Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/179

Rh treating as earnestness. It was sufficiently flattering, however, that the real thing—if this was at last the real thing—should have been determined, as appeared, precisely by an accretion of Strether's importance. For this was what, quickly enough, it came to—that Chad, rising with the lark, had rushed down to let him know, while his morning consciousness was yet young, that he had made, literally, the afternoon before, a tremendous impression. Mme. de Vionnet wouldn't, couldn't rest till she should have some assurance from him that he would consent again to see her. The announcement was made, across their marble-topped table, while the foam of the hot milk was in their cups and its plash still in the air, with the smile of Chad's easiest urbanity; and this expression of his face caused our friend's doubts to gather, on the spot, into a challenge of the lips. "See here"—that was all; he only, for the moment, said again "See here." Chad met it with all his air of straight intelligence, while Strether remembered again that fancy of the first impression of him, the happy young pagan, handsome and hard, but indulgent, whose mysterious measure, under the street-lamp, he had tried mentally to take. The young pagan, while a long look passed between them, sufficiently understood. Strether scarce needed at last to say the rest—"I want to know where I am." But he said it, and he added, before any answer, something more. "Are you engaged to be married—is that your secret?—to the young lady?"

Chad shook his head with the slow amenity that was one of his ways of conveying that there was time for everything. "I have no secret—though I may have secrets! I haven't at any rate that one. We're not engaged. No."

"Then where's the hitch?"

"Do you mean why I haven't already started with you?" Chad, beginning his coffee and buttering his roll, was quite ready to explain. "Nothing would have induced me—nothing will still induce me—not to try to keep you here as long as you can be made to stay. It's too visibly good for you." Strether had himself plenty to say about this, but it was amusing also to measure the march of Chad's tone. He had never been more a man of the world, and it was always, in his company, present to our friend that