Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/357

Rh conception and purchase of the hat, any more than her fine fingers had been guiltless of the bestowal of the rose. It came to him in the current of thought, as things so oddly did come, that he had never risen with the lark to attend a brilliant woman to the Marché aux Fleurs; that could be fastened on him in connection neither with Miss Gostrey nor with Mme. de Vionnet; the practice of getting up early for adventures could indeed in no manner be fastened on him. It came to him in fact that just here was his usual case: he was forever missing things through his general genius for missing them, while others were forever picking them up through a contrary bent. And it was others who looked abstemious and he who looked greedy; it was he, somehow, who finally paid, and it was others who mainly partook. Yes, he should go to the scaffold yet for he wouldn't know quite whom. He almost, for that matter, felt on the scaffold now, and really quite enjoying it. It worked out as because he was anxious there— it worked out as for this reason that Waymarsh was so blooming. It was his trip for health, for a change, that proved the success—which was just what Strether, planning and exerting himself, had desired it should be. That truth already sat full-blown on his companion's lips; benevolence breathed from them as with the warmth of active exercise, and also, a little, as with the bustle of haste.

"Mrs. Pocock, whom I left a quarter of an hour ago at her hotel, has asked me to mention to you that she would like to find you at home here in about another hour. She wants to see you; she has something to say—or considers, I believe, that you may have: so that I asked her myself why she shouldn't come right round. She hasn't been round yet—to see our place; and I took upon myself to say that I was sure you'd be glad to have her. The thing's, therefore, you see, to keep right here till she comes."

The announcement was sociably, even though, after Waymarsh's wont, somewhat solemnly made; but Strether quickly felt other things in it than these light features. It was the first approach to a meaning; it quickened his pulse; it simply showed at last that he should have but himself to thank if he didn't know where he was. He had finished his breakfast; he pushed it away and was on his