Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/196

190 and violent. He struck himself as a little nearer to it only when he asked himself what service, in such a life of utility, he was, after all, rendering Mrs. Newsome. When he wished to help himself to believe that he was still all right he reflected—and in fact with wonder—on the unimpaired frequency of their correspondence; in relation to which what was, after all, more natural than that it should become more frequent just in proportion as their problem became more complicated?

Certain it is, at any rate, that he now often brought himself balm by the question, with the rich consciousness of yesterday's letter: "Well, what can I do more than that—what can I do more than tell her everything!" To persuade himself that he did tell her, had told her everything, he used to try to think of particular things he had not told her. When at rare moments, and in the watches of the night, he pounced on one, it generally showed itself to be—to a deeper scrutiny—not quite truly of the essence. When anything new struck him as coming up, or anything already noted as reappearing, he always immediately wrote, as if for fear that if he didn't he would miss something; and also that he might be able to say to himself from time to time, "She knows it now, even while I worry." It was a great comfort to him, in general, not to have left past things to be dragged to light and explained; not to have to produce at so late a stage anything not produced, or anything even veiled and attenuated at the moment. She knew it now; that was what he said to himself to-night in relation to the fresh fact of Chad's acquaintance with the two ladies—not to speak of the fresher one of his own. Mrs. Newsome knew, in other words, that very night at Woollett, that he himself knew Mme. de Vionnet, and that he had been conscientiously to see her; also that he had found her remarkably attractive, and that there would probably be a good deal more to tell. But she further knew—or would know very soon—that, again conscientiously, he had not repeated his visit; and that when Chad had asked him on the Countess's behalf—Strether made her out vividly, with a thought at the back of his head, a Countess—if he wouldn't name a day for dining with her, he had replied lucidly, "Thank you very much—