The Ambassadors Henry James (novel24 txt) 📖

night⁠—put before me. It’s an art like another, and infinite like all the arts.” He went on as if for the joke of it⁠—almost as if his friend’s face amused him. “In the hands, naturally, of a master. The right man must take hold. With the right man to work it c’est un monde.”

Strether had watched him quite as if, there on the pavement without a pretext, he had begun to dance a fancy step. “Is what you’re thinking of that you yourself, in the case you have in mind, would be the right man?”

Chad had thrown back his light coat and thrust each of his thumbs into an armhole of his waistcoat; in which position his fingers played up and down. “Why, what is he but what you yourself, as I say, took me for when you first came out?”

Strether felt a little faint, but he coerced his attention. “Oh yes, and there’s no doubt that, with your natural parts, you’d have much in common with him. Advertising is clearly at this time of day the secret of trade. It’s quite possible it will be open to you⁠—giving the whole of your mind to it⁠—to make the whole place hum with you. Your mother’s appeal is to the whole of your mind, and that’s exactly the strength of her case.”

Chad’s fingers continued to twiddle, but he had something of a drop. “Ah we’ve been through my mother’s case!”

“So I thought. Why then do you speak of the matter?”

“Only because it was part of our original discussion. To wind up where we began, my interest’s purely platonic. There at any rate the fact is⁠—the fact of the possible. I mean the money in it.”

“Oh damn the money in it!” said Strether. And then as the young man’s fixed smile seemed to shine out more strange: “Shall you give your friend up for the money in it?”

Chad preserved his handsome grimace as well as the rest of his attitude. “You’re not altogether⁠—in your so great ‘solemnity’⁠—kind. Haven’t I been drinking you in⁠—showing you all I feel you’re worth to me? What have I done, what am I doing, but cleave to her to the death? The only thing is,” he good-humouredly explained, “that one can’t but have it before one, in the cleaving⁠—the point where the death comes in. Don’t be afraid for that. It’s pleasant to a fellow’s feelings,” he developed, “to ‘size-up’ the bribe he applies his foot to.”

“Oh then if all you want’s a kickable surface the bribe’s enormous.”

“Good. Then there it goes!” Chad administered his kick with fantastic force and sent an imaginary object flying. It was accordingly as if they were once more rid of the question and could come back to what really concerned him. “Of course I shall see you tomorrow.”

But Strether scarce heeded the plan proposed for this; he had still the impression⁠—not the slighter for the simulated kick⁠—of an irrelevant hornpipe or jig. “You’re restless.”

“Ah,” returned Chad as they parted, “you’re exciting.”

V

He had, however, within two days, another separation to face. He had sent Maria Gostrey a word early, by hand, to ask if he might come to breakfast; in consequence of which, at noon, she awaited him in the cool shade of her little Dutch-looking dining-room. This retreat was at the back of the house, with a view of a scrap of old garden that had been saved from modern ravage; and though he had on more than one other occasion had his legs under its small and peculiarly polished table of hospitality, the place had never before struck him as so sacred to pleasant knowledge, to intimate charm, to antique order, to a neatness that was almost august. To sit there was, as he had told his hostess 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. The specimens of vivid Delf, in particular had the dignity of family portraits; and it was in the midst of them that our friend resignedly expressed himself. He spoke even with a certain philosophic humour. “There’s nothing more to wait for; I seem to have done a good day’s work. I’ve let them have it all round. I’ve seen Chad, who has been to London and come back. He tells me I’m ‘exciting,’ and I seem indeed pretty well to have upset everyone. I’ve at any rate excited him. He’s distinctly restless.”

“You’ve excited me,” Miss Gostrey smiled. “I’m distinctly restless.”

“Oh you were that when I found you. It seems to me I’ve rather got you out of it. What’s this,” he asked as he looked about him, “but a haunt of ancient peace?”

“I wish with all my heart,” she presently replied, “I could make you treat it as a haven of rest.” On which they fronted each other, across the table, as if things unuttered were in the air.

Strether seemed, in his way, when he next spoke, to take some of them up. “It wouldn’t give me⁠—that would be the trouble⁠—what it will, no doubt, still give you. I’m not,” he explained, leaning back in his chair, but with his eyes on a small ripe round melon⁠—“in real harmony with what surrounds me. You are. I take it too hard. You don’t. It makes⁠—that’s what it comes to in the end⁠—a fool of me.” Then at a tangent, “What has he been doing in London?” he demanded.

“Ah one may go to London,” Maria laughed. “You know I did.”

Yes⁠—he took the reminder. “And you brought me back.” He brooded there opposite to her, but without gloom. “Whom has Chad brought?