Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/268

262 amiability, hospitality and welcome. She's under arms," Chad laughed again; "she's prepared."

Strether took it in. Then, as if an echo of Miss Barrace were in the air, "She's wonderful."

"You don't begin to know how wonderful!"

There was a depth in it, to Strether's ear, of confirmed luxury—almost a kind of unconscious insolence of proprietorship; but the effect of this glimpse was not at the moment to foster speculation—there was something so conclusive in so much graceful and generous assurance. It was a fresh evocation in fact, and the evocation had, before many minutes, another consequence. "Well, I shall see her oftener now. I shall see her as much as I like—by your leave, which is what I hitherto haven't done."

"It has been," said Chad, but without reproach, "only your own fault. I tried to bring you together, and she—my dear fellow, I never saw her more charming to any man. But you've got your extraordinary ideas."

"Well, I did have," Strether murmured, while he felt both how they had possessed him and had now lost their authority. He couldn't have traced the sequence to the end, but it was all because of Mrs. Pocock. Mrs. Pocock might be because of Mrs. Newsome, but that was still to be proved. What came over him was the sense of having stupidly failed to profit where profit would have been precious. It had been open to him to see so much more of her, and he had but let the good days pass. Fierce in him almost was the resolve to lose no more of them, and he whimsically reflected while he drew nearer at Chad's side to his destination that it was Sarah, after all, who would have touched up his chance. What her visit of inquisition might achieve in other directions was as yet all obscure; but it was not obscure that it would do supremely much to bring two earnest persons together. He had only to listen to Chad at this moment to feel it, for Chad was in the act of remarking to him that they, of course, both counted on him—he himself and the other earnest person—for cheer and support. It was brave to Strether to hear him talk as if the line of wisdom they had struck out was to make things ravishing to the Pococks. No; if Mme. de Vionnet compassed that—compassed the ravishment