Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/293

Rh exquisitely expressive eyes, to some later light. The prime effect of her tone, however—and it was a truth which his own eyes gave back to her in sad ironic play—could only be to make him feel that, to say such things to a man in public, a woman must practically think of him as ninety years old. He had turned awkwardly, responsibly red, he knew, at her mention of Maria Gostrey; Sarah Pocock's presence—the particular quality of it—had made this inevitable; and then he had grown still redder in proportion as he hated to have shown anything at all. He felt indeed that he was showing much, as, uncomfortably and almost in pain, he offered up his redness to Waymarsh, who, strangely enough, seemed now to be looking at him with a certain explanatory yearning. Something deep—something built on their old, old relation—passed, in this complexity, between them; he got the side-wind of a loyalty that stood behind all actual queer questions. Waymarsh's dry, bare humour—as it gave itself to be taken—gloomed out to justify itself. "Well, if you talk of Miss Barrace, I've my chance too," it appeared stiffly to nod; and it granted that it was giving him away, but struggled to say that it did so only to save him. The sombre glow stared it at him till it fairly sounded out—"to save you, poor old man, to save you; to save you in spite of yourself." Yet it was somehow just this communication that showed him to himself as more than ever lost. Still another result of it was to put before him as never yet that between his comrade and the interest represented by Sarah there was already a basis. Beyond all question now, yes—Waymarsh had been in occult relation with Mrs. Newsome. Out, out it all came in the very effort of his face. "Yes, you're feeling my hand"—he as good as proclaimed it; "but only because this at least I shall have got out of your stale Old World: that I shall have picked up the pieces into which it has caused you to crumble." It was as if, in short, after an instant, Strether had not only had it from him, but had recognised that, so far as this went, the instant had cleared the air. Our friend understood and approved; he had the sense that they wouldn't otherwise speak of it. This would be all, and it would mark in himself a kind of intelligent