The Ambassadors Henry James (novel24 txt) đ
- Author: Henry James
Book online «The Ambassadors Henry James (novel24 txt) đ». Author Henry James
âI see, I see,â our friend repeated, charmed by the responsive wisdom he had ended by so richly extracting. âMamie is one of the real and the right.â
âThe very thing itself.â
âAnd what it comes to then,â Strether went on, âis that poor awful Chad is simply too good for her.â
âAh too good was what he was after all to be; but it was she herself, and she herself only, who was to have made him so.â
It hung beautifully together, but with still a loose end. âWouldnât he do for her even if he should after all breakâ ââ
âWith his actual influence?â Oh little Bilham had for this enquiry the sharpest of all his controls. âHow can he âdoââ âon any terms whateverâ âwhen heâs flagrantly spoiled?â
Strether could only meet the question with his passive, his receptive pleasure. âWell, thank goodness, youâre not! You remain for her to save, and I come back, on so beautiful and full a demonstration, to my contention of just nowâ âthat of your showing distinct signs of her having already begun.â
The most he could further say to himselfâ âas his young friend turned awayâ âwas that the charge encountered for the moment no renewed denial. Little Bilham, taking his course back to the music, only shook his good-natured ears an instant, in the manner of a terrier who has got wet; while Strether relapsed into the senseâ âwhich had for him in these days most of comfortâ âthat he was free to believe in anything that from hour to hour kept him going. He had positively motions and flutters of this conscious hour-to-hour kind, temporary surrenders to irony, to fancy, frequent instinctive snatches at the growing rose of observation, constantly stronger for him, as he felt, in scent and colour, and in which he could bury his nose even to wantonness. This last resource was offered him, for that matter, in the very form of his next clear perceptionâ âthe vision of a prompt meeting, in the doorway of the room, between little Bilham and brilliant Miss Barrace, who was entering as Bilham withdrew. She had apparently put him a question, to which he had replied by turning to indicate his late interlocutor; toward whom, after an interrogation further aided by a resort to that optical machinery which seemed, like her other ornaments, curious and archaic, the genial lady, suggesting more than ever for her fellow guest the old French print, the historic portrait, directed herself with an intention that Strether instantly met. He knew in advance the first note she would sound, and took in as she approached all her need of sounding it. Nothing yet had been so âwonderfulâ between them as the present occasion; and it was her special sense of this quality in occasions that she was there, as she was in most places, to feed. That sense had already been so well fed by the situation about them that she had quitted the other room, forsaken the music, dropped out of the play, abandoned, in a word, the stage itself, that she might stand a minute behind the scenes with Strether and so perhaps figure as one of the famous augurs replying, behind the oracle, to the wink of the other. Seated near him presently where little Bilham had sat, she replied in truth to many things; beginning as soon as he had said to herâ âwhat he hoped he said without fatuityâ ââAll you ladies are extraordinarily kind to me.â
She played her long handle, which shifted her observation; she saw in an instant all the absences that left them free. âHow can we be anything else? But isnât that exactly your plight? âWe ladiesââ âoh weâre nice, and you must be having enough of us! As one of us, you know, I donât pretend Iâm crazy about us. But Miss Gostrey at least tonight has left you alone, hasnât she?â With which she again looked about as if Maria might still lurk.
âOh yes,â said Strether; âsheâs only sitting up for me at home.â And then as this elicited from his companion her gay âOh, oh, oh!â he explained that he meant sitting up in suspense and prayer. âWe thought it on the whole better she shouldnât be present; and either way of course itâs a terrible worry for her.â He abounded in the sense of his appeal to the ladies, and they might take their choice of his doing so from humility or from pride. âYet she inclines to believe I shall come out.â
âOh I incline to believe too youâll come out!ââ âMiss Barrace, with her laugh, was not to be behind. âOnly the questionâs about where, isnât it? However,â she happily continued, âif itâs anywhere at all it must be very far on, mustnât it? To do us justice, I think, you know,â she laughed, âwe do, among us all, want you rather far on. Yes, yes,â she repeated in her quick droll way; âwe want you very, very far on!â After which she wished to know why he had thought it better Maria shouldnât be present.
âOh,â he replied, âit was really her own idea. I should have wished it. But she dreads responsibility.â
âAnd isnât that a new thing for her?â
âTo dread it? No doubtâ âno doubt. But her nerve has given way.â
Miss Barrace looked at him a moment. âShe has too much at stake.â Then less gravely: âMine, luckily for me, holds out.â
âLuckily for me tooââ âStrether came back to that. âMy own isnât so firm, my appetite for responsibility isnât so sharp, as that I havenât felt the very principle of this occasion to be âthe more the merrier.â If we are so merry itâs because Chad has understood so well.â
âHe has understood amazingly,â said Miss Barrace.
âItâs wonderful!ââ âStrether anticipated for her.
âItâs wonderful!â she, to meet it, intensified; so that, face to face over it, they largely and recklessly laughed. But she presently added: âOh I see the principle. If one didnât one would be lost.
Comments (0)