Henry James

“ She had settled with Chad after he left them that she would, for her satisfaction, assure herself of this quantity, and Chad had, as usual, let her have her way. Chad was always letting people have their way when he felt that it would somehow turn his wheel for him; it somehow always did turn his wheel. Strether felt, oddly enough, before these facts, freshly and consentingly passive ”

“ He had absolutely become, himself, with his perceptions and his mistakes, his concessions and his reserves, the ridiculous mixture, as it must seem to them, of his braveries and his fears, the general spectacle of his art and his innocence, almost an added link, and certainly a common, priceless ground for them to meet upon. ”

“ They would have distinctly, on his appearance, every ground for scandal. But fate failed to administer even that sternness; the Pococks never passed, and Chad made no sign. Strether meanwhile continued to hold off from Miss Gostrey, keeping her till to-morrow; so that by evening his irresponsibility, his impunity, his luxury had become—there was no other word for them—immense. ”

“ He mightn't see her at all; that was one of the reflections he made after writing and before he dropped his closed card into the box; he mightn't see anyone at all any more at all; he might make an end as well now as ever, leaving things as they were, since he was doubtless not to leave them better, and taking his way home so far as should appear that a home remained to him. This alternative was for a few moments so sharp that if he at last did deposit his missive it was perhaps because the pressure of the place had an effect. ”