Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/451

Rh yet that was only a part; so that from the moment Chad accepted his farewell the question of a more ideal affirmation gave way to something else. He proceeded with the rest of his business. "You'll be a brute, you know—you'll be guilty of the last infamy—if you ever forsake her."

That, uttered there at the solemn hour, uttered in the place that was full of her influence—was the rest of his business; and when once he had heard himself say it he felt that his message had never before been spoken. It placed his present call immediately on solid ground, and the effect of it was to enable him quite to play with what we have called the key. Chad showed no shade of embarrassment, but had none the less been troubled for him after their meeting in the country; had had fears and doubts on the subject of his comfort. He was disturbed, as it were, only for him, and had positively gone away to ease him off. Seeing him now fairly jaded, he had come, with characteristic good-humour, all the way to meet him, and what Strether thereupon supremely made out was that he would abound for him, to the end, in conscientious assurances. This was what was between them while the visitor remained; so far from having to go over old ground, he found his host quite ready to agree to everything. It couldn't be put too strongly for him that he would be a brute. "Oh, rather! I hope you believe I really feel it!"

"I want it," said Strether, "to be my last word of all to you. I can't say more, you know; and I don't see how I can do more in every way than I have done."

Chad took this, almost artlessly, as a direct allusion. "You've seen her?"

"Oh, yes—to say good-bye. And if I had doubted the truth of what I tell you"

"She'd have cleared up your doubt?" Chad understood—rather! It even kept him briefly silent. But he made that up. "She must have been wonderful."

"She was," Strether candidly admitted—all of which practically told as a reference to the conditions created by the accident of the previous week.

They appeared for a little to be looking back at it, and that came out still more in what the young man next