VOLUME II - BOOK TWELFTH - CHAPTER III

His purpose had been to see Chad the next day, and he had prefigured

seeing him by an early call; having in general never stood on ceremony

in respect to visits at the Boulevard Malesherbes. It had been

more often natural for him to go there than for Chad to come to the

small hotel, the attractions of which were scant; yet it nevertheless,

just now, at the eleventh hour, did suggest itself to Strether to begin

by giving the young man a chance. It struck him that, in the

inevitable course, Chad would be "round," as Waymarsh used to say--

Waymarsh who already, somehow, seemed long ago. He hadn't come the

day before, because it had been arranged between them that Madame de Vionnet

should see their friend first; but now that this passage had taken place

he would present himself, and their friend wouldn't have long to wait.

Strether assumed, he became aware, on this reasoning, that the

interesting parties to the arrangement would have met betimes, and

that the more interesting of the two--as she was after all--would

have communicated to the other the issue of her appeal. Chad would

know without delay that his mother's messenger had been with her,

and, though it was perhaps not quite easy to see how she could

qualify what had occurred, he would at least have been sufficiently

advised to feel he could go on. The day, however, brought, early

or late, no word from him, and Strether felt, as a result of this,

that a change had practically come over their intercourse. It was

perhaps a premature judgement; or it only meant perhaps--how could

he tell?--that the wonderful pair he protected had taken up again

together the excursion he had accidentally checked. They might

have gone back to the country, and gone back but with a long breath drawn;

that indeed would best mark Chad's sense that reprobation hadn't

rewarded Madame de Vionnet's request for an interview. At the end of

the twenty-four hours, at the end of the forty-eight, there was still

no overture; so that Strether filled up the time, as he had so often

filled it before, by going to see Miss Gostrey.

He proposed amusements to her; he felt expert now in proposing

amusements; and he had thus, for several days, an odd sense of

leading her about Paris, of driving her in the Bois, of showing her

the penny steamboats--those from which the breeze of the Seine was

to be best enjoyed--that might have belonged to a kindly uncle

doing the honours of the capital to an Intelligent niece from the

country. He found means even to take her to shops she didn't

know, or that she pretended she didn't; while she, on her side,

was, like the country maiden, all passive modest and grateful--

going in fact so far as to emulate rusticity in occasional fatigues

and bewilderments. Strether described these vague proceedings to

himself, described them even to her, as a happy interlude; the sign

of which was that the companions said for the time no further word

about the matter they had talked of to satiety. He proclaimed

satiety at the outset, and she quickly took the hint; as docile

both in this and in everything else as the intelligent obedient

niece. He told her as yet nothing of his late adventure--for as

an adventure it now ranked with him; he pushed the whole business

temporarily aside and found his interest in the fact of her

beautiful assent. She left questions unasked--she who for so long

had been all questions; she gave herself up to him with an

understanding of which mere mute gentleness might have seemed the

sufficient expression. She knew his sense of his situation had

taken still another step--of that he was quite aware; but she

conveyed that, whatever had thus happened for him, it was thrown

into the shade by what was happening for herself. This--though it

mightn't to a detached spirit have seemed much--was the major

interest, and she met it with a new directness of response,

measuring it from hour to hour with her grave hush of acceptance.

Touched as he had so often been by her before, he was, for his part

too, touched afresh; all the more that though he could be duly

aware of the principle of his own mood he couldn't be equally so

of the principle of hers. He knew, that is, in a manner--knew

roughly and resignedly--what he himself was hatching; whereas he

had to take the chance of what he called to himself Maria's

calculations. It was all he needed that she liked him enough for

what they were doing, and even should they do a good deal more

would still like him enough for that; the essential freshness of a

relation so simple was a cool bath to the soreness produced by

other relations. These others appeared to him now horribly

complex; they bristled with fine points, points all unimaginable

beforehand, points that pricked and drew blood; a fact that gave to

an hour with his present friend on a bateau-mouche, or in the

afternoon shade of the Champs Elysees, something of the innocent

pleasure of handling rounded ivory. His relation with Chad

personally--from the moment he had got his point of view--had been

of the simplest; yet this also struck him as bristling, after a

third and a fourth blank day had passed. It was as if at last

however his care for such indications had dropped; there came a

fifth blank day and he ceased to enquire or to heed.

They now took on to his fancy, Miss Gostrey and he, the image of

the Babes in the Wood; they could trust the merciful elements to

let them continue at peace. He had been great already, as he knew,

at postponements; but he had only to get afresh into the rhythm of

one to feel its fine attraction. It amused him to say to himself

that he might for all the world have been going to die--die resignedly;

the scene was filled for him with so deep a death-bed hush, so

melancholy a charm. That meant the postponement of everything else--

which made so for the quiet lapse of life; and the postponement

in especial of the reckoning to come--unless indeed the reckoning

to come were to be one and the same thing with extinction. It faced

him, the reckoning, over the shoulder of much interposing experience--

which also faced him; and one would float to it doubtless duly

through these caverns of Kubla Khan. It was really behind everything;

it hadn't merged in what he had done; his final appreciation of what

he had done--his appreciation on the spot--would provide it with

its main sharpness. The spot so focussed was of course Woollett,

and he was to see, at the best, what Woollett would be with everything

there changed for him. Wouldn't THAT revelation practically amount to

the wind-up of his career? Well, the summer's end would show;

his suspense had meanwhile exactly the sweetness of vain delay;

and he had with it, we should mention, other pastimes than Maria's

company--plenty of separate musings in which his luxury failed him

but at one point. He was well in port, the outer sea behind him,

and it was only a matter of getting ashore. There was a question

that came and went for him, however, as he rested against the

side of his ship, and it was a little to get rid of the obsession

that he prolonged his hours with Miss Gostrey. It was a question

about himself, but it could only be settled by seeing Chad again;

it was indeed his principal reason for wanting to see Chad.

After that it wouldn't signify--it was a ghost that certain words

would easily lay to rest. Only the young man must be there to

take the words. Once they were taken he wouldn't have a question left;

none, that is, in connexion with this particular affair. It wouldn't

then matter even to himself that he might now have been guilty of

speaking BECAUSE of what he had forfeited. That was the refinement

of his supreme scruple--he wished so to leave what he had forfeited

out of account. He wished not to do anything because he had missed

something else, because he was sore or sorry or impoverished,

because he was maltreated or desperate; he wished to do everything

because he was lucid and quiet, just the same for himself on all

essential points as he had ever been. Thus it was that while he

virtually hung about for Chad he kept mutely putting it: "You've

been chucked, old boy; but what has that to do with it?" It would

have sickened him to feel vindictive.

These tints of feeling indeed were doubtless but the iridescence of

his idleness, and they were presently lost in a new light from

Maria. She had a fresh fact for him before the week was out, and

she practically met him with it on his appearing one night. He hadn't

on this day seen her, but had planned presenting himself in due course

to ask her to dine with him somewhere out of doors, on one of the

terraces, in one of the gardens, of which the Paris of summer was

profuse. It had then come on to rain, so that, disconcerted, he changed

his mind; dining alone at home, a little stuffily and stupidly, and

waiting on her afterwards to make up his loss. He was sure within a

minute that something had happened; it was so in the air of the rich

little room that he had scarcely to name his thought. Softly lighted,

the whole colour of the place, with its vague values, was in cool

fusion--an effect that made the visitor stand for a little agaze. It

was as if in doing so now he had felt a recent presence--his recognition

of the passage of which his hostess in turn divined. She had scarcely

to say it--"Yes, she has been here, and this time I received her." It

wasn't till a minute later that she added: "There being, as I

understand you, no reason NOW--!"

"None for your refusing?"

"No--if you've done what you've had to do."

"I've certainly so far done it," Strether said, "as that you needn't

fear the effect, or the appearance of coming between us. There's

nothing between us now but what we ourselves have put there, and

not an inch of room for anything else whatever. Therefore you're

only beautifully WITH us as always--though doubtless now, if she

has talked to you, rather more with us than less. Of course if

she came," he added, "it was to talk to you."

"It was to talk to me," Maria returned; on which he was further

sure that she was practically in possession of what he himself hadn't

yet told her. He was even sure she was in possession of things

he himself couldn't have told; for the consciousness of them was

now all in her face and accompanied there with a shade of sadness

that marked in her the close of all uncertainties. It came out for

him more than ever yet that she had had from the first a knowledge

she believed him not to have had, a knowledge the sharp acquisition

of which might be destined to make a difference for him. The

difference for him might not inconceivably be an arrest of his

independence and a change in his attitude--in other words a

revulsion in favour of the principles of Woollett. She had really

prefigured the possibility of a shock that would send him swinging

back to Mrs. Newsome. He hadn't, it was true, week after week,

shown signs of receiving it, but the possibility had been none the

less in the air. What Maria accordingly had had now to take in was

that the shock had descended and that he hadn't, all the same,

swung back. He had grown clear, in a flash, on a point long since

settled for herself; but no reapproximation to Mrs. Newsome had

occurred in consequence. Madame de Vionnet had by her visit held

up the torch to these truths, and what now lingered in poor Maria's

face was the somewhat smoky light of the scene between them.

If the light however wasn't, as we have hinted, the glow of joy,

the reasons for this also were perhaps discernible to Strether even

through the blur cast over them by his natural modesty. She had

held herself for months with a firm hand; she hadn't interfered on

any chance--and chances were specious enough--that she might

interfere to her profit. She had turned her back on the dream that

Mrs. Newsome's rupture, their friend's forfeiture--the engagement

the relation itself, broken beyond all mending--might furnish forth

her advantage; and, to stay her hand from promoting these things,

she had on private, difficult, but rigid, lines, played strictly

fair. She couldn't therefore but feel that, though, as the end of

all, the facts in question had been stoutly confirmed, her ground

for personal, for what might have been called interested, elation

remained rather vague. Strether might easily have made out that

she had been asking herself, in the hours she had just sat through,

if there were still for her, or were only not, a fair shade of

uncertainty. Let us hasten to add, however, that what he at first

made out on this occasion he also at first kept to himself. He

only asked what in particular Madame de Vionnet had come for,

and as to this his companion was ready.

"She wants tidings of Mr. Newsome, whom she appears not to have

seen for some days."

"Then she hasn't been away with him again?"

"She seemed to think," Maria answered, "that he might have gone

away with YOU."

"And did you tell her I know nothing of him?"

She had her indulgent headshake. "I've known nothing of what you

know. I could only tell her I'd ask you."

"Then I've not seen him for a week--and of course I've wondered."

His wonderment showed at this moment as sharper, but he presently

went on. "Still, I dare say I can put my hand on him. Did she

strike you," he asked, "as anxious?"

"She's always anxious."

"After all I've done for her?" And he had one of the last flickers

of his occasional mild mirth. "To think that was just what I came

out to prevent!"

She took it up but to reply. "You don't regard him then as safe?"

"I was just going to ask you how in that respect you regard Madame

de Vionnet."

She looked at him a little. "What woman was EVER safe? She told

me," she added--and it was as if at the touch of the connexion--

"of your extraordinary meeting in the country. After that a quoi

se fier?"

"It was, as an accident, in all the possible or impossible chapter,"

Strether conceded, "amazing enough. But still, but still--!"

"But still she didn't mind?"

"She doesn't mind anything."

"Well, then, as you don't either, we may all sink to rest!"

He appeared to agree with her, but he had his reservation.

"I do mind Chad's disappearance."

"Oh you'll get him back. But now you know," she said, "why I went

to Mentone." He had sufficiently let her see that he had by this

time gathered things together, but there was nature in her wish to

make them clearer still. "I didn't want you to put it to me."

"To put it to you--?"

"The question of what you were at last--a week ago--to see for

yourself. I didn't want to have to lie for her. I felt that to

be too much for me. A man of course is always expected to do it--

to do it, I mean, for a woman; but not a woman for another woman;

unless perhaps on the tit-for-tat principle, as an indirect way of

protecting herself. I don't need protection, so that I was free to

'funk' you--simply to dodge your test. The responsibility was too

much for me. I gained time, and when I came back the need of a

test had blown over."

Strether thought of it serenely. "Yes; when you came back little

Bilham had shown me what's expected of a gentleman. Little Bilham

had lied like one."

"And like what you believed him?"

"Well," said Strether, "it was but a technical lie--he classed the

attachment as virtuous. That was a view for which there was much

to be said--and the virtue came out for me hugely There was of

course a great deal of it. I got it full in the face, and I haven't,

you see, done with it yet."

"What I see, what I saw," Maria returned, "is that you dressed up

even the virtue. You were wonderful--you were beautiful, as I've

had the honour of telling you before; but, if you wish really to

know," she sadly confessed, "I never quite knew WHERE you were.

There were moments," she explained, "when you struck me as grandly

cynical; there were others when you struck me as grandly vague."

Her friend considered. "I had phases. I had flights."

"Yes, but things must have a basis."

"A basis seemed to me just what her beauty supplied."

"Her beauty of person?"

"Well, her beauty of everything. The impression she makes. She

has such variety and yet such harmony."

She considered him with one of her deep returns of indulgence--

returns out of all proportion to the irritations they flooded over.

"You're complete."

"You're always too personal," he good-humouredly said; "but that's

precisely how I wondered and wandered."

"If you mean," she went on, "that she was from the first for you

the most charming woman in the world, nothing's more simple. Only

that was an odd foundation."

"For what I reared on it?"

"For what you didn't!"

"Well, it was all not a fixed quantity. And it had for me--it has

still--such elements of strangeness. Her greater age than his, her

different world, traditions, association; her other opportunities,

liabilities, standards."

His friend listened with respect to his enumeration of these

disparities; then she disposed of them at a stroke. "Those things

are nothing when a woman's hit. It's very awful. She was hit."

Strether, on his side, did justice to that plea. "Oh of course I

saw she was hit. That she was hit was what we were busy with; that

she was hit was our great affair. But somehow I couldn't think of

her as down in the dust. And as put there by OUR little Chad!"

"Yet wasn't 'your' little Chad just your miracle?"

Strether admitted it. "Of course I moved among miracles. It was

all phantasmagoric. But the great fact was that so much of it was

none of my business--as I saw my business. It isn't even now."

His companion turned away on this, and it might well have been yet

again with the sharpness of a fear of how little his philosophy

could bring her personally. "I wish SHE could hear you!"

"Mrs. Newsome?"

"No--not Mrs. Newsome; since I understand you that it doesn't

matter now what Mrs. Newsome hears. Hasn't she heard

everything?"

"Practically--yes." He had thought a moment, but he went on. "You

wish Madame de Vionnet could hear me?"

"Madame de Vionnet." She had come back to him. "She thinks just

the contrary of what you say. That you distinctly judge her."

He turned over the scene as the two women thus placed together for

him seemed to give it. "She might have known--!"

"Might have known you don't?" Miss Gostrey asked as he let it drop.

"She was sure of it at first," she pursued as he said nothing; "she

took it for granted, at least, as any woman in her position would.

But after that she changed her mind; she believed you believed--"

"Well?"--he was curious.

"Why in her sublimity. And that belief had remained with her, I

make out, till the accident of the other day opened your eyes. For

that it did," said Maria, "open them--"

"She can't help"--he had taken it up--"being aware? No," he mused;

"I suppose she thinks of that even yet."

"Then they WERE closed? There you are! However, if you see her as

the most charming woman in the world it comes to the same thing.

And if you'd like me to tell her that you do still so see her--!"

Miss Gostrey, in short, offered herself for service to the end.

It was an offer he could temporarily entertain; but he decided.

"She knows perfectly how I see her."

"Not favourably enough, she mentioned to me, to wish ever to see

her again. She told me you had taken a final leave of her. She

says you've done with her."

"So I have."

Maria had a pause; then she spoke as if for conscience. "She

wouldn't have done with YOU. She feels she has lost you--

yet that she might have been better for you."

"Oh she has been quite good enough!" Strether laughed.

"She thinks you and she might at any rate have been friends."

"We might certainly. That's just"--he continued to laugh--

"why I'm going."

It was as if Maria could feel with this then at last that she had

done her best for each. But she had still an idea. "Shall I tell

her that?"

"No. Tell her nothing."

"Very well then." To which in the next breath Miss Gostrey added:

"Poor dear thing!"

Her friend wondered; then with raised eyebrows: "Me?"

"Oh no. Marie de Vionnet."

He accepted the correction, but he wondered still. "Are you so

sorry for her as that?"

It made her think a moment--made her even speak with a smile. But

she didn't really retract. "I'm sorry for us all!"

Read next: VOLUME II#BOOK TWELFTH#CHAPTER IV

Read previous: VOLUME II#BOOK TWELFTH#CHAPTER II

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