Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/121

Rh grossness of defiance. Of course experience was in a manner defiance; but it wasn't, at any rate—rather indeed quite the contrary—grossness: which was so much gained. He fairly grew older, Strether thought, while he himself so reasoned. Then, with his mature pat of his visitor's arm, he also got up; and there had been enough of it all, by this time, to make the visitor feel that something was settled. Wasn't it settled that he had at least the testimony of Chad's own belief in a settlement? Strether found himself treating Chad's profession that they would get on as a sufficient basis for going to bed. He had not, however, after this, gone to bed directly; for, after they had again passed out together into the mild, bright night, a check had virtually sprung from nothing more than a small circumstance which might have acted only as confirming quiescence. There were people, expressive sound, projected light, still abroad, and after they had taken in for a moment, through everything, the great clear architectural street, they turned off, in tacit union, to the quarter of Strether's hotel. "Of course," Chad here abruptly began, "of course mother's making things out with you about me has been natural—and of course also you've had a good deal to go upon. Still, you must have filled out."

He had stopped, leaving his friend to wonder a little what point he wished to make; and this it was that enabled Strether meanwhile to make one. "Oh, we've never pretended to go into detail. We weren't in the least bound to that. It was 'filling out' enough to miss you as we did."

But Chad rather oddly insisted, though, under the high lamp at their corner, where they paused, he had at first looked as if touched by Strether's allusion to the long sense, at home, of his absence. "What I mean is you must have imagined."

"Imagined what?"

"Well—horrors."

It affected Strether—horrors were so little, superficially, at least, in this robust and reasoning image. But he was none the less there to be thoroughly veracious. "Yes, I dare say we have imagined horrors. But where's the harm, if we haven't been wrong?"