Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/441

Rh Woollett, and he was to see, at the best, what Woollett would be with everything there changed for him. Wouldn't that revelation practically amount to the wind-up of his career? Well, the summer's end would show; his suspense had meanwhile exactly the sweetness of vain delay; and he had with it, we should mention, other pastimes than Maria's company—plenty of separate musings in which his luxury failed him but at one point. He was well in port, the outer sea behind him, and it was only a matter of getting ashore; there was a question that came and went for him, however, as he rested against the side of his ship, and it was a little to get rid of the obsession that he prolonged his hours with Miss Gostrey. It was a question about himself, but it could only be settled by seeing Chad again; it was indeed his principal reason for wanting to see Chad. After that it wouldn't signify—it was a ghost that certain words would easily lay to rest. Only the young man must be there to take the words. Once they were taken he wouldn't have a question left; none, that is, in connection with this particular affair. It wouldn't then matter even to himself that he might now have been guilty of speaking because of what he had forfeited. That was the refinement of his supreme scruple—he wished so to leave what he had forfeited out of account. He wished not to do anything because he had missed something else, because he was sore or sorry or impoverished, because he was maltreated or desperate; he wished to do everything because he was lucid and quiet, just the same for himself on all essential points as he had ever been. Thus it was that, while he virtually hung about for Chad, he kept mutely expressing it. "You've been chucked, old boy; but what has that to do with it?" It would have sickened him to feel vindictive.

These shades indeed were doubtless but the iridescence of his idleness, and they were presently lost in a new light from Maria. She had a fresh fact for him before the week was out, and she practically met him with it on his appearing one night. He had not on this day seen her, but had planned presenting himself in due course to ask her to dine with him somewhere out of doors. It had then come on to rain, so that, disconcerted, he changed his mind; dining