Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/91

Rh what he was to think exactly of either of his new friends; since the young man, Chad's intimate and deputy, had, in thus constituting the scene, practised so much more subtly than he had been prepared for, and since, in especial, Miss Barrace, surrounded clearly by every consideration, had not scrupled to figure as a feature. It was interesting to him to feel that he was in the presence of new measures, other standards, a different scale of relations, and that evidently here were a happy pair who didn't think of things at all as he and Waymarsh thought. Nothing was less to have been calculated in the business than that it should now be for him as if he and Waymarsh were comparatively quite at one.

The latter was magnificent—this at least was an assurance privately given him by Miss Barrace. "Oh, your friend's a type, the grand old American—what shall one call it? The Hebrew prophet, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, who used when I was a little girl in the Rue Montaigne, to come to see my father and who was usually the American Minister to the Tuileries or some other court. I haven't seen one these ever so many years; the sight of it warms my poor old chilled heart; this specimen is wonderful; in the right quarter, you know, he'll have a succès fou." Strether had not failed to ask what the right quarter might be, much as he required his presence of mind to meet such a change in their scheme. "Oh, the artist-quarter, and that kind of thing; here, already, for instance, as you see." He had been on the point of echoing "'Here?'—is this the artist-quarter?" but she had already disposed of the question with a wave of all her tortoise-shell and an easy "Bring him to me!" He knew on the spot how little he should be able to bring him, for the very air was by this time, to his sense, thick and hot with poor Waymarsh's judgment of it. He was in the trap still more than his companion, and, unlike his companion, not making the best of it; which was precisely what gave him, doubtless, his admirable sombre glow. Little did Miss Barrace know that what was behind it was his grave estimate of her own laxity. The general assumption with which our two friends had arrived had been that of finding Mr. Bilham ready to conduct them to