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.