as we have hinted, the glow of joy, +the reasons for this also were perhaps discernible to Strether even +through the blur cast over them by his natural modesty. She had +held herself for months with a firm hand; she hadn't interfered on +any chance--and chances were specious enough--that she might +interfere to her profit. She had turned her back on the dream that +Mrs. Newsome's rupture, their friend's forfeiture--the engagement +the relation itself, broken beyond all mending--might furnish forth +her advantage; and, to stay her hand from promoting these things, +she had on private, difficult, but rigid, lines, played strictly +fair. She couldn't therefore but feel that, though, as the end of +all, the facts in question had been stoutly confirmed, her ground +for personal, for what might have been called interested, elation +remained rather vague. Strether might easily have made out that +she had been asking herself, in the hours she had just sat through, +if there were still for her, or were only not, a fair shade of +uncertainty. Let us hasten to add, however, that what he at first +made out on this occasion he also at first kept to himself. He +only asked what in particular Madame de Vionnet had come for, +and as to this his companion was ready. + +"She wants tidings of Mr. Newsome, whom she appears not to have +seen for some days." + +"Then she hasn't been away with him again?" + +"She seemed to think," Maria answered, "that he might have gone +away with YOU." + +"And did you tell her I know nothing of him?" + +She had her indulgent headshake. "I've known nothing of what you +know. I could only tell her I'd ask you." + +"Then I've not seen him for a week--and of course I've wondered." +His wonderment showed at this moment as sharper, but he presently +went on. "Still, I dare say I can put my hand on him. Did she +strike you," he asked, "as anxious?" + +"She's always anxious." + +"After all I've done for her?" And he had one of the last flickers +of his occasional mild mirth. "To think that was just what I came +out to prevent!" + +She took it up but to reply. "You don't regard him then as safe?" + +"I was just going to ask you how in that respect you regard Madame +de Vionnet." + +She looked at him a little. "What woman was EVER safe? She told +me," she added--and it was as if at the touch of the connexion-- +"of your extraordinary meeting in the country. After that a quoi +se fier?" + +"It was, as an accident, in all the possible or impossible chapter," +Strether conceded, "amazing enough. But still, but still--!" + +"But still she didn't mind?" + +"She doesn't mind anything." + +"Well, then, as you don't either, we may all sink to rest!" + +He appeared to agree with her, but he had his reservation. +"I do mind Chad's disappearance." + +"Oh you'll get him back. But now you know," she said, "why I went +to Mentone." He had sufficiently let her see that he had by this +time gathered things together, but there was nature in her wish to +make them clearer still. "I didn't want you to put it to me." + +"To put it to you--?" + +"The question of what you were at last--a week ago--to see for +yourself. I didn't want to have to lie for her. I felt that to +be too much for me. A man of course is always expected to do it-- +to do it, I mean, for a woman; but not a woman for another woman; +unless perhaps on the tit-for-tat principle, as an indirect way of +protecting herself. I don't need protection, so that I was free to +'funk' you--simply to dodge your test. The responsibility was too +much for me. I gained time, and when I came back the need of a +test had blown over." + +Strether thought of it serenely. "Yes; when you came back little +Bilham had shown me what's expected of a gentleman. Little Bilham +had lied like one." + +"And like what you believed him?" + +"Well," said Strether, "it was but a technical lie--he classed the +attachment as virtuous. That was a view for which there was much +to be said--and the virtue came out for me hugely There was of +course a great deal of it. I got it full in the face, and I haven't, +you see, done with it yet." + +"What I see, what I saw," Maria returned, "is that you dressed up +even the virtue. You were wonderful--you were beautiful, as I've +had the honour of telling you before; but, if you wish really to +know," she sadly confessed, "I never quite knew WHERE you were. +There were moments," she explained, "when you struck me as grandly +cynical; there were others when you struck me as grandly vague." + +Her friend considered. "I had phases. I had flights." + +"Yes, but things must have a basis." + +"A basis seemed to me just what her beauty supplied." + +"Her beauty of person?" + +"Well, her beauty of everything. The impression she makes. She +has such variety and yet such harmony." + +She considered him with one of her deep returns of indulgence-- +returns out of all proportion to the irritations they flooded over. +"You're complete." + +"You're always too personal," he good-humouredly said; "but that's +precisely how I wondered and wandered." + +"If you mean," she went on, "that she was from the first for you +the most charming woman in the world, nothing's more simple. Only +that was an odd foundation." + +"For what I reared on it?" + +"For what you didn't!" + +"Well, it was all not a fixed quantity. And it had for me--it has +still--such elements of strangeness. Her greater age than his, her +different world, traditions, association; her other opportunities, +liabilities, standards." + +His friend listened with respect to his enumeration of these +disparities; then she disposed of them at a stroke. "Those things +are nothing when a woman's hit. It's very awful. She was hit." + +Strether, on his side, did justice to that plea. "Oh of course I +saw she was hit. That she was hit was what we were busy with; that +she was hit was our great affair. But somehow I couldn't think of +her as down in the dust. And as put there by OUR little Chad!" + +"Yet wasn't 'your' little Chad just your miracle?" + +Strether admitted it. "Of course I moved among miracles. It was +all phantasmagoric. But the great fact was that so much of it was +none of my business--as I saw my business. It isn't even now." + +His companion turned away on this, and it might well have been yet +again with the sharpness of a fear of how little his philosophy +could bring her personally. "I wish SHE could hear you!" + +"Mrs. Newsome?" + +"No--not Mrs. Newsome; since I understand you that it doesn't +matter now what Mrs. Newsome hears. Hasn't she heard +everything?" + +"Practically--yes." He had thought a moment, but he went on. "You +wish Madame de Vionnet could hear me?" + +"Madame de Vionnet." She had come back to him. "She thinks just +the contrary of what you say. That you distinctly judge her." + +He turned over the scene as the two women thus placed together for +him seemed to give it. "She might have known--!" + +"Might have known you don't?" Miss Gostrey asked as he let it drop. +"She was sure of it at first," she pursued as he said nothing; "she +took it for granted, at least, as any woman in her position would. +But after that she changed her mind; she believed you believed--" + +"Well?"--he was curious. + +"Why in her sublimity. And that belief had remained with her, I +make out, till the accident of the other day opened your eyes. For +that it did," said Maria, "open them--" + +"She can't help"--he had taken it up--"being aware? No," he mused; +"I suppose she thinks of that even yet." + +"Then they WERE closed? There you are! However, if you see her as +the most charming woman in the world it comes to the same thing. +And if you'd like me to tell her that you do still so see her--!" +Miss Gostrey, in short, offered herself for service to the end. + +It was an offer he could temporarily entertain; but he decided. +"She knows perfectly how I see her." + +"Not favourably enough, she mentioned to me, to wish ever to see +her again. She told me you had taken a final leave of her. She +says you've done with her." + +"So I have." + +Maria had a pause; then she spoke as if for conscience. "She +wouldn't have done with YOU. She feels she has lost you-- +yet that she might have been better for you." + +"Oh she has been quite good enough!" Strether laughed. + +"She thinks you and she might at any rate have been friends." + +"We might certainly. That's just"--he continued to laugh-- +"why I'm going." + +It was as if Maria could feel with this then at last that she had +done her best for each. But she had still an idea. "Shall I tell +her that?" + +"No. Tell her nothing." + +"Very well then." To which in the next breath Miss Gostrey added: +"Poor dear thing!" + +Her friend wondered; then with raised eyebrows: "Me?" + +"Oh no. Marie de Vionnet." + +He accepted the correction, but he wondered still. "Are you so +sorry for her as that?" + +It made her think a moment--made her even speak with a smile. But +she didn't really retract. "I'm sorry for us all!" + + + +IV + +He was to delay no longer to re-establish communication with Chad, +and we have just seen that he had spoken to Miss Gostrey of this +intention on hearing from her of the young man's absence. It was +not moreover only the assurance so given that prompted him; it was +the need of causing his conduct to square with another profession +still--the motive he had described to her as his sharpest for now +getting away. If he was to get away because of some of the +relations involved in staying, the cold attitude toward them might +look pedantic in the light of lingering on. He must do both +things; he must see Chad, but he must go. The more he thought of +the former of these duties the more he felt himself make a subject +of insistence of the latter. They were alike intensely present to +him as he sat in front of a quiet little cafe into which he had +dropped on quitting Maria's entresol. The rain that had spoiled +his evening with her was over; for it was still to him as if his +evening HAD been spoiled--though it mightn't have been wholly the +rain. It was late when he left the cafe, yet not too late; he +couldn't in any case go straight to bed, and he would walk round +by the Boulevard Malesherbes--rather far round--on his way home. +Present enough always was the small circumstance that had +originally pressed for him the spring of so big a difference--the +accident of little Bilham's appearance on the balcony of the mystic +troisieme at the moment of his first visit, and the effect of it on +his sense of what was then before him. He recalled his watch, his +wait, and the recognition that had proceeded from the young +stranger, that had played frankly into the air and had presently +brought him up--things smoothing the way for his first straight +step. He had since had occasion, a few times, to pass the house +without going in; but he had never passed it without again feeling +how it had then spoken to him. He stopped short to-night on coming +to sight of it: it was as if his last day were oddly copying his +first. The windows of Chad's apartment were open to the balcony-- +a pair of them lighted; and a figure that had come out and taken up +little Bilham's attitude, a figure whose cigarette-spark he could +see leaned on the rail and looked down at him. It denoted however +no reappearance of his younger friend; it quickly defined itself in +the tempered darkness as Chad's more solid shape; so that Chad's +was the attention that after he had stepped forward into the street +and signalled, he easily engaged; Chad's was the voice that, +sounding into the night with promptness and seemingly with joy, +greeted him and called him up. + +That the young man had been visible there just in this position +expressed somehow for Strether that, as Maria Gostrey had reported, +he had been absent and silent; and our friend drew breath on each +landing--the lift, at that hour, having ceased to work--before the +implications of the fact. He had been for a week intensely away, +away to a distance and alone; but he was more back than ever, and +the attitude in which Strether had surprised him was something more +than a return--it was clearly a conscious surrender. He had +arrived but an hour before, from London, from Lucerne, from Homburg, +from no matter where--though the visitor's fancy, on the staircase, +liked to fill it out; and after a bath, a talk with Baptiste and a +supper of light cold clever French things, which one could see the +remains of there in the circle of the lamp, pretty and ultra-Parisian, +he had come into the air again for a smoke, was occupied at the moment +of Strether's approach in what might have been called taking up +his life afresh. His life, his life!--Strether paused anew, on +the last flight, at this final rather breathless sense of what +Chad's life was doing with Chad's mother's emissary. It was +dragging him, at strange hours, up the staircases of the rich; +it was keeping him out of bed at the end of long hot days; +it was transforming beyond recognition the simple, subtle, +conveniently uniform thing that had anciently passed with him for a +life of his own. Why should it concern him that Chad was to be +fortified in the pleasant practice of smoking on balconies, of +supping on salads, of feeling his special conditions agreeably +reaffirm themselves, of finding reassurance in comparisons and +contrasts? There was no answer to such a question but that he was +still practically committed--he had perhaps never yet so much known it. +It made him feel old, and he would buy his railway-ticket--feeling, +no doubt, older--the next day; but he had meanwhile come up four +flights, counting the entresol, at midnight and without a lift, for +Chad's life. The young man, hearing him by this time, and with +Baptiste sent to rest, was already at the door; so that Strether +had before him in full visibility the cause in which he was labouring +and even, with the troisieme fairly gained, panting a little. + +Chad offered him, as always, a welcome in which the cordial and the +formal--so far as the formal was the respectful--handsomely met; +and after he had expressed a hope that he would let him put him up +for the night Strether was in full possession of the key, as it +might have been called, to what had lately happened. If he had +just thought of himself as old Chad was at sight of him thinking of +him as older: he wanted to put him up for the night just because +he was ancient and weary. It could never be said the tenant of +these quarters wasn't nice to him; a tenant who, if he might +indeed now keep him, was probably prepared to work it all still +more thoroughly. Our friend had in fact the impression that with +the minimum of encouragement Chad would propose to keep him +indefinitely; an impression in the lap of which one of his own +possibilities seemed to sit. Madame de Vionnet had wished him to +stay--so why didn't that happily fit? He could enshrine himself +for the rest of his days in his young host's chambre d'ami and draw +out these days at his young host's expense: there could scarce be +greater logical expression of the countenance he had been moved to +give. There was literally a minute--it was strange enough--during +which he grasped the idea that as he WAS acting, as he could only +act, he was inconsistent. The sign that the inward forces he had +obeyed really hung together would be that--in default always of +another career--he should promote the good cause by mounting guard +on it. These things, during his first minutes, came and went; but +they were after all practically disposed of as soon as he had +mentioned his errand. He had come to say good-bye--yet that was +only a part; so that from the moment Chad accepted his farewell the +question of a more ideal affirmation gave way to something else. +He proceeded with the rest of his business. "You'll be a brute, you +know--you'll be guilty of the last infamy--if you ever forsake her." + +That, uttered there at the solemn hour, uttered in the place that +was full of her influence, was the rest of his business; and when +once he had heard himself say it he felt that his message had never +before been spoken. It placed his present call immediately on +solid ground, and the effect of it was to enable him quite to play +with what we have called the key. Chad showed no shade of +embarrassment, but had none the less been troubled for him after +their meeting in the country; had had fears and doubts on the +subject of his comfort. He was disturbed, as it were, only FOR +him, and had positively gone away to ease him off, to let him down-- +if it wasn't indeed rather to screw him up--the more gently. +Seeing him now fairly jaded he had come, with characteristic good +humour, all the way to meet him, and what Strether thereupon +supremely made out was that he would abound for him to the end in +conscientious assurances. This was what was between them while the +visitor remained; so far from having to go over old ground he found +his entertainer keen to agree to everything. It couldn't be put +too strongly for him that he'd be a brute. "Oh rather!--if I should +do anything of THAT sort. I hope you believe I really feel it." + +"I want it," said Strether, "to be my last word of all to you. +I can't say more, you know; and I don't see how I can do more, +in every way, than I've done." + +Chad took this, almost artlessly, as a direct allusion. "You've +seen her?" + +"Oh yes--to say good-bye. And if I had doubted the truth of what I +tell you--" + +"She'd have cleared up your doubt?" Chad understood--"rather"-- +again! It even kept him briefly silent. But he made that up. +"She must have been wonderful." + +"She WAS," Strether candidly admitted--all of which practically +told as a reference to the conditions created by the accident of +the previous week. + +They appeared for a little to be looking back at it; and that came +out still more in what Chad next said. "I don't know what you've +really thought, all along; I never did know--for anything, with +you, seemed to be possible. But of course--of course--" Without +confusion, quite with nothing but indulgence, he broke down, he +pulled up. "After all, you understand. I spoke to you originally +only as I HAD to speak. There's only one way--isn't there?--about +such things. However," he smiled with a final philosophy, "I see +it's all right." + +Strether met his eyes with a sense of multiplying thoughts. What +was it that made him at present, late at night and after journeys, +so renewedly, so substantially young? Strether saw in a moment +what it was--it was that he was younger again than Madame de Vionnet. +He himself said immediately none of the things that he was thinking; +he said something quite different. "You HAVE really been to a distance?" + +"I've been to England." Chad spoke cheerfully and promptly, but gave +no further account of it than to say: "One must sometimes get off." + +Strether wanted no more facts--he only wanted to justify, as it +were, his question. "Of course you do as you're free to do. But I +hope, this time, that you didn't go for ME." + +"For very shame at bothering you really too much? My dear man," +Chad laughed, "what WOULDn't I do for you?" + +Strether's easy answer for this was that it was a disposition he +had exactly come to profit by. "Even at the risk of being in your +way I've waited on, you know, for a definite reason." + +Chad took it in. "Oh yes--for us to make if possible a still +better impression." And he stood there happily exhaling his full +general consciousness. "I'm delighted to gather that you feel +we've made it." + +There was a pleasant irony in the words, which his guest, +preoccupied and keeping to the point, didn't take up. "If I had +my sense of wanting the rest of the time--the time of their being +still on this side," he continued to explain--"I know now why I +wanted it." + +He was as grave, as distinct, as a demonstrator before a +blackboard, and Chad continued to face him like an intelligent +pupil. "You wanted to have been put through the whole thing." + +Strether again, for a moment, said nothing; he turned his eyes +away, and they lost themselves, through the open window, in the +dusky outer air. "I shall learn from the Bank here where they're +now having their letters, and my last word, which I shall write in +the morning and which they're expecting as my ultimatum, will so +immediately reach them." The light of his plural pronoun was +sufficiently reflected in his companion's face as he again met it; +and he completed his demonstration. He pursued indeed as if for +himself. "Of course I've first to justify what I shall do." + +"You're justifying it beautifully!" Chad declared. + +"It's not a question of advising you not to go," Strether said, "but +of absolutely preventing you, if possible, from so much as thinking +of it. Let me accordingly appeal to you by all you hold sacred." + +Chad showed a surprise. "What makes you think me capable--?" + +"You'd not only be, as I say, a brute; you'd be," his companion +went on in the same way, "a criminal of the deepest dye." + +Chad gave a sharper look, as if to gauge a possible suspicion. +"I don't know what should make you think I'm tired of her." + +Strether didn't quite know either, and such impressions, for the +imaginative mind, were always too fine, too floating, to produce on +the spot their warrant. There was none the less for him, in the +very manner of his host's allusion to satiety as a thinkable +motive, a slight breath of the ominous. "I feel how much more she +can do for you. She hasn't done it all yet. Stay with her at +least till she has." + +"And leave her THEN?" + +Chad had kept smiling, but its effect in Strether was a shade of +dryness. "Don't leave her BEFORE. When you've got all that can be +got--I don't say," he added a trifle grimly. "That will be the +proper time. But as, for you, from such a woman, there will always +be something to be got, my remark's not a wrong to her." Chad let +him go on, showing every decent deference, showing perhaps also a +candid curiosity for this sharper accent. "I remember you, you +know, as you were." + +"An awful ass, wasn't I?" + +The response was as prompt as if he had pressed a spring; it had a +ready abundance at which he even winced; so that he took a moment +to meet it. "You certainly then wouldn't have seemed worth all +you've let me in for. You've defined yourself better. Your value +has quintupled." + +"Well then, wouldn't that be enough--?" + +Chad had risked it jocosely, but Strether remained blank. "Enough?" + +"If one SHOULD wish to live on one's accumulations?" After which, +however, as his friend appeared cold to the joke, the young man as +easily dropped it. "Of course I really never forget, night or day, +what I owe her. I owe her everything. I give you my word of +honour," he frankly rang out, "that I'm not a bit tired of her." +Strether at this only gave him a stare: the way youth could +express itself was again and again a wonder. He meant no harm, +though he might after all be capable of much; yet he spoke of being +"tired" of her almost as he might have spoken of being tired of +roast mutton for dinner. "She has never for a moment yet bored me-- +never been wanting, as the cleverest women sometimes are, in tact. +She has never talked about her tact--as even they too sometimes talk; +but she has always had it. She has never had it more"--he handsomely +made the point--"than just lately." And he scrupulously went further. +"She has never been anything I could call a burden." + +Strether for a moment said nothing; then he spoke gravely, with his +shade of dryness deepened. "Oh if you didn't do her justice--!" + +"I SHOULD be a beast, eh?" + +Strether devoted no time to saying what he would be; THAT, visibly, +would take them far. If there was nothing for it but to repeat, +however, repetition was no mistake. "You owe her everything--very +much more than she can ever owe you. You've in other words duties +to her, of the most positive sort; and I don't see what other +duties--as the others are presented to you--can be held to go +before them." + +Chad looked at him with a smile. "And you know of course about the +others, eh?--since it's you yourself who have done the presenting." + +"Much of it--yes--and to the best of my ability. But not all--from +the moment your sister took my place." + +"She didn't," Chad returned. "Sally took a place, certainly; but +it was never, I saw from the first moment, to be yours. No one-- +with us--will ever take yours. It wouldn't be possible." + +"Ah of course," sighed Strether, "I knew it. I believe you're +right. No one in the world, I imagine, was ever so portentously +solemn. There I am," he added with another sigh, as if weary +enough, on occasion, of this truth. "I was made so." + +Chad appeared for a little to consider the way he was made; +he might for this purpose have measured him up and down. +His conclusion favoured the fact. "YOU have never needed any one +to make you better. There has never been any one good enough. +They couldn't," the young man declared. + +His friend hesitated. "I beg your pardon. They HAVE." + +Chad showed, not without amusement, his doubt. "Who then?" + +Strether--though a little dimly--smiled at him. "Women--too." + +"'Two'?"--Chad stared and laughed. "Oh I don't believe, for such +work, in any more than one! So you're proving too much. And what +IS beastly, at all events," he added, "is losing you." + +Strether had set himself in motion for departure, but at this he +paused. "Are you afraid?" + +"Afraid--?" + +"Of doing wrong. I mean away from my eye." Before Chad could +speak, however, he had taken himself up. "I AM, certainly," he +laughed, "prodigious." + +"Yes, you spoil us for all the stupid--!" This might have been, on +Chad's part, in its extreme emphasis, almost too freely +extravagant; but it was full, plainly enough, of the intention of +comfort, it carried with it a protest against doubt and a promise, +positively, of performance. Picking up a hat in the vestibule he +came out with his friend, came downstairs, took his arm, +affectionately, as to help and guide him, treating him if not +exactly as aged and infirm, yet as a noble eccentric who appealed +to tenderness, and keeping on with him, while they walked, to the +next corner and the next. "You needn't tell me, you needn't tell +me!"--this again as they proceeded, he wished to make Strether +feel. What he needn't tell him was now at last, in the geniality +of separation, anything at all it concerned him to know. He knew, +up to the hilt--that really came over Chad; he understood, felt, +recorded his vow; and they lingered on it as they had lingered in +their walk to Strether's hotel the night of their first meeting. +The latter took, at this hour, all he could get; he had given all +he had had to give; he was as depleted as if he had spent his last +sou. But there was just one thing for which, before they broke +off, Chad seemed disposed slightly to bargain. His companion needn't, +as he said, tell him, but he might himself mention that he had been +getting some news of the art of advertisement. He came out quite +suddenly with this announcement while Strether wondered if his revived +interest were what had taken him, with strange inconsequence, over +to London. He appeared at all events to have been looking into the +question and had encountered a revelation. Advertising scientifically +worked presented itself thus as the great new force. "It really +does the thing, you know." + +They were face to face under the street-lamp as they had been the +first night, and Strether, no doubt, looked blank. "Affects, you +mean, the sale of the object advertised?" + +"Yes--but affects it extraordinarily; really beyond what one had +supposed. I mean of course when it's done as one makes out that in +our roaring age, it CAN be done. I've been finding out a little, +though it doubtless doesn't amount to much more than what you +originally, so awfully vividly--and all, very nearly, that first +night--put before me. It's an art like another, and infinite like +all the arts." He went on as if for the joke of it--almost as if +his friend's face amused him. "In the hands, naturally, of a master. +The right man must take hold. With the right man to work it +c'est un monde." + +Strether had watched him quite as if, there on the pavement without +a pretext, he had begun to dance a fancy step. "Is what you're +thinking of that you yourself, in the case you have in mind, would +be the right man?" + +Chad had thrown back his light coat and thrust each of his thumbs +into an armhole of his waistcoat; in which position his fingers +played up and down. "Why, what is he but what you yourself, as I +say, took me for when you first came out?" + +Strether felt a little faint, but he coerced his attention. "Oh +yes, and there's no doubt that, with your natural parts, you'd have +much in common with him. Advertising is clearly at this time of +day the secret of trade. It's quite possible it will be open to you-- +giving the whole of your mind to it--to make the whole place hum +with you. Your mother's appeal is to the whole of your mind, and +that's exactly the strength of her case." + +Chad's fingers continued to twiddle, but he had something of a drop. +"Ah we've been through my mother's case!" + +"So I thought. Why then do you speak of the matter?" + +"Only because it was part of our original discussion. To wind up +where we began, my interest's purely platonic. There at any rate +the fact is--the fact of the possible. I mean the money in it." + +"Oh damn the money in it!" said Strether. And then as the young +man's fixed smile seemed to shine out more strange: "Shall you +give your friend up for the money in it?" + +Chad preserved his handsome grimace as well as the rest of his +attitude. "You're not altogether--in your so great 'solemnity'-- +kind. Haven't I been drinking you in--showing you all I feel +you're worth to me? What have I done, what am I doing, but cleave +to her to the death? The only thing is," he good-humouredly +explained, "that one can't but have it before one, in the cleaving-- +the point where the death comes in. Don't be afraid for THAT. +It's pleasant to a fellow's feelings," he developed, "to 'size-up' +the bribe he applies his foot to." + +"Oh then if all you want's a kickable surface the bribe's enormous." + +"Good. Then there it goes!" Chad administered his kick with fantastic +force and sent an imaginary object flying. It was accordingly as if +they were once more rid of the question and could come back to what +really concerned him. "Of course I shall see you tomorrow." + +But Strether scarce heeded the plan proposed for this; he had still +the impression--not the slighter for the simulated kick--of an +irrelevant hornpipe or jig. "You're restless." + +"Ah," returned Chad as they parted, "you're exciting." + + + +V + + +He had, however, within two days, another separation to face. +He had sent Maria Gostrey a word early, by hand, to ask if he might +come to breakfast; in consequence of which, at noon, she awaited +him in the cool shade of her little Dutch-looking dining-room. +This retreat was at the back of the house, with a view of a scrap +of old garden that had been saved from modern ravage; and though he +had on more than one other occasion had his legs under its small +and peculiarly polished table of hospitality, the place had never +before struck him as so sacred to pleasant knowledge, to intimate +charm, to antique order, to a neatness that was almost august. +To sit there was, as he had told his hostess before, to see life +reflected for the time in ideally kept pewter; which was somehow +becoming, improving to life, so that one's eyes were held and +comforted. Strether's were comforted at all events now--and the +more that it was the last time--with the charming effect, on the +board bare of a cloth and proud of its perfect surface, of the +small old crockery and old silver, matched by the more substantial +pieces happily disposed about the room. The specimens of vivid +Delf, in particular had the dignity of family portraits; and it was +in the midst of them that our friend resignedly expressed himself. +He spoke even with a certain philosophic humour. "There's nothing +more to wait for; I seem to have done a good day's work. I've let +them have it all round. I've seen Chad, who has been to London and +come back. He tells me I'm 'exciting,' and I seem indeed pretty +well to have upset every one. I've at any rate excited HIM. He's +distinctly restless." + +"You've excited ME," Miss Gostrey smiled. "I'M distinctly restless." + +"Oh you were that when I found you. It seems to me I've rather got +you out of it. What's this," he asked as he looked about him, "but +a haunt of ancient peace?" + +"I wish with all my heart," she presently replied, "I could make +you treat it as a haven of rest." On which they fronted each other, +across the table, as if things unuttered were in the air. + +Strether seemed, in his way, when he next spoke, to take some of +them up. "It wouldn't give me--that would be the trouble--what it +will, no doubt, still give you. I'm not," he explained, leaning +back in his chair, but with his eyes on a small ripe round melon-- +"in real harmony with what surrounds me. You ARE. I take it too hard. +You DON'T. It makes--that's what it comes to in the end--a fool of me." +Then at a tangent, "What has he been doing in London?" he demanded. + +"Ah one may go to London," Maria laughed. "You know I did." + +Yes--he took the reminder. "And you brought ME back." He brooded +there opposite to her, but without gloom. "Whom has Chad brought? +He's full of ideas. And I wrote to Sarah," he added, "the first +thing this morning. So I'm square. I'm ready for them." + +She neglected certain parts of this speech in the interest of +others. "Marie said to me the other day that she felt him to have +the makings of an immense man of business." + +"There it is. He's the son of his father!" + +"But SUCH a father!" + +"Ah just the right one from that point of view! But it isn't his +father in him," Strether added, "that troubles me." + +"What is it then?" He came back to his breakfast; he partook +presently of the charming melon, which she liberally cut for him; +and it was only after this that he met her question. Then moreover +it was but to remark that he'd answer her presently. She waited, +she watched, she served him and amused him, and it was perhaps with +this last idea that she soon reminded him of his having never even +yet named to her the article produced at Woollett. "Do you +remember our talking of it in London--that night at the play?" +Before he could say yes, however, she had put it to him for other +matters. Did he remember, did he remember--this and that of their +first days? He remembered everything, bringing up with humour +even things of which she professed no recollection, things she +vehemently denied; and falling back above all on the great +interest of their early time, the curiosity felt by both of them +as to where he would "come out." They had so assumed it was to be +in some wonderful place--they had thought of it as so very MUCH +out. Well, that was doubtless what it had been--since he had come +out just there. He was out, in truth, as far as it was possible +to be, and must now rather bethink himself of getting in again. +He found on the spot the image of his recent history; he was like +one of the figures of the old clock at Berne. THEY came out, on +one side, at their hour, jigged along their little course in the +public eye, and went in on the other side. He too had jigged his +little course--him too a modest retreat awaited. He offered now, +should she really like to know, to name the great product of +Woollett. It would be a great commentary on everything. At this +she stopped him off; she not only had no wish to know, but she +wouldn't know for the world. She had done with the products of +Woollett--for all the good she had got from them. She desired no +further news of them, and she mentioned that Madame de Vionnet +herself had, to her knowledge, lived exempt from the information +he was ready to supply. She had never consented to receive it, +though she would have taken it, under stress, from Mrs. Pocock. +But it was a matter about which Mrs. Pocock appeared to have had +little to say--never sounding the word--and it didn't signify +now. There was nothing clearly for Maria Gostrey that signified +now--save one sharp point, that is, to which she came in time. +"I don't know whether it's before you as a possibility that, +left to himself, Mr. Chad may after all go back. I judge that it +IS more or less so before you, from what you just now said of him." + +Her guest had his eyes on her, kindly but attentively, as if +foreseeing what was to follow this. "I don't think it will be for +the money." And then as she seemed uncertain: "I mean I don't +believe it will be for that he'll give her up." + +"Then he WILL give her up?" + +Strether waited a moment, rather slow and deliberate now, drawing +out a little this last soft stage, pleading with her in various +suggestive and unspoken ways for patience and understanding. +"What were you just about to ask me?" + +"Is there anything he can do that would make you patch it up?" + +"With Mrs. Newsome?" + +Her assent, as if she had had a delicacy about sounding the name, +was only in her face; but she added with it: "Or is there +anything he can do that would make HER try it?" + +"To patch it up with me?" His answer came at last in a conclusive +headshake. "There's nothing any one can do. It's over. Over for +both of us." + +Maria wondered, seemed a little to doubt. "Are you so sure for her?" + +"Oh yes--sure now. Too much has happened. I'm different for her." + +She took it in then, drawing a deeper breath. "I see. So that as +she's different for YOU--" + +"Ah but," he interrupted, "she's not." And as Miss Gostrey wondered +again: "She's the same. She's more than ever the same. +But I do what I didn't before--I SEE her." + +He spoke gravely and as if responsibly--since he had to pronounce; +and the effect of it was slightly solemn, so that she simply exclaimed +"Oh!" Satisfied and grateful, however, she showed in her own next +words an acceptance of his statement. "What then do you go home to?" + +He had pushed his plate a little away, occupied with another side +of the matter; taking refuge verily in that side and feeling so +moved that he soon found himself on his feet. He was affected in +advance by what he believed might come from her, and he would have +liked to forestall it and deal with it tenderly; yet in the +presence of it he wished still more to be--though as smoothly as +possible--deterrent and conclusive. He put her question by for +the moment; he told her more about Chad. "It would have been +impossible to meet me more than he did last night on the question +of the infamy of not sticking to her." + +"Is that what you called it for him--'infamy'?" + +"Oh rather! I described to him in detail the base creature he'd +be, and he quite agrees with me about it." + +"So that it's really as if you had nailed him?" + +"Quite really as if--! I told him I should curse him." + +"Oh," she smiled, "you HAVE done it." And then having thought again: +"You CAN'T after that propose--!" Yet she scanned his face. + +"Propose again to Mrs. Newsome?" + +She hesitated afresh, but she brought it out. "I've never believed, +you know, that you did propose. I always believed it was really she-- +and, so far as that goes, I can understand it. What I mean is," +she explained, "that with such a spirit--the spirit of curses!-- +your breach is past mending. She has only to know what you've done +to him never again to raise a finger." + +"I've done," said Strether, "what I could--one can't do more. +He protests his devotion and his horror. But I'm not sure I've +saved him. He protests too much. He asks how one can dream of +his being tired. But he has all life before him." + +Maria saw what he meant. "He's formed to please." + +"And it's our friend who has formed him." Strether felt in it the +strange irony. + +"So it's scarcely his fault!" + +"It's at any rate his danger. I mean," said Strether, "it's hers. +But she knows it." + +"Yes, she knows it. And is your idea," Miss Gostrey asked, "that +there was some other woman in London?" + +"Yes. No. That is I HAVE no ideas. I'm afraid of them. +I've done with them." And he put out his hand to her. "Good-bye." + +It brought her back to her unanswered question. "To what do you go +home?" + +"I don't know. There will always be something." + +"To a great difference," she said as she kept his hand. + +"A great difference--no doubt. Yet I shall see what I can make of it." + +"Shall you make anything so good--?" But, as if remembering what +Mrs. Newsome had done, it was as far as she went. + +He had sufficiently understood. "So good as this place at this +moment? So good as what YOU make of everything you touch?" +He took a moment to say, for, really and truly, what stood about him +there in her offer--which was as the offer of exquisite service, of +lightened care, for the rest of his days--might well have tempted. +It built him softly round, it roofed him warmly over, it rested, +all so firm, on selection. And what ruled selection was beauty and +knowledge. It was awkward, it was almost stupid, not to seem to +prize such things; yet, none the less, so far as they made his +opportunity they made it only for a moment. She'd moreover +understand--she always understood. + +That indeed might be, but meanwhile she was going on. +"There's nothing, you know, I wouldn't do for you." + +"Oh yes--I know." + +"There's nothing," she repeated, "in all the world." + +"I know. I know. But all the same I must go." He had got it at last. +"To be right." + +"To be right?" + +She had echoed it in vague deprecation, but he felt it already +clear for her. "That, you see, is my only logic. +Not, out of the whole affair, to have got anything for myself." + +She thought. "But with your wonderful impressions you'll have +got a great deal." + +"A great deal"--he agreed. "But nothing like YOU. It's you who +would make me wrong!" + +Honest and fine, she couldn't greatly pretend she didn't see it. +Still she could pretend just a little. "But why should you be so +dreadfully right?" + +"That's the way that--if I must go--you yourself would be the first +to want me. And I can't do anything else." + +So then she had to take it, though still with her defeated protest. +"It isn't so much your BEING 'right'--it's your horrible sharp eye +for what makes you so." + +"Oh but you're just as bad yourself. You can't resist me when I +point that out." + +She sighed it at last all comically, all tragically, away. +"I can't indeed resist you." + +"Then there we are!" said Strether. + + +This is the end of the Project Gutenberg Edition of The Ambassadors, +by Henry James. + + |