II
When one morning within the week he perceived the whole thing to be
really at last upon him Strether's immediate feeling was all
relief. He had known this morning that something was about to
happen--known it, in a moment, by Waymarsh's manner when Waymarsh
appeared before him during his brief consumption of coffee and a
roll in the small slippery salle-a-manger so associated with rich
rumination. Strether had taken there of late various lonely and
absent-minded meals; he communed there, even at the end of June,
with a suspected chill, the air of old shivers mixed with old
savours, the air in which so many of his impressions had perversely
matured; the place meanwhile renewing its message to him by the
very circumstance of his single state. He now sat there, for the
most part, to sigh softly, while he vaguely tilted his carafe, over
the vision of how much better Waymarsh was occupied. That was
really his success by the common measure--to have led this
companion so on and on. He remembered how at first there had been
scarce a squatting-place he could beguile him into passing;
the actual outcome of which at last was that there was scarce one
that could arrest him in his rush. His rush--as Strether vividly and
amusedly figured it--continued to be all with Sarah, and contained
perhaps moreover the word of the whole enigma, whipping up in its
fine full-flavoured froth the very principle, for good or for ill,
of his own, of Strether's destiny. It might after all, to the end,
only be that they had united to save him, and indeed, so far as
Waymarsh was concerned, that HAD to be the spring of action.
Strether was glad at all events, in connexion with the case, that
the saving he required was not more scant; so constituted a luxury
was it in certain lights just to lurk there out of the full glare.
He had moments of quite seriously wondering whether Waymarsh wouldn't
in fact, thanks to old friendship and a conceivable indulgence,
make about as good terms for him as he might make for himself.
They wouldn't be the same terms of course; but they might have the
advantage that he himself probably should be able to make none at
all.
He was never in the morning very late, but Waymarsh had already
been out, and, after a peep into the dim refectory, he presented
himself with much less than usual of his large looseness. He had
made sure, through the expanse of glass exposed to the court, that
they would be alone; and there was now in fact that about him that
pretty well took up the room. He was dressed in the garments of
summer; and save that his white waistcoat was redundant and bulging
these things favoured, they determined, his expression. He wore a
straw hat such as his friend hadn't yet seen in Paris, and he
showed a buttonhole freshly adorned with a magnificent rose.
Strether read on the instant his story--how, astir for the previous
hour, the sprinkled newness of the day, so pleasant at that season
in Paris, he was fairly panting with the pulse of adventure and had
been with Mrs. Pocock, unmistakeably, to the Marche aux Fleurs.
Strether really knew in this vision of him a joy that was akin to
envy; so reversed as he stood there did their old positions seem;
so comparatively doleful now showed, by the sharp turn of the
wheel, the posture of the pilgrim from Woollett. He wondered, this
pilgrim, if he had originally looked to Waymarsh so brave and well,
so remarkably launched, as it was at present the latter's privilege
to appear. He recalled that his friend had remarked to him even at
Chester that his aspect belied his plea of prostration; but there
certainly couldn't have been, for an issue, an aspect less
concerned than Waymarsh's with the menace of decay. Strether had
at any rate never resembled a Southern planter of the great days--
which was the image picturesquely suggested by the happy relation
between the fuliginous face and the wide panama of his visitor.
This type, it further amused him to guess, had been, on Waymarsh's
part, the object of Sarah's care; he was convinced that her taste
had not been a stranger to the conception and purchase of the hat,
any more than her fine fingers had been guiltless of the bestowal
of the rose. It came to him in the current of thought, as things
so oddly did come, that HE had never risen with the lark to attend
a brilliant woman to the Marche aux Fleurs; this could be fastened
on him in connexion neither with Miss Gostrey nor with Madame de
Vionnet; the practice of getting up early for adventures could
indeed in no manner be fastened on him. It came to him in fact
that just here was his usual case: he was for ever missing things
through his general genius for missing them, while others were for
ever picking them up through a contrary bent. And it was others
who looked abstemious and he who looked greedy; it was he somehow
who finally paid, and it was others who mainly partook. Yes, he
should go to the scaffold yet for he wouldn't know quite whom. He
almost, for that matter, felt on the scaffold now and really quite
enjoying it. It worked out as BECAUSE he was anxious there--it
worked out as for this reason that Waymarsh was so blooming. It
was HIS trip for health, for a change, that proved the success--
which was just what Strether, planning and exerting himself, had
desired it should be. That truth already sat full-blown on his
companion's lips; benevolence breathed from them as with the warmth
of active exercise, and also a little as with the bustle of haste.
"Mrs. Pocock, whom I left a quarter of an hour ago at her hotel,
has asked me to mention to you that she would like to find you at
home here in about another hour. She wants to see you; she has
something to say--or considers, I believe, that you may have: so
that I asked her myself why she shouldn't come right round. She
hasn't BEEN round yet--to see our place; and I took upon myself to
say that I was sure you'd be glad to have her. The thing's
therefore, you see, to keep right here till she comes."
The announcement was sociably, even though, after Waymarsh's wont,
somewhat solemnly made; but Strether quickly felt other things in
it than these light features. It was the first approach, from that
quarter, to admitted consciousness; it quickened his pulse; it
simply meant at last that he should have but himself to thank if he
didn't know where he was. He had finished his breakfast; he
pushed it away and was on his feet. There were plenty of elements
of surprise, but only one of doubt. "The thing's for YOU to keep
here too?" Waymarsh had been slightly ambiguous.
He wasn't ambiguous, however, after this enquiry; and Strether's
understanding had probably never before opened so wide and
effective a mouth as it was to open during the next five minutes.
It was no part of his friend's wish, as appeared, to help to
receive Mrs. Pocock; he quite understood the spirit in which she
was to present herself, but his connexion with her visit was
limited to his having--well, as he might say--perhaps a little
promoted it. He had thought, and had let her know it, that
Strether possibly would think she might have been round before. At
any rate, as turned out, she had been wanting herself, quite a
while, to come. "I told her," said Waymarsh, "that it would have
been a bright idea if she had only carried it out before."
Strether pronounced it so bright as to be almost dazzling. "But
why HASn't she carried it out before? She has seen me every day--
she had only to name her hour. I've been waiting and waiting."
"Well, I told her you had. And she has been waiting too." It was,
in the oddest way in the world, on the showing of this tone, a
genial new pressing coaxing Waymarsh; a Waymarsh conscious with a
different consciousness from any he had yet betrayed, and actually
rendered by it almost insinuating. He lacked only time for full
persuasion, and Strether was to see in a moment why. Meantime,
however, our friend perceived, he was announcing a step of some
magnanimity on Mrs. Pocock's part, so that he could deprecate a
sharp question. It was his own high purpose in fact to have
smoothed sharp questions to rest. He looked his old comrade very
straight in the eyes, and he had never conveyed to him in so mute a
manner so much kind confidence and so much good advice. Everything
that was between them was again in his face, but matured and
shelved and finally disposed of. "At any rate," he added, "she's
coming now."
Considering how many pieces had to fit themselves, it all fell, in
Strether's brain, into a close rapid order. He saw on the spot
what had happened, and what probably would yet; and it was all
funny enough. It was perhaps just this freedom of appreciation
that wound him up to his flare of high spirits. "What is she
coming FOR?--to kill me?"
"She's coming to be very VERY kind to you, and you must let me say
that I greatly hope you'll not be less so to herself."
This was spoken by Waymarsh with much gravity of admonition, and as
Strether stood there he knew he had but to make a movement to take
the attitude of a man gracefully receiving a present. The present
was that of the opportunity dear old Waymarsh had flattered himself
he had divined in him the slight soreness of not having yet
thoroughly enjoyed; so he had brought it to him thus, as on a
little silver breakfast-tray, familiarly though delicately--without
oppressive pomp; and he was to bend and smile and acknowledge, was
to take and use and be grateful. He was not--that was the beauty
of it--to be asked to deflect too much from his dignity. No wonder
the old boy bloomed in this bland air of his own distillation.
Strether felt for a moment as if Sarah were actually walking up and
down outside. Wasn't she hanging about the porte-cochere while
her friend thus summarily opened a way? Strether would meet her
but to take it, and everything would be for the best in the best of
possible worlds. He had never so much known what any one meant as,
in the light of this demonstration, he knew what Mrs. Newsome did.
It had reached Waymarsh from Sarah, but it had reached Sarah from
her mother, and there was no break in the chain by which it reached
HIM. "Has anything particular happened," he asked after a minute--
"so suddenly to determine her? Has she heard anything unexpected
from home?"
Waymarsh, on this, it seemed to him, looked at him harder than
ever. "'Unexpected'?" He had a brief hesitation; then, however,
he was firm. "We're leaving Paris."
"Leaving? That IS sudden."
Waymarsh showed a different opinion. "Less so than it may seem.
The purpose of Mrs. Pocock's visit is to explain to you in fact
that it's NOT."
Strether didn't at all know if he had really an advantage--
anything that would practically count as one; but he enjoyed for
the moment--as for the first time in his life--the sense of so
carrying it off. He wondered--it was amusing--if he felt as the
impudent feel. "I shall take great pleasure, I assure you, in any
explanation. I shall be delighted to receive Sarah."
The sombre glow just darkened in his comrade's eyes; but he was
struck with the way it died out again. It was too mixed with
another consciousness--it was too smothered, as might be said, in
flowers. He really for the time regretted it--poor dear old sombre
glow! Something straight and simple, something heavy and empty, had
been eclipsed in its company; something by which he had best known
his friend. Waymarsh wouldn't BE his friend, somehow, without the
occasional ornament of the sacred rage, and the right to the sacred
rage--inestimably precious for Strether's charity--he also seemed
in a manner, and at Mrs. Pocock's elbow, to have forfeited.
Strether remembered the occasion early in their stay when on that
very spot he had come out with his earnest, his ominous "Quit it!"--
and, so remembering, felt it hang by a hair that he didn't
himself now utter the same note. Waymarsh was having a good time--
this was the truth that was embarrassing for him, and he was having
it then and there, he was having it in Europe, he was having it
under the very protection of circumstances of which he didn't in
the least approve; all of which placed him in a false position,
with no issue possible--none at least by the grand manner. It was
practically in the manner of any one--it was all but in poor
Strether's own--that instead of taking anything up he merely made
the most of having to be himself explanatory. "I'm not leaving for
the United States direct. Mr. and Mrs. Pocock and Miss Mamie are
thinking of a little trip before their own return, and we've been
talking for some days past of our joining forces. We've settled it
that we do join and that we sail together the end of next month.
But we start to-morrow for Switzerland. Mrs. Pocock wants some
scenery. She hasn't had much yet."
He was brave in his way too, keeping nothing back, confessing all
there was, and only leaving Strether to make certain connexions.
"Is what Mrs. Newsome had cabled her daughter an injunction to
break off short?"
The grand manner indeed at this just raised its head a little.
"I know nothing about Mrs. Newsome's cables."
Their eyes met on it with some intensity--during the few seconds of
which something happened quite out of proportion to the time.
It happened that Strether, looking thus at his friend, didn't take
his answer for truth--and that something more again occurred in
consequence of THAT. Yes--Waymarsh just DID know about
Mrs. Newsome's cables: to what other end than that had they dined
together at Bignon's? Strether almost felt for the instant that it
was to Mrs. Newsome herself the dinner had been given; and, for
that matter, quite felt how she must have known about it and, as he
might think, protected and consecrated it. He had a quick blurred
view of daily cables, questions, answers, signals: clear enough
was his vision of the expense that, when so wound up, the lady at
home was prepared to incur. Vivid not less was his memory of what,
during his long observation of her, some of her attainments of that
high pitch had cost her. Distinctly she was at the highest now,
and Waymarsh, who imagined himself an independent performer, was
really, forcing his fine old natural voice, an overstrained
accompanist. The whole reference of his errand seemed to mark her
for Strether as by this time consentingly familiar to him, and
nothing yet had so despoiled her of a special shade of
consideration. "You don't know," he asked, "whether Sarah has been
directed from home to try me on the matter of my also going to
Switzerland?"
"I know," said Waymarsh as manfully as possible, "nothing whatever
about her private affairs; though I believe her to be acting in
conformity with things that have my highest respect." It was as
manful as possible, but it was still the false note--as it had to
be to convey so sorry a statement. He knew everything, Strether
more and more felt, that he thus disclaimed, and his little
punishment was just in this doom to a second fib. What falser
position--given the man--could the most vindictive mind impose?
He ended by squeezing through a passage in which three months before
he would certainly have stuck fast. "Mrs Pocock will probably be
ready herself to answer any enquiry you may put to her. But,"
he continued, "BUT--!" He faltered on it.
"But what? Don't put her too many?"
Waymarsh looked large, but the harm was done; he couldn't, do what
he would, help looking rosy. "Don't do anything you'll be sorry for."
It was an attenuation, Strether guessed, of something else that had
been on his lips; it was a sudden drop to directness, and was
thereby the voice of sincerity. He had fallen to the supplicating
note, and that immediately, for our friend, made a difference and
reinstated him. They were in communication as they had been, that
first morning, in Sarah's salon and in her presence and Madame de
Vionnet's; and the same recognition of a great good will was again,
after all, possible. Only the amount of response Waymarsh had then
taken for granted was doubled, decupled now. This came out when he
presently said: "Of course I needn't assure you I hope you'll
come with us." Then it was that his implications and expectations
loomed up for Strether as almost pathetically gross.
The latter patted his shoulder while he thanked him, giving the
go-by to the question of joining the Pococks; he expressed the joy he
felt at seeing him go forth again so brave and free, and he in fact
almost took leave of him on the spot. "I shall see you again of
course before you go; but I'm meanwhile much obliged to you for
arranging so conveniently for what you've told me. I shall walk up
and down in the court there--dear little old court which we've each
bepaced so, this last couple of months, to the tune of our flights
and our drops, our hesitations and our plunges: I shall hang about
there, all impatience and excitement, please let Sarah know, till
she graciously presents herself. Leave me with her without fear,"
he laughed; "I assure you I shan't hurt her. I don't think either
she'll hurt ME: I'm in a situation in which damage was some time
ago discounted. Besides, THAT isn't what worries you--but don't,
don't explain! We're all right as we are: which was the degree of
success our adventure was pledged to for each of us. We weren't,
it seemed, all right as we were before; and we've got over the
ground, all things considered, quickly. I hope you'll have a
lovely time in the Alps."
Waymarsh fairly looked up at him as from the foot of them. "I
don't know as I OUGHT really to go."
It was the conscience of Milrose in the very voice of Milrose, but,
oh it was feeble and flat! Strether suddenly felt quite ashamed for
him; he breathed a greater boldness. "LET yourself, on the
contrary, go--in all agreeable directions. These are precious
hours--at our age they mayn't recur. Don't have it to say to
yourself at Milrose, next winter, that you hadn't courage for
them." And then as his comrade queerly stared: "Live up to Mrs.
Pocock."
"Live up to her?"
"You're a great help to her."
Waymarsh looked at it as at one of the uncomfortable things that
were certainly true and that it was yet ironical to say. "It's
more then than you are."
"That's exactly your own chance and advantage. Besides," said
Strether, "I do in my way contribute. I know what I'm about."
Waymarsh had kept on his great panama, and, as he now stood nearer
the door, his last look beneath the shade of it had turned again to
darkness and warning. "So do I! See here, Strether."
"I know what you're going to say. 'Quit this'?"
"Quit this!" But it lacked its old intensity; nothing of it
remained; it went out of the room with him.
