Henry James

“ To sit there was, as he had told her before, to see life reflected for the time in ideally kept pewter; which was somehow becoming, improving to life, so that one's eyes were held and comforted. Strether's were comforted, at all events, now—and the more that it was the last time—with the charming effect, on the board bare of a cloth and proud of its perfect surface, of the small old crockery and old silver, matched by the more substantial pieces happily disposed about the room. ”

“ Strether felt in it the strange irony.
"So it's scarcely his fault!"
"It's at any rate his danger. I mean," said Strether, "it's hers. But she knows it."
"Yes, she knows it. And is your idea," Miss Gostrey asked, "that there was some other woman in London?"
"Yes. No. That is, I have no ideas. I'm afraid of them. I've done with them." And he put out his hand to her. "Good-bye."
It brought her back to her unanswered question. "To what do you go home?"
"I don't know. There will always be something." ”

“ She has only to know what you've done to him never again to raise a finger."
"I've done," said Strether, "what I could—one can't do more. He protests his devotion and his horror. But I'm not sure I've saved him. He protests too much. He asks how one can dream of his being tired. But he has all life before him." ”