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book eleventhi [note: in the 1909 new york edition thefollowing 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 causedthem to be printed in reverse order. this etext, like other editions of the pastfour decades, corrects the apparent error.- -richard d. hathaway, preparer of thiselectronic text] he went late that evening to the boulevardmalesherbes, 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 nointimation; he had affairs, apparently, at this juncture--as it occurred to stretherhe so well might have--that kept him long abroad. our friend asked once for him at the hotelin the rue de rivoli, but the only contribution offered there was the factthat every one was out. it was with the idea that he would have tocome home to sleep that strether went up to his rooms, from which however he was stillabsent, though, from the balcony, a few moments later, his visitor heard eleveno'clock strike.

chad's servant had by this time answeredfor his reappearance; he had, the visitor learned, come quickly in to dress fordinner and vanish again. strether spent an hour in waiting for him--an hour full of strange suggestions, persuasions, recognitions; one of thosethat he was to recall, at the end of his adventure, as the particular handful thatmost had counted. the mellowest lamplight and the easiestchair had been placed at his disposal by baptiste, subtlest of servants; the novelhalf-uncut, the novel lemon-coloured and tender, with the ivory knife athwart it like the dagger in a contadina's hair, hadbeen pushed within the soft circle--a

circle which, for some reason, affectedstrether as softer still after the same baptiste had remarked that in the absence of a further need of anything by monsieurhe would betake himself to bed. the night was hot and heavy and the singlelamp sufficient; the great flare of the lighted city, rising high, spending itselfafar, played up from the boulevard and, through the vague vista of the successive rooms, brought objects into view and addedto their dignity. strether found himself in possession as henever 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 likea pang. he spent a long time on the balcony; hehung over it as he had seen little bilham hang the day of his first approach, as hehad 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 hecirculated and rested, tried to recover the impression that they had made on him three months before, to catch again the voice inwhich they had seemed then to speak to him.

that voice, he had to note, failed audiblyto sound; which he took as the proof of all the change in himself. he had heard, of old, only what he couldthen hear; what he could do now was to think of three months ago as a point in thefar past. all voices had grown thicker and meant morethings; they crowded on him as he moved about--it was the way they sounded togetherthat wouldn't let him be still. he felt, strangely, as sad as if he hadcome for some wrong, and yet as excited as if he had come for some freedom. but the freedom was what was most in theplace and the hour, it was the freedom that

most brought him round again to the youthof 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 thathe had; the main truth of the actual appeal of everything was none the less that everything represented the substance of hisloss put it within reach, within touch, made it, to a degree it had never been, anaffair of the senses. that was what it became for him at thissingular time, the youth he had long ago missed--a queer concrete presence, full ofmystery, yet full of reality, which he could handle, taste, smell, the deep

breathing of which he could positivelyhear. it was in the outside air as well aswithin; it was in the long watch, from the balcony, in the summer night, of the widelate life of paris, the unceasing soft quick rumble, below, of the little lighted carriages that, in the press, alwayssuggested 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 hadarrived after this promptly enough at that information; which expressed the casehowever quite as the young man appeared

willing for the moment to leave it. other things, with this advantage of theirvirtually having the night before them, came up for them, and had, as well, the oddeffect of making the occasion, instead of hurried and feverish, one of the largest, loosest and easiest to which strether'swhole adventure was to have treated him. he had been pursuing chad from an earlyhour and had overtaken him only now; but now the delay was repaired by their beingso exceptionally confronted. they had foregathered enough of course inall the various times; they had again and again, since that first night at thetheatre, been face to face over their

question; but they had never been so alone together as they were actually alone--theirtalk hadn't yet been so supremely for themselves. and if many things moreover passed beforethem, none passed more distinctly for strether than that striking truth aboutchad of which he had been so often moved to take note: the truth that everything came happily back with him to his knowing how tolive. it had been seated in his pleased smile--asmile that pleased exactly in the right degree--as his visitor turned round, on thebalcony, to greet his advent; his visitor

in fact felt on the spot that there was nothing their meeting would so much do asbear witness to that facility. he surrendered himself accordingly to soapproved a gift; for what was the meaning of the facility but that others didsurrender themselves? he didn't want, luckily, to prevent chadfrom living; but he was quite aware that even if he had he would himself havethoroughly gone to pieces. it was in truth essentially by bringingdown his personal life to a function all subsidiary to the young man's own that heheld together. and the great point, above all, the sign ofhow completely chad possessed the knowledge

in question, was that one thus became, notonly with a proper cheerfulness, but with wild native impulses, the feeder of hisstream. their talk had accordingly not lasted threeminutes without strether's feeling basis enough for the excitement in which he hadwaited. this overflow fairly deepened, wastefullyabounded, as he observed the smallness of anything corresponding to it on the part ofhis friend. that was exactly this friend's happy case;he "put out" his excitement, or whatever other emotion the matter involved, as heput out his washing; than which no arrangement could make more for domesticorder.

it was quite for strether himself in shortto feel a personal analogy with the laundress bringing home the triumphs of themangle. 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 placein ten minutes. it was our first free talk--really thefirst time she had tackled me. she knew i also knew what her line had beenwith yourself; knew moreover how little you had been doing to make anything difficultfor her.

so i spoke for you frankly--assured her youwere all at her service. i assured her i was too," the young mancontinued; "and i pointed out how she could perfectly, at any time, have got at me. her difficulty has been simply her notfinding the moment she fancied." "her difficulty," strether returned, "hasbeen simply that she finds she's afraid of you. she's not afraid of me, sarah, one littlescrap; and it was just because she has seen how i can fidget when i give my mind to itthat she has felt her best chance, rightly enough to be in making me as uneasy aspossible.

i think she's at bottom as pleased to haveyou put it on me as you yourself can possibly be to put it." "but what in the world, my dear man," chadenquired in objection to this luminosity, "have i done to make sally afraid?" "you've been 'wonderful, wonderful,' as wesay--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 shecould see you didn't set about it on purpose--i mean set about affecting her aswith fear." chad cast a pleasant backward glance overhis 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 comfortableclearness. "well, there can certainly be no way for itbetter than by my taking the onus. it reduces your personal friction and yourpersonal offence to almost nothing." ah but chad, with his completer conceptionof 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; andthey leaned back in turn against the balustrade, all in harmony with the chairs

and the flower-pots, the cigarettes and thestarlight. "the onus isn't really yours--after ouragreeing so to wait together and judge together. that was all my answer to sally," chadpursued--"that we have been, that we are, just judging together." "i'm not afraid of the burden," stretherexplained; "i haven't come in the least that you should take it off me. i've come very much, it seems to me, todouble up my fore legs in the manner of the camel when he gets down on his knees tomake his back convenient.

but i've supposed you all this while tohave been doing a lot of special and private judging--about which i haven'ttroubled you; and i've only wished to have your conclusion first from you. i don't ask more than that; i'm quite readyto take it as it has come." chad turned up his face to the sky with aslow 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 ortwo--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, withhis eyes still on the stars. he might in quiet sport have been readingtheir horoscope. strether wondered meanwhile what had beenopen to them, and he finally let him have it. "it was open to them simply to let mealone; to have made up their minds, on

really seeing me for themselves, that icould go on well enough as i was." strether assented to this proposition withfull lucidity, his companion's plural pronoun, which stood all for mrs. newsomeand her daughter, having no ambiguity for him. there was nothing, apparently, to stand formamie and jim; and this added to our friend's sense of chad's knowing what hethought. "but they've made up their minds to theopposite--that you can't go on as you are." "no," chad continued in the same way; "theywon't have it for a minute." strether on his side also reflectivelysmoked.

it was as if their high place reallyrepresented some moral elevation from which they could look down on their recent past. "there never was the smallest chance, doyou know, that they would have it for a moment.""of course not--no real chance. but if they were willing to think therewas--!" "they weren't willing."strether had worked it all out. "it wasn't for you they came out, but forme. it wasn't to see for themselves what you'redoing, but what i'm doing. the first branch of their curiosity wasinevitably destined, under my culpable

delay, to give way to the second; and it'son the second that, if i may use the expression and you don't mind my marking the invidious fact, they've been of lateexclusively perched. when sarah sailed it was me, in otherwords, they were after." chad took it in both with intelligence andwith indulgence. "it is rather a business then--what i'velet you in for!" strether had again a brief pause; whichended in a reply that seemed to dispose once for all of this element ofcompunction. chad was to treat it, at any rate, so faras 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, atall events, that they should come. and they've greatly enjoyed it," stretherdeclared. "well, i've tried to make them," said chad. his companion did himself presently thesame justice. "so have i.i tried even this very morning--while mrs. pocock was with me.

she enjoys for instance, almost as much asanything else, not being, as i've said, afraid of me; and i think i gave her helpin 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; sothat 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 hascome of their visit?" chad looked as if he thought it nice of hisold friend to put it so. "don't you count it as anything that you'redished--if you are dished? are you, my dear man, dished?" it sounded as if he were asking if he hadcaught 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 beenplaced by the words very far off. chad however endeavoured in spite of thisto reach the place. "what do you mean it will depend on?" strether, for all answer, gave him alongish 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 notdelighted they can only be--well what i admit she was. we gave them," he went on, "their chance tobe 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 sarahwasn'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 ifconsolingly: "it was never of course really the least on the cards that theywould be 'delighted.'" "well, i don't know, after all," strethermused. "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 seemsto be all that need concern me." "i'm true, but i'm incredible. i'm fantastic and ridiculous--i don'texplain 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 thesame, 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--whenall's said and done--mother might do for you and be for you." chad had said it all, from his naturalscruple, only to that extent; so that strether after an instant himself took ahand. "my absence of an assured future. the little i have to show toward the powerto take care of myself. the way, the wonderful way, she wouldcertainly take care of me. her fortune, her kindness, and the constantmiracle 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 anotherstill. "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 ishould. you know," he went on, "i was ready sixweeks ago." "ah," said strether, "that was when youdidn't know i wasn't! you're ready at present because you do knowit."

"that may be," chad returned; "but all thesame i'm sincere. you talk about taking the whole thing onyour shoulders, but in what light do you regard me that you think me capable ofletting you pay?" strether patted his arm, as they stoodtogether against the parapet, reassuringly- -seeming to wish to contend that he had thewherewithal; but it was again round this question of purchase and price that the young man's sense of fairness continued tohover. "what it literally comes to for you, ifyou'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 inputting it so! but i've on my side to remind you too thatyou give up money; and more than 'possibly'--quite certainly, as i shouldsuppose--a good deal." "true enough; but i've got a certainquantity," chad returned after a moment. "whereas you, my dear man, you--" "i can't be at all said"--strether took himup--"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 thepleasant conditions, they continued to talk; though there was, for that matter, apause in which the younger companion might have been taken as weighing again the delicacy of his then and there promisingthe elder some provision against the possibility just mentioned. this, however, he presumably thought bestnot to do, for at the end of another minute they had moved in quite a differentdirection. strether had broken in by returning to thesubject of chad's passage with sarah and

enquiring if they had arrived, in theevent, at anything in the nature of a "scene." to this chad replied that they had on thecontrary kept tremendously polite; adding moreover that sally was after all not thewoman 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 commondecency give less: only she hadn't expected, i think, that i'd give her nearlyso much.

and she began to take it before she knewit." "and she began to like it," said strether,"as soon as she began to take it!" "yes, she has liked it--also more than sheexpected." after which chad observed: "but shedoesn'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 hewent.

"certainly--in a manner. but it would scarce be a triumph worthhaving if, once entangled, feeling her dislike and possibly conscious in time of acertain quantity of your own, you should on the spot make yourself unpleasant to her." "ah," said chad, "she can bear me--couldbear me at least at home. it's my being there that would be hertriumph. she hates me in paris." "she hates in other words--" "yes, that's it!"--chad had quicklyunderstood this understanding; which formed

on the part of each as near an approach asthey had yet made to naming madame de vionnet. the limitations of their distinctnessdidn't, however, prevent its fairly lingering in the air that it was this ladymrs. pocock hated. it added one more touch moreover to theirestablished recognition of the rare intimacy of chad's association with her. he had never yet more twitched away thelast light veil from this phenomenon than in presenting himself as confounded andsubmerged in the feeling she had created at woollett.

"and i'll tell you who hates me too," heimmediately went on. strether knew as immediately whom he meant,but with as prompt a protest. "ah no! mamie doesn't hate--well," he caughthimself 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 otherperson?" chad looked at him hard in the lamplight ofthe 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 maneasily 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 hadcome 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-drolland all vague and equivocal, chad buried his face for a little in his hands, rubbingit 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 atlast he looked up, and then abruptly, "jim is a damned dose!" he declared. "oh i don't ask you to abuse or describe orin any way pronounce on your relatives; i simply put it to you once more whetheryou'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 troubledone. "can't you make me not resist?" "what it comes to," strether went on verygravely now and as if he hadn't heard him, "what it comes to is that more has beendone for you, i think, than i've ever seen done--attempted perhaps, but never so successfully done--by one human being foranother." "oh an immense deal certainly"--chad did itfull justice.

"and you yourself are adding to it." it was without heeding this either that hisvisitor 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 wenton, "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 certainabruptness, 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 ithad hung fire--chad remarkably replied: "well, if they hate my good friend, thatcomes to the same thing." it had a note of inevitable truth that madestrether take it as enough, feel he wanted nothing more.

the young man spoke in it for his "goodfriend" more than he had ever yet directly spoken, confessed to such deep identitiesbetween them as he might play with the idea of working free from, but which at a given moment could still draw him down like awhirlpool. 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 makeout," chad pursued with resigned perplexity, "is what you gain by it." oh it would have taken his companion toolong 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 thisreproach and as if it were at last a fact really to escape from, strether made hismove for departure. > book eleventh ii one of the features of the restlessafternoon passed by him after mrs. pocock's

visit was an hour spent, shortly beforedinner, with maria gostrey, whom of late, in spite of so sustained a call on his attention from other quarters, he had by nomeans neglected. and that he was still not neglecting herwill appear from the fact that he was with her again at the same hour on the verymorrow--with no less fine a consciousness moreover of being able to hold her ear. it continued inveterately to occur, forthat matter, that whenever he had taken one of his greater turns he came back to whereshe so faithfully awaited him. none of these excursions had on the wholebeen livelier than the pair of incidents--

the fruit of the short interval since hisprevious visit--on which he had now to report to her. he had seen chad newsome late the nightbefore, and he had had that morning, as a sequel to this conversation, a secondinterview 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; "ifind 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, itwon'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'tmanage that. he's thrown, as usual, on the world; theworld which, after all, by his account--for he has prodigious adventures--seems verygood 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, instantlymade the connexion. "he has seen marie de vionnet again?" "he went, all by himself, the day afterchad'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 couldbelieve 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 afortnight she'd have gone. she's ready"--he followed up his renewedvision 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--"witha light, light grace, a free, free gaiety, that may well softly bewilder mr. pocock." it kept her so before him that hiscompanion 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," hereplied. "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 wailagain, in which something of the unreconciled seemed suddenly to break out. "i don't stay, it somehow seems to me, muchto my advantage.

in the presence of all you cause to passbefore me i've a tremendous sense of privation." strether hesitated."but your privation, your keeping out of everything, has been--hasn't it?--by yourown choice." "oh yes; it has been necessary--that is ithas been better for you. what i mean is only that i seem to haveceased 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 paristurning rather hot and dusty. people are scattering, and some of them, inother places want me. but if you want me here--!" she had spoken as resigned to his word, buthe had of a sudden a still sharper sense than he would have expected of desiring notto lose her.

"i want you here." she took it as if the words were all shehad wished; as if they brought her, gave her something that was the compensation ofher case. "thank you," she simply answered. and then as he looked at her a littleharder, "thank you very much," she repeated. it had broken as with a slight arrest intothe 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 forhaving 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 guessit that was just what helped you." he looked away from her on this; heindulged, so far as space permitted, in one of his slow absences. "i've often thought of it, but never tofeel that i could guess it. and you see the consideration with whichi've treated you in never asking till now." "now then why do you ask?"

"to show you how i miss you when you're nothere, and what it does for me." "it doesn't seem to have done," shelaughed, "all it might! however," she added, "if you've reallynever 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 asnot to have the confusion of being there if marie de vionnet should tell you anythingto my detriment." he looked as if he considerably doubted. "you even then would have had to face it onyour return."

"oh if i had found reason to believe itsomething very bad i'd have left you altogether." "so then," he continued, "it was only onguessing 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 separateus. that's one of my reasons," she went on "foradmiring her so." "let it pass then," said strether, "for oneof mine as well. but what would have been her temptation?""what are ever the temptations of women?"

he thought--but hadn't, naturally, to thinktoo 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 haddone. "i do have you, however," she lessironically said, "from the moment you express a wish."

he stopped before her, full of thedisposition. "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 therest of the time to be, and it was as if to show her how she could still serve himthat, 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 herhotel, ten minutes reconquered, by

irresistible pressure, from the time overwhich he had already described her to miss gostrey as having, at the end of their interview on his own premises, passed thegreat sponge of the future. he had caught her by not announcinghimself, had found her in her sitting-room with a dressmaker and a lingere whoseaccounts she appeared to have been more or less ingenuously settling and who soonwithdrew. then he had explained to her how he hadsucceeded, 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 enquiredwith a certain grimness of gaiety. "well," said strether, "i think i take, inany event, everything." "by which i suppose you mean," hiscompanion brought out after a moment, "that you definitely understand you now loseeverything." 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, andtremendously." "therefore, perhaps, most of all with whatyou want?" "oh," said strether, "what i want is athing 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 wayof treating you?" it was a straighter mode of dealing withthis lady than they had as yet--such was

their high form--permitted themselves; butit seemed not wholly for this that he delayed a moment. "i dare say it has been, after all, theonly 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 wenton, "that you've even yet your straight remedy?

really drag him away, as i believe youstill 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, hasbeen part of it. i can't separate--it's all one; and that'sperhaps why, as i say, i don't understand." but he was ready to declare again that thisdidn't in the least matter; all the more

that, as he affirmed, he hadn't really asyet "come out." "she gives me after all, on its coming tothe pinch, a last mercy, another chance. they don't sail, you see, for five or sixweeks more, and they haven't--she admits that--expected chad would take part intheir tour. it's still open to him to join them, at thelast, 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 butsinks deeper into his situation here?" "he has given her--as i explained to youthat 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 hadpromised her after hearing from himself what he had promised. what she demanded of me yesterday, you'llremember, was the engagement then and there to make him take up this vow." "well then," miss gostrey enquired, "wasthe 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 faras 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 thecomfort, 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 beena month more. paris may grow, from day to day, hot anddusty, as you say; but there are other

things that are hotter and dustier. i'm not afraid to stay on; the summer heremust be amusing in a wild--if it isn't a tame--way of its own; the place at no timemore 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 partof the picturesqueness that i shall stay, for i shall be the plainest thing aboutyou. you may, you see, at any rate," shepursued, "have nobody else. madame de vionnet may very well be goingoff, mayn't she?--and mr. newsome by the

same stroke: unless indeed you've had anassurance 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 ahappy 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 quitewithout ceremony if they do; though after all," she added, "it would be difficult tosee now quite what degree of ceremony properly meets your case." "of course," strether conceded, "myattitude toward them is extraordinary." "just so; so that one may ask one's selfwhat style of proceeding on their own part can altogether match it. the attitude of their own that won't palein its light they've doubtless still to work out.

the really handsome thing perhaps," shepresently 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 somegenerous irritation--all in his interest-- had suddenly again flickered in her; andwhat she next said indeed half-explained "don't really be afraid to tell me if whatnow holds you is the pleasant prospect of the empty town, with plenty of seats in theshade, cool drinks, deserted museums, drives to the bois in the evening, and ourwonderful woman all to yourself." and she kept it up still more.

"the handsomest thing of all, when onemakes it out, would, i dare say, be that mr. chad should for a while go off byhimself. it's a pity, from that point of view," shewound 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 hehad it even to himself surprisingly ready-- "my dear lady, his mother has paid him avisit.

mrs. newsome has been with him, this month,with an intensity that i'm sure he has thoroughly felt; he has lavishlyentertained her, and she has let him have her thanks. do you suggest he shall go back for more ofthem?" well, she succeeded after a little inshaking it off. "i see. it's what you don't suggest--what youhaven'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, "whatit comes to is that she's all cold thought- -which sarah could serve to us cold withoutits really losing anything. so it is that we know what she thinks ofus." maria had followed, but she had an arrest. "what i've never made out, if you come tothat, 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 ofpromptness, "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 aperfectly natural question." "i call your attention, all the same," saidmiss gostrey, "to the fact that i don't ask what i venture to ask is whether it's tomrs. 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 everythingmight be making on her--quite oppressed, haunted, tormented by it. i've been interested only in her seeingwhat i've seen. and i've been as disappointed in herrefusal to see it as she has been in what has appeared to her the perversity of myinsistence." "do you mean that she has shocked you asyou've shocked her?" strether weighed it."i'm probably not so shockable. but on the other hand i've gone muchfurther to meet her.

she, on her side, hasn't budged an inch." "so that you're now at last"--maria pointedthe 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 ithink i must have been thrown." she turned it over, but as hoping toclarify much rather than to harmonise.

"the thing is that i suppose you've beendisappointing--" "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 hadmuch 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 moreor 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 shedoesn't admit surprises. it's a fact that, i think, describes andrepresents her; and it falls in with what i tell you--that she's all, as i've calledit, fine cold thought. she had, to her own mind, worked the wholething 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, asshe'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 thatyou'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 shehangs together with a perfection of her

own," he went on, "that does suggest a kindof wrong in any change of her composition. it was at any rate," he wound up, "thewoman herself, as you call her the whole moral and intellectual being or block, thatsarah brought me over to take or to leave." it turned miss gostrey to deeper thought. "fancy having to take at the point of thebayonet 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 knowit." "one never does, i suppose," miss gostreyconcurred, "realise in advance, in such a

case, the size, as you may say, of theblock. little by little it looms up. it has been looming for you more and moretill at last you see it all." "i see it all," he absently echoed, whilehis eyes might have been fixing some particularly large iceberg in a cool bluenorthern sea. "it's magnificent!" he then rather oddlyexclaimed. but his friend, who was used to this kindof inconsequence in him, kept the thread. "there's nothing so magnificent--for makingothers 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 yousay, 'feel' him. and yet," he added, as if the question wereinteresting, "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 makingone's self felt." "yes, it comes, no doubt, to that.you now--" he was benevolently going on, but shewouldn't have it. "oh i don't make myself felt; so myquantity 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," saidstrether.

"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 mycase. oh you have," she repeated, "treasures ofimagination." but he had been for an instant thinkingaway from this, and he came up in another place. "and yet mrs. newsome--it's a thing toremember--has imagined, did, that is, imagine, and apparently still does, horrorsabout 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 chadhimself horrible?" "i was to have found the woman.""horrible?" "found her as she imagined her." and strether paused as if for his ownexpression of it he could add no touch to that picture.his companion had meanwhile thought.

"she imagined stupidly--so it comes to thesame 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 helet it pass. "sarah isn't ignorant--now; she keeps upthe theory of the horrible." "ah but she's intense--and that by itselfwill do sometimes as well.

if it doesn't do, in this case, at anyrate, 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 presentlyadmitted, "that she's on the whole about as bad for me.

but they're consistent of course, inasmuchas they've their clear view of what's good for both of us." "for you, to begin with"--maria, allresponsive, confined the question for the moment--"to eliminate from your existenceand if possible even from your memory the dreadful creature that i must gruesomely shadow forth for them, even more than toeliminate the distincter evil--thereby a little less portentous--of the person whoseconfederate 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 nocare. "i can easily at the worst, after all, evenforget 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 withoutattenuation--as if perhaps from very familiarity with the facts; and her thoughtmade a connexion without showing the links. "do you remember how we used to talk atchester and in london about my seeing you through?" she spoke as of far-off things and as ifthey had spent weeks at the places she named."it's just what you are doing." "ah but the worst--since you've left such amargin--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 itwithout them?" strether's reply to this was at firstanother 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 evenfor 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!" book eleventh iii he had taken the train a few days afterthis from a station--as well as to a station--selected almost at random; suchdays, whatever should happen, were numbered, and he had gone forth under the impulse--artless enough, no doubt--to givethe whole of one of them to that french

ruralism, with its cool special green, intowhich he had hitherto looked only through the little oblong window of the picture-frame. it had been as yet for the most part but aland of fancy for him--the background of fiction, the medium of art, the nursery ofletters; practically as distant as greece, but practically also well-nigh asconsecrated. romance could weave itself, for strether'ssense, 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 smalllambinet that had charmed him, long years

before, at a boston dealer's and that hehad quite absurdly never forgotten. it had been offered, he remembered, at aprice he had been instructed to believe the lowest ever named for a lambinet, a pricehe had never felt so poor as on having to recognise, all the same, as beyond a dreamof possibility. he had dreamed--had turned and twistedpossibilities for an hour: it had been the only adventure of his life in connexionwith the purchase of a work of art. the adventure, it will be perceived, wasmodest; but the memory, beyond all reason and by some accident of association, wassweet. the little lambinet abode with him as thepicture he would have bought--the

particular production that had made him forthe moment overstep the modesty of nature. he was quite aware that if he were to seeit again he should perhaps have a drop or a shock, and he never found himself wishingthat the wheel of time would turn it up again, just as he had seen it in the maroon-coloured, sky-lighted inner shrineof tremont street. it would be a different thing, however, tosee the remembered mixture resolved back into its elements--to assist at therestoration to nature of the whole far-away hour: the dusty day in boston, the background of the fitchburg depot, of themaroon-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 almostno condition save that it should stop a few times after getting out of the banlieue; hethrew himself on the general amiability of the day for the hint of where to alight. his theory of his excursion was that hecould alight anywhere--not nearer paris than an hour's run--on catching asuggestion 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 eightyminutes; the train pulled up just at the

right spot, and he found himself getting out as securely as if to keep anappointment. it will be felt of him that he could amusehimself, at his age, with very small things if it be again noted that his appointmentwas only with a superseded boston fashion. he hadn't gone far without the quickconfidence that it would be quite sufficiently kept. the oblong gilt frame disposed itsenclosing lines; the poplars and willows, the reeds and river--a river of which hedidn't know, and didn't want to know, the name--fell into a composition, full of

felicity, within them; the sky was silverand turquoise and varnish; the village on the left was white and the church on theright was grey; it was all there, in short- -it was what he wanted: it was tremontstreet, it was france, it was lambinet. moreover he was freely walking about in it. he did this last, for an hour, to hisheart's content, making for the shady woody horizon and boring so deep into hisimpression and his idleness that he might fairly have got through them again andreached the maroon-coloured wall. it was a wonder, no doubt, that the tasteof idleness for him shouldn't need more time to sweeten; but it had in fact takenthe few previous days; it had been

sweetening in truth ever since the retreatof the pococks. he walked and walked as if to show himselfhow little he had now to do; he had nothing to do but turn off to some hillside wherehe might stretch himself and hear the poplars rustle, and whence--in the course of an afternoon so spent, an afternoonrichly suffused too with the sense of a book in his pocket--he should sufficientlycommand the scene to be able to pick out just the right little rustic inn for anexperiment 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 acoarse 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 thelocal carriole and converse with his driver, a driver who naturally wouldn't fail of a stiff clean blouse, of a knittednightcap and of the genius of response-- who, in fine, would sit on the shafts, tellhim what the french people were thinking, and remind him, as indeed the whole episodewould incidentally do, of maupassant. strether heard his lips, for the first timein french air, as this vision assumed consistency, emit sounds of expressiveintention without fear of his company.

he had been afraid of chad and of maria andof 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 hisvocabulary or his accent. he usually paid for it by meetingimmediately afterwards waymarsh's eye. such were the liberties with which hisfancy played after he had turned off to the hillside that did really and truly, as wellas most amiably, await him beneath the poplars, the hillside that made him feel, for a murmurous couple of hours, how happyhad been his thought.

he had the sense of success, of a finerharmony in things; nothing but what had turned out as yet according to his plan. it most of all came home to him, as he layon his back on the grass, that sarah had really gone, that his tension was reallyrelaxed; the peace diffused in these ideas might be delusive, but it hung about himnone the less for the time. it fairly, for half an hour, sent him tosleep; he pulled his straw hat over his eyes--he had bought it the day before witha 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 thewhole, for three months, so little intermission. that was it--when once they were off he haddropped; this moreover was what he had dropped to, and now he was touching bottom. he was kept luxuriously quiet, soothed andamused by the consciousness of what he had found at the end of his descent. it was very much what he had told mariagostrey 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 theflutter of awnings as wide as avenues. it was present to him without attenuationthat, 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, andthe effect of the two visits, the after- sense of the couple of hours spent withher, was almost that of fulness and frequency. the brave intention of frequency, so greatwith him from the moment of his finding himself unjustly suspected at woollett, hadremained rather theoretic, and one of the

things he could muse about under his poplars was the source of the specialshyness that had still made him careful. he had surely got rid of it now, thisspecial shyness; what had become of it if it hadn't precisely, within the week,rubbed off? it struck him now in fact as sufficientlyplain that if he had still been careful he had been so for a reason. he had really feared, in his behaviour, alapse from good faith; if there was a danger of one's liking such a woman toomuch 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 thedanger was fairly vivid; so that it was proportionately fortunate that the rightwas likewise established. it seemed to our friend that he had on eachoccasion profited to the utmost by the latter: how could he have done so more, heat all events asked himself, than in having immediately let her know that, if it was all the same to her, he preferred not totalk about anything tiresome? he had never in his life so sacrificed anarmful of high interests as in that remark; he had never so prepared the way for thecomparatively frivolous as in addressing it to madame de vionnet's intelligence.

it hadn't been till later that he quiterecalled how in conjuring away everything but the pleasant he had conjured awayalmost all they had hitherto talked about; it was not till later even that he remembered how, with their new tone, theyhadn't so much as mentioned the name of chad himself. one of the things that most lingered withhim on his hillside was this delightful facility, with such a woman, of arriving ata 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 anyrate of the probability that one could

trust her to fit them to occasions. he had wanted her to feel that, as he wasdisinterested now, so she herself should be, and she had showed she felt it, and hehad showed he was grateful, and it had been for all the world as if he were calling forthe first time. they had had other, but irrelevant,meetings; it was quite as if, had they sooner known how much they really had incommon, there were quantities of comparatively dull matters they might haveskipped. well, they were skipping them now, even tograceful gratitude, even to handsome "don't mention it!"--and it was amazing what couldstill come up without reference to what had

been going on between them. it might have been, on analysis, nothingmore than shakespeare and the musical glasses; but it had served all the purposeof his appearing to have said to her: "don't like me, if it's a question of liking me, for anything obvious and clumsythat i've, as they call it, 'done' for you: like me--well, like me, hang it, foranything else you choose. so, by the same propriety, don't be for mesimply the person i've come to know through my awkward connexion with chad--was everanything, by the way, more awkward? be for me, please, with all your admirabletact and trust, just whatever i may show

you it's a present pleasure to me to thinkyou." it had been a large indication to meet; butif she hadn't met it what had she done, and how had their time together slipped alongso smoothly, mild but not slow, and melting, liquefying, into his happyillusion of idleness? he could recognise on the other hand thathe had probably not been without reason, in his prior, his restricted state, forkeeping an eye on his liability to lapse from good faith. he really continued in the picture--thatbeing for himself his situation--all the rest of this rambling day; so that thecharm was still, was indeed more than ever

upon him when, toward six o'clock he found himself amicably engaged with a stoutwhite-capped deep-voiced woman at the door of the auberge of the biggest village, avillage that affected him as a thing of whiteness, blueness and crookedness, set in coppery green, and that had the riverflowing behind or before it--one couldn't say which; at the bottom, in particular, ofthe inn-garden. he had had other adventures before this;had kept along the height, after shaking off slumber; had admired, had almostcoveted, another small old church, all steep roof and dim slate-colour without and

all whitewash and paper flowers within; hadlost his way and had found it again; had conversed with rustics who struck himperhaps a little more as men of the world than he had expected; had acquired at a bound a fearless facility in french; hadhad, as the afternoon waned, a watery bock, all pale and parisian, in the cafe of thefurthest village, which was not the biggest; and had meanwhile not onceoverstepped the oblong gilt frame. the frame had drawn itself out for him, asmuch as you please; but that was just his luck. he had finally come down again to thevalley, to keep within touch of stations

and trains, turning his face to the quarterfrom 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 theircommon ground of a cotelette de veau a l'oseille and a subsequent lift. he had walked many miles and didn't know hewas tired; but he still knew he was amused, and even that, though he had been alone allday, he had never yet so struck himself as engaged with others and in midstream of hisdrama. it might have passed for finished hisdrama, with its catastrophe all but

reached: it had, however, none the lessbeen vivid again for him as he thus gave it its fuller chance. he had only had to be at last well out ofit to feel it, oddly enough, still going on. for this had been all day at bottom thespell of the picture--that it was essentially more than anything else a sceneand a stage, that the very air of the play was in the rustle of the willows and thetone of the sky. the play and the characters had, withouthis knowing it till now, peopled all his space for him, and it seemed somehow quitehappy that they should offer themselves, in

the conditions so supplied, with a kind ofinevitability. it was as if the conditions made them notonly inevitable, but so much more nearly natural and right as that they were atleast easier, pleasanter, to put up with. the conditions had nowhere so assertedtheir difference from those of woollett as they appeared to him to assert it in thelittle court of the cheval blanc while he arranged with his hostess for a comfortableclimax. they were few and simple, scant and humble,but they were the thing, as he would have called it, even to a greater degree thanmadame de vionnet's old high salon where the ghost of the empire walked.

"the" thing was the thing that implied thegreatest number of other things of the sort he had had to tackle; and it was queer ofcourse, but so it was--the implication here was complete. not a single one of his observations butsomehow fell into a place in it; not a breath of the cooler evening that wasn'tsomehow a syllable of the text. the text was simply, when condensed, thatin these places such things were, and that if it was in them one elected to move aboutone had to make one's account with what one lighted on. meanwhile at all events it was enough thatthey 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 horsethat was painted the most improbable shade. that was part of the amusement--as if toshow that the fun was harmless; just as it was enough, further, that the picture andthe play seemed supremely to melt together in the good woman's broad sketch of whatshe could do for her visitor's appetite. he felt in short a confidence, and it wasgeneral, and it was all he wanted to feel. it suffered no shock even on her mentioningthat she had in fact just laid the cloth for two persons who, unlike monsieur, hadarrived by the river--in a boat of their

own; who had asked her, half an hour before, what she could do for them, and hadthen paddled away to look at something a little further up--from which promenadethey would presently return. monsieur might meanwhile, if he liked, passinto the garden, such as it was, where she would serve him, should he wish it--forthere were tables and benches in plenty--a "bitter" before his repast. here she would also report to him on thepossibility of a conveyance to his station, and here at any rate he would have theagrement of the river. it may be mentioned without delay thatmonsieur had the agrement of everything,

and in particular, for the next twentyminutes, of a small and primitive pavilion that, at the garden's edge, almost overhung the water, testifying, in its somewhatbattered state, to much fond frequentation. it consisted of little more than aplatform, slightly raised, with a couple of benches and a table, a protecting rail anda projecting roof; but it raked the full grey-blue stream, which, taking a turn a short distance above, passed out of sightto reappear much higher up; and it was clearly in esteemed requisition for sundaysand other feasts. strether sat there and, though hungry, feltat peace; the confidence that had so

gathered for him deepened with the lap ofthe water, the ripple of the surface, the rustle of the reeds on the opposite bank, the faint diffused coolness and the slightrock of a couple of small boats attached to a rough landing-place hard by. the valley on the further side was allcopper-green level and glazed pearly sky, a sky hatched across with screens of trimmedtrees, which looked flat, like espaliers; and though the rest of the village straggled away in the near quarter the viewhad an emptiness that made one of the boats suggestive.

such a river set one afloat almost beforeone could take up the oars--the idle play of which would be moreover the aid to thefull impression. this perception went so far as to bring himto his feet; but that movement, in turn, made him feel afresh that he was tired, andwhile he leaned against a post and continued to look out he saw something thatgave him a sharper arrest. book eleventh iv what he saw was exactly the right thing--aboat advancing round the bend and containing a man who held the paddles and alady, at the stern, with a pink parasol. it was suddenly as if these figures, orsomething like them, had been wanted in the

picture, had been wanted more or less allday, and had now drifted into sight, with the slow current, on purpose to fill up themeasure. they came slowly, floating down, evidentlydirected to the landing-place near their spectator and presenting themselves to himnot less clearly as the two persons for whom his hostess was already preparing ameal. for two very happy persons he found himselfstraightway 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 thisparticular 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 theimpression, as happened, their boat seemed to have begun to drift wide, the oarsmanletting it go. it had by this time none the less come muchnearer--near enough for strether to dream the lady in the stern had for some reasontaken account of his being there to watch them.

she had remarked on it sharply, yet hercompanion hadn't turned round; it was in fact almost as if our friend had felt herbid him keep still. she had taken in something as a result ofwhich their course had wavered, and it continued to waver while they just stoodoff. this little effect was sudden and rapid, sorapid that strether's sense of it was separate only for an instant from a sharpstart of his own. he too had within the minute taken insomething, taken in that he knew the lady whose parasol, shifting as if to hide herface, made so fine a pink point in the shining scene.

it was too prodigious, a chance in amillion, but, if he knew the lady, the gentleman, who still presented his back andkept off, the gentleman, the coatless hero of the idyll, who had responded to her start, was, to match the marvel, none otherthan chad. chad and madame de vionnet were then likehimself taking a day in the country--though it was as queer as fiction, as farce, thattheir country could happen to be exactly his; and she had been the first at recognition, the first to feel, across thewater, the shock--for it appeared to come to that--of their wonderful accident.

strether became aware, with this, of whatwas taking place--that her recognition had been even stranger for the pair in theboat, that her immediate impulse had been to control it, and that she was quickly and intensely debating with chad the risk ofbetrayal. he saw they would show nothing if theycould feel sure he hadn't made them out; so that he had before him for a few secondshis own hesitation. it was a sharp fantastic crisis that hadpopped up as if in a dream, and it had had only to last the few seconds to make himfeel it as quite horrible. they were thus, on either side, trying theother side, and all for some reason that

broke the stillness like some unprovokedharsh 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 ofsurprise and joy. he hereupon gave large play to thesethings, agitating his hat and his stick and loudly calling out--a demonstration thatbrought him relief as soon as he had seen it answered. the boat, in mid-stream, still went alittle 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 theboat headed round, amazement and pleasantry filling the air meanwhile, and relief, asstrether continued to fancy, superseding mere violence. our friend went down to the water underthis 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 hewas conscious of not being able quite to banish this idea that they would have goneon, not seeing and not knowing, missing their dinner and disappointing their

hostess, had he himself taken a line tomatch. that at least was what darkened his visionfor the moment. afterwards, after they had bumped at thelanding-place and he had assisted their getting ashore, everything found itselfsponged over by the mere miracle of the encounter. they could so much better at last, oneither side, treat it as a wild extravagance of hazard, that the situationwas made elastic by the amount of explanation called into play. why indeed--apart from oddity--thesituation should have been really stiff was

a question naturally not practical at themoment, and in fact, so far as we are concerned, a question tackled, later on andin private, only by strether himself. he was to reflect later on and in privatethat it was mainly he who had explained--as he had had moreover comparatively littledifficulty in doing. he was to have at all events meanwhile theworrying thought of their perhaps secretly suspecting him of having plotted thiscoincidence, 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 somanifestly, arrange it as they would, an

awkward one, that he could scarce keep disclaimers in respect to his own presencefrom rising to his lips. disclaimers of intention would have been astactless as his presence was practically gross; and the narrowest escape they eitherof them had was his lucky escape, in the event, from making any. nothing of the sort, so far as surface andsound were involved, was even in question; surface and sound all made for their commonridiculous 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 noteaten, the charming chance, even more, that their little plans, their hours, their train, in short, from la-bas, would allmatch 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 setrouve!" was the announcement made to strether after they were seated at table, the word given him by their hostess inrespect to his carriage for the station, on which he might now count. it settled the matter for his friends aswell; the conveyance--it was all too

lucky!--would serve for them; and nothingwas more delightful than his being in a position to make the train so definite. it might have been, for themselves--to hearmadame de vionnet--almost unnaturally vague, a detail left to be fixed; thoughstrether indeed was afterwards to remember that chad had promptly enough intervened to forestall this appearance, laughing at hiscompanion's flightiness and making the point that he had after all, in spite ofthe bedazzlement of a day out with her, known what he was about. strether was to remember afterwards furtherthat 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, manythings that, as it were, fitted together. another of them was for instance that thewonderful woman's overflow of surprise and amusement was wholly into french, which shestruck him as speaking with an unprecedented command of idiomatic turns, but in which she got, as he might havesaid, somewhat away from him, taking all at once little brilliant jumps that he couldbut lamely match. the question of his own french had nevercome up for them; it was the one thing she wouldn't have permitted--it belonged, for aperson who had been through much, to mere

boredom; but the present result was odd, fairly veiling her identity, shifting herback into a mere voluble class or race to the intense audibility of which he was bythis time inured. when she spoke the charming slightlystrange english he best knew her by he seemed to feel her as a creature, among allthe 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 theyhad shaken down in the inn-parlour and

knew, as it were, what was to become ofthem; it was inevitable that loud ejaculation over the prodigy of theirconvergence should at last wear itself out. then it was that his impression took fullerform--the impression, destined only to deepen, to complete itself, that they hadsomething to put a face upon, to carry off and make the best of, and that it was she who, admirably on the whole, was doingthis. it was familiar to him of course that theyhad something to put a face upon; their friendship, their connexion, took anyamount of explaining--that would have been made familiar by his twenty minutes withmrs. pocock if it hadn't already been so.

yet his theory, as we know, had bountifullybeen 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 asrendered 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 havespoken of what he was, after his return, to recall and interpret, it may as well immediately be said that his realexperience of these few hours put on, in that belated vision--for he scarce went tobed till morning--the aspect that is most

to our purpose. he then knew more or less how he had beenaffected--he but half knew at the time. there had been plenty to affect him evenafter, as has been said, they had shaken down; for his consciousness, thoughmuffled, had its sharpest moments during this passage, a marked drop into innocentfriendly bohemia. they then had put their elbows on thetable, deploring the premature end of their two or three dishes; which they had triedto make up with another bottle while chad joked a little spasmodically, perhaps evena little irrelevantly, with the hostess. what it all came to had been that fictionand fable were, inevitably, in the air, and

not as a simple term of comparison, but asa result of things said; also that they were blinking it, all round, and that they yet needn't, so much as that, have blinkedit--though indeed if they hadn't strether didn't quite see what else they could havedone. strether didn't quite see that even at anhour or two past midnight, even when he had, at his hotel, for a long time, withouta light and without undressing, sat back on his bedroom sofa and stared straight beforehim. he was, at that point of vantage, in fullpossession, to make of it all what he could.

he kept making of it that there had beensimply a lie in the charming affair--a lie on which one could now, detached anddeliberate, perfectly put one's finger. it was with the lie that they had eaten anddrunk and talked and laughed, that they had waited for their carriole ratherimpatiently, and had then got into the vehicle and, sensibly subsiding, driven their three or four miles through thedarkening summer night. the eating and drinking, which had been aresource, had had the effect of having served its turn; the talk and laughter haddone 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-stoppingtrain, that he prepared himself for reflexions to come. it had been a performance, madame devionnet's manner, and though it had to that degree faltered toward the end, as throughher ceasing to believe in it, as if she had asked herself, or chad had found a moment surreptitiously to ask her, what after allwas the use, a performance it had none the less quite handsomely remained, with thefinal fact about it that it was on the whole easier to keep up than to abandon.

from the point of view of presence of mindit had been very wonderful indeed, wonderful for readiness, for beautifulassurance, for the way her decision was taken on the spot, without time to conferwith chad, without time for anything. their only conference could have been thebrief instants in the boat before they confessed to recognising the spectator onthe bank, for they hadn't been alone together a moment since and must havecommunicated all in silence. it was a part of the deep impression forstrether, 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, asstrether was so well aware, and it in fact came over our friend in these meditationsthat there had been as yet no such vivid illustration of his famous knowing how tolive. it was as if he had humoured her to theextent of letting her lie without correction--almost as if, really, he wouldbe coming round in the morning to set the matter, as between strether and himself,right. of course he couldn't quite come; it was acase 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 thatmorning, 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 wasimpossible to blink and which made this measure an odd one--the too evident factfor 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 assuranceproceed as the tension increased--from what did this slightly baffled ingenuity springbut from her consciousness of not

presenting, as night closed in, with not so much as a shawl to wrap her round, anappearance that matched her story? she admitted that she was cold, but only toblame her imprudence which chad suffered her to give such account of as she might. her shawl and chad's overcoat and her othergarments, and his, those they had each worn the day before, were at the place, bestknown to themselves--a quiet retreat enough, no doubt--at which they had been spending the twenty-four hours, to whichthey had fully meant to return that evening, from which they had so remarkablyswum into strether's ken, and the tacit

repudiation of which had been thus theessence of her comedy. strether saw how she had perceived in aflash 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 uprisingof this scruple. he seemed even to divine that she hadentertained it rather for chad than for herself, and that, as the young man hadlacked the chance to enlighten her, she had had to go on with it, he meanwhilemistaking her motive. he was rather glad, none the less, thatthey had in point of fact not parted at the

cheval blanc, that he hadn't been reducedto 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 otherevent would have required. could he, literally, quite have faced theother event? would he have been capable of making thebest of it with them? this was what he was trying to do now; butwith the advantage of his being able to give more time to it a good dealcounteracted by his sense of what, over and above the central fact itself, he had toswallow.

it was the quantity of make-believeinvolved and so vividly exemplified that most disagreed with his spiritual stomach. he moved, however, from the considerationof that quantity--to say nothing of the consciousness of that organ--back to theother feature of the show, the deep, deep truth of the intimacy revealed. that was what, in his vain vigil, heoftenest reverted to: intimacy, at such a point, was like that--and what in the worldelse would one have wished it to be like? it was all very well for him to feel thepity of its being so much like lying; he almost blushed, in the dark, for the way hehad dressed the possibility in vagueness,

as a little girl might have dressed herdoll. he had made them--and by no fault of theirown--momentarily pull it for him, the possibility, out of this vagueness; andmust he not therefore take it now as they had had simply, with whatever thinattenuations, to give it to him? the very question, it may be added, madehim feel lonely and cold. there was the element of the awkward allround, but chad and madame de vionnet had at least the comfort that they could talkit 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 comeagain into requisition on the morrow; though it wasn't to be denied that he wasalready a little afraid of her "what on earth--that's what i want to know now--hadyou then supposed?" he recognised at last that he had reallybeen trying all along to suppose nothing. verily, verily, his labour had been lost. he found himself supposing innumerable andwonderful things.

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