When one morning within the week he perceived the whole thing to be
really at last upon him Strether’s immediate feeling was all relief. He
had known this morning that something was about to happen—known it, in
a moment, by Waymarsh’s manner when Waymarsh appeared before him during
his brief consumption of coffee and a roll in the small slippery
_salle-à-manger_ so associated with rich rumination. Strether had taken
there of late various lonely and absent-minded meals; he communed
there, even at the end of June, with a suspected chill, the air of old
shivers mixed with old savours, the air in which so many of his
impressions had perversely matured; the place meanwhile renewing its
message to him by the very circumstance of his single state. He now sat
there, for the most part, to sigh softly, while he vaguely tilted his
carafe, over the vision of how much better Waymarsh was occupied. That
was really his success by the common measure—to have led this companion
so on and on. He remembered how at first there had been scarce a
squatting-place he could beguile him into passing; the actual outcome
of which at last was that there was scarce one that could arrest him in
his rush. His rush—as Strether vividly and amusedly figured
it—continued to be all with Sarah, and contained perhaps moreover the
word of the whole enigma, whipping up in its fine full-flavoured froth
the very principle, for good or for ill, of his own, of Strether’s
destiny. It might after all, to the end, only be that they had united
to save him, and indeed, so far as Waymarsh was concerned, that _had_
to be the spring of action. Strether was glad at all events, in
connexion with the case, that the saving he required was not more
scant; so constituted a luxury was it in certain lights just to lurk
there out of the full glare. He had moments of quite seriously
wondering whether Waymarsh wouldn’t in fact, thanks to old friendship
and a conceivable indulgence, make about as good terms for him as he
might make for himself. They wouldn’t be the same terms of course; but
they might have the advantage that he himself probably should be able
to make none at all.
He was never in the morning very late, but Waymarsh had already been
out, and, after a peep into the dim refectory, he presented himself
with much less than usual of his large looseness. He had made sure,
through the expanse of glass exposed to the court, that they would be
alone; and there was now in fact that about him that pretty well took
up the room. He was dressed in the garments of summer; and save that
his white waistcoat was redundant and bulging these things favoured,
they determined, his expression. He wore a straw hat such as his friend
hadn’t yet seen in Paris, and he showed a buttonhole freshly adorned
with a magnificent rose. Strether read on the instant his story—how,
astir for the previous hour, the sprinkled newness of the day, so
pleasant at that season in Paris, he was fairly panting with the pulse
of adventure and had been with Mrs. Pocock, unmistakeably, to the
Marché aux Fleurs. Strether really knew in this vision of him a joy
that was akin to envy; so reversed as he stood there did their old
positions seem; so comparatively doleful now showed, by the sharp turn
of the wheel, the posture of the pilgrim from Woollett. He wondered,
this pilgrim, if he had originally looked to Waymarsh so brave and
well, so remarkably launched, as it was at present the latter’s
privilege to appear. He recalled that his friend had remarked to him
even at Chester that his aspect belied his plea of prostration; but
there certainly couldn’t have been, for an issue, an aspect less
concerned than Waymarsh’s with the menace of decay. Strether had at any
rate never resembled a Southern planter of the great days—which was the
image picturesquely suggested by the happy relation between the
fuliginous face and the wide panama of his visitor. This type, it
further amused him to guess, had been, on Waymarsh’s part, the object
of Sarah’s care; he was convinced that her taste had not been a
stranger to the conception and purchase of the hat, any more than her
fine fingers had been guiltless of the bestowal of the rose. It came to
him in the current of thought, as things so oddly did come, that _he_
had never risen with the lark to attend a brilliant woman to the Marché
aux Fleurs; this could be fastened on him in connexion neither with
Miss Gostrey nor with Madame de Vionnet; the practice of getting up
early for adventures could indeed in no manner be fastened on him. It
came to him in fact that just here was his usual case: he was for ever
missing things through his general genius for missing them, while
others were for ever picking them up through a contrary bent. And it
was others who looked abstemious and he who looked greedy; it was he
somehow who finally paid, and it was others who mainly partook. Yes, he
should go to the scaffold yet for he wouldn’t know quite whom. He
almost, for that matter, felt on the scaffold now and really quite
enjoying it. It worked out as _because_ he was anxious there—it worked
out as for this reason that Waymarsh was so blooming. It was _his_ trip
for health, for a change, that proved the success—which was just what
Strether, planning and exerting himself, had desired it should be. That
truth already sat full-blown on his companion’s lips; benevolence
breathed from them as with the warmth of active exercise, and also a
little as with the bustle of haste.
“Mrs. Pocock, whom I left a quarter of an hour ago at her hotel, has
asked me to mention to you that she would like to find you at home here
in about another hour. She wants to see you; she has something to
say—or considers, I believe, that you may have: so that I asked her
myself why she shouldn’t come right round. She hasn’t _been_ round
yet—to see our place; and I took upon myself to say that I was sure
you’d be glad to have her. The thing’s therefore, you see, to keep
right here till she comes.”
The announcement was sociably, even though, after Waymarsh’s wont,
somewhat solemnly made; but Strether quickly felt other things in it
than these light features. It was the first approach, from that
quarter, to admitted consciousness; it quickened his pulse; it simply
meant at last that he should have but himself to thank if he didn’t
know where he was. He had finished his breakfast; he pushed it away and
was on his feet. There were plenty of elements of surprise, but only
one of doubt. “The thing’s for _you_ to keep here too?” Waymarsh had
been slightly ambiguous.
He wasn’t ambiguous, however, after this enquiry; and Strether’s
understanding had probably never before opened so wide and effective a
mouth as it was to open during the next five minutes. It was no part of
his friend’s wish, as appeared, to help to receive Mrs. Pocock; he
quite understood the spirit in which she was to present herself, but
his connexion with her visit was limited to his having—well, as he
might say—perhaps a little promoted it. He had thought, and had let her
know it, that Strether possibly would think she might have been round
before. At any rate, as turned out, she had been wanting herself, quite
a while, to come. “I told her,” said Waymarsh, “that it would have been
a bright idea if she had only carried it out before.”
Strether pronounced it so bright as to be almost dazzling. “But why
_hasn’t_ she carried it out before? She has seen me every day—she had
only to name her hour. I’ve been waiting and waiting.”
“Well, I told her you had. And she has been waiting too.” It was, in
the oddest way in the world, on the showing of this tone, a genial new
pressing coaxing Waymarsh; a Waymarsh conscious with a different
consciousness from any he had yet betrayed, and actually rendered by it
almost insinuating. He lacked only time for full persuasion, and
Strether was to see in a moment why. Meantime, however, our friend
perceived, he was announcing a step of some magnanimity on Mrs.
Pocock’s part, so that he could deprecate a sharp question. It was his
own high purpose in fact to have smoothed sharp questions to rest. He
looked his old comrade very straight in the eyes, and he had never
conveyed to him in so mute a manner so much kind confidence and so much
good advice. Everything that was between them was again in his face,
but matured and shelved and finally disposed of. “At any rate,” he
added, “she’s coming now.”
Considering how many pieces had to fit themselves, it all fell, in
Strether’s brain, into a close rapid order. He saw on the spot what had
happened, and what probably would yet; and it was all funny enough. It
was perhaps just this freedom of appreciation that wound him up to his
flare of high spirits. “What is she coming _for?_—to kill me?”
“She’s coming to be very _very_ kind to you, and you must let me say
that I greatly hope you’ll not be less so to herself.”
This was spoken by Waymarsh with much gravity of admonition, and as
Strether stood there he knew he had but to make a movement to take the
attitude of a man gracefully receiving a present. The present was that
of the opportunity dear old Waymarsh had flattered himself he had
divined in him the slight soreness of not having yet thoroughly
enjoyed; so he had brought it to him thus, as on a little silver
breakfast-tray, familiarly though delicately—without oppressive pomp;
and he was to bend and smile and acknowledge, was to take and use and
be grateful. He was not—that was the beauty of it—to be asked to
deflect too much from his dignity. No wonder the old boy bloomed in
this bland air of his own distillation. Strether felt for a moment as
if Sarah were actually walking up and down outside. Wasn’t she hanging
about the _porte-cochère_ while her friend thus summarily opened a way?
Strether would meet her but to take it, and everything would be for the
best in the best of possible worlds. He had never so much known what
any one meant as, in the light of this demonstration, he knew what Mrs.
Newsome did. It had reached Waymarsh from Sarah, but it had reached
Sarah from her mother, and there was no break in the chain by which it
reached _him_. “Has anything particular happened,” he asked after a
minute—“so suddenly to determine her? Has she heard anything unexpected
from home?”
Waymarsh, on this, it seemed to him, looked at him harder than ever.
“‘Unexpected’?” He had a brief hesitation; then, however, he was firm.
“We’re leaving Paris.”
“Leaving? That _is_ sudden.”
Waymarsh showed a different opinion. “Less so than it may seem. The
purpose of Mrs. Pocock’s visit is to explain to you in fact that it’s
_not_.”
Strether didn’t at all know if he had really an advantage—anything that
would practically count as one; but he enjoyed for the moment—as for
the first time in his life—the sense of so carrying it off. He
wondered—it was amusing—if he felt as the impudent feel. “I shall take
great pleasure, I assure you, in any explanation. I shall be delighted
to receive Sarah.”
The sombre glow just darkened in his comrade’s eyes; but he was struck
with the way it died out again. It was too mixed with another
consciousness—it was too smothered, as might be said, in flowers. He
really for the time regretted it—poor dear old sombre glow! Something
straight and simple, something heavy and empty, had been eclipsed in
its company; something by which he had best known his friend. Waymarsh
wouldn’t _be_ his friend, somehow, without the occasional ornament of
the sacred rage, and the right to the sacred rage—inestimably precious
for Strether’s charity—he also seemed in a manner, and at Mrs. Pocock’s
elbow, to have forfeited. Strether remembered the occasion early in
their stay when on that very spot he had come out with his earnest, his
ominous “Quit it!”—and, so remembering, felt it hang by a hair that he
didn’t himself now utter the same note. Waymarsh was having a good
time—this was the truth that was embarrassing for him, and he was
having it then and there, he was having it in Europe, he was having it
under the very protection of circumstances of which he didn’t in the
least approve; all of which placed him in a false position, with no
issue possible—none at least by the grand manner. It was practically in
the manner of any one—it was all but in poor Strether’s own—that
instead of taking anything up he merely made the most of having to be
himself explanatory. “I’m not leaving for the United States direct. Mr.
and Mrs. Pocock and Miss Mamie are thinking of a little trip before
their own return, and we’ve been talking for some days past of our
joining forces. We’ve settled it that we do join and that we sail
together the end of next month. But we start to-morrow for Switzerland.
Mrs. Pocock wants some scenery. She hasn’t had much yet.”
He was brave in his way too, keeping nothing back, confessing all there
was, and only leaving Strether to make certain connexions. “Is what
Mrs. Newsome had cabled her daughter an injunction to break off short?”
The grand manner indeed at this just raised its head a little. “I know
nothing about Mrs. Newsome’s cables.”
Their eyes met on it with some intensity—during the few seconds of
which something happened quite out of proportion to the time. It
happened that Strether, looking thus at his friend, didn’t take his
answer for truth—and that something more again occurred in consequence
of _that_. Yes—Waymarsh just _did_ know about Mrs. Newsome’s cables: to
what other end than that had they dined together at Bignon’s? Strether
almost felt for the instant that it was to Mrs. Newsome herself the
dinner had been given; and, for that matter, quite felt how she must
have known about it and, as he might think, protected and consecrated
it. He had a quick blurred view of daily cables, questions, answers,
signals: clear enough was his vision of the expense that, when so wound
up, the lady at home was prepared to incur. Vivid not less was his
memory of what, during his long observation of her, some of her
attainments of that high pitch had cost her. Distinctly she was at the
highest now, and Waymarsh, who imagined himself an independent
performer, was really, forcing his fine old natural voice, an
overstrained accompanist. The whole reference of his errand seemed to
mark her for Strether as by this time consentingly familiar to him, and
nothing yet had so despoiled her of a special shade of consideration.
“You don’t know,” he asked, “whether Sarah has been directed from home
to try me on the matter of my also going to Switzerland?”
“I know,” said Waymarsh as manfully as possible, “nothing whatever
about her private affairs; though I believe her to be acting in
conformity with things that have my highest respect.” It was as manful
as possible, but it was still the false note—as it had to be to convey
so sorry a statement. He knew everything, Strether more and more felt,
that he thus disclaimed, and his little punishment was just in this
doom to a second fib. What falser position—given the man—could the most
vindictive mind impose? He ended by squeezing through a passage in
which three months before he would certainly have stuck fast. “Mrs
Pocock will probably be ready herself to answer any enquiry you may put
to her. But,” he continued, “_but_—!” He faltered on it.
“But what? Don’t put her too many?”
Waymarsh looked large, but the harm was done; he couldn’t, do what he
would, help looking rosy. “Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for.”
It was an attenuation, Strether guessed, of something else that had
been on his lips; it was a sudden drop to directness, and was thereby
the voice of sincerity. He had fallen to the supplicating note, and
that immediately, for our friend, made a difference and reinstated him.
They were in communication as they had been, that first morning, in
Sarah’s salon and in her presence and Madame de Vionnet’s; and the same
recognition of a great good will was again, after all, possible. Only
the amount of response Waymarsh had then taken for granted was doubled,
decupled now. This came out when he presently said: “Of course I
needn’t assure you _I_ hope you’ll come with us.” Then it was that his
implications and expectations loomed up for Strether as almost
pathetically gross.
The latter patted his shoulder while he thanked him, giving the go-by
to the question of joining the Pococks; he expressed the joy he felt at
seeing him go forth again so brave and free, and he in fact almost took
leave of him on the spot. “I shall see you again of course before you
go; but I’m meanwhile much obliged to you for arranging so conveniently
for what you’ve told me. I shall walk up and down in the court
there—dear little old court which we’ve each bepaced so, this last
couple of months, to the tune of our flights and our drops, our
hesitations and our plunges: I shall hang about there, all impatience
and excitement, please let Sarah know, till she graciously presents
herself. Leave me with her without fear,” he laughed; “I assure you I
shan’t hurt her. I don’t think either she’ll hurt _me_: I’m in a
situation in which damage was some time ago discounted. Besides, _that_
isn’t what worries you—but don’t, don’t explain! We’re all right as we
are: which was the degree of success our adventure was pledged to for
each of us. We weren’t, it seemed, all right as we were before; and
we’ve got over the ground, all things considered, quickly. I hope
you’ll have a lovely time in the Alps.”
Waymarsh fairly looked up at him as from the foot of them. “I don’t
know as I _ought_ really to go.”
It was the conscience of Milrose in the very voice of Milrose, but, oh
it was feeble and flat! Strether suddenly felt quite ashamed for him;
he breathed a greater boldness. “_Let_ yourself, on the contrary, go—in
all agreeable directions. These are precious hours—at our age they
mayn’t recur. Don’t have it to say to yourself at Milrose, next winter,
that you hadn’t courage for them.” And then as his comrade queerly
stared: “Live up to Mrs. Pocock.”
“Live up to her?”
“You’re a great help to her.”
Waymarsh looked at it as at one of the uncomfortable things that were
certainly true and that it was yet ironical to say. “It’s more then
than you are.”
“That’s exactly your own chance and advantage. Besides,” said Strether,
“I do in my way contribute. I know what I’m about.”
Waymarsh had kept on his great panama, and, as he now stood nearer the
door, his last look beneath the shade of it had turned again to
darkness and warning. “So do I! See here, Strether.”
“I know what you’re going to say. ‘Quit this’?”
“Quit this!” But it lacked its old intensity; nothing of it remained;
it went out of the room with him.