Henry James

“ Then "A man in trouble must be possessed, somehow, of a woman," she said; "if she doesn't come in one way she comes in another."
"Why do you call me a man in trouble?"
"Ah, because that's the way you strike me." She spoke ever so gently, and as if with all fear of wounding him while she sat partaking of his bounty. "Aren't you in trouble?"
He felt himself colour at the question, and then he hated that—hated to pass for anything so idiotic as woundable. Woundable by Chad's lady, in respect to whom he had come out with such a fund of indifference—was he already at that point? ”

“ Since she took him for a firm object—much as he might to his own sense appear at times to rock—he would do his best to be one.
The end of it was that, half an hour later, they were seated together, for an early luncheon, at a wonderful, a delightful house of entertainment on the left bank—a place of pilgrimage for the knowing, they were both aware, the knowing who came, for its great renown, the homage of restless days, from the other end of the town. ”

“ He had dropped upon a seat half-way down the nave and, again in the museum mood, was trying with head thrown back and eyes aloft to reconstitute a past, to reduce it in fact to the convenient terms of Victor Hugo, whom, a few days before, giving the rein for once in a way to the joy of life, he had purchased in seventy bound volumes, a miracle of cheapness, parted with, he was assured by the shopman, at the price of the red-and-gold alone. ”

“ Strether presently concluded, "nothing could really hurt you but his marrying."
She gave a strange light laugh. "Putting aside what may really hurt him."
But her friend looked at her as if he had thought of that too. "The question will come up, of course, of the future that you yourself offer him."
She was leaning back now, but she fully faced him. "Well, let it come up!"
"The point is that it's for Chad to make of it what he can. His being proof against marriage will show what he does make." ”

“ He has given me, like you, the assurance that she's really grand. But her being really grand is somehow just what has not seemed to simplify our case. Nothing," she continued, "is further from me than to wish to say a word against her; but of course I feel how little she can like being told of her owing me anything. No woman ever enjoys such an obligation to another woman."
This was a proposition Strether couldn't contradict. ”

“ She measured the depth of this suggestion. "Do you give me your word of honour that if she once has him there she won't do her best to marry him?"
It made her companion, this inquiry, look again a while out at the view; after which he spoke without sharpness. "When she sees for herself what he is———"
But she had already broken in. "It's when she sees for herself what he is that she'll want to marry him most."
Strether's attitude, that of due deference to what she said, permitted him to attend for a minute to his luncheon. "I doubt if that will come off. It won't be easy to make it." ”

“ Newsome kept off delicate ground. He sank his problem, he talked of Waymarsh and Miss Barrace, of little Bilham and the set over the river, with whom he had again had tea, and he was easy, for convenience, about Chad and Mme. de Vionnet and Jeanne. He admitted that he continued to see them, he was, decidedly, so confirmed a haunter of Chad's premises, and that young man's practical intimacy with them was so undeniably great; but he had his reason for not attempting to render for Miss Gostrey's benefit the impression of these last days. ”

“ It was, to Strether's mind, as if she sat on her own ground, the light honours of which, at an open gate, she thus easily did him, while all the vastness and mystery of the property stretched off behind. When people were so completely in possession they could be extraordinarily civil ”

“ My getting all this good is what Chad has waited for, and I gather that if I'm ready to go he's the same."
She shook her head with a finer, deeper wisdom. "You're not ready. If you're ready, why did you write to Mrs. Newsome in the sense you've mentioned to me?"
Strether considered. "I shan't go before I hear from her. You're too much afraid of her," he added.
It produced between them a long look from which neither shrank. "I don't think you believe that—believe I've not really reason to fear her."
"She's capable of great generosity," Strether presently declared. ”

“ It's just there that, since you've taken it up and are committed to it, it most intensely becomes yours. You're not saving me, I take it, for your interest in myself, but for your interest in our friend. The one, at any rate, is wholly dependent on the other. You can't in honour not see me through," she wound up, "because you can't in honour not see him." ”

“ Strether good-humouredly pleaded. "I've had but one thing to do—to put our case before him. To put it as it could only be put, here, on the spot—by personal pressure. My dear lady," he lucidly pursued, "my work, you see, is really done, and my reasons for staying on even another day are none of the best. Chad's in possession of our case and professes to do it full justice. What remains is with himself. ”

“ Every little, in a long strain, helped, and if he happened to affect her as a firm object she could hold on by, he wouldn't jerk himself out of her reach. People in difficulties held on by what was nearest, and he was perhaps, after all, not further off than sources of comfort more abstract. ”

“ Strether had already been there three times—first with Miss Gostrey, then with Chad, then with Chad again and with Waymarsh and little Bilham, all of whom he had himself sagaciously entertained; and his pleasure was deep now on learning that Mme. de Vionnet had not yet been initiated. When he had said, as they strolled round the church by the river, acting at last on what, within, he had made up his mind to, "Will you, if you have time, come to déjeuner with me somewhere? For instance, if you know it, over there on the other side, which is so easy a walk———" and then had named the place ”