Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/431

 XXXIII

", you're all right, you're all right," he almost impatiently declared; his impatience being moreover not for her pressure but for her scruple. More and more distinct to him was the tune to which she would have had the matter out with Chad; more and more vivid for him the idea that she had been nervous as to what he could "stand." Yes, it had been a question if he had "stood" what the scene on the river had given him, and, though the young man had doubtless opined in favour of his recuperation, her own last word had been that she should feel easier in seeing for herself. That was it, unmistakably; she was seeing for herself; what he could stand was, in these moments, in the balance for Strether, who reflected, as he became fully aware of it, that he must pull himself up. He wanted fully to appear to stand all that was humanly possible; and there was a certain command of the situation for him in this very wish not to look too much at sea. She was ready with everything, but so, sufficiently, was he; that is he was at one point the more prepared of the two, inasmuch as, for all her cleverness, she couldn't produce on the spot—and it was surprising—an account of the motive of her note. He had the advantage that his pronouncing her "all right" gave him for an inquiry. "May I ask, delighted as I've been to come, if you've wished to say something special?" He spoke as if she might have seen he had been waiting for it—not indeed with discomfort, but with natural interest. Then he saw that she was a little taken aback, was even surprised herself at the detail she had neglected—the only one ever yet; having somehow assumed he would know, would recognise, would leave some things not to be said. She looked at him, however, an instant as if to convey that if he wanted them all!

"Selfish and vulgar—that's what I must seem to you. 425