Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/149

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Sunday of the next week was a wonderful day, and Chad Newsome had let his friend know in advance that he had provided for it. There had already been a question of his taking him to see the great Gloriani, who was at home on Sunday afternoons and at whose house, for the most part, fewer bores were to be met than elsewhere; but the project, through some accident, had not had instant effect. It had now, however, revived in happier conditions. Chad had made the point that the celebrated sculptor had a queer old garden, for which the weather—spring at last, frank and fair—was propitious; and two or three of his other allusions had confirmed for Strether the expectation of something special. He had by this time, for all introductions and adventures, let himself recklessly go, cherishing the sense that, whatever the young man showed him, he was showing at least himself. He could have wished, indeed, so far as this went, that Chad were less of a mere cicerone, for he was not without the impression, now that the vision of his game, his plan, his deep diplomacy, did recurrently assert itself—of his taking refuge from the realities of their intercourse in the offered bribe, as our friend mentally phrased it, of panem et circenses. Our friend continued to feel rather smothered in sensations, though he made in his other moments the almost angry inference that this was only because of his odious inbred suspicion of any form of beauty. He periodically assured himself—for his reactions were sharp—that he should not reach the truth of anything till he had at least got rid of that.

He had known beforehand that Mme. de Vionnet and her daughter would probably be on view, an intimation to that effect having constituted the only reference again made by Chad to his good friends from the south. 143